CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) — Luis Cristobal Sr. was always juggling at least two jobs. Clara Cristobal worked at an auto dealership well into her 70s. They were Cuban-Americans, didn't know English when they came to the U.S, were extremely proud of their heritage, the sort of people who embraced hard work, saved their highest respect for others cut from the same cloth and tried to set the right example as parents.
It wasn't easy for their kids. Mario Cristobal makes no secret about that.
Click to Gallery
Miami head coach Mario Cristobal reacts after a touchdown during the first half of the Fiesta Bowl NCAA college football playoff semifinal game against Mississippi, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)
Miami head coach Mario Cristobal, right, talks to his wife, Jessica Cristobal, following the Cotton Bowl College Football Playoff quarterfinal game against Ohio State Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Miami football head coach Mario Cristobal sits on the team's indoor practice field during an interview in Coral Gables, Fla., Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Miami football head coach Mario Cristobal speaks during an interview on the team's indoor practice field in Coral Gables, Fla., Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Miami football head coach Mario Cristobal speaks during an interview on the team's indoor practice field in Coral Gables, Fla., Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
“Grades had to be a certain way and there was no straying from doing the right thing," Cristobal said. "And we weren’t perfect, but we had unbelievable, hard-nosed, tough and demanding parents that we maybe didn’t understand at the time but today we're extremely grateful for.”
He is the coach at the University of Miami and he runs his team the way his parents ran their family. Hard-nosed. Tough. Demanding. Luis and Clara had plans and hope, trying to build a life. They got there. Mario Cristobal came back to Miami four years ago with a plan and with hope, looking to build a champion. He could get there Monday night when his Hurricanes play undefeated Indiana in the College Football Playoff championship game at Hard Rock Stadium, Miami's home field.
“I remember me and Coach Cristobal talking on the phone for the first time,” Miami quarterback Carson Beck said, recalling how he committed to the Hurricanes 12 months ago for his final college season and with playing in this game the sole goal. “I was sitting in Jacksonville in my house in my room, and I just had a big smile on my face and he had a big smile on his face. He said, ‘Let’s get to work.’ I believed in his vision. I believed in what he’s been able to build here and add on to the culture of what Miami is.”
Miami (13-2, No. 10 AP, CFP) is seeking its sixth national championship. It would be Cristobal's third with the Hurricanes, to go along with two won as a player. Indiana (15-0, No. 1 AP, CFP) is seeking its first. Cristobal's path is a logical, obvious storyline: Local kid comes home, to his alma mater, and returns it to glory after about a quarter-century of sputtering.
It is also a storyline that Cristobal wants absolutely no part of.
“I spend more time appreciating the people around me and the opportunity that comes with it and pouring out any feelings that might arise in that manner," Cristobal said. "That kind of thought process, I give those feelings a direction and the direction is process. It’s practice. It’s regimentation. It's just finding ways to get one more yard, one more point, one more stop and helping our guys just take in the game plan in a manner where they can play as fast and as physical as they possibly can.
"So, it is not about me. I can assure you that every ounce in me is dedicated to those around me.”
That is basically what he said when he took over at FIU before the 2007 season, what at the time quite possibly was the worst major college program in America a few miles away from Miami's campus. And that's also what he said when he took over at Oregon eight years ago, and what he said again when he came home to Miami. He preaches family, he preaches hard work, he preaches togetherness. He does not deviate.
“He's a dawg, man,” Miami running back Mark Fletcher Jr. said. “When you’re the top dawg, that’s all you can create. ... It’s a guy that will get the job done no matter what. He loves adversity. That’s what a dawg is. He will push through it.”
Fletcher knows all about Cristobal's famous intensity, fueled by Cuban coffee, which may as well be the official beverage of Miami. He also has seen the softer side. Fletcher's father died last season, the same week that Miami was getting ready to play rival Florida State. Every Miami player went to the funeral; Cristobal arranged a fleet of buses and adjusted the game-week schedule to make it happen.
“That's who he is,” Fletcher said. “He'll do anything for us.”
Cristobal's first season at Miami was 2022, when the Hurricanes lost at home to Middle Tennessee State and then got absolutely humbled at home by the Seminoles, 45-3. It showed how far Miami had to go.
“Trust me, no one feels this more than I do,” a visibly angry Cristobal said that night. “I hate it for our people. I hate it for our fans. I hate it for our players. We’re in a building process. We’re laying a foundation and got to go to work and it ain’t fun. Days like this are really painful. There’s no excuse or sidestepping it or sugarcoating it. That’s why I came here. Got to go to work. Got to do lots of it.”
They went 5-7 that season, 7-6 the next season, stuck in neutral. Then their fortunes began to change. The Hurricanes — who are on their way to a third straight highly ranked recruiting class — reached No. 4 in the AP Top 25 last season led by No. 1 draft pick Cam Ward, before a late fade. Cristobal made headlines again in a postgame news conference last season, saying “all recruits, in-state, out of state, can now clearly see the trajectory of this program versus the other programs” in Florida.
“We're getting closer,” Cristobal said when the season was over. “Keep working.”
That's what they did. They landed Beck and other key contributors in the transfer portal. They made a statement by beating then-No. 6 Notre Dame to start the season; that three-point win was ultimately the margin that got Miami into the CFP field and left the Fighting Irish out of the bracket. They won the state title, as they call it in the Sunshine State, by beating South Florida, Florida State and Florida.
They got to No. 2 in the AP poll before a midseason sputter saw them fall to 6-2 and on the brink of losing all chance of getting to the playoff. A loss at SMU, in the eyes of many pundits, doomed Miami’s season.
That's when everything changed. A team meeting was held. Raw, harsh, honest words were said. The season could have fallen apart. It didn't. Resolve suddenly became steeled. Cristobal's primary mantra — go 1-0 this week — took hold. Everything started to click for the Hurricanes. They haven't lost since, going a perfect 7-0 and with the last five of those games away from home.
They're now a game away from being national champions.
“There’s no way to go forward and achieve the things we want to achieve unless we are put to the ultimate test," Cristobal said. “And we’re grateful for those tests and we look forward to preparing to the best of our abilities to go be 1-0 again.”
This simple approach goes back to those lessons Mario Cristobal learned as a kid. Just show up and do the job. It may as well be the family credo.
Making Miami a champion again is the ultimate goal for the 55-year-old Cristobal, whose brother Lou also played for the Hurricanes. He sees the school as an extension of his own family — “this place is everything to us,” Mario Cristobal says. He changed the way Miami recruited, changed the way it practiced, changed the way it did everything. The university committed all the resources he needed and wanted, stepping up in ways the administration never had before.
Even now, this week as the team is getting ready to play for a title, the back of Miami's indoor practice facility is draped in plastic. The wall is getting demolished to expand the building. Greentree Practice Field is Cristobal's mecca, the patch of grass that he played on as a kid, coaches on today and still considers sacred ground. He's happiest there with nobody watching.
“It’s the foundation of everything," Cristobal said. "You know, the secret is out there in the dirt. Put your hand in it and go to work. It’s decades and decades of brotherhood that was forged in the grind. And I'm forever grateful for it. Got my head and teeth kicked in by it every single day as a freshman, a redshirt freshman, and what I soon found out is it’s kind of a rite of passage. Taken in by a brotherhood that changed my brother and my life forever.”
When his playing days at Miami were done, Cristobal considered a pro career and then pivoted toward joining the U.S. Secret Service. He had an opportunity to do that before deciding that his best path was coaching.
Miami, finally, called to bring him home in 2021. Cristobal agonized for days about what to do. Oregon was a job he loved. He had the program, he felt, in perfect position. But Miami was home. His mother was ailing. It all made sense for a Hurricane to become a Hurricane again.
“It was time for all of us to join together and give back to Miami,” Cristobal said.
Clara Cristobal died in the spring of 2022 after being ill for several months, unable to really communicate at times in her final weeks. Her funeral was the day of the very first spring practice of the Cristobal era at Miami. He led the practice, then went to say good-bye. To this day, he believes that is what she would have wanted.
“If she could speak when I saw her, she’d say, ‘Get your butt back to work. What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be working and doing your job because people depend on you,'" Cristobal said. “And therefore, that’s always my understanding of how it’s supposed to be.”
The Hurricanes are back in the national spotlight. To him, that's how it's supposed to be.
Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here. AP college football: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-football
Miami head coach Mario Cristobal reacts after a touchdown during the first half of the Fiesta Bowl NCAA college football playoff semifinal game against Mississippi, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)
Miami head coach Mario Cristobal, right, talks to his wife, Jessica Cristobal, following the Cotton Bowl College Football Playoff quarterfinal game against Ohio State Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Miami football head coach Mario Cristobal sits on the team's indoor practice field during an interview in Coral Gables, Fla., Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Miami football head coach Mario Cristobal speaks during an interview on the team's indoor practice field in Coral Gables, Fla., Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Miami football head coach Mario Cristobal speaks during an interview on the team's indoor practice field in Coral Gables, Fla., Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
President Donald Trump was in Michigan Tuesday 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 hurting Americans’ pocketbooks. The day trip included a tour of a Ford factory in Dearborn that makes the best-selling F-150 pickups.
Speaking to the Detroit Economic Club, the president essentially accused the Fed of stealing his joy by not being bullish about lowering interest rates.
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 showed inflation declined a bit last month as prices for gas and used cars fell — a sign that cost pressures are slowly easing.
After last year’s 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:
But, the president said in his interview, “her actions were pretty tough.”
He said that video of the moment when an immigration agent fatally shot her in Minneapolis, “can be viewed two ways, I guess,” but said “there are a couple of versions of that tape that are very, very bad.”
It wasn’t completely clear what he meant by that.
The president was asked in an interview that aired Tuesday night on the “CBS Evening News” about the Justice Department’s investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
Trump was asked if the probe appeared to be political retribution for Powell having resisted Trump’s repeated hectoring to lower interest rates.
Trump said Powell is “either corrupt or incompetent.” When asked again about the appearance of retribution, he said, “I can’t help what it looks like.”
While Trump was in Michigan, someone at the auto plant yelled something at the president that included the words “pedophile protector.”
Trump, in a video published by TMZ, appeared to respond by mouthing the F-bomb at the person and raising his middle finger.
White House spokesman Steven Cheung said, “A lunatic was wildly screaming expletives in a complete fit of rage, and the President gave an appropriate and unambiguous response.”
It’s not the first time Trump has dropped an expletive with cameras rolling.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement that “there is currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation.” The statement, first reported by CNN, did not elaborate on how the department had reached a conclusion that no investigation was warranted.
The decision to keep the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division out of the investigation into the fatal shooting of Renee Good marks a sharp departure from past administrations, which have moved quickly to probe shootings of civilians by law enforcement officials for potential civil rights offenses.
Federal officials have said that the officer acted in self-defense and that Good was engaging in “an act of domestic terrorism” when she pulled forward toward him.
Trump said he thinks JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is wrong in saying it’s not a great idea to chip away at the Federal Reserve’s independence by going after Chair Jerome Powell.
“Yeah, I think it’s fine what I’m doing,” Trump said Tuesday in response to a reporter’s question at Joint Base Andrews after returning from a day trip to Michigan. He called Powell “a bad Fed person” who has “done a bad job.”
“We should have lower rates. Jamie Dimon probably wants higher rates. Maybe he makes more money that way,” Trump said.
Trump told reporters Tuesday afternoon that he is expecting a report on the number of protesters who have been killed in Iran since protests began last month as the internet blackout has complicated the death toll.
“The killing looks like it’s significant, but we don’t know yet for sure,” he said. “I’ll know within 20 minutes. We will act accordingly.”
In the last week, the Republican president has escalated threats of U.S. intervention in Iran, saying as recently as this morning that the Islamic Republic will “pay the price” for the hundreds of Iranians that have been killed. But Trump appeared to use more careful rhetoric when pushed by reporters late Tuesday about what kind of action he will take.
“It would seem to me that they have been badly misbehaving, but that is not confirmed,” he said.
The health secretary was open about his dietary supplement routine on The Katie Miller Podcast — but he warned that he shouldn’t be seen as a pinnacle for what others should take.
In response to Miller asking, Kennedy said he takes Vitamin D, quercetin, zinc, magnesium, Vitamin C and “a bunch of other stuff.”
How does he choose which supplements to take? In a relatable way — and one that’s not necessarily medically advised.
“My method is I read an article about something, you know, and I get convinced that, oh, I gotta have this stuff,” he said. “And then I get it and then six months later I’m still taking it. I don’t remember what the article said. So, I end up with a big crate of vitamins that I’m taking, and I don’t even know why.”
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on a podcast posted online Tuesday said the president eats healthily at Mar-a-Lago and at the White House — but not when he’s traveling.
In the interview with Katie Miller, who is married to top Trump adviser Stephen Miller, Kennedy said people who travel with the president get the idea that he’s “pumping himself full of poison all day long.” He said that while on the road, the president tries not to get sick by eating food he trusts from McDonald’s and other “big corporations.”
“He has the constitution of a deity,” Kennedy said of Trump. “I don’t know how he’s alive, but he is.”
Still, Kennedy praised Trump’s overall health and said he eats well “usually.”
Trump is “the most energetic person” that “any of us have met,” Kennedy added.
The plane used by the U.S. military to strike a boat accused of smuggling drugs off the coast of Venezuela last fall also was carrying munitions in the fuselage, rather than beneath the aircraft.
That raises questions about the extent to which the operation was disguised in ways that run contrary to military protocol.
Details of the plane’s appearance, first reported Monday by The New York Times, were confirmed by two people familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson says “the U.S. military utilizes a wide array of standard and nonstandard aircraft depending on mission requirements.”
U.S. military guidelines on the laws of war prohibit troops from pretending to be civilians while engaging in combat. The practice is legally known as “perfidy.”
The Defense Department manual specifically notes that “feigning civilian status and then attacking” is an example of the practice.
Trump has made an American takeover of Greenland a focus of his second term in the White House, calling it a national security priority while repeating false claims about the strategic Arctic island.
In recent comments, he has floated using military force as an option to take control of Greenland. He has said if the U.S. does not acquire the island, which is a self-governing territory of NATO ally Denmark, then it will fall into Chinese or Russian hands.
Here’s a closer look at the facts.
Trump questioned why they would be against what he says was the most successful U.S. military attack in 100 years, the operation that captured Nicolas Maduro and brought him to New York to face drug charges.
Congress has the authority to declare war but the president didn’t give any lawmakers advance warning of the operation.
“It’s one thing if the attack failed,” Trump said. “But here we have one of the most successful attacks ever and they find a way to be against it. It’s pretty amazing. And it’s a shame.”
Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana last week voted with Democrats to send a message of disapproval about Trump’s actions against the South American nation.
The measure still must clear the Republican-controlled House and be signed into law by the Republican president — steps that appear unlikely.
Tuesday’s state board decisions apply to early in-person voting for a handful of mostly rural counties in the March 3 primary only.
But the refusals signal possible broader clashes ahead for the fall general elections. The U.S. Senate seat held by departing Republican Thom Tillis will be atop ballots.
North Carolina Democrats and allies have been historically favorable to Sunday voting, “Souls to the Polls” drives occur in African American churches.
But many state and county boards are reconsidering Sunday voting after a 2025 law stripped board appointment powers from Democratic Gov. Josh Stein. Many Republicans don’t like voting on a church day and say election workers need rest.
The state board also rejected efforts to place primary early-vote sites on some university campuses. Students backing school sites in Greensboro attended the meeting. Early in-person voting begins Feb. 12.
The president didn’t specify when he will announce his plan but he and Republicans have been under increasing pressure to address Americans’ health care costs, especially as subsidies for those who get coverage under the Affordable Care Act expired at the end of last year.
Trump reiterated his wish to have money be sent directly to consumers to buy health insurance rather than sending money to insurers.
He also promoted his agreements with various drug manufacturers to lower the costs of their prescription drugs in the U.S. and said his party should win midterm elections this year based on that alone.
“We should win the midterms in a landslide,” he said.
A group of Democratic attorneys general on Tuesday filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s requirement that states must recognize that male and female are the only two immutable sexes to receive certain federal funds.
According to the complaint, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services informed states last year that they must certify compliance with President Donald Trump’s executive order that rolled back protections for transgender people to receive federal health, education and research funds.
The definition was based on whether people are born with eggs or sperm, rather than on their chromosomes, and pitched as a way to protect women from “gender extremism.”
The states are asking a federal court to block HHS from enforcing the new conditions.
An email was sent to HHS seeking comment.
The attorneys general involved in the lawsuit are from California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
The president essentially accused the Fed of stealing his joy by not being bullish about lowering interest rates.
“If you announce great numbers, they raise interest rates,” Trump said in the speech. “When the market goes up, they should lower rates.”
Trump has disagreed sharply with the interest rate strategy of the independent Fed, chaired by Jerome Powell, and has pressed for lower rates, faster. He maintains that a rising stock market should cause the Fed to cut its benchmark interest rates in order to further boost economic growth.
But the Fed has the legal responsibility of keeping prices stable and maximizing employment. Slashing rates as Trump has suggested could push more money into the U.S. economy and worsen inflation.
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.)
