NEW YORK (AP) — It's been 12 years since Nikki M. James was last in the Eugene O’Neill Theatre on Broadway starring in “The Book of Mormon.” So much has changed and yet some things are exactly the same.
“The sink in my dressing room is still clogged,” the Tony Award-winner says, laughing. “You can’t run the water that long. I don't know what it is. What's happening?”
James and fellow original co-star Rory O’Malley have returned to “The Book of Mormon” for the first time since they left when Barack Obama was just starting his second presidential term.
“It was totally surreal being on that stage again, doing a show that I love so much, hearing an audience loving it too, and having people who clearly were seeing it for the first time,” says O’Malley after his return last week.
James likened the experience to going back to your hometown after decades away and someone asking you to grab something from the deli. “You’re like, ‘Oh, sure.’ And before you know it, you’re in the car and you’ve driven there,” she says. “It’s like those pathways are all still there.”
The pair will be in the show in their old roles until Jan. 17.
“The Book of Mormon,” about two Mormon missionaries who find more than they bargained for in Uganda, including gun-toting warlords and villages infected with HIV, was a cultural juggernaut when it opened on Broadway in 2011. After they left, new cast members kept it going and this year's 15th anniversary offered a way back.
They're doing the show “in a completely different world” than the last time, says James. “The discourse around race, around religion, around comedy, about responsibility of artists and representation — all of it was different.”
The musical earned James a Tony Award and she went on to marry and have a baby, enter the Marvel Cinematic Universe and earn another Tony nomination for “Suffs.” O’Malley earned a Tony nomination and also went on to marry and have a child, winning roles in “Hamilton” and “She Loves Me.”
She and O’Malley admit they were nervous coming back, even though each had performed it well over 800 times. They've had huge career moments since but “nothing that comes close to touching this,” she says. “We know for a fact that this doesn’t happen again. So we have to treat it like the precious gift that it is.”
James and O’Malley are part of a boomlet of original actors returning to their hit shows, like Aaron Tveit coming back to “Moulin Rouge” and Leslie Odom Jr. and Christopher Jackson jumping back into “Hamilton.”
“It’s something that I hope is done a lot more,” says O’Malley. “I hope that there are more shows that have the ability to be open long enough so that people can come back and revisit it.”
James and O’Malley have changed and the show they rejoin has also changed. During the pandemic shutdown, the creators — “South Park” masterminds Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez, co-creator of the equally irreverent musical “Avenue Q” — made minor changes to the script.
One notable tweak is giving James' character — the potential love interest Nabulungi, who sings the torch song “Sal Tlay Ka Siti” — more agency by becoming the one who scares off the warlords at the end.
That change now puts her on equal footing with the missionaries and means she gets to end the show center stage. “It’s a small little thing, but it makes a huge difference to me,” she says.
One of the show's highlights is O’Malley singing “Turn It Off,” a mock ode to keeping your homosexuality hidden. Raised Catholic, O’Malley has been out since he was 19 and co-founded the gay rights group Broadway Impact. “I love how far this show has let me explore my own faith journey,” he says.
The full cast of “The Book of Mormon” has stayed close with an active group text, and some from the original cast came to the theater to welcome back James and O’Malley.
“Everyone says that their theater family is like a family, and that is really true here,” says James. “We’ve been there for each other’s weddings, babies, deaths of family members, deaths of each other's parents.”
Backstage, the pair have found stickers and notes that have lasted for 15 years. There's a new tradition of putting headshots up in the stage-right dressing room tower, including one from the late Gavin Creel.
If James has her clogged sink, O’Malley rediscovered a specific smell under the stage: “I walked down there and I am immediately transported back to February of 2011 when we first moved into the theater.”
Although they rehearsed the show for two weeks to relearn everything, O’Malley hit a snag at the top of Act 2 on his first night back when he suddenly didn't know how to get on stage. He had to ask for help.
“I deleted that file a long time ago,” he says, laughing.
Nikki James attends the "Suffs" Broadway opening night performance in New York on April 18, 2024, left, and Rory O'Malley attends the "Broadway To Hollywood" cocktail event in Los Angeles on March 25, 2015. (AP Photo)
President Donald Trump's administration appealed to the Supreme Court on Monday in its push to sideline thousands of disputed California mail ballots the day before the pivotal midterm elections. The emergency appeal came after an appeals court rejected the request to set aside some 20,000 ballots from people the federal government suspects may not be U.S. citizens.
Trumpclosed out the final weekend before Election Day with rallies in two states he had handily won in the past.
At the same time, Democrats began to fracture in Michigan, risking their effort to retake the Senate. Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s former opponent in the U.S. Senate primary, Haley Stevens, stunned party officials Sunday by endorsing Republican Mike Rogers as Democratic tensions boiled over days before the election.
Trump will make his closing pitch of the midterms Monday afternoon at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, pushing his slow, expensive and problem-plagued efforts to repair it back into the spotlight on the eve of Election Day.
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“If we’re nervous about where we’re going to go from here, go vote,” Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed said Monday at a campaign event in Ypsilanti.
El-Sayed spent the final day before the election campaigning alongside fellow Michigan Democrat Debbie Dingell and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Much of his speech focused on getting corporate money out of politics and establishing universal Medicare.
Haley Stevens, whom El-Sayed defeated in the August Democratic primary, endorsed Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers on Sunday, exacerbating tensions among Democrats on the eve of the midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.
A spokesperson for Pepco, the electric utility provider in Washington, says the company is working to restore power to about 1,100 customers after an outage this morning in the city’s Foggy Bottom neighborhood.
Jessica Babb says they’re investigating what caused the outage.
The city’s fire department said on its X account that it was responding to multiple reports of smoke coming from maintenance holes in the area. Photos of the area shortly after showed the smoke had cleared.
The power outages appeared to cover at least a five- or six-block radius between 21st and 17th Streets and from Virginia Avenue to Pennsylvania Avenue.
That area includes the State Department. The agency’s headquarters had brief and limited power interruptions, but several off-site annexes, including the Washington Passport Agency, lost power and closed to the public.
The World Bank building was also without power, as were numerous businesses in the vicinity.
The Trump administration appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday in its push to sideline thousands of disputed California mail ballots the day before the pivotal midterm elections.
The emergency appeal came after an appeals court rejected the request to set aside some 20,000 ballots from people the federal government suspects may not be citizens. The Republican Trump administration has prioritized identifying noncitizen voters this year, despite them being rare.
The federal government says those ballots should not be counted until the voters’ status can be verified. California officials say the list is highly unreliable and likely includes many people who are U.S. citizens.
A district court judge forcefully denied the Justice Department’s request and warned that the demand could disenfranchise citizens in the Nov. 3 midterm elections to determine control of Congress.
On a rainy Monday ahead of Election Day, Democrat Rob Sand asked canvassers in the suburbs north of Des Moines, Iowa, to keep knocking doors during the final stretch.
“We have had some of the closest races in the country right here every single election cycle,” said Sand, a candidate for governor. “This is it. We have thirty-whatever hours to change the direction of the state of Iowa.”
Sand passed the microphone to Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who cited his own races as proof that a Democrat can win over Trump-backed candidates in states like his own and Iowa. He, too, reminded the volunteers in the room that even those were by tight margins.
Most Iowans want to vote for a person, not a party, Sand told reporters after. Up and down the ballot this year in Iowa, he said, “there’s a lot of situations where that person might happen, this time around, to be a Democrat.”
In a new interview released Monday, the president indicated he’d have no qualms about issuing pardons to those surrounding him to protect them from potential criminal liability.
The comments come as Democrats could take control of at least one chamber of Congress, giving them investigative powers such as subpoena authority.
“I would if I needed to, sure,” Trump told the New York Post’s Miranda Devine on her “Pod Force One” podcast. “I would not even think about — I’d do it.”
He pointed to preemptive pardons former President Joe Biden issued to family members, administration officials and key lawmakers, such as those who worked on a special committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol.
The stakes in Tuesday’s midterm elections are so high that Shane Dunn voted for the first time in his life, at age 65.
After a career as a cook up and down the East Coast, Dunn moved to the Philadelphia suburbs and voted last week in Levittown. “I was always a busy man,” he said outside his polling place. But now, “I’m learning what’s going on within our country, and this is actually what brought me out.”
Voters across the United States are getting their word in, too, as they determine which party controls the Senate and the House and takes charge of governors’ offices, legislatures and state leadership posts in the final two years of Republican Donald Trump’s presidency.
In dozens of Associated Press interviews with people who cast ballots at advance polling places or drop boxes across the country, the angst was palpable, most sharply from those who oppose Trump but also from many who support him.
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For President Donald Trump, this week’s elections are about him. For his fellow Republicans, the risk is voters will agree.
Midterms almost always serve as a referendum on the president’s party, and losses typically ensue. But Trump’s decisions to impose tariffs, start a war and oversee extravagant Washington renovations — largely without congressional consultation — have made it harder for Republicans to navigate those historical headwinds.
There is a direct connection between his actions and higher gas prices, costlier groceries and persistently high inflation.
Republicans cannot blame the fallout from those decisions on past administrations when Trump has owned them so fulsomely. They also cannot easily distance themselves from an unpopular president who demands loyalty and routinely tells voters the economy is just fine.
At virtually every juncture before Election Day on Tuesday, Trump has complicated the task of protecting Republican majorities in Congress.
The Iran war is “making it exponentially harder for Republicans to keep the House and Senate,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin, one of the most vulnerable House Republicans, said in a debate while noting his support for the effort.
The NAACP is asking a judge for an emergency order limiting which federal staffers can monitor the polls on Election Day.
The group wants law enforcement agents from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to be barred from the role because they could intimidate voters.
“DOJ’s decision to deploy federal law enforcement agents and personnel to election sites is unlawful and serves a plain purpose: to intimidate voters and election workers alike, and to have a chilling effect on in-person voting on Election Day,” the group wrote in its overnight filing.
The Justice Department has insisted its election monitors around the country on Election Day will be there to observe and will not interfere with voting.
President Donald Trump’s administration has made $15 billion in promises to agricultural producers in the weeks before Tuesday’s midterm elections, initiatives intended to offset higher diesel and fertilizer costs that farmers have endured largely due to his tariffs and the Iran war.
Whether that will motivate more voters to turn out in agricultural states where traditionally Republican seats are now seen as competitive is unclear. It may explain Trump’s increased attention on rural areas, including visits Sunday to Iowa and Kansas.
Of the $15 billion, more than half will go toward a one-time payment plan for farmers impacted by soaring diesel prices. Beyond the $15 billion, the agency also plans $13.8 billion in payments to offset shortfalls during the 2025 crop year for farmers who grow key crops such as corn, soybeans, wheat and rice.
Increased fertilizer and fuel costs have made it difficult for farmers to turn a profit this year. Last year, tariffs drove up expenses for other equipment farmers use, and the trade war with China caused a near boycott of U.S. agricultural goods.
The Justice Department has defended the accuracy of a list that it says has more than 20,000 suspected noncitizens registered to vote in California and suggested that an immigrant rights group should face contempt charges over an analysis of the names.
U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg had allowed the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights access to data on people the Trump administration alleges are noncitizen voters. Boasberg ordered the plaintiffs not to disclose any names and to use the data only for arguments about why they have legal standing to challenge its use.
In a Saturday court filing, the group said more than 40% of the people on the list do not appear in the state’s voter file. The filing also identified 22 people who were likely naturalized U.S. citizens while saying that thousands more American citizens appeared to be on it.
The Justice Department argued Sunday that the group’s filing had nothing to do with its legal standing and therefore violated Boasberg’s order. The agency also suggested that Boasberg refer the matter for investigation into possible contempt of court.
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In dozens of Associated Press interviews across the United States, many voters say the America they’ve known is slipping away.
They see lawlessness coming from those who create the laws, hate stirred by politicians and a culture that doesn’t speak to how they live. The angst was palpable among people who cast ballots at advance polling places or drop boxes ahead of Tuesday’s election, which will determine the political party that controls Congress in the final two years of Republican Donald Trump’s presidency.
“He’s just destroying us,” Democrat Linda Markle, 72, said of the president. She spoke outside the Warminster Township library in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
“I am so afraid for this country,” she said. “People used to look out for each other. Not anymore.”
Trump supporter Therese Mennell in Ohio said he gets it. “There’s that kind of arrogant vibe about him that people don’t like, and sometimes I shut him off because of the way he talks,” the retiree said in Wayne County. “But, I mean, he’s doing the right thing. He is saving our country.”
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In the sleepy Alaskan fishing community of Petersburg, nobody has seen Dan J. Sullivan for weeks.
His rustic home stood dark a day after FBI agents visited friends who donated to his quixotic campaign to unseat the Republican senator with the same first and last name — Dan S. Sullivan. The only display of politics at his home was a yard sign from the League of Women Voters: “Stand Up for Democracy: Vote 2026.”
What may have begun as a ploy to harm the reelection prospects of Sen. Sullivan has taken a serious turn as the Trump administration weighs criminal charges over a campaign tactic known as “ballot stacking.”
“It just seems like such a waste of our taxpayer money,” said Sharon Hunter, a Petersburg resident who, with her husband, donated $1,000 to Dan J. Sullivan, a former elementary school teacher. FBI agents knocked on her door Saturday during a round of interviews with the campaign’s dozen contributors.
“I’m a bit incredulous about their whole angle,” Hunter said, “because they’re targeting a person who’s been a real contributor in this community.”
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Trump is making his closing pitch of the midterm elections at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, pushing his slow, expensive and problem-plagued efforts to repair it back into the spotlight on the eve of Election Day.
In comments to reporters as he deplaned from Air Force One for a Sunday rally in Iowa, Trump said his speaking at the site would “show how beautiful it is.”
“We might hold it tomorrow or something,” the president added, without giving specifics. Hours later, the White House formally announced he’d be giving a speech there Monday afternoon.
Rather than using Monday to travel to key states and try to energize his “Make America Great Again” supporters as his Republican Party tries to maintain control of Congress, Trump opted for an event at a Washington renovation project that has been embarrassing and contentious.
The unusual move marks a departure from Trump’s monthlong race to stage more than 25 rallies in largely conservative areas, hoping the GOP can overcome his own low approval ratings and polls predicting that the Iran war, high energy prices and cost of living increases could spell a strong election night for Democrats.
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Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s former opponent in the U.S. Senate primary, Haley Stevens, stunned party officials Sunday by endorsing Republican Mike Rogers as Democratic tensions boiled over days before the election that could determine the balance of power on Capitol Hill.
Stevens endorsed Rogers after attending a Detroit church service with him. The remarkable show of support for the President Donald Trump-backed candidate in the tightly contested race comes after she was uninvited to a joint event the same day with El-Sayed, who defeated the congresswoman by a slim margin in the August primary.
“Our Democratic nominee for Senate said I was no longer welcome in his campaign and that I should stay away,” Stevens said in a video announcing the endorsement, which led her top aide to quit. “And he’s right. And that’s why I am endorsing Mike Rogers for the United States Senate today.”
El-Sayed dismissed the endorsement when asked about it by reporters later Sunday, saying he’s focused on issues voters care about, such as the high cost of living.
“At the end of the day, I actually don’t think about Haley Stevens,” he said, adding later: “None of this matters.”
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President Donald Trump closed out the final weekend of a turbulent midterm campaign with rallies in two states he has handily won in the past, while Democrats began to fracture in Michigan, risking their effort to retake the Senate.
The president was in Salina, Kansas, and Dubuque, Iowa, on Sunday. Republicans in both states are fending off robust challenges from Democrats, threatening GOP majorities in the Senate while they’re already at risk in the House.
But in Iowa, Trump insisted Republicans were on the verge of sweeping victories on Election Day on Tuesday.
“We’re going to elect ‘America first’ Republicans up and down the line,” he said near the start of a speech that lasted two hours, long even for Trump, who is known for his lengthy, freewheeling rallies.
Later, he arrived tardy in Kansas, where Air Force One performed a theatrical flyover before landing for an outdoor, airport rally. Hundreds of people started leaving midway through his nearly 90-minute speech in rural central Kansas, which didn’t end until nearly 10 p.m. local time.
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President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at the Salina Regional Airport, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, in Salina Kan. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
President Donald Trump walks across the South Lawn of the White House after stepping off Marine One, Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)
President Donald Trump walks across the South Lawn of the White House after stepping off Marine One, Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)
