BEMIDJI, Minn. — Christmas Day 2025 is one Moraya Holleman won’t soon forget.

When Holleman and Bemidji’s Just For Kix team claimed the championship at the National Together We Dance Competition eight months ago, she thought it might be her last chance to dance in front of an audience.

That all changed last on Dec. 25 when Holleman took the field at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis to dance in the elaborate NFL halftime show led by Snoop Dogg.

She was one of 24 “Snoopettes” who high-kicked and danced their way through much of the 10-minute show that also included country star Lainey Wilson, Italian singer Andrea Bocelli and his son Matteo, and Huntr/x, the fictional girl group from Netflix’s animated hit “KPop Demon Hunters.”

The show was watched by an estimated 30 million viewers on Netflix and many of the 67,000 fans at the stadium who witnessed a Minnesota Vikings victory over the Detroit Lions.

Moraya Holleman, pictured on the far left, dances during the halftime show at U.S. Bank Stadium on Christmas Day, Dec. 25, 2025. (Courtesy / Forum News Service)

“It was an amazing experience,” said Holleman, a 2025 graduate of Bemidji High School.

For her audition, Holleman had to make a short video of herself dancing in the high-kick style. She was home for Thanksgiving from the University of Minnesota, where she is majoring in biomedical engineering. She danced to “Can’t Hold Us” by the rapper Macklemore, with her cellphone propped on a cart at the Gillett Wellness Center. Then she emailed the video and photos of herself to the company that produced the halftime show.

“There was something about it they liked,” Holleman said.

The dancers rehearsed for five days before Christmas Day, between six and nine hours each day.

Mike and Brenda Holleman have been watching their daughter, Moraya, dance since she was 3 years old, and had club level seats for the halftime show at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Christmas Day, Thursday, Dec. 25, 2025. (Courtesy / Forum News Service)

“We really didn’t know each other,” Holleman said. “But we all had been trained in the Minnesota kick style growing up, and we all came together and made friends really fast.”

Although the game did not start until 3:30 p.m., the dancers arrived at the stadium by 10:15 to get their hair and makeup done, have lunch … and wait.

“The last thing you want to happen is for stuff to be running late in a huge production like that,” Holleman said. “We all just kind of got to hang out, talk to one another, feel the excitement of the day kind of building. It wasn’t maybe as stressful as I had thought it was going to be. There was just a lot of excitement and energy in the air.”

Moraya Holleman gives her speech, “Redefining Success,” during Bemidji High School’s commencement ceremony on May 24, 2025, at the Sanford Center. (Madelyn Haasken / Bemidji Pioneer)

After Snoop Dogg got the show started, rapping in a red suit with a matching fur-trimmed jacket, the Snoopettes took the field to accompany Huntr/x as the trio sang a version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Holleman and her mates continued to dance through the remainder of the show as Wilson sang “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and the Bocellis sang “White Christmas.”

Holleman did not get to meet any of the musical stars. “We were working in very close proximity with them, and all of them were extremely nice people,” she said.

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Moraya’s parents, Mike and Brenda Holleman, watched the show from club seats right in front of her. They’ve been following her dance career since she first joined Just For Kix as a 3-year-old.

“It’s just been fun watching her in all of her years of dance,” Brenda said, “because she has always given it her all, from the time she was little until this last performance. She just shines out on the floor. We knew this was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime thing, so we purchased club seats that had a perfect spot for viewing her.”

Moraya will return to college in January with fond memories of Christmas 2025. Future plans could include becoming a dance coach.

“This experience was definitely one that reminded me that dance is not going anywhere out of my life,” she said. “I had kind of ignored it a little bit for the last six months, just trying to adjust to college. But this experience kind of slapped me in the face and said, ‘If you think you can ignore dance, you are very, very wrong.’”

Four goals from four different scorers made for an easy victory for the Gophers women’s hockey team against Sacred Heart in Fairfield, Conn. Friday evening.

Kendra Distad logged the only goal the Gophers needed at 14:20 of the opening period, putting the visitors up for good.

However, Minnesota launched 52 shots at Pioneers goaltender Jillian Petruno, who kept the game closer on the scoreboard than it maybe should have been by turning away 48 of the pucks sent her way.

The Gophers still mustered up three more scores despite Petruno’s tremendous efforts. Abbey Murphy staked the Gophers to a 2-0 lead heading into the first intermission with a short-handed, unassisted tally at 2:10 of the initial stanza.

Minnesota netted one more goal in each of the final two periods. The first went to Nelli Laitinen at 11:53 of the second, with the final tally of the game claimed by Chloe Primerano at 5:56 of the third.

Dishing out assists in the four-score contest were Murphy, Primerano, Emma Kriesz, Tereza Plosova, Jamie Nelson and Josefin Bouveng.

Gophers netminder Hannah Clark didn’t have as tough of a go as her opposition, but still made 15 saves to earn the shutout victory.

Minnesota improved to 15-4 with the win, while Sacred Heart fell to 5-13-1 with the loss. The two teams play again at noon Saturday, with the game being televised on ESPN+.

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By BEN FINLEY and KONSTANTIN TOROPIN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Coast Guard said Friday it’s still searching for people in the eastern Pacific Ocean who had jumped off alleged drug-smuggling boats when the U.S. military attacked the vessels days earlier, diminishing the likelihood that anyone survived.

Search efforts began Tuesday afternoon after the military notified the Coast Guard that survivors were in the water about 400 miles southwest of the border between Mexico and Guatemala, the maritime service said in a statement.

The Coast Guard dispatched a plane from Sacramento to search an area covering more than 1,000 miles, while issuing an urgent warning to ships nearby. The agency said it coordinated more than 65 hours of search efforts, working with other countries as well as civilian ships and boats in the area.

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The weather during that time has included 9-foot seas and 40-knot winds. The U.S. has not said how many people jumped into the water, and, if they are not found, how far the death toll may rise from the Trump administration’s monthslong campaign of blowing up small boats accused of transporting drugs in the region.

The U.S. military said earlier this week that it attacked three boats traveling along known narco-trafficking routes and they “had transferred narcotics between the three vessels prior to the strikes.” The military did not provide evidence to back up the claim.

U.S. Southern Command, which oversees the region, said three people were killed when the first boat was struck, while people in the other two boats jumped overboard and distanced themselves from the vessels before they were attacked.

The strikes occurred in a part of the eastern Pacific where the Navy doesn’t have any ships operating. Southern Command said it immediately notified the U.S. Coast Guard to activate search and rescue efforts for the people who jumped overboard before the other boats were hit.

Calling in the Coast Guard is notable because the military drew heavy scrutiny after U.S. forces killed the survivors of the first attack in early September with a follow-up strike to their disabled boat. Some Democratic lawmakers and legal experts said the military committed a crime, while the Trump administration and some Republican lawmakers say the follow-up strike was legal.

There have been other survivors of the boat strikes, including one for whom the Mexican Navy suspended a search in late October after four days. Two other survivors of a strike on a submersible vessel in the Caribbean Sea that same month were sent to their home countries — Ecuador and Colombia. Authorities in Ecuador later released the man, saying they had no evidence he committed a crime in the South American nation.

Under President Donald Trump’s direction, the U.S. military has been attacking boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific since early September. As of Friday, the number of known boat strikes is 35 and the number of people killed is at least 115, according to numbers announced by the Trump administration.

Trump has justified the boat strikes as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States and asserted that the U.S. is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.

Along with the strikes, the Trump administration has built up military forces in the region as part of an escalating pressure campaign on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who has been charged with narco-terrorism in the United States.

NEW YORK (AP) — Sprinkles Cupcakes, a company famous for selling sweet treats in vending machines known as “cupcake ATMs,” has shut down after 20 years of operation around the United States, according to its former owner.

“Even though I sold the company over a decade ago, I still have such a personal connection to it, and this isn’t how I thought the story would go,” said Candace Nelson, who started the company after she lost her job in 2005. The closure was announced Dec. 30.

Nelson started Sprinkles Cupcakes in her own kitchen, and the first location was in a small Beverly Hills storefront that had previously been a sandwich shop. The brand would go on to ascend to national fame, and fans took to social media following the company’s announcement to lament the closure.

FILE – Sara Cebulski arranges a custom box of cupcakes at Sprinkles, where a 24-Hour Cupcake “ATM,” will be continuously restocked to dispense fresh cupcakes, in Beverly Hills, Calif., March 5, 2012. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)

The company’s cupcake-dispensing machines in malls and airports briefly went viral on TikTok for the not-so-subtle “I love Sprinkles” jingle that played repeatedly while a mechanical arm delivered the dessert.

The company no longer has any products for sale on its website, which also has removed all operational locations across the country.

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Nelson sold her business to private equity firm KarpReilly LLC in 2012 after the company had expanded to 10 locations across the country. The firm owns dozens of other companies for products including a health food home delivery service, kombucha and protein wellness shakes.

KarpReilly did not respond to an emailed request for comment Friday evening. Neither the firm nor Nelson provided a reason for the cupcake company’s closure.

Private equity has dramatically expanded its influence in restaurants over the last decade, investing $94.5 billion between 2014 and 2024, according to data from capital market company PitchBook.

Some outraged Sprinkles Cupcakes fans said on social media that the closures were part of a larger trend where private equity firms purchase restaurants and retail brands — like Red Lobster or TGI Fridays — that later file for bankruptcy or close altogether.