Crossover star Josh Groban will return to St. Paul’s Grand Casino Arena on June 28 with support from EGOT winner Jennifer Hudson. It’ll be his first performance in the metro in nearly eight years.

Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday through Ticketmaster. Citi cardholders and Verizon customers have access to a presale that runs through 10 p.m. Thursday.

Los Angeles native Groban has sold more than 25 million albums and is a favorite on daytime talk shows (he sat in with Oprah six times and announced his upcoming tour on Hudson’s show) thanks to his easy-going demeanor and even easier-going songs. His light-rock radio hits include “To Where You Are,” “Believe,” “Awake,” “Brave,” “Celebrate Me Home” and the now-ubiquitous “You Raise Me Up.”

In 2023, Groban returned to Broadway for his second time in the title role in a revival of Stephen Sondheim’s musical “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” In May, he performed a residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

Jennifer Hudson

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Hudson emerged in 2004 as a finalist in the third season of “American Idol.” While she only placed seventh, she became one of the most successful graduates of the show.

She earned EGOT status by winning an Emmy in 2021 for her role as a producer on the interactive fairy tale story “Baba Yaga,” a Grammy for her 2008 self-titled debut album, an Oscar for her film debut playing Effie White in the 2006 film adaptation of “Dreamgirls” and a Tony as a producer of 2022’s “A Strange Loop.” With the latter, she became the youngest woman and the third Black recipient of all four awards.

Hudson has hosted the syndicated daytime talk show “The Jennifer Hudson Show” since 2022.

By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — A former leading scientist at the National Institutes of Health sued the Trump administration Tuesday, saying she was illegally fired for warning that abrupt research cuts were endangering patients and public health.

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The NIH has cut billions of dollars in research projects since President Donald Trump took office in January, bypassing the usual scientific funding process. The cuts included clinical trials testing treatments for cancer, brain diseases and other health problems that a recent report said impacted over 74,000 people enrolled in the experiments.

Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo is a well-known HIV expert who led NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Last spring, Marrazzo was put on administrative leave after she challenged NIH officials about the cuts. Among her objections were that some cuts would endanger clinical trial participants while others curtailing infectious disease and vaccine research would harm public health, according to Tuesday’s lawsuit.

In September, Marrazzo filed a complaint alleging whistleblower retaliation with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, and publicly shared her concerns. Weeks later she was fired by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in Maryland that claims violations of whistleblower protections.

In a statement issued by her lawyers, Marrazzo said the lawsuit “is about protecting not just my right to expose abuse and fraud by our government but those rights for all federal employees, so we can safeguard essential public health priorities and the integrity of scientific research.”

A spokesman for Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services declined to comment.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By OLIVIA DIAZ

To those who argue that the U.S. penny had no value: some coin collectors beg to differ.

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In fact, they doled out millions for the final pennies circulated in the U.S. before the government ended the cent’s production back in November.

The U.S. Mint sold 232 three-cent sets for a whopping sum of $16.76 million at an auction last Thursday hosted by Stack’s Bowers Galleries.

The 232nd set — containing the last three pennies ever made — sold for $800,000. That bidder also got the three dies that struck those Lincoln cents.

John Kraljevich, director of numismatic Americana at Stack’s Bowers, said it was the kind of auction where you don’t know the items’ market value until people make their bids.

“I’ve been going to coin auctions for 40 years, and I can tell you, I’ve never seen anything like this, because there’s never been anything like this,” Kraljevich said.

Stack’s Bowers President Brian Kendrella said: “They captured the public imagination like few rare coins we’ve ever handled.”

FILE – A die for a penny press is seen at the U.S. Mint, in Philadelphia, Nov. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

When it was introduced in 1793, a penny could buy a biscuit or a piece of candy. Now most of them are tucked away into jars or junk drawers.

They can also be relics of history for coin collectors.

Each set comprised 2025 pennies struck at the Philadelphia Mint, the Denver Mint and a 24-karat gold penny to cap off the end of an era. Each cent also bore a unique Omega symbol.

FILE – U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach holds one of the last pennies pressed at the U.S. Mint, in Philadelphia, Nov. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

There were 232 grouplets to reflect each year the coin had been embedded in American culture.

“American culture has incorporated the penny into our lexicon, into our pop culture, into all of this stuff,” Kraljevich said. “And I think for a lot of people, the ending of production of cents for circulation is an item of nostalgia.”

Olivia Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge said Tuesday he’s leaning toward denying a preservationist group’s request to temporarily halt President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project, saying the organization failed to show that “irreparable harm” would be caused if the project moves forward.

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon said he expects to issue his decision within a day.

Trump demolished the East Wing of the White House to build a ballroom large enough to accommodate 999 people in its place at an estimated cost of $300 million in private funding.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation went to court last week seeking a temporary restraining order to halt the project until it goes through multiple independent reviews and wins approval from Congress.

A Justice Department attorney argued at Tuesday’s hearing that the Trust has no standing in the case to sue and that underground construction must continue for national security reasons that were not outlined in open court. The attorney also said Trump is not subject to federal laws the Trust said he has failed to comply with.

Leon said he would hold another hearing in January.

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