By LINDSEY BAHR, Associated Press

Ryan Coogler’s bluesy vampire thriller “Sinners,” the big screen musical “Wicked: For Good” and the Netflix phenomenon “KPop Demon Hunters” are all a step closer to an Oscar nomination. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released shortlists for 12 categories Tuesday, including for best song, score, international and documentary film, cinematography and this year’s new prize, casting.

“Sinners” and “Wicked: For Good” received the most shortlist mentions with eight each, including makeup and hair, sound, visual effects, score, casting and cinematography. Both have two original songs advancing as well. For “Wicked” it’s Stephen Schwartz’s “The Girl in the Bubble” and “No Place Like Home.” For “Sinners,” it’s Ludwig Göransson, Miles Caton and Alice Smith’s “Last Time (I Seen the Sun),” and Göransson and Raphael Saadiq’s “I Lied to You.”

This image released by Warner Bros Pictures shows Michael B. Jordan, foreground from left, Michael B. Jordan and Omar Benson Miller in a scene from “Sinners.” (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

The “KPop Demon Hunters” hit “Golden,” by EJAE and Mark Sonnenblick, was another shortlisted song alongside other notable artists like: Nick Cave and Bryce Dessner for “Train Dreams”; John Mayer, Ed Sheeran and Blake Slatkin for the “F1” song “Drive”; and Miley Cyrus, Simon Franglen, Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt for “Dream as One” from “Avatar: Fire and Ash.”

One of the highest profile shortlist categories is the best international feature, where 15 films were named including “Sentimental Value” (Norway), “Sirât” (Spain), “No Other Choice” (South Korea), “The Secret Agent” (Brazil), “It Was Just an Accident” (France), “The Voice of Hind Rajab” (Tunisia), “Sound of Falling” (Germany) and “The President’s Cake” (Iraq).

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Cynthia Erivo, left, and Ariana Grande in a scene from “Wicked for Good..” (Universal Pictures via AP)

Notable documentaries among the 15 include “My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow,” “The Perfect Neighbor,” “The Alabama Solution,” “Come See Me in the Good Light,” “Cover-Up” and Mstyslav Chernov’s “2000 Meters to Andriivka,” a co-production between The Associated Press and PBS Frontline.

The Oscars new award for casting shortlisted 10 films that will vie for the five nomination slots: “Frankenstein,” “Hamnet,” “Marty Supreme,” “One Battle After Another,” “The Secret Agent,” “Sentimental Value,” “Sinners,” “Sirāt,” “Weapons,” and “Wicked: For Good.” Notably “Jay Kelly and “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” did not make the list.

This image released by Netflix shows characters, from left, Mira, Rumi, Zoey in a scene from “KPop Demon Hunters.” (Netflix via AP)

Composers who made the shortlist for best score include Göransson (“Sinners”), Johnny Greenwood (“One Battle After Another”), Max Richter (“Hamnet”), Alexandre Desplat (“Frankenstein”) and Kangding Ray (“Sirāt”).

For the most part, shortlists are determined by members in their respective categories, though the specifics vary from branch to branch: Some have committees, some have minimum viewing requirements.

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As most of the shortlists are in below-the-line categories celebrating crafts like sound and visual effects, there are also films that aren’t necessarily the most obvious of Oscar contenders like “The Alto Knights,” shortlisted in hair and makeup, as well as the widely panned “Tron: Ares” and “The Electric State,” both shortlisted for visual effects.

The lists will narrow to five when final nominations are announced on Jan. 22. The 98th Oscars, hosted by Conan O’Brien, will air live on ABC on March 15 at 7 p.m. ET.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has reached a settlement Hyundai and Kia over their sale of vehicles lacking anti-theft technology.

The carmakers’ failure to include this technology in their vehicles fueled the number of car thefts in recent years “used in the commission of other crimes and in some cases led to deaths in Minnesota and across the country,” according to a statement from Ellison.

Those eligible have one year from the date of notice from the companies to schedule to have zinc-reinforced ignition cylinder protectors installed at local Hyundai or Kia authorized dealerships. The notices are expected to go out in the first few months of 2026. Ellison is urging vehicle owners to set up an appointment as soon as they receive notices.

The cylinder protector deters thieves from accessing the ignition to essentially hot-wire a car. According to estimates from Hyundai and Kia, the cost of installing the ignition cylinder protectors on all eligible vehicles could exceed $500 million.

Where to get more information, submit a claim

For more information about eligibility and how to submit a claim from Hyundai or Kia go to: HKMultistateimmobilizersettlement.com.

Terms of settlement

Terms of the settlement the two car companies agreed to:

• Offer free ignition cylinder protectors for owners or lessees of eligible vehicles. These will include vehicles previously only eligible for software updates.

• Make sure all future vehicles sold in the U.S. have with industry-standard, “engine immobilizer anti-theft technology.”

• Provide up to $4.5 million in restitution to those eligible whose cars are damaged from theft.

• The companies will pay $4.5 million to the states to defray the costs of the investigation.

2023 investigation

This settlement comes after an investigation of the carmakers that Ellison announced in March 2023. Minnesota was the first state to investigate Kia and Hyundai for their knowing failure to include standard anti-theft technology in their cars.

According to Ellison, Hyundai and Kia chose not to include anti-theft “engine-immobilizer” technology in millions of their vehicles sold in the U.S., including in Minnesota. The immobilizer prevents thieves from starting an engine without a “smart” key, which stores an electronic security code.

Thefts of such vehicles increased 611% in St. Paul and 836% in Minneapolis in 2022 compared with 2021. Thieves have been able to break into Kia and Hyundai vehicles and start them relatively easily and quickly without keys.

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“Maintaining public safety means holding people who commit crimes accountable, but it also means holding corporations accountable when their greed helps criminals harm the people of Minnesota,” Ellison said in the statement. “By failing to include industry-standard anti-theft technology in their vehicles, Hyundai and Kia unleashed a wave of auto thefts that cost Minnesotans their cars, their hard-earned money, and sometimes even their lives. In short, they put their profits ahead of people’s safety.

Vehicles eligible to have the ignition cylinder protectors installed free of cost include all Hyundai and Kia models from 2011 to 2022 that were not factory-equipped with the engine immobilizers.

Ellison was joined by dozens of other state attorney generals in the investigation.

By SEUNG MIN KIM, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is traveling to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Wednesday for a dignified transfer for the two Iowa National Guard members killed in an attack in the Syrian desert that is testing the rapprochement between Washington and Damascus.

The two guardsmen killed in the attack on Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the U.S. Army. Both were members of the 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment. A U.S. civilian working as an interpreter was also killed.

The ritual at Dover Air Force Base honors U.S. service members killed in action and is one of the most solemn duties undertaken by the commander in chief.

During the process, transfer cases draped with the American flag holding the remains of fallen soldiers are carried from the military aircraft that carried them to Dover to an awaiting vehicle to transport them to the mortuary facility at the base. There, the fallen service members are prepared for their final resting place.

Trump, a Republican, said during his first term that witnessing the dignified transfer of service members’ remains is “the toughest thing I have to do” as president.

President Donald Trump speaks during a Mexican Border Defense Medal presentation in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Remembered as ‘the best of Iowa’

The Iowa National Guard is remembering the two men as heroes. Howard’s stepfather, Jeffrey Bunn, said Howard “loved what he was doing and would be the first in and last out,” noting that he had wanted to be a soldier since he was a young boy.

In a post on the Meskwaki Nation Police Department’s Facebook page, Bunn – who is chief of the Tama, Iowa, department – called Howard a loving husband and an “amazing man of faith” and said Howard’s brother, a staff sergeant in the Iowa National Guard, would escort “Nate” back to Iowa.

Torres-Tovar was remembered as a “very positive” person who was family oriented and someone who always put others first, according to fellow guardsmen who were deployed with Torres-Tovar and issued a statement to the local TV broadcast station WOI.

“They were dedicated professionals and cherished members of our Guard family who represented the best of Iowa,” said Maj. Gen. Stephen Osborn, adjutant general of the Iowa National Guard.

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Trump stands by Syrian leader al-Sharaa

On Saturday, Trump told reporters that he was mourning the deaths and vowed retaliation.

Trump said Monday that he remained confident in the leadership of interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the onetime leader of an Islamic insurgent group who led the ouster of former President Bashar Assad, whose family had an iron grip on Syrian rule for decades.

The U.S. president welcomed al-Sharaa to Washington last month for a historic visit to the White House and formally welcomed Syria as a member of the U.S.-led coalition to fight the Islamic State group. Hundreds of U.S. troops are deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting IS.

“This had nothing to do with him,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. “This had to do with ISIS.”

Three other members of the Iowa National Guard were injured in the attack. As of Monday, two were in stable condition and the other in good condition. The Pentagon has not identified them.

Trump traveled to Dover several times during his first term to honor the fallen, including for a U.S. Navy SEAL killed during a raid in Yemen, for two Army officers whose helicopter crashed in Afghanistan and for two Army soldiers killed in Afghanistan when a person dressed in an Afghan army uniform opened fire.

By KONSTANTIN TOROPIN and BEN FINLEY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona said Tuesday that the Pentagon’s escalating investigation into his remarks urging troops to refuse unlawful orders is part of an effort to silence dissent within the military.

“This is just about sending a message to retired service members, active duty service members, government employees — do not speak out against this president or there will be consequences,” Kelly told reporters after a classified briefing from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others about deadly strikes on alleged drug boats in Latin America that Kelly and other lawmakers have opposed.

Kelly said the Defense Department did not notify him of an investigation because “what they really care about is the public message.”

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The Pentagon confirmed late Monday that Hegseth’s office escalated a preliminary review of Kelly to an official command investigation over “serious allegations of misconduct.”

Command investigations are a very common tool used by military officials to look into allegations of wrongdoing that don’t rise to the level of criminal charges. It is far less common for them to be used against a retired service member, much less a sitting member of Congress.

The investigation heightens tensions between the Democratic senator, who was a Navy fighter pilot before becoming an astronaut, and the Trump administration’s Pentagon, coming as lawmakers have increased scrutiny of the U.S. military’s attacks on boats accused of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

In a letter this week to the Pentagon, Kelly’s lawyers said that “there is no legitimate basis for any type of proceeding” and that “any such effort would be unconstitutional and an extraordinary abuse of power.”

The investigation was ordered after President Donald Trump accused six Democratic lawmakers who appeared in a video urging troops to defy undefined illegal orders of sedition “punishable by DEATH.”

Hegseth said Kelly faced investigation because he is the only one of the lawmakers who formally retired from the military and is still under the Pentagon’s jurisdiction, arguing that “Kelly’s conduct brings discredit upon the armed forces.”

Legal experts have said Kelly did nothing illegal, the Pentagon was misreading military law and he couldn’t be prosecuted by the executive branch as a member of Congress.

The video was released in November by Democrats who served in the military or intelligence community: Kelly, Sen. Elissa Slotkin and Reps. Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander and Chrissy Houlahan. The lawmakers, who are seen as possible future aspirants for higher office and elevated their political profiles with the video’s wide exposure, spoke “directly to members of the military.”

Kelly told troops that “you can refuse illegal orders,” while other lawmakers in the video said they needed troops to “stand up for our laws … our Constitution.”

The lawmakers didn’t mention specific circumstances. But their message was released amid the boat strike campaign and Trump’s attempts to deploy National Guard troops to American cities.

The issue of illegal orders became even more salient following the revelations of a follow-up strike that killed two survivors clinging to the wreckage of a boat after the first hit, which some legal experts and lawmakers say went against the laws of war.

Trump and several Republican lawmakers have argued that the strike that killed survivors was justified because the people were trying to overturn the boat and stay in the fight. The administration says the attacks are stemming the flow of narcotics into the United States and that the U.S. is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.

Hegseth on Tuesday called it “a highly successful mission to counter designated terrorist organizations” bringing in drugs that are “poisoning the American people.”

When it announced its investigation into Kelly, the Pentagon suggested Kelly’s statements interfered with the “loyalty, morale, or good order and discipline of the armed forces” by citing the federal law that prohibits such actions. The Defense Department also said it could recall Kelly to active duty for court-martial proceedings.

Kelly rejected the claims by Trump and the Pentagon, saying he upheld his oath to the Constitution and has dismissed the Pentagon investigation as the work of “bullies.”

“They’re trying to shut people up,” he said Tuesday. “But in this case, they picked the wrong guy. So I’m not going to shut up about this.”