By CARLOS RODRIGUEZ

Eight members of Cuba’s delegation were denied visas to the United States for the World Baseball Classic, the Cuban Baseball and Softball Federation (FCBS) said Thursday.

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Cuba is set to play against Puerto Rico, Colombia, Panama and Canada in San Juan, Puerto Rico, during pool play of the WBC, which is scheduled from March 5-17.

Among the Cubans that were denied visas are FCBS president Juan Reinaldo Pérez Pardo and general secretary Carlos del Pino Muñoz. Pitching coach Pedro Luis Lazo was also denied.

A person with direct knowledge said all Cuban players and coaches except for Lazo received visas. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Thursday because no announcements have been made regarding player visas. The State Department declined to comment on the Cuban complaint citing visa privacy laws, but a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the confidential matter, also said none of those denied visas are actual athletes but rather executives and officials.

“The United States’ response, after more than a month since these requests were submitted, ignores the reasons on which they are based, the most basic principles of sport, and the commitments assumed by the host countries of such events” the Federation said in a statement.

The Cubans finished third at the previous WBC in 2023. The team has exhibition games scheduled next week against the Kansas City Royals and the Cincinnati Reds in Arizona.

Cuba is among a list of seven countries with travel restrictions to the United States alongside Burundi, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

Last year, the Cacique Mara team, from Maracaibo, Venezuela, was denied visas into the United States and missed the Senior Baseball World Series.

The Cuban Federation said that it “will analyze how to proceed, and will inform in due course.”

AP Baseball Writer Ronald Blum and Matthew Lee contributed to this report.

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB

By EDITH M. LEDERER

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.S. first lady Melania Trump will preside over a U.N. Security Council meeting in what the United Nations on Thursday said would be a first.

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When the wife of President Donald Trump takes her seat in the president’s chair on Monday afternoon, it “will be the first time a first lady, or first gentleman for that matter, has ever presided over a Security Council meeting,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.

The United States takes over the rotating presidency of the 15-member council for the month of March, and the first lady’s office said the meeting she will preside over will “emphasize education’s role in advancing tolerance and world peace.”

Melania Trump has made children in conflict one of her signature issues, writing a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin last year ahead of a summit with President Trump and later announcing that the effort had led to a group of children displaced by the Russia-Ukraine warreuniting with their families.

It comes as President Trump has criticized the United Nations, saying repeatedly that the 193-member world body has not lived up to its potential. He has withdrawn the U.S. from U.N. organizations, including the World Health Organization and the cultural agency UNESCO, while pulling funding from dozens of others.

The U.S. also owes the United Nations billions of dollars. Until earlier this month, the Trump administration had not paid any of its mandatory dues for the U.N.’s regular operating budget for 2025 or this year. It paid $160 million, about 4% of the nearly $4 billion it has owed the U.N. overall, including for U.N. peacekeeping operations.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned late last month that the United Nations faces “imminent financial collapse” unless its financial rules are overhauled or all member nations pay their dues, a message clearly directed at the United States.

Trump also raised concerns among allies that his wider ambitions for the Board of Peace to play a role in other global conflicts beyond Gaza would sidestep the U.N. Security Council.

Pushing back against the criticism during the first meeting of the Board of Peace last week, Trump said that “we’re going to make sure the United Nations is viable” and that “I think it’s going to eventually live up to its potential.” He added, “Someday, I won’t be here — the United Nations will be.”

As for the significance of Melania Trump presiding over the Security Council meeting, Dujarric called it “a sign of the importance that the United States feels towards the Security Council and the subject.”

Whatever country holds the council presidency for the month gets to choose the subject for some signature meetings.

Dujarric said U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo will be briefing the Security Council on behalf of the secretary-general at Monday’s meeting presided over by the first lady and officially entitled “Children, Technology, and Education in Conflict.”

DENVER — From the moment Jack Hughes scored in overtime to beat Canada on Sunday morning, things got kind of blurry for the three Minnesota Wild players who earned gold medals with Team USA.

MILAN, ITALY – FEBRUARY 22: Jack Hughes #86 and Quinn Hughes #43 of Team United States celebrates following the Men’s Gold Medal match between Canada and the United States on day 16 of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic games at Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena on February 22, 2026 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)

Back on the ice with the NHL team to prepare for Thursday night’s showdown with division-leading Colorado at Ball Arena, Matt Boldy, Brock Faber and Quinn Hughes said they had no idea what was coming their way after a 2-1 victory over the Canadians in the gold medal game.

After Sunday’s medal ceremony, the team flew from Milan to Miami, where they were picked up by an Air Force plane and taken to Maryland, whence they traveled to Washington and the White House to meet President Donald Trump. Later, they attended Tuesday night’s State of the Union address at the Capitol.

“It was crazy, man, honestly,” Hughes said.

All three were back in Minnesota in time to fly with the team to Denver for their first game NHL game since early February.

“We were flying everywhere,” Hughes said. “We didn’t want it to end. We didn’t want to leave the guys. It was funny, before the last day we were all saying how depressed we were because it was already over, pretty much.”

The American women’s and men’s Olympic gold medals touched off a national celebration, but controversy quickly followed. In a call to the men’s team’s jubilant locker room, the president invited the team to attend the State of the Union address, then joked that he also had to invite the women or he would likely be impeached.

In videos of the call, players can be seen laughing at what has widely been perceived as a misogynistic attempt at humor by the president. Faber, while noting how unequivocally supportive the U.S. men’s and women’s teams have been to one another, said he regrets how those postgame moments unfolded.

“There’s things that obviously were, um, were bad,” he said Thursday. “Unfortunate. Things that you want back. Things in the moment. But at the end of the day, I just wish people could really understand, like, the real love and support we do have for each other and how special it is for both sides.”

Hughes, whose mother Ellen was on staff with the U.S. women’s team, said the perception that the men were anything but supportive of their American counterparts is off-base.

“I think they know that they had our support,” he said, noting that he watched the women’s gold medal game with his brother Jack and former NFL star Tom Brady. “We spent a ton of time with them, honestly. We celebrated with them after we won. So, yeah, I mean, I know they were extremely happy for us when we won, and we were really happy for them.”

After all of that, the Wild’s Olympians had to quickly switch their focus to a pair of road games at Colorado and Utah as the Wild looked to pick up where they left off. The Wild had an 8-1-1 streak going before the three-week break.

“Being able to get here last night with the guys and fly over with them on the plane and everything like that, just to finally have a little bit of time to decompress and hang out with those guys that we haven’t seen in a while was really nice,” Boldy said. “Mentally, and obviously you take care of yourself physically to be able to go tonight. But it’s been pretty special.”

Boldy scored a first-period goal for Team USA in the victory over Canada that gave the American men their first gold medal since the 1980 Miracle On Ice team.

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A 17-year-old student charged with robbery at a Lakeville school was reported to be armed with a handgun, though a weapon was not found.

A school resource officer responded to a weapon report on Tuesday at Lakeville Pathways Academy, an alternative high school that’s in the same building as Kenwood Trail Middle School.

The schools have separate entrances, Pathways has its own wing, and there isn’t contact between middle school and Pathways students at school, according to a school district spokesperson.

On Tuesday, a Pathways student used a THC vape in the bathroom (THC is a component of marijuana). The 17-year-old asked to use it and the other student handed it to him. The 17-year-old then “pulled out a gun, pointed the gun at his stomach and said, ‘I’m stealing this from you,’” said a juvenile petition, of what police were told, that was filed in court Thursday.

The 17-year-old exited the bathroom. When a teacher was notified, a staff member got the 17-year-old from class to take him to her office. Before they reached it, the teen ran out a door and through a parking lot.

“Because the student had left the building, and it was unconfirmed if they had a firearm, Lakeville Pathways Academy and Kenwood Trail Middle School immediately went into a secure protocol,” when no one is allowed in or out of the building, Superintendent Michael Baumann wrote to families Wednesday.

“Based on security camera footage and a search that immediately began by our School Resource Officers and the Lakeville Police Department, it became clear that the student had immediately left school grounds,” he continued. “Out of an abundance of caution, our two high schools, Lakeville North and Lakeville South, as well as their closest elementary schools, Lake Marion and Lakeview, were also placed in secure protocols.”

Officers took the 17-year-old into custody just over an hour after he ran from the school. The Lakeville resident was found by basketball courts in a mobile home community in Burnsville. He said he didn’t know anyone who lived in the community, according to the petition.

Police found no gun or vape with the 17-year-old. Before his interview with officers, the teen and his mother “were heard whispering about sticking to a story that (the teen) first told her,” the petition said. “When asked if he had a gun,” he said he did not and that he ran from the school because he had a vape.

Surveillance footage from the school showed the 17-year-old entered the bathroom, and it appeared he was “holding his left arm in front of his body near the left front sweatshirt pocket,” the petition said. When he returned to class, he was seen retrieving his iPad and phone “using only his right hand and his left hand is guarding his left side of his body.”

Baumann wrote that he recognized the “incident is concerning, and may raise worries about your students’ safety while at school.” He credited people for keeping the school safe — when “students saw something concerning, they reported it right away,” plus school leaders, staff and students used their school safety training, he wrote.

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