By PATRICK WHITTLE and KIMBERLEE KRUESI, Associated Press

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said Thursday that immigration officials have ceased their “enhanced operations” in the state, the site of an enforcement surge and more than 200 arrests since last week.

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Collins, a Republican, made the announcement after saying she had several direct communications with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.

“There are currently no ongoing or planned large-scale ICE operations here,” Collins said in a statement. “I have been urging Secretary Noem and others in the Administration to get ICE to reconsider its approach to immigration enforcement in the state.”

The announcement came after President Donald Trump seemed to signal a willingness to ease tensions in Minneapolis after a second deadly shooting by federal immigration agents.

Collins said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and border patrol officials “will continue their normal operations that have been ongoing here for many years.”

Her announcement came more than a week after immigration officers began an operation dubbed “Catch of the Day” by ICE. Federal officials said about 50 arrests were made the first day and that roughly 1,400 people were operational targets in the mostly rural state of 1.4 million residents, 4% of whom are foreign-born.

By late last week, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin touted that some of the arrests were of people “convicted of horrific crimes including aggravated assault, false imprisonment, and endangering the welfare of a child.” Yet court records painted a slightly different story, revealing that while some were violent felons, others were detainees with unresolved immigration proceedings or who were arrested but never convicted of a crime.

Collins, a veteran senator, is up for reelection this year. Unlike a handful of Republican senators facing potentially tough campaigns, Collins has not called for Noem to step down or be fired. She’s also avoided criticizing ICE tactics, other than to say that people who are in the country legally should not be the target of ICE investigations.

Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, who announced her Senate candidacy in October and could possibly face Collins in the general election, has challenged immigration officials to provide judicial warrants, real-time arrest numbers and basic information about who is being detained in Maine. She also called on Collins to act after the House’s GOP majority defeated efforts by Democrats to curtail ICE funding.

Mills’ office did not immediately respond to an Associated Press email seeking comment from the governor on Collins’ announcement.

Meanwhile, first-time Democratic candidate Graham Platner — who is running against Mills in the primary — has criticized both Mills’ and Collins’ handling of ICE and has demanded the agency be dismantled. On Thursday, Platner organized a protest outside of Collins’ office in Portland, Maine, where dozens of supporters held signs and sang along with him.

Platner said he would host a separate protest later outside Collins’ office in Bangor, Maine.

Kruesi reported from Providence, Rhode Island. Associated Press writer Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.

Gophers men’s basketball coach Niko Medved felt slighted Wednesday after Minnesota lost 67-63 to Wisconsin on Wednesday night. His angst came out immediately in the opening statement of his postgame news conference in Madison, Wis.

“You know how much we still don’t have enough respect when we still spell it N-I-C-O, right? One day we will get it right,” Medved said, holding up his name card at the podium inside Kohl Center. “At least I can tell that joke here.”

Medved, a Roseville native, has lived the Border Battle rivalry as an undergraduate and graduate student at the U, a student manager with the program and then as an assistant coach. Another chapter is being written in his first season as head coach; and it’s not off to a great start.

Medved continued: “What would I expect in Madison, right?”

Medved’s team is down on its luck. The Gophers have been playing without four scholarship players since late November and its leading scorer, Cade Tyson, was out Wednesday. The wing, who averaged 20.1 points per game, injured his ankle in the 76-57 loss to then No. 7-Nebraska on Saturday and is considered game-to-game.

The Gophers’ regular rotation went down to six players on Wednesday, and Max Gizzi, who had played only 10 minutes all season, came off the bench to give teammates a break. He contributed three minutes.

Minnesota still showed character taking a 35-17 lead at the half, but were outscored 50-28 in the final 20 minutes. After a 3-1 start to Big Ten play, Minnesota has lost six straight games to fall to 3-7 in league play and 10-11 overall.

Langston Reynolds played all 40 minutes Wednesday. Jaylen Crocker-Johnson and Bobby Durkin, who scored a team-high 20 points, each played 38 minutes. Isaac Asuma played 36 minutes while in foul trouble.

Badgers guard John Blackwell made a 3-pointer with 19 seconds left to extend Wisconsin’s lead to 65-61. It was reminiscent of his buzzer-beating trey to beat Minnesota 78-75 at Williams Arena on Jan. 13.

With the two losses to Wisconsin this season, the Gophers have now lost 11 consecutive games in the rivalry. It’s the longest losing streak in the series since Minnesota lost 10 in a row to the Badgers from 1912-16.

While Medved has only two rivalry losses attached to his name, he has leaned into the program’s defeats to the Badgers that weren’t on his watch.

When Minnesota’s losing streak in the rivalry stood at nine two weeks ago, Medved made sure his players were “keenly aware” of the number and challenged them to break it.

Barring a rematch in the Big Ten tournament, that task will continue into the 2026-27 season and the spelling used on a certain placard in Madison will be under scrutiny.

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By NICHOLAS RICCARDI, Associated Press

DENVER (AP) — Donald Trump lost his bid for reelection in 2020. But for more than five years, he’s been trying to convince Americans the opposite is true by falsely saying the election was marred by widespread fraud.

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Now that he’s president again, Trump is pushing the federal government to back up those bogus claims.

On Wednesday, the FBI served a search warrant at the election headquarters of Fulton County, Georgia, which includes most of Atlanta, seeking ballots from the 2020 election. That follows Trump’s comments earlier this month when he suggested during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that charges related to the election were imminent.

“The man has obsessions, as do a fair number of people, but he’s the only one who has the full power of the United States behind him,” said Rick Hasen, a UCLA law professor.

Hasen and many others noted that Trump’s use of the FBI to pursue his obsession with the 2020 election is part of a pattern of the president transforming the federal government into his personal tool of vengeance.

Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, compared the search to the Minnesota immigration crackdown that has killed two U.S. citizen protesters, launched by Trump as his latest blow against the state’s governor, who ran against him as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate in 2024.

“From Minnesota to Georgia, on display to the whole world, is a President spiraling out of control, wielding federal law enforcement as an unaccountable instrument of personal power and revenge,” Ossoff said in a statement.

It also comes as election officials across the country are starting to rev up for the 2026 midterms, where Trump is struggling to help his party maintain its control of Congress. Noting that, in 2020, Trump contemplated using the military to seize voting machines after his loss, some worry he’s laying the groundwork for a similar maneuver in the fall.

“Georgia’s a blueprint,” said Kristin Nabers of the left-leaning group All Voting Is Local. “If they can get away with taking election materials here, what’s to stop them from taking election materials or machines from some other state after they lose?”

Georgia has been at the heart of Trump’s 2020 obsession. He infamously called Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, asking that Raffensperger “find” 11,780 more votes for Trump so he could be declared the winner of the state. Raffensperger refused, noting that repeated reviews confirmed Democrat Joe Biden had narrowly won Georgia.

Those were part of a series of reviews in battleground states, often led by Republicans, that affirmed Biden’s win, including in Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada. Trump also lost dozens of court cases challenging the election results and his own attorney general at the time said there was no evidence of widespread fraud.

His allies who repeated his lies have been successfully sued for defamation. That includes former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who settled with two Georgia election workers after a court ruled he owed them $148 million for defaming them after the 2020 election.

Voting machine companies also have brought defamation cases against some conservative-leaning news sites that aired unsubstantiated claims about their equipment being linked to fraud in 2020. Fox News settled one such case by agreeing to pay $787 million after the judge ruled it was “CRYSTAL clear” that none of the allegations were true.

Trump’s campaign to move Georgia into his column also sparked an ill-fated attempt to prosecute him and some of his allies by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat. The case collapsed amid conflict-of-interest charges against the prosecutor, and Trump has since sued Willis for the prosecution.

On his first day in office, Trump rewarded some of those who helped him try to overturn the 2020 election results by pardoning, commuting or vowing to dismiss the cases of about 1,500 people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. He later signed an executive order trying to set new rules for state election systems and voting procedures, although that has been repeatedly blocked by judges who have ruled that the Constitution gives states, and in some instances Congress, control of elections rather than the president.

As part of his campaign of retribution, Trump also has spoken about wanting to criminally charge lawmakers who sat on the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, suggesting protective pardons of them from Biden are legally invalid. He’s targeted a former cybersecurity appointee who assured the public in 2020 that the election was secure.

During a year of presidential duties, from dealing with wars in Gaza and Ukraine to shepherding sweeping tax and spending legislation through Congress, Trump has reliably found time to turn the subject to 2020. He has falsely called the election rigged, said Democrats cheated and even installed a White House plaque claiming Biden took office after “the most corrupt election ever.”

David Becker, a former Department of Justice voting rights attorney and executive director of The Center for Election Innovation & Research, said he was skeptical the FBI search in Georgia would lead to any successful prosecutions. Trump has demanded charges against several enemies such as former FBI Director James Comey and New York’s Democratic Attorney General, Letitia James, that have stalled in court.

“So much this administration has done is to make claims in social media rather than go to court,” Becker said. “I suspect this is more about poisoning the well for 2026.”

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN, Associated Press Business Writer

Dow is planning to cut approximately 4,500 jobs as the chemicals maker puts more emphasis on using artificial intelligence and automation in its business.

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The company said Thursday that it anticipates about $600 million to $800 million in severance costs related to the cuts. Those costs are part of a broader plan aimed at simplifying operations and streamlining.

Shares of Dow Inc., which has about 34,600 employees globally, fell 2% before the market opened. Dow is based in Midland, Michigan.

In January 2025 Dow executives said the company was seeking $1 billion in cost savings and anticipated cutting about 1,500 jobs worldwide. In July, it announced the closings of three European plants that would eliminate 800 jobs.

There have been thousands of job cuts announced this week after a frustrating year for U.S. job seekers.

Amazon slashed about 16,000 corporate roles on Wednesday — just three months after laying off another 14,000 workers. And United Parcel Service said on Tuesday that it plans to cut up to 30,000 operational jobs this year.

And like Dow, Pinterest said this week that it was cutting jobs partially due to increased usage of AI.

Americans are feeling increasingly anxious about the odds of finding a job, or getting a better one. Economists have said that businesses are largely at a “no-hire, no fire” standstill. Hiring has stagnated overall — with the country adding a meager 50,000 jobs last month, down from a revised figure of 56,000 in November.

Rising operational costs have accompanied layoffs in some sectors, and business leaders cite rising costs, including those from President Donald Trump’s tariffs, as well as shifts in spending.

Consumer expectations for the U.S. economy has plummeted to its lowest level since 2014. That is occurring as some businesses reduce their workforces as they redirect money toward artificial intelligence, often baked into wider corporate restructuring.