By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — A planned Christmas Eve jazz concert at the Kennedy Center, a holiday tradition dating back more than 20 years, has been canceled. The show’s host, musician Chuck Redd, says that he called off the performance in the wake of the White House announcing last week that President Donald Trump’s name would be added to the facility.

As of last Friday, the building’s facade reads The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. According to the White House, the president’s handpicked board approved the decision, which scholars have said violates the law. Trump had been suggesting for months he was open to changing the center’s name.

“When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert,” Redd told The Associated Press in an email Wednesday. Redd, a drummer and vibraphone player who has toured with everyone from Dizzy Gillespie to Ray Brown, has been presiding over holiday “Jazz Jams” at the Kennedy Center since 2006, succeeding bassist William “Keter” Betts.

The Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to email seeking comment. The center’s website lists the show as canceled.

President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and Congress passed a law the following year naming the center as a living memorial to him. Kennedy niece Kerry Kennedy has vowed to remove Trump’s name from the building once he leaves office and former House historian Ray Smock is among those who say any changes would have to be approved by Congress.

The law explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else, and from putting another person’s name on the building’s exterior.

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Trump, a Republican, has been deeply involved with the center named for an iconic Democrat after mostly ignoring it during his first term. He has forced out its leadership, overhauled the board while arranging for himself to head it, and personally hosted this year’s Kennedy Center honors, breaking a long tradition of presidents mostly serving as spectators. The changes at the Kennedy Center are part of the president’s larger mission to fight “woke” culture at federal cultural institutions.

Numerous artists have called off Kennedy Center performances since Trump returned to office, including Issa Rae and Peter Wolf. Lin-Manuel Miranda canceled a planned production of “Hamilton.”

Tim Pawlenty was the last Republican to win statewide office after he was re-elected to his second term as Minnesota’s governor in 2006.

The former governor thinks 2026 might be Minnesota Republicans’ “best chance” to achieve the same feat 20 years later, he told Forum News Service in November.

The GOP race is crowded, with MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, House Speaker Lisa Demuth, state Rep. Kristin Robbins, attorney Chris Madel, and previous gubernatorial candidates Kendall Qualls and physician Scott Jensen.

“The 2026 elections are the best chance for Republicans to win statewide here in a long time. Those chances will be impacted by (President Donald) Trump and (Gov. Tim) Walz’s popularity a year from now, the state of the economy, whether key consumer items are affordable, the quality of our candidates, and the growing sense things are off track in Minnesota,” Pawlenty wrote in an email.

‘Political climate more polarized’

Last year, a few Republicans and former Republicans declared themselves in support of former Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

Pawlenty was not one of them, but when asked to reflect on the “Republicans for Harris wave,” he said, “If you haven’t closed a sale with your product in nearly 20 years, it’s long past the time to get a better product, better marketing, or both.”

Pawlenty said he thinks Republicans currently in office have done a good job addressing “concerns about illegal immigration, crime, out-of-control wokeness and more,” but that more efforts are needed toward affordability.

“Almost nothing stays the same in politics for long, and recent changes have featured MAGA taking over the Republican Party and socialists taking over the Democratic Party. The political climate is now markedly more polarized than when I was governor,” he wrote.

During his tenure, Pawlenty focused on not raising taxes. He turned a budget deficit into a surplus — that later turned into a budget deficit. He passed a concealed carry law, and oversaw major infrastructure projects like the Northstar Commuter Rail and Target Field.

Before he was governor, he served 10 years in the Minnesota Legislature. He also had an unsuccessful run for the 2012 Republican nomination for president in 2010. He finished second to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be U.S. Sen. John McCain’s presidential running mate in 2008. Pawlenty sought a third term as governor in 2018 but lost the Republican primary to Jeff Johnson.

‘A chilling effect on our discourse’

Now, Pawlenty serves on various boards, periodically writes and speaks about policy and politics, and sometimes appears on cable news shows.

Two of those appearances were on Twin Cities-based KARE 11 in the wake of the June 14 Minnesota lawmaker shootings.

In one appearance on June 18, he provided context on misinformation regarding the appointment of accused assassin Vance Boelter to a government board. In another appearance on June 14, he said Minnesota’s “civic and political fabric seems to be so torn.”

“It’s going to have a chilling effect on our discourse, on our political leaders, but importantly, also their families,” Pawlenty said on KARE 11. “Can you imagine being the child or a spouse, a significant other, of a political leader in this environment — every time you open the door, every time you go to the grocery store, you don’t know who is just going to question you or who might harm you?”

Fraud cases

On Dec. 5, he weighed in on Minnesota’s fraud investigations and the rhetoric about Minnesota’s Somali community that has followed.

“Over 80 people have been charged … criminally for that fraud, and the vast majority of almost all of them are, in fact, Somali,” he said on News Nation. “So we don’t want to stigmatize any group because they belong to an ethnic group or another group, but we also don’t want to excuse illegal behavior or misconduct because they’re in that group.”

When asked about how the current administration has handled the issue, Pawlenty responded, “There’s no question … that the early signals around this fraud were ignored.”

When Forum News Service asked what’s ahead for him, Pawlenty didn’t rule out all elected office but did comment on one 2026 race.

“While I’ve been asked to run for the U.S. Senate, I don’t think I could win my party’s endorsement at the convention or in a primary because I guess I’m now viewed as too ‘mainstream’ — which I find kinda funny,” he wrote.

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By MARLON GONZÁLEZ and MEGAN JANETSKY

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Trump-backed candidate Nasry Asfura won Honduras’ presidential election, electoral authorities said Wednesday afternoon, ending a weeks-long count that has whittled away at the credibility of the Central American nation’s fragile electoral system.

The election is continuing Latin America’s swing to the right, coming just a week after Chile chose the far-right politician José Antonio Kast as its next president.

Asfura, of the conservative National Party received 40.27% of the vote in the Nov. 30, edging out four-time candidate Salvador Nasralla of the conservative Liberal Party, who finished with 39.53% of the vote.

Asfura, the former mayor of Honduras’ capital Tegucigalpa, won in his second bid for the presidency, after he and Nasralla were neck-and-neck during a weeks-long vote count that fueled international concern.

On Tuesday night a number of electoral officials and candidates were already fighting and contesting the results of the election. Meanwhile, followers in Asfura’s campaign headquarters erupted into cheers.

“Honduras: I am prepared to govern,” wrote Asfura in a post on X shortly after the results were released. “I will not let you down.”

The results were a rebuke of the current leftist leader, and her governing democratic socialist Liberty and Re-foundation Party, known as LIBRE, whose candidate finished in a distant third place with 19.19% of the vote.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated Asfura on Wednesday, writing on a post on X: “The people of Honduras have spoken … (the Trump administration) looks forward to working with his administration to advance prosperity and security in our hemisphere.”

A number of right-leading leaders across Latin America, namely Trump-ally Argentine President Javier Milei, also congratulated the politician.

Asfura ran as a pragmatic politician, pointing to his popular infrastructure projects in the capital. Trump endorsed the 67-year-old conservative just days before the vote, saying he was the only Honduran candidate the U.S. administration would work with.

Nasralla has maintained that the election was fraudulent and called for a recount of all the votes just hours before the official results were announced.

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On Tuesday night, he addressed Trump in a post on X, writing: “Mr. President, your endorsed candidate in Honduras is complicit in silencing the votes of our citizens. If he is truly worthy of your backing, if his hands are clean, if he has nothing to fear, then why doesn’t he allow for every vote to be counted?”

He and others opponents of Asfura have maintained that Trump’s last-minute endorsement was an act of electoral interference that ultimately swung the results of the vote.

The unexpectedly tumultuous election was also marred by a sluggish vote count, which fueled even more accusations.

The Central American nation was stuck in limbo for more than three weeks as vote counting by electoral authorities lagged, and at one point was paralyzed after a special count of final vote tallies was called, fueling warnings by international leaders.

Ahead of the announcement, Organization of American States Secretary General Albert Rambin on Monday made an “urgent call” to Honduran authorities to wrap up a special count of the final votes before a deadline of Dec. 30. The Trump administration warned that any attempts to obstruct or delay the electoral count would be met with “consequences.”

For the incumbent, progressive President Xiomara Castro, the election marked a political reckoning. She was elected in 2021 on a promise to reduce violence and root out corruption.

She was among a group of progressive leaders in Latin American who were elected on a hopeful message of change in around five years ago but are now being cast out after failing to deliver on their vision. Castro said last week that she would accept the results of the elections even after she claimed that Trump’s actions in the election amounted to an “electoral coup.”

But Eric Olson, an independent international observer during the Honduran election with the Seattle International Foundation, and other observers said the rejection of Castro and her party was so definitive that they had little room to contest the results.

“Very few people, even within LIBRE, believe they won the election. What they will say is there’s been fraud, that there has been intervention by Donald Trump, that we we should tear up the elections and vote again,” Olson said. “But they’re not saying ‘we won the elections.’ It’s pretty clear they did not.”

Janetsky reported from Mexico City.

There are two types of people in this world: those who buy pre-cut Christmas trees and those who insist on cutting their own. Years ago, my wife and I — in a fit of romantic optimism — decided to be the latter. “It’ll be fun,” she said, which in marriage always translates to: You’ll be cold, bleeding, and swearing while I supervise from the heated front seat and occasionally point out flaws in your technique.

Cutting your own tree sounds idyllic — something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Except Rockwell never showed the part where you’re ankle-deep in snow, sawing through frozen bark with a blade so dull it might as well be a butter knife, realizing the “perfect tree” your spouse spotted from the road is growing at a 45-degree angle behind a swamp that smells faintly of decayed muskrat and dirty socks. Around minute 42, you start to envy the people at Menards who simply point at a tree, pay for it, and drive home with nothing worse than a receipt crumpled in their glove box.

By the time I got ours down, I was too numb to feel triumphant. I carried it out of the woods like a fallen comrade — covered in sap, needles, and regret. On the drive home, it was strapped to the roof like a 12-point buck on opening day. All we were missing were blaze-orange hats and someone yelling, “Nice one, fellas!” from a passing truck. Hunters mount their trophies on the wall; we drag ours into the living room, water it twice a day, and let the dog pee on it when we’re not looking.

Some families make it a tradition — heading out the Friday after Thanksgiving, still digesting the pumpkin pie, dressed in matching flannel like a Hallmark militia. Others wait until mid-December, claiming they want it “fresh.” These are the people who, by December 20th, are left picking through the misfits — the trees that lean, shed, and look like they’ve been through a divorce. They’ll say, “We wanted something smaller this year,” as if that was ever the plan.

Go too early, and your tree’s a dried-out skeleton by Christmas Eve. Go too late, and you’re stuck with a shrub that smells faintly of dead needles and despair. Somewhere in between lies the sweet spot — that one weekend when the air is crisp, the selection is decent, and your relationship has enough structural integrity left to survive an argument about symmetry.

Getting the tree into our 1950s tripod stand — the one passed down from my parents — is another holiday ordeal. It’s a medieval torture device of rust, wingnuts, and misplaced hope. Every year I lose a little more skin off my knuckles while someone behind me says, “A little more to the left!” as if we’re docking the Titanic and not installing a fir tree in the living room.

When it finally stands upright — or at least appears to — comes the ancient marital ritual known as The Tree Leaning Argument. “How’s that?” I ask. “It’s leaning,” she says. I rotate it. “Now?” “Still leaning.” After 15 minutes, the tree looks fine, but I’m at a 30-degree tilt.

Then comes decorating. The lights, neatly coiled last January, have evolved into a glowing knot of holiday resentment. I spend half an hour untangling them while whispering things that would make an elf blush. Half the ornaments have lost their hooks, so we hang them by static electricity and pure faith.

And tinsel — remember tinsel? Nobody uses it anymore. It’s been replaced by garland, ribbon, and something called flock with some existential dread sprinkled in. I miss tinsel. Cheap, shiny, unapologetically messy — the glitter of the lower middle class. It made the house sparkle and the vacuum cry.

Every year, someone swears sugar water will keep the tree alive. Others insist on aspirin or Sprite. I’ve tried them all. One year I added brandy. The tree didn’t last longer, but I swear the thing looked tipsy by Christmas Eve. Nothing says “holiday spirit” like a slightly buzzed Fraser fir tree leaning against the wall, humming “Silent Night” around midnight.

And then there’s the topper — the holy grail of Christmas frustration. You can get everything else just right, but that star or angel will always lean. You twist it, adjust it, step back, and somehow it leans more. Like it’s mocking you from above. Eventually, you accept it — the Leaning Star of Christmas. It works for the Leaning Tower of Pisa, so why not ours? Then you pour yourself some eggnog, heavy on the “nog.”

As for when to take it down, that’s another cultural divide. Some do it the morning after Christmas, efficient and soulless, as if joy has an 11 a.m. checkout time. Others — like us — wait until the needles form their own carpet. “It still has some green,” I tell myself every February, as if that were a valid metric for life or foliage. By March, it’s less a tree and more a roommate who refuses to move out.

Eventually, I drag it to the curb, around the same time the tulips start to bloom — still shedding needles, and whatever’s left of my dignity. And yet, in eight short months, when December rolls around, there I am again: standing in a lot, arguing over fullness, swearing this year will be different.

Because in Minnesota, tradition isn’t about perfection. It’s about frostbite, sap in your hair, and a drunk Christmas tree with a crooked star that somehow — against all odds — makes everything feel right.

Mark Glende, Rosemount, is an elementary school custodian. “I write about real-life stories with a slight twist of humor,” he says. “I’m not smart enough to make this stuff up.”

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