By THALIA BEATY

Americans gave $4 billion to nonprofits on GivingTuesday in 2025, an increase from the $3.6 billion they gave in 2024, according to estimates from the nonprofit GivingTuesday.

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More people also volunteered their time on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving this year, which fell on Dec. 2 and has become a major fundraising day for nonprofits. This year, 11.1 million people in the U.S. volunteered, up from, 9.2 million last year.

GivingTuesday started in 2012 as a hashtag and a project of the 92nd St Y in New York and has since become an independent nonprofit. The organization estimates how much was given and how many people volunteer using data from a wide variety of sources, including giving platforms, payment processors and software applications that nonprofits use.

Woodrow Rosenbaum, the chief data officer for GivingTuesday, said both the number of people giving and the overall donation amount may have increased this year as people seek a sense of belonging and connection.

“Generosity is a really powerful way to get that,” Rosenbaum said in an interview with The Associated Press. “But I think mostly it’s just that when people see need, they want to do something about it and GivingTuesday is an opportunity to do that in a moment of celebration as opposed to crisis.”

Overall donations increased 8.1% from last year when adjusted for inflation. GivingTuesday has also seen the average donation increase in size over time and Rosenbaum said people may be seeking additional ways to give as well.

A person stocks their trolley with food from a One Love Community Fridge, Nov. 15, 2025, in Brooklyn, New York. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

“Volunteering is a way that you can add to your impact without it costing you money,” he said.

Not everyone who volunteers their time does so through a nonprofit. They may volunteer with mutual aid groups or by helping out family members or neighbors, he said.

GivingTuesday does not include donations from corporations or foundations in their estimate, Rosenbaum said, as they are focused on the everyday generosity of individuals. That means they did not include the gift from billionaires Michael and Susan Dell of $6.25 billion to encourage families to claim new investment accounts created by the Trump administration.

President Donald Trump hosted the Dells at the White House Tuesday, calling their commitment “one of the most generous acts in the history of our country.” The Dells will offer $250 to 25 million children 10 years old and younger to invest in accounts that the U.S. Department of Treasury will create next year. The “ Trump accounts ” were part of the administration’s tax and spending legislation passed in the summer.

A significant portion of charitable giving to nonprofits happens at the end of the calendar year and GivingTuesday is an informal kick off to what nonprofits think of as the giving season. A combination of economic and political uncertainty has meant it is hard to predict how generous donors will be this year. Rosenbaum said that the generosity demonstrated on GivingTuesday is an extremely encouraging bellwether for how the rest of the giving season will go.

“What we really hope is that nonprofits and community groups see this as an opportunity that we are in a moment of abundance and that people are ready and willing to help,” Rosenbaum said.

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday released never-before-seen photos and videos of Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous private island, offering what they called a “disturbing look” into the world of the late convicted sex offender.

The newly released material includes dozens of short videos and still photographs of the compound, including one showing a particularly bizarre room filled with an old-fashioned dental chair, Ikea-style metal cabinets and nearly a dozen caricature-like male face masks arranged irregularly on its walls.

An image released by House Democrats showing a bedroom at Jeffrey Epstein’s private Caribbean island estate. (Attorney General of the United States Virgin Islands)

Other images show a desktop computer displaying surveillance footage of the property; a bedroom in the compound; a shower room with several pillows; a room with a chalkboard with the words “power” and “deception” written on it; and a desk telephone with four names that appear to have been redacted.

An image released by House Democrats showing a bedroom at Jeffrey Epstein’s private Caribbean island estate. (Attorney General of the United States Virgin Islands)

Members of the Oversight Committee received the images in response to a Nov. 18 request to the U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Justice for information to aid the ongoing investigation into the disgraced financier, who died by suicide in his Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

“We are releasing these photos and videos to ensure public transparency in our investigation and to help piece together the full picture of Epstein’s horrific crimes,” said Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat in the committee.

The images offer a “harrowing look behind Epstein’s closed doors,” Oversight Democrats said on social media, inviting the public to “see for yourself.”

An image released by House Democrats showing a bathroom at Jeffrey Epstein’s private Caribbean island estate. (Attorney General of the United States Virgin Islands)

The committee also received records from J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank, lawmakers said, adding that those files will be reviewed and should be made available to the public “in the days ahead.”

“We won’t stop fighting until we deliver justice for the survivors,” Garcia said. “It’s time for President Trump to release all the files, now.”

An image released by House Democrats showing words on a chalkboard, some redacted by the House Democrats, in a room apparently being used as a library at Jeffrey Epstein’s private Caribbean island estate. (Attorney General of the United States Virgin Islands)

Last month, in a stunning show of bipartisanship, Democrats and Republicans in both chambers voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bill to force the Justice Department to release all of its unclassified files on Jeffrey Epstein within 30 days.

Trump signed the bill on Nov. 19, but it remains unclear how much of the files will be released to the public, as the Justice Department can withhold or redact certain information under the law’s provisions.

It’s gotten so bad for the Vikings lately that head coach Kevin O’Connell can no longer deny the reality.

O’Connell has been forced to look himself in the mirror over the past couple of weeks and come to terms with a simple fact — Minnesota has a bad offense in its current form.

After seemingly hitting rock bottom in a 23-6 loss to the Green Bay Packers, the Vikings somehow found a way to keep digging deeper in a 26-0 loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday. The only points the Vikings have scored in that span have come via a pair of lengthy field goals from kicker Will Reichard. They haven’t found the end zone since quarterback J.J. McCarthy threw a touchdown pass in the final minute of a 19-17 loss to the Chicago Bears three games ago.

The inability to push the ball down the field has been the biggest issue, whether it’s been McCarthy, veteran quarterback Carson Wentz, or rookie quarterback Max Brosmer starting under center.

“Obviously, our pass game has never really existed in a place where it wasn’t a Top-10 caliber in the league kind of pass game,” O’Connell said. “We are not that right now in any way, shape, or form.”

That has become very clear over the past couple of weeks, in particular, as the losses to the Packers and the Seahawks featured virtually no takeaways for the Vikings to feel good about as they walked off the field.

A deep dive into the numbers helps contextualize how historically bad this recent stretch has been for the Vikings from an offensive perspective. It’s as ugly as its ever been with O’Connell as the play caller.

The stats are damning in and of themselves, as the Vikings only gained 145 yards of total offense and 10 first downs in the loss the Packers, then followed it up by only gaining 162 yards of total offense and 11 first downs against the Seahawks.

The analytics are even worse, as the Vikings were abysmal in expected points added per play (EPA/play), which takes into account how much each play increased or decreased a team’s probability of scoring.

The data is incredibly jarring as the Vikings had an EPA/play of -0.43 in the loss to the Packers, and an EPA/play of -0.66 in the loss to the Seahawks.

To put that perspective, the Vikings had an EPA/play of -0.36 in last season’s playoff loss to the Los Angeles Rams, when veteran quarterback Sam Darnold was pressured on almost every dropback, and an EPA/play added of -0.34 in the unforgettable 33-10 loss to the Packers in late 2023, when young quarterback Jaren Hall started before being mercifully benched at halftime.

Some of the comically bad performances from the recent memory were only marginally worse than what the Vikings put on tape against the Seahawks, as the Denver Broncos had an EPA/play of -0.72 when they started undrafted receiver Kendall Hinton at quarterback for an entire game, and the Cleveland Browns had an EPA/play of -0.72 during a game in which they only gained 26 yards of total offense.

More context on the offensive struggles were added by popular NFL analytics expert Aaron Schatz, who created an advanced metric called DVOA, which analyzes a team’s efficiency by comparing its performance on every play to the league average for similar situations. In a post that has since gone viral on social media, Schatz illuminated that the Vikings legitimately played the worst offensive game in franchise history against the Seahawks.

“We just did not have the type of an offensive performance that is ever going to be acceptable,” O’Connell said after the game. “It’s a collective group thing right now, where we are just not good enough to overcome some of the things that we’re doing.”

If it looks similar against the Washington Commanders on Sunday afternoon at U.S. Bank Stadium, the Vikings will almost certainly hear from the home crowd. The frustration is slowly starting to reach a boiling point within the fan base.

“You want to provide them with reasons to cheer and reasons to be excited about their team,” O’Connell said. “Not always the easiest thing to do when we’re kind of having to transform what we are in our current state as an offense.”

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Alarmed at the prospect of losing their “Silver Sneakers” senior gym memberships at YMCAs and Life Time Fitness locations across the Twin Cities, more than 50 protestors took their concerns to the corporate headquarters of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota in Eagan to demand full reinstatement of their Medicare Advantage fitness benefits.

They were met with a receptive audience, said Terre Thomas, who co-organized the chilly Wednesday afternoon protest with Steve Brandt, a former Star Tribune reporter and elected member of the Minneapolis Board of Estimate and Taxation. The two were invited by Blue Cross to relocate the 30-minute picket — which featured a brief but coordinated step-tap dance number — from a grassy easement. The protest was held instead in the more expansive Blue Cross parking lot off Yankee Road.

Thomas and Brandt had met the day before with Dr. Mark Steffen, chief medical officer for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, alongside the insurer’s marketing, sales and Medicare Advantage staff. Thomas said the group walked them through a timeline of events that helped shape their understanding of the situation.

“There were a lot of people at the rally that said this is all about corporate greed,” Thomas said. “I don’t think that’s true. It’s math. … What they said is we want to listen to you and let us explain the numbers to you.”

Gym benefit

Through a two-year contract with third-party benefits administrator Tivity, which is based in Tennessee, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota this year had offered “Silver Sneakers” gym memberships to all 425,000 of its Medicare Advantage members. Of that number, up to 26,000 members had signed up for free gym memberships at Lifetime Fitness and YMCA of the North locations throughout the Twin Cities through what Tivity defined as its “premier level” of service.

Only about 11,000 seniors were active participants at those sites, Thomas said she was told, but the contract was priced “per head,” as the benefit had to be made available under the law to all members.

By June, Thomas said, Blue Cross Blue Shield had largely determined what benefits it would offer next year, only to later learn that UCare, the state’s nonprofit health plan, would terminate all of its Medicare Advantage contracts by 2026. While many UCare members will shift to Medica, some 100,000 to 150,000 UCare members have found their way to Blue Cross Blue Shield, unexpectedly increasing the Eagan-based insurer’s total number of Medicare Advantage members well above 500,000.

The cost of covering Tivity’s premier level of service had already increased considerably, before new members were added, Blue Cross Blue Shield officials told Thomas.

Potential work-arounds

Thomas said she presented with Blue Cross Blue Shield with some potential work-arounds aimed at subsidizing or otherwise negotiating affordable memberships at the YMCA and Life Time Fitness. Officials with the insurance provider said the earliest any of those could be implemented would be 2027.

The YMCA has offered “Silver Sneakers” members impacted by the UCare and Blue Cross Blue Shield situation discounted rates of $49 per person, down from $77, and $79 per couple, down from $110.

Blue Cross Blue Shield Medicare Advantage members may still access more than 200 alternate gym sites throughout the Twin Cities, as well as Life Time and YMCA sites outside the metro, though many boutique gyms and nursing home-based facilities offer limited hours, do not have swimming pools and host just a handful of senior classes per week.

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“The evidence of the health benefits of exercise cannot be overstated,” said Dr. A. Mark Fendrick, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan whose research specializes in the healthcare insurance marketplace.

“Every study of cognitive health to to cardiovascular health to cancer survivorship to mental health shows regular exercise improves outcomes,” Fendrick said. “More is always better.”