By DAVID KLEPPER

WASHINGTON (AP) — After a little less than a year, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is ending the work of a task force she created to look at big changes to the U.S. intelligence community.

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The panel known as the Director’s Initiative Group was formed in April and charged with rooting out what Gabbard called the politicization of intelligence gathering. The group also studied ways to reduce spending on intelligence and whether reports on high-profile topics like COVID-19 should be declassified.

The group became a lightning rod for criticism of Gabbard, with Democrats and some intelligence insiders questioning whether it would be used to weaken spy agencies and bring them under the control of President Donald Trump.

In announcing the end of the group’s work Wednesday, Gabbard said it was always intended to be a temporary effort as she began her work overseeing coordination of the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies. Reuters first reported the winddown.

“In less than one year, we’ve brought a historic level of transparency to the intelligence community,” Gabbard said in a statement. “My commitment to transparency, truth, and eliminating politicization and weaponization within the intelligence community remains central to all that we do.”

The number and identities of the officers assigned to the group is classified, Gabbard’s office said, adding that they now will return to other agencies to continue the work begun by the group.

Gabbard has ushered in big changes to America’s intelligence service, at times using the nation’s spy agencies to back up Trump’s conspiracy theories about the 2016 and 2020 elections.

Under Gabbard, the government has revoked the security clearances of dozens of former and current officials as well as declassified documents meant to call into question long-settled judgments about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Her presence at an FBI search of a Georgia election office related to the 2020 election has prompted criticism from Democrats who say she is blurring the traditional lines between foreign intelligence gathering and domestic law enforcement.

The CIA also released more information about its investigations into the origins of COVID-19, including a new assessment released last year that found COVID most likely originated in a lab.

In August, Gabbard announced plans to reduce the workforce at her office and trim more than $700 million from its annual budget. In May, she fired two top intelligence officials because she determined they opposed Trump.

By KEVIN FREKING, MARY CLARE JALONICK and SEUNG MIN KIM

WASHINGTON (AP) — A disruption in reimbursements to states for disaster relief costs. Delays in cybersecurity response and training. And missed paychecks for the agents who screen passengers and bags at the nation’s airports, which could lead to unscheduled absences and longer wait times for travelers.

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Those were just some of the potential ramifications of a looming funding lapse at the Department of Homeland Security, according to officials who testified before a House panel on Wednesday.

Congress has approved full-year funding for the vast majority of the federal government, but it only passed a short-term funding patch for the Department of Homeland Security that extends through Friday. In response to the killing of two American citizens in Minneapolis and other incidents, Democrats have insisted that any funding bill for the department come with changes to immigration enforcement operations.

Finding agreement on the issue of immigration enforcement will be exceedingly difficult. But even though lawmakers in both parties were skeptical, a White House official said that the administration was having constructive talks with both Republicans and Democrats. The official, granted anonymity to speak about ongoing deliberations, stressed that President Donald Trump wanted the government to remain open and for Homeland Security services to be funded.

Meanwhile, Republicans are emphasizing that a Homeland Security shutdown would not curtail the work of the agencies Democrats are most concerned about. Trump’s tax and spending cut bill passed last year gave Immigration and Customs Enforcement about $75 billion to expand detention capacity and beef up enforcement operations.

“Removal operations will continue. Wall construction will continue,” said Rep. Mark Amodei, the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on Homeland Security.

Rather, agencies such as the Transportation Security Administration, the Secret Service, Coast Guard and Federal Emergency Management Agency would take the biggest hit, he said. Officials from those agencies appeared before the House subcommittee to explain the potential impact of a Homeland Security shutdown.

Rep. Henry Cuellar, the ranking Democrat on the panel, said the tragic loss of two American citizens in Minneapolis — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — should concern every lawmaker. He said that strong borders and a respect for human life are not competing values.

“When enforcement actions lead to outcomes like that, we have an obligation to ask the hard question and to make sure our laws and policies are working as intended,” Cuellar said.

He said on Homeland Security funding that “we were almost there. We were there, Democrats and Republicans and everybody, but the second shooting brought different dynamics. I think we can get there to address that.”

Essential work continues

About 90% of the department’s employees would continue working in a shutdown, but they would do so without pay. Vice Admiral Thomas Allan of the U.S. Coast Guard said law enforcement and emergency response missions continue during a shutdown, but that the possibility of missed paychecks creates significant financial hardships.

“Shutdowns cripple morale and directly harm our ability to recruit and retain the talented Americans we need to meet growing demands,” Allan said.

Ha Nguyen McNeill of the Transportation Security Administration shared a similar concern. She estimated about 95% of the agency’s 61,000 workers would continue to work, but potentially go without a paycheck depending upon the length of a shutdown. She noted that they just went through a lengthy shutdown last fall.

“We heard reports of officers sleeping in their cars at airports to save money on gas, selling their blood and plasma and taking on second jobs to make ends meet,” she said. “…Some are just recovering from the financial impact of the 43-day shutdown. Many are still reeling from it. We cannot put them through another such experience.”

Homeland Security also includes the agency charged with working to protect the public and private sector from a broad range of cyber threats. Madhu Gottumukkala, acting director of that agency, said a shutdown would “degrade our capacity to provide timely and actionable guidance to help partners defend their networks.”

“I want to be clear, when the government shuts down, cyber threats do not,” he said.

Long-term impact

Gregg Phillips, an associated administrator at FEMA, said its disaster relief fund has sufficient balances to continue emergency response activities during a shutdown, but would become seriously strained in the event of a catastrophic disaster. He said that while the agency continues to respond to threats like flooding and winter storms, long-term planning and coordination with state and local partners is “irrevocably impacted.”

For example, he said a lapse would disrupt training for first responders at the National Disaster & Emergency Management University in Maryland.

“The import of these trainings cannot be measured,” Phillips said. “And their absence will be felt in our local communities.”

At the Secret Service, “the casual observer will see no difference,” said Matthew Quinn, the agency’s deputy director. But he said reform efforts taking place at the Secret Service are affected.

“Delayed contracts, diminished hiring and halted new programs will be the result,” Quinn said.

After joining Minnesota United late last summer, higher-priced signing Dominik Fitz barely played during the Loons’ final stretch of the regular season and in the club’s deeper run in the MLS Cup Playoffs. And the 2026 preseason is off to an even slow start for the Austrian attacking midfielder.

Fitz has been sidelined with an undisclosed “medical condition,” according to the club, and he will not participate in any of the three preseason games at the Coachella Valley Invitational. Instead of training with the first team in Indio, Calif., Fitz has remained in Minnesota to train with the club’s staff and with its developmental tournament, MNUFC2, according to head coach Cam Knowles on Tuesday.

“We are hopeful. It’s sounding good,” Knowles said. “It looks like he should be back in full training with us next week.”

That late-stage reintroduction to practice, however, will put Fitz’s involvement in MNUFC’s season opener in doubt. The Loons kickoff the new campaign Feb. 21 at Austin FC, with the home opener Feb. 28 vs. FC Cincinnati at Allianz Field.

Fitz joined MNUFC from Austria Wien in the Austrian Bundesliga in September for a guaranteed compensation of $853,000, per the MLS Players’ Association. But the attacker did not register a goal nor assist in seven total appearances with Minnesota in 2025.

Fitz did not ingratiate himself to former head coach Eric Ramsay, and Fitz did not play in any of the three first-round playoff matches against Seattle Sounders. He subbed on for seven minutes late in the 1-0 loss to San Diego FC in the Western Conference semifinals in November.

Right back?

The Loons have a glaring roster need at right back.

After Ramsay primarily used Bongi Hlongwane in that role last season, Knowles has returned the South African into attacking positions, leaving a void on the right side of defense.

In the 3-0 win over Sporting Kansas City last Saturday, the Loons moved center back Jefferson Diaz out wide to right back. “I thought he did well the other day,” Knowles said.

On Wednesday against D.C. United, Knowles said he planned to use center back/midfielder Carlos Harvey in that spot. Against Charlotte, the Loons will probably put backup right back DJ Taylor in that spot. Taylor subbed in for Diaz against Sporting last weekend.

“We are trying to see first of all what we got here and see if we need to make any changes in that or if we need to sort of change the system a little bit,” Knowles said.

Those three options can be serviceable, but won’t raise the club’s ceiling at the position over the long-term.

Briefly

Loons attacker Tomas Chancalay and defender Jefferson Diaz are currently away from the team sorting out their U.S. Green Cards. Their involvement vs. Charlotte is questionable. … MNUFC attackers James Rodriguez, Mauricio Gonzales and Marcus Caldeira are still pursuing work visas. … Ramsay remains winless in leading West Bromwich Albion after a 0-0 draw with Birmingham on Tuesday. Ramsay’s new side is 0-3-3 and sit only two points above the relegation zone in England’s second division. West Brom have managed only three goals and have a minus-9 goal differential.

By TRAVIS LOLLER

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Highlights from a trove of more than 200 love letters that tell the story of a couple’s courtship and marriage during World War II are now on display digitally through the Nashville Public Library, offering an intimate picture of love during wartime.

In this digital scan of an undated photo provided by The Nashville Public Library, William Raymond Whittaker, left, and his wife Jane Dean Whittaker stand for a photo in Nashville, Tenn. (The Nashville Public Library via AP)

The letters by William Raymond Whittaker and Jane Dean were found in a Nashville home that had belonged to Jane and her siblings. They were donated in 2016 to the Metro Nashville Archives.

Whittaker, who went by Ray, was from New Rochelle, New York. He moved to the Tennessee capital to attend the historically Black Meharry Medical College, according to the library’s metropolitan archivist, Kelley Sirko. That’s where he met and dated Jane, another student at the college.

The pair lost touch when Ray left Nashville. In the summer of 1942 he was drafted into the Army. Stationed at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, he decided to reestablish contact with Jane, who was then working as a medical lab technician at Vanderbilt University.

A ‘pleasant and sad surprise’

The library doesn’t have Ray’s first letter to Jane, but it does have her reply. She greets him somewhat formally as “Dear Wm R.”

“It sure was a pleasant and sad surprise to hear from you,” she writes on July 30, 1942. “Pleasant because you will always hold a place in my heart and its nice to know you think of me once in a while. Sad because you are in the armed forces — maybe I shouldn’t say that but war is so uncertain, however I’m proud to know that you are doing your bit for your country.”

Jane then goes on to list — perhaps as a hint? — a string of mutual acquaintances who have gotten married recently, noting those who have had children or are rumored to be having children. She signs off, “Write, wire or call me real soon — Lovingly Jane.”

A story told in letters

“You can’t help but smile when you read through these letters,” Sirko said. “You really can’t. And this was just such an intimate look at two regular people during a really complicated time in our history.”

Sirko said Nashville archivists have not been able to locate any living relatives of Ray and Jane, so most of what they know about them is from the letters. The couple did not have any children, according to an obituary for Ray, who died in Nashville in 1989.

The donation also included a few photographs and Ray’s patch from the historically Black fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha.

Beyond a love story, the collection gives “this in-the-moment perspective of … what it’s like just navigating certain racial issues, certain gender issues, their work, the life of a soldier, all of these things,” Sirko said. That’s why the archivists wanted to make it more accessible to the public.

Pictures of William Raymond Whittaker and his wife, Jane Dean Whittaker, are on top of letters the two of them wrote to each other while he was serving in the military, photographed Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Kristin M. Hall)

Love and doubts

Just two months after the first letters, the romance has heated up. Ray has been assigned to Fort McClellan in Alabama, where he will help organize the reactivated — and segregated — 92nd Infantry Division, which went on to see combat in Europe.

In an undated letter from September 1942, he tells Jane, “I have something very important to tell you when I do see you and you will be surprise to know as to what it is.

“I might even ask you to marry me. One never knows.”

He teases her by saying that if he goes to officer training school, he will be able to “draw down a fat juicey salary” — about $280 a month if he is married and $175 if single.

“Really I can’t leave my excess amount of money to the government and must have someone to help me spend it,” he writes.

At first Jane is skeptical. “What makes you think you still love me?” she asks on Sept. 23. “Is it that you are lonesome and a long way from home. I’m sure I want you to love me but not under those conditions.”

A Sept. 24 letter from Ray is more serious. “Events are changing so rapidly these days that one can’t really plan for the future. But I am going to make a decisive decision in matters of most importances,” he writes.

Ray says that he had thought he and Jane could not be together because they lived so far apart. He says he dated other women but “I didn’t find the companionship and love that I so dearly wanted to find. All I ran into was trouble and more trouble.”

A letter from a soldier assigned to the 92nd Infantry Division, an all-Black military unit during World War II, to his wife in Nashville is seen Monday, Feb. 9, 2026 in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Kristin M. Hall)

A ‘darling husband’

Soon Ray wins her over, and they are married on Nov. 7 in Birmingham.

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In a letter from Nov. 9, Jane addresses Ray as “my darling husband.” She is rapturous about the marriage but sad that the couple has to remain apart for now. She has already returned to her job and family in Nashville while he has returned to the Army base.

“It’s a wonderful thing to have such and sweet and lovely husband. Darling you’ll never know how much I love you. The only regret is that we didn’t marry years ago… As it is now things are so uncertain and we are not together but such a few happy hours. But maybe this old war will soon be over and we can be together for always.”

She concludes, “Darling be sweet and write to me soon. I want a letter from my husband. Remember I’ll always love you. Always — from Your Wife”