By COLLIN BINKLEY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has concluded that San Jose State University discriminated against women by letting a transgender athlete play on the women’s volleyball team, the U.S. Education Department said Wednesday.

The department offered San Jose State a deal that would resolve the case. The university, located in California, would have to accept the administration’s definition of “male” and “female,” restore titles and records that Trump officials say were “misappropriated by male athletes,” and issue an apology to female athletes.

University officials did not immediately comment.

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The department has taken action against a series of states, schools and colleges that allow transgender athletes, something President Donald Trump has promised to end. If San Jose State rejects the proposed deal, it could face a Justice Department lawsuit and risk losing federal funding.

The investigation into San Jose State was opened in February alongside a similar one at the University of Pennsylvania. Penn later agreed to a deal similar to the one being offered to San Jose State, modifying school records set by transgender swimmer Lia Thomas and apologizing to other athletes on the swim team.

Department officials said San Jose State violated Title IX, a 1972 gender equity law, by allowing a transgender athlete on the team and for allegedly retaliating against players who condemned the decision.

“We will not relent until SJSU is held to account for these abuses and commits to upholding Title IX to protect future athletes from the same indignities,” Kimberly Richey, assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Department, said in a statement.

San Jose State’s volleyball team attracted national attention after nine players on the women’s volleyball team filed a lawsuit challenging the league’s policies allowing transgender athletes to compete. The players argued that it’s unfair and poses a safety risk.

Several teams refused to play against San Jose State, earning losses.

San Jose State has not confirmed that its volleyball team had a transgender player.

As part of the deal proposed by the administration, San Jose State would have to send a personalized apology to every woman who played on the women’s indoor volleyball team from 2022 through 2024 and on the 2023 beach volleyball team, and to any woman who forfeited rather than play San Jose State.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

By COLLEEN BARRY

MILAN (AP) — Italy’s Ladin minority settled a millennium ago in the Dolomite mountain hamlet of Anpezo — now the two-time Olympic host city of Cortina d’Ampezzo. But members of this ancient ethnolinguistic group are disappointed that the Winter Games will not spotlight their culture.

Instead, Ladins will wave their flag themselves, both figuratively and literally, with a series of initiatives sharing their identity with visitors — and not just in Cortina, but across all of Ladinia, the Ladin-speaking region that spans five Dolomite valleys and three of Italy’s four Olympic territories.

FILE- Clouds hang over the ‘Seceda’ Dolomites mountain, 2519 meters, near Ortisei val Gardena, (St. Ulrich in Groeden) in northern Italian province of South Tyrol, Italy, June 28, 2021. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)

Ladin leaders expected Milan Cortina Olympics organizers would reach out to feature their language and traditions that exist only in Italy, just as organizers have done in previous host cities, from Lillehammer to Beijing.

When they didn’t, mayors of all 17 Ladin towns sent a letter soliciting that representation, but received no reply.

“We are cut out, as if we don’t exist,” said Elsa Zardini, head of the Ladin community in Cortina.

Half of Cortina’s population is Ladin

Wood carvers and stewards of the forest, Ladins have lived in the Dolomites for 2,000 years. Their legends include the story of Laurin, king of the dwarfs, whose curse is said to have bestowed the region’s dramatic pale limestone peaks with their pinkish sunset glow. For religious ceremonies, they wear traditional costumes including colorful dresses and headpieces for women.

Ladin is a Romance language, formed when the Latin of Roman conquerors blended with ancient Rhaetic. The U.N.’s cultural agency lists it as endangered, with just 35,000 speakers. About 2,500 of them live in Cortina, half the town’s population. Its mayor is half Ladin; his mother, from Genoa, didn’t want him to learn Ladin for fear it would interfere with his Italian.

The map shows the Ladin community spread across the Dolomites . (AP Digital Embed)

Ladinia spans three of the four territories hosting the Games: Veneto, home to Cortina, which will host curling, sliding and women’s Alpine skiing, as well as the autonomous provinces of Alto Adige and Trentino, which are hosting biathlon, cross-country skiing, ski jumping and Nordic combined.

Slalom skier Alex Vinatzer, competing in these Games, is Ladin. So is former Olympic figure skater Carolina Kostner, who won bronze in 2014, and downhill skier Kristian Ghedina, a five-time Olympian.

Excluded from the opening ceremony

When Ghedina went to Lillehammer in 1994 to compete in the Winter Games, the Artic Sami people featured in the opening ceremony. In Sydney in 2000, Indigenous Australian Cathy Freeman lit the caldron. And four years ago, Beijing — even with its record of suppressing some ethnic groups — showcased all of China’s 54 ethnic minorities.

In this undated handout photo, people carry a traditional Ladin flag during a parade through the streets of Cortina D’Ampezzo, northern Italy, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (ULdA, Ampezzo Ladin Union via AP)

But Milan Cortina’s 2 1/2-hour opening ceremony on Feb. 6 will not include the Ladins, local organizers confirmed, but will celebrate Italian beauty and culture, including fashion, design and music.

“We want to celebrate those elements that have been exported all over the world,” the opening ceremony’s creative director Marco Balich told The Associated Press.

Even before this perceived slight, the Games were a sore spot for the Ladins of Cortina.

The 1956 Olympics went a long way toward propelling the once-Ladin majority town into a luxury resort replete with luxury fashion boutiques. Today, Ladins struggle to hang on to inherited property due to the increased value and the corresponding inheritance tax. Many young Ladin families move away — tearing at the cultural fabric.

At the official Olympic events, both in Cortina before the Games begin, Ladins will enjoy just two appearances.

The Runcac chapel is seen in San Vigilio di Marebbe, northern Italy, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Nicole Winfield)

A pair in traditional dress were on hand for the arrival of the Olympic torch on Monday, invited by the town. However, they didn’t appear in any images shared by the local organizing committee. And before the Olympic opening ceremony, a small group of costumed Ladins will parade through Cortina — footage that will not be broadcast with the main ceremony, which will reach millions across the globe, local organizers told the AP.

“It’s really not much. Yes, there will be someone in our costume, our costumes will be seen,” said Zardini, the president of Cortina’s Ladin association. “We had other goals, to highlight that we are a linguistic minority and to explain our culture, but that is not the case.”

Shining their own spotlight

That left Ladins to find other ways to raise their own profile.

Zardini is handing out Ladin flags — their azure, white and green colors representing the sky, snow and meadows of their mountain landscapes — to anyone wishing to display one during the Games. Her initiative has spread to neighboring South Tyrol and Trentino provinces.

“It isn’t so much a protest as a welcome, so visitors realize that a people living here speaks a certain language and has its own traditions,” she said. “That is our intention. And then, some have of course displayed it in protest.”

An umbrella group for six Ladin communities has prepared mini-dictionaries of Ladin terms translated into five languages for Olympic visitors, its president, Roland Verra, told the AP.

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“Nief” means snow and, for the more adventurous, Winter Games is “Juesc Olimpics da d’ivern.”

The group, the General Ladin Union of the Dolomites, also produced a video in Ladin, with English subtitles, explaining the Ladins’ history — from Roman conquest to Germanic invaders, the Napoleonic wars, up to 1919, when their region became part of Italy. It will be shown on a loop in front of Cortina’s Town Hall.

In Trentino, Ladins are preparing an event featuring Ladin music and literature, and hoping tourists turn up.

“This is a great opportunity to represent the ancient legends that would certainly be very well seen, very spectacular,” Verra said.

It wasn’t all that long ago that Edouard Julien was putting together an impressive rookie campaign and looked as if he would be an important piece of the Twins’ core moving forward. Julien finished seventh in Rookie of the Year voting for a 2023 season in which he hit .263 with a .839 OPS, boosted in part by his .381 on-base percentage and 16 home runs.

But he was never able to replicate that level of performance, and on Wednesday his Twins tenure came to an end when he was traded, alongside recently designated-for-assignment pitcher Pierson Ohl, to the Colorado Rockies for minor league pitcher Jace Kaminska and cash.

Julien spent last season up and down between the majors and minors, finishing the year hitting .220 with an OPS+ that was 24 percent worse than the league-average hitter.

While Julien played some first and mostly second, he was a below-average defender, and his fit on the roster was in question with others ahead of him on the depth chart at those positions. He also was out of options, meaning the Twins would have had to carry him on their major league roster or expose him to waivers.

Both Ohl and catcher Jhonny Pereda, whom the Twins sent to the Seattle Mariners on Tuesday for cash considerations, had been designated for assignment to make room on the 40-man roster for newly-signed reliever Taylor Rogers and catcher Victor Caratini.

Kaminska, a 24-year-old right-handed pitcher, spent last season at Single-A, where he pitched to a 2.78 earned-run average in 17 games (16 starts). He was a 10th-round pick in the 2023 draft. With the move, the Twins’ 40-man roster now sits at 39.

Keaschall progressing

Luke Keaschall spent his second straight winter rehabbing from a surgical procedure.

This time around, though, it was a much easier recovery. Keaschall suffered a thumb sprain in the final week of last season, necessitating a surgery just days later. Keaschall spent the early days of the offseason getting range of motion back and strengthening the finger before quickly getting back into baseball activity.

“I’m excited to be able to into (the season) healthy and be able to get ready for a season like a normal player and compete,” Keaschall said.

Keaschall underwent Tommy John surgery in August 2024 to repair his ulnar collateral ligament, which limited him to strictly second base last season as he was building back his arm strength and took the outfield, which he had played in the minors, out of the picture.

Now fully healthy, that could change this season.

“Playing baseball a year and a half out of TJ is going to be a little bit easier than playing six months out of TJ,” he said. “My arm’s going to be a little bit more comfortable, a little smoother, and more confident in my throwing 100 percent than I was last year. … I’m a ballplayer. I’ll play wherever you want me to play. If you want to move me somewhere, cool. I’ll be able to play winning baseball there.”

Briefly

The Twins’ equipment truck will depart for Fort Myers, Florida, on Monday from Target Field. It’s scheduled to arrive four days later. Pitchers and catchers are scheduled to report by Feb. 12 for their first workout.

Edouard Julien #47 of the Minnesota Twins celebrates after scoring a run in the first inning against the Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field on August 23, 2023 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images)

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By KATE BRUMBACK, Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — FBI agents were executing a search warrant at the Fulton County elections office near Atlanta on Wednesday, an agency spokesperson confirmed.

An FBI spokesperson said agents were “executing a court authorized law enforcement action” at the county’s main election office in Union City, just south of Atlanta. The spokesperson declined to provide any further information, citing an ongoing matter.

The search comes as the FBI under the leadership of Director Kash Patel has moved quickly to pursue the political grievances of President Donald Trump, including by working with the Justice Department to investigate multiple perceived adversaries of the Republican commander-in-chief.

The Justice Department had no immediate comment.

A spokesperson for Fulton County did not immediately have a comment or any information on the search.

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Trump has long insisted that the 2020 election was stolen even though judges across the country and his own attorney general said they found no evidence of widespread fault that tipped the contest in Democrat Joe Biden’s favor.

He has long made Georgia, one of the battleground states he lost in 2020, a central target for his complaints about the election and memorably pleaded with its then-secretary of state to “find” him enough votes to overturn the contest.

Last week, in reference to the 2020 election, he asserted that “people will soon be prosecuted for what they did.” It was not clear what in particular he was referring to.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in August 2023 obtained an indictment against Trump and 18 others, accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. That case was dismissed in November after courts barred Willis and her office from pursuing it because of an “appearance of impropriety” stemming from a romantic relationship she had with a prosecutor she had appointed to lead the case.

The FBI last week moved to replace its top agent in Atlanta, Paul W. Brown, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a non-public personnel decision. It was not immediately clear why the move, which was not publicized by the FBI, was made.

The Department of Justice last month sued the clerk of the Fulton County superior and magistrate courts in federal court seeking access to documents from the 2020 election in the county. The lawsuit said the department sent a letter to Che Alexander, clerk of superior and magistrate courts, but that she has failed to produce the requested documents.

Alexander has filed a motion to dismiss the suit. The Justice Department complaint says that the purpose of its request was “ascertaining Georgia’s compliance with various federal election laws.” The attorney general is also trying to help the State Election Board with its “transparency efforts under Georgia law.”

A three-person conservative majority on the State Election Board has repeatedly sought to reopen a case alleging wrongdoing by Fulton County during the 2020 election. It passed a resolution in July seeking assistance from the U.S. attorney general to access voting materials.

The state board sent subpoenas to the county board for various election documents last year and again on Oct. 6. The October subpoena requested “all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County.”

The Justice Department sent a letter to the county election board Oct. 30 citing the federal Civil Rights Act and asking for all records responsive to the October subpoena from the State Election Board. Lawyers for the county election board responded about two weeks later, saying that the records are held by the county court clerk. They also attached a letter the clerk sent to the State Election Board saying that the records are under seal in accordance with state law and can’t be released without a court order.

The Justice Department said it then sent a letter to Alexander, the clerk, on Nov. 21 requesting the documents and that she failed to respond.

The department is asking a judge to declare that the clerk’s “refusal to provide the election records upon a demand by the Attorney General” violates the Civil Rights Act. It is also asking the judge to order Alexander to produce the requested records within five days of a court order.

The State Election Board in May 2024 heard a case that alleged documentation was missing for thousands of votes in the recount of the presidential contest in the 2020 election in 2020. After a presentation by a lawyer and an investigator for the secretary of state’s office, a response from the county and a lengthy discussion among the board members, the board voted to issue a letter of reprimand to the county.

Shortly after that vote, there was a shift in power on the board, and the newly cemented conservative majority sought to reopen the case. The lone Democrat on the board and the chair have repeatedly objected, arguing the case is closed and citing multiple reviews that have found that while the county’s 2020 elections were sloppy and poorly managed there was no evidence of intentional wrongdoing.

The conservative majority voted to subpoena a slew of election records from the county in November 2024. A fight over that subpoena is tied up in court.

Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report