It was pointed out to Bob Motzko that his team’s performance was better last weekend against Michigan State than it was two weeks prior against Michigan.

“Yep,” Motzko said on his Gophers Hockey Weekly show, “but the outcome (was the same). We’re in a tough spot.”

Minnesota has now lost seven straight games heading into its home weekend series against Wisconsin, which opens at 7 p.m. Friday. The six losses since the break have all come to teams currently ranked inside the top five in the nation.

“Five of the games, it’s been we make a mistake, it ends up in the back of our net, we’re chasing the game,” Motzko said on his coaches show. “And we’re fighting in there, we’re playing really good teams right now that we’re trying to catch, but we’re having to play catch up in the games.”

But the level of competition in those contests is of little solace for anyone inside the program, or out. Motzko credited the Gophers faithful with producing the best visiting crowd he’s seen at a Frozen Four three years ago in Tampa Bay. Those same ardent supporters are upset at this season’s lack of success.

“We’re fully aware of negativity, but as I reminded our guys and I reminded our staff, that’s what happens when you come to a program like this. When you’re going great, they’re great. When you’re going bad, they’re bad,” he said. “Do they have the right to be mad? Hell, yeah. We’re mad. But it’s senseless energy for our team right now.”

Motzko noted Minnesota (8-16-1 overall, 4-10 in Big Ten) isn’t the first sports team to go through struggles. It’s easy to play the blame game right now, but he’ll have none of it.

“We have to fight our way through it right now, and we can’t let negativity sneak into our group,” Motzko said. “Our guys have been terrific on that side of it. The fight continues. It will pass. It will pass. But we have to fight our way through it, and we have to go earn it.”

He likened it to a train fighting its way uphill at the moment. The challenge, he said, is to keep pushing forward until the train reaches the peak, and momentum can be gained on the downhill.

There are signs of progress, even amid the losses. Motzko noted a positive is Minnesota is getting young players more minutes than they’d otherwise see. That experience is producing flashes, and the hope is that more young players find the types of consistent success goalie Luca Di Pasquo is starting to achieve as he establishes himself as a No. 1 netminder.

With the Gophers now healthy after battling a series of injuries in the opening half of the campaign, Motzko is freed up to tinker and adjust in his efforts to concoct a winning formula. Brody Lamb moved to center last weekend, where Motzko believes he can utilize his size, skating and smarts. He’s lined up with Brodie Ziemer and LJ Mooney, a trio that’s carrying the Gophers’ power-play unit and looks to find more 5-on-5 success.

Motzko also is pushing for Minnesota’s forward to get more active on the forecheck, noting the Gophers “need to have a ground game.”

“We need to get pucks deep and we need to go to work,” he said on his coaches show. “Even this last weekend, we had far too many trying to score on the rush, score in transition when it’s not there. Because you’re playing teams now whose systems are locked in. … We need to have an attack with four lines putting pressure on the other team. We had far too many turnovers.”

Every adjustment is aimed at Minnesota playing its best hockey come March. That’s always the goal, but is especially pertinent given the Gophers’ current circumstance. Minnesota is currently No. 40 in the pairwise rankings, meaning its only path to NCAAs is winning the Big Ten Conference Tournament.

Achieving that goal starts by finding a groove now. With that in mind, Motzko’s full focus is on Wisconsin. The Badgers (15-7-2 overall, 8-6 in Big Ten) are having a nice season, but enter Friday as losers of four straight.

“It better be a weekend of two teams that are desperate, getting after it,” Motzko said. “You’re going to see good hockey, I know that.”

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By EDITH M. LEDERER and FARNOUSH AMIRI

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to sidestep the United Nations through his new Board of Peace appears to have inadvertently backfired after major world powers rejected U.S. aspirations for it to have a larger international mandate beyond the Gaza ceasefire and recommitted their support for the over 80-year-old global institution.

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The board to be chaired by Trump was originally envisioned as a small group of world leaders overseeing his plan for Gaza’s future. But the Republican president’s ambitions have expanded to envisioning the board as a mediator of worldwide conflicts, a not very subtle attempt to eclipse the Security Council, which is charged with ensuring international peace and security.

The board’s charter also caused some dismay by stating Trump will lead it until he resigns, with veto power over its actions and membership.

His secretary of state, Marco Rubio, tried to ease concerns by saying the board’s focus right now is only on the next phases of the Gaza ceasefire plan.

“This is not a replacement for the U.N., but the U.N. has served very little purpose in the case of Gaza other than the food assistance,” Rubio said at a congressional hearing Wednesday.

But Trump’s promotion of a broadened mandate and his floating of an idea that the Board of Peace “might” replace the U.N. have put off major players and been dismissed by U.N. officials.

“In my opinion, the basic responsibility for international peace and security lies with U.N., lies with the Security Council,” Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Thursday. “Only the Security Council can adopt decisions binding on all, and no other body or other coalition can legally be required to have all member states to comply with decisions on peace and security.”

In Security Council statements, public speeches and behind closed doors, U.S. allies and adversaries have dismissed Trump’s latest plan to overturn the post-World War II international order with what he describes as a “bold new approach to resolving global conflict.”

“The U.S. rollout of the much broader Board of Peace charter turned the whole exercise into a liability,” according to the International Crisis Group’s Richard Gowan, a U.N. watcher and program director. “Countries that wanted to sign on to help Gaza saw the board turning into a Trump fan club. That was not appealing.”

“If Trump had kept the focus of the board solely on Gaza, more states, including some more Europeans, would have signed up,” he said.

President Trump sits on the podium during a session on the Board of Peace initiative of US President Donald Trump at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Key Security Council members haven’t signed on

The four other veto-wielding members of the Security Council — China, France, Russia and the United Kingdom — have refused or have not indicated whether they would join Trump’s board, as have economic powers such as Japan and Germany.

Letters sent this month inviting various world leaders to be “founding members” of the Board of Peace coincided with Trump’s vow to take over Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark, and punish some European countries that resisted. That was met with stark rebuttal from Canada, Denmark and others, who said Trump’s demand threatened to upend an alliance that has been among the West’s most unshakeable.

Shortly after, Trump pulled a dramatic reversal on Greenland, saying he had agreed with the NATO secretary-general on a “framework of a future deal” on Arctic security.

Amid the diplomatic chaos, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who at the time had not responded to Trump’s Board of Peace invitation, met with Guterres in London and reiterated “the UK’s enduring support for the UN and the international rules-based system,” according to a statement.

Starmer emphasized the U.N.’s “pivotal role in tackling global problems which shape lives in the UK and all over the world.” The United Kingdom later declined to join the board.

France, Spain and Slovenia declined Trump’s offer by mentioning its overlapping and potentially conflicting agenda with the U.N.

French President Emmanuel Macron said last week that the board goes beyond “the framework of Gaza and raises serious questions, in particular with respect to the principles and structure of the United Nations, which cannot be called into question.”

Spain would not join because the board excluded the Palestinian Authority and because the body was “outside the framework of the United Nations,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said.

Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer, right, welcomes UN Secretary General António Guterres to 10 Downing Street, London, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (Henry Nicholls/Pool Photo via AP)

Some countries are urging a stronger UN

America’s adversaries also have shunned the board.

“No single country should dictate terms based on its power, and a winner-takes-all approach is unacceptable,” China’s U.N. ambassador, Fu Cong, said at a Security Council meeting Monday.

He called for the United Nations to be strengthened, not weakened, and said the Security Council’s status and role “are irreplaceable.”

In a clear reference to the Board of Peace, Fu said, “We shall not cherry-pick our commitments to the organization, nor shall we bypass the U.N. and create alternative mechanisms.”

So far, about 26 of some 60 invited countries have joined the board, and about nine European countries have declined. India did not attend Trump’s signing ceremony at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, last week but is reportedly still deciding what to do. Trump revoked Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s invitation.

“It’s hardly surprising that very few governments want to join Trump’s wannabe-U.N., which so far looks more like a pay-to-play club of human rights abusers and war crimes suspects than a serious international organization,” said Louis Charbonneau, U.N. director for Human Rights Watch. “Instead of handing Trump $1 billion checks to join his Board of Peace, governments should work on strengthening the U.N.”

Eight Muslim nations that agreed to join the board issued a joint statement that supported its mission in Gaza and advancement of Palestinian statehood. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates made no mention of Trump’s global peacemaking plan.

The Crisis Group’s Gowan said their focus could be a way to “get a foothold in discussions of Gaza” at the start, as Trump’s ceasefire plan has already faced several setbacks.

“I remain unconvinced that this is a real long-term threat to the U.N.,” Gowan said.

By MATTHEW LEE, AP Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Foreign leaders and governments presented to former President Joe Biden, his wife, U.S. Cabinet members and other senior officials tens of thousands of dollars in gifts in the last year of the Biden administration, including a $19,000 painting, an $11,000 necklace, a $5,000 bracelet and in one case $15,000 in cash, according to the latest accounting from the State Department.

The annual report, published Thursday in the Federal Register by the department’s Bureau of Protocol, covers calendar year 2024 and does not include any gifts given to President Donald Trump or his administration in the first year of Trump’s second term.

Federal employees are required to report gifts they receive from foreign officials that are worth more than $480. Most gifts are transferred to the National Archives or General Services Administration and not kept by the recipient unless they choose to reimburse the Treasury for them or in rare cases keep them for official use.

Biden’s most expensive gift: A $19,000 painting from Angola’s president

Biden received an acrylic painting titled “Marimba” by the noted Angolan artist Guizef Guilherme, which had an estimated value of $19,000 and was sent to the archives.

Perhaps more unusually, Biden was gifted a sterling silver train set worth $7,750 from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a road bike and two crates of dates worth $7,089 from United Arab Emirates president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The train set and bike were both transferred to the archives while the dates were disposed of by the Secret Service, the report says.

Other high-dollar gifts given to the former president include:

— A $3,300 sculpture of a winged woman by the prime minister of Iraq

— $3,300 in photographs and artwork from the prime minister of the Czech Republic

— $3,000 in sculpture, photographs, posters and books from President Emmanuel Macron of France

— $2,512 worth of assorted presents, including aviator sunglasses, wine, a cookbook, cufflinks and a commemorative Nutella jar from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

All of those items were sent to the archives with the exception of the perishables, which were destroyed.

Jill Biden’s most expensive gift: Diamond necklace and perfume worth $11,165 from the emir of Qatar

Biden’s wife, former first lady Jill Biden, received a bottle of Ormonde Jayne perfume and an 18-carat gold necklace with diamonds from the emir of Qatar and his spouse. The combined gift was estimated to be worth $11,165, and the report did not break down the individual value of the two items.

She kept the perfume bottle after the liquid was disposed of, but the necklace went to the National Archives.

Jill Biden also reported receiving a Dior bracelet and Sevres vase from Macron’s wife, Brigitte, in a combined gift valued at $5,090. Biden purchased the bracelet but sent the vase to the archives. The report did not give the individual value of the two items.

Harris’ most expensive gift: Rug, book and cooking utensils worth $2,633 from the United Arab Emirates

Former Vice President Kamala Harris received a number of pricey gifts, but none were reported to be worth more than $2,700.

The biggest was a rug, cooking utensils, and a book valued at $2,633 from the United Arab Emirates. She also received:

— A book and clock from the crown prince of Bahrain valued at $1,775

— A ceramic bowl from the first lady of South Korea valued at $1,440

— A painting from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy worth $1,460.

All were transferred to the National Archives.

Defense secretary given $3,700 bronze statue, while CIA chief was gifted $3,000 horse saddle

Former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reported receiving several high-value gifts, including a $3,700 bronze statue from his Indian counterpart, binoculars worth $2,950 from his Qatari counterpart and a $1,300 watercolor painting from the prime minister of Iraq. All were to be transferred to the General Services Administration.

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At the CIA, former director William Burns reported receiving a $3,000 horse saddle from a senior Kazakh official that was retained for official use.

Several of his employees, who are not required to be named in the document, reported gifts that were also kept for “official use,” including $2,390 in tickets for a Formula One race and a concert by hip-hop star Teddy Swims as well as a $543 box of Swedish/Cuban cigars.

Another CIA employee reported receiving $15,000 in cash from an unnamed foreign government official. The money was given to the Federal Reserve, according to the report.

Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken reported only a handful of gifts in 2024, none of them valued at more than $800. All of those were sent to the GSA for potential use in government facilities.

By LISA MASCARO, AP Congressional Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are proposing sweeping changes to the nation’s voting laws, a long-shot priority for President Donald Trump that would impose stricter requirements before Americans vote in the midterm elections in the fall.

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The package expected to be released Thursday reflects some of the party’s most sought-after election changes, including requirements for photo IDs before people can vote, proof of citizenship and prohibitions on universal vote-by-mail and ranked choice voting — two voting methods that have proved popular in some states. The Republican president continues to insist that the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden was rigged.

“Americans should be confident their elections are being run with integrity – including commonsense voter ID requirements, clean voter rolls, and citizenship verification,” said Rep. Bryan Steil, chairman of the House Administration Committee, in a statement.

“These reforms will improve voter confidence, bolster election integrity, and make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat,” said Steil, R-Wis.

The legislation faces a long road ahead in the narrowly-split Congress, where Democrats have rejected similar ideas as disenfranchising Americans’ ability to vote with onerous registration and ID requirements. The effort comes as the Trump administration is turning its attention toward election issues before the November election, when control of Congress will be at stake.

The administration sent FBI agents Wednesday to raid 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 that charges related to that election were imminent.

Republicans are calling their new legislation the “Make Elections Great Again Act” and say their proposal should provide the minimum standard for elections for federal offices.

According to a one-page bill summary, the measure includes requirements that people present a photo ID before they vote and that states verify the citizenship of individuals when they register to vote. It would require states to use “auditable” paper ballots in elections, which many already do.

The legislation would require that only mail-in ballots received in the states by the close of polling on Election Day could be counted, with an exception for those ballots from overseas military personnel. It would prohibit the mailing of ballots to all voters through universal vote-by-mail systems.

Similar proposals have drawn alarm from voting rights group, which say such changes could lead to widespread problems for voters.

For example, prior Republican efforts to require proof of citizenship to vote have been criticized by Democrats as disenfranchising married women whose last names do not match birth certificates or other government documents.

The Brennan Center for Justice and other groups estimated in a 2023 report that 9% of U.S. citizens of voting age, or 21.3 million people, do not have proof of their citizenship readily available. Almost half of Americans do not have a U.S. passport.

Trump has long signaled a desire to change how elections are run in the United States and last year he issued an executive order that included a citizenship requirement, among other election-related changes.

At the time, House Republicans approved legislation, the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act,” that would cement Trump’s order into law. That bill has stalled in the Senate, though lawmakers have recently revived efforts to bring it forward for consideration.

Associated Press writer Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.