Enter the 2026 Pioneer Press Peeps Diorama Contest

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Hey, Peeps! We’re happy to announce that it’s time once again for our favorite spring tradition, the annual Pioneer Press Peeps Diorama Contest.

To participate, dig out your art supplies and make a diorama of any size featuring marshmallow Peeps (no AI, please). The theme is wide open, as is our tradition — anything from current events to historical moments; daily life here in Minnesota; takes on celebrities, religion, art or sports; showcasing scenes from television, movies or books … or other topics and themes.

Some people create their scenes in diorama-friendly boxes, but this is not required. Ultimately, it’s your creativity we want to showcase, as we’ve done since 2004.

When your marshmallow masterpiece is complete, take a photo or two of the diorama and email it to peeps@pioneerpress.com.

In your email, be sure to include the title of the diorama and the name, phone number and email address of the creator or creators — in addition to their city of residence — so that we may contact them if needed.

Here are the winners of the 2025 Pioneer Press Peeps Diorama Contest

If the creator is 12 or younger, or a teenager (ages 13 to 17), make sure you tell us in order to be eligible for the youth prizes (and include an adult’s name and contact info).

Also, please tell us all about your artistic process — inspiration, methods, near-disasters — so that we can share your behind-the-Peeps story with the world.

The deadline to email photos of the diorama entries is noon on Friday, March 27. Winning entries will be featured in the Pioneer Press on Easter Sunday, April 5.

Winners will be chosen by a judging panel made up of Pioneer Press employees. Diorama qualities we seek include instant visual recognition of a theme; miniature craftsmanship (we love detail work); and the quality of the photograph (natural light, clean background — and again, no AI, please).

Prizes include gift cards (for the top winners) and, for everyone else, certificates of honor and particiPEEPtion!

Again this year: If you have won a top prize in the past, you will be placed in a “Peeps Masters” category to compete with your marshmallow peers.

Good luck, Peeps!

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Small plane makes emergency landing on a busy Georgia road and strikes 3 vehicles

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GAINESVILLE, Ga. (AP) — A single-engine plane made an emergency landing on a busy road in a Georgia, striking three vehicles and leaving two people with minor injuries, authorities said.

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The Hawker Beechcraft BE-36 landed Monday on Browns Bridge Road in Gainesville, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Atlanta, due to reported engine issues, according to the Federal Aviation Administration and Gainesville police.

“We lost our engine taking off out of Gainesville,” pilot Thomas Rogers told WAGA-TV. “We tried to glide back, did everything by the book, but realized we weren’t going to make it back with how far out we were, so we came down on the road.”

The plane struck three cars, dislodging a fuel tank into one of them, Gainesville police Capt. Kevin Holbrook said. Two people were taken to a hospital with minor injuries, he said.

“The fact that they were able to land in the middle of hundreds of vehicles and only hit three of them, no power lines is very remarkable,” Holbrook said, noting that the road is one of the main arteries through northeast Georgia. “The fact that no one was seriously injured or killed is just astonishing.”

‘Don’t jump in them’: Olympic athletes’ medals break during celebrations

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By JAMES ELLINGWORTH, Associated Press Sports Writer

MILAN (AP) — Handle with care. That’s the message from gold medalist Breezy Johnson at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics after she and other athletes found their medals broke within hours.

Olympic organizers are investigating with “maximum attention” after a spate of medals fell off their ribbons during celebrations on the opening weekend of the Games.

“Don’t jump in them. I was jumping in excitement and it broke,” women’s downhill ski gold medalist Johnson said after her win Sunday. “I’m sure somebody will fix it. It’s not crazy broken but a little broken.”

Johnson didn’t have to wait long for a replacement. By the time she reached the starting hill for Tuesday’s combined team event she’d already been given a new one, though it still needs to be engraved.

Asked if she got to keep the busted one, Johnson shook her head.

“They don’t, like, let you have multiple of those things,” she said with a laugh.

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TV footage broadcast in Germany captured the moment biathlete Justus Strelow realized the mixed relay bronze he’d won Sunday had fallen off the ribbon around his neck and clattered to the floor as he danced along to a song with teammates.

His German teammates cheered as Strelow tried without success to reattach the medal before realizing a smaller piece, seemingly the clasp, had broken off and was still on the floor.

U.S. figure skater Alysa Liu posted a clip on social media of her team event gold medal detached from its official ribbon.

“My medal don’t need the ribbon,” Liu wrote early Monday.

Andrea Francisi, the chief games operations officer for the Milan Cortina organizing committee, said it was working on a solution.

“We are aware of the situation, we have seen the images. We are trying to understand in detail if there is a problem,” Francisi said Monday.

“But we are paying maximum attention to this matter, as the medal is the dream of the athletes, so we want that in the moment they are given it that everything is absolutely perfect, because we really consider it to be the most important moment. So we are working on it.”

It isn’t the first time the quality of Olympic medals has come under scrutiny.

Following the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, some medals had to be replaced after athletes complained they were starting to tarnish or corrode, giving them a mottled look likened to crocodile skin.

AP Sports Writer Daniella Matar in Milan and Andrew Dampf in Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italy, contributed to this report.

Trump’s immigration chiefs are set to testify in Congress following protester deaths

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By REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The heads of the agencies carrying out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda will testify in Congress Tuesday and face questions over how they are prosecuting immigration enforcement inside American cities.

Trump’s immigration campaign has been heavily scrutinized in recent weeks, after the shooting deaths in Minneapolis of two protesters at the hands of Homeland Security officers. The agencies have also faced criticism for a wave of policies that critics say trample on the rights of both immigrants facing arrest and Americans protesting the enforcement actions.

Todd Lyons, the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Rodney Scott, who heads U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and Joseph Edlow, who is the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, will speak in front of the House Committee on Homeland Security.

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The officials will speak at a time of falling public support for how their agencies are carrying out Trump’s immigration vision but as they are flush with cash from a spending bill passed last year that has helped broaden immigration enforcement activities across the country.

The administration says that activists and protesters opposed to its operations are the ones ratcheting up attacks on their officers, not the other way around, and that their immigration enforcement operations are making the country safer by finding and removing people who’ve committed crimes or pose a threat to the country.

Under Lyons’ leadership, ICE has undergone a massive hiring boom funded by Congress last summer and immigration officers have deployed in beefed-up enforcement operations in cities across the country designed to increase arrests and deportations. The appearance in Congress comes as lawmakers are locked in a battle over whether DHS should be funded without restraints placed over its officers’ conduct.

Lyons is likely to face questioning over a memo he signed last year telling ICE officers that they didn’t need a judge’s warrant to forcibly enter a house to arrest a deportee, a memo that went against years of ICE practice and Fourth Amendment protections against illegal searches.

During Scott’s tenure, his agency has taken on a significant role in arresting and removing illegal immigrants from inside the country. That increased activity has become a flashpoint for controversy and marks a break from the agency’s traditional job of protecting borders and controlling who and what enters the country.

Under the leadership of commander Gregory Bovino, a group of Border Patrol agents hopscotched around the country to operations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte and New Orleans where they were often accused of indiscriminately questioning and arresting people they suspected were in the country illegally. Bovino says his targets are legitimate and identified through intelligence and says that if his officers use force to make an arrest, it’s because it’s warranted.

A Border Patrol agent and Customs and Border Protection officer both opened fire during the shooting death of Alex Pretti, one of two protesters killed in Minneapolis in January. The other protester, Renee Good, was shot and killed by an ICE officer.

After the Pretti shooting, Bovino was reassigned and Trump sent his border czar Tom Homan to Minneapolis to assume control.

USCIS has also faced criticism for steps it has taken including subjecting refugees already admitted to the U.S. to another round of vetting and pausing decisions on all asylum cases.