By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO

NEW YORK (AP) — The parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus is closing more department stores as it focuses on its most profitable businesses and trims debt during its Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring.

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Saks Global Inc. said Friday it will close 12 more Saks Fifth Avenue stores and three more Neiman Marcus stores. The shuttered Saks stores include sites in Chevy, Chase, Maryland, Chicago and San Antonio, Texas. The stores will remain open until the end of May, a company spokesperson said.

The closures come on top of the eight Saks Fifth Avenue stores and one Neiman Marcus store it said it would close last month. The stores targeted for the first round of closing are expected to remain open until the end of April.

With plans to close a total of 24 department stores by spring, that would leave the parent company with 13 Saks Fifth Avenue stores — including its flagship store on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue — as well as 32 Neiman Marcus locations and Bergdorf Goodman in New York City.

Saks also said 500 brands have resumed shipping, releasing close to $1.3 billion in retail receipts. That accounts for more than 80% of the inventory the company expects to receive from February through April, with momentum expected to continue, the company said.

The parent company is also in talks or has reached repayment agreements with about 175 suppliers.

Saks Global has been shrinking its business since it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January. Last month, it said it will wind down 14 standalone Fifth Avenue Club personal styling suites, keeping three.

It also shuttered home goods retailer Horchow.com, a business that Neiman Marcus acquired in the late 1980s. As of Feb. 19, shoppers have been redirected to the home category on NeimanMarcus.com.

It’s also closing down all but 12 of its Saks Off Fifth locations The remaining outlets will serve primarily as a selling channel for residual inventory from Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman.

By MATTHEW PERRONE

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration’s embattled vaccine chief, Dr. Vinay Prasad, is once again leaving the agency — the second time in less than a year that he’s departed after controversial decisions involving the review of vaccinations and specialty drugs for rare diseases.

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FDA Commissioner Marty Makary announced the news to FDA staff in an email late Friday, saying Prasad would depart at the end of April. Makary said Prasad would return to his academic job at the University of California, San Francisco.

Prasad’s latest ouster follows a string of high-profile controversies involving the FDA’s review of vaccines, gene therapies and biotech drugs in which companies have criticized the agency for reversing itself, in some cases calling for new trials of products previously greenlighted by regulators.

In July, Prasad was briefly forced from his job after running afoul of biotech executives, patient groups and conservative allies of President Donald Trump. He was reinstated less than two weeks later with the backing of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Makary.

FILE – In this undated photo provided by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Vinay Prasad smiles for a portrait. (U.S. FDA via AP)

A longtime academic and critic of the FDA’s standards for drug reviews, Prasad has taken a seemingly contradictory approach to regulation since arriving at the FDA last May. On repeated occasions, Prasad has joined Makary in announcing steps to make FDA drug reviews faster and easier for companies. But he also has imposed new warnings and study requirements for some biotech drugs and vaccines, particularly COVID shots that have long been a target for Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist before joining the Trump administration.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and JOSHUA GOODMAN

MIAMI (AP) — The top Justice Department prosecutor in Miami is considering criminal investigations of Cuban government officials, according to people familiar with the matter. The inquiry comes as President Donald Trump has raised the possibility of a “friendly takeover” of the communist-run island.

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Jason Reding Quiñones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, has created a “working group” that includes federal prosecutors and officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies to try to build cases against people connected to the Cuban government and its Communist Party, according to one of the people. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the effort.

It was not immediately clear which Cuban officials the office is targeting or what criminal charges prosecutors may be looking to bring.

The Justice Department said in a statement Friday that “federal prosecutors from across the country work every day to pursue justice, which includes efforts to combat transnational crime.”

The effort is taking place against the backdrop of Trump’s increasingly aggressive stance against Cuba’s communist leadership.

Emboldened by the U.S. capture of Cuba’s close ally, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump last month said his administration was in high-level talks with officials in Havana to pursue “a friendly takeover” of the country. He repeated those claims this week, saying his attention would turn back to Cuba once the war with Iran winds down.

“They want to make a deal so bad,” Trump said of Cuba’s leadership.

While Cuba has faded from Washington’s radar as a major national security threat in recent decades, it remains a priority in the U.S. Attorney’s office in Miami, whose political, economic and cultural life is dominated by Cuban-American exiles.

The FBI field office has a dedicated Cuba group that in 2024 was instrumental in the arrest of former U.S. Ambassador Victor Manuel Rocha on charges of serving as a secret agent of Cuba stretching back to the 1970s.

In recent weeks, several Miami Republicans, in addition to Florida Sen. Rick Scott, have called on the Trump administration to reopen its criminal investigation into the 1996 shootdown of four planes operated by anti-communist exiles.

FILE – Cuba’s President Raul Castro listens to the Cuban and Venezuelan national anthems during his welcome ceremony at the Miraflores presidential palace, March 17, 2015, in Caracas, Venezuela. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)

In a letter to Trump on Feb. 13, lawmakers including Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos Gimenez highlighted decades-old news reports indicating that former President Raúl Castro — the head of Cuba’s military at the time — gave the order to shoot down the unarmed Cessna aircraft.

“We believe unequivocally that Raúl Castro is responsible for this heinous crime,” lawmakers wrote. “It is time for him to be brought to justice.”

While no indictment against Castro has been announced, Florida’s attorney general said this week that he would open a state-level investigation into the crime.

The Trump administration has also accused Cuba of not cooperating with American counterterrorism efforts, adding it alongside North Korea and Iran to a select few nations the U.S. considers state sponsors of terrorism.

The designation stems from Cuba’s harboring of U.S. fugitives and its refusal to extradite several Colombian rebel leaders while they were engaged in peace talks with the South American nation.

Richer reported from Washington.

Minnesota handled itself brilliantly against Ohio State’s high-pressure, up-tempo defense while dispatching the Buckeyes at Williams Arena in mid-February.

The same could not be said Friday in Indianapolis.

The fourth-seeded Gophers committed a season-high 21 turnovers in a 60-55 loss to No. 5-seed Ohio State in the Big Ten quarterfinals. The Buckeyes will meet top-seeded UCLA in Saturday’s semifinals.

Minnesota, on the other hand, exits the tournament as a one-and-done participant after earning a double-bye as one of the conference’s top-four seeds. The No. 19-ranked Gophers do so not feeling as though they put their best foot forward.

“In order to compete against the best, you’re going to have to play at a really, really high level,” Gophers coach Dawn Plitzuweit said. “I don’t think that we played as well as we could play, obviously.”

Aside from the turnovers, Minnesota struggled to shoot — particularly from distance. The Gophers missed their first nine 3-point attempts, and again couldn’t buy one in the closing two minutes. For the game, the Gophers went just 6 for 26 from beyond the arc.

Minnesota had a distinct advantage on the glass, pulling down 44 boards compared to No. 11-ranked Ohio State’s 27. Doing much of that damage for Minnesota was Sophie Hart. The Farmington native had 12 points and 19 rebounds, while Grace Grocholski paced Minnesota with 18 points.

But Ohio State center Elsa Lemmilä had a double double of her own and Buckeyes star guard Jaloni Cambridge controlled the contest, finishing with 17 points, six assists, five rebounds and three steals.

While Minnesota had a size advantage, Ohio State’s quickness was the game’s determining factor.

“I thought they played a really good game. I thought they were really aggressive, made us feel really uncomfortable, got us sped up in a lot of ways, and forced us to turn the ball over in either full-court scenario or even in the half-court scenario,” Plitzuweit said. “And then I thought when we had good opportunities, even in the fourth quarter, we just — it looked like we felt sped up and rushed a little bit, and didn’t capitalize on a lot of those.”

Teams can be more susceptible to that in win-or-go-home situations, particularly one like Minnesota, which sports so little postseason experience.

In that way, Friday could prove invaluable for the Gophers, whose next game will come in the program’s first NCAA Tournament game in eight years.

“I think that’s something we’ve been striving for every single year since we’ve been here,” Grocholski said. “So, I think we’re obviously super grateful to be in the position we are.”

Where that game will be played remains to be seen. The Gophers were ranked No. 15 on the selection committee’s final pre-tournament update. The top 16 teams on Selection Sunday will host the first two rounds of the tournament, meaning Williams Arena could be an NCAA Tournament site.

But Ohio State was No. 16 in those rankings, and it would now be a massive surprise if the Buckeyes didn’t leapfrog Minnesota. It’s possible Friday’s loss will cost Minnesota a chance to host the opening weekend, though the Gophers’ resume remains formidable.

Selection Sunday is March 15.

“Certainly proud of our young ladies,” Plitzuweit said, “for putting themselves in a position where we feel very confident that our body of work has put us in a good spot for the next tournament.”

Said Buckeyes coach Kevin McGuff of the Gophers: “I think they have a chance to play really well in March Madness.”

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