By AAMER MADHANI, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is set to welcome Colombian President Gustavo Petro to the White House on Tuesday for talks only weeks after threatening military action against the South American country and accusing the leader of pumping cocaine into the United States.

U.S. administration officials say the meeting will focus on regional security cooperation and counternarcotics efforts. And Trump on Monday suggested that Petro — who has continued to criticize Trump and the U.S. operation to capture Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro — seems more willing to work with his administration to stem the flow of illegal drugs from Colombia.

“Somehow after the Venezuelan raid, he became very nice,” Trump told reporters. “He changed his attitude very much.”

Yet, bad blood between the leaders overshadows the sit-down, even as Trump sought to downplay any friction on the eve of the visit.

The conservative Trump and leftist Petro are ideologically far apart, but both leaders share a tendency for verbal bombast and unpredictability. That sets the stage for a White House visit with an anything-could-happen vibe.

In recent days, Petro has continued poking at the U.S. president, calling Trump an “accomplice to genocide” in the Gaza Strip, while asserting that the capture of Maduro was a kidnapping.

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And ahead of his departure for Washington, Petro called on Colombians to take to the streets of Bogotá during the White House meeting. He planned to hold a news conference at the Colombian Embassy in Washington after the meeting with Trump.

Historically, Colombia has been a U.S. ally. For the past 30 years, the U.S. has worked closely with Colombia, the world’s largest producer of cocaine, to arrest drug traffickers, fend off rebel groups and boost economic development in rural areas.

But relations between the leaders have been strained by Trump’s massing U.S. forces in the region for unprecedented deadly military strikes targeting suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific. At least 126 people have been killed in 36 known strikes.

In October, Trump’s Republican administration announced it was imposing sanctions on Petro, his family and a member of his government over accusations of involvement in the global drug trade.

The Treasury Department leveled the penalties against Petro; his wife, Veronica del Socorro Alcocer Garcia; his son, Nicolas Fernando Petro Burgos; and Colombian Interior Minister Armando Alberto Benedetti.

The sanctions, which had to be waived to allow Petro to travel to Washington this week, came after the U.S. administration in September announced it was adding Colombia to a list of nations failing to cooperate in the drug war for the first time in three decades.

Then came the audacious military operation last month to capture Maduro and his wife to face federal drug conspiracy charges, a move that Petro has forcefully denounced. Following Maduro’s ouster, Trump put Colombia on notice and ominously warned Petro he could be next.

Colombia is “run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States,” Trump said of Petro last month. “And he’s not gonna be doing it very long, let me tell you.”

But a few days later, tensions eased somewhat after a call between the leaders. Trump said Petro in their hourlong conversation explained “the drug situation and other disagreements.” And Trump extended an invitation to Petro for the White House visit.

Trump on a couple of occasions has used the typically scripted leaders’ meetings to deliver stern rebukes to counterparts in front of the press.

Trump and Vice President JD Vance lashed out at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in February for showing insufficient gratitude for U.S. support of Ukraine. Trump also used a White House meeting in May to forcefully confront South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, accusing the country, with reporters present, of failing to address Trump’s baseless claim of the systematic killing of white farmers.

It was unclear if the meeting between Trump and Petro would include a portion in front of cameras.

By PAOLO SANTALUCIA and NICOLE WINFIELD

ROME (AP) — Tourists hoping to get close to the Trevi Fountain had to pay 2 euros ($2.35) starting Monday as the city of Rome inaugurated a new fee structure to help raise money and control crowds at the one of the world’s most celebrated waterworks.

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The first tourists to pass through the new ticket check seemed nonplussed by the tariff, noting it was a small price to pay for quality access to a fountain made famous by Federico Fellini’s movie “La Dolce Vita.”

“Before, there were problems accessing the fountain. There were a lot of people. Now, it’s very easy,” said Ilhan Musbah, a tourist from Morocco. “You can take photos, you feel good, you’re comfortable, and on top of that 2 euros is not much.”

The tourist fee was rolled out in conjunction with a new 5-euro (nearly $6) tourist ticket fee for some city museums. In both cases, Rome residents are exempt from the fees and the extra revenue will actually expand the number of city-run museums that are free for registered Roman residents.

It’s all part of the Eternal City’s efforts to manage tourist flows in a particularly congested part of town, improve the experience and offset the maintenance costs of preserving all of Rome’s cultural heritage. Officials estimate it could net the city 6.5 million euros ($7.6 million) extra a year.

The city decided to impose the Trevi Fountain fee after seeing positive results already from a yearlong experiment to stagger and limit the number of visitors who can reach the front edge of the basin by imposing lines and pathways for entrance and exit.

“I think tourists were shocked by the fact that the city of Rome is only asking for 2 euros for a site of this level,” Alessandro Onorato, Rome’s assessor of tourism, said Monday. “I believe that if the Trevi Fountain were in New York, they would have charged at least $100.”

The fee follows a similar ticketing system at Rome’s Pantheon monument and the more complicated tourist day-tripper tax that the lagoon city of Venice imposed last year in a bid to ease overtourism and make the city more livable for residents. The Italian fees still pale in comparison to the 45% price hike that French authorities announced for the Louvre Museum for most non-European visitors, where tickets can now run to 32 euros ($37) from 22 euros.

The Trevi fee, which can be paid in advance online, enables tourists to get close to the fountain during prime-time daylight hours. The view for those admiring the late Baroque masterpiece from the piazza above remains free, as it is up close after hours.

The towering fountain features the Titan god Oceanus flanked by falls cascading down the travertine rocks into a shallow turquoise pool, where Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg famously took their nighttime dip in “La Dolce Vita.”

While bathing is prohibited nowadays, legend has it that visitors who toss a coin over their shoulders and make a wish will return to Rome.

By ALBERT STUMM

With a scarf dangling from your coat pocket and those gloves left behind at the coffee shop, there are simply more things to lose in winter. That’s not counting your misplaced keys at home or those exasperated moments looking for your phone when you say, “I just had it!”

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Try not to beat yourself up. Even Mark McDaniel, who has been studying human memory and learning for almost 50 years, left a hat under his chair recently at a restaurant. He doesn’t usually wear hats, so he forgot it.

“I should know how to remember to remember, but at the moment, you don’t think you’re going to forget,” said McDaniel, professor emeritus of psychological and brain sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Luckily, there are strategies. If you can remember to implement them, here’s how to stop losing things.

A breakdown in the brain

Daniel L. Schacter, a Harvard University psychology professor and author of “The Seven Sins of Memory,” said losing things is something everyone is prone to, to varying degrees. It depends on life circumstances that pull the mind away from the present.

Rather than having a bad memory, it might be “a breakdown at the interface of memory and attention,” Schacter said. “That’s what’s responsible, based on research, based on personal experience, for a lot of the memory failures that would result in losing things.”

Memory occurs in three phases in the brain: encoding, storage and retrieval. Schacter likened losing your keys to drivers who arrive at their destination safely without remembering how they got there.

In both cases, the memory of the action is not encoded because people were thinking of something else, which makes it harder to retrieve the memory later.

“You have to do a little bit of cognitive work,” Schacter said. “At the time of encoding, you have to focus your attention.”

For things you use regularly

It helps to not have to remember where some things are.

Schacter suggested identifying problem items such as your phone, wallet or keys and creating a structure that becomes automatic with practice. He always leaves his reading glasses in a specific spot in the kitchen. When he goes golfing, his phone always goes into the same pocket in his golf bag.

“Maybe not always, but, you know, a very high percentage of the time,” he said.

If there is a noticeable increase in losing things compared to the recent past, accompanied by other memory problems that interfere with your normal function, it might be time to see a doctor, Schacter said.

For things you don’t use regularly

McDaniel said that the brain does a better job at remembering things when it receives several bits of information that can later be connected. Among memory researchers, it’s known as elaboration.

One way to stop losing objects you don’t habitually use — but often lose, like a hat — is to say out loud where you put it when you put it down. Verbalizing does two things that help with retrieval.

“Saying it out loud creates a better encoding because it makes you pay attention, and the verbalization creates a richer memory,” McDaniel said.

The more detailed the elaboration, the more connections in the brain there will be to help you remember.

An extreme version of elaboration is the “memory palace” that memory competitors use during championships. To remember a series of numbers and other challenges, they visualize a familiar, structured environment like a house or route, imagining the numbers in particular places.

For something like your hat, imagine it in the location and connect it to a reason and a consequence: “I put my hat under the chair because I didn’t want to get it dirty on the table, but I left it behind last time.”

You might not remember to grab it when you leave, but you’ll probably remember where you left it.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Albert Stumm writes about wellness, food and travel. Find his work at https://www.albertstumm.com

For more AP wellness stories, go to https://apnews.com/hub/be-well.

By STAN CHOE, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is drifting through mixed trading on Tuesday, while gold and silver bounce back from their latest sell-off.

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The S&P 500 slipped 0.4% and edged further from its all-time high set last week, even though the majority of stocks within the index rose. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 68 points, or 0.1%, as of 10:10 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.9% lower.

Several influential Big Tech stocks weighed on the market, including drops of 2.5% for Nvidia and 2.2% for Microsoft.

They fell despite a 6.6% climb for Palantir Technologies, which reported bigger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Its forecast for 61% growth in revenue this year also topped analysts’ expectations, as CEO Alex Karp crowed that his company is unique and that “these numbers prove it.”

The action was stronger, again, in metals markets. Gold’s price climbed 6.2% to $4,939.20 per ounce in its latest swing since its jaw-dropping rally suddenly halted last week.

Silver’s price, which has been whipping though even wilder moves, leaped 14.3%.

Gold and silver prices had been climbing for more than a year as investors looked for safer places to park their cash amid worries about everything from tariffs to a weaker U.S. dollar to heavy debt loads for governments worldwide. Their prices took off in particular last month, and gold’s price at one point had roughly doubled over 12 months.

But those rallies suddenly gave out last week, and gold’s price dropped from close to $5,600 to less than $4,500 on Monday. Silver plunged 31.4% on Friday alone.

Many traders say expectations that President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates high to fight inflation were what turned the momentum initially, though some disagree. Most agree that simple gravity took over afterward.

After gold and silver prices had shot up so much, so quickly, they were bound to fall back at some point, particularly with so many investors piling in to use gold as a way to bet on continued weakness for the U.S. dollar.

“The move underscored how stretched anti-USD positioning had become,” according to volatility strategists at Barclays.

On Wall Street, PayPal dropped 17.5% after reporting weaker results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It also named a new CEO after it said “the pace of change and execution” over the last two years “was not in line” with the board of directors’ expectations.

Pfizer fell 3.7% even though it reported stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The pharmaceutical company gave a forecasted range for profit in 2026 whose midpoint was below analysts’ expectations.

The Walt Disney Co. slipped 1.7% after it said Josh D’Amaro, head of the company’s parks business, will become its next CEO in March.

On the winning side of the market was PepsiCo, which rose 4.7% after the snack and beverage giant’s profit and revenue for the latest quarter nudged past analysts’ expectations. It also said it would cut prices this year on Lay’s, Doritos and other snacks to try and win back inflation-weary customers.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.28% from 4.29% late Monday.

In stock markets abroad, indexes bounced back in Asia from sharp losses the prior day.

South Korea’s Kospi surged 6.8% for its best day since the wild days of the COVID crash and recovery in early 2020. Just a day earlier, it had tumbled 5.3% from its record for its worst day in almost 10 months. The Kospi is home to many tech stocks, including Samsung Electronics, which surged 11.4%.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 rallied 3.9%, while stocks rose 1.3% in Shanghai and 0.2% in Hong Kong.

Indexes were weaker in Europe, where France’s CAC 40 fell 0.5%.

AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.