Today is Wednesday, Jan. 7, the seventh day of 2026. There are 358 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Jan. 7,1955, Marian Anderson became the first African American to sing with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, in Verdi’s “Un Ballo in Maschera.”

Also on this date:

In 1610, astronomer Galileo Galilei observed three of Jupiter’s moons for the first time and a fourth days later.

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In 1979, Vietnamese forces captured the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, overthrowing the communist Khmer Rouge government whose brutal policies are blamed for the deaths of 1.7 million people, including the killing of thousands of Vietnamese villagers in cross-border raids.

In 1999, President Bill Clinton’s Senate impeachment trial began on grounds of perjury to a grand jury and obstruction of justice. The Republican-controlled House voted in October 1998 to start proceedings after months of controversy over Clinton’s relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, with whom he denied having a sexual relationship. The Senate acquitted Clinton on Feb. 12, falling far short of the 67 votes needed to convict on each charge.

In 2015, masked gunmen stormed the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French newspaper that had caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, methodically killing 12 people, including the editor, before escaping. (Two suspects were killed two days later.)

In 2022, three white men convicted of murder after Ahmaud Arbery was chased and killed while jogging in a south Georgia community were sentenced to life in prison. The judge denied any chance of parole for the father and son who armed themselves and initiated the deadly pursuit of the 25-year-old Black man in 2020 after spotting him running in their neighborhood in Brunswick.

In 2023, Republican Kevin McCarthy was elected speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives in a historic post-midnight 15th ballot, overcoming holdouts from his own ranks after a chaotic week that tested the new GOP majority’s ability to govern.

Today’s Birthdays:

Musician Kenny Loggins is 78.
Actor David Caruso is 70.
TV journalist Katie Couric is 69.
Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota is 65.
Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is 63.
Actor Nicolas Cage is 62.
Actor Jeremy Renner is 55.
Country singer-musician John Rich is 52.
Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton is 41.
NFL quarterback Lamar Jackson is 29.
Actor Marcus Scribner is 26.
Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s daughter Blue Ivy Carter is 14.

The Timberwolves might be finding their rhythm.

Not only did Tuesday’s 122-94 win over Miami mark Minnesota’s third straight victory, it was also the team’s third straight strong performance. Minnesota was locked in defensively from the jump and overcame a slow shooting start to run away from the Heat in the second half.

Minnesota has now beaten Miami, the Wizards and Miami again in a span of four days. The latter two victories have been blowouts.

Everything about Tuesday’s performance was crisp, from taking care of the ball to attacking the paint offensively while getting back in transition, rotating and competing on the defensive end.

Miami (20-17) shot just 36% from the field in the loss, and struggled to generate quality looks.

Minnesota (24-13), meanwhile, played good offense for the final three and a half quarters. And once the 3-pointers started to fall — particularly for Donte DiVincenzo, who broke out of a slump by hitting four of his final five attempts of the evening — the Wolves were able to put space between themselves and the Heat in short order.

Rudy Gobert finished with 13 points and 17 rebounds, while Anthony Edwards led the charge on all fronts while scoring 26 points.

How good can Minnesota be when it plays at this level?

“A championship team,” Gobert said on the floor after the game.

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New Gophers men’s basketball coach Niko Medved remains undefeated at Williams Arena in games against ranked Big Ten foes.

While it’s only two, Tuesday’s win was sweeter than the first.

After knocking off No. 22-ranked Indiana 73-64 in the Big Ten opener on Dec. 3, Minnesota took down rival and 22nd-ranked Iowa 70-67 at home on Tuesday. Fans stormed the court after the upset was complete.

The Hawkeyes, a five-point favorite, had three straight attempts to tie the game with 3-pointers at the buzzer, but all were off the mark.

Gophers (10-5, 3-1 Big Ten) had a game-high 14-point lead with six minutes left, Iowa (12-3, 2-2) stormed back with on a 20-5 run to take a 64-63 lead with 1:14 remaining.

Jaylen Crocker-Johnson made a 3-pointer at the top of the key and Bobby Durkin made a pair of free throws to make it 68-64.

Hawkeyes leading scorer Bennett Stirtz — 17.9 points per game — was held scoreless in the first half, but turned it on in the second half.

Stirtz made a trey to cut lead to 68-67. Isaac Asuma made two free throws to extend the lead. Stirtz missed two of the three attempts on the final possession.

Langston Reynolds scored a game-high 22 points on 9 of 13 shooting, including many drives to the basket.

Minnesota led 31-24 at the half behind 10 points apiece from  Reynolds and Cade Tyson.

The U defense held the Hawkeyes to 38% shooting from the field in the first half, with Stirtz at 0 for 5 shooting in nine foul-filled minutes.

The Gophers stormed to a 12-3 lead through the opening six minutes, holding the Hawkeyes to 1-for-7 shooting.

Stirtz was being swarmed on ball screens, started 0 for 3 from the field and went to the bench after picking up his second foul with 14:24 left in the half.

Without their leading scorer, the Hawkeyes mounted a comeback and took a 20-16 lead with six minutes left in the half. The Gophers were cold, 0 for 6 from 3-point range and were allowing too many drives for easy buckets at the rum,.

Minnesota ended the period with a 15-4 run to stake a seven-point lead.

President Donald Trump’s administration said Tuesday that it is withholding funding for programs that support needy families with children in five Democratic-led states over concerns about fraud.

“For too long, Democrat-led states and Governors have been complicit in allowing massive amounts of fraud to occur under their watch,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement.

The administration has not laid out details of either the fraud claims or the widening plan to withhold funds, which was first reported by the New York Post.

An official in the White House budget office who has knowledge of the plan but was not authorized to speak about it publicly said that it was due to states “pouring money out” to people in the U.S. illegally.

Five states — California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York — are targeted. The Associated Press has asked all of them, and by Tuesday afternoon, none had received notice of a broader funding pause. But Gov. Kathy Hochul said New York is prepared to go to court, as Democratic-led states have scores of times now, to block the administration.

“We’ll fight this with every fiber of our being, because our kids should not be political pawns in a fight that Donald Trump seems to have with blue state governors,” she said.

The programs in the crosshairs aim to help needy children and their families

The targeted programs provide lifelines to some of the neediest Americans:

The Child Care Development Block Grant subsidizes daycare for low-income households, enabling enabling parents to work or go to school.
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families provides cash assistance and job training so that parents in poverty can afford diapers and clothes and earn paychecks so they won’t need public assistance.
The Social Services Block Grant, a much smaller fund, supports several different social service programs.

“These resources support families in need and help them access food and much more. If true, it would be awful to see the federal government targeting the most needy families and children this way,” the office of Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement.

Trump himself has not spoken on the specifics, but he proclaimed on social media Tuesday: “The Fraud Investigation of California has begun.”

Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for California Gov. Gavin Newsom, said in an email that “Donald Trump is a deranged, habitual liar whose relationship with reality ended years ago” and defended California’s record at stamping out fraud in government programs.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, said Trump’s move to halt funding aims to score political points, not to stop fraud.

“It’s our job to serve the people most in need and most at risk — no matter what state they live in or what political party their family or elected representatives belong to,” she said in a statement. “To use the power of the government to harm the neediest Americans is immoral and indefensible.”

Trump’s administration has amplified fraud claims

For months, the Trump administration has claimed that federally funded programs are being defrauded — and using that as a rationale to hold up money.

Federal child care funding has been put on hold in Minnesota since late last month amid investigations into a series of alleged fraud schemes at day care centers run by people with family roots in Somalia.

In the fallout, HHS officials said no state will receive child care funds without providing more verification. Several states have told The Associated Press that they have not received any guidance on that decision.

The administration also raised fraud claims involving SNAP, the country’s main food aid program, saying it would halt administrative money to states — most Democratic-run ones — unless they provide requested details on recipients. That process could take months.

The administration has said the information that’s been provided by most GOP-controlled states shows fraud may be worse than previously believed, though it has not provided the data or detailed reports.

Associated Press journalists Anthony Izaguirre, Steve Karnowski, Trân Nguyễn, Todd Richmond, Colleen Slevin, Darlene Superville and Sophie Tareen contributed to this article.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told Fox News Tuesday that his agency also plans to audit Minnesota’s Medicaid bills in search of potential fraud. He didn’t provide any evidence of fraud that had been found.

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