By ANDREW DALTON and AMELIA THOMSON-DEVEAUX

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Many Americans still want to thank the academy, at least a little.

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About half of U.S. adults say they’ve watched all or most of an awards show on TV or streaming in the past year, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, while just over half say they’ve watched clips from an awards show. About 6 in 10 say they’ve watched an awards show, clips or both in the last year.

The results suggest that some vitality remains in the seemingly stodgy old tuxedo-and-gown world of the Emmys, Grammys, Oscars, Tonys and Golden Globes, whose makers have fought to make them relevant when Americans have more entertainment and engagement choices than ever.

And they come at a moment when the Oscars and the Emmys have seen a short-term uptick in viewers after cultural shifts that brought a huge long-term drop in people gathering around a television to watch an awards show together.

“These days, it’s more focused on the performances,” said Walter Hanley, 69, who used to work in the music industry and still watches most music awards shows. “Back in the ’70s and ’80s when I would attend regional Grammys in person, it was more about the awards — sound engineering and producers and that kind of thing.”

Hanley thinks the pivot has helped awards shows keep up with the times. “You have to cater to what the viewers want,” he said.

Some awards shows have rebounded

The Oscars, which remain the most viewed and most engaged-with awards show, are coming off a five-year high in viewers. Nearly 20 million people watched “Anora” win best picture and four other top trophies in March.

But that’s down from the more than 55 million who watched “Titanic” win 11 in 1998, when awards shows truly were the king of the world.

Some, like Christine Steingraber, 64, watch most of the awards shows that air on TV. The Oscars are her favorite, but she watches the Emmys and the Grammys, too, even when she’s not familiar with the shows or the artists up for awards.

“It opens up another perspective as to whether I want to see that show or hear that artist,” she said.

The biggest awards shows — like the Oscars, the Grammys and the Emmys — have streaming partners, but they generally don’t appear there until the following day. By that point, viral moments and winners’ reactions have already been plastered online in short clips.

The poll suggests that awards shows may be appealing to a new generation. People under the age of 45 are more likely to say they have watched both an awards show and clips in the past year, compared with people age 45 or older.

Clips help extend awards shows’ lives

Meme-able moments like the “La-La Land” fiasco or Will Smith’s slap at the Oscars or the hits and misses of Golden Globes monologues have shown the shows can still have life after social media took over for TV for many.

The survey found that the people who watched full awards shows largely overlap with clip viewers, although people are slightly more likely to say they’ve just watched clips rather than just watching shows. About 4 in 10 say they haven’t watched clips or shows.

Awards shows — whether they’re consumed through clips or live viewing – are more popular among Black and Hispanic adults than among white adults. About 7 in 10 Black and Hispanic adults say they’ve watched clips or at least most of a show in the past year, compared with just over half of white adults.

Shows including the BET Awards and the Latin Grammys have reached more targeted audiences, just as the MTV Video Music Awards became a way to bring young viewers into the awards audience starting in the mid-1980s.

Rose Lucas, 77, says she used to watch the BET Awards, because she enjoyed the R&B and hip-hop performances. She enjoys music awards shows, but she doesn’t typically watch the full show live. She’s more likely to watch short clips of performances the next day.

“I don’t watch any of them live anymore. I don’t tune in to them,” Lucas said. “(They are) too long. I’m not as interested anymore.”

Most people aren’t watching frequently

When the Emmys return on Sunday, all eyes will be on the winners — and the ratings. The last Emmys got a much bigger boost than its predecessor, held in January 2024 because of Hollywood’s strikes — one of several challenges including the coronavirus pandemic and this year’s wildfires that have thrown awards show norms out of whack.

Television has in some ways overtaken movies as a prestige screen art, but that hasn’t translated into similar awards prestige. The Emmys audience is less than half that of the Oscars.

The long-term awards ratings decline closely tracks with real-time broadcast and cable television viewing across the board for virtually everything in the U.S. but football.

And while there are dozens of awards shows each year, only a handful have a significant audience. The poll found that about 3 in 10 Americans said they had watched awards shows at least “several times” in the past year.

That could be a result of Americans having more options than ever in what to watch — and many being too busy to tune in.

Inez Parker, 88, said she watches awards shows on live TV, and she expects she’ll tune into the Emmys this weekend. But she doesn’t stream the show again or watch clips after the fact — she’s too busy for that.

“I usually watch all of it,” she said. “I’ll watch it live, and that’s it. I don’t watch it again.”

Thomson-DeVeaux reported from Washington. AP polling reporter Linley Sanders contributed to this report.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,182 adults was conducted Aug. 21-25, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

By MARY CLARE JALONICK

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans are taking the first steps to change the chamber’s rules on Thursday, making it easier to confirm groups of President Donald Trump’s nominees and overcome Democratic delays.

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s move is the latest salvo after a dozen years of gradual changes by both parties to weaken the filibuster and make the nominations process more partisan. He has said the Democrats’ obstruction is “unsustainable” as they have drawn out the confirmation process and infuriated Trump as many positions in his administration have remained unfilled.

Opening up the Senate, Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said that the delays have prevented the Senate from spending time on legislative business.

“We’re going to fix this today, and restore the longtime Senate precedent of expeditious confirmation, and the Senate’s role as first and foremost a legislative body,” Thune said.

Republicans are taking a series of procedural votes Thursday on a group of 48 of Trump’s nominees, and are expected to vote to “overturn the chair,” or change the rules, which takes a simple majority vote. If all goes according to their plan, the nominees — undersecretaries and staff positions for various agencies across the government as well as several ambassadors — could be confirmed by next week.

The rules change effort comes as both parties have obstructed the other’s nominees for years, and as both Republicans and Democrats have advocated speeding the process when they are in the majority. The Republican rules change stops short of speeding up votes on high-level Cabinet officials and lifetime judicial appointments, and it is loosely based on a proposal from Democrats under President Joe Biden.

Republicans have been pushing the rules change since early August, when the Senate left for a monthlong recess after a breakdown in bipartisan negotiations over the confirmation process and Trump told Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to “GO TO HELL!” on social media.

Democrats have blocked more nominees than ever before as they have struggled to find ways to oppose Trump and the GOP-dominated Congress, and as their voters have pushed them to fight Republicans at every turn. It’s the first time in recent history that the minority party hasn’t allowed at least some quick confirmations.

Schumer has said Democrats are delaying the nominations because Trump’s nominees are “historically bad.”

“If you don’t debate nominees, if you don’t vote on individual nominees, if there’s not some degree of sunlight, what will stop Donald Trump from nominating even worse individuals than we’ve seen to date, knowing this chamber will rubber stamp anything he wishes?” Schumer said Monday.

Schumer told Republicans that they will “come to regret” their action — echoing a similar warning from GOP Leader Mitch McConnell to then-Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in 2013, when Democrats changed Senate rules for executive branch and lower court judicial nominees to remove the 60-vote threshold for confirmations. At the time, Republicans were blocking President Barack Obama’s picks.

Republicans took the Senate majority a year later, and McConnell eventually did the same for Supreme Court nominees in 2017 as Democrats tried to block Trump’s nomination of Justice Neil Gorsuch.

“I say to my Republican colleagues, think carefully before taking this step,” Schumer said.

By MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press

Income inequality dipped, more people had college degrees, fewer people moved to a different home and the share of Asian and Hispanic residents increased in the United States last year, according to figures released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

These year-to-year changes, big and small, from 2023 to 2024 were captured in the bureau’s data from the American Community Survey, the largest annual audit of American life. The survey of 3.5 million households asks about more than 40 topics, including income, housing costs, veterans status, computer use, commuting, and education.

Here’s a look at how the United States changed last year.

Income inequality dips

Income inequality — or the gap between the highest and lowest earners — in the United States fell nationwide by nearly a half percent from 2023 to 2024, as median household income rose slightly, from $80,002 to $81,604.

Five Midwestern states — Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin — had statistically significant dips, along with Georgia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon and Puerto Rico.

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North Carolina was the only state to see a statistically significant rise in inequality. North Carolina State economist Michael Walden said it reflected the state generating high-paying jobs in tech and other professional sectors, while the post-pandemic labor shortage which raised wages in lower-paying service jobs had ended.

In South Dakota, which had a leading 4% drop, the inequality dip “could reflect stronger growth in the household income among lower and middle income households (or smaller growth in the income of the highest brackets),” state demographer Weiwei Zhang said Wednesday in an email.

In Nebraska, it could be high employment rates across all demographic groups since “high employment leads to income, thus less income inequality,” said Josie Schafer, director of the Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Nebraska Omaha.

In Massachusetts, one of the traditional strengths of the state’s economy — high-paying jobs in life science, high tech and research — has been sluggish in the past two years, said Mark Melnik, director of economic and public policy research at a University of Massachusetts Amherst institute.

“The typical jobs in this industry are the kind of thing that helps Massachusetts have the highest per capita (income) in the country but also exacerbates some elements of income inequality,” Melnik said.

FILE – Dark storm clouds hang over TD Ameritrade Park and the Omaha skyline in Omaha, Neb., Friday, June 20, 2014, as the rain starts coming down. (AP Photo/Eric Francis, file)

Greater diversity and fewer people married

The United States became more demographically diverse, and fewer people were married from 2023 to 2024.

The non-Hispanic white population, who identify with only a single race, dropped from 57.1% to 56.3%, while the share of the nation’s Asian population rose from 6% to 6.3% and the Hispanic population rose from 19.4% to 20%. The rate of the Black population stayed the same at 12.1%, as did the American Indian Alaska Native alone population at 1%.

In the marriage department, the share of men who have never married increased from 37.2% to 37.6%, and it rose from 31.6% to 32.1% for women.

Fewer people moved, as costs of renting and owning homes rose

Last year, only 11% of U.S. residents moved to another home, compared to 11.3% in the previous year. The decline of people moving this decade has been part of a continuous slide as home prices have skyrocketed in some metros and interest rates have gone up. In 2019, by comparison, 13.7% of U.S. residents moved.

The monthly costs for U.S. homeowners with a mortgage rose to $2,035 from $1,960. Homeowners with a mortgage in California ($3,001), Hawaii ($2,937), New Jersey ($2,797), Massachusetts ($2,755), and the District of Columbia ($3,181) had the highest median monthly costs.

Costs for renters also increased as the median rent with utilities went from $1,448 to $1,487.

By GENE JOHNSON and HANNAH SCHOENBAUM

OREM, Utah (AP) — Just weeks into the fall semester, a crowd gathered around a white canopy on a grassy college courtyard. They were eager to hear what the speaker beneath it had to say. It was a typical university scene, with its promise of the exchange of ideas and debate, except in one way: its size.

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This speaker was Charlie Kirk, one of the most influential voices in President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement, and the event Wednesday at Utah Valley University drew more than 3,000 people. Backpack-toting students watched from surrounding buildings as Kirk, wearing a white T-shirt that said “Freedom,” tossed red MAGA caps, Frisbee-style, to his fans.

He took his place beneath the canopy, the slogans “The American Comeback” and “Prove Me Wrong” emblazoned across it. He picked up a handheld microphone and he began to address the audience.

As he answered a question about gun violence, a single shot cracked.

Campuses were Kirk’s frequent stops

Kirk, 31, a podcaster, founded the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA. He embraced notions of Christian nationalism and often made provocative statements about gender, race, religion and politics. He had insisted that it was worth it to have “some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”

Often he brought those ideas onto college campuses, where they were especially controversial. Kirk was known for openly debating progressives and challenging audiences to stump him on political points.

Charlie Kirk hands out hats before speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. (Tess Crowley/The Deseret News via AP)

His campus appearances often drew protests, and Wednesday’s was no different. Online petitions signed by thousands of people had called for his talk at Utah Valley University, as well as another, scheduled for Sept. 30 at Utah State University, to be canceled.

“As students at Utah Valley University, we have come to cherish an environment that strives for inclusivity and diversity,” one said. “Yet, the planned speaking engagement of Charlie Kirk threatens this ideal. Kirk’s presence and the messages he delivers stand in contrast to the values of understanding, acceptance, and progress that many of us hold dear.”

The university responded by affirming its “commitment to free speech, intellectual inquiry, and constructive dialogue.”

No metal detectors or bag checks

As was typical for Kirk’s events, security was light. There were six university police officers assigned to the event, plus some private security. There were no metal detectors or bag checks, students told The Associated Press. Some attendees said no one even checked their tickets.

As Kirk arrived, cheers rose. The crowd packed a terraced courtyard, and students, including some protesters, watched from nearby buildings or overlooks.

“Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?” an audience member asked.

Kirk responded, “Too many.”

The questioner followed up: “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?”

“Counting or not counting gang violence?” Kirk asked.

Those were his last words before the bullet struck him. The shot came from a figure in dark clothing on a distant roof on campus, authorities said.

Blood gushed from Kirk’s neck. He held the microphone a moment, then slumped over.

The map above shows the site on the Utah Valley University campus where conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot. (AP Digital Embed)

Madison Lattin, 21, was a few dozen feet to Kirk’s left when the shot echoed over. Lattin, who’d long looked up to Kirk, watched his body jerk and saw the blood.

And it clicked in her head: “That was a gunshot. Now what?”

Shock, followed by chaos and escape

“No! Charlie!” screamed an audience member.

“Go! Run! Go!” yelled another.

The crowd fled the plaza in multiple directions, some slipping and falling or leaping over benches as they did.

Cari Bartholomew, state director of Utah Moms for America, said she had taken her 17-year-old son out of school so he could attend Kirk’s event. They were joined by other women from the group and their kids. Bartholomew’s son was in line waiting to ask a question when Kirk was shot. Chaos ensued and she couldn’t find him as people ducked for cover and started running. She later learned her son was unharmed.

“All of us, we were trying to grab the little kids and getting them as near to us as possible,” she said.

Ryan DeVries, a 25 year-old who works in property management and volunteers as a first responder, said he was surprised by the lack of a security presence at the event; he left his firearm in his car as he anticipated having to walk through metal detectors.

He was weaving his way through the tightly packed crowd to pose a question to Kirk when he heard what sounded similar to a “popping” firework. Glancing at the stage after the shot was fired, DeVries saw Kirk’s head slumped.

A stampede rife with terror and panic soon erupted, said DeVries. Some attendees darted to a nearby building and ran through a water fountain to escape, he said. Others ducked and hid.

Law enforcement tapes off an area after Charlie Kirk, the CEO and co-founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, was shot at the Utah Valley University, Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025, in Orem, Utah. (Tess Croewley/The Deseret News via AP)

“People definitely feared for their lives. I could see it in their eyes. I could hear it in their voices. People were crying. People were screaming,” DeVries said.

After the panic subsided, Erynn Lammi, a 35-year old student who heard the gunshot, saw AirPods, phones, keys and trash strewn across the courtyard. When she returned home, she said, she cried her eyes out, feeling for Kirk’s wife and children as she was reminded of the loss of her own father when she was 13.

“Powerlessness,” Lammi said.

In hours, his death echoed across the country

The shooting drew condemnation from across the political spectrum as an example of the escalating threat of political violence in the United States, including the assassination of a Democratic Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband in June and the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington in May. President Donald Trump was shot in the ear on the campaign trail in western Pennsylvania last year.

In this image taken from video, SWAT heads into campus after Charlie Kirk was shot during Turning Point’s visit to Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Hannah Schoenbaum)

“Today, a young man was murdered in cold blood while expressing his political views,” said former President George W. Bush. “It happened on a college campus, where the open exchange of opposing ideas should be sacrosanct. Violence and vitriol must be purged from the public square.”

Democratic former President Joe Biden posted his condolences on X. “There is no place in our country for this kind of violence. It must end now,” he wrote. “Jill and I are praying for Charlie Kirk’s family and loved ones.”

Late Wednesday night, the shooter remained at large. Police helicopters still circled over Orem in the early evening, and roadblocks caused congestion on the streets surrounding the campus. Armed officers walked around in small groups.

Just off campus, a man stood on a street corner holding a sign that read “R.I.P. Charlie.” A parade of trucks drove through town flying American flags in his honor.

At a nearby vigil, a few dozen people gathered, holding electric candles in the slanting afternoon light. As quiet attendees looked on, a chaotic afternoon behind them, speakers read Bible verses.

Johnson reported from Seattle. AP reporters from around the country contributed.