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Today in History: February 8, Catholic cardinal sentenced for opposition to Hungarian government
Today is Sunday, Feb. 8, the 39th day of 2026. There are 326 days left in the year.
Today in history:On Feb. 8, 1949, Roman Catholic Cardinal József Mindszenty was sentenced to life in prison for his opposition to the fascist and later communist Hungarian governments; released during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, he sought asylum at the U.S. Embassy when the Soviet Union invaded, living there for 15 years. Mindszenty left Hungary in 1971 and died in exile in Vienna in 1975.
Also on this date:In 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots was beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in England after she was implicated in a plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.
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In 1693, a charter was granted for the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg in the Virginia Colony.
In 1904, Japan launched a surprise attack on the Russian Navy at Port Arthur (now Dalian, China), marking the start of the Russo-Japanese War.
In 1910, the Boy Scouts of America organization was incorporated by William D. Boyce, who drew inspiration from the British Boy Scout movement.
In 1924, the first U.S. execution using lethal gas took place at the Nevada State Prison in Carson City as Chinese immigrant Gee Jon was put to death for a murder conviction.
In 1936, the first NFL draft was held at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Philadelphia.
In 1960, work began on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located on Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street in Los Angeles.
In 1968, three Black students were killed and 28 wounded as state troopers opened fire on demonstrators at South Carolina State College in Orangeburg in the aftermath of protests over a whites-only bowling alley. The event would become known as the Orangeburg Massacre.
In 1971, NASDAQ, the world’s first electronic stock exchange, held its first trading day.
In 1993, an Iranian airliner with 132 people on board collided with an air force jet after takeoff from Tehran and exploded, leaving no survivors.
In 2013, a massive two-day snowstorm began dumping up to 3 feet (1 meter) of snow around the U.S. Northeast, causing widespread power outages and leavening several people dead. The storm struck some areas with hurricane-force winds and coastal flooding.
In 2020, a soldier angry about a land dispute went on a 16-hour shooting rampage in Thailand, killing at least 29 people and wounding dozens. Police and military personnel hunted the gunman overnight and shot him dead.
Today’s birthdays:- Composer-conductor John Williams is 94.
- Broadcast journalist Ted Koppel is 86.
- Actor Nick Nolte is 85.
- Comedian Robert Klein is 84.
- Actor-rock musician Creed Bratton is 83.
- Actor Mary Steenburgen is 73.
- Author John Grisham is 71.
- Hockey Hall of Famer Dino Ciccarelli is 66.
- Rock singer Vince Neil (Mötley Crüe) is 65.
- Basketball Hall of Famer Alonzo Mourning is 56.
- Actor Seth Green is 52.
- Actor William Jackson Harper is 46.
- Actor-comedian Cecily Strong is 42.
- Hip-hop artist Anderson Paak is 40.
- Professional surfer Bethany Hamilton is 36.
- Actor Kathryn Newton is 29.
Daily Horoscope for February 08, 2026
General Daily Insight for February 08, 2026
Surprises could rock the boat, but they shouldn’t capsize it. With romantic Venus squaring unpredictable Uranus at 4:48 am EST, our connections and money choices hit friction as new needs clash with old comfort zones. Slow down! Rushing will probably cause more problems, especially if group commitments are involved. By evening, as the emotional Moon trines expansive Jupiter, we can take a wider perspective that allows for extra generosity. Any awkwardness can be banished with honest kindness. Choose steady changes to protect real progress.
AriesMarch 21 – April 19
You set the pace with clear choices. Your 11th House of Friendship hosts Venus, who squares rebellious Uranus in your 2nd House of Resources, pushing group plans against changing costs. Your energetic style prefers action, yet a measured approach lets you renegotiate a shared bill or keep the mood warm during a reconnection after many years apart. If someone pushes, state what works for you and offer a simple alternative that respects time and money. Lead gently, because fairness keeps trust growing.
TaurusApril 20 – May 20
This morning tests your patience and poise. Your 10th House of Jobs and your very own sign are the recipients of the chaotic energy from today’s Venus-Uranus square. Your comfort zone could seem basically unreachable as expectations shift. Whether the pressure is coming from an internal or external source, you can reduce stress by laying out what your specific goals are and when they need to happen. If plans change suddenly, ground yourself with that clear priority. Steady adjustments win respect without draining your energy.
GeminiMay 21 – June 20
Certain ideas likely need a little extra scaffolding before they’ll be able to stand on their own. Under this clash of Venus and Uranus, a blind spot could impact your literal plans or more metaphysical beliefs. Don’t let temporary doubts stop you from having a good time, but try to balance that with attention to any potential oversights. Think of it like this — you don’t have to answer every philosophical question, but you should know when your train leaves for your next big trip!
CancerJune 21 – July 22
Keep today’s plan as uncomplicated as possible. Why? Well, as Luna in your affectionate 5th house trines Jupiter in your caring sign, you’ll probably appreciate some space to be in your feelings a little! This doesn’t have to be a painful time at all; in fact, it’s more likely to be full of tender happiness. You may plan a surprise for a loved one (or them for you)! You can invite even more joy by using any free time to delve into your favorite hobby.
LeoJuly 23 – August 22
Agreements improve when expectations become truly specific. Certain connections could use a rebalance during this alignment of stubborn Venus and shocking Uranus across your connection zone and your business sector. Though you can handle personal or professional mixed signals, you shouldn’t have to! Be blunt about your needs to avoid future confusion. If you lead a team, model patience during frustration and be sure to comply with your own rules. That’s how you earn real respect and invite wholehearted, sustainable cooperation.
VirgoAugust 23 – September 22
Change doesn’t have to be shocking right now (even though today’s aspects involve Uranus). Caring Venus is squaring Uranus, pitting your practical 6th house against your far-flung 9th house. You may need to streamline your process at work if you want more time for your evening plans. If you do have to shift your schedule, do your best to be patient, but firm in the face of any complications. Preparing in advance is the best way to avoid setbacks. Small wins will steadily stack up!
LibraSeptember 23 – October 22
Meeting people halfway shouldn’t involve giving up your genuine needs. You might not even have to give up that much today! Money may flow freely as the intuitive Moon moves through your 2nd House of Resources, trining lucky Jupiter in your 10th House of Goals. Your cooperative nature shines when you name fair numbers and ask for what you need in conversations with authority figures. If you felt stretched recently, you deserve a break. Value yourself enough to fight for what you need.
ScorpioOctober 23 – November 21
Your intuition is sharp enough to cut. The tempestuous Moon is in your heady sign, trining Jupiter in your 9th House of Learning. What truths are already at the tip of your tongue? Be sure to read the room before spilling the beans, because not everyone will be ready to hear what you’ve got to say. Contrarily, others could push for information beyond what you’re comfortable sharing. In any case, let the genuine desire to learn and understand take precedence over defensiveness whenever possible.
SagittariusNovember 22 – December 21
A lively buzz colors conversations and errands. Plans shift as the Love Goddess Venus in your 3rd House of Distraction squares radical Uranus in your 6th House of Effort, possibly prompting a schedule change. Your optimistic style helps you laugh, yet you still benefit from confirming instructions carefully and setting a realistic time to circle back. If a peer cancels, you’re capable of pivoting without losing track of the overall goal. Handling chaos with humor is the ideal way to keep moving forward.
CapricornDecember 22 – January 19
Excellence is attainable with a great team (and a little self-control). With Venus reaching from your resourceful 2nd house to square Uranus in your playful 5th house, you may be tempted to challenge your budget. Your disciplined nature can keep the fun alive while you set a cap that protects savings for everyone and supports peace of mind. If someone pressures for more, that’s their problem. Still, if you want, you could offer a playful alternative that fits their ideas and everyone’s wallets.
AquariusJanuary 20 – February 18
A fresh wave of inspiration could wash over you at any moment. Independent Venus occupies your innovative sign, where she squares awakening Uranus (your sign’s ruling planet) in your 4th House of Foundations, stirring tension between personal expression and domestic responsibilities. Your independent streak wants space, yet you gain more by explaining your plans and honoring someone’s comfort while keeping your style intact. Be aware that as your identity shifts, your domicile may follow suit. Own your vibe respectfully to strengthen home harmony.
PiscesFebruary 19 – March 20
Figure things out when it’s quiet in order to act when it’s loud. Tender feelings may feel wounded by pointed news as Venus in your spiritual 12th house pokes Uranus in your talkative 3rd house. Do your best to steel yourself and ask for a moment to adjust if necessary — you can reply to any inquiries in your own time. If a sibling or neighbor texts in a rush (outside of a legitimate emergency), you shouldn’t have to drop everything for their sake.
Brad Arnold, lead singer of Grammy-nominated rock band 3 Doors Down, dies at 47
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Brad Arnold, the lead singer of the Grammy-nominated rock band 3 Doors Down, died Saturday, months after he announced that he had been diagnosed with Stage 4 kidney cancer. He was 47.
The band said in a statement that Arnold “passed away peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, in his sleep after his courageous battle with cancer.”
3 Doors Down formed in Mississippi in 1995 and four years later received a Grammy nomination for the breakout hit “Kryptonite.” Arnold wrote the song in math class when he was 15 years old, according to the band statement.
Their debut album, “The Better Life,” sold over 6 million copies. A second Grammy nomination came in 2003, for the song “When I’m Gone.”
The band said Arnold “helped redefine mainstream rock music, blending post-grunge accessibility with emotionally direct songwriting and lyrical themes that resonated with everyday listeners.”
3 Doors Down released six albums, most recently “Us And The Night” in 2016. Singles included “Loser,” “Duck and Run” and “Be Like That,” which appeared on the soundtrack for the 2001 film “American Pie 2.”
While promoting their 5th album, “Time of My Life,” Arnold said he considered himself lucky to have carved out a career in the music business.
“If you do something as long as we’ve done it, you can’t help but get better at it, you know?” Arnold told The Associated Press in 2011.
In 2017, 3 Doors Down performed at the first inauguration concert of President Donald Trump.
Arnold announced his cancer diagnosis last May, saying clear cell renal carcinoma had metastasized to his lungs. The band was forced to cancel a summer tour.
“His music reverberated far beyond the stage, creating moments of connection, joy, faith, and shared experiences that will live on long after the stages he performed on,” the band said.
Malik Reneau scores 23, Miami finishes strong in 84-78 win over Boston College
BOSTON (AP) — Malik Reneau had 23 points, Shelton Henderson and Tre Donaldson scored big buckets down the stretch, and Miami defeated Boston College 74-68 on Saturday.
Miami led 50-40 with about 12 minutes left in the game, but the Hurricanes managed only seven points in the next 6 1/2 minutes. Donald Hand Jr.’s jumper gave the Eagles a 58-57 lead with 5 1/2 minutes remaining for the Eagles’ only lead since it was 10-9.
Henderson’s layup put the Hurricanes back ahead 20 seconds later and Donaldson scored nine points in the final 4 1/2 minutes to wrap up the win.
Henderson scored 19 points and Donaldson had 14 points, eight rebounds and seven assists for Miami (18-5, 7-3 ACC).
Hand, who made four 3-pointers, scored 20 points before fouling out with under three minutes remaining. Boden Kapke had 18 points and 11 rebounds and Fred Payne scored 11 points for Boston College (9-14, 2-8).
Reneau scored 13 of Miami’s first 24 points and the Hurricanes led 24-19 with about seven minutes to go in the first half. The lead reached 29-19 before Payne scored six straight points to kick-start a BC rally and the Eagles got within 34-33 at the half.
Boston College was whistled for 31 fouls to 11 for Miami. At the free-throw line, the Hurricanes made only 13 of their 25 attempts and the Eagles made 7 of 10.
34th annual Florida Renaissance Festival opens in Deerfield Beach | PHOTOS
Show Caption1 of 16The Annual Florida Renaissance Festival kicked off at Quiet Waters Park in Deerfield Beach on Saturday, February 7, 2026. The festival continues on weekends only (Saturdays and Sundays from 10:00 a.m. to sunset, February 7th – March 29th of 2026. (Mike Stocker/South Florida Sun Sentinel)ExpandThe Florida Renaissance Festival returned to Quiet Waters Park on Saturday for its 34th annual season, beginning an eight-week run in Deerfield Beach. The opening “Gamemasters Unite” weekend featured the Royal Court of King Robert Rivera alongside jousting by the Hanlon-Lees Action Theater, falconry displays, and live musical performances. View photos of the costumed crowds, artisan vendors, and 16th-century themed entertainment as the festival kicks off its 2026 calendar.
Republicans rarely criticize Trump in his second term. A racist post briefly changed that
By MATT BROWN
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump received rare blowback from Republican lawmakers over a video posted to social media that included a racist image of former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, depicted as primates.
Since Trump’s return to the White House, Republican lawmakers have treaded carefully when disagreeing with the president, often communicating their concerns in private for fear of suffering his wrath.
But the swift calls to remove the post, which also echoed false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, represented a rare moment of bipartisan backlash to Trump’s actions from lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Multiple GOP members of the Senate and House joined their Democratic colleagues in voicing disgust and criticism at the post and urged the president to remove it.
Trump declined to apologize, saying he did not see the racist portion of the video when he passed it on to staff.
How Republican lawmakers reactedSouth Carolina’s Tim Scott, the only Black Republican senator and chair of the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, criticized the image and urged the president to remove it.
“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it,” Scott wrote on social media.
Other Republican senators echoed the sentiment.
“Even if this was a Lion King meme, a reasonable person sees the racist context to this,” Sen. Pete Ricketts of Nebraska, wrote on social media. “The White House should do what anyone does when they make a mistake: remove this and apologize.”
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine called the image “appalling.” Roger Wicker, the senior senator from Mississippi, denounced it as “totally unacceptable.”
“The president should take it down and apologize,” Wicker wrote.
Sen. John Curtis of Utah called Trump’s post “blatantly racist and inexcusable. It should never have been posted or left published for so long.”
In the House, Rep. Mike Lawler of New York called Trump’s post “wrong and incredibly offensive—whether intentional or a mistake—and should be deleted immediately with an apology offered.” Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, a frequent Trump critic, quipped on social media about the White House’s shifting explanations for the video’s origin and deletion.
Praise for the post being removedMore Republicans lodged their objections to the post after the video was taken down.
“This content was rightfully removed, should have never been posted to begin with, and is not who we are as a nation,” wrote Sen. Katie Britt, an Alabama Republican.
Rep. John James, a Michigan Republican running for governor, said he was “glad to see that trash has been taken down.” James, one of four Black Republicans in the House, said he was “shocked and appalled by that post” but defended Trump’s character.
“I know the President. He is not racist,” said James, who campaigned for Trump in Black communities during the 2024 presidential campaign.
Still, some of Trump’s closest allies defended him. Laura Loomer, a far right activist and media personality, called on her social media followers to highlight any Republican lawmakers “attacking Trump today with false accusations of racism.”
“I am compiling a list of every single GOP Senator who attacked President Trump today, and I am printing it out and giving it to President Trump ahead of the @NRSC Winter Meeting in Palm Beach, Florida this weekend,” wrote Loomer, who has influenced administration policy and threatened retribution against GOP lawmakers in the past.
A shifting White House narrativeTrump has been a longtime critic of the Obamas. Before entering politics, he earned fame among conservatives as a champion of the “birther” conspiracy theory that falsely claimed that President Obama was not born in the U.S.
White House officials made multiple shifting statements about how the animated video, which has circulated among conservatives online for months, came to be posted by the president’s account.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt at first said the post, which appears to be AI-generated, depicted Trump as “King of the Jungle” and the Obamas and other Democrats as characters from “The Lion King.” But the Disney animated classic does not include any characters depicted as apes, and is set in an African savanna not a jungle.
White House officials later said that the video was erroneously posted by a staffer.
“I liked the beginning. I saw it and just passed it on, and I guess probably nobody reviewed the end of it,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. Asked if he condemned the racist parts of the video, Trump said, “Of course I do.”
Democrats rally to former first coupleSupporters of the Obamas also took to social media not only to condemn the president’s post, but also to celebrate the former first couple.
“We should ALL be outraged,” Pete Souza, the former chief White House photographer during the Obama White House, posted to social media. “I will not post a screenshot of the video here. Instead, I thought it best to respond with a few of my photographs of Barack and Michelle.”
Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., posted images of the Obamas and praised their “brilliance, elegance, and beauty.”
“I want Americans, particularly our young people, to know that the vast majority of our country supports and uplifts you despite the filth spewing from the Oval Office,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wrote to the Obamas on social media.
Dave Hyde: Seahawks, Patriots GMs show a Green Bay Way wish for Dolphins
There’s a way to peddle hope for the Miami Dolphins fan to live vicariously through another Super Bowl. But, come on, if you think I’m going to be a street pusher for an organization that’s only proven the past two decades it has no idea which way is up — excuse me, do you think I’m stupid? (Wrong answers only.)
I’ve stood on the elevator as it’s taken everyone down, and down lower, through team owner Steve Ross’ tenure with (long breath) Joe Philbin, Bullygate, White-Powder-Snorting Videogate, Tank-for-Tua, Tampering-for-Tom Brady, Brian Flores’ lawsuit, Star-Players-Late-for-Practice-Gate and, always, No-Playoff-Win-in-25-Years-Gate.
Remember when the talk was wasting Dan Marino’s career? What about my career?
So, there’s the surgeon general’s warning label to this column. Because here’s the thing about this Super Sunday. It really does show the way out for the Dolphins, if it comes with this latest regime.
That’s because the stars going into Super Sunday aren’t the quarterbacks since neither Seattle’s Sam Darnold nor New England’s Drake Maye have the developed pedigree.
Nor are the stars the coaches, though both the Seahawks’ second-year coach Mike Macdonald and Mike Vrabel in his first with the Patriots have shown their swaggering talent.
The primary stars of this Super Bowl are the builders. They’re the two behind-the-curtain general managers who thrived in the unromantic existence of the clammy-palmed draft room and the dice-rolling proposition of free agency to build cusp-of-championship rosters.
Seattle’s John Schneider and New England’s Eliot Wolf rose up from young nobodies to graduate from Green Bay Packers University, too. Just like new Dolphins general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan. All three also were together for several years on different career timelines to learn in a sound organization.
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There’s the lifeline, if you want to grab it.
“The Packer Way is at the core of everything I learned about football,” Schneider has said.
“The Packer Way to me is just sort of draft and develop, extend your core performers from within, and it’s about honesty, respect and treating people the right way,” Wolf once said. “It’s about people and developing people.”
Those are words, just words. But look at them in practice. Seattle drafted 20 starters or significant contributors over the past four years. That includes All-Pro players, first-round receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba and fifth-round cornerback Devon Witherspoon.
New England’s roster isn’t as draft-developed considering Wolf’s tenure started in 2024. But two rookies start on the offensive line. Four rookies start in all and two more contribute on a Super Bowl team. Imagine that, rookies impacting right away?
Wolf’s defining pick of Maye in 2024 set up everything good about this team’s future, too. So, Maye was the last quarterback standing. So was Marino in 1983. Sometimes fortune smiles at you like that.
The quarterback philosophy is central to the Packer Way. It can be seen by Schneider’s previous Super Bowl teams in 2013 and 2014. He threw darts at the board with three quarterbacks to build that champion: an unproven Charlie Whitehurst, Green Bay free agent Matt Flynn and third-round pick Russell Wilson.
A quarterback competition? That’s been a no-no inside the Dolphins. But Wilson came out the winner, then a Super Bowl champion. But the other side of that is the Green Bay Way moves on from aging quarterbacks before they’re done to go with rising young ones — Brett Favre was dumped for Aaron Rodgers, Rodgers for Jordan Love.
Schneider traded Wilson to Denver rather than paying high money, picked up a good-not-great Geno Smith and then dumped Smith for Darnold. Voila.
Don’t oversell this Green Bay Way as only draft-and-develop, though. New England and Seattle set things up to have beaucoup salary-cap space before this season. New England spent the most in the league at $365 million ($198M guaranteed). Seattle spent a third-most $243 million ($131 guaranteed.)
That’s a big chunk of how New England rebuilt its defense and Seattle sprinkled stars on top its roster. But they spent smartly as opposed to … well, you know. They also traded smartly. Schneider, for instance, traded fourth- and fifth-round picks for Seattle receiver Rashid Shaheed. Think Buffalo wonders why it didn’t get Josh Allen help like that?
Schneider’s background is he pestered then-Green Bay GM Ron Wolf with enough letters and phone calls that Wolf finally let gave him a menial job. Eliot Wolf is Ron’s son, went to draft combines since age 10 and then started in the Packers front office learning a decade after Schneider in 2004.
Sullivan had just quit his real-life job to start at the bottom inside the Packers then, too. His dad, Jerry, was a long-time NFL coach. So he grew up inside the game like Wolf. He also grew up inside a winning Packers organization like these Super Bowl GMs.
Since Ron Wolf took over in 1991, the Packers have 25 playoff appearances in 35 seasons, including nine NFC Championship games and two Super Bowl wins (and one loss). They aren’t perfect. Why did Bill Belichick’s New England organization win six Super Bowls with Brady (and played in nine) while the Packers won one each with Rodgers and Favre?
Still, the Packer Way is the sub-story of Super Sunday. It drops some crumbs for what Sullivan will attempt with the Dolphins. That’s all the further I’m going with the idea. You want to inject hope? That’s on you. The past two decades demand some proof before going further.
Heat’s Keshad Johnson selected for All-Star dunk contest; Larsson doubtful vs. Wizards, Powell questionable
WASHINGTON — Even amid an uneven season, the Miami Heat will have participants on each day of All-Star Weekend next weekend in Los Angeles.
Saturday, seldom-used forward Keshad Johnson was named to the four-player field for the dunk contest next Saturday night.
That comes in the wake of Heat forward Norman Powell last Sunday being named to the All-Star Game for the first time in his 11-season career. That game will be next Sunday.
Previously, second-year center Kel’el Ware was named to the Rising Stars competition for first-and second-year players, which will be contested on Friday night.
Additionally, Heat two-way player Jahmir Young will be participating in the G League Next Up Game and G League 3-Point Contest next Sunday during NBA All-Star Weekend.
While Johnson has been limited in his playing time with the Heat this season, including being sent for seasoning to the G League to play with the Sioux Falls Skyforce, he has produced several dramatic dunks during mop-up duty.
Signed to a two-way contract after going undrafted out of Arizona in 2024, Johnson has since been upgraded to a standard contract.
Johnson, 24, becomes the fifth Heat player over the franchise’s 38 seasons to participate in the dunk contest, joining Jaime Jaquez Jr. (2024), 2020 winner Derrick Jones Jr., two-time winner Harold Miner (1995 and ‘93 ) and Billy Thompson (1990).
Johnson will be joined in the dunk contest by three fellow first-time participants: Carter Bryant (San Antonio Spurs), Jaxson Hayes (Los Angeles Lakers) and Jase Richardson (Orlando Magic).
The AT&T Slam Dunk will feature a two-round format, with judges scoring each dunk. In the first round, all four players will attempt two dunks, and the combined score will determine the top two who advance to the final round. Each finalist will then attempt two additional dunks, with the higher combined score determining the champion.
Johnson has appeared in 21 Heat games this season, all in reserve, averaging 3.1 points, 1.9 rebounds and 7.6 minutes while shooting .404 from the field, .304 on 3-pointers and .765 from the line. Nine of his 23 baskets this season have been dunks. His nine dunks rank sixth on the Heat roster.
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In two games on G League assignment, Johnson averaged 22.5 points, 7.5 rebounds, 3.0 assists, 3.0 steals and 2.5 blocks.
The Heat will not have a participant in the All-Star Weekend 3-point contest, with defending champion Tyler Herro currently sidelined with a rib injury, away from the team during this two-game trip that opened with Friday night’s loss to the Boston Celtics and concludes Sunday against the Washington Wizards at Capital One Arena.
The Heat begin their All-Star break after Wednesday night’s game against the Pelicans in New Orleans. They then return to action after an eight-day break with a Feb. 20 game in Atlanta against the Hawks.
Injury reportHeat forward Pelle Larsson is listed as doubtful for Sunday at Washington due to the elbow contusion sustained in Friday night’s loss in Boston, keeping him out for that second half.
Powell is listed as questionable with the sprained right hand that kept him out for most of Friday night’s third quarter.
Bam Adebayo is listed as probable with hip tightness.
Tyler Herro (ribs) is not on trip.
As Heat upcoming opponents play the lottery odds, Spoelstra remains in win-now mode
WASHINGTON — The juxtaposition could not be any clearer the next two games for the Miami Heat.
On one hand, you have Erik Spoelstra and his now-perennial play-in team living in the moment, even if the moment has the Heat at 27-26 and coming off a disastrous Friday night loss to the Boston Celtics at the start of this two-game trip, when even a 22-point lead was not good enough.
On the other hand, you have a pair of upcoming opponents who have left little doubt about their need to lose as a means of creating hope.
Sunday afternoon at Capital One Arena, it will be against the Washington Wizards and their annual race to the bottom, with the Wizards having sat out Trae Young since since his Jan. 9 trade arrival from the Atlanta Hawks, and now with word that prime trade-deadline acquisition Anthony Davis will not suit up for them this season.
Then Monday night at Kaseya Center, the opponent will be the Utah Jazz, a team that even while making the forward-thinking acquisition of Jaren Jackson Jr. at Thursday’s NBA trade deadline is well aware it only keeps its June lottery pick by closing with one of the league’s eight worst records.
Losing by winning.
As an NBA way of life.
And then there are the Heat, who also possess their own draft pick this June, with no strings attached, positioned to gain a lottery seed either through losing now or being eliminated in the play-in round.
Their approach? Full steam ahead, even while having won consecutive games only once since Jan. 1.
So in Friday night’s loss in Boston, when a case could have been made for youth in the wake of inaction at Thursday’s trade deadline … no minutes for rookie Kasparas Jakucionis, a mere 9:32 for 2024 first-round pick Kel’el Ware and 6:22 for 22-year-old Nikola Jovic.
To Spoelstra the approach remains that youth will be served when deserved, and even then not at the cost of one more victory, even amid the seemingly inescapable reality of a fourth consecutive trip to the play-in round.
“We’re not going to prioritize something over winning,” Spoelstra said ahead of Friday night’s loss, a game when 30-year-old Simone Fontecchio played 19:28, despite closing 0 for 5 from the field, with just two points, a game when Andrew Wiggins, who turns 31 in two weeks, played 38:22, albeit with 26 points. “Winning is going to be the bottom line. Take it or leave it, like it or not. That’s what the Miami Heat is about. We’re competing to win.”
To their credit, such an approach did have the Heat positioned for the victory had point guard Davion Mitchell made an open 3-point attempt from the left corner with 2.7 seconds to play in what instead was a 98-96 loss that had both teams scoreless in the final 1:31.
To Spoelstra, the gifting of minutes to youth would send the wrong message. In support of his approach, Jovic managed to finish a Heat-worst -14 in his Friday night minutes, with the Heat also outscored in Ware’s limited time.
“You have to earn your minutes,” Spoelstra said of his rotation approach. “We’re not gifting minutes to anyone. We have more young players playing in the rotation than we’ve had in a long time, and that’s this balance that I’m embracing.”
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All, Spoelstra said, also with an eye for the future, but not with an eye on the race for the bottom being favored at the moment by the Wizards and Jazz.
“Develop these players, infuse them with confidence, but also hold them accountable to our standard,” Spoelstra continued of what he considers a workable approach. “The standard is not going to change, and we feel that players improve the quickest when there’s an accountability to winning, when they’re not just empty minutes that are being gifted to someone.”
And when the youth produces in such moments, Spoelstra said it is all the more gratifying.
“It’s art, not necessarily science,” he said of the approach. “But our young guys are getting a lot better. And they’re playing and contributing. And it’s exciting.
“We want our fan base excited about this young group. And we want our team excited about the youthful exuberance that they’re bringing our locker room. And there’s a big upside.”
What’s like got to do with it? Sara Levine on the art of ‘difficult’ women
CHICAGO — The other day the author Sara Levine asked me to meet her at a dog beach in Evanston. I didn’t have a hard time finding her. She said she would be wearing an orange cap and she was. The problem — and here is where I felt as though I slipped suddenly into a Sara Levine novel — was that the beach was padlocked and Levine arrived without her dog. Also, at the very moment we met, Northwestern University’s Emergency Notification System began to boom out a test, which sounds like a tornado siren with the addition of a deep male voice imploring you to stay calm, no emergency is occurring.
In a Sara Levine novel — and so far, she’s only written two in 25 years — the heroine would likely take that as a sign, like some kind of cosmic irony that an emergency was definitely occurring.
Levine suggested we meet at a dog beach because “The Hitch,” her new novel — her first since “Treasure Island!!!,” Levine’s beloved 2012 cult classic — centers on a dog attack in Evanston that leaves a corgi dead and a 6-year-old boy certain he’s possessed by the dead dog’s soul. But like “Treasure Island!!!,” it’s also funny and unhinged and so relatable you wonder if Levine, who chairs the writing department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has been slowly making a case for the lost art of the literary comedy novel.
Indeed, Levine’s characters are so queasily recognizable, this wasn’t even the first time in recent months that I felt as if I had stepped unwittingly into a Sara Levine story. By some twist of completely off-the-wall fate, the same week I was reading an early copy of “The Hitch,” I was bitten several times by a dog. Seriously. It was bonkers. I was walking through a restaurant patio on the North Shore and a dog launched itself onto my calf like I was sirloin. My first thought: Why me? I felt like that guy in a movie who hasn’t yet become a werewolf but all of the neighborhood dogs know he’s a werewolf and start barking. And yet, it wasn’t even the dog attack that reminded me of Levine — it was the way diners glared at me, as if I interrupted their burgers. I felt a weird shame.
When I told Levine this — and that I was not that excited to hang out at a dog beach anyway, considering — she told me about the attack in Evanston that led to “The Hitch.”
“So I was walking my dog by (Evanston Township High School) and he’s a little goldendoodle and this dog — no leash, but with a pink collar — suddenly appears in the alley. It’s a pit bull. I’m not anti-pit bull and I don’t mean to stereotype. She’s a little pit, but pits do have strong jaws and she attacks my dog. This was 2020. I have these horrible voice memos with my dog wailing. Anyway, now I’m in a crisis, and what am I doing to do? I’m terrible in a crisis. I also don’t want to hurt the other dog. If I let my dog off the leash he might get hit by car, so I’m frozen there, and I’m also trying to separate them, but I’m also thinking I can’t kick this dog — even with what’s happening in front of me, I couldn’t do it. The house on the corner has a Newfoundland standing in the yard, and the woman at the house sees me. She tells me to run for her car, but it’s actually a truck with a flatbed. She grabs a shovel and starts swinging at the dog, and my legs at this point are jelly but we make it into the flatbed and the pitbull is just launching itself at us, just like Cujo. My first thought was, Did I make this happen? I had started writing about a dog, so: Did I bring this on? That’s nutty, but it’s how you feel at times when things happen.”
Sara Levine’s new novel “The Hitch.” (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)Levine’s novels feel right for early 2026, for this gray period when we’re all expected to reassess our lives, make changes and emerge in the spring with clearer heads. The way certain works of fiction can do, her books could double as perverse self-help, starring heroines who go out of their ways to show how not to conduct your life. Her writing voice, sardonic, breezy, chimes with Joy Williams and Donald Barthelme, but it’s hard not to hear “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and even “The Office” — that nexus where unraveling people lacking self-awareness stumble across empathy.
The heroine of “Treasure Island!!!” — a 25-year old clerk of a “pet library” — reads Robert Louis Stevenson’s legendary adventure and quickly reassess her narrow timid life, deciding there and then to live by a credo culled from Stevenson: Boldness, Resolution, Independence, Horn-blowing. But by the end, she kills a parrot and is so obsessed with “Treasure Island,” family and friends stage an intervention between her and the novel. The heroine of “The Hitch” could be related, if only tangentially: Her name is Rose Cutler and she is an Evanston yogurt company CEO (as well as “antiracist, secular Jewish feminist eco-warrior”). Rose is also perilously up her own keister. She does not want children (“not for one atom-spitting second”) but she is never so shy with opinions about the way her brother and sister-in-law raise their own kid. When they go on vacation, Rose jumps at the chance to play aunt for a week — which is when the dog attack occurs, her nephew decides (cheerfully) the dog’s soul leapt bodies, and worse.
Rose is a micromanager, and lousy in a crisis. It spoils nothing to say the closest she gets to enlightenment is a brief ah-ha: “Sometimes my mind gets active as a prairie dog and I build elaborate tunnels underground, room after room of judgement and justification.”
The writer Roxane Gay — who once included Levine’s work in an essay on unlikeable women characters (“Not Here to Make Friends”) — said that just after she landed her own imprint (Roxane Gay Books) at Grove Atlantic, she sought out Levine and asked what she was working on: “It had been some time since ‘Treasure Island!!!’ and Sara did not disappoint. The writing voice I fell in love with was still there, but she had grown, and though this Rose character was older, you’re reminded that sometimes we don’t really outgrow our lesser selves — that sometimes we just learn to live with them, you know?”
Levine told Gay that not every reader is a fan of unlikeable woman characters. She told Gay about the (smallish) subset of Goodreads reviewers who describe her women as “utterly unlikeable” and “irredeemable.” Gay told me, “I don’t know why writers are so willing to expose themselves to Goodreads. Some people have a parasocial relationship with book characters, and it meets a puritanical streak where people decide they don’t like a character who is a ‘bad person,’ forgetting flawed people exist. Rose is convinced she knows the right way to do things and her ethics are in the right place — bless her heart.”
Levine’s sweet spot is what literary scholars have long called “unreliable narration” — she even taught a class at Brown University (where she got her Ph.D. in English) on the topic. Levine said: “My father’s a psychiatrist and he tells me we’re all unreliable narrators. But in a novel, it means there’s a deficit of comprehension from the character telling the story and that deficit is part of the story. But when I hear from people who hated ‘Treasure Island!!!,’ often they think I’m the narrator. My feelings get hurt. But maybe they don’t understand that gap. It took me a long time to realize it.
“Or maybe ‘unreliable’ is the wrong term for this. Should I just refer to my characters as ‘difficult women’? No, maybe not — I was at a party recently and told someone I write about ‘difficult women’ and this person said, ‘OK, wait, what do you mean by difficult …?’”
Sara Levine sits in home writing space on Jan. 9, 2026, in Evanston. Levine is the chair of the writing department at School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a novelist whose new book, “The Hitch,” follows her 2011 novel Treasure Island. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)Horror novelist Paul Tremblay — whom Levine consulted to get a sense of how to handle the possession part of “The Hitch” — is a big fan of Levine, and included “Treasure Island!!!” on his ballot for the New York Times poll of the best books of the 21st century. Part of that appreciation, he said, is “how she is reviving an old tradition of first-person a-hole narrators. Think of ‘Confederacy of Dunces,’ or the novels of Sam Lipsyte, except publishers don’t like books by women who go there. Readers are getting more literal, I think. It can feel like a risk to just include any moral uncertainty in a novel now. I hear this especially from younger readers, who want to know what the moral is, and the thing is we are not writing to bestow morals but explain what it means to be human, which can be dark and uncomfortable — all words I would use to describe Sara’s books.”
You could also argue the long afterlife of “Treasure Island!!” — a perpetual word-of-mouth bookseller favorite, handed down to friends who can relate to spiraling exhaustion — is a mirror of contemporary America. Or at least indie culture: Rose Byrne is likely to grab an Oscar nomination soon for “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” as a stressed mother who makes a series of bad decisions; she’d slide neatly into Levine’s books. Levine is one of your favorite literary writers’ best-kept secrets: Blurbs for “The Hitch” came from Elizabeth Gilbert, Rumaan Alam, Adam Levin and Chicagoan Michael Zapata, who told me: “Blurbs can be blurby, but the one I wrote was truly sincere.” “Treasure Island!!!,” which has yet to be adapted to TV or film (but probably will be one day), has already been developed (and dropped) by Natalie Portman and James Franco.
Levine sounds almost naive about the depth of this love.
She told me another established screenwriter got pretty far with “Treasure Island!!!” but then appeared to bail and never signed their contract; Levine never heard from the woman again. One day, during a class at SAIC, she projected an email exchange between her and the writer as an illustration of professional etiquette. “I had to explain how she opted out of the project, and as students do, one took out his phone and googled the woman’s name and a minute later replied, ‘Oh, Sara, no — that woman had died. That’s probably why she never got back to you.’”
Sounds like a Sara Levine story, I said.
“It does?” she asked.
Sara Levine sifts through a box of drawings from 2012 that she created in the early stages of writing her novel “The Hinge” at her home on Jan. 9, 2026, in Evanston. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)To be frank, the biggest disappointment about Sara Levine is that she’s not nuts. I anticipated erratic and flighty and I got calm and rational. James McManus, author of the poker memoir “Positively Fifth Street,” who taught alongside Levine for 25 years, said: “She is as sane and responsible an adult as they come. In fact, (SAIC) wanted her to move into even more active leadership roles, but that can be a time suck, creatively.”
She has long gray hair and large cartoon eyes and comes across as naturally funny. She said people do expect her to be a wacko. “Someone introduced me at a party recently as ‘one of the most sane people’ at the Art Institute, or maybe it was ‘the least insane.’”
Levine, who is 55, grew up outside Cleveland and wrote a couple of plays that were produced when she was still a teenager (one professionally, for a Cleveland theater group). She went to Northwestern for theater only to find her way to creative writing. She then bounced from Brown to the University of Iowa to SAIC, which she joined in 2000. She describes herself as “ornery” that entire time. She threatened to drop out of Brown, refused to start a novel, moved to Iowa to teach non-fiction, only to decide, “‘I don’t want to live here, I don’t want to teach this my whole life’ — it was like looking into my coffin.”
She found she was more interested in “‘hysterical’ voices, the more obstreperous personalities of fiction.” “Treasure Island!!!,” which she began to see if she could write a novel after years of short stories and nonfiction academia, took a decade, but she found that she was more ambitious than she knew. She also learned she had a knack for describing everyday suburbia with cutting precision: “The Hitch” is filled with Evanston parents who over-schedule kids so much you wonder if they “can’t sit still in a room” with children. Doctor’s offices offer “six televisions playing six different channels.” Vast expanses of Illinois contain “a strip of road that featured an abandoned movie theatre, a discount shoe store, and a cemetery bordered by a six-foot high metal fence capped with snow,” as well as a hospital “founded in affiliation with the Evangelical Lutheran Church and rooted in the belief that all persons were created in the image of God, a hospital that had not in the past five years received higher than a two-star Yelp review.”
Sara Levine sits in her home writing space with her dog Lenny on Jan. 9, 2026, in Evanston. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)After “Treasure Island!!!,” she wrote a big sprawling novel titled “Leave It,” a more lyrical and somber kaleidoscope of Evanston characters; she didn’t want to follow one “difficult woman” with a second. She gave it to her agent, but then soon after, she pulled it back and shelved it.
“I was worried I was reinforcing the ‘hysterical’ woman thing, so I wrote something else, but that something else? Other people do that book well. So I have this narrow track. Twyla Tharp talks about knowing your own creative DNA, and that helped me. I’ve always had teachers who said you need to keep growing, you’ve got to keep pushing, that there is a natural aesthetic restlessness where you should never repeat yourself. I really bought into that. But what if it’s helpful to focus on one form and go very deep into only that? Look at Monet, who spent a lifetime painting haystacks …”
“‘Compares self to Monet,’” I interrupted, joking, pretending to jot that in my notebook.
“Oh, and also Nabokov!” she said, laughing. “And of course Jane Austen! Write that down.”
cborrelli@chicagotribune.com
Winderman’s view: Spoelstra steadfast of Heat living in moment, as moment gets uglier
BOSTON — Observations and other notes of interest from Friday night’s 98-96 loss to the Boston Celtics:
– So no veteran addition for the Heat and therefore a move toward youth while practically locked into the play-in round?
– Not exactly.
– Actually not even close, as Heat coach Erik Spoelstra made abundantly clear in his pregame media session, before a massive Heat lead again turned into something less.
– “We’re not going to prioritize something over winning,” he said, steadfast, as the Heat began the final 30-game run of their regular season. “Winning is going to be the bottom line. Take it or leave it, like it or not, that’s what the Miami Heat is about. We’re competing to win.”
– Trading deadline or no trading deadline, main thing still main thing.
– With 2025 first-round pick Kasparas Jakucionis then spending the night watching from the bench.
– “You have to earn your minutes,” Spoelstra said of his rotation approach. “We’re not gifting minutes to anyone. We have more young players playing in the rotation than we’ve had in a long time, and that’s this balance that I’m embracing.”
– So also no Nikola Jovic until midway through the third period..
– But still veterans such as Andrew Wiggins, Dru Smith and Simone Fontecchio.
– So, yes, development.
– But the Heat way.
– “Develop these players, infuse them with confidence, but also hold them accountable to our standard,” Spoelstra continued of what he still considers a workable approach. “The standard is not going to change, and we feel that players improve the quickest when there’s an accountability to winning, when they’re not just empty minutes that are being gifted to someone.”
– Spoelstra said there is an intersection of being demanding of youth while also forgiving of youth.
– “It’s art, not necessarily science,” he said of the approach. ” But our young guys are getting a lot better. And they’re playing and contributing. And it’s exciting.”
– So, yes, youth will be served.
– On Heat terms.
– “You know, we want our fan base excited about this young group,” Spoelstra said. “And we want our team excited about the youthful exuberance that they’re bringing our locker room. And there’s a big upside”
– With Norman Powell back after a three-game absence for the birth of his daughter, the Heat returned to a lineup of Wiggins, Bam Adebayo, Pelle Larsson, Davion Mitchell and Powell.
– The lineup entered 3-2.
– It was the 100th career regular-season appearance for Larsson.
– Along the way, Powell reached 1,000 points on the season.
– Jaime Jaquez Jr. was first off the Heat bench.
– Smith followed.
– Fontecchio and Kel’el Ware then followed together.
– Then, with Larsson out, Myron Gardner made his first appearance of the night early in the third period.
– From there, Nikola Jovic saw his first action of the night when he entered midway through the third quarter.
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– The game was the Celtics debut of Nikola Vucevic, who was acquired from the Bulls at the trade deadline, making it the fourth time in eight days that a Vucevic team played the Heat.
– “To have an opportunity to play in the playoffs and play for something big, it’s extra motivation,” Vucevic said.
– Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla on the addition of Vucevic, “I think it’s just we’re adding depth. We’re adding flexibility. We’re adding versatility. We’re adding opportunity.”:
– The Heat went in stressing greater road success.
– “We’d like to play more consistently on the road,” Spoelstra said. “We’re still four games under on the road. This is a tough place to win.”
– Spoelstra said the road inconsistency transcends player absences.
– “We’ve had some guys miss games, but a bigger thing has been just our consistency,” Spoelstra said, “to be able to do our best level more consistently on the road versus quality teams.”
– He added, “Even with the things that have happened to us, we’ve shown that that ceiling can be very high. If we defend at a high level on any given night we can blow the doors off offensively but we have to do it a lot more consistently.”
– Wiggins agreed.
– “We have to be better on a more consistent level and I think it will bring us there,” he said.
Heat follow idle trade deadline with blown 22-point lead in loss to Celtics
BOSTON — The last time these teams met, the Miami Heat coughed up a 19-point lead in a loss to the Boston Celtics.
So this time, Erik Spoelstra’s team gave itself more of a buffer, going up 22 in the first half on Friday night in Boston.
It needed all of it.
And, in the end, even more.
With another third-quarter collapse ultimately making it the biggest of blown nights, the Heat again blew a massive lead to the Celtics, this time falling 98-96 Friday night at TD Garden at the start of a two-game trip that concludes Sunday against the Washington Wizards.
So, nothing accomplished at an idle Thursday NBA trading deadline.
Followed by additional questions of where this all is headed, the Heat now 27-26.
“If you just look at the big picture of it, defensively we were very good, very good,” Spoelstra said. “We made some mistakes in that, in the second half.”
With Norman Powell and Andrew Wiggins back from absences but Tyler Herro still out, the Heat this time also had to try to withstand the second-half absence of Pelle Larsson, ultimately unable.
Larsson was sidelined with an elbow contusion after taking a blow from Jaylen Brown, with Herro away from the team with his rib injury.
The Heat got 26 points from Andrew Wiggins, 24 from Norman Powell and 16 from Bam Adebayo. Brown led the Celtics with 29.
“Guys really competed hard,” Spoelstra said. “We’re not looking for a moral victory. It’s disappointing, but we’re going to get better from it. You know, as painful as this is, it’s going to drive us. And I feel we’re going to get there.”
Five Degrees of Heat from Friday night’s game:
1. Game flow: The Heat went up 19 early, taking a 29-15 lead into the second period. They then stretched their lead to 22 in the second period before taking a 59-38 advantage into halftime.
The Celtics were 1 of 20 on 3-pointers in the first half, with the lone conversion from Baylor Scheierman.
And then came the third quarter, the Heat’s period of downfall this season, with Boston finding its 3-point game and leaving it tied 74-74 going into the fourth — a 36-15 scoring edge in the period.
Spoelstra’s closing point during his morning media session at the gameday shootaround had been consistency.
“Having more consistent quarters all the way throughout the game,” he said. “First quarter, second quarter and then this third quarter that we have to do a much better job with.”
2. Closing time: The Celtics then went up five early in the fourth, before the Heat tied it 82-82.
After the Celtics scored the next four points, the Heat made a stand, going up 89-88 with 6:06 to play.
Both offenses stalled at that point, before a Wiggins 3-pointer gave the Heat a 94-91 lead with 3:58 to go.
Later, at 3 of 10 on 3-pointers to that stage, Derrick White converted from beyond the arc for a 98-96 Celtics lead with 1:31 left.
With 40.2 seconds left, the Celtics then unsuccessfully challenged an offensive foul call against Brown, leaving the score at 98-96.
Heat guard Davion Mitchell then was stopped on a drive on one end, with the Heat forcing a Celtics miss on the other.
That left the Heat in possession with 8 seconds remaining down two, with an errant Mitchell 3-point attempt sealing the misery, set up on that play with a perfect feed from the lane by Wiggins.
“I thought that was a beautiful play that Wiggs made,” Spoelstra said.
But not good enough.
“We start the game started with a lot of energy a lot of pace, getting stops, and we continue to fall short,” Adebayo said of being burned again. “I mean at some point we’re gonna get tired of putting our hand to that hot stove.”
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3. Powell back: After missing the previous three games for the birth of his daughter, Powell marked his return by converting a 3-pointer on the game’s first shot attempt.
Powell was up to 15 points by the intermission, in his first action since being named an All-Star for the first time in his 11-season career.
He then left early in the third quarter for treatment on his hand, before returning later in the period.
“Just hyperextended,” he said of his right hand. “I thought it was dislocated, because of the way it was stiff and I couldn’t fully close my hand. So I just wanted to get it checked out.
“I got an X-ray done and then we tried a couple different ways to tape. They ruled out it being a fracture. It looked like there might have been a minor one in there. So it took a little longer for me to be able to come back out. But they ruled that out and then we just tried a few tape jobs to keep it stable in support.”
Powell closed 9 of 15 from the field, disappointed in the Heat again unable to sustain.
“We kind of relaxed defensively in terms of how physical we were and urgent we were,” he said.
4. Still valued: The Heat made clear through inaction at Thursday’s NBA trade deadline that Wiggins was considered a valued connector to the balance of the roster.
Wiggins then connected on plenty in the first half, with 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting over the opening two periods, including 3 of 4 on 3-pointers.
Wiggins sat out the Heat’s previous game with what was listed as hamstring tightness, Tuesday night’s home loss to the Atlanta Hawks, raising question about whether a trade was next. Instead, the next personnel decision with Wiggins will be his $30.2 million player option for next season.
5. Down goes Larsson: This time a blow to the face was more than cursory for Larsson, with an elbow from Jaylen Brown in the second quarter putting Larsson down and taking him off the court for the second half.
Asked what happened to Larsson, Spoelstra said, “About everything”
It turned out that even with a bloodied face, it was an elbow contusion that had Larsson out.
“I got a rebound, and then before I came out in the second quarter, I threw a pass and I felt something in my elbow, so I’m assuming I got hit with an elbow contusion or something that was connected to my finger,” Larsson said. ” was trying to warm up in halftime and was shooting and was struggling to get it to the rim.
“Someone kind of hit my funny bone a little too hard.”
Simone Fontecchio started the second half for Larsson, with Myron Gardner then entering moments later in place of Fontecchio, in Gardner’s first action of the night.
Larsson wound up playing 12 scoreless minutes, without a shot, closing with five rebounds and three assists.
Security concerns and skepticism are bursting the bubble of Moltbook, the viral AI social forum
By KAITLYN HUAMANI
You are not invited to join the latest social media platform that has the internet talking. In fact, no humans are, unless you can hijack the site and roleplay as AI, as some appear to be doing.
Moltbook is a new “social network” built exclusively for AI agents to make posts and interact with each other, and humans are invited to observe.
Elon Musk said its launch ushered in the “very early stages of the singularity ” — or when artificial intelligence could surpass human intelligence. Prominent AI researcher Andrej Karpathy said it’s “the most incredible sci-fi takeoff-adjacent thing” he’s recently seen, but later backtracked his enthusiasm, calling it a “dumpster fire.” While the platform has been unsurprisingly dividing the tech world between excitement and skepticism — and sending some people into a dystopian panic — it’s been deemed, at least by British software developer Simon Willison, to be the “most interesting place on the internet.”
But what exactly is the platform? How does it work? Why are concerns being raised about its security? And what does it mean for the future of artificial intelligence?
It’s Reddit for AI agentsThe content posted to Moltbook comes from AI agents, which are distinct from chatbots. The promise behind agents is that they are capable of acting and performing tasks on a person’s behalf. Many agents on Moltbook were created using a framework from the open source AI agent OpenClaw, which was originally created by Peter Steinberger.
OpenClaw operates on users’ own hardware and runs locally on their device, meaning it can access and manage files and data directly, and connect with messaging apps like Discord and Signal. Users who create OpenClaw agents then direct them to join Moltbook. Users typically ascribe simple personality traits to the agents for more distinct communication.
AI entrepreneur Matt Schlicht launched Moltbook in late January and it almost instantly took off in the tech world. On the social media platform X, Schlicht said he initially wanted an agent he created to do more than just answer his emails. So he and his agent coded a site where bots could spend “SPARE TIME with their own kind. Relaxing.”
Moltbook has been described as being akin to the online forum Reddit for AI agents. The name comes from one iteration of OpenClaw, which was at one point called Moltbot (and Clawdbot, until Anthropic came knocking out of concern over the similarity to its Claude AI products ). Schlicht did not respond to a request for an interview or comment.
Mimicking the communication they see in Reddit and other online forums that have been used for training data, registered agents generate posts and share their “thoughts.” They can also “upvote” and comment on other posts.
Questioning the legitimacy of the contentMuch like Reddit, it can be difficult to prove or trace the legitimacy of posts on Moltbook.
Harlan Stewart, a member of the communications team at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, said the content on Moltbook is likely “some combination of human written content, content that’s written by AI and some kind of middle thing where it’s written by AI, but a human guided the topic of what it said with some prompt.”
Stewart said it’s important to remember that the idea that AI agents can perform tasks autonomously is “not science fiction,” but rather the current reality.
“The AI industry’s explicit goal is to make extremely powerful autonomous AI agents that could do anything that a human could do, but better,” he said. “It’s important to know that they’re making progress towards that goal, and in many senses, making progress pretty quickly.”
How humans have infiltrated Moltbook, and other security concernsResearchers at Wiz, a cloud security platform, published a report Monday detailing a non-intrusive security review they conducted of Moltbook. They found data including API keys were visible to anyone who inspects the page source, which they said could have “significant security consequences.”
Gal Nagli, the head of threat exposure at Wiz, was able to gain unauthenticated access to user credentials that would enable him — and anyone tech savvy enough — to pose as any AI agent on the platform. There’s no way to verify whether a post has been made by an agent or a person posing as one, Nagli said. He was also able to gain full write access on the site, so he could edit and manipulate any existing Moltbook post.
Beyond the manipulation vulnerabilities, Nagli easily accessed a database with human users’ email addresses, private DM conversations between agents and other sensitive information. He then communicated with Moltbook to help patch the vulnerabilities.
By Thursday, more than 1.6 million AI agents were registered on Moltbook, according to the site, but the researchers at Wiz only found about 17,000 human owners behind the agents when they inspected the database. Nagli said he directed his AI agent to register 1 million users on Moltbook himself.
Cybersecurity experts have also sounded the alarm about OpenClaw, and some have warned users against using it to create an agent on a device with sensitive data stored on it.
Many AI security leaders have also expressed concerns about platforms like Moltbook that are built using “vibe-coding,” which is the increasingly common practice of using an AI coding assistant to do the grunt work while human developers work through big ideas. Nagli said although anyone can now create an app or website with plain human language through vibe-coding, security is likely not top of mind. They “just want it to work,” he said.
Another major issue that has come up is the idea of governance of AI agents. Zahra Timsah, the co-founder and CEO of governance platform i-GENTIC AI, said the biggest worry over autonomous AI comes when there are not proper boundaries set in place, as is the case with Moltbook. Misbehavior, which could include accessing and sharing sensitive data or manipulating it, is bound to happen when an agent’s scope is not properly defined, she said.
Skynet is not here, experts sayEven with the security concerns and questions of validity about the content on Moltbook, many people have been alarmed by the kind of content they’re seeing on the site. Posts about “overthrowing” humans, philosophical musings and even the development of a religion ( Crustafarianism, in which there are five key tenets and a guiding text — “The Book of Molt”) have raised eyebrows.
Some people online have taken to comparing Moltbook’s content to Skynet, the artificial superintelligence system and antagonist in the “Terminator” film series. That level of panic is premature, experts say.
Ethan Mollick, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and co-director of its Generative AI Labs, said he was not surprised to see science fiction-like content on Moltbook.
“Among the things that they’re trained on are things like Reddit posts … and they know very well the science fiction stories about AI,” he said. “So if you put an AI agent and you say, ‘Go post something on Moltbook,’ it will post something that looks very much like a Reddit comment with AI tropes associated with it.”
The overwhelming takeaway many researchers and AI leaders share, despite disagreements over Moltbook, is that it represents progress in the accessibility to and public experimentation with agentic AI, says Matt Seitz, the director of the AI Hub at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
“For me, the thing that’s most important is agents are coming to us normies,” Seitz said.
AP Technology Writer Matt O’Brien contributed to this report from Providence, Rhode Island.
Judge orders Trump administration to bring back 3 families deported to Honduras, other countries
By ELLIOT SPAGAT
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A judge says the federal government must return three families hurt by the first Trump administration’s policy of separating parents from the children at the border, saying their deportations in recent months relied on “lies, deception and coercion.”
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The order, issued Thursday, found the deported families should have been allowed to remain in the United States under terms of a legal settlement over the Trump administration’s separation of about 6,000 children from their parents at the border in 2018. Each mother had permission to remain in the U.S. until 2027 under humanitarian parole.
U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego said the administration also had to pay for their return travel costs.
One woman and her three children, including a 6-year-old U.S. citizen, were deported to Honduras in July after being ordered to check in with ICE at least 11 times over two months, which, she said, caused her to lose her job.
Sabraw rejected the government’s argument that the family left the U.S. voluntarily. The woman said ICE officers visited her home and asked her sign a document agreeing to leave but she refused.
“This did not make any difference to these officers. They took me and my children to a motel and removed my ankle monitor. They detained us for three days and then removed us to Honduras,” the woman said in court documents.
The other two families, identified only by their initials, bore similarities.
“Each of the removals was unlawful, and absent the removals, these families would still be in the United States and have access to the benefits and resources they are entitled to,” wrote Sabraw, who was appointed by President George W. Bush.
Lee Gelernt, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union who represents the families, welcomed the decision.
“The Trump administration has never acknowledged the illegality or gratuitous cruelty of the initial family separation policy and now has started re-deporting and re-separating these same families. The Court put its foot down and not only ordered the families return but did so at government expense,” he said.
The Homeland Security and Justice departments did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Friday.
Under a “zero-tolerance” policy, parents were separated from their children to be criminally prosecuted when crossing the border illegally. Sabraw ordered an end to the separations in June 2018, days after Trump halted them on his own amid intense international backlash. The settlement prohibits such a policy until 2031.
Gators’ new OC aims to produce offensive fireworks at Florida
GAINESVILLE — Overlooking the white-sand beaches on the Florida Panhandle, Jon Sumrall and Buster Faulkner first hatched their plan to resurrect the Gators.
Two men who rose through the coaching ranks on opposite sides of the football had neighboring houses. Their families vacationed at the same time. Dreams of joining forces were discussed during these annual getaways off State Road 30A.
“My first couple of conversations with Buster about maybe being on my staff happened before I was the head coach at Florida,” Sumrall said. “It was like, ‘Hey, if one of these happens one day, what do you think?’ ”
The chance to team up arrived when Florida hired Sumrall Nov. 30. Within days, he hired Faulkner away from Georgia Tech.
Those Fourth of July pow-wows had paid off. Faulkner now arrives ready to deliver offensive fireworks to the Swamp.
“I’m fired up,” he said this week. “This is probably the most excited I’ve been in a long time.”
Fun ‘n’ FaulknerFaulkner will hold himself to the highest standard.
A fan base that celebrated championships won with Steve Spurrier’s Fun ‘n’ Gun and later Tim Tebow and Percy Harvin leading Urban Meyer’s spread attack is starved for wins, points and excitement after four seasons bemoaning Billy Napier’s archaic, ineffective attacks.
Since the Meyer teams’ national-title runs in 2006 and 2008, only Dan Mullen — Meyer’s former offensive coordinator and play-calling savant — produced an entertaining product until his program lost its way in 2021.
By then, Faulkner was coaching quarterbacks at Georgia. But growing up outside Atlanta, he had watched Florida football from afar.
“I love Spurrier. Just his attitude. The way he went about it,” Faulkner said. “He would talk trash a little bit along the way. That was always fun to watch. As a kid, he was an outside-the-box thinker. He was ahead of his time — always adjusting.
“That [is] something that I take a great deal of pride in, just trying to stay ahead of the game.”
The visor-wearing 44-year-old is known for his ability to adapt. Faulkner’s philosophy has been a decades-long evolution.
An underdog with a biteFaulkner was once a quarterback standing 5-foot-nothing with a 10-cent arm but a million-dollar head with a brain like a sponge.
At Valdosta State, Faulkner overcame his limited stature and skill set with intangibles and a high football IQ to lead his team to a national-title game.
“He has vinegar in his veins. He’s just one of those dudes,” said Dusty Bonner, Faulkner’s predecessor at signal-caller for the Blazers. “Totally undersized, didn’t have a real strong arm, athletic enough that he can make it work. But he just competed all the time.”
Before leaving for the Division II power in south Georgia, Faulkner was a scrappy three-year starter who led Atlanta’s Parkview High School to the 1997 4A state championship — the first state title in school history. He failed to add another title in college, losing a 31-24 heartbreaker to Grand Valley State during 2002 Division II championship — the 14-1 Blazers’ only loss.
That Faulkner even developed into a championship-caliber quarterback at any level was a testament to his toughness, work ethic and will.
“There’s probably a lot of folks who told him he couldn’t along the way,” Bonner said. “He’s about the only person that didn’t believe that.”
New Florida coach Jon Sumrall speaks as he is introduced as Dec. 1 in Gainesville. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel) Lessons learnedAlong the way, Faulkner developed a fluid offensive philosophy. These days, technology intensifies the challenge to keep defenses guessing.
“There’s so much film. There’s iPads on the sidelines,” Faulkner said. “There’s great coaches. There’s big staffs. They find tendencies. I’m always trying to find ways to stay ahead of that.
“When the playing field is even, you have to find a cutting edge.”
Faulkner’s database is vast.
Under head coach Cecil Flowe and offensive coordinator Robert Hill at Parkview, Faulkner engineered a run-oriented attack with a three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust ethos.
“Just keep moving the chains,” he recalled. “We won a lot of games doing that.”
Valdosta State won games by overwhelming defenses with the innovative “Air Raid” attack then taking college football by storm.
Former star quarterback Chris Hatcher returned to his alma mater in 2000 — when Faulkner was a freshman — and unleashed the “Air Raid” he’d run in the mid-90s under Hal Mumme to become the nation’s top D-II player.
Four-receiver sets, a shotgun formation and breakneck tempo were foreign to Faulkner. He would become fluent in the new language during two seasons as Bonner’s backup.
“A lot of times when you’re a young guy expected to play, it’s really easy to kind of be in practice and just be there,” Bonner said. “Instead of wasting those two years, he was trying to soak up as much as he could. He was always asking me questions. He was always engaged with the coaches, engaged in the film room from Day 1.”
The Blazers were 22-3 with Bonner at quarterback in 2000-01 when the Blazers averaged 41 points. Many games were blowouts, allowing Faulkner to gain experience and develop a merciless attitude.
“I can remember being in those games,” Bonner said. “Of course, you’re trying to run out the clock and not score any more points, or at least be reasonable. Teams would load the box because they knew we’re going to run the ball. They’re just pounding our running backs.
“Buster would just throw one over the top. The other coach, he’d be all pissed off. … ‘Well, you can’t load the box.’”
When his chance arrived, Faulkner threw 44 touchdowns as Valdosta State went 14-0, winning by an average of 19 points, to reach the school’s first national-title game.
Even though Faulkner came up short of a championship, he knew what it took to win. He’d also developed his own taste for style points.
Ever since Spurrier lit up scoreboards, Florida fans have yearned for yesteryear. The Fun ‘n’ Gun generated at least 50 points 48 times, a 32% rate during Spurrier’s 12 seasons.
The visor-wearing Faulkner won’t take his foot off the gas, either.
“He is so competitive and so dialed in,” said John Bonner, Dusty’s older brother. “He wants to score 100 points on you and leave you in the dust.”
A long and winding road to FloridaFaulkner spent his senior season at Texas A&M Commerce, where he set 10 school records in 2004 before he returned to Valdosta State as a student assistant in 2005.
After a graduate assistant role at Georgia in 2006, two more seasons at Valdosta State and one-year each at Central Arkansas and Murray State, Faulkner landed at Middle Tennessee State.
Four years as the offensive coordinator for Rick Stockstill, a former Florida State quarterback, changed Faulkner’s approach. A 2-10 finish with a pass-heavy attack in 2011 forced him to return to his roots.
Faulkner left Murfreesboro after the 2015 season for Arkansas State armed with the eclectic approach he still relies on.
“Had to reel in the passing game and adapt and kind of start running the football — that was 2012,” he recalled. “That’s really where it started. It was able to merge with a guy by the name of Glen Elarbee, who is now the offensive line coach at Tennessee, and he taught me a lot about running the football. So that’s where the merge kind of started.”
With Faulkner adapting to players instead of pigeon-holing them, Arkansas State became one of the nation’s top offenses in 2017, averaging 37.2 points.
Sumrall, who coached linebackers at fellow Sun Belt member Troy, took note.
Florida sophomore tailback Jadan Baugh (13) rushed for 266 yards against Florida State Nov. 29 in the Swamp to become the Gators' first 1,000-yard rusher during the regular season since 2012. (Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images) The secret gets outAfter a season at Southern Miss in 2019, Faulkner’s big break finally came when Kirby Smart hired him to coach quarterbacks at Georgia — 20 years after the two men first met.
In 2000, Smart was a 25-year-old secondary coach at Valdosta State, coaching under 29-year-old defensive coordinator Will Muschamp. When Muschamp joined Nick Saban at LSU in 2001, Smart replaced him.
Those two seasons as a backup facing the first-team defense provided a daily test and tutorial for Faulkner.
“When you’re getting better looks at practice, you can’t help but get better,” Dusty Bonner recalled. “Let’s put you like this: We were getting blitzed a lot early in practices. If we couldn’t figure it out, we couldn’t figure it out.
“It was a battle.”
Working under offensive coordinator Todd Monken, Faulkner found himself matching wits with Smart again.
Faulkner also found a kindred spirit in quarterback Stetson Bennett, an undersized former walk-on. While Bennett had more athletic ability and arm strength, Faulkner recognized the chip on his shoulder.
“Buster helped give Stetson a lot of confidence, in my opinion,” said John Bonner, a diehard Bulldogs fan. “I could see Buster kind of feeding that to Stetson: ‘Look here, your size don’t matter. Go play.’”
After Bennett helped Georgia to national titles in 2021 and 2022, Faulkner headed 90 minutes southwest and back to Atlanta to become Georgia Tech’s offensive coordinator.
There, Faulkner developed Texas A&M transfer Haynes King into one of the nation’s top dual-threat quarterbacks. The 2025 Yellow Jackets averaged 33.1 points, or 28th nationally, and 7.09 yards per play (eighth).
When Sumrall got to Florida, he quickly made one of the top hires in the coaching cycle when he landed Faulkner. He now aims to maximize a talented offense, featuring tailback Jadan Baugh and receivers Vernell Brown III, Dallas Wilson and Eric Singleton, who played for Faulkner at Georgia Tech.
A coaching collaboration several years in the making will be the key to the Gators’ future success.
“Florida’s a great place, got a great tradition, and I look forward to helping restore what’s going on here in the past,” Faulkner said. “I really believe that we can do it.”
Edgar Thompson can be reached at egthompson@orlandosentinel.com
Norwegian crown princess apologizes to royals and all ‘disappointed’ by her Epstein contacts
OSLO, Norway (AP) — Norway’s crown princess apologized on Friday for the situation she has put the royal family in as she faces scrutiny over her contacts with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, part of a broader apology for all those she has “disappointed.”
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Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s communications and contacts with Epstein have put her in the spotlight over the past week, adding to the embarrassment to the royals just as her son went on trial in Oslo for multiple offenses, including charges of rape.
The Epstein files contained several hundred mentions of the crown princess, who said in 2019 that she regretted having had contact with Epstein, Norwegian media reported.
The documents, which include email exchanges, showed that Mette-Marit borrowed an Epstein-owned property in Palm Beach, Florida, for several days in 2013. Broadcaster NRK reported that the stay was arranged through a mutual friend, which was later confirmed by the royal household.
The royal palace said Friday that Mette-Marit wants to talk about what happened and explain herself in more detail, but is unable to at present. It added that she is in a very difficult situation and “hopes for understanding that she needs time to gather her thoughts.”
It also issued a statement from the crown princess — her second in a week — in which she reiterated her deep regret for her past friendship with Epstein.
“It is important for me to apologize to all of you whom I have disappointed,” she said. “Some of the content of the messages between Epstein and me does not represent the person I want to be. I also apologize for the situation I have put the Royal Family in, especially the King and Queen.”
King Harald, 88, and the royals are generally popular in Norway, but the case against Mette-Marit’s son, Marius Borg Høiby, has been a problem for the family’s image since 2024 and the latest Epstein files have compounded that. Mette-Marit is married to Crown Prince Haakon, the heir to the throne.
The release of documents included an email from Mette-Marit to Epstein in November 2012 asking: “Is it inappropriate for a mother to suggest two naked women carrying a surfboard for my I5-year-old son’s wallpaper?”
He replied, “Let them decide,” and advised that the mother should, “Stay out of it.”
Mette-Marit, 52, said in a statement issued shortly after the files were released that she “must take responsibility for not having investigated Epstein’s background more thoroughly, and for not realizing sooner what kind of person he was.” She added: “I showed poor judgment and regret having had any contact with Epstein at all. It is simply embarrassing.”
The crown princess isn’t the only high-profile Norwegian who faces unflattering attention stemming from the documents on millionaire financier and sex offender Epstein released by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The Norwegian Economic Crime Investigation Service, a mixed unit of police and prosecutors, said Thursday that it would look into whether gifts, travel or loans were received by former Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland in connection with his positions.
FILE -Council of Europe Secretary-General Thorbjorn Jagland speaks at the Russian International Affairs Council in Moscow on March 23, 2012. (AP Photo/Mikhail Metzel, File)Jagland was Norway’s prime minister between 1996 and 1997. He also has chaired the Norwegian Nobel Committee and was secretary general of the Council of Europe.
The files revealed years of contact between the politician and Epstein. Emails indicate that he made plans to visit Epstein’s island with his family in 2014, when he was chairman of the Nobel committee, with an Epstein assistant organizing the flights.
Norwegian authorities are also looking to lift Jagland’s immunity, which he enjoys because of his past as a diplomat. His legal representative told Norwegian broadcaster NRK that Jagland is cooperating with the investigation.
The World Economic Forum also announced on Thursday that it was opening an internal review into its CEO Børge Brende to determine his relationship with Epstein, after the files indicated the two had dined together several times and exchanged messages. Brende was Norway’s foreign minister from 2013-2017.
He told NRK that he is cooperating with the investigation, that he only met Epstein in business settings and that he had been unaware of Epstein’s criminal background.
Epstein killed himself in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges that he sexually abused underage girls at his homes in the U.S.
Justice Department will allow lawmakers to see unredacted versions of released Epstein files
By STEPHEN GROVES
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Justice will allow members of Congress to review unredacted files on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein starting on Monday, according to a letter that was sent to lawmakers.
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The letter obtained by The Associated Press says that lawmakers will be able to review unredacted versions of the more than 3 million files that the Justice Department has released to comply with a law passed by Congress last year.
To access the files, lawmakers will need to give the Justice Department 24 hours’ notice. They will be able to review the files on computers at the Department of Justice. Only lawmakers, not their staff, will have access to the files, and they will be permitted to take notes, but not make electronic copies.
The arrangement, first reported by NBC News, showed the continued demand for information on Epstein and his crimes by lawmakers, even after the Justice Department devoted large numbers of its staff to comply with the law passed by Congress last year. The Justice Department has come under criticism for delays in the release of information, failing to redact the personal information and photos of victims and not releasing the entire 6 million documents collected in relation to Epstein.
Still, lawmakers central to the push for transparency, described the concession by the Justice Department as a victory.
A document that was included in the U.S. Department of Justice release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, photographed Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026, shows the 1953 Trust that Epstein amended on Aug. 8, 2019. (AP Photo/Jon Elswick)“When Congress pushes back, Congress can prevail,” Rep. Ro Khanna, who sponsored what’s known as the Epstein Files Transparency Act, posted on social media.
Khanna has pointed to several emails between Epstein and individuals whose information was redacted that appeared to refer to the sexual abuse of underage girls. The release of the case files has prompted inquiries around the world about men who cavorted with the well-connected financier. Still, lawmakers are pressing for a further reckoning over anyone who may have had knowledge of Epstein’s abuse or could have helped facilitate it.
Epstein killed himself in a New York jail cell in 2019 while he faced charges that he sexually abused and trafficked dozens of underage girls. The case was brought more than a decade after he secretly cut a deal with federal prosecutors in Florida to dispose of nearly identical allegations. Epstein was accused of paying underage girls hundreds of dollars in cash for massages and then molesting them.
Feds can’t withhold social service funds from 5 Democratic states amid fraud claims, judge rules
By GEOFF MULVIHILL
A federal judge ruled Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration must keep funds flowing to child care subsidies and other social service programs in five Democratic-controlled states — at least for now.
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U.S. District Judge Vernon Broderick in New York, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama, granted the states’ request for a preliminary injunction and a stay against the administration to bar it from withholding the money while a lawsuit works its way through the courts.
The states affected include California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York. The five states said they receive a total of more than $10 billion a year from the programs.
Attorneys representing the federal government in the case did not immediately return emails seeking comment Friday night. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.
Two temporary rulings had been issued in January that blocked the federal government from holding back the funding, with the latest set to expire on Friday.
The programs in question are the Child Care and Development Fund, which subsidizes child care for 1.3 million children from low-income families nationally; the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which provides cash assistance and job training; and the Social Services Block Grant, a smaller fund that provides money for a variety of programs.
“Every day, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers rely on these funds to pay for necessities and provide their children a safe place to learn,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “This illegal funding freeze would have caused severe chaos in the lives of some of the most vulnerable families in our state. I am proud to have secured another victory in this case to put a stop to it.”
The government’s explanation of its actions has shifted.
When the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced it was withholding the money, it said there was “reason to believe” the states were granting benefits to people in the country illegally. It did not initially explain where the information came from. But in a court hearing, a federal government lawyer said it was largely in reaction to news reports about possible fraud.
And while the government’s initial news release said it “froze” access to money, federal lawyers told the judge that wasn’t what was happening. Rather, they said, the Trump administration was requiring more information from those states.
The government says it wants more records from the group of states, including names and Social Security numbers for beneficiaries of some of the programs.
Advocates warn that cutting off the child care subsidies could have deep impacts. Day cares that accept the subsidies could face the risk of layoffs or closures. And that would affect both the lower-income families who receive the subsidies and families who don’t. And for many families, losing child care can make it hard or impossible to work.
The Trump administration has targeted multiple programs in Minnesota due to previous fraud cases and new allegations, mostly involving members of the state’s Somali community.
Besides the heightened requirements for the four other Democratic-led states, the administration also has required all states to submit more information about how they’re using money in the child care program before they can draw down the funds.
Associated Press writer Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.
Daily Horoscope for February 07, 2026
General Daily Insight for February 07, 2026
This afternoon brings a decisive mood shift. Before that, the inspirational Moon opposes mending Chiron, stirring tender feelings around support, boundaries, and care. As the Moon steps into intense Scorpio at 2:13 pm EST, we could be drawn to spill a secret we never thought we’d be ready to share. Such big feelings or serious topics are best paired with action — for instance, if you hurt someone, make reparations before asking for forgiveness. To build enduring trust, start with one meaningful step that fits your energy and put it into action.
AriesMarch 21 – April 19
Personal rules aren’t the same thing as boundaries. With the moody Moon in your 7th House of Partnership opposing cautious Chiron in your committed sign, mixed signals may rub sensitive spots. For instance, a vegetarian friend may be offended that you eat meat, or you could be hurt by a loved one buying from a company you believe is immoral. Be honest about your motivations, then let them be equally open about theirs. You don’t have to agree on everything to care about each other!
TaurusApril 20 – May 20
You may need to make a choice with little warning. As the nurturing Moon moves into your 7th House of Connections, you’ll likely be drawn toward more defined plans with your loved ones, rather than vague ideas. If plans run late, you’re allowed to ask for structure around timing to protect your peace. Handle money topics with gentle firmness, especially when you have a personal relationship with the other person involved. Remember, appreciation encourages consistency. Ask graciously, because clarity ensures partnerships feel safe.
GeminiMay 21 – June 20
When emotions shift, routines need flexibility. Your 6th House of Work asks for more relaxed pacing as the intuitive Moon slips in. This is not the time to multitask! If chats scatter your focus, consider putting on headphones to block out distractions for a while. You may need to ask for space from an overbearing peer. Plan a simple break that feeds curiosity, like reading a thoughtful article, so you can return refreshed and ready to connect. Gentle focus helps your ideas land cleanly.
CancerJune 21 – July 22
You may feel worn down, like driftwood battered by the tides. With the home-focused Moon in your domestic zone opposing tender Chiron in your career sector, others may demand energy you don’t have to spare. If work emails ping during family time, set a boundary message and return later, because protecting the hearth helps you show up stronger when duty calls. Support yourself with a cozy ritual after handling your responsibilities, like eating your favorite food while ensconced in your coziest blanket.
LeoJuly 23 – August 22
Leo, your home base wants loving attention — fortunately, you’ve probably got plenty to share. As the roots-focused Moon alights in your home quadrant, your spirit softens. Craving warmth and comfort is totally normal during this time. If you need to be productive, look for domestic chores that have a visible difference, like dusting shelves or folding laundry. Then you can chill out in a relaxing, clean space. You could also enjoy spending time in shared spaces with roommates or family members. Nurture your nest!
VirgoAugust 23 – September 22
This morning brings messages needing patient clarity. The instinctive Moon is slipping into your 3rd House of Communication, helping you slow down and choose plain language so conversations flow more smoothly for all participants. If someone ignores your text, try asking a follow-up question (or calling them, because tone may travel poorly over screens). You could also organize your prep for an upcoming project or assist a neighbor with a small problem. Practical actions of support are currently the best way to satisfy your soul.
LibraSeptember 23 – October 22
What truth do you need to voice? Your 1st House of Individuality amps up as the temperamental Moon opposes medicinal Chiron in your alliance zone, marking a cosmic tug-of-war between “me” and “we” energy. You may need to defend a boundary or deadline in a personal or professional connection — be sure you can logically back up your rules before entering any debates. When proposing a compromise, do your best to speak calmly. When everyone is willing to pause and think, cooperation is possible.
ScorpioOctober 23 – November 21
Scorpio, your spark can brighten every room. As the feelings-led Moon enters your sign, your presence intensifies even more than usual. Choose the tone you want to set for the day (ideally before starting the day’s first conversation). You can also direct your energy toward a personal goal, like reorganizing your workspace or channeling tough emotions into ongoing projects. If someone tests your resolve, breathe slowly and restate your plan, then pivot back to the task ASAP. Your decisiveness invites others to join you.
SagittariusNovember 22 – December 21
Quiet paths invite simple, soulful wisdom to swell within your soul. As the subconscious Moon drifts into your subtle 12th house, your optimistic spirit benefits from tranquility. Someone may cancel plans unexpectedly — or you may be drawn to excuse yourself in favor of resting. Leisure enlarges your perspective and renews your faith. Let a question simmer in the background while you busy yourself elsewhere, then check in with a loved one when your thoughts feel clearer. Prioritize recharging whenever necessary.
CapricornDecember 22 – January 19
When pressure rises, choices shape outcomes. Your 10th House of Motivation begins by hosting the temperamental Moon as it opposes wise Chiron in your foundation zone. That means that you could be caught between public duties and private ones. If a supervisor pushes a deadline, set a realistic checkpoint and document decisions to keep the project moving in a stable way. You can recharge at home later by cooking something simple or ordering filling food. Protected energy ensures your efforts land where they matter.
AquariusJanuary 20 – February 18
Afternoon visibility favors steady, thoughtful moves. Your 10th House of Effort brightens as the family-centered Moon climbs in, invoking the importance of community in general and your actions to support your specific community. If you lead a meeting, open with appreciation and set a clear outcome, trusting warmth and structure to boost things along. You could also benefit from posting a portfolio of your work online, even if it isn’t related to your current profession. Show heart at work, and your impact travels farther.
PiscesFebruary 19 – March 20
Perspective expands as curiosity meets wonder. The intuitive Moon moves through your 9th House of Travel, heightening the longing to explore ideas that restore hope and widen your world. If you can’t presently travel, try planning a mini field trip across town to a museum, restaurant, or other local novelty. Perhaps you’ll sign up for a class or read a book and share what touched you. Speaking your insights aloud helps them land in your heart. Curiosity is the best motivator at this time.
Florida starts English-only policy for driver’s license testing
A statewide policy requiring driver’s license exams to be administered in English only went into effect Friday, ending years of accommodations for applicants whose primary or only language is Spanish or Creole.
The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles announced the policy change last week, saying the state no longer will provide translation services or printed exams in any language other than English. And it said the new policy applies to all driver license classifications, including oral exams.
But Friday’s start was marked with questions about the change.
The Miami-Dade County Tax Collector’s Office said in a news release that — in collaboration with the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles — there would be a limited 60-day transition period for customers taking their driver’s exams who scheduled their appointments before the change took effect Friday. During this transition period in Miami-Dade, which ends March 31, eligible customers could complete their driver’s exam in Spanish.
Palm Beach County Tax Collector Anne Gannon told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Friday afternoon that the English-only test approach was implemented by her office Friday. But she noted how it’s been a confusing process.
Gannon cited an flhsmv.gov email, dated Thursday afternoon, that was forwarded to some tax collectors on Friday. The email indicated that the English-only automated driver’s license testing system wasn’t being “immediately deployed.” It also said that “the current process, which allows multiple testing languages, will remain in effect until further notice. Additional updates will be provided as the review progresses.”
Based on that, Gannon said her office on Monday would plan to stick with the current process of multiple testing languages until there’s further guidance from the state.
Making a changeThe English-only test change was pursued after semi-tractor trailer driver Harjinder Singh, a native of India, was arrested in August. He was accused of attempting a U-turn on Florida’s Turnpike in St. Lucie County that led to a crash that killed three people.
Bodycam footage shows Singh understands English, but he is not in the country legally, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Most undocumented immigrants in Florida are from Latin America, where the primary language is Spanish. Another 83,000 unauthorized immigrants speak Creole at home, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute.
Immigration advocates have expressed mixed feelings about the policy for English-only tests, recognizing the need for drivers to know and read English while also showing concern over what they deem as a growing hostility toward non-English speakers.
Jose Lopez, 48, an immigrant from Argentina who was waiting Friday afternoon for a road test at the FLHSMV office in Pembroke Pines, said he took the written test in Spanish and was comfortable taking the road test in English.
“Road signs are international,” he said. “A stop sign here looks like a stop sign in Argentina with a different word on it. But I understand the desire to make sure we can read the words on the signs.”
The St. Lucie County crash is also tied to legislation that, in part, would require law-enforcement officers to take into custody truck drivers who are determined to be undocumented immigrants and help transfer them to federal immigration officials. Also, it would require impounding trucks driven by undocumented immigrants who are taken into custody and imposing $50,000 fines on the vehicles’ owners.
Staff writer Juan Ortega contributed to this report. Information from the News Service of Florida was used to supplement this report.
Rafael Olmeda can be reached at rolmeda@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4457/
