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Thursday, February 5, 2026
'Bridgerton' actors tease
Luke Thompson and Yerin Ha chat about tension between characters and social structure. In Life
700 immigration
Minnesota, Homan says President Donald Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, announced a drawdown of 700 federal immigration enforcement personnel from Minnesota on Feb. 4. Homan said an "unprecedented" amount of cooperation between local authorities and Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the state since he was deployed there in late January has enabled the shift. "Given this increase in unprecedented collaboration and as a result of the need for less law enforcement officers to do this work in a safer environment, I have announced, effective immediately, we will draw down 700 people effective today," he said Feb. 4. About 2,000 federal personnel will remain in the state, Homan said. Meanwhile, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who has urged the administration to withdraw the surge of agents from the state, said Operation Metro Surge is "not making Minnesota safer." "Today's announcement is a step in the right direction, but we need a faster and larger drawdown of forces,
Dealing with inheritance?
Legal process can be lengthy and costly. Here's how you can help your heirs. In Money
Jessie
chases joy, not medals The most decorated cross-country skier in U.S. history shares where her passion began and her mindset ahead of the Olympics. In Sports
Kids delve
betting Regulators are doing little to nothing, analysis shows Seventy-five dollars is all Sam needed for his next round of sports bets on his BetMGM app. Well – it wasn't officially his. He was 17 years old, and the legal gambling age in his home state of Arizona is 21. Sam used his mom's ID behind her back to create the account where he'd bet on basketball and football games. Except she found him out and reported him to the company. BetMGM opened an investigation and found Sam had deposited $75 into the account with two ApplePay accounts. Investigators tracked his iPhone 13 to his home, but also the local high school where Sam had placed his bets. They banned the account and wrote up a report for state authorities. But as soon as he was 21, Sam was back at it. Gambling on the apps again. He's just one of thousands of underage bettors caught annually by legalized sportsbooks like DraftKings and FanDuel. They collectively bet millions of dollars illegally, a new analysis shows. USA TODAY obtained and reviewed hundreds of the "suspected fraud reports" required by state regulators coast-to-coast to gauge the scale of the problem. And while that oversight generates a mountain of paperwork documenting the fraud, virtually
Time is
talks on DHS' fate Agency faces its own shutdown deadline WASHINGTON – The latest government shutdown is over, and Capitol Hill is already bracing for another high-profile brawl over President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement crackdown that could land one federal agency with a shutdown all of its own. As Trump signed legislation Feb. 3 to end the partial funding lapse, all eyes in Congress turned toward talks to overhaul the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of Alex Pretti's killing in Minnesota in January. The constraints on those discussions are many, but the biggest challenge may be time. Lawmakers have just over a week to come up with a compromise before a short-term funding extension for the 9/11-era Cabinet agency expires Feb. 13. In hopes of quickly placing more guardrails around ICE and Border Patrol, Democrats initially pushed for a tight turnaround on talks with the GOP and the Trump administration. But Republicans are casting doubt on whether fast-tracking the negotiations is feasible.
Why does
name seem ubiquitous? Trump's push of brand stands out in history President Donald Trump's recent joking suggestion that he'd re-rename the Gulf of Mexico to honor himself highlights a growing trend: The president and his supporters envision putting his name on everything from phones to performing arts centers, stadiums, airports, roads, whiskey glasses and bathrobes. Societies have always used street and place names to signal values, from the towns called Hope, to Martin Luther King Jr. and Ronald Reagan boulevards, the Robert F. Kennedy stadium and even the nation's capital itself: Washington, named in 1791 to honor the nation's then president. The colony of Jamestown honored Britain's King James I, and Louisiana was named after King Louis XIV of France. But the current president's willingness to push his own personal brand – and the willingness of others to help him do it – stands out in modern history, according to people who study naming. "It's usually best practice to wait until somebody dies," said Reuben RoseRedwood, a geography professor at Canada's University of Victoria and international expert in how place names shape perception. "I've never seen this kind of scale to rename places after a living person in the way we are seeing it over President Trump. The scale of it is unprecedented in modern times."