NEW YORK (AP) — It’s go time for thousands of America’s most dogged competitors. Big or small, sleek or shaggy, imposing or impish, they’re all trying for the top prize at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in its milestone 150th year. Might Comet the shih tzu snag the trophy after coming close the last two years? What about Neal the bichon frisé, another 2025 finalist who’s competing again? Could this be the year for Zaida the Afghan hound, who has twice won the World Dog Show, a major international showcase, but has yet to make the finals at Westminster? Or will the prize go to another well-known contender — or a dark horse? Here’s what to know about the United States’ most prestigious canine competition. The breed-by-breed judging — officially called “conformation” — happens Monday and Tuesday, at a combination of the Javits Center convention hall and Madison Square Garden. Best in show is awarded at the Garden around 11 p.m. EST Tuesday. For fans who can’t be there in person, Fox Sports is showing the event’s various components on FS1 and FS2 and its various streaming platforms. Westminster is streaming some, as well. Some 2,500 dogs from 212 breeds and varieties (subsets of breeds) are signed up to compete. (No doodles, though. These popular poodle mixes aren’t recognized as distinct breeds by the American Kennel Club, the governing body for Westminster and many other U.S. dog shows.) There are contestants from every U.S. state and 18 other countries. A few hundred more dogs, including mixed-breed ones, competed Saturday in Westminster’s agility and flyball contests. Besides Comet, Neal and Zaida, entrants include Soleil, a Belgian sheepdog who won the National Dog Show televised last Thanksgiving Day, and a Lhasa apso called JJ, who triumphed at the huge AKC National Championship that aired in late December. The runners-up from those shows — George, an American foxhound, and a Gordon setter named River — also are due at Westminster. And keep an eye out for Baby Joe, a miniature schnauzer who topped national dog show standings for 2025. Don’t forget Penny the Doberman pinscher, who’s been climbing the rankings since her crowd-pleasing turn in last year’s Westminster semifinals. There’s also a high-ranking Chesapeake Bay retriever, a prominent papillon and many other buzzy contenders. But anything can happen at Westminster, a champions-only show where every contestant is a proven winner. Cognoscenti often say victory goes to “the dog on the day,” meaning the one that has the performance of a lifetime. Whichever dog the judge chooses, others sometimes run away with the audience’s heart. A 2020 crowd fave, Daniel the golden retriever, is among eight past finalists or winners set to return for a special presentation Monday night. So are some other 2020 finalists, Bono the Havanese, Wilma the boxer — and Siba, the standard poodle who defeated them all to claim that year’s best in show award. Do show dogs hold grudges? We shall see. First, dogs are judged against others of their breed. Then each breed winner goes up against others in its “group,” such as terriers or herding dogs. In the final round, the seven group winners compete for best in show. At each level, judges decide which dog best matches the ideal, or “standard,” for its own breed. Wire fox terriers (15 wins), followed by poodles of various sizes (11). Many breeds haven’t won yet, including such favorites as Labrador and golden retrievers. But never say never: Last year’s winner, Monty, was the first giant schnauzer chosen as best in show. He then retired from showing but is expected to join Monday’s special tribute to Westminster “legends.” Bragging rights, ribbons and trophies. There are no cash prizes, though the agility winner gets to direct a $5,000 Westminster donation to a training club or to the American Kennel Club Humane Fund. Animal welfare activists routinely protest the Westminster show. They see it as an irresponsible canine beauty contest that overlooks shelter dogs’ predicament and some purebreds’ health problems. For Westminster’s milestone show this year, PETA plans to demonstrate outside the show and has erected billboards nearby with such messages as “flat-faced dogs struggle to breathe,” echoing aspects of the animal rights group’s ongoing lawsuit against the American Kennel Club. The AKC has called the case frivolous and is trying to get it dismissed. The Westminster club notes that it donates to rescue groups, veterinary scholarships and other endeavors that help dogs. Club President Donald Sturz says that “shows an overarching commitment to responsible dog ownership and responsible dog breeding.” Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The first stand-alone trial from state prosecutors in a stream of lawsuits against Meta is getting underway in New Mexico, with jury selection starting Monday. New Mexico’s case is built on a state undercover investigation using proxy social media accounts and posing as kids to document sexual solicitations and the response from Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. It could give states a new legal pathway to go after social media companies over how their platforms affect children, by using consumer protection and nuisance laws. Attorney General Raúl Torrez filed suit in 2023, accusing Meta of creating a marketplace and “breeding ground” for predators who target children for sexual exploitation and failing to disclose what it knew about those harmful effects. “So many regulators are keyed up looking for any evidence of a legal theory that would punish social media that a victory in that case could have ripple effects throughout the country, and the globe,” said Eric Goldman, codirector of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law in California. “Whatever the jury says will be of substantial interest.” The trial, with opening statements scheduled for Feb. 9, could last nearly two months. Meta denies the civil charges and says prosecutors are taking a “sensationalist” approach. CEO Mark Zuckerberg was dropped as a defendant in the case, but he has been deposed and documents in the case carry his name. In California, opening arguments are scheduled this week for a personal injury case in Los Angeles County Superior Court that could determine how thousands of similar lawsuits against social media companies will play out. Prosecutors say New Mexico is not seeking to hold Meta accountable for content on its platforms, but rather its role in pushing out that content through complex algorithms that proliferate material that can be addictive and harmful to children. The approach could sidestep immunity provisions for social media platforms under a First Amendment shield and Section 230, a 30-year-old provision of the U.S. Communications Decency Act that has protected tech companies from liability for material posted on their platforms. An undercover investigation by the state created several decoy accounts for minors 14 and younger, documented the arrival of online sexual solicitations and monitored Meta’s responses when the behavior was brought to the company’s attention. The state says Meta’s responses placed profits ahead of children’s safety. Torrez, a first-term Democrat elected in 2022, has urged Meta to implement more effective age verification and remove bad actors from its platform. He’s also seeking changes to algorithms that can serve up harmful material and criticizing end-to-end privacy encryption that can prevent the monitoring of communications with children for safety. Separately, Torrez brought felony criminal charges of child solicitation by electronic devices against three men in 2024, also using decoy social media accounts to build that case. Meta denies the civil charges while accusing the attorney general of cherry-picking select documents and making “sensationalist, irrelevant and distracting arguments.” In a statement, Meta said ongoing lawsuits nationwide are attempting to place the blame for teen mental health struggles on social media companies in a way that oversimplifies matters. It points to the steady addition of account settings and tools — including safety features that give teens more information about the person they’re chatting with and content restrictions based on PG-13 movie ratings. Goldman says the company is bringing enormous resources to bear in courtrooms this year, including New Mexico. “If they lose this,” he said, “it becomes another beachhead that might erode their basic business.” More than 40 state attorneys general have filed lawsuits against Meta, claiming it is harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing features that addict children to its platforms. The majority filed their lawsuits in federal court. The bellwether trial underway in California against social video companies, including Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube, focuses on a 19-year-old who claims her use of social media from an early age addicted her to technology and exacerbated depression and suicidal thoughts. TikTok and Snapchat parent company Snap Inc. settled claims in the case that affects thousands of consolidated plaintiffs. A federal trial starting in June in Oakland, California, will be the first to represent school districts that have sued social media platforms over harms to children. In New Mexico, prosecutors also sued Snap Inc. over accusations its platform facilitates child sexual exploitation. Snap says its platform has built-in safety guardrails and “deliberate design choices to make it difficult for strangers to discover minors.” A trial date has not been set. A jury assembled from residents of Santa Fe County, including the politically progressive state capital city, will weigh whether Meta engaged in unfair business practices and to what extent. But a judge will have final say later on any possible civil penalties and other remedies, and decide the public nuisance charge against Meta. The state’s Unfair Practices Act allows penalties of $5,000 per violation, but it’s not yet clear how violations would be tallied. “The reason the damage potential is so great here is because of how Facebook works,” said Mollie McGraw, a Las Cruces-based plaintiff’s attorney. “Meta keeps track of everyone who sees a post. … The damages here could be significant.” Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

It all began after a viral video alleging fraud in Somali-run child care centers in Minneapolis: strangers peering through windows, right-wing journalists showing up outside homes, influencers hurling false accusations. In San Diego, child care provider Samsam Khalif was shuttling kids to her home-based center when she was spooked by two men with a camera waiting in a car parked outside, prompting her to circle the block several times before unloading the children. “I’m scared. I don’t know what their intention is,” said Khalif, who decided to install additional security cameras outside her home. Somali-run child care centers across the United States have become targets since the video caught the attention of the White House amid the administration’s immigration crackdown. Child care providers worry about how they can maintain the safe learning environments they have worked to create for impressionable young children who may be spending their first days away from their parents. In the Minneapolis area, child care providers, many of them immigrants, say they’re being antagonized, exacerbating the stress they face from immigration enforcement activity that has engulfed the city. One child care provider said she watched someone emerge from a car that had been circling the building and defecate near the center’s entrance. The same day, a motorist driving by yelled that the center was a “fake day care.” She’s had to create new lockdown procedures, is budgeting for security and now keeps the blinds closed to shield children from unwanted visitors and from witnessing immigration enforcement actions. “I can’t have peace of mind about whether the center will be safe today,” said the provider, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being targeted. “That’s a hard pill to swallow.” The day after Christmas, right-wing influencer Nick Shirley posted a lengthy video with explosive allegations that members of Minneapolis’s large Somali community were running fake child care centers so they could collect federal child care subsidies. The U.S. occasionally has seen fraud cases related to child care subsidies. But the Minneapolis video’s central claims — that business owners were billing the government for children they were not caring for — were disproven by inspectors. Nonetheless, the Trump administration attempted to freeze child care funding for Minnesota and five other Democratic-led states until a court ordered the funding to be released. President Donald Trump has repeatedly targeted Somali immigrants with dehumanizing rhetoric, calling them “garbage” and “low IQ” and suggesting that Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat who was born in Somalia, should be deported: “Throw her the hell out!” In Minnesota, 87% of foreign-born Somalis are naturalized U.S. citizens. Trump has zeroed in on a years-old case in which a sprawling network of fraudsters — many of them Somali Americans — bilked Minnesota of an estimated $300 million that was supposed to help feed children and families. His rhetoric intensified after Shirley’s video was posted. In Federal Way, Washington, and Columbus, Ohio, both home to large Somali communities, right-wing journalists and influencers began showing up unannounced at addresses for child care operations they pulled from state websites. In one video, a man arrives at a bungalow-style building in Columbus. He films through the glass front door, showing a foyer with cheerful posters that read “When we learn, we grow” and “Make today happy.” “It does not look like a child care center at all,” the man said. Ohio dispatched an inspector to the address and found that it was, in fact, a child care center. Its voicemail was hacked, so parents calling heard a slur-laden message calling Somalis “sand rats” and saying they “worship a false religion of baby-raping terrorists,” according to WOSU-FM. In Washington state, child care workers called police on the right-wing journalists who kept appearing outside their homes. Journalists with the right-leaning Washington outlet Center Square filmed themselves pressing a woman for proof that she ran a child care center she was collecting federal subsidies for. She refused to answer questions. “Are you aware of the Somali day care fraud? We’re just trying to check out if this is a real day care,” one of the journalists said. “Where are the children?” Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson posted a statement on X saying she would not tolerate anyone trying to “intimidate, harass or film Somali child care providers.” Then, Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, issued her own warning: “Asking questions/citizen journalism are NOT HATE CRIMES in America — they are protected speech, and if Seattle tries to chill that speech, @CivilRights will step in to protect it and set them straight!” In Ohio, Republican Gov. Mike DeWine held a news conference to debunk a right-wing influencer’s fraud claims about a Columbus child care center and assured people the state diligently monitored centers that receive public money. He said a child care provider refusing to let in a stranger should not be read as a sign of fraud. “It shouldn’t be a shock when someone sees something on social media, and someone is going, ‘I can’t get into this place, no one will let me in,’” DeWine said in a news conference in January. “Well, hell, no! No one should let them in.” Even after DeWine refuted the claims, Republicans in the Statehouse introduced legislation to more closely monitor child care centers, including one that would require those that take public money to provide live video feeds of their classrooms to state officials. Child care advocates say the fraud allegations are detracting from other, more pressing crises. Child care subsidy programs in many states have lengthy waiting lists, making it difficult for parents to return to work. The programs that subsidize child care for families that struggle to afford it are also facing funding threats, including from the Trump administration. Ruth Friedman, who headed the Office of Child Care under President Joe Biden, accused Trump and Republicans of manufacturing a crisis for political gain. “They are using it to try to discredit the movement toward investing in child care,” said Friedman, who is now a senior fellow at the left-leaning Century Foundation. Health and Human Services spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement that the department “rejects the claim that concerns about child care program integrity are manufactured.” He urged people to report suspected fraud to the government. ____ The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

Democrat Taylor Rehmet won a special election for the Texas state Senate on Saturday, flipping a reliably Republican district that President Donald Trump won by 17 points in 2024. Rehmet, a labor union leader and veteran, easily defeated Republican Leigh Wambsganss, a conservative activist, in the Fort Worth-area district. With almost all votes counted, Rehmet had a comfortable lead of more than 14 percentage points. “This win goes to everyday working people,” Rehmet told supporters. His victory added to Democrats’ record of overperforming in special elections so far this cycle. Democrats said it was further evidence that voters under the second Trump administration are motivated to reject GOP candidates and their policies. Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin called it “a warning sign to Republicans across the country.” The seat was open because the four-term GOP incumbent, Kelly Hancock, resigned to take a statewide office. Hancock easily won election each time he ran for the office, and Republicans have held the seat for decades. The district is redder than its home, Tarrant County. Trump won the county by 5 points in 2024, but Democratic President Joe Biden carried it in 2020 by about 1,800 votes out of more than 834,000 cast. Trump posted about the race on his social media platform earlier Saturday, urging voters to get out to support Wambsganss. He called her a successful entrepreneur and “an incredible supporter” of his Make America Great Again movement. But Rehmet had support from national organizations, including the DNC and VoteVets, a veterans group that said it spent $500,000 on ads. Rehmet, who served in the Air Force and works as a machinist, focused on lowering costs, supporting public education and protecting jobs. Democrats have been encouraged by their performance in elections since Trump took office. In November, the party dominated the first major Election Day since his return to the White House, notably winning governor races in Virginia and New Jersey. Democratic candidates also have won special elections in Kentucky and Iowa. And while Republican Matt Van Epps won a Tennessee special election for a U.S. House seat, the relatively slim margin of victory gave Democrats hope for this fall’s midterms. Rehmet’s victory allows him to serve only until early January, and he must win the November general election to keep the seat for a full four-year term. The Texas Legislature is not set to reconvene until 2027, and the GOP still will have a comfortable majority. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

For academics, historians and activists, the past year has been tumultuous in advocating the teaching of Black history in the United States. Despite last year proclaiming February as National Black History Month, President Donald Trump started his second term by claiming some African American history lessons are meant to indoctrinate people into hating the country. The administration has dismantled Black history at national parks, most recently removing an exhibit on slavery in Philadelphia last month. Black history advocates see these acts and their chilling effect as scary and unprecedented. “States and cities are nervous about retribution from the White House,” said DeRay Mckesson, a longtime activist and executive director of Campaign Zero, an organization focused on police reform. “So even the good people are just quieter now.” In the 100th year since the nation’s earliest observances of Black History Month — which began when scholar Carter G. Woodson pioneered the first Negro History Week — celebrations will go on. The current political climate has energized civil rights organizations, artists and academics to engage young people on a full telling of America’s story. There are hundreds of lectures, teach-ins and even new books — from nonfiction to a graphic novel — to mark the milestone. “This is why we are working with more than 150 teachers around the country on a Black History Month curriculum to just ensure that young people continue to learn about Black history in a way that is intentional and thoughtful,” Mckesson said about a campaign his organization has launched with the Afro Charities organization and leading Black scholars to expand access to educational materials. About three years ago, Angélique Roché, a journalist and adjunct professor at Xavier University of Louisiana, accepted a “once-in-a-lifetime” invitation to be the writer for a graphic novel retelling of the story of Opal Lee, “grandmother of Juneteenth.” Lee, who will also turn 100 this year, is largely credited for getting federal recognition of the June 19 holiday commemorating the day when enslaved people in Texas learned they were emancipated. Under Trump, however, Juneteenth is no longer a free-admission day at national parks. Juneteenth helped usher in the first generation of Black Americans who, like Woodson, was born free. “First Freedom: The Story of Opal Lee and Juneteenth,” the graphic novel, comes out Tuesday. It is the culmination of Roché’s assiduous archival research, phone chats and visits to Texas to see Lee and her granddaughter, Dione Sims. “There is nothing ‘indoctrinating’ about facts that are based on primary sources that are highly researched,” said Roché, who hopes the book makes it into libraries and classrooms. “At the end of the day, what the story should actually tell people is that we’re far more alike than we are different.” While Lee is the main character, Roché used the novel as a chance to put attention on lesser known historical figures like William “Gooseneck Bill” McDonald, Texas’ first Black millionaire, and Opal Lee’s mother, Mattie Broadous Flake. She hopes this format will inspire young people to follow Lee and her mantra — “make yourself a committee of one.” “It doesn’t mean don’t work with other people,” Roché said. “Don’t wait for other people to make the changes you wanna see.” When Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders were issued last year, Jarvis Givens, a professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard, was thousands of miles away teaching in London, where Black History Month is celebrated in October. He had already been contemplating writing a book for the centennial. Watching Trump’s “attack” cemented the idea, Givens said. “I wanted to kind of devote my time while on leave to writing a book that would honor the legacy that gave us Black History Month,” Givens said. The result is “I’ll Make Me a World: The 100-Year Journey of Black History Month,” a book with four in-depth essays that comes out Tuesday. The title is a line from the 1920s poem “The Creation” by James Weldon Johnson, whose most famous poem, “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” is known as the “Black National Anthem.” Givens examines important themes in Black history and clarifies misconceptions around them. The book and the research Givens dug up will tie into a “living history campaign” with Campaign Zero and Afro Charities, Mckesson said. The goal is to teach what Woodson believed — younger generations can become historians who can discern fact from fiction. “When I grew up, the preservation of history was a historian’s job,” Mckesson said, adding his group’s campaign will teach young students how to record history. Born in 1875 to formerly enslaved parents, Woodson was among the first generation of Black Americans not assigned to bondage at birth. He grew up believing that education was a way to self-empowerment, said Robert Trent Vinson, director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. The second Black man to earn a doctorate at Harvard University — W. E. B. Du Bois was the first — Woodson was disillusioned by how Black history was dismissed. He saw that the memories and culture of less educated Black people were no less valuable, Vinson said. When Woodson established Negro History Week in 1926, he was in an era where popular stereotypes like blackface and minstrelsy were filling in for actual knowledge of the Black experience, according to Vinson. This sparked the creation of Black history clubs and Woodson began inserting historical lessons “on the sly” in publications like the “Journal of Negro History” and the “Negro History Bulletin.” “Outside the formal school structure, they’re having a separate school like in churches or in study groups,” Vinson said. “Or they’re sharing it with parents and saying, ‘you teach your young people this history.’ So, Woodson is creating a whole educational space outside the formal university.” In 1976, for the week’s 50th anniversary, President Gerald Ford issued a message recognizing it as an entire month. There was pushback then over the gains the Civil Rights Movement had made, Givens said. As for today’s backlash over Black and African American studies, Vinson believes Woodson would not be surprised. But, he would see it as a sign “you’re on the right track.” “There’s a level of what he called ‘fugitivity,’ of sharing this knowledge and being strategic about it,” Vinson said. “There are other times like in this moment, Black History Month, where you can be more out and assertive, but be strategic about how you spread the information.” Resistance to teaching Black history is something that seems to occur every generation, Mckesson said. “We will go back to normalcy. We’ve seen these backlashes before,” Mckesson said. “And when I think about the informal networks of Black people who have always resisted, I think that is happening today.” ___ Tang reported from Phoenix. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com