by Mike Catalini President Donald Trump and his Department of Justice are taking a combative stance toward Democrats after their election victories in the midterms, signaling intense conflict to come as lawmakers prepare aggressive investigations into the executive branch next year. Trump set the tone, declaring on social media that investigative requests already made by Democrats are “extortion at the highest level, and they should be held accountable.” Attorney General Todd Blanche echoed the Republican president and said criminal investigations of Democrats are possible. “They are not allowed to just go around threatening existing members of the administration, to go…

by Bill Barrow and Sophie Bates JACKSON, Miss.  — Democrat Scott Colom hasn’t won Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race, but the local prosecutor was welcomed as a historic figure Friday as he strolled through the Farish Street business district where civil rights leaders once organized. “It’s so wonderful! It’s so wonderful to have Scott Colom as our representative,” said Maati Jone Primm, who owns Marshall’s Music & Bookstore in Jackson. The state is still tallying ballots that could make Colom the first Black senator from this Deep South state since post-Civil War Reconstruction. The possibility of Colom defeating Republican Sen. Cindy…

by Jay Cohen CHICAGO  — It all began with a phone call. Dr. Tom Gormely reached out to Caddix last year. The sports performance coach told the startup company he had a quarterback who wanted to try its cleats. “We said, ‘Who?’” Caddix CEO Jack Rasmussen recalled. “And he said, ‘I’ll tell you later.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, this is a fun conversation.’” It turns out the fun was just beginning. Gormely’s client was Chicago Bears star Caleb Williams, and the call marked a watershed moment for Caddix — even if no one knew exactly how it was going…

by Kevin Freking WASHINGTON — House Democratic leaders are placing an early emphasis on healthcare as they discuss their immediate priorities upon the swearing-in of the new Congress on Jan. 3. Early votes in the House next year are expected to focus on boosting Medicaid and restoring an enhanced tax subsidy that is designed to lower the cost of Affordable Care Act health plans for millions of enrollees. Democrats are also promising swift action on legislation to stop the war with Iran and to reverse some of President Donald Trump’strade tariffs. “We’re going to get out of the gate fast,”…

by Isabel Debre, Nicole Winfield and Nyara Batschake PAYSANDÚ, Uruguay  — Pope Leo XIV urged an estimated 40,000 people in Uruguay on Saturday to build bridges of fraternity and faith, using his first Mass in South America to deliver an ode to the region’s beloved mate tea and raise the profile of the Catholic Church in its most secular country. Leo spent his first full day in Uruguay pointing to the church’s historic roots in the country and the work it’s doing today, including in a violence-ravaged neighborhood of Montevideo where it has built homes, provided job opportunities and run…

by Rebecca Santana WASHINGTON  — After Democrats’ overwhelming midterm victories this week, winning candidates spoke of the need, once they are sworn in, to rein in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation machine. Some suggested putting forward a new vision for immigration reform while both houses of Congress are in Democratic control. The lofty goals come after two years in which Democrats, while in the minority, were limited in how much they could counter Trump’s supercharged and, at times, chaotic immigration enforcement. But there are clear limits to what they can achieve even after Democrats’ epic win, with Trump — who…

by Bill Barrow, Kim Chandler and Kate Brumback MONTGOMERY, Ala.  — Sheyann Webb-Christburg was 8 when she was part of the crowd of civil rights marchers attacked on Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, months before President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. On Tuesday night, she stood in Montgomery, Alabama, to celebrate a resounding political victory for Black voters and others who refused to accept the law’s recent diminishment by the U.S. Supreme Court and several state legislatures across the South. “I think a new movement has started,” she said after U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures won another term in…

by Mary Clare Jalonick WASHINGTON  — Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer is vowing that Democrats will not allow President Donald Trump to put “a right-winger” on the Supreme Court once they take power, raising the possibility that his party could block a presidential nominee if there is a vacancy in the next two years. In an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, Schumer would not say if he would hold a Supreme Court vacancy open until after the next presidential election, as former Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell did in 2016. But he said that Democrats are “not going…

by Jay Cohen LAKE FOREST, Ill. — Chicago Bears coach Ben Johnson knows a little something about a successful rushing attack. And he’s impressed with Tampa Bay’s ground game. The NFL’s top rushing teams face off when Bucky Irving and Tampa Bay visit D’Andre Swift and Chicago on Sunday night. The Buccaneers are averaging a league-high 168.6 yards on the ground, and the Bears are second at 150.8 yards per game. “I mean, I’m telling you, this offensive line is really good,” Johnson said. “The scheme is really good. They have a lot of variety with which they do things.…

by Carla K. Johnson As winter approaches and daylight hours grow shorter, people prone to seasonal depression can feel it in their bodies and brains. The millions of people estimated to have seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, typically have episodes of depression that begin in the fall and ease in the spring or summer. One trigger for SAD is when clocks revert to standard time, which happened Sunday across much of the U.S., bringing darker afternoons. A milder form, subsyndromal SAD, is recognized by medical experts, and there’s also a summer variety of seasonal depression, though less is known about…