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By MAE ANDERSONNEW YORK (AP) — Eugene Levy’s trademark eyebrows fly off for Little Caesars. A tongue dances to Shania Twain to promote Nestle’s Coffee Mate Cold Foam. And Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal reunite at Katz’s Deli in an ad for Hellmann’s.A frenzied mix of silliness and celebrities is hitting the airwaves and the internet, and that means one thing: it is Super Bowl ad time again.Veteran advertisers are using tried-and-true tactics like celebrity cameos, humor and cute animals to win over watchers. Meanwhile, first-time and newer advertisers are courting outrageousness and using stunts to try to stand out…

It’s not every day that a group of young Silicon Valley technology prodigies gets the keys to the most powerful nation on Earth. In fact, it appears that has not happened on any day. Ever. Until now.Six men aged 19 to 24 — most with strong Bay Area connections — have been identified as associates of the controversial, Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, aka DOGE, that has gained unprecedented access to several federal agencies, including the Department of the Treasury.“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Stanford University economics professor Neale Mahoney said. The incursion into government systems by members of…

By ERIC TUCKER and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI agents “who simply followed orders and carried out their duties in an ethical manner” while investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol are not at risk of being fired, a top Justice Department official said in a memo to the bureau workforce obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday. But the memo from acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove also provides no reassurances for any agents found to have “acted with corrupt or partisan intent” and suggests those employees, if there any, should be concerned about a massive…

By MARK KENNEDY, Associated Press Entertainment WriterNEW YORK (AP) — If you tune into the “Puppy Bowl” on Sunday, you’ll likely see a key person’s influence — even if you don’t actually see her.Victoria Schade is a dog trainer and novelist who’s the show’s lead puppy trainer and wrangler. She’s the one making sure the shelter pups have a conflict-free contest and that they’re captured at their most adorable — all from off-camera.It is Schade who gets the puppies to look up during the “The Star-Spangled Banner” or run through a tunnel to get to the field for the starting…

By BYRON TAU, Associated PressWASHINGTON (AP) — The website of the Chinese artificial intelligence company DeepSeek, whose chatbot became the most downloaded app in the United States, has computer code that could send some user login information to a Chinese state-owned telecommunications company that has been barred from operating in the United States, security researchers say.The web login page of DeepSeek’s chatbot contains heavily obfuscated computer script that when deciphered shows connections to computer infrastructure owned by China Mobile, a state-owned telecommunications company. The code appears to be part of the account creation and user login process for DeepSeek.In its…

This one should be a no-brainer. Introduced by Assemblymembers Chris Ward, D-San Diego, and Sharon Quirk-Silva, D-Fullerton, Assembly Bill 253 is the California Residential Private Permitting Review Act. It would speed the approval process for developments of 10 or fewer units, including single-family homes and duplexes. If a city takes longer than 30 days to review building plans, in the bill’s words the developer could “employ a private professional provider … to perform the plan check.” Speaking on Kitty O’Neal’s KFBK radio show in Sacramento, Ward explained his bill addresses both the wildfires that have burned much of the state…

By WILL GRAVES, Associated Press National WriterPresident Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Wednesday designed to prevent people who were biologically assigned male at birth from participating in women’s or girls’ sporting events.The order, which Trump is expected to sign at an afternoon ceremony, marks another aggressive shift by the president’s second administration in the way the federal government deals with transgender people and their rights.The president put out a sweeping order on his first day in office last month that called for the federal government to define sex as only male or female and for that to…

With all the ongoing chaos, it’s hard to sort the new president’s serious proposals from his tough-guy performances. Donald Trump, for instance, rattled financial markets with his plan to impose 25-percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico, but things calmed down after he paused those ill-thought-out actions.Likewise, his plan to expand the U.S. military’s Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba might also fizzle when reality hits, but we’re taking his promise seriously and literally. In an executive order, Trump ordered the “Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security to … expand the Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo…

By LISA MASCARO, Associated Press Congressional CorrespondentWASHINGTON (AP) — When Elon Musk debuted the Department of Government Efficiency recently at the Capitol, House Speaker Mike Johnson enthusiastically predicted the coming Trump administration would bring “a lot of change around here.”Three weeks in, the change the Trump administration has brought is a disruption of the federal government on an unprecedented scale, dismantling longstanding programs, sparking widespread public outcry and challenging the very role of Congress to create the nation’s laws and pay its bills.Government workers are being pushed to resign. Entire agencies are being shuttered. Federal funding to states and nonprofits…

By ZEN SOO, Associated Press Business WriterHONG KONG (AP) — Americans are likely to pay more for products from popular Chinese e-commerce platforms like Shein and Temu as the U.S. Postal Service said it would stop accepting parcels from China and Hong Kong.The move was announced Tuesday, coming after the U.S. imposed an additional 10% tariff on Chinese goods and ended a customs exception that allowed small value parcels to enter the U.S. without paying tax. Canada and Mexico managed to negotiate a month-long reprieve from 25% tariffs threatened by U.S. President Donald Trump.It will likely impact online shopping destinations…