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Short staffing and the transition from paper checks to digital refunds are among the biggest challenges facing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) this tax season. Thats according to the National Taxpayer Advocates expansive Annual Report to Congress, the latest version of which was recently posted online. The annual report aims to help Congress strengthen taxpayer rights, reduce taxpayer burden, and improve IRS performance. The Taxpayer Advocate Service, or TAS, is an independent office within the IRS that’s meant to look after the interests of taxpayers. Erin M. Collins, who submitted and signed off on the latest report, has served as the National Taxpayer Advocate since 2020. Here are some highlights of the report: Transition away from paper checks could impact refunds for some Specifically, the report notes that while the majority of refunds were issued electronically last year, taxpayers who do not provide direct deposit information may experience significant refund delays, as the IRS will generally hold refunds for up to six weeks while requesting banking information or determining whether an exception applies, with paper checks only issued afterward. As a result, some taxpayers will be disproportionately affected by the agency’s phasing out of paper checks. That includes taxpayers without bank accounts, or who are disabled, elderly, or underbanked, and other vulnerable taxpayers for whom paper checks have often been the only practical means of receiving refunds needed to cover basic living expenses. Average refunds last year tallied $3,167, the report saysa significant amount for many households. Filing your tax return online should result in a refund being issued within a few weeksbut, again, the report is warning that may not be the case for some. Only 6% of taxpayers filed their returns last year on paper. And only 7% received their refund via paper check. The IRS is significantly smaller this year Staffing issues at the IRS could be an even bigger issue. The IRS last year had a relatively large workforce, due in part to an influx of funding from the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act. Over the past year, however, the IRS has had its workforce reduced by 27%, according to Collins’s report. That’s in addition to leadership turnover, and the implementation of extensive and complex tax law changes mandated by the [One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025], many of which apply retroactively and require significant IRS programming, guidance, changes to tax forms and instructions, and taxpayer education. The number of customer service agents was also cut by 22%, meaning it will likely be more difficult to get help if youre trying to work out any issues with or get an update on your refund. In all, the agency’s manpower stood at around 74,000 in December, down from 102,000 a year ago. That could mean a more turbulent experience for taxpayers trying to keep track of their refunds. Even so, taxpayers expecting a refund can use the Wheres My Refund online tool to check their status 24 hours after filing electronically. They can also try using the IRS2Go app or log in to their IRS Individual Online Account for updates.
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From tech titans to Wall Street power brokers and foreign dignitaries, a who’s who of powerful men make appearances in the huge trove of documents released by the Justice Department in connection with its investigations of Jeffrey Epstein.All have denied having anything to do with his sexual abuse of girls and young women. Yet some of them maintained friendships with Epstein, or developed them anew, even after news stories made him widely known as an alleged abuser of young girls.None have been charged with a crime connected to the investigation. Epstein killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019.Here’s a primer on some of the notable names in the Epstein files: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor The man formerly known as Britain’s Prince Andrew has long been dogged by questions about his relationship with Epstein, including allegations from the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre that she was trafficked by Epstein and instructed to have sex with Mountbatten-Windsor when she was 17.The former prince has repeatedly denied that it happened, but his brother, King Charles III, still stripped him of his royal titles late last year, including the right to be called a prince and the Duke of York.Mountbatten-Windsor’s name appears at least several hundred times in Friday’s document release, including in Epstein’s private emails.Among the correspondence is an invitation for Epstein to dine at Buckingham Palace, Epstein’s offer to introduce Mountbatten-Windsor to a 26-year-old Russian woman, and photos that appear to show Mountbatten-Windsor kneeling over an unidentified woman lying on the floor. Sarah Ferguson In March of 2011, Sarah Ferguson, then the Duchess of York, made a public apology for letting Jeffrey Epstein pay off some of her debts. Both she and her ex-husband, the former Prince Andrew, had come under tremendous public scrutiny for continuing a friendly relationship with Epstein after he pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl.She told London’s Evening Standard newspaper she would have “nothing ever to do with Jeffrey Epstein ever again.” But just two months later, she emailed Epstein to say she was going on Oprah Winfrey’s TV show and wanted his advice on how she should answer questions about their relationship.“I just want to make sure you are aware of this and seek your advice on how you would like me to answer,” Ferguson wrote.Epstein replied, “Jeffrey was unfairly characterized as a pedophile by the tabloid press. Many years ago jeffrey pleaded guilty to soliciting underage prostitutes. He paid his debt to society and has sought forgiveness. I have nothing more to say.” Elon Musk The billionaire Tesla founder turns up at least a few times in Friday’s document release, notably in email exchanges in 2012 and 2013 in which he discussed visiting Epstein’s infamous Caribbean island compound.But it’s not immediately clear if the island visits took place. Spokespersons for Musk’s companies, Tesla and X, didn’t respond to emails seeking comment Friday or Saturday.Musk has maintained that he repeatedly turned down the disgraced financier’s overtures. “Epstein tried to get me to go to his island and I REFUSED,” he posted on X in 2025. Richard Branson The billionaire founder of the Virgin Group, a global conglomerate, exchanged numerous emails with Epstein.In a 2013 exchange, Branson invited Epstein to his own private Caribbean island, which regularly hosts large conferences, charity events and business meetings.“Any time you’re in the area would love to see you,” he wrote. “As long as you bring your harem!”In another message that year, he suggested Epstein rehabilitate his image by convincing Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to tell the public how Epstein had “been a brilliant adviser to him” and had “more than learnt your lesson and have done nothing that’s against the law since.”The company stressed in a statement Saturday that there was no wrongdoing on Branson’s part and that any dealings with Epstein were “limited to group or business settings” more than a decade ago.Branson also declined a charitable donation and decided not to meet or speak with him again after his team “uncovered serious allegations,” the company said.“Had they had the full picture and information, there would have been no contact whatsoever,” the statement reads. “Richard believes that Epstein’s actions were abhorrent and supports the right to justice for his many victims.” Donald Trump It’s long been known that Epstein was friends with Trump before the two had a falling out.The new trove of documents contain thousands of references to Trump, much of which sheds little additional light on the men’s relationship. They included emails in which Epstein and others shared news articles about Trump, commented on his policies or his politics, or gossiped about him and his family.The Justice Department also disclosed a spreadsheet created last August that summarized calls made to law enforcement tip lines from people claiming to have some knowledge of wrongdoing by Trump.That document included a range of uncorroborated stories involving many different celebrities, and somewhat fantastical scenarios, occasionally with notations indicating what follow-up, if any, was done by agents.Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Sunday that the FBI fielded “hundreds of calls” about prominent individuals that were “quickly determined to not be credible.” Bill Clinton Like Trump, Clinton spent time with Epstein more than two decades ago, including flying occasionally on his private jet and seeing him at the White House. Clinton also denied any knowledge of Epstein’s wrongdoing.Clinton’s representatives say the former president broke off relations with Epstein after the first round of criminal charges in 2006.The investigative file includes snapshots of Clinton and other famous people that Epstein kept in his home in New York. It also contains messages investigators received from members of the general public, demanding to know why Clinton wasn’t being investigated. None of Epstein’s victims have publicly accused Clinton of being involved in Epstein’s crimes. Steven Tisch The New York Giants co-owner is mentioned more than 400 times in the files released Friday. Correspondence between the two shows Epstein offered to connect Tisch to numerous women over the years.In one 2013 email exchange with the subject line “Ukrainian girl,” Epstein encouraged Tisch to contact a particular woman, whose physical beauty he praised in crude terms.“Pro or civilian?” Tisch asked in reply.Tisch, a scion of a powerful New York family that founded the Loews Corporation, has acknowledged knowing Epstein but denied ever going to his infamous Caribbean island.“We had a brief association where we exchanged emails about adult women, and in addition, we discussed movies, philanthropy and investments,” said Tisch, who also won an Academy Award in 1994 for producing “Forrest Gump.” “As we all know now, he was a terrible person and someone I deeply regret associating with.” Brett Ratner The film director who made the recently released Melania Trump documentary appears in several photographs included in the government’s files.One, first released in December, shows him with his arms wrapped around the shirtless torso of Jean Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent who killed himself in jail in 2022 while awaiting trial on rape charges.The more recent document release has a sequence of other photos apparently taken around the same time. Some show Ratner sitting on a couch with Epstein, Brunel and at least two young women. In the photos, Rattner has his arms wrapped around one of the women, whose faces are blacked out.Ratner and a spokesperson for his film company didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment. Casey Wasserman The president of the committee for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles exchanged flirty emails with Epstein confidant Ghislaine Maxwell, Friday’s document release shows.In a 2003 exchange, Wasserman wrote to Maxwell: “I think of you all the time. So, what do I have to do to see you in a tight leather outfit?”In another, Maxwell asks whether it will be foggy enough during an upcoming visit “so that you can float naked down the beach and no one can see you unless they are close up?”Wasserman released a statement Saturday saying he never had a personal or business relationship with Epstein and that he regretted the correspondence with Maxwell, which he said came “long before her horrific crimes came to light.”Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking. Ehud Barak The former Israeli prime minister and his wife turn up frequently in the documents released Friday, showing they stayed in regular contact with Epstein for years, including well after his 2008 guilty plea for sex crimes in Florida.Among the correspondence are plans for a 2017 stay at Epstein’s New York residence. Other missives discuss mundane logistics for other visits, meetings and phone calls with Epstein.Barak has acknowledged regularly visiting Epstein on his trips to New York and flying on his private plane, but maintains he never observed any inappropriate behavior or parties.Barak served as Israel’s prime minister from 1999 to 2001 and later served as its defense minister. Larry Summers Clinton’s former Secretary of the Treasury and the onetime president of Harvard University is another of Epstein’s well-known longtime acquaintances. The new documents are full of references to meetings and dinners between the two men.A previously-released trove of documents show Summers emailing Epstein in 2019, after the financier had been charged with sexual abuse of minors, to discuss his interactions with a woman, writing he’d told her “awfully coy u are.” Epstein replied: “you reacted well.”Summers has called his interactions with Epstein “a major error of judgment.” Howard Lutnick President Donald Trump’s commerce secretary visited Epstein’s private Caribbean island with his family on at least one occasion, records released Friday show.That appears to contradict prior statements he’s made claiming he cut ties with the disgraced financier, who he’s called “gross,” decades ago.But emails show Lutnick and his wife accepted an invitation to Little St. James in the U.S. Virgin Islands in December 2012 and planned to arrive by yacht with their children.The former chairman of Newmark, a major commercial real estate firm, also had drinks on another occasion in 2011 with Epstein and corresponded with him about the construction of a building across the street from both of their homes.The Commerce Department, in a statement, said Lutnick had “limited interactions with Mr. Epstein in the presence of his wife and has never been accused of wrongdoing.” Sergey Brin The billionaire Google co-founder made plans to meet with Epstein and Maxwell at his townhouse in New York years before he was publicly accused of sexually abusing underage girls, emails show.In one exchange in 2003, Maxwell invited him to join her at a screening of the Renee Zellweger film “Down with Love” in New York.She followed up a few weeks later to invite him to a “happily casual and relaxed” dinner at Epstein’s house. Brin offered to bring along Google’s then-CEO Eric Schmidt.Spokespersons for Google didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment Saturday. Steve Bannon The one-time adviser to Trump exchanged hundreds of friendly texts with Epstein, some sent months before the financier’s 2019 arrest and jailhouse suicide.The two discussed politics, travel and a documentary Bannon was said to be planning that would help salvage Epstein’s reputation.One 2018 exchange, for example, focused on Trump’s threats at the time to oust Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. In a 2019 message, Bannon asked Epstein if he could supply his plane to pick him up in Rome.Epstein and Bannon also exchanged gossipy messages about Trump and his politics.Bannon hasn’t responded to emails seeking comment. Miroslav Lajcak A national security adviser to the Slovakian prime minister, Lajcak resigned Saturday after his past communications with Epstein appeared in Friday’s document release.Opposition parties and a nationalist partner in Fico’s governing coalition had called for him to step down.Lajcak, a former Slovak foreign minister and a onetime president of the U.N. General Assembly, has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but was photographed meeting with Epstein in the years between his initial release from jail and his subsequent indictment in 2019 on sex trafficking charges.He said his correspondence with Epstein were part of his diplomatic duties. Associated Press journalists from around the world contributed to this report. The AP is reviewing the documents released by the Justice Department in collaboration with journalists from Versant, CBS and NBC. Journalists from each newsroom are working together to examine the files and share information about what is in them. Each outlet is responsible for its own independent news coverage of the documents.Philip Marcelo and Nicholas Riccardi, Associated Press
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Trevor Noah once again roamed through the audience during his monologue to open the Grammy Awards, taking pokes at the stars while standing right next to them, but he saved his most pointed jokes for absentees, and elicited an angry post from the president.“Nicki Minaj is not here,” Noah said, to big cheers from the audience at Crypto.com Arena. “She is still at the White House with Donald Trump discussing very important issues.”Minaj this week visited and praised the president, the culmination of a move toward MAGA that she’s made in recent months.Noah broke into a Trump impression. “Actually Nicki, I have the biggest ass, everybody’s saying it Nicki.”In his sixth time hosting the showand what he says will be his lastNoah mostly played it safe during his monologue, not delving too much into politics or controversy, at least during his monologue. There was no mention of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (on a night when many attendees were wearing “ICE OUT” buttons).But Noah got more pointed later in the show, after Billie Eilish won song of the year.“Wow. That is a Grammy that every artist wants,” Noah said, “almost as much as Trump wants Greenland. Which makes sense. I mean, because Epstein’s island is gone, he needs a new island to hang out with Bill Clinton.”After the show in a Truth Social post, Trump reacted.“Noah said, INCORRECTLY about me, that Donald Trump and Bill Clinton spent time on Epstein Island. WRONG!!! I can’t speak for Bill, but I have never been to Epstein Island, nor anywhere close, and until tonight’s false and defamatory, statement, have never been accused being there, not even by the Fake News Media,” the post said. “Noah, a total loser, better get his facts straight, and get them straight fast. It looks like I’ll be sending my lawyers to sue this poor, pathetic, talentless, dope of an M.C.”After the crowd’s reaction to the joke during the show, Noah said, “Oh, I told you, it’s my last year. What are you going to do about it?”At a different point in the show, Noah joked about the president’s penchant for suing TV networks when he said the Grammys were airing “completely live” because “if we edited any of the show, the president would sue CBS for $16 billion,” referring to Trump’s recent history with CBS News and a settlement he got from Paramount last summer.It had seemed at first like he wasn’t going to go very far into such material.He said during the monologue Lauryn Hill was performing on the show for the first time since 1999.“Do you understand how long ago that is?” he said. “Back in 1999, the president had had a sex scandal, people thought computers were about to destroy the world, and Diddy was arrested.”Later in the show, Noah cozied up to the night’s biggest nominee, Kendrick Lamar, and only congratulated him.“I actually thought about writing a few jokes roasting you, but then I remembered what you can do to light-skinned dudes from other countries,” Noah, who is from South Africa, said in a reference to Lamar’s beef with the Canadian rapper Drake that culminated in last year’s big Grammy winner “Not Like Us.”Later, he sat with Bad Bunny, and asked if he could come live with him in his native Puerto Rico if things got too bad in the U.S.“Trevor I have some news for you,” Bad Bunny said. “Puerto Rico is part of America.”The Recording Academy announced less than three weeks ago that Noah was returning “one final time.”“I believe in term limits,” Noah said during the show.Only singer Andy Williams, who hosted the Grammys seven times in the 1970s, has hosted more often.Noah himself is a four-time Grammy nominee, and was up this year in the best audio book recording category for Into The Uncut Grass, a children’s story. He lost to the Dalai Lama. This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Nicki Minaj in several places. For more coverage of the 2026 Grammy Awards, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/grammy-awards Andrew Dalton, AP Entertainment Writer
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