Top stories this past week: Super Bowl LVI, Canadian border protests, and more

TORONTO (AP) — For five days, a blockade of pickups, cars and a handful of commercial trucks has choked off traffic at the Ambassador Bridge, the busiest border crossing between Canada and the United States. There are blockades at two other crossings as well. And for two weeks, downtown streets in Canada's capital have been snarled by a convoy of semis and other vehicles as protesters rail against COVID-19 restrictions and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Here's a look at the ongoing protests that have gripped Canada, disrupting international commerce and prompting Washington to pressure Ottawa to end the border siege.

More updates:

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Morris contributed from Vancouver, British Columbia.

Former New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez, once vilified by Donald Trump as a "druggie" and "joke" unworthy of wearing the pinstripes, is now a key part of an investment group seeking to buy the rights to the ex-president's marquee Washington, D.C., hotel, people familiar with the deal told The Associated Press.

A-Rod's involvement in the $375 million deal, which could close within weeks, would make the athlete-turned-entrepreneur an unlikely financial savior for Trump, allowing him to recoup millions he invested and perhaps even emerge with a profit from his money-losing hotel.

"This is just more proof that the only thing that matters to Trump is money," said Trump biographer Michael D'Antonio. "If A-Rod can bail out Trump and get him out of a sticky situation and help him turn a profit, he's going to take that deal. He'd take it from Hillary Clinton."

While published reports late last year identified the buyer as Miami-based CGI Merchant Group, the rights to lease the 263-room property near the White House are actually being purchased by a fund led by CGI that includes Rodriguez as a general partner, two people familiar with the deal told the AP.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the deal, declined to detail Rodriguez's stake other than to say he is a key investor. Read the full story here:

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PHOTO ARCHIVE

Photos: Donald Trump through the years

Talking politics

With Melania

'How to Get Rich'

On the course

At Doral

Sarazen Cup

With Serena

USS Iowa

Debating Jeb Bush

In Biloxi

Campaign rally

Winning South Carolina

She's with him

Signing autographs

Another debate

Waving to supporters

In Arizona

The Trump family

At the convention

The nominee

The ticket

Showing her support

In Mexico

Debating Clinton

Casting his vote

Election Night

In the Oval Office

Mitt Romney

The inauguration

Thumbs up

Taking the oath

Waving goodbye

Armed Forces Ball

James Comey

Trump to lay out his agenda to Congress

Thanking school children

Medal of Honor recipients

Justice Anthony Kennedy swears in Neil Gorsuch

Easter Egg Roll

Super Bowl champs

Little Sisters of the Poor

Russian foreign minister, ambassador

At the Western Wall

Meeting the pope

Wreath-laying ceremony in Arlington

National champs

Congressional shooting

At the White House

Congressional Picnic

Go, Cubs, go

Departing the White House

USS Gerald R. Ford joins the Navy

The eclipse

9/11 anniversary

Trump addresses world leaders at U.N. General Assembly

Las Vegas shooting

Trump visits Puerto Rico

Trump meets Kissinger

With Trudeau

Medal of Honor

Happy Halloween

National Christmas Tree Lighting

Celebrating GOP tax plan

March for Life

State of the Union

School shootings

State dinner

With Olympians

Greeting a guest

Freed Americans

Historic summit

With Kim Kardashian West

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is ordering the release of Trump White House visitor logs to the House committee investigating the riot of Jan. 6, 2021, once more rejecting former President Donald Trump's claims of executive privilege.

The committee has sought a trove of data from the National Archives, including presidential records that Trump had fought to keep private. The records being released to Congress are visitor logs showing appointment information for individuals who were allowed to enter the White House on the the day of the insurrection.

In a letter sent Monday to the National Archives, White House counsel Dana Remus said Biden had considered Trump's claim that because he was president at the time of the attack on the U.S. Capitol, the records should remain private, but decided that it was "not in the best interest of the United States" to do so.

She also noted that as a matter of policy, the Biden administration "voluntarily discloses such visitor logs on a monthly basis," as did the Obama administration, and that the majority of the entries over which Trump asserted the claim would be publicly released under the current policy.

A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the decision.

The Presidential Records Act mandates that records made by a sitting president and his staff be preserved in the National Archives, and an outgoing president is responsible for turning over documents to the agency when leaving office. Trump tried but failed to withhold White House documents from the House committee in a dispute that was decided by the Supreme Court.

Biden has already made clear that he is not invoking executive privilege concerning the congressional investigation unless he absolutely must. Biden has waived that privilege for much other information requested by the committee, which is going through the material and obtaining documents and testimony from witnesses, including some uncooperative ones.

The committee is focused on Trump's actions from Jan. 6, when he waited hours to tell his supporters to stop the violence and leave the Capitol. Investigators are also interested in the organization and financing of a Washington rally the morning of the riot, when Trump told supporters to "fight like hell." Among the unanswered questions is how close organizers of the rally coordinated with White House officials.

Investigators also are seeking communications between the National Archives and Trump's aides about 15 boxes of records that the agency recovered from Trump at his Florida resort and are trying to learn what they contained.

Meanwhile, White House call logs obtained so far by the House committee do not list calls made by Trump as he watched the violence unfold on television on Jan. 6, nor do they list calls made directly to the president.

That lack of information about Trump's personal calls is a particular challenge as the investigators work to discern what happened what the then-president was doing in the White House as supporters violently beat police, broke into the Capitol and interrupted the congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden's election victory.

There are several possible explanations for omissions in the records, which do not reflect conversations that Trump had on Jan. 6 with multiple Republican lawmakers, for example. Trump was known to use a personal cell phone or he could have had a phone passed to him by an aide. The committee is also continuing to receive records from the National Archives and other sources, which could produce additional information.

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Photos: Donald Trump through the years

Talking politics

With Melania

'How to Get Rich'

On the course

At Doral

Sarazen Cup

With Serena

USS Iowa

Debating Jeb Bush

In Biloxi

Campaign rally

Winning South Carolina

She's with him

Signing autographs

Another debate

Waving to supporters

In Arizona

The Trump family

At the convention

The nominee

The ticket

Showing her support

In Mexico

Debating Clinton

Casting his vote

Election Night

In the Oval Office

Mitt Romney

The inauguration

Thumbs up

Taking the oath

Waving goodbye

Armed Forces Ball

James Comey

Trump to lay out his agenda to Congress

Thanking school children

Medal of Honor recipients

Justice Anthony Kennedy swears in Neil Gorsuch

Easter Egg Roll

Super Bowl champs

Little Sisters of the Poor

Russian foreign minister, ambassador

At the Western Wall

Meeting the pope

Wreath-laying ceremony in Arlington

National champs

Congressional shooting

At the White House

Congressional Picnic

Go, Cubs, go

Departing the White House

USS Gerald R. Ford joins the Navy

The eclipse

9/11 anniversary

Trump addresses world leaders at U.N. General Assembly

Las Vegas shooting

Trump visits Puerto Rico

Trump meets Kissinger

With Trudeau

Medal of Honor

Happy Halloween

National Christmas Tree Lighting

Celebrating GOP tax plan

March for Life

State of the Union

School shootings

State dinner

With Olympians

Greeting a guest

Freed Americans

Historic summit

With Kim Kardashian West

BEIJING (AP) — Nathan Chen remembers making the long drive with his mother from his home in Utah to Rafael Arutyunyan's training base in Southern California. He had started out in figure skating just a few years earlier, using his sister's skates and sleeping in the car to follow his Olympic dreams.

Keep scrolling for a gallery of photos from Chen's free skate

Ten years later, Chen sat alongside Arutyunyan as his scores were read and that dream realized.

With a nearly perfect free skate on the heels of a record-setting short program, the 22-year-old Yale student walked away with the gold medal at the Beijing Games on Thursday. He became the first American figure skating champion since Evan Lysacek in 2010 and capped one of the most dominant four-year runs in the history of the sport. Full story here: 

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PHOTO GALLERY