By DANIEL WALTERS/InvestigateWest

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — The first time Denys’s children heard fireworks go off in Spokane, Washington, they were terrified. His kids had grown up about 20 miles from the Russian border, in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, and they knew too well the booms of Russian missile attacks and screeching sounds of Ukrainian air defenses.

In 2023, after Russians attacked the hospital where his youngest daughter, Olivia, had recently been born, Denys knew he needed a way out, and fast.

That’s when a former neighbor, living in an American city on the other side of the world, offered him an escape:

“He called me and said, ‘We have a nice program — Uniting for Ukraine,’” Denys recalled. “If you want to come, grab your family and move.”

Denys, who asked his last name not be used, leapt at the opportunity. He’s stayed in Spokane for the past three years, getting used to a place where explosions are simply celebrations of freedom. He’d spent a half year learning English, and then drawing on his Ukrainian experience making boilers, he swiftly got a job welding construction beams at Metals Fabrication Co.

Like so many of the 240,000 Ukrainians who have immigrated to this country through the Uniting for Ukraine program, his future here is precarious.

Launched by former President Joe Biden in 2022, Uniting for Ukraine is a “humanitarian parole” program. It allowed Ukrainian immigrants to temporarily stay and work in America, two years at a time, so long as they found an American sponsor willing to help support them.

In June, however, Denys lost his job — not because he did anything wrong, but because the federal government failed to reauthorize his right to work. Under Donald Trump’s administration, which is targeting humanitarian parole programs affecting nearly 1.8 million migrants, renewals have ground to a halt.

“I’m very worried about my family,” Denys said. “I need to buy food. I have three kids.”

Along with freezing the Biden-era parole programs for Ukrainian refugees, the administration completely withdrew parole protections for more than 530,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, and over 9,000 from Afghanistan.

Many Ukrainians are taking notice of what’s happening to other refugees. In Spokane, two Venezuelan immigrants who had come here legally through humanitarian parole programs were jailed and slated for deportation, despite applying for asylum. When they showed up for a scheduled meeting in June with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, they were arrested by ICE and carted off to Tacoma’s immigration detention center. A mass protest resulted in 30 arrests, federal charges for nine demonstrators, and national media attention.

Unlike Latin American, Haitian and Afghan immigrants, most Ukrainians don’t have to worry about racial profiling. They haven’t been tarred with wild falsehoods about eating pets from the presidential debate stage. But while Ukrainians were never the primary target of the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle Biden’s immigration legacy, they’ve been caught in the crossfire. At the mercy of a rapidly changing and dysfunctional federal bureaucracy, many are paralyzed by the uncertainty — faced with a choice of waiting for a government response, working illegally, surviving on charity, or leaving America entirely.

“There’s this no man’s land,” said Spokane immigration attorney Sam Smith. “There’s this in-between that they’re stuck in. There’s no good solution for them.”

Frozen in place

Whether because of its climate or its people, Spokane, a mid-sized Washington city on the Idaho border, has been a hub for Ukrainian immigration since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine brought a new surge of nearly 3,000 Ukrainians, many who quickly got to work establishing their new lives.

At a coffee stop started by another Ukrainian immigrant, Maksym Bedenko proudly hands InvestigateWest the business card for The Old Preacher, a small barbershop business he started in 2023. He was lucky enough to re-enroll in the Uniting for Ukraine program in August of last year, when it was still easy to get re-approval. But he knows a slew of other people, including Amazon workers, factory workers and caregivers, who have all lost their jobs.

The second Trump administration had launched with a salvo against nearly every aspect of the immigration system. Executive orders banned new refugees, severed contracts with refugee resettlement organizations and put any renewals of those with programs like Uniting for Ukraine on hold.

During the campaign, Trump had demonized Biden’s humanitarian parole programs, which had resulted in a surge of immigrants into some cities. On his first day back in office, Trump issued an executive order to “terminate all categorical parole programs” that were contrary to his policies.

Three days later, a freeze order went out from the acting director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services: Stop processing all Uniting for Ukraine applications, including from those trying to renew their parole status. No parole status, no new rights to work.

Spokane Slavic Association Vice President Zhanna Oberemok, who immigrated to Spokane shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union, said drivers for her husband’s trucking company recently started seeing some of their workers lose their commercial driver’s licenses as their work authorizations expired.

“Within the next week or so, we’re going to be losing about seven drivers because their driver license just became inactive,” Oberemok said.

Employers were frustrated to have to let perfectly good workers go.

Sara Weaver-Lundberg, vice president for Metals Fabrication Co., said by email that Denys had been a “gilded unicorn,” the rare, impossible-to-find experienced worker, and losing him “put a strain on our production.”

He was dependable, she said, always willing to work overtime when they needed it. She reached out to her corporate attorney and contacted her congressman to find help for Denys, but so far, neither route has been effective.

“I cannot imagine having to leave my country because it was no longer safe for me and my family,” Weaver-Lundberg said. “Denys did just that — he left Ukraine and entered this country legally. … Now, because of a pause in the program or backlog, he is living in this country with no job.”

Every two weeks, Denys had been sending money to his mother — still in Ukraine, where the prices of groceries and utilities have skyrocketed because of the war. He had been hoping to bring her to the United States through Uniting for Ukraine. Now, that’s out of the question, too.

Without a job, he’s been relying on the generosity of his sponsor — his former neighbor — to pay for food and rent for himself, his wife and his three kids. He’s waiting for a phone call from the state government to see if he’s eligible for unemployment benefits. He noted how he’d been turned from someone contributing to tax revenue through his work into someone costing the government money.

At a table at the Spokane refugee resettlement nonprofit Thrive International, Denys speaks through a translator, a woman who herself came here through the Uniting for Ukraine program.

“I know some families, they got mortgages,” Denys said. “They have loans for their cars. They have huge bills every single month.”

They’re left with an ugly decision: Provide for their family or follow the law. It’s a choice Denys hasn’t made and doesn’t want to.

“I should probably find some job and work under the table, but I don’t want to do that,” Denys said. “But it’s like the government pushes us to do that. We don’t want to do that. We want to work legally and follow the law.”

Pushing back

Elsewhere in Spokane, a local doctor has been fighting for months for a remedy in federal court. In February, Kyle Varner, an activist who spent a month along the Ukrainian border caring for refugees and who’d sponsored nearly 50 Venezuelan immigrants, joined a lawsuit to challenge the new policies, writing that he feels “that there is something fundamentally and morally wrong with treating people differently and giving them fewer rights simply because they were not born in this country.”

Along with immigrants from Ukraine, Nicaragua, Haiti and Afghanistan, he asked the court to force the Trump administration to start processing humanitarian parole applications again.

So far, the verdict has been mixed: New parole applications remain frozen, and in May, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to order a half-million Latin American immigrants to leave the country, a decision that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned could lead to “social and economic chaos.”

But thanks to a lower court ruling, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services sent out a memo on June 9, officially lifting the freeze on processing parole renewals. In theory, Ukrainian immigrants like Denys would begin to see their right to work restored. So far, few have.

“We’ve seen some cases denied. And some cases be asked for additional evidence,” said Matthew Soerens, the policy director for World Relief, a national refugee resettlement organization. “But at least the folks that we’re helping, we are not aware of cases being approved for humanitarian parole renewal from Ukraine.”

Smith, the local immigration attorney, says the parole system remains functionally frozen. He suspects it’s a matter of priorities, that the Trump administration is dumping more resources into enforcement and kicking people out instead of helping people to stay.

“It’s pretty clear what the administration thinks about … immigrants and immigration generally,” Smith said.

Alternate routes

Many Ukrainian immigrants have lit upon another strategy, one that uses the glacial pace of the federal immigration bureaucracy to their advantage. Some are filing for asylum — arguing they have a well-founded fear of political, racial or religious persecution from their home country.

And while an asylum application can sometimes take five to 10 years to process, immigrants can get work authorization while they wait.

There’s just one big hitch: It still takes six months, once you apply for asylum, to get work permits. Even if Denys applied today, he wouldn’t be able to get the right to work again until March.

Even then, Smith, the attorney, hesitates to offer any kind of certainty. Lately, federal policy has been chaotic enough that it’s hard to provide long-term assurances.

Often, the government hasn’t formally communicated at all about changes in policy, and when it has, it’s sometimes been a mistake. In April, according to The Washington Post, the Department of Homeland Security had emailed many Ukrainians across the country telling them that their humanitarian parole had been canceled, and threatening that if they didn’t leave the United States, “the federal government will find you.” The message was an error, but it was sent out so broadly that even Smith — an attorney, not an immigrant — got the email.

“There’s a lack of clarity all throughout the system, which makes an already difficult system to navigate even more difficult and perilous,” Smith said. “It paralyzes the system, but it also paralyzes people.”

Appealing to Trump

In Congress, there have been a handful of stabs at trying to make things easier for Ukrainian immigrants — a Senate bill proposes letting Ukrainians on humanitarian parole continue to work, while a bill in the U.S. House would give the Ukrainian parolees a way to become permanent residents. But while both bills have bipartisan supporters, neither has gotten much traction. The Republican Party has been starkly divided on Ukraine, the traditional anti-Russian wing in conflict with a growing isolationist wing.

Spokane’s Republican congressman, U.S. Rep. Michael Baumgartner, embodies that tension. In February, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was booted from the White House following a combative meeting with Trump, Baumgartner called for Zelenskyy’s resignation.

But in April, he also co-authored a bipartisan letter calling for the Trump administration to continue to offer Ukrainian immigrants protection.

“Many of them have found employment, pay taxes, have their children enrolled in school, and are positively contributing to their new communities,” the letter states. “Revoking their protections and sending them back to a war-torn country before peace is secured would be devastating for both them and their families.”

Baumgartner said he did not get a response from the administration.

Still, he stressed to InvestigateWest that “the Ukrainian population have really been model immigrants. They’re hard-working folks, they are entrepreneurs, small business owners.” He was hopeful that Trump could use his tough-on-immigration reputation as a way to bring about reform of a broken system.

In a dark way, Oberemok with the Spokane Slavic Association finds a reason for optimism in the recent news about the stabbing of a young Ukrainian refugee woman in North Carolina. Trump, in his social media post calling for the death penalty for the “animal” who murdered her, had characterized her as a “beautiful young lady from Ukraine, who came to America searching for peace and safety.”

“It’s already giving us hope that he’s not planning on sending us back home,” Oberemok said.

So far, Trump has shown little sign of making it easier for immigrants. In an interview this month, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow declared that the administration plans to make it even harder, and more expensive, for immigrants to get work authorization. He accused the Biden administration of using work permits as a magnet to attract droves of foreigners to the United States.

“To the extent that we can shut off work authorization once we terminate these paroles, we’ve done that,” Edlow said. “You may be eligible for a work permit, but that doesn’t mean anymore that that’s going to result in you being able to remain in this country.”

For now, Ukrainian immigrants continue living under what Mariia Chava, Denys’s sponsor and former neighbor, calls “the big question mark.”

“What will be tomorrow?” she said. “Nobody knows.”

Denys knows he can’t return to Ukraine, where war is still raging and where many see those who left as traitors.

He loves the beauty of nature in Spokane, driving on America’s wide open roads. But he can’t live in a place where he has to fear deportation, where he’s not allowed to provide for his family without breaking the law, where he has no clear path to becoming legal.

“I love this country,” Denys said. “Just give me a chance to work.”

This story was originally published in InvestigateWest and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN, Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A veteran water expert from Arizona says the Trump administration withdrew his nomination to lead the federal agency that oversees water management in the western U.S., leaving the Bureau of Reclamation without permanent leadership this year.

Ted Cooke told The Associated Press late Wednesday that he was preparing for a Senate confirmation hearing early this month but his name was removed from the agenda. He wasn’t told until this week that there was an unspecified issue with his background check. Cooke said the White House didn’t offer any details and asked only that he withdraw himself from consideration.

“The real story here is that I’ve been sacrificed on the altar of political expediency because of party politics and maybe Colorado River basin intrigues,” Cooke said, adding that he believes he was given a fabricated excuse “to avoid having any discussion on what the real issue is.”

Cooke said he didn’t know what the issue was.

The shift comes as the bureau and seven states face a deadline to decide how to share the Colorado River amid ongoing drought and shrinking water supplies.

The Interior Department, which oversees the bureau, referred questions about Cooke to the White House, which did not respond to multiple emails seeking comment.

Trump’s announcement in June that he had tapped Cooke, the former general manager of the Central Arizona Project, drew praise from many who said Cooke’s experience delivering water to the state’s most populous communities would be a plus for the bureau.

Still, officials in other Western states had concerns that Cooke would give deference to his home state as negotiations over the future of the Colorado River come to a head. Water managers have been grappling with the prospect of painful cuts in water supplies as the river dwindles.

The Colorado River is a critical lifeline to seven U.S. states, more than 20 Native American tribes, and two Mexican states. It provides electricity to millions of homes and businesses, irrigates vast stretches of desert farmland and reaches faucets in cities throughout the Southwest, including Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

In Mesa, Arizona, Mayor Mark Freeman had celebrated Cooke’s nomination back in June in a social media post. On Wednesday, the Republican told the AP he was disappointed to learn the nomination wouldn’t move forward.

“Mr. Cooke has dedicated his career to managing Arizona’s water resources, and his deep knowledge of the Colorado River system would have provided valuable insight during this critical time. Although his nomination was not confirmed, the challenges before us remain,” Freeman said, highlighting the need to ensure reliable water supplies.

Anne Castle, former chair of the Upper Colorado River Commission, said in an email that withdrawal of the nomination “looks like backroom politics at a time when what we really need is straightforward leadership on western water issues.”

Cooke said he heard from some people that his knack for being fair and even-handed might have worked against him. He theorized that some officials might have been pushing to find a “more ruthless” nominee since Colorado River negotiations have been anything but easy.

Sarah Porter, director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University, said that while Cooke’s withdrawal is a lost opportunity to have a highly qualified person in the job, it’s not likely to disrupt ongoing negotiations. She said the bureau’s acting leadership has been working assiduously to figure out a way forward for river management.

She also doubted that having Cooke lead the bureau would have given Arizona a leg up, saying “there are too many other decision-makers and significant stakeholders involved for that to ever be a real possibility. And they know that Ted would have tried hard to rise above all that.”

It’s unclear whether the Trump administration is considering other candidates for the top post at the bureau.

Associated Press writers Felicia Fonseca in New York City, Matthew Daly in Washington, D.C., and Dorany Pineda in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

DETROIT (AP) — Jose Ramirez hit a tiebreaking, two-run homer in the seventh inning after Tarik Skubal was replaced and the surging Cleveland Guardians swept the slumping Detroit Tigers with a 3-1 win on Thursday.

Detroit has lost six of its last seven games and 15 of 22, turning an 11.5-game cushion into a lead that isn’t comfortable.

Returning from an injury scare last week, Skubal gave up one run, seven hits and struck out nine over six innings.

The reigning AL Cy Young Award and pitching Triple Crown winner was replaced by right-hander Troy Melton in the seventh in a 1-all game. Nine pitches later, Ramirez broke the tie with a 368-foot shot to right.

Cleveland’s Jhonkensy Noel hit a game-tying solo homer in the fourth.

Tanner Bibee (11-11) gave up one run and four hits while striking out eight over six innings. Tim Herrin and Kolby Allard followed with two innings of scoreless relief and Hunter Gaddis pitched the ninth for his third save.

Melton (3-2) took the loss after allowing two runs on two hits and a walk in 1 2/3 innings.

Key moment

The Tigers started the second with three hits, including Colt Keith’s RBI double, and they failed to score another run after having two on and no outs. Keith left the game after the inning with back stiffness.

Key stat

The defending AL Central-champion Guardians are a season-high 10 games over .500, bouncing back from having a losing record on Sept. 4 by winning 12 of 13 games.

Up next

Guardians LHP Parker Messick (3-0, 1.84) and Twins RHP Pablo Lopez (5-4, 2.64) are to start Friday night in Minnesota. Detroit opens its final homestand Friday night with Tigers RHP Charlie Morton (9-10, 5.66) and Atlanta RHP Bryce Elder (7-10, 5.56).

By AAMER MADHANI and KONSTANTIN TOROPIN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday suggested that he is working to reestablish a U.S. presence at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, four years after America’s chaotic withdrawal from the country left the base in the Taliban’s hands.

Trump floated the idea during a press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer as he wrapped up a state visit to the U.K. and tied it to the need for the U.S. to counter its top rival, China.

“We’re trying to get it back,” Trump said of the base in an aside to a question about ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

While Trump described his call for the U.S. military to reestablish a position in Afghanistan as “breaking news,” the Republican president has previously raised the idea. The White House did not immediately respond to questions about whether it or the Pentagon has done any planning around returning to the sprawling air base, which was central to America’s longest war.

Trump has seized on the U.S. withdrawal under Biden

During his first presidency, Trump set the terms for the U.S. withdrawal by negotiating a deal with the Taliban. The 20-year conflict came to an end in disquieting fashion under President Joe Biden: The U.S.-backed Afghan government collapsed, a grisly bombing killed 13 U.S. troops and 170 others, and thousands of desperate Afghans descended on Kabul’s airport in search of a way out before the final U.S. aircraft departed over the Hindu Kush.

The Afghanistan debacle was a major setback just eight months into Biden’s Democratic presidency that he struggled to recover from.

Biden’s Republican detractors, including Trump, seized on it as a signal moment in a failed presidency. Those criticisms have persisted into the present day, including as recently as last week, when Trump claimed the move emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine in February 2022.

“He would have never done what he did, except that he didn’t respect the leadership of the United States,” Trump said, speaking of Putin. “They just went through the Afghanistan total disaster for no reason whatsoever. We were going to leave Afghanistan, but we were going to leave it with strength and dignity. We were going to keep Bagram Air Base — one of the biggest air bases in the world. We gave it to them for nothing.”

Asked again about the proposal hours later on Air Force One, Trump offered no details but again bashed Biden for “gross incompetence” and said the base should have “never been given back.”

“It’s one of the most powerful bases in the world in terms of runway strength and length,” he said. “You can land anything on there. You can land a planet on top of it.”

No clarity if there have been discussions with the Taliban about Bagram

It is unclear if the U.S. has any new direct or indirect conversations with the Taliban government about returning to the country. But Trump hinted that the Taliban, who have struggled with an economic crisis, international legitimacy, internal rifts and rival militant groups since their return to power in 2021, could be game to allow the U.S. military to return.

“We’re trying to get it back because they need things from us,” Trump said of the Taliban.

The president repeated his view that a U.S. presence at Bagram is of value because of its proximity to China, the most significant economic and military competitor to the United States.

“But one of the reasons we want that base is, as you know, it’s an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons,” Trump said. “So a lot of things are happening.”

While the U.S. and the Taliban have no formal diplomatic ties, the sides have had hostage conversations. An American man who was abducted more than two years ago while traveling through Afghanistan as a tourist was released by the Taliban in March.

Last week, the Taliban also said they reached an agreement with U.S. envoys on an exchange of prisoners as part of an effort to normalize relations between the United States and Afghanistan.

The Taliban gave no details of a detainee swap, and the White House did not comment on the meeting in Kabul or the results described in a Taliban statement. The Taliban released photographs from their talks, showing their foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, with Trump’s special envoy for hostage response, Adam Boehler.

Officials at U.S. Central Command in the Middle East and the Pentagon, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office, referred questions about reestablishing a presence at Bagram to the White House.

By ISABELLA VOLMERT and OBED LAMY, Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg rallied Democrats against redistricting in his home state of Indiana Thursday as pressure grows on Republican state lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional districts.

Buttigieg — a contender to represent Democrats aiming to win back the presidency in 2028 — was the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, before he launched into the national political scene by running for president in 2020 and emerged victorious from the Iowa caucus that year.

Indiana Republicans have been hesitant to redistrict so far compared to other states where the GOP holds control. But Democrats have little power to stop the move if Republican leaders choose to create a new map.

“Indiana Republicans are being pressured by Washington Republicans to do something that they know in their hearts is wrong,” Buttigieg said.

Typically, states redraw their congressional districts every 10 years with the census. But President Donald Trump wants to give his party an advantage in the 2026 election in order to keep majority control in the House of Representatives, as midterms tend to favor the party out of power. Republicans in Texas and Missouri have moved to create advantageous new seats while California Democrats have countered with their own new proposal.

Indiana lawmakers however have not yet answered the redistricting call and have kept their cards close, emblematic of the state’s independent streak and its more measured approach to politics.

But pressure from Trump to redraw House districts has been mounting on Republicans in the state he won by 19 percentage points in 2024. First-term Gov. Mike Braun, a Republican, said Tuesday that a legislative session on redistricting probably will happen, and it could come as soon as November. But he doesn’t want to call a special session unless there will be a successful outcome.

“I’ve been very clear. I want it to be organic,” he said in a video reported by WRTV in Indianapolis.

A large crowd gathered inside the statehouse in Indianapolis Thursday afternoon to see Buttigieg speak.

“It’s an issue of fairness,” said Judy Jessup, an Indianapolis resident. “The voters should get to choose politicians, not the other way around.”

Buttigieg is the biggest Democratic voice to come out of Indiana in recent memory. Following the 2020 election, Buttigieg and his family moved to Traverse City, Michigan, and he served as Secretary of Transportation under the Biden administration.

In an excerpt from her upcoming memoir, Kamala Harris said that Buttigieg was her first pick for 2024 running mate, but she said running with Buttigieg, who is openly gay, was too risky. He didn’t address the comments on Thursday.

Braun could call a special session, but it would be up to lawmakers to create a new map. Republicans hold a supermajority in both chambers in Indiana, meaning Democrats could not stop or delay a special session by refusing to attend, like their peers in Texas briefly did. Republicans also outnumber Democrats in Indiana’s congressional delegation 7-2. Some Republicans see an opportunity to gain all nine seats in the state.

The GOP would likely target Indiana’s 1st Congressional District, a Democratic stronghold encompassing Gary and other cities near Chicago. Three-term Democratic Rep. Frank Mrvan won reelection in 2022 and easily retained the seat in 2024 even after Republicans redrew the district to be slightly more favorable to the GOP.

Republicans could also zero in on the 7th Congressional District, composed entirely of Marion County and the Democratic stronghold of Indianapolis, but they would invite more controversy by slicing up Indiana’s largest city and diluting Black voters’ influence.

“Both of those districts are filled with Black voters,” state Sen. Andrea Hunley, who represents Indianapolis, said at the rally. “This is a racist power grab to silence voters who look like me.”

Texas passed a new map that would help Republicans win up to five new seats, and Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican, is expected to sign legislation soon that would help Republicans win seven of the state’s eight districts. Meanwhile, California Democrats are launching a campaign to build support ahead of a Nov. 4 referendum on new U.S. House districts that were made to offset wins made by Texas Republicans.

Utah and Ohio may soon have new congressional district maps, and elected leaders in other states also are considering mid-decade redistricting, including Republicans in Florida and Kansas and Democrats in Maryland and New York.

Volmert reported from Lansing, Michigan.

By LAURAN NEERGAARD, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration moved Thursday to shut down a Miami organ donation group, calling it “failing” because of underperformance, unsafe practices and paperwork errors.

The Life Alliance Organ Recovery Agency is one of 55 organ procurement organizations, or OPOs, nonprofit agencies around the country that coordinate the recovery of organs from deceased donors and help match them to patients on the nation’s transplant waiting list.

The administration cited an investigation that found a 2024 case where an unspecified mistake led a surgeon to decline a donated heart for a patient awaiting surgery.

In a news briefing, Dr. Mehmet Oz, who heads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said problems included would-be donations that went unrecovered, sending some donated organs to the wrong place and a lack of staff.

Life Alliance, a division of the University of Miami Health System, can appeal the decision. If it is shut down, it would mark the first time the federal government has decertified an OPO.

Life Alliance didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

More than 100,000 Americans are on the transplant list and thousands die waiting because there aren’t enough donations to go around. Last year there were more than 48,000 transplants, a record, the vast majority from deceased donors.

Changes to the transplant system have been underway for years to increase donations, reduce waste of potentially usable organs and address other concerns. They include some new safeguards after complaints last year that a different OPO didn’t stop donation preparations quickly enough when some patients showed signs of life, prompting some people to opt out of donor registries. Organ donation can proceed only after a hospital has declared someone dead — and by law, OPOs cannot be involved in that decision.

On Thursday, Oz sought to reassure would-be donors.

“Congress has thoughtfully and aggressively pursued some horrifying stories that have chilled some Americans’ enthusiasm for donating organs. We are here today to tell you this system is safe. It’s rigorously being addressed,” he said, adding later, “I want to applaud the OPOs that are doing a great job because most are.”

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By Kevin Hardy, Stateline.org

NORTH CONWAY, N.H. — The conversations in French having given them away, the group of motorcyclists immediately stood out as foreigners over a Saturday breakfast in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

In the restaurant, the server was pleased, thanking them for coming. Because these days, tariffs and White House rhetoric have left Canadians a rare breed of visitors in New England, usually a hotspot vacation destination from the nearby province of Quebec.

“There’s a lot of people staying in Canada because of that,” said Dave Gingras, a 35-year-old biker from Saguenay, about two hours north of Quebec City.

While other Canadians are avoiding buying American products or traveling to the States, the group of 11 decided to leave politics behind on their road trip through New England.

“We are just keeping it neutral and trying to enjoy,” Gingras told Stateline.

After breakfast, they donned helmets and mounted an assortment of dusty Yamaha, BMW and Triumph bikes.

“We drive and when we’re tired, we stop and raise up a tent and relax with a beer,” Gingras said before pulling into a line of crawling traffic on the White Mountain Highway, the scenic byway dotted with quaint inns, old-timey stores and Colonial and Victorian homes.

Across Northeastern states, business owners and state officials have labored to maintain key economic connections with Canada despite the rhetoric coming out of the White House. President Donald Trump’s trade war, aggressive immigration enforcement and talk of making their country the 51st state has offended many Canadians. While concerns are acute in New England, tourism hubs from Hawaii to New York are reeling from a decrease in Canadian visitors.

To quell tensions, Maine leaders erected signs in French to welcome Canadian visitors and New Hampshire’s governor just returned from a Canadian trip she took to strengthen trade and tourism.

But hospitality businesses this summer reported a sharp decline in visitors from the North — Canadian travel to New Hampshire is down about 30% this year, according to state officials. Border crossings into Vermont hit their lowest levels since 2021, according to federal data, as the Canadian government reported a 34% drop in the number of August car visits into the U.S. compared with the same month last year.

New England businesses remain concerned as the region turns the page on the summer vacation season to its vibrant autumn, known for luring leaf-peeping travelers from across the globe.

Tourism is vital for White Mountain Valley communities like North Conway. While it’s home to only about 2,300 people, the village is a historic travel hotspot known for outdoor activities, tax-free shopping and family-friendly theme parks.

While many people think of the area as a winter ski destination, summers are actually the largest travel draw, said Chris Proulx, executive director of the Mt. Washington Valley Chamber of Commerce.

The drop in Canadian tourism has been especially evident during less popular travel times for Americans. For example, Canada’s Victoria Day, a late May holiday celebrating that queen’s birthday, has traditionally brought big crowds to the Northeast.

“Our retail outlets are a very, very popular destination for them during that time,” Proulx said. “And our retail outlets have reported that it was basically nonexistent this year.”

Proulx said local businesses have tried to lure travelers from close-by regions like the Boston area to help make up for the loss of Canadian tourists, “so it’s not an unrecoverable loss.” But the absence of visitors from parts North is hard to ignore.

“It almost feels like a birder might feel if they find a rare species,” he said. “If you see someone with a Canadian license plate, you notice it right away. It gives you a little bit of a smile.”

Aside from the economic loss, Proulx said he worries about longstanding relationships.

This scenic valley is nostalgic for many visitors from the U.S. and Canada alike. He said many people return again and again, sharing fond memories of their first camping trip along the Saco River, childhood trips to the Santa’s Village amusement park and picturesque rides on the Conway Scenic Railroad.

“So we just don’t want anybody thinking that they’re not welcomed here. That’s our biggest thing,” he said. “We want everybody to be able to call this their second home, to be able to visit and reconnect and feel welcomed.”

‘Towns are quieter’

In the heart of North Conway, tourists picnic on the grass in Schouler Park, look into the 1874-era train station and meander into shops selling hokey souvenirs and homemade fudge. Framing the village is the imposing Mount Washington, which at 6,288 feet boasts the tallest peak in the Northeast.

At one of the town’s busiest intersections, the crowds come in waves to the North Conway 5&10 Store. But even as families line up, employee Polly Howe said she hadn’t seen many Canadians this summer.

“It’s a shame,” she said, bouncing between the cash register, the candy counter and stocking staples like toys and hats.

In a building listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the souvenir shop has been around for 86 years and features a false-front facade, the kind made famous in boomtowns of the Old West. Manager Terri Johnson said she had encountered a good number of Canadians inside the shop, but said she didn’t blame any who felt put off by the political climate.

“I’m thankful they still come after all that,” she said.

It’s not just international relations that have changed tourism here.

A rainy start to the summer season didn’t help, and business owners say anxiety over the domestic economy and inflation have pinched travel budgets.

Mark Lahood says family travel has dipped at the three hotels he operates in the area.

“Towns are quieter,” he said this summer. “They’re not quiet, but they’re much quieter than years’ past.”

Some summer weekends, which traditionally sell out entirely, the three hotels had 30% vacancies, he said. And travelers are more keen for weekend trips than their weeklong road trips of previous seasons.

“With a seven-day trip, by the time they were all in, it’s a lot of driving, it’s a lot of gas money, it’s a lot of meals, it’s a lot of hotels,” he said. “And I think it’s just too much.”

To help with rising costs, he ran a free breakfast promotion for kids earlier in the summer. And he increased an existing international discount for Canadian guests.

“Did it help anything? Probably not. But you know, when you view it from a Canadian traveler, at least you made an effort.”

The decline in Canadian visitors has allowed for more local, spontaneous travel, said Genn Anzaldi, who owns J-Town Deli & Country Store in Jackson, New Hampshire.

“More day trippers for sure,” she said. “So maybe not as many people spending the night or as many nights.”

The scent of sizzling bacon and toasting panini fills her shop, which offers hot meals along with handmade gifts and convenience store staples.

Anzaldi, who also runs a cooperative marketing effort for a group of independent restaurants, said the local restaurant business was down, but not significantly.

The reason?

“Canadians,” she said. “I wouldn’t say it’s the economy. That seems to be going well.”

About nine miles away from North Conway, things are a bit quieter in Jackson, home to a famed one-lane covered bridge. With its spas and boutique hotels, Anzaldi said the community is more known as a destination for weddings, romantic stays and outdoor getaways.

While Anzaldi said she hopes Canadian tensions settle soon, she noted that the matter lies in the political domain and there’s little business owners can do but carry on.

“We have to run, right?” she said. “We’re not personally going to go up and advertise.”

States try to ease federal tension

To maintain tourism and trade, Democratic and Republican politicians in the Northeast have made overtures to their counterparts in Canada.

Since Trump’s inauguration, Maine Democratic Gov. Janet Mills has met with Maine businesses near the border, embarked on a diplomatic Canadian tour and even installed “Bienvenue Canadiens” welcome signs near border crossings. But on her trip this summer, she was reminded that it’s not just tariffs that have irked Canadians — many are also worried about the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement.

“Lots of people don’t feel safe in the U.S. right now and for good reason,” Susan Holt, the premier of the New Brunswick province, told Mills, according to local news accounts. Holt has encouraged her constituents to avoid traveling to the United States.

Last year, the state said some 800,000 Canadians visited Maine. On her June trip, Mills asked Canadians to remember those who rely on the tourism industry.

“To the extent people feel angst about coming to Maine, just remember that if they aren’t coming to Maine, the ones that they’re hurting are the small mom and pop businesses,” the governor told News Center Maine while in Halifax.

Mills’ office did not respond to Stateline’s requests for comment.

Similarly, New Hampshire Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte said ahead of a trade mission that she aimed to welcome Canadians to the Granite State, the New Hampshire Bulletin reported.

“That’s one of the things I’m going to just continue to promote on behalf of New Hampshire,” Ayotte said last month. “Not only that they’re welcome here — the Canadians — but we have open arms to them.”

Ayotte’s office did not respond to Stateline’s requests for comment about her trip.

René Sylvestre, the Quebec province’s delegate to New England, said those gestures are appreciated. He spends much of his time meeting with state and business leaders. Last month, he met numerous state lawmakers at the annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures in Boston, where he is posted.

But he said calming federal tensions will be key to seeing a rebound in tourism.

“What we can see right now is people in Quebec are really sad with the whole situation,” he told Stateline. “But they’re saying, ‘Maybe we should stay and spend more time in Canada these days.’ So this is really the impact that we’ve seen, and we think that it’s going to take a while before it’s back to normal.”

A decline in international travel has hit border communities across the country — from New York state to Washington state. North Dakota estimated that Canadian visitors spent about $14.4 million less in the first half of the year compared with last year, as the number of personal vehicles crossing the border from Canada declined by 30%. Other hubs for international visitors, including Las Vegas and Hawaii, are also seeing significant declines.

“Right now, it’s hard to turn back federal policy,” Hawaii state Sen. Ron Kouchi told Stateline in August.

Kouchi, a Democrat and president of the state Senate, said Canada has traditionally been among Hawaii’s top five travel markets. The state has sent tourism officials to trade shows and is trying to show Canadians, like all visitors, the Aloha State’s iconic hospitality. But he said that message hasn’t been persuasive, even coming from leaders of the solidly liberal state.

“While we argue about Republicans or Democrats, in other nations they simply look at Americans and they don’t see it as an R or a D thing,” he said. “It’s an American thing.”

A stormy beach season

Old Orchard Beach in Maine is a favorite of New Englanders and Canadians alike.

Part of the Portland metropolitan area, the vacation town sports a seaside amusement park and seven miles of sandy beaches. But some Canadians started to cancel their summer reservations to the area early on in Trump’s term.

Sean Nickless, who co-owns the 30-room Crest Motel with his family, said Canadians began calling off trips in January and February,

Those cancellations and poor weather foretold a slower summer. “It’s not as steady,” Nickless said, noting business had been inconsistent with shorter stays.

Like many of the other beachfront properties here, the retro Crest Motel relies heavily on repeat customers, filled out by the occasional road tripper who ducks in from the angled carport to ask about an available room.

“The best you can do is let Canadians know they’re still welcome here,” he said from the motel’s small lobby scented with the aroma of a drip coffeemaker and a bright popcorn machine.

At the height of summer, rain ushered in what should have been a booming weekend along the Atlantic’s Saco Bay. Crest Motel guests swam, but only under the cover of the pool’s rolling roof.

Down the way, five teenagers stood listlessly inside a walkup Dairy Queen with no customers to serve. On the pier, arcade games, $1-per-visit restrooms and barstools sat idle. Few took up heavily advertised offers for pizza by the slice, $15 lobster rolls or fried clam cakes.

“I’ve never driven around Old Orchard Beach in the summer and seen ‘vacancy signs.’ I have this year,” said state Sen. Donna Bailey, who represents the community. “I mean, you just never see that in the middle of July — all you see is ‘no vacancy’ signs.” A Democrat, Bailey emphasized that Canada isn’t some far-off destination for Mainers. People routinely cross the border for health care and work. They have friends and family on both sides.

“I mean, there’s some places up in northern Maine that the nearest hospital is in Canada, as opposed to in the United States. You know, some people have their babies over in Canada.”

But aside from emphasizing existing bonds, Bailey said Maine residents and officials were largely at the mercy of the federal government’s actions.

“I think it’s helpful to remind the Canadians of our personal relationship and that we are Maine and we’re Mainers, and so we’re not necessarily the same as the federal government,” she said. “But, yeah, it does only go so far.”

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

©2025 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The case against a Springfield Township man accused of shaking his infant and nearly killing him has advanced to Oakland County Circuit Court for possible trial.

At the conclusion of a recent preliminary exam in 52-2 District Court, Judge Kelly Kostin ruled there was probable cause to bind over the case against 32-year-old Daniel Charles Gracer, scheduled to be arraigned in the higher court on Sept. 25 by Judge Mary Ellen Brennan.

Gracer is charged with one count of first-degree child abuse in connection with the near-fatal injuries his then-2-month-old son suffered last December.

According to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, on Dec. 23, 2024 deputies were called to a home in the 7000 block of Meadow Lane in Springfield Township on a report of an unresponsive baby. Gracer was caring for the boy at the time, the sheriff’s office said.

The baby suffered serious head and brain trauma, and a child abuse specialist who examined the baby determined the injuries were non-accidental, the sheriff’s office said. The brain injury, according to the specialist, was due to rapid acceleration and rapid deceleration, consistent with being shaken, the sheriff’s office said. The trauma was “nearly fatal,” the sheriff’s office said, and the baby is likely to have severely delayed development.

Hospital staff reportedly relayed the findings to the sheriff’s office which launched an investigation.

Gracer was released from jail in February after Kostin changed his $1 million bond to a personal bond – requiring no cash or surety to be posted.

First-degree child abuse is punishable by up to life in prison.

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DETROIT – The Tigers activated veteran right-hander Paul Sewald before the game Thursday.

Sewald, whom the Tigers acquired from the Guardians at the trade deadline, had been out since July 11 with shoulder soreness. He returned from his final rehab appearance on Wednesday.

Also, right-hander Jose Urquidy was technically designated for assignment, but he has agreed to accept an option to Triple-A Toledo to stay in the organization.

Procedurally, there is a 24-hour wait period before that part of the transaction can be completed.

“He’s demonstrated the positives in what he can bring,” Hinch said. “He’s creative. He’s got multiple pitches. He is undeterred by any big environment. He’s got a weapon for both sides of the plate.

But we are also seeing the difficulty in coming back from a second major surgery. He’s a little rusty, a little erratic and spraying the ball a little more than he normally does.”

With five years of big-league service time, Urquidy could’ve refused the option. But, with the Tigers holding a $4 million option on him next season and his stated desire to be part of this staff going forward, he signed off on it.

By MARIA SHERMAN

NEW YORK (AP) — Sarah McLachlan’s first album in over a decade was supposed to be her last.

At least, it felt that way to her for a short while. Out Friday, the release, titled “Better Broken,” has been many years in the making. “It had been so long since I’d made a record,” she told The Associated Press. “I kind of thought, maybe this is my last one.” But working with a new team of collaborators reignited her enthusiasm for music discovery in the studio. These 11 tracks are the result — but they’re not a swan song.

“Some of these songs are 14 years old. Some of them were written last year,” she said. “I was a dance mom for a bunch of years, and I was also the principal fundraiser for my music schools … Music took a backseat. So that’s why it took 11 years.”

Now, music has clutched the steering wheel. In November, she’ll tour “Better Broken” across nine U.S. cities, beginning in Washington on Nov. 16 at The Anthem and ending Nov. 29 at Los Angeles’ The Orpheum Theatre. She’ll hit Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle and San Francisco as well. General ticket sales begin Sept. 26 at 10 a.m. local time.

“Music is very healing, and it has healed me over and over and over again,” she said. With the “Better Broken” album and tour, she hopes her music can heal listeners, too, “in some small way. I hope it can lift them and connect them to their emotional worlds.”

In an interview with the AP, McLachlan discussed her new album, a forthcoming Lilith Fair documentary and yes, that ASPCA commercial.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

AP: What’s the process of revisiting older material? Did it feel relevant to who you are — still?

MCLACHLAN: ‘Better Broken’ is the oldest song. And it actually became the title track for the record as well, just because of that sentiment of resiliency, and reclamation of self, and picking up the pieces after things fall apart and rebuilding yourself. You know, figuring out a new way forward, which seemed like a great, sort of recurring theme on the record.

AP: There’s a sense of hope that exists throughout the album.

MCLACHLAN: I’m glad to hear you say that because I don’t have a lot of objectivity about it. I mean, I feel hopeful after hearing it, even though there’s some more heavy and intense subject matter. For me, music has always been this beautiful outlet, this therapy. It’s so cathartic to write and be able to find a place to put it. I feel so much better after it. It’s like medicine. So, I hope there’s some hope in it.

AP: I hear it in songs like “Rise,” and the line about a woman’s right to choose. It makes me wonder: Is this an exercise in humanity, or are you naturally an optimistic person?

MCLACHLAN: I’m very optimistic. That optimism has been challenged a lot lately. But I believe in humanity. I believe in the good in people. And I believe in continuing to seek out the good in people. And I think if you stay open and curious in that manner, I think there’s a lot of positive shifts that can continue to happen.

AP: In addition to a new album and tour, you founded the legendary, all-women ‘90s festival Lilith Fair. A new documentary “Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery – The Untold Story” details the tour. Several decades on, how do you view Lilith Fair’s legacy?

MCLACHLAN: We changed attitudes within the music business. We dispelled any myth that you can’t put two women back-to-back on the radio or on stage. Clearly, we got rid of that idea. I think we created an amazing community for us, as women in the music business. I think we helped to create a safe space for fans.

And to show that when you lift each other up instead of tear each other down, you can create something beautiful. I think that’s a really lasting legacy. And I think a really important message, perhaps even more important today.

And now I look at, you know, artists like Brandi Carlile, who are constantly championing women. Or Taylor Swift having women open up for her — Phoebe Bridgers and Boygenius and there are all these bands that, you know, are working together and supporting other women. I love that, and I feel like maybe we had a small hand in that.

AP: What would it take to revive Lilith Fair for the current moment? Could it exist in 2025?

MCLACHLAN: I think it could. I think it’d be very dangerous. I think we’d have a target on our backs. And I think it would need to look different.

It would need to be championed by someone who was coming up today. …. It needs some youthful energy.

AP: In addition to Lilith Fair, for a certain population, you are inextricably connected to the ASPCA for its continued use of your song “Angel” in their commercials. What do you make of that reputation?

MCLACHLAN: I’m grateful I did it. … But that’s my song. I retain ownership of that song. But yeah, I’m definitely aware that it brought me to a whole new fan base and changed the face of fundraising.

AP: I wonder if people think of you as saintly.

MCLACHLAN: I try and dispel any weirdness about that stuff. I’m just a normal person with a crazy job who has opportunities like that come across her desk. And, you know, I like feeling purposeful. I like being of service. It makes me feel good to think that I’m using my platform to do something good.

AP: “Angel” is almost 30 years old. Has your relationship to it changed?

MCLACHLAN: I think because of the many associations, not just the ASPCA, but I’ve had so many people over the years tell me really intense stories about that song helping them through the loss of a parent, the loss of a child, contemplating suicide, pulling them back from the edge. And it is really intense periods in people’s lives where my music has been a part of it. And it’s helped them in some small way. So, for me, again, that’s the best validation in the world as an artist.

MILFORD – After returning most of its 2024 roster this fall, the South Lyon volleyball team wasn’t shy when it came to one of its key goals.

That was winning the Lakes Valley Conference for the first time in program history.

While the season is still young, the Lions took a big step toward that goal on Tuesday night, besting Milford 25-20, 25-19, 25-20 to establish themselves as the lone remaining unbeaten LVC team.

“It’s something we talk about every year, but we really want it this year,” South Lyon coach Deena Maher said of the LVC title. “We are going to fight for it, and this was a big win for us toward achieving that goal. There’s a lot of matches still to play, but we are excited to see what happens.”

Milford (12-3-1, 3-1 LVC) came into the match with a win over the two-time defending conference champions, South Lyon East. The Mavericks were looking to take command of the league, but the Lions had other ideas.

Each set was competitive, but the Lions (17-5, 2-0) utilized a surge late in each set to keep the Mavericks at bay. In the first, a 6-1 rally with the score at 18-16 propelled the Lions toward the win. Junior Kennedy Duncan had three kills in the rally to start a strong night for herself.

“Kennedy is really stepping up as a leader for us this year,” Maher said of Duncan. “She continues to grow her game and is finding the open shots for us. I am really proud of her growth.”

In the second set it was another junior, Kate Sulkowski, who came through with some timely kills down the stretch to put South Lyon up two sets.

In the final set, the Lions scored five straight when the score was tied 16-16 to help themselves pull away. Duncan had another two kills and a block during the stretch.

Closing sets have been a big emphasis for South Lyon, as the Lions suffered most of their losses this year to ranked teams, coming up just a few points shy of pulling out the wins.

“We love playing top competition because it really helps us as a team,” Maher said. “We had some close losses to good teams early on and I think it showed us what we needed to work on, and we’ve been able to grow from that.”

Photo gallery of Milford vs. South Lyon in LVC volleyball action

The growth of the team also is a credit to the play of senior setter Lucy Stoll. She has over 350 assists on the season following Tuesday’s win where she spread the ball out well to the Lions’ capable hitters.

“Lucy is amazing. She’s not afraid of anything” Maher said of her senior setter. “She can handle anything that is thrown at her. She gives a good sense of calm to her teammates and she’s helped build that in our program.”

Duncan capitalized the most from Stoll’s play with 15 kills, while Sulkowski had seven kills with two blocks and two aces. Sophomore Julia Kavaliauskas added six kills.

Milford was led by junior Lexa Pierson, who had 17 kills, while junior Brynlei Gunn had six kills and a block.

South Lyon will look to maintain its hold on the LVC lead on Thursday when it hosts Walled Lake Western. The Lions still have an upcoming slate with rival South Lyon East on Oct. 7, but the team is very motivated to finish the job in the conference race after finishing second to the Cougars in 2024.

“We were really close last year, so the team has been really focused on winning the conference,” Stoll said. “We have a lot of players back from last year and we feel we are a much stronger team now. We just want to keep playing at a high level and get to that title.”

South Lyon defeated Milford in a battle of Lakes Valley Conference unbeatens on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025. The Lions prevailed 25-20, 25-19, 25-20 at Milford High School.

DETROIT (AP) — Steven Kwan, Angel Martinez, José Ramírez and Kyle Manzardo combined to give Cleveland four extra-base hits an extra inning for the first time in 64 years, and the Guardians beat the Detroit Tigers 7-5 in the 10th on Tuesday night for their 10th win in 11 games.

Cleveland extended a winning streak to five for the fifth time this season, matching its high. The Guardians began the night three games behind Houston for the last AL wild card and closed within 5 1/2 games of the AL Central-leading Tigers.

The Guardians’ first our batters in the 10th had extra-base hits off Will Vest (6-4), when Kwan doubled, Martínez tripled, José Ramírez and Kyle Manzardo doubled. Gabriel Arias added a one-out RBI single for a 7-3 lead.

Spencer Torkelson hit a two-run homer in bottom of the 10th off Jakub Junis.

C.J. Kayfus hit an RBI single in the second and Gleyber Torres tied the game in the third with his 16th home run. Arias’ homer put Cleveland back ahead in the fourth and Bo Naylor’s RBI double in the sixth built a 3-1 lead.

Dillon Dingler drove in a run with a grounder in the bottom half, beating a throw to first to avoid an inning-ending double play.

Key moment

Cleveland had not had four extra-base hits in an extra inning since May 10, 1961, when Tito Francona, Chuck Essegian, Woodie Held and Bubba Phillips achieved the feat in the 11th inning during an 8-2 win at the Chicago White Sox.

Key stat

Several players wore No. 21 in honor of Roberto Clemente Day, but the Tiger who normally wears the number, rookie pitcher Jackson Jobe, is sidelined for the rest of the season with a flexor injury.

DETROIT — Tarik Skubal is on track to make his scheduled start against the Guardians on Thursday, though manager AJ Hinch stopped short of saying it’s a done deal.

Skubal on Monday threw his usual between-starts bullpen and felt none of the tightness in his upper rib cage area that forced him out of his start in Miami.

“Everything felt good,” Skubal said. “Just one of those weird things. I don’t really know how to explain it. But the bullpen went well, the scans came back good, so it’s on to the next one.”

He was asked if he held anything back in his bullpen session, just as a precaution.

“No, it was a normal working pen,” he said. “If anything, I probably worked a little harder just to make sure I was good to go. There was nothing there.”

Tigers Nation certainly gave a collective sigh of relief. Skubal, too.

“During the game, I was a little worried about it,” he said. “But once I came out and calmed down a little bit and ran through most of the tests with our trainers, I wasn’t too concerned after that.”

If the Tigers had taken care of business Tuesday (they lost in extra innings) and Wednesday, Skubal could have been on the mound with a chance to clinch the Central Division title Thursday.

“This series is going to be fun,” he said. “Cleveland is a good team and we tend to play good baseball games against each other. It starts (Tuesday) with Casey (Mize) and hopefully we win (Wednesday) with (Jack Flaherty) and hopefully sweep. That’s the division if the math works out. But it starts with (Tuesday), for sure.”

By KONSTANTIN TOROPIN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered that troops who need an exemption from shaving their facial hair for longer than a year should get kicked out of the service.

While commanders are still able to issue service members exemptions from shaving — a policy that has existed for decades — they will now have to come with a medical treatment plan, Hegseth said in an Aug. 20 memo made public Monday. Troops who still need treatment after a year will be separated from service, the memo says.

“The Department must remain vigilant in maintaining the grooming standards which underpin the warrior ethos,” Hegseth wrote in his memo.

Most shaving waivers are for troops diagnosed with pseudofolliculitis barbae, or PFB, a condition in which hair curls back into the skin after shaving and causes irritation. It is a condition that disproportionately affects Black men.

The memo is silent on what treatments the military would offer for troops affected by the new policy or if it will front the cost for those treatments.

It is also unclear if policies like broad exemptions from shaving for special forces troops who are in operational settings or soldiers stationed in the Arctic climates of Alaska where shaving can pose a medical hazard in the extreme cold will be affected by the change.

The announcement applies to all the military services. The Army this week announced its own grooming standard update, which significantly changes acceptable appearance standards for soldiers, especially for women, including revisions for nails, hairstyles, earrings and makeup.

By Jackie Fortiér, KFF Health News

A key federal vaccine advisory panel whose members were recently replaced by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to vote to recommend delaying until age 4 the hepatitis B vaccine that’s currently given to newborns, according to two former senior Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials.

“There is going to likely be a discussion about hepatitis B vaccine, very specifically trying to dislodge the birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine and to push it later in life,” said Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “Apparently this is a priority of the secretary’s.”

The vote is expected to take place during the next meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, scheduled for Sept. 18-19.

For more than 30 years, the first of three shots of hepatitis B vaccine has been recommended for infants shortly after birth. In that time, the potentially fatal disease has been virtually eradicated among American children. Pediatricians warn that waiting four years for the vaccine opens the door to more children contracting the virus.

“Age 4 makes zero sense,” pediatrician Eric Ball said. “We recommend a universal approach to prevent those cases where a test might be incorrect or a mother might have unknowingly contracted hepatitis. It’s really the best way to keep our entire population healthy.”

In addition to the hepatitis B vaccine, the panel will also discuss and vote on recommendations for the combined measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella vaccine and covid-19 vaccines. Pediatricians worry changes to the schedules of these vaccines will limit access for many families, leaving them vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases.

Typically, ACIP would undertake an analysis of the data before recommending a change to vaccine guidelines. As of the end of August, this process had not begun for the hepatitis B vaccines, Daskalakis and another former official said.

“This is an atypical situation. There’s been no work group to discuss it,” Daskalakis said.

The second former senior official spoke to NPR and KFF Health News on the condition of anonymity.

In response to questions from KFF Health News, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon wrote, “ACIP exists to ensure that vaccine policy is guided by the best available evidence and open scientific deliberation. Any updates to recommendations will be made transparently with gold standard science.”

The draft agenda for the upcoming ACIP meeting was released to the public less than a week before it is scheduled to begin.

At the last ACIP meeting, in June, Martin Kulldorff, the chair and one of seven new members handpicked by Kennedy, questioned the need to vaccinate every newborn, citing only two of the many ways the virus can spread. Kulldorff is a former Harvard Medical School professor who became known for opposing some public health measures during the pandemic.

“Unless the mother is hepatitis B positive, an argument could be made to delay the vaccine for this infection, which is primarily spread by sexual activity and intravenous drug use,” he said.

The virus spreads via direct exposure to an infected bodily fluid like blood or semen. The disease has no cure and can lead to serious conditions like cirrhosis and liver cancer later in life. The CDC advisory panel may maintain the recommendation to inoculate newborns whose mothers have hepatitis B or are considered at high risk of the disease, the former officials said.

Protection from birth

In 1991, federal health officials determined it was advisable for newborns to receive their first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth, which blocks the virus from taking hold if transmitted during delivery. While parents may opt out of the shots, many day care centers and school districts require proof of hepatitis B vaccination for enrollment.

The prospect of ACIP’s altering the recommendation has left some people living with the virus deeply unsettled.

“I am goddamn frustrated,” said Wendy Lo, who has lived with the liver disease, likely since birth. Years of navigating the psychological, monetary, medical, and social aspects of chronic hepatitis B has touched almost every aspect of her life.

“I would not want anyone to have to experience that if it can be prevented,” she said. Lo learned she had the disease due to a routine screening to study abroad in college.

Lo credits the vaccines with protecting her close family members from infection.

“I shared with my partner, ‘If you get vaccinated, we can be together,’” she said. He got the vaccine, which protects him from infection, “so I’m grateful for that,” she said.

The CDC estimates half of people with hepatitis B do not know they are infected. It can range from an acute, mild infection to a chronic infection, often with few to no symptoms. Most people with chronic hepatitis B were born outside of the U.S., and Asians and Pacific Islanders followed by Black people have the highest rates of newly reported chronic infections.

When her children were born, Lo was adamant that they receive the newborn dose, a decision she says prevented them from contracting the virus.

The earlier an infection occurs, the worse the consequences, according to the CDC. When contracted in infancy or early childhood, hepatitis B is far more likely to become a chronic infection, silently damaging the liver over decades.

Those who become chronic carriers can also unknowingly spread the virus to others and face an increased risk of long-term complications including cirrhosis and liver cancer, which may not become evident until much later in life.

“Now I’m in my 50s, one of my big concerns is liver cancer. The vaccine is safe and effective, it’s lifesaving, and it protects you against cancer. How many vaccines do that?” Lo said.

Thirty years of universal vaccination

Treatments like the antivirals Lo now takes weren’t available until the 1990s. Decades of the virus’s replicating unchecked damaged her liver. Every six months she gets scared of what her blood tests may reveal.

After a vaccine was approved in the 1980s, public health officials initially focused vaccination efforts on people thought to be at highest risk of infection.

“I, and every other doctor, had been trained in medical school to think of hepatitis B as an infection you acquired as an adult. It was the pimps, the prostitutes, the prisoners, and the health care practitioners who got hepatitis B infection. But we’ve learned so much more,” said William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and a former voting member of ACIP.

As hepatitis B rates remained stubbornly high in the 1980s, scientists realized an entire vulnerable group was missing from the vaccination regime — newborns. The virus is often transmitted from an infected mother to baby in late pregnancy or during birth.

“We may soon hear, ‘Let’s just do a blood test on all pregnant women.’ We tried that. That doesn’t work perfectly either,” Schaffner said.

Some doctors didn’t test, he said, and some pregnant women falsely tested negative while others acquired hepatitis B after they had been tested earlier in their pregnancies.

In 1991, Schaffner was a liaison representative to ACIP when it voted to advise universal vaccination for hepatitis B before an infant leaves the hospital.

“We want no babies infected. Therefore, we’ll just vaccinate every mom and every baby at birth. Problem solved. It has been brilliantly successful in virtually eliminating hepatitis B in children,” he said.

In 1990, there were 3.03 cases of hepatitis B per 100,000 people 19 years old or under in the U.S., according to the CDC.

Since the federal recommendation to vaccinate all infants, cases have dramatically decreased. CDC data shows that in 2022 the rate among those 19 or under was less than 0.1 per 100,000.

While hepatitis B is often associated with high-risk behaviors such as injection drug use or having multiple sexual partners, health experts note that it is possible for the virus to be transmitted in ordinary situations too, including among young children.

The virus can survive for up to seven days outside the body. During that time, even microscopic traces of infected blood on a school desk or playground equipment can pose a risk. If the virus comes into contact with an open wound or the mucous membranes of the eyes, an infection can occur. This means that unvaccinated children not considered at high risk can still be exposed in everyday environments.

Future access uncertain

If the CDC significantly alters its recommendation, health insurers would no longer be required to cover the cost of the shots. That could leave parents to pay out-of-pocket for a vaccine that has long been provided at no charge. Children who get immunizations through the federal Vaccines for Children program would lose free access to the shot as soon as any new ACIP recommendations get approved by the acting CDC director.

The two former CDC officials said that plans were underway to push back the official recommendation for the vaccine as of August, when they both left the agency, but may have changed.

Schaffner is still an alternate liaison member of ACIP, and hopes to express his support for universal newborn vaccination at the next meeting.

“The liaisons have now been excluded from the vaccine work groups. They are still permitted to attend the full meetings,” he said.

Schaffner is worried about the next generation of babies and the doctors who care for them.

“We’ll see cases of hepatitis B once again occur. We’ll see transmission into the next generation,” he said, “and the next generation of people who wear white coats will have to deal with hepatitis B, when we could have cut it off at the pass.”

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, questioning whether Americans understand the difference between a king and a president, told a New York Law School crowd Tuesday that improved civic education across the country would help people make better decisions.

Sotomayor, speaking at a panel discussion during a “Constitution and Citizenship Day Summit,” did not make comments that were overtly political and did not directly address any controversies of the moment. President Donald Trump was not mentioned.

At one point, though, she raised doubts about how much Americans are being taught about civics in schools.

“Do we understand what the difference is between a king and a president? And I think if people understood these things from the beginning, they would be more informed as to what would be important in a democracy in terms of what people can or shouldn’t do,” she said.

She decried the lack of education about civics and how democracy works, even giving her version of Ben Franklin’s famous anecdote at the end of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia when he was asked whether the nation would have a republic or a monarchy.

“We have a republic, madam, if we can keep it,” she recalled that Franklin said.

Sotomayor called social media “one of the largest causes of misinformation on the internet.”

“If you are only hearing one side of the story, you are not making an informed decision,” Sotomayor said. “The world is a complex place and issues are always difficult.”

The Bronx-born justice said she became interested in civics in grammar school, where she began debating issues, and improved those skills when she learned to debate both sides of a single issue.

At the end of her remarks, she urged students who watched in a large auditorium or saw her on video screens in overflow rooms to think about everything in the world that is wrong and “everything that’s happening in the United States” and realize ”we adults have really messed this up.”

She said she’s counting on today’s students to find solutions.

Farmington Hills police tracked and arrested a suspect believed to be involved in several automobile break-ins using a drone with thermal imaging.

Police provided extra patrols in neighborhoods the weekend of Sept. 13-14, following a series of larcenies from automobiles, according to a release from the Farmington Hills Police Department.

During the early morning hours of Monday, Sept. 15, an officer patrolling in the area of 12 Mile and Drake roads noticed the interior lights were on for several vehicles parked in driveways.

The officer, suspecting that the vehicles had been broken into, called for additional units and requested that a drone search the area from the sky.

The drone pilot arrived and began scanning the area using the drone’s thermal imaging capabilities. The drone picked up the heat signature of a suspect.

“The suspect was observed running through the neighborhood while actively trying to hide from arriving police units,” the release said.

The drone pilot communicated the suspect’s location to arriving units, who tracked the suspect to a wooded area near the northwest corner of 12 Mile and Drake roads. Officers found the suspect hiding in the woods, dressed in all black.

“This case highlights how technology, like drones and thermal imaging, can enhance law enforcement activity,” said Police Chief John Piggott. “Using this technology, our officers were able to quickly locate and arrest a suspect who may have otherwise escaped. These resources enhance public safety and allow us to respond more effectively to crime in our community.”

The suspect, a 17-year-old from Novi, was taken into custody without incident. Evidence recovered from the scene links the suspect to numerous vehicle break-ins in the neighborhood, the release said.

The juvenile suspect was released to his guardian, pending a review by the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office Juvenile Division.

Farmington Hills police have four drones and 16 trained pilots.

“There are two easy ways that community members can prevent a similar crime: Never leave valuables in a car and always lock car doors,” Piggott said. “Many of these thefts are crimes of opportunity. By taking a few extra seconds to secure your car, you remove that opportunity and help keep our community safe.”

If you believe you were a victim or have any information about these incidents, call police at  248-871-2610.

Lincoln Street closed at I-696 in Southfield for bridge work

Driver crashes into Farmington police car early Sunday; officer, two others injured

It’s fall cleaning time for Oakland County’s roads and hundreds of people have volunteered to help.

The final Adopt-A-Road cleanup is Sept. 20 through Sept. 28.

So far this year, 381 organizations have sent volunteers to pick up litter and other debris along the county’s 598 miles of roads.

Road Commission Chairman Eric McPherson said he’s incredibly grateful for the volunteers’ deduction and asked drivers to keep them safe.

Volunteers will wear orange safety vests for better visibility and carry garbage bags while cleaning. Road commission signs will be posted at both ends of the designated road sections.

The road commission relies on groups to manage their need for more garbage bags or vests by calling the permits division groups needing additional garbage bags or safety vests can call the Permits Division at (248) 858-4891.

To learn more about Adopt-A-road, including volunteering for the final 2025 session, visit http://www.rcocweb.org/218/Adopt-A-Road or email adoptaroad@rcoc.org.