By Isabel Lohman, Bridge Michigan

This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. Visit the newsroom online: bridgemi.com.

On any given school day in Eastpointe, a student in special education may be working on speech skills with someone on a screen.

The student is receiving one-on-one support from a virtual speech pathologist. It’s two-on-one support if you count the paraprofessional there to escort the child, supervise them and sometimes help with exercises.

Eastpointe Community Schools Superintendent Christina A. Gibson has four virtual speech pathology providers and two in-person providers to help 149 students with speech services, including 37 pre-K students.

In a perfect world, she would prefer to have all in-person speech professionals. “This is not an ideal situation,” Gibson told Bridge. “I think the best speech services are delivered face-to-face.”

Competition for speech teachers is fierce, and demand is outpacing supply, said Gibson.

“Because the demand is there all over the country, speech pathologists can work wherever they want to,” Gibson said. “And districts don’t have choices. Our first priority is always to be compliant and to provide services to students.”

Couple that with a growing student need for speech services and you get vacancies. Some of those vacancies get filled by virtual therapists.

As of Friday, Feb. 27, Optimise, a statewide special education talent task force, listed 224 job openings for speech pathologists to work in Michigan’s public schools.

Temporary solution

In Ann Arbor, Dicken Elementary is using a virtual speech therapist after an in-person therapist resigned recently.

Andrew Cluley, an Ann Arbor Public Schools spokesperson, said the move is “temporary” and does not change students’ goals in their individualized education programs (IEPs), how often or how much speech service a student receives.

“Our intent is to ensure continuity of services during staffing shortages rather than allowing gaps in support for 27 Dicken students.”

Cluley said all speech languages services, regardless of if they are in-person or virtual, are being provided by Michigan-licensed speech language pathologists.

Ann Arbor Education Association President Fred Klein said the transition to virtual speech is a “Band-Aid, stop gap measure.”

He said he’s hopeful the district will be able to hire an in-person speech therapist but he said compensation remains a challenge in the district.

The union is negotiating a new contract with the district. More broadly, many have argued for an increase in teacher compensation to help attract and retain teachers.

Michigan ranks 44th nationwide in starting salaries, $41,645, while the average teacher pay of $69,067 ranks 19th among states, according to an analysis from the Education Policy Innovation Collaborative (EPIC) at Michigan State University.

Meanwhile, it’s unclear just how common virtual staffing is for special education.

Districts report job vacancy information to the state, but the Michigan Department of Education said it does not know how many special education positions are being filled by virtual contractors or employees.

MDE declined to say whether the department believes speech services should be offered in-person.

“Those types of decisions are made through an IEP developed at the local level based on the specific needs of each student,” said MDE spokesperson Bob Wheaton.

There are 215,449 students with Individualized Education Programs during the current school year, an increase of 1.8% than the previous school year.

“Whenever you’re doing any type of virtual services, you should be communicating with the family,” said Tina Lawson, vice president of the Michigan Association of Administrators of Special Education.

“They should have a clear understanding of what is taking place. Whether that’s through an (individualized education program) discussion, or a direct phone call or some form of letter communication with the family to make sure that they understand the participation of it.”

Michigan special education teaching positions have a higher vacancy rate than other fields, according to a different analysis from EPIC.

“It’s not just vacancies, it’s also turnover,” said Tara Kilbride, associate director of EPIC, who researches the teacher workforce. “And turnover during the school year, especially, is higher in special education than other areas.”

‘Human relationships’

While virtual workers can help students individually, educators acknowledge there are some aspects that aren’t possible with someone on a screen. For example, they can’t just hop into a classroom to help a teacher out if a specific student is having a behavioral concern or needs some time to cool off.

In Potterville, the middle and high school uses a virtual social worker. Special education teacher Samantha Jean said the social worker is “amazing,” and attends IEP meetings, meets one-on-one with Jean and has helped students meet their goals.

“But then on the flip side of that is, you have those kids that really thrive on those human relationships. So I have had one student(s’) family say ‘until we have in-person, this just doesn’t benefit him. He sits there, refuses to talk.”

In response, Jean said she helps the student with his social skills.

“We have to figure out a way to give those kids the services they need,” Jean said.

Kilbride, the workforce researcher, said it’s important to consider tradeoffs.

“If the alternative is not having anyone at all, that’s obviously worse than having the virtual service provider,” Kilbride said. “If the alternative is having your existing staff spread thin or having higher caseloads, harder workloads among the special education service providers, that can also be a problem.”

Lawson, also the director of special education at Berrien RESA, said her intermediate district “would prefer in-person. It’s definitely much more beneficial for students to have that one-to-one in-person provision of services.”

Last spring, LaKesha Welch started the process of enrolling her son for first grade at Eastpointe. Welch said her son has autism and is nonverbal and hyperactive. Her son had already benefited from applied behavioral analysis therapy, and Welch hoped her son could become more independent in traditional public school. But she learned his speech services would be virtual, which Welch said she couldn’t “see that being a workable solution for my son.”

Ultimately, Welch chose for her son to enroll in L’Anse Creuse Schools, another Macomb County district.

Solutions for special education

Administrators acknowledged state efforts to increase the number of teachers and other roles that support students with disabilities.

Still, they say more should be done.

Jean wants districts and the state to ensure social workers who have never been in an education setting before have training on classroom management, verbal de-escalation skills and mandated reporting.

“Man, if I had that magic wand, it would be putting those people in those positions with the correct training behind it,” Jean said.

Gibson, of Eastpointe, said she continues to work with her local union to see if the district can provide financial incentives for hard-to-staff positions.

She also wants the state to change rules so that paraprofessionals can directly provide speech services with the guidance of speech therapists.

By JESSICA DAMIANO

I’m currently dusting off my seed-starting supplies and sorting through seed packets from years past. Seed starting is an annual ritual for many gardeners, but if you’re new to the party, it would be helpful to know that not all seeds should be treated the same way.

Many seeds only require soil and water to sprout. Others, however, have a harder coating that makes germination a bit difficult. That’s because in the wild, they rely on birds and other wildlife that eat them to carry them far distances before dropping them.

It’s a good plan: The journey ensures biodiversity by introducing the species to another location. And the seed’s tough outer coating ensures its survival through an animal’s digestive tract, which erodes only enough of the protective layer to allow water to enter. The remaining coating prevents the seed from waking up too early, which would otherwise spell death for tender sprouts in cold temperatures.

But nature’s survival plan creates a bit of a challenge for home gardeners because the hard coating prevents those seeds from sprouting easily. So it’s up to us to mimic the effects of stomach acid to expose the seed’s inner layer so that moisture can penetrate.

This is called scarification, and there are a few ways to do it, all of which are simple.

Sanding

Rub each seed lightly against medium-grit sandpaper, an emery board or a nail file until you see a hint of its paler inner layer. This method works best with larger seeds, but you can also tuck several small ones between two sheets of sandpaper and gently rub the sheets together. Just a little friction should do the trick.

Nicking

Sometimes I use small nail clippers intended for babies to snip a tiny sliver off the edge of the seed’s coat.

Soaking

If you have more time than wherewithal, this is the easiest method: Place the seeds in a bowl, cover them with warm water, and let them sit for a few hours or overnight. They’ll swell slightly as they take in moisture, which is exactly what you want.

Some tips

Never use hot water; cooked seeds won’t grow. Keep the temperature below 150 degrees Fahrenheit. And whatever method you choose, do it right before planting. Once the seed’s inner tissue is exposed, it will begin to dry out.

Is scarification absolutely required? No. Seeds will often sprout without it, but it could take much longer, and you’ll likely end up with far fewer seedlings. Scarified seeds don’t have to wait around for their coats to break down under soil, which is a real advantage if your growing season is short, your elevation is high or you’re a procrastinator.

Some common annuals and perennials that benefit from the practice include Indian mallow (Abutilon), columbine (Aquilegia), hollyhock (Alcea), sweet alyssum (Alyssum), milkweed (Asclepias), wild indigo (Baptisia), beautyberry (Callicarpa), bellflower (Campanula), Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium), sweet pea (Lathyrus odoratus), bluebonnet (Lupine), mallow (Malva), poppy (Papaver), beardtongue (Penstemon) and nasturtium (Tropaeolum).

Edibles to scarify include all bean types, luffa, spinach, strawberry and winter squash.

Some of the really stubborn seeds — chickpeas, lima beans, nasturtiums — respond well to a one-two approach: a little nick or sanding, followed by a soak.

Jessica Damiano writes weekly gardening columns for the AP and publishes the award-winning Weekly Dirt Newsletter. You can sign up here for weekly gardening tips and advice.

For more AP gardening stories, go to https://apnews.com/hub/gardening.

By Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — To get to the “Sinners” exhibit on the Warner Bros. Studio Tour, you have to navigate past the backlot’s iconic water tower, cross through the New York Street and then skirt city hall and the fountain from the opening credits of “Friends.” Eventually, you wind up at Stage 48, home of the Central Perk Cafe, a gift shop selling all manner of “Friends” bric-a-brac and offering a smattering of knockoff furniture from Monica’s palatial apartment to enjoy.

Comparatively, the newly installed “Sinners” showcase, featuring costumes and a couple of props, is, to use a real estate agent’s euphemism, “cozy,” certainly smaller than Rachel’s closet. On the night of its opening, “Sinners” production designer Hannah Beachler and cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw are inside sitting on a sofa — not the sofa, but close enough. A few hours ago, they were celebrating with their fellow Oscar nominees at the academy’s annual luncheon.

“She’s a regular,” Arkapaw says, her arm around Beachler, who won an Oscar in 2019 for her work on “Black Panther.”

The two women and the rest of the “Sinners” team have been hobnobbing with Oscar and guild voters for months now and talking about their work on the film, which was released in April, for even longer. At the time of this “Sinners” event on the Warner Bros. lot, which included yet another screening of the movie for guild members, the Oscars were still more than a month away.

“I can believe it,” Beachler says. Adds Arkapaw: “Me too. I’m stressing about the stuff they’re having us doing. But I think Teyana Taylor said it best: ‘Don’t be complaining about answered prayers.’”

“Sinners” had a lot of prayers answered when Oscar nominations were announced last month — 16, to be precise.

Now the question is whether that record-breaking haul might be enough to catapult Ryan Coogler’s genre-defying American horror story to a best picture Oscar victory.

When it opened in September, Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” immediately took the pole position in the best picture race, and it remains the front-runner. But all those “Sinners” Oscar nominations do complicate things. Put it this way: When you submit your movie in 16 different categories and hit in each and every one of them, you have a film boasting broad support across a dozen voting branches. That’s significant.

And if you’re a voter and you weren’t necessarily a fan of the film — or had put off watching it because the horror genre gives you pause — the nominations total does something else. It prompts you to take stock. What is everyone else seeing? Maybe you watch “Sinners” again. Maybe you finally clear the deck and press play for the first time. Perhaps you see that it’s just as much a movie of the moment as “One Battle,” what with the unapologetic, overt racism coming from the White House.

So if you’re on the fence and you do reconsider “Sinners,” maybe it’s not a complete reversal. But it might be enough for you to put the movie higher on your ranked ballot when you vote for best picture.

As you may know, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences uses a preferential ballot for the best picture category and only the best picture category. When the academy’s 10,136 voting members mark their ballots this year, they cast a single vote in 23 of the 24 Oscar categories. The nominee with the most votes wins.

For best picture, though, members are instructed to rank the 10 nominated movies. The system, in place since the academy expanded the best picture field from five to 10 nominees in 2009, is designed to reflect the wishes of the greatest number of voters. This means that the winner is sometimes not the movie that is most passionately loved but the picture that is most generally liked — or, if you’re a glass-half-empty kind of person, the picture that is least disliked.

The process works like this: Once voting ends, PricewaterhouseCoopers accountants sort the best picture ballots and place them in stacks based on members’ No. 1 votes. They then eliminate the movie with the fewest first-place votes, giving those votes to each ballot’s second-ranked film. The process continues — smallest stacks eliminated, votes redistributed to the next choice down — until one movie has more than 50% of the vote.

The math to “Sinners” winning best picture necessitates it being the No. 1, 2 or 3 choice on more ballots than “One Battle After Another.” And that plays into what a couple of awards consultants told me about the psychological effect the movie’s record-breaking 16 nominations might have on voters when they rank the nominated movies.

“Maybe it’s not your favorite, but you still rank it high because of that overwhelming level of respect,” says one rival campaigner. “Who knows if the math adds up. But at this point in the season, you’re looking for any advantage you can find.”

A test of that math will come Saturday at the Producers Guild Awards, a ceremony that uses the same preferential ballot system to determine its best picture. The PGA winner more often than not repeats at the Oscars, though in the last decade there have been two notable exceptions — “Moonlight” besting PGA winner “La La Land” in 2017 and, three years later, “Parasite” taking the Oscar over “1917.”

Should “Sinners” prevail at the PGA and then the next night go on to win the cast prize at the Actor Awards (formerly known as the Screen Actors Guild Awards), then the race will be dramatically recast. Both ceremonies take place in the middle of the window of final voting for the Oscars, which runs Feb. 26 through March 5.

“It’s a miracle that we were all nominated,” Beachler says. “That’s rare for everyone to get that recognition.”

For a film with a hero named Preacher Boy, one last miracle certainly isn’t out of the question. And if the last few months have taught us anything, it’s that you underestimate “Sinners” at your peril.

©2026 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By J.M. HIRSCH, Associated Press

MIAMI (AP) — For nearly 10 years running, Lesley VanNess never missed the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, a beachfront bacchanal of celebrities, booze and bites that tens of thousands of attendees pay hundreds to thousands of dollars to join.

It was about access, the chance to nosh and gab with the likes of Rachael Ray and Bobby Flay, people she otherwise could experience only via the hands-in-pans purview of the Food Network.

“I’d get the Food Network Magazine and there would be advertisements for it. I’m like, ‘0h my god! You could go to that? Go to these great events and meet these celebrity chefs?’,” said VanNess, a 44-year-old former restaurant owner from Iowa. “I’m in!”

That was during the food festival heyday, a decade-long stretch starting around 2010 when copycat events popped up everywhere, creating a circuit-like scene for A-list chefs (and ample wannabes).

Then came social media, a force that melted barriers between fans and food celebs. People like VanNess realized that instead of crowding into football field-size tents to chance a chat with Flay, they could just DM him.

Or better yet, they could tune in to online #instafood chatter to perhaps discover the next Ray or Flay, a whole new level of social cred unlocked.

VanNess hasn’t been back to South Beach since at least 2020. “I’d rather see them on social media or go to their restaurant,” she said.

What chefs and foodies want

Last weekend, the South Beach Wine & Food Festival turned 25, cementing it as one of the elders of the festival scene, along with its sister event, the New York City Wine & Food Festival, and the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, Colorado. By all accounts, all three are going strong. But many smaller festivals have disappeared, victims of the pandemic, slumping ticket sales, soaring food and labor costs, and chef disinterest.

So, are food festivals still relevant?

“South Beach and New York, they fill a niche and I can see them going on forever. But food events and food festivals are going in a whole other direction,” said Mike Thelin, one of the founders of the now shuttered Oregon festival Feast Portland.

Festivals’ success long hinged on the need of chefs, wineries, mixologists, food producers, and what only now are known as food influencers to reach a wider audience. In 2026, that’s an antiquated notion.

“In 2010, they wanted to get on the map,” Thelin said. “They don’t need that anymore.”

Seeking that local connection

That doesn’t mean festivals are dead. There’s a recalibration happening, he explained. What many call “white tent affairs,” a not-so-subtle nod to South Beach’s events that stretch along the sands of the Atlantic, are fading.

“If I’m going to a certain region, I want to know what makes that region special,” Thelin said. “I don’t want to go into a giant white tent that’s devoid of geography and drink a bunch of wines from California if I’m in Washington or Tennessee.”

Taking their place? A host of small, hyper-focused events grounded in people and place. Events like AAPI Food & Wine, a 3-year-old Oregon and New York City-based festival that highlights the work of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

“The foodie scene has changed so much,” said Lois Cho, one of the founders of that event, which draws about 1,000 attendees a year. “People didn’t realize wine and black bean noodles and izakaya and all these different Thai dishes — they had no idea they paired. Creating a different narrative and community where you can connect with people, those are the types of events we’ll see now.”

Social media, she said, unlocked so many overlooked voices.

“And a lot of people haven’t caught on because it’s been a lot of cookie-cutter events for the last 20 years,” she said.

It’s been a similar story for the Southbound Food Festival, which celebrates the culinary scene of Birmingham, Alabama. Started in 2022 and stretching over a week every fall, the event pulls support not just from chefs, but also the region’s art and music scenes.

“There’s less appeal today with these TV chefs. Great chefs are everywhere,” said Nancy Hopkins, one of the event’s founders. “People come to celebrate and uplift Birmingham.”

The OG festivals still draw crowds

Still, as Thelin said, the South Beach Wine & Food Festival and it’s New York sibling aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, white tents, Food Network faces and all. Tickets to nearly all of South Beach’s 110 events, which featured 500-plus chefs and food personalities, sold out this year. In its quarter century, the festival has raised more than $45 million for the Florida International University Chaplin School of Hospitality and Tourism Management.

Lee Schrager, the force behind the two festivals, said the South Beach blueprint remains relevant today.

“There’s something very different about DM’ing Bobby Flay than going to an intimate dinner at a table of 10 that he’s doing that’s sold out in three days,” Schrager said. “Social media has made everyone available, but can you touch and feel it?”

The first South Beach event, attended by only 10 chefs, was little more than a wine tasting. This year, more than 30,000 people attended. Martha Stewart hosted a luncheon at Joe’s Stone Crab, Italian celebrity butcher Dario Cecchini tossed slabs of beef into an eager dinner crowd, and Ray reprised her Burger Bash, where everything from Kool-Aid pickles to foie gras adorned smashed wagyu patties on potato buns.

Schrager acknowledged that most smaller festivals can’t operate the way his do, including hosting events he knows will sell tickets even if they ultimately lose money. He said he sold $7 million in tickets this year and brought in $6 million in sponsorships — and netted just a little over $1 million.

“It’s a good number in the festival world, but it’s not a great return if you’re running a profit business,” he said.

Ray, who has participated in nearly every South Beach and New York festival, continues to show up. It’s about loyalty to Schrager, who took her seriously when much of the food world didn’t. But it’s also about in-person access to fans.

“I love talking to people, being with people, having people climb all over you, hang on you, give you a compliment,” she said. “I love being in the real-life experience.”

J.M. Hirsch is a food and travel journalist, and the former food editor for The Associated Press.

By Darius Tahir, KFF Health News

Republicans think patients should be shopping for better health care prices. The party has long pushed to give patients money and let consumers do the work of reducing costs. After some GOP lawmakers closed out 2025 advocating to fund health savings accounts, President Donald Trump introduced his Great Healthcare Plan, which calls for, among other policies, requiring providers and insurers to post their prices “in their place of business.”

The idea echoes a policy implemented during his first term, when Trump suggested that requiring hospitals to post their charges online could ease one of the most common gripes about the health care system — the lack of upfront prices. To anyone who’s gotten a bill three months after treatment only to find mysterious charges, the idea seemed intuitive.

“You’re able to go online and compare all of the hospitals and the doctors and the prices,” Trump said in 2019 at an event unveiling the price transparency policy.

But amid low compliance and other struggles in implementing the policy since it took effect in 2021, the available price data is sparse and often confusing. And instead of patients shopping for medical services, it’s mostly health systems and insurers using the little data there is, turning it into fodder for negotiations that determine what medical professionals and facilities get paid for what services.

“We use the transparency data,” said Eric Hoag, an executive at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, noting that the insurer wants to make sure providers aren’t being paid substantially different rates. It’s “to make sure that we are competitive, or, you know, more than competitive against other health plans.”

Not all hospitals have fallen in line with the price transparency rules, and many were slow to do so. A study conducted in the policy’s first 10 months found only about a third of facilities had complied with the regulations. The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services notified 27 hospitals from June 2022 to May 2025 that they would be fined for lack of compliance with the rules.

The struggles to make health care prices available have prompted more federal action since Trump’s first effort. President Joe Biden took his own thwack at the dilemma, by requiring increased data standardization and toughening compliance criteria. And in early 2025, working to fulfill his promises to lower health costs, Trump tried again, signing a new executive order urging his administration to fine hospitals and doctors for failing to post their prices. CMS followed up with a regulation intended to up the fines and increase the level of detail required within the pricing data.

So far, “there’s no evidence that patients use this information,” said Zack Cooper, a health economist at Yale University.

In 2021, Cooper co-authored a paper based on data from a large commercial insurer. The researchers found that, on average, patients who need an MRI pass six lower-priced imaging providers on the way from their homes to an appointment for a scan. That’s because they follow their physician’s advice about where to receive care, the study showed.

Executives and researchers interviewed by KFF Health News also didn’t think opening the data would change prices in a big way. Research shows that transparency policies can have mixed effects on prices, with one 2024 study of a New York initiative finding a marginal increase in billed charges.

The policy results thus far seem to put a damper on long-held hopes, particularly from the GOP, that providing more price transparency would incentivize patients to find the best deal on their imaging or knee replacements.

These aspirations have been unfulfilled for a few reasons, researchers and industry insiders say. Some patients simply don’t compare services. But unlike with apples — a Honeycrisp and a Red Delicious are easy to line up side by side — medical services are hard to compare.

For one thing, it’s not as simple as one price for one medical stay. Two babies might be delivered by the same obstetrician, for example, but the mothers could be charged very different amounts. One patient might be given medications to speed up contractions; another might not. Or one might need an emergency cesarean section — one of many cases in medicine in which obtaining the service simply isn’t a choice.

And the data often is presented in a way that’s not useful for patients, sometimes buried in spreadsheets and requiring a deep knowledge of billing codes. In computing these costs, hospitals make “detailed assumptions about how to apply complex contracting terms and assess historic data to create a reasonable value for an expected allowed amount,” the American Hospital Association told the Trump administration in July 2025 amid efforts to boost transparency.

Costs vary because hospitals’ contracts with insurers vary, said Jamie Cleverley, president of Cleverley and Associates, which works with health care providers to help them understand the financial impacts of changing contract terms. The cost for a patient with one health plan may be very different than the cost for the next patient with another plan.

The fact that hospital prices might be confusing for patients is a consequence of the lack of standardization in contracts and presentation, Cleverley said. “They’re not being nefarious.”

“Until we kind of align as an industry, there’s going to continue to be this variation in terms of how people look at the data and the utility of it,” he said.

Instead of aiding shoppers, the federally mandated data has become the foundation for negotiations — or sometimes lawsuits — over the proper level of compensation.

The top use for the pricing data for health care providers and payers, such as insurers, is “to use that in their contract negotiations,” said Marcus Dorstel, an executive at price transparency startup Turquoise Health.

Turquoise Health assembles price data by grouping codes for services together using machine learning, a type of artificial intelligence. It is just one example in a cottage industry of startups offering insights into prices. And, online, the startups’ advertisements hawking their wares often focus on hospitals and their periodic jousts with insurers. Turquoise has payers and providers as clients, Dorstel said.

“I think nine times out of 10 you will hear them say that the price transparency data is a vital piece of the contract negotiation now,” he said.

Of course, prices aren’t the only variable that negotiations hinge on. Hoag said Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota also considers quality of care, rates of unnecessary treatments, and other factors. And sometimes negotiators feel as if they have to keep up with their peers — claiming a need for more revenue to match competitors’ salaries, for example.

Hoag said doctors and other providers often look at the data from comparable health systems and say, “‘I need to be paid more.’”

©2026 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By JON GAMBRELL, KONSTANTIN TOROPIN, JOSH BOAK and AAMER MADHANI The Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The U.S. and Israel launched a major attack on Iran on Saturday, and President Donald Trump called on the Iranian public to “seize control of your destiny” by rising up against the Islamic leadership that has ruled the nation since 1979.

Some of the first strikes appeared to hit areas around the offices of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Iranian media reported strikes nationwide. Smoke could be seen rising from the capital. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the 86-year-old leader was in his offices at the time of the strike.

“When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations,” Trump said in a video announcing “major combat operations” were underway. “For many years, you have asked for America’s help, but you never got it.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed that sweeping goal. “Our joint operation will create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their fate into their own hands,” Netanyahu said.

The strikes opened a stunning new chapter in U.S. intervention in Iran and marked the second time in eight months that the Trump administration has used military force against the Islamic Republic. They also came just weeks after Trump ordered a military operation to capture Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and bring him and his wife to New York to face federal drug conspiracy charges.

The targets included members of Iran’s leadership, according to a U.S. official and another person briefed on the attacks who both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing classified information on an ongoing operation. There was no immediate information on whether top officials had been killed.

Tensions have soared in recent weeks as American warships moved into the region. Trump said he wanted a deal to constrain Iran’s nuclear program at a moment when the country is struggling at home with growing dissent following nationwide protests.

The immediate trigger for Saturday’s strikes appears to be the unsuccessful latest round of nuclear talks. But they also reflect the dramatic changes across the region that have left Iran’s leadership in its weakest position since the Islamic Revolution nearly half a century ago.

Israeli and American strikes last June greatly weakened Iran’s air defenses, military leadership and nuclear program. A regionwide war, sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, has left Iran’s network of proxies across the Middle East greatly weakened. U.S. sanctions and global isolation, meanwhile, have decimated Iran’s economy.

Iran responded to the latest strikes as it had been threatening to do for months — first launching a wave of missiles and drones targeting Israel. It followed with strikes targeting U.S. military installations in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar. The United Arab Emirates and Iraq shut down their airspace.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry issued a defiant statement, saying the country “will not hesitate” in its response. In a statement posted on X, the ministry said: “The time has come to defend the homeland and confront the enemy’s military assault.”

At least 57 people were reported killed at a girls’ school in southern Iran in the Israeli-U.S. strikes, according to Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency. At least 45 others were wounded in the attack in Minab in Iran’s Hormozgan province. The White House and the Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on reported strike on the school.

In an indication of the scope of the conflict, flights across the Middle East were disrupted and air defense fire thudded over Dubai, the commercial capital of the United Arab Emirates, Saturday afternoon. Associated Press journalists saw the aftereffects of the blast from an interceptor.

Shrapnel from an Iranian missile attack on the capital of the UAE killed one person, state media said.

Attack was coordinated between Israel and US

The U.S. military has for weeks amassed forces in the region, even as U.S. and Iranian envoys held talks in Switzerland and Oman aimed at finding a diplomatic solution.

“Active and serious negotiations have yet again been undermined,” Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi said in a post on X. Al-Busaidi, a key mediator in the nuclear talks, traveled to Washington on Friday to meet with Vice President JD Vance.

“Neither the interests of the United States nor the cause of global peace are well served by this,” al-Busaidi said. “And I pray for the innocents who will suffer. I urge the United States not to get sucked in further.”

Israel said the operation has been planned for months between the Israeli and U.S. militaries.

Trump, in justifying the military action, claimed that Iran has continued to develop its nuclear program and plans to develop missiles to reach the U.S.

He also acknowledged that there could be American casualties, saying “that often happens in war.”

It was a notable call on Americans to brace themselves from a U.S. leader who swept into office on an “America First” platform and vowed to keep out of “forever wars” that had bogged down his recent predecessors.

Trump’s statement indicated the U.S. was striking for reasons far beyond the nuclear program, listing grievances stretching back to the beginning of the Islamic Republic following a revolution in 1979 that turned Iran from one of America’s closest allies in the Middle East into a fierce foe.

The U.S. president said he was aiming to “annihilate” the Iranian navy and destroy regional proxies supported by Tehran.

He also called on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to lay down its arms, pledging that members would be given immunity, while warning they would face “certain death” if they didn’t.

Trump had threatened military action — but held off — following Iran’s recent crackdown on protests spurred by economic grievances and evolved into a nationwide, anti-government push against the ruling clerics.

The Human Rights Activists News Agency says it confirmed more than 7,000 deaths in the crackdown and that it is investigating thousands more. The government has acknowledged more than 3,000 killed, though it has undercounted or not reported fatalities from past unrest.

Iran has said it hasn’t enriched since June, but it has blocked international inspectors from visiting the sites America bombed during a 12-day war then. Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press have shown new activity at two of those sites, suggesting Iran is trying to assess and potentially recover material there.

Iran currently has a self-imposed limit on its ballistic missile program, limiting their range to 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles). That puts all the Mideast and some of Eastern Europe in their range.

Iran had hoped to avert a war, but maintains it has the right to enrich uranium and does not want to discuss other issues, like its long-range missile program or support for armed groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

The strikes could rattle global markets, particularly if Iran is able to make the Strait of Hormuz unsafe for commercial traffic. More than 14 million barrels per day of oil passed through the strait in 2025, about a third of total worldwide oil exports transported by sea.

Strikes hit targets across Iran

Iranian media reported strikes nationwide. Roads to Khamenei’s compound in downtown Tehran had been shut down by authorities as other blasts rang out across the capital.

Khamenei has not made a public appearance in recent days and wasn’t immediately seen after. During the 12-day war in June, he was believed to have been taken to a secure location away from his Tehran compound.

Targets in the Israeli campaign included Iran’s military, symbols of government and intelligence targets, according to an official briefed on the operation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic information on the attack.

Iran retaliates

Hours after the strikes, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said it launched a “first wave” of drones and missiles targeting Israel, where a nationwide warning was issued as the military said it was working to intercept incoming Iranian missiles. There was no immediate word on any damage or casualties from the ongoing attack.

Meanwhile, Bahrain said that a missile attack targeted the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet headquarters in the island kingdom. Witnesses heard sirens and explosions in Kuwait, home to U.S. Army Central. Explosions could be also be heard in Qatar.

The Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen vowed to resume attacks on Red Sea shipping routes and on Israel, according to two senior Houthi officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because there was no official announcement from the Houthi leadership.

U.S. embassies or consulates in Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Israel posted on social media that they told staffers to shelter in place and recommended all Americans “do the same until further notice.”

___

Toropin and Madhani reported from Washington and Boak from West Palm Beach, Florida. Associated Press writers Melanie Lidman and Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel, Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad, Samy Magdy in Cairo, and Farnoush Amiri in New York contributed to this report.

___

This story has been corrected to show that IRNA reported 40 people were killed in the school strike, without specifying students.

By KAITLYN HUAMANI and BARBARA ORTUTAY The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A young woman who is battling against social media giants took the stand Thursday to testify about her experience using the platforms as she was growing up, saying she was on social media “all day long” as a child.

The now 20-year-old, who has been identified in court documents as KGM, says her early use of social media addicted her to the technology and exacerbated depression and suicidal thoughts. Meta and YouTube are the two remaining defendants in the case, which TikTok and Snap have settled.

The case, along with two others, has been selected as a bellwether trial, meaning its outcome could impact how thousands of similar lawsuits against social media companies are likely to play out.

KGM, or Kaley, as her lawyers have called her during the trial, started using YouTube at age 6 and Instagram at age 9.

A turbulent home life

Kaley took the stand wearing a pink floral dress and a beige cardigan and said she was “very nervous” after her attorney, Mark Lanier, asked how she was doing Thursday morning.

Lanier displayed childhood photos of Kaley and her family and asked about positive memories from her upbringing in a quiet cul-de-sac in Chico, California. She spoke of themed birthday parties, trips to Six Flags and her mom’s consistent efforts to make her childhood special.

Still, Kaley’s relationship with her mother was challenging at times. Kaley said most of their arguments were over the use of her phone.

Both the defendants and the plaintiff have pointed to a turbulent home life for Kaley. Her attorneys say she was preyed upon as a vulnerable user, but attorneys representing Meta and Google-owned YouTube have argued Kaley turned to their platforms as a coping mechanism or a means of escaping her mental health struggles.

When asked about claims that her mother had hit her, abused her and neglected her, Kaley said “she wasn’t perfect, but she was trying her best,” and clarified that she doesn’t think she would label her mother’s past actions as abuse or neglect today.

But later Thursday, during her cross-examination, Kaley did agree that her mother was being physically and emotionally abusive during the time that she was self-harming around when she was in the 6th grade.

Kaley, who works as a personal shopper at Walmart, lives with her mother in the home she grew up in.

Notifications gave her a ‘rush’

As a child, Kaley set up multiple accounts on both Instagram and YouTube so she could like and comment on her posts. She said she would also “buy” likes through a platform where she could like other people’s photos and get a slew of likes in return. “It made me look popular,” she said.

Kaley was asked specifically about the features the plaintiffs argue are deliberately designed to be addictive, including notifications. Those notifications on both Instagram and YouTube gave her a “rush,” she said. She would receive them throughout the day and would go to the bathroom during school to check them — something she still does.

Kaley said while she uses YouTube less often now, she believes she was previously addicted to it. “Anytime I tried to set limits for myself, it wouldn’t work and I just couldn’t get off,” she said.

Filters on Instagram, specifically those that could change a person’s cosmetic appearance, have also loomed large in the case and were also a constant fixture of Kaley’s use. Lanier and his colleagues unfurled a nearly 35-foot-long canvas banner with photos Kaley has posted on Instagram. She said “almost all” of the photos had a filter on them.

The jury was also shown Instagram posts and YouTube videos Kaley posted as a child and young teen. One video showed her saying she was “crying tears of joy” after surpassing 100 YouTube subscribers — but then she quickly turned to her looks, apologizing for her “ugly appearance.”

“I look so fat in this shirt,” the young Kaley says in the video.

Kaley said she did not experience the negative feelings associated with her body dysmorphia diagnosis before she began using social media and filters.

Meta focuses on plaintiff’s home life, contradicting statements

Meta has argued that Kaley faced significant challenges before she ever used social media. The company’s lawyer, Paul Schmidt, said earlier this month that the core question in the case is whether the platforms were a substantial factor in Kayley’s mental health struggles.

Meta attorney Phyllis Jones took a polite, respectful tone in her cross-examination Thursday, acknowledging that it could be uncomfortable for her to speak about her private life in front of a room of strangers. Jones proceeded to zero in on Kaley’s home life and did not ask her any questions about social media addiction within the first hour and a half of the cross-examination.

Jones pulled up text exchanges and posts Kaley had made on Instagram about her mental health and her relationship with her mother and played videos Kaley took of her mother yelling at her.

On nearly 20 occasions during the Meta cross-examination, Jones asked Kaley to look at the transcript from her 2025 deposition, which contradicted some of the responses she gave during her testimony. Many of those questions were about how a specific action by her family members or a specific experience impacted her mental health, with Kaley saying on Thursday they either didn’t have an impact or didn’t significantly contribute to anxiety and depression. Her deposition from about a year ago often said the opposite.

“I tried to answer the questions to the best of my ability, but I may have misspoke at times,” Kaley said of her deposition.

This time, Kaley did agree that her mother was being physically and emotionally abusive during the time that she was self-harming around when she was in the 6th grade. She testified earlier in the day that she doesn’t think she would label her mother’s past actions as abuse or neglect today.

Therapist: Social media and sense of self ‘were closely related’

Victoria Burke, a former therapist Kaley worked with in 2019, testified on Wednesday, and Burke said her social media and her sense of self “were closely related,” adding that what was happening on the platforms could “make or break her mood.”

An attorney for Meta parsed through Burke’s notes from her sessions with Kaley extensively in a cross examination that lasted about three hours. He highlighted Kaley’s negative experiences with in-person bullying, other school-based sources of stress and anxiety and issues with her family. Mentions of social media in the notes were mostly limited to Kaley saying she didn’t feel she had a place at home, at school or among her peers, but did feel she had a place to be seen on social media.

Burke’s treatment of Kaley lasted about six months and that period took place seven years ago.

The case is expected to continue for several weeks, and the outcome the jury reaches could shape the outcome of a slew of similar lawsuits against social media companies. Meta is also facing a separate trial in New Mexico.

By Kory Woods, Tribune News Service

INDIANAPOLIS — Miami’s Keionte Scott didn’t answer if he met with the Detroit Lions at the NFL scouting combine, likely because he missed the start of the question. Still, he shared what it would mean to join Lions defenders Brian Branch and Kerby Joseph, a pair many defensive back prospects admire.

“Brian Branch is a guy I’ve watched a lot, too, on tape,” Scott said. “Definitely a guy that’s very versatile, plays the game the right way. So that’d be meaningful to be able to get out there and be with them.”

With Branch and Joseph both dealing with injuries, it’s uncertain when any new Lions defender from this year’s draft will get to play alongside them. The Lions’ secondary is also in flux because of those injuries and possible departures, such as Amik Robertson, who was their main nickelback over the past two seasons.

That makes Scott an interesting candidate.

At 6 feet and 193 pounds, Scott is already bigger than Robertson and more similar in size to Branch. Last year at Miami, he played 756 snaps, with 489 in the slot and 196 at other spots on the field. This kind of versatility should help him in the NFL.

Scott believes this is the key to succeeding as a hybrid defensive back, a role Miami called the “STAR,” where he covered receivers, blitzed, and defended against the run.

“When you look at the position, it’s a very unique position. At times, you’ve got to be a defensive end, you’ve got to be a linebacker, you’ve got to be a safety, you’ve got to be a corner,” Scott said. “So I think it’s just the ability to be a Swiss army knife and be able to do multiple things and also thrive at it. I feel like it’s a key to defenses at times, and I feel like it needs to be evaluated that way.”

According to Pro Football Focus, Scott is a well-rounded nickel defender who could fill in if Branch needs more time to recover.

His 91.2 run defense grade shows he’s strong in the box, and his 87.1 coverage grade proves he can handle coverage duties. While he may not be a pure man-coverage specialist, his balanced skills make him a good fit as a versatile, every-down slot defender.

Last season, Scott recorded 42 tackles, 13 tackles for loss, five sacks, five passes defensed, two forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries, and two interceptions. He returned both interceptions for touchdowns.

Scott has a second-round grade and could be a Day 2 option for the Lions, depending on how they handle their other needs in free agency. He’s especially likely if the team adds another second-round pick.

The main concern teams like the Lions could have about Scott is his age.

He’ll be 25 when the NFL season starts, after playing several seasons at Snow and Auburn before his final year at Miami. When asked, Scott said he wasn’t worried about it.

“I’ve heard that going around, but I feel like this game we play now is a win-now game,” Scott said. “And I feel like that takes a lot of the age things away. Some of these teams, some of these coaches don’t have time to wait. So I feel like you evaluate players as they can play the game of football, because if you play this game, it doesn’t matter how old you are…I don’t think age is something that teams should be worried about.

“I know it’s obviously contract-wise, but when you’re in a win-now situation, you get the best guys.”

©2026 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit mlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By Andrew Kahn, Tribune News Service

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Giving a postgame interview in the bowels of the State Farm Center, Michigan’s Morez Johnson Jr. spotted former Illinois teammate Tomislav Ivisic.

“All right, Tommy, where’s my hug? Come here. No hug? Bro!”

Johnson was in mock disbelief as Ivisic flashed a particular finger in his direction. They would later chat as old friends do.

Against his former school, Johnson balled out: 19 points and 11 rebounds in 33 minutes of a 84-70 victory that clinched a Big Ten regular-season title.

“Morez got every ball,” Illinois coach Brad Underwood said, not with any disdain but matter-of-factly. Johnson is a beast and he played like one.

Last season, he did that for Illinois. This year, he’s doing that and more for Michigan. The 6-foot-9 sophomore forward is averaging 13.4 points and 7.4 rebounds per game.

On Friday, he ignored — or at least blocked out — all the noise surrounding his return to Champaign. And there was a lot. Students were let in two hours before tip and they made their presence known during pregame warmups and through all but the final seconds of the game.

One fan held a fat head of Johnson’s face painted with clown makeup. Another had him in a navy blue jersey that read “TRAITOR.” Obscenities were shouted his way before and during the game. Johnson said his phone number was leaked Friday morning and he received a lot of messages as a result. His hotel room Thursday night was suspiciously warm.

Regardless, he was excited for Friday’s game. Before the game, he didn’t interact with as many Illinois personnel as Aday Mara had done during his UCLA reunion or Roddy Gayle Jr. when he faced Ohio State. That being said, Illinois, like Michigan, has a lot of transfers, so there aren’t many people there from his time in Champaign. He said there was no bad blood but beating his former school did make the Big Ten title even sweeter.

He welcomed the cooler poured on his back during the postgame celebration after his teammates waited for his arrival.

“Morez, from the jump ball, was a force,” Michigan coach Dusty May said. “I thought his defense was equally as impressive as his offense. Being able to guard bigs, guard smalls. He’s such a competitor.

“His day to day, his minute by minute is as impressive as any player I’ve ever been around. And I know that the Illinois staff and program and players have helped him on his journey as well to get to where he’s at. He’s a heck of a player.”

Michigan’s starting frontcourt — Johnson, Yaxel Lendeborg, Mara — was dominant against Illinois. Johnson and his ability to elevate his play, as opposed to letting the emotions of the night weigh him down, was big reason for that.

©2026 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit mlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By Matt Wenzel, Tribune News Service

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Michigan State won the opening tip, scored on its first possession then took one on the chin.

Purdue immediately put together a 9-0 run as the sellout crowd at Mackey Arena went bonkers.

It looked like more of the same for the No. 13 Spartans, who fell behind big early while getting thumped in each of their previous two road games. This time, they fought back by answering every challenge in a 76-74 win at No. 8 Purdue on Thursday night.

“I think that we just understood the moment,” Michigan State freshman forward Cam Ward said.

Michigan State (23-5, 13-4 Big Ten) picked up its first top-10 road win of the season and snapped a seven-game losing streak at Mackey dating back to 2014. That qualifies as a successful trip to what was a house of horrors for the Spartans.

“All in all,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said, “we couldn’t play much better.”

The Spartans won with a balanced effort and shortened rotation at one of the toughest arenas in the nation. They’re unlikely to repeat as Big Ten champions but that was a strong performance heading into March.

“This win is huge, especially on the road,” said center Carson Cooper, who led the Spartans with 15 points and six rebounds. “Historically, this year we haven’t been great on the road, kind of had some nasty wins, some bad losses.”

A month ago, Michigan State was 19-2 overall before losing three of four to basically fall out of the Big Ten race. The Spartans have won three straight since and are still playing for a potential triple-bye in the conference tournament to go with March Madness seeding.

“I think it was the best in a couple years, if you really look at it,” Izzo said of the significance of Thursday’s road win. “I have enormous respect for this program, this place, those players and that coach. … I did think we played with a different mentality that we haven’t been playing with as much lately. Hopefully that can catapult us.”

Michigan State followed a recent lull with a players-only meeting on Sunday night after a lackluster win against Ohio State. It was an opportunity to gauge where everyone was at and goals remaining.

“We knew this whole week it was just sticking together, being together, being connected,” point guard Jeremy Fears said. “We just had to figure out why, what we needed to do, how were we getting off to slow starts and kind of look in the mirror. We have four games left in the Big Ten schedule and just understand how can we be better as a team, be better as a player, be better as a group? I think today we built and we bonded.”

Michigan State trailed at halftime on Thursday for the seventh time in the last eight games but the fight was there before and after the break. The Spartans shot 57.7 percent from the floor in the second half and led by eight with less than four minutes to play before holding on to win.

“We put ourselves in a position where now we have a measuring stick to say this is what you can do when you prepare well,” Izzo said. “This is what you can do when the walk-though in the hotel was good, film sessions are good and you played with some passion, some toughness and some togetherness and that’s what’s going to move us forward.”

©2026 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit mlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Dan Williams and Arsalan Shahla

(Bloomberg) — The US and Israel began striking targets across Iran, with President Donald Trump urging Iranians to overthrow the government in a conflict that threatens to spiral across the oil-rich Middle East.

“The hour for your freedom is at hand,” Trump said, addressing Iranians in a video posted on Truth Social on Saturday. “When we’re finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”

The military campaign could be a defining moment for Trump, risking a drawn-out regional war that leads to a surge in energy prices and American casualties ahead of mid-term elections this year. Iran quickly responded by firing missiles on Israel and US bases around the region, and countries in the Persian Gulf closed their airspace.

Israel’s military said the campaign would target “dozens of military targets,” and Iran media reported strikes on defensive and civilian sites, including more than 50 people dead in a strike on a school in Hormozgan, in the south of the country. Several large explosions were reported in the capital, Tehran.

Iran answered with a wave of missile and drone attacks at Israel and countries hosting the US military. The semi-official Tasnim news agency said all US bases and interests in the region would be targeted, including in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait. Bahrain said an American base in that country had come under attack, and Qatar and the UAE said they intercepted missiles in their airspace. Blasts were heard in Dubai.

The response outweighed Iran’s retaliation to Israeli airstrikes in June — both in scale and speed — as Tehran treats the conflict as an existential threat. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held calls with counterparts in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Iraq, according to a ministry statement, urging them to prevent the US and Israel from using their territory to attack the Islamic Republic.

The prospect of a weeks-long, regional war is a nightmare scenario for US allies in the Gulf such as the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. They pushed hard for Iran and the US to agree a diplomatic solution to their impasse over Tehran’s nuclear activities, fearing the chaos and flight shutdowns now unfolding could hit their economies and deter tourists as well as foreign investment.

Amid the possibility of US strikes in the energy-rich region, oil prices rose last week. Brent crude increased as much as 3.2% to $73 per barrel in London on Friday, the highest intraday price since July, after gaining almost 20% in the year to date on US-Iran tensions. Oil markets are closed for the weekend.

Trump said the military operation began after Iran refused to renounce nuclear weapons, which Tehran has repeatedly said it isn’t pursuing. He’s expected to address the nation about Iran later Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The US aims to destroy the Islamic Republic’s missile inventory and industry as well as its navy, the president said. The Associated Press said at least one strike took place near the office of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. An Israeli military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iranian officials and their military capabilities are the focus of the campaign, declining to comment on whether Khamenei or President Masoud Pezeshkian are targets.

The official cited a sharp acceleration in Iran’s missile production and fortification of nuclear sites as a reason for the renewed attack.

“A short time ago, the US military began major combat operations in Iran,” Trump said. “Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.”

“My administration has taken every possible step to minimize the risk to US personnel in the region,” the US leader added. “Even so, and I do not make this statement lightly, the Iranian regime seeks to kill. The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties. That often happens in war, but we’re doing this not for now, we’re doing this for the future.”

The operation is expected to continue for several days, Reuters said, citing a US official it didn’t identify.

The attacks came two days after delegations from Iran and the US met in Switzerland for a third round of negotiations on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear activities.

What We Know About Iran’s Nuclear Program: QuickTake

Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi told CBS television on Friday night there was a “breakthrough” in the negotiations, citing Iran’s agreement not to stockpile highly enriched uranium. While Iran also sounded upbeat about the trajectory of the talks, Trump responded by saying that he wasn’t happy with how they were unfolding.

The US has in recent weeks amassed its largest military buildup in decades in the Middle East, with Trump indicating more ambitious goals than the limited strikes he ordered against Iran’s atomic installations in June of last year.

In addition to demanding that Iran give up its nuclear program, he vowed to support protesters who have faced a deadly crackdown from Iranian authorities in recent months.

US officials also called on Tehran to curtail its support for proxies in the region, such as Hezbollah, as well as its missile program, which they describe as a critical threat to Israel.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declared a state of emergency as he announced Saturday’s strikes, and said the country expected to come under retaliatory drone and missile attacks. Sirens sounded throughout Israel, according to the military.

OPEC+ will consider the option of a larger oil supply increase when key members meet on Sunday, after the Israel strikes, according to a delegate. The group led by Saudi Arabia and Russia was expected to resume modest production increases from April after a three-month supply freeze, several delegates said earlier this week.

Trump on Friday downplayed concerns about the likelihood of oil prices spiking if he attacks Iran, saying, “I’m concerned about people’s lives. I’m concerned about long-term health for this country.”

–With assistance from John Harney, Michael Gunn, Galit Altstein, Eltaf Najafizada and Dana Khraiche.

(Updates with Iran foreign minister comment in sixth paragraph.)

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2026 Bloomberg L.P.

A monthly On-the-Go pop-up food distribution will debut Tuesday morning at a state office in north Clinton Township.

The site is the fourth location as part of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services’ On-the-Go rotating-food-pantry program in partnership with Forgotten Harvest to distribute food to those in need.

“We have been able to help 850 families put food on the table through these mobile food pantries at our local offices,” said Elizabeth Hertel, MDHHS director. “In partnership with Forgotten Harvest, we are helping ensure access to healthy, nutritious food to those in need.”

On-the-Go pantries allow individuals to schedule appointments and select groceries from fresh produce to grains to proteins, state officials said. Additionally, culturally appropriate food options are offered when available – such as halal and kosher-friendly items – when serving communities with specific dietary needs, officials said.

State HHS officials plan to offer these mobile food pantries on a monthly, rotating basis on Tuesdays of each month at select MDHHS offices in Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties. More than 17.5 tons of groceries have been distributed at these events so far, officials said.

The first event will take place 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, March 3 at the state HHS office 44777 North Gratiot Ave., Ste. A, just south of Hall Road (M-59), in Clinton Township.

Individuals seeking assistant should email MDHHS-FH-Macomb@michigan.gov to make an appointment to help minimize wait times and ensure adequate food supplies, officials said.

Other sites will rotate the second, third and fourth Tuesdays of the month. Events will be held 9 a.m to 1 p.m.:

— Tuesday, March 10, at 25637 Ecorse Road in Taylor. Email MDHHS-FH-WC-Taylor@michigan.gov for an appointment.– Tuesday, March 17, at 30755 Montpelier in Madison Heights. Email MDHHS-FH-Oakland@michigan.gov for an appointment.– Tuesday, March 24, at 12140 Joseph Campau St. in Hamtramck. Email MDHHS-FH-WC-Hamtramck@michigan.gov for an appointment.

Forgotten Harvest, the state’s largest food rescue organization, has more than 65 permanent mobile pantry partners in Southeast Michigan in addition to the On-the-Go mobile pantries. To locate a food pantry, visit Forgotten Harvest’s website. Appointments to shop at Forgotten Harvest’s Community Choice Market in Oak Park can be made by calling 248-268-7756.

Additional resources can be accessed by:

— dialing 211 or visiting mi211.org/ for free, confidential assistance and referrals to local food programs and support services.

— visiting the Food Bank Council of Michigan to locate nearby food banks and learn about additional hunger relief efforts.

— going to MI Bridges to learn more about SNAP, which offers temporary food assistance to eligible families.

The following is a list of in-person and online worship services and events happening at churches and synagogues in the Oakland County area. Visit websites or call for service times and events.

• Abiding Presence Lutheran Church, 1550 Walton Blvd., Rochester Hills, 248-651-6550, abidingpresence.org. Sunday worship services are at 9:30 a.m., also virtual services are available on the website.

• Adat Shalom Synagogue, 29901 Middlebelt Road, Farmington Hills, in-person and online services via Zoom. To view daily Minyan video conferences; email Executive Director Michael Wolf at mwolf@adatshalom.org or visit adatshalom.org, 248-851-5100.

• All Saints’ Episcopal, 171 W. Pike St., Pontiac, allsaintspontiac.org, 248-334-4571, rector@allsaintspontiac.org.

• The Apostolic Church of Christ, 3655 N. Squirrel Road, Auburn Hills, theapostolicchurch.com, 248-373-4500, Sunday worship services at 11 a.m.

• Archdiocese of Detroit, livestream Mass times, aod.org/livemasses.

• Auburn Hills Christian Center, 2592 Walton Blvd., Auburn Hills, Sunday worship services at 10:30 a.m., Servicio Evangelistico services (in Spanish) at 2-4 p.m. Sundays, 248-373-7139, www.myahcc.org.

• Beacon Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Troy, in-person and online services at 10:30 a.m. Sundays, beaconcongregation.org, admin@beaconcongregation.org.

• Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church, 5631 N. Adams Road, Bloomfield Hills, livestream services at 9 a.m. Sundays, and in person at 9 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. at bslcmi.org, facebook/bslcmi, 248-646-5041.

• Berea Family Tabernacle of Faith, Pontiac, Sunday worship services are at 11 a.m., experienceberea.org, 248-338-4748.

• Berkley First United Methodist Church, 2820 12 Mile Road, Berkley, worship services are 10 a.m. Sundays in person and online at www.berkleyfirst.org.

• Bharatiya Temple, 6850 N Adams Road, Troy, www.bharatiya-temple.org, 248-879-2552.

• Big Beaver United Methodist Church, 3753 John R Road, Troy, worship services at 10 a.m. Sundays, http://bbumchurch.org.

• Birmingham First United Methodist Church, 1589 W Maple Road, Birmingham, www.fumcbirmingham.org, 248-646-1200. Sunday worship services are in person and online at 9:30 a.m., and in-person only services at 11 a.m. (Summer worship services are at 10 a.m. between Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day.)

• Birmingham Unitarian Church, 38651 Woodward Ave., Bloomfield Hills, in-person and online worship services, 10:30 a.m. Sundays, bucmi.org, 248-647-2380.

• Bridge Community Church, 5700 Rochester Road, Troy, in-person and online worship services, 10 a.m. Sundays, bridgecommunitychurch.com/live, 248-879-9500.

• Bridgewood Church, 6765 Rattalee Lake Road, Clarkston, 248-625-1344, www.bridgewoodchurch.com. Sunday worship services are 8:30 a.m., 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m., also online services, and locations in Goodrich.

• Brightmoor Christian Church, 40800 W. 13 Mile Road, Novi, www.brightmoorchurch.org. Sunday worship services at 9 a.m. and 11:15 a.m.

• Calvary Chapel Oakland County, 1975 E. Long Lake Road, Troy, 248-457-9673, ccoaklandcounty.com. Worship 7 p.m. Wednesdays and 10 a.m. Sundays.

• Calvary Church, 1361 Giddings Road, Pontiac, Sunday worship services are at 10 a.m., https://ccpontiac.org, 248-373-0311.

• Calvary Evangelical Lutheran Church, 6805 Bluegrass Drive, Clarkston, calvary-lutheran.org. Sunday worship services are Traditional Worship at 7:55 a.m.; Modern Worship at 9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m.; and livestream at 9:30 a.m. Food pantry (drive-up or curbside pickup) is 9-11 a.m. Wednesdays.

• Central Church, 1529 Twelve Mile Road, Madison Heights, www.centralchurch.cc. Sunday worship services at 10 a.m.

• Central Oaks Community Church, 2005 Rochester Road, Royal Oak, www.centraloaks.com, 248-547-7755. Sunday worship services at 11 a.m.

• Central United Methodist Church, 3882 Highland Road, Waterford Twp., 248-681-0040, WaterfordCUMC.org. In-person worship at 8:45 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Sundays and online at 10:30 a.m. at Live.WaterfordCUMC.org.

• Central Woodward Christian Church Disciples of Christ, 3955 W. Big Beaver Road, Troy, 248-644-0512, centralwoodwardchristian.com. Sunday worship services are at 10:30 a.m., in person and online at centralwoodwardchristian.com and Facebook at www.facebook.com/CentralWoodward.

• Chapel of Our Lady of Orchard Lake, 3535 Commerce Road, West Bloomfield Twp., www.sscms.edu, 248-683-0310.

• Christian Science Church, 355 E Maple Road, Birmingham, worship services are 10:15 a.m. Sundays, https://christiansciencebirminghammi.com, 248-644-7935.

• Christian Tabernacle Church, Southfield, ctabchurch.com, 248-213-4770.

• Christ Church Cranbrook, 470 Church Road, Bloomfield Hills, in-person and online worship services, 10 a.m. Sundays, ccc-info.org.

• Christ Lutheran Church, Waterford Twp., https://christwaterford.org, 248-673-7331. Sunday worship services at 10 a.m.

• Christ Lutheran Church and School, 620 General Motors Road, Milford, www.christlutheranmilford.org. Sunday worship services at 8:30 a.m. and 11 a.m.

• Christ, Our Light! Catholic Church, 3077 Glouchester, Troy. Mass times are: Saturday at 4 p.m.; Sunday at 8 a.m., 9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m.; weekday Masses (followed by Rosary recitation) are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday at 9 a.m., and Friday at 12:05 p.m., www.coltroy.org, 248-649-5510.

• Christ the Good Shepherd Progressive Catholic Church, 3947 Twelve Mile Road Berkley, church services: Saturday Mass at 4:30 p.m. and Sunday Mass at 10:30 a.m., 248-439-0470, www.cgs-occ.org.

• Christ the Redeemer Parish, 2700 Waldon Road, Orion Township, 248-391-1621, www.ctredeemer.org. Weekend Masses are 5 p.m. Saturdays, and 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. Sundays.

• Crown of Life Lutheran Church, 2975 Dutton Road  Rochester Hills, www.crownoflifechurch.org, 248-652-7720. Sunday worship services are 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.

• Church of the Holy Spirit, 3700 Harvey Lake Road, Highland Twp., www.holyspirithighland.com.

• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints congregations in Oakland County include: Bloomfield Hills, Clarkston, Commerce Twp., Farmington Hills, Lake Orion, Pontiac (Spanish), Rochester, Troy and White Lake Twp. The congregations host worship services on Sundays. For worship times and locations, visit churchofjesuschrist.org.

• Church of the Resurrection, 6490 Clarkston Road, Village of Clarkston, https://clarkstonepiscopal.com, 248-625-2325. Sunday worship services at 10 a.m.

• Church of the Transfiguration, 25225 Code Road, Southfield, www.transfigsfld.org, 248-356-8787.

• Clarkston Community Church, 6300 Clarkston Road, Clarkston, in-person and online services at 9:15 a.m. and 11 a.m. Sundays, clarkstoncchurch.com, 248-625-1323.

• Clarkston United Methodist Church, 6600 Waldon Road, Clarkston, in-person and online faith services, 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. Sundays, clarkstonumc.org, 248-625-1611.

• Commerce United Methodist Church, 1155 N. Commerce Road, Commerce Twp., commerceumc.org/media.

• Community Bible Church, 1888 Crescent Lake Road, Waterford Twp., https://cbcmi.com, 248-674-4871. Sunday worship services at 11 a.m.

• Community Fellowship Seventh-Day Adventist Church, 27800 Southfield Road, Lathrup Village, church services at 11 a.m. Saturdays, http://communityfellowship22.adventistchurchconnect.org, 248-469-8539.

• Community Presbyterian Church, 4301 Monroe Ave., Waterford Twp. In-person worship is 10 a.m., Sundays, cpcwaterford.org, 248-673-7805.

• Congregation Beth Ahm, 5075 West Maple Road, West Bloomfield Twp., 248-851-6880, cbahm.org.

• Congregational Church of Birmingham, UCC, 1000 Cranbrook Road, Bloomfield Hills. Worship services are 10 a.m. Sundays, ccbucc.org, 248-646-4511.

• Congregation Shaarey Zedek, 27375 Bell Road, Southfield, Jewish religious services including daily morning and evening Minyan services, Shabbat morning services and Youth Shabbat activities, shaareyzedek.org, 248-357-5544. Daily minyan services are hybrid services, meeting both in person in the Lee and Gerson Bernstein Chapel (morning services are followed by breakfast), and on Zoom. Shabbat musical services meet on the first Friday evening of each month, in person  and on Zoom.

• Congregation Shir Tikvah, 3900 Northfield Parkway, Troy, www.shirtikvah.org.

• Cornerstone Baptist Church, Ortonville, in-person worship services, Sundays at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m., Wednesdays at 7 p.m. Also online at Facebook at Cornerstone Baptist Church Ortonville, cbcortonville.com, 248 627-4700.

• Cornerstone Church, 4995 N Hickory Ridge Road, Highland, cornerstonehighland.com, 248-887-1600. Worship services at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. Sundays, 7 p.m. Wednesdays. Also, livestream at 11 a.m. Sundays on YouTube, Facebook, and website.

• Crossroads Free Will Baptist Church, 4804 White Lake Road, White Lake Twp., https://crossroadswl.org, Sunday worship services at 11 a.m. The church has a Blessing Box that is stocked with non-perishable food items, books and other household items for those in need. Donations welcome.

• Destiny Faith Church, 501 University Drive, Pontiac, Destinyfaith.org, 248-322-2200. Worship services at 10 a.m. Sundays and 7 p.m. Wednesdays, in person and online.

• Divine Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church, 3000 S. Lapeer Road, Orion Twp., divinegrace.net, Sunday worship services at 8 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.

• Door of Faith Christian Church, Pontiac, online services, 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. Sundays, mydooroffaith.org.

• Emmanuel Lutheran Church, 23425 Lahser Road, Southfield, 248-357-1848, emmanuellutheransouthfield.org.

• Empowerment Church of Southfield, worship services are 7:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Sundays at new worship center location, Shriner’s Silver Garden Events Center, 24350 Southfield Road, Southfield, 248-569-2299, empowerment.mi.org. Also virtual worship services, 10:30 a.m. Sundays at empowermentmi.org/stream and on Facebook Live.

• Encounter Church, 600 North Campbell Road, Royal Oak, in-person and online services, 11 a.m. Sundays; also services at 7 p.m. Wednesdays, www.encounter360.org.

• Faith Church, 160 W Hamlin Road, Rochester Hills, Sunday services at 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., www.faithrh.com, 248-651-3535.

• Faith Covenant Church, 35415 W. 14 Mile Road, Farmington Hills, worship services at 9:30 a.m. and 11 a.m., Sundays, 248-661-9191, www.4fcc.org.

• Faith Lutheran Church: 37635 Dequindre Troy, (248) 689-4664, www.faithtroy.org, Sunday worship services at 9:15 a.m. and 11 a.m.

• First Baptist Church, 5972 Paramus, Clarkston, MI 48346, https://clarkstonfirst.org, (248) 625-3380.

• First Baptist Church of Holly: 15030 N. Holly Rd. Holly, (248) 634-8772, www.fbcholly.org.

• First Baptist Church, 255 E. Scripps Road, Lake Orion, worship services at 10:30 a.m., Sundays, fbclo.org, 248-693-6203, info@fbclo.org.

• First Baptist Church, 2601 John R Road, Troy, worship services at 10 a.m., Sundays, fbctroy.org.

• First Congregational Church, 5449 Clarkston Road, Clarkston, (just east of Sashabaw Road), 248-394-0200, www.fcclarkston.com, worship services at 10 a.m. Sundays.

• First Congregational Church of Rochester UCC, 1315 N. Pine, Rochester, worship services at 10 a.m. Sundays, fccrochester.org, 248-651-6225.

• First Congregational Church of Royal Oak, 1314 Northwood Blvd., Royal Oak. Worship services at 10:30 a.m. Sundays, www.fccro.org.

• First General Baptist of Waterford, 2933 Frembes Road, Waterford, wgbchurch.com, 248-673-6481, Sunday school at 10 a.m., worship services at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m.

• First Missionary Church, 4832 Clintonville Road, Independence Twp., www.fmcclarkston.org, 248-674-3186. Sunday worship services at 11 a.m.

• First Presbyterian Church Birmingham, 1669 W. Maple, Birmingham, worship services are Sundays, 8:30 a.m. in person, and 10 a.m. in person and livestream, fpcbirmingham.org, 248-644-2040.

• First Presbyterian Church of Pontiac, 99 Wayne Street, Pontiac, fpcpontiac.info.

• First Presbyterian Church of Royal Oak, 529 Hendrie Blvd., 248-541-0108. Sunday worship services are at 10:30 a.m., online services available anytime at fpcro.org, 248-541-0108.

• First United Methodist Church of Troy, 6363 Livernois, Troy. Church services are 10 a.m. Sundays in person and livestream on YouTube and Facebook, www.FUMCTROY.org, 248-879-6363.

• Five Points Community Church, 3411 E Walton Blvd, Auburn Hills. Sunday worship services are at 10 a.m., https://5pointscc.org, 248-373-1381.

• Four Towns United Methodist, 6451 Cooley Lake Road, Waterford Twp. Sunday worship services are at 10 a.m., www.fourtowns.org, 248-766-8868. Sunday worship services are at 10 a.m.

• Franklin Road Church of Christ: 1400 Franklin Road, Pontiac, (248) 895-4031, www.franklinroadchurchofchrist.com. Sunday worship services are at 10 a.m.

• Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, 1950 S. Baldwin Road, Lake Orion. Sunday worship services are at 10 a.m., 248-391-1170, goodshepherdlakeorion.net.

• Grace Gospel Fellowship, 65 East Huron Street, Pontiac; in-person and livestream services are 11 a.m. Sundays and 7 p.m. Wednesdays. Livestream services are at www.facebook.com/GraceGospelFellowshipPontiac, 248-334-2187.

• Greenfield Presbyterian Church, 2312 Greenfield Road, Berkley, from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day, Sunday worship services are at 10 a.m., youtube.com/user/GreenfieldChurch, greenfieldchurch.com, 248-544-1800. (After Labor Day, in-person and online worship services are at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. Sundays.)

• Grace Church, 220 Bogie Lake Road, White Lake Twp. Sunday services are 9:30 a.m. and 11:15 a.m., Gracechurchinfo.net, 248-887-3700.

• Guardian Angels Catholic Church, 581 E. 14 Mile Road Clawson, https://guardiana.com.

• Harvestland Church, 5848 Clintonville Road, Independence Twp., https://harvestland.church, 248-391-2063. Sunday worship services at 10:30 a.m.

• Hazel Park First United Methodist Church, 313 E. Nine Mile Road, Hazel Park, 248-546-5955, hpfirst.org. Sunday worship services at 11:15 a.m.

• Heart of the Hills Christian Church, 5085 Orion Road, Rochester, https://heartofthehills.com, 248-841-1679. Sunday worship services at 10:30 a.m.

• Hillside Bible Church, 73 N Church St, Ortonville, 248-627-2513, hillsidebible.org, Sunday worship services at 10:30 a.m.

• Hilltop Church of the Nazarene, 21260 Haggerty Road, Northville, hilltopnaz.org, Sunday worship services at 10:30 a.m.

• Holly Calvary Church, 15010 N Holly Road, Holly, hollycalvary.org, Sunday worship services at 10 a.m. in person and online, Wednesday worship is at 6:30 p.m.

• Holy Cross Chaldean Church, 32500 Middlebelt Road, Farmington Hills, www.facebook.com/holycross.chaldeanchurch, https://chaldeanchurch.org/churches/holy-cross.

• Holy Family, 24505 Meadowbrook Road, Novi, https://holyfamilynovi.org.

• Holy Name Catholic Church, 630 Harmon, Birmingham, https://hnchurch.org.

• Holy Spirit Lutheran Church, 4800 Orchard Lake Road, West Bloomfield Twp. In-person worship services at 10 a.m. Sundays, livestream on YouTube youtube.com/@spiritdrivenchurch, 248-682-5441, spiritdrivenchurch.com.

• Church of the Holy Spirit, 3700 Harvey Lake Road, Highland Twp., www.holyspirithighland.com.

• Hope United Methodist Church, 26275 Northwestern Hwy., Southfield, 248-356-1020, hopeumc.org.

• Immanuel Congregational Church of Christ, Oxford, 248-628-1610, icucc.org, in-person worship services at 11 a.m. Sundays, and online at facebook.com/oxfordimmanuelucc.

• International Christian Church, 1630 Joslyn Ave, Pontiac, worship services at 11:30 a.m. Sundays, 248-494-8757, globalicc.org, facebook.com/icchurch/live.

• Islamic Association of Greater Detroit, 879 West Auburn Road, Rochester Hills, www.childrenofabrahamday.org.

• Jewel Heart Tibetan Buddhist Learning Center, 27745 Woodward Ave., Berkley, www.jewelheart.org.

• Journey Lutheran Church, (joined with Holy Cross Church) 136 S. Washington St., Oxford, in-person and online worship services, 8:45 a.m. and 11 a.m. Sundays, education hour is at 10 a.m., journeylutheran.church, 248-628-2011.

• Kensington Church with locations in Birmingham, Clarkston, Clinton Twp., Orion Twp. and Troy, in-person Sunday worship times, and online services offered streaming on YouTube, Facebook, and website, kensingtonchurch.org.

• King of Kings Lutheran Church, 1715 S. Lapeer Road, Lake Orion, www.kingofkingslakeorion.org. Sunday worship services are at 9:30 a.m. Sundays, online streaming at www.facebook.com/kingofkingslakeorion.

• Kirk in the Hills, 1340 W. Long Lake Road, Bloomfield Hills. Sunday worship services are at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m., kirkinthehills.org, 248 626 2515.

• Lakecrest Baptist Church, 35 Airport Rd, Waterford Twp., www.lakecrestbaptist.com, 248-681-3214. Sunday worship services are at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. Spanish service at 1 p.m.

• Lake Orion Church of Christ, 1080 Hemingway Road, Lake Orion, www.lococ.org, 248-693-7242. Sunday worship services at 10:30 a.m.

• Lake Orion Community of Christ Church, 531 E. Flint St., Lake Orion, www.lakeorioncofchrist.org.

• Lake Orion Methodist Church, Lake Orion, www.lakeorionumc.org. Sunday worship services at 10 a.m., in person and online.

• LakePoint Community Church, 1550 W. Drahner Road, Oxford, https://lakepointcc.org, 248-628-0038.

• The Lakes Church, 1450 S Hospital Road, Waterford Twp., www.thelakes.cc, 248-254-7833, Sunday worship services are 8 a.m., 9:30 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. The 9:30 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. services are livestreamed.

• Liberty General Baptist Church, 3545 Joslyn Rd, Auburn Hills, https://libertygeneralbaptistchurch.org, 248-431-3498. Sunday worship services at 11 a.m.

• Lifepoint Church, 5601 Scott Lake Road, Waterford Twp., lifepointchristian.com.

• Life Renewal Church, 28312 Grand River, Farmington Hills, https://liferenewalchurch.org, worship is 11 a.m. Sundays.

• Mar Addai Chaldean Catholic Church, 24010 Coolidge Hwy, Oak Park, (248) 547-4648, www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068254778006#.

• Madison Heights Church of the Nazarene, 555 E 13 Mile Road, Madison Heights, mhnaz.org, 248-585-5551.

• Maranatha Baptist Church, 5790 Flemings Lake Road, Clarkston, Sunday worship services at 10:30 a.m., www.mbcclarkston.org.

• Marimont Community Church, 424 W Walton Blvd., Pontiac, Sunday worship services are at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., https://marimontcommunitychurch.com.

• Masjid Mahmood, Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Center, 1730 W. Auburn Road, Rochester Hills, ahmadiyyamosque.blogspot.com.

• Metro Detroit Christian Church, 33360 W. 13 Mile Road, Farmington Hills, https://metrodetroit.org, 248-562-7998. Sunday worship services at 10:30 a.m.

• Mother of God Chaldean Catholic Church, 25585 Berg Road, Southfield, https://mogccc.com, 248-356-0565.

• Motor City Church, 3668 Livernois Road, Troy, www.motorcitychurch.org, 248-524-2400. Sunday worship services are at 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.

• Mt. Zion Church, 4900 Maybee Road, Clarkston, mtzion.org. Sunday worship services at 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.

• Muslim Unity Center of Bloomfield Hills, 1830 W. Square Lake Road, Bloomfield Hills, Muslimunitycenter.org.

• Nardin Park United Methodist Church, 29887 W Eleven Mile Road, Farmington Hills, 248-476-8860, nardinpark.org, www.facebook.com/NPUMC.

• National Shrine of the Little Flower Basilica, 1200 W. Twelve Mile Road, Royal Oak, https://shrinechurch.com, 248-541-4122.

• Nativity Episcopal Church, 21220 W. 14 Mile Road, Bloomfield Twp., nativityepiscopalchurch.org, 248-646-4100.

• New Heights Baptist Church, Grand Blanc, 10:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. Sundays, newheightsbc.com. For information, email pastornewheights@gmail.com or call 810-866-4563.

• New Hope Christian Fellowship, 6020 Pontiac Lake Road, Waterford Twp., https://newhopemi.org, 248-886-1500, Sunday worship services at 10 a.m.

• New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, 23455 W Nine Mile Road, Southfield,  www.newhope-mbc.org, 248-353-0675. Sunday worship services at 11 a.m., in person and livestream.

• New Hudson United Methodist Church, 56730 Grand River Ave., New Hudson, newhudsonumc.org. Worship services, 10:30 a.m. Sundays.

• New Springfield Missionary Baptist Church of Pontiac: 124 Prospect, Pontiac, MI 48341, 248-332-8242, www.newspringfieldmbc.org, Sunday worship services at 11 a.m.

• Newman AME Church, 233 Bagley, Pontiac, www.facebook.com/newmanamechurch, (248) 332-2800.

• Northminster Presbyterian Church, 3633 W. Big Beaver Road, Troy, 248-644-5920. Worship service at 10:30 a.m. Sundays, in person and livestream, www.facebook.com/TroyNorthminster.

• Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 23925 Northwestern Hwy, Southfield, www.northwestuu.org, 248-281-4902. Worship service at 10:30 a.m. Sundays in person and virtual.

• North Congregational Church, 36520 W. 12 Mile Road, Farmington Hills, northcongregationalchurch.org.

• North Hills Christian Reformed Church, 3150 North Adams Road, Troy, worship services, 9:30 a.m. Sundays, 248-645-1990, northhillscrc.org.

• North Oaks Church, 9600 Ortonville Road, City of the Village of Clarkston, worship services are 10:30 a.m., Sundays, northoakschurch.org, office@northoakschurch.org, 248-922-3515.

• Oakland Church, 5100 North Adams Road, Rochester, worship services, 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. Sundays, www.oaklandchurch.me.

• Oakland Church of Christ, 23333 West 10 Mile Road Southfield, in-person and online worship services are at 10:30 a.m. Sundays, TheOaklandChurchofchrist.org, 248-355-9225.

• Oakland Hills Community Church, Farmington Hills, ohcc.net, 313-686-4578.

• Oakland Woods Baptist Church 5628 Maybee Rd, Village of Clarkston, www.facebook.com/OWBCClarkston, 248-625-7557. Sunday worship services are at 9 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.

• Oak Pointe Church,1250 South Hill, Milford, in-person or online worship services are 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. Sundays, opcmilford.org.

• Oak Pointe Church, 50200 W. 10 Mile Road, Novi, in-person or online worship services are 9:15 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. oakpointe.org, 248-912-0043.

• Oak Pointe Church, 6343 Farmington Road, West Bloomfield, in-person or online worship services are 10:15 a.m. Sundays, oakpointe.org/westbloomfield.

• Oakwood Community Church, 5791 Oakwood Rd, Ortonville, www.oakwoodcc.org, 248-628-6388.

• Orchard Grove Community Church, 850 Ladd Rd; Bldg. C, Walled Lake, Sunday worship services are at 10:10 a.m., www.orchardgrove.org.

• Orchard Lake Community Church, Presbyterian, 5171 Commerce Road, Orchard Lake, worship services are at 9 a.m., and 10:30 a.m. Sundays, olccp.com, 248-682-0730.

• Orchard United Methodist Church, 30450 Farmington Road, Farmington Hills, Sunday worship services are 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. (Summer worship services are at 10 a.m., mid June to September). Livestream at youtube.com/c/OrchardUMC and facebook.com/OrchardUMC/live_videos, 248-626-3620, orchardumc.org.

• Our Lady of La Salette, 2600 Harvard Road, Berkley, 248-541-3762, par8551@gmail.com, www.lasalette-church.org, Mass is at 4:30 p.m. Saturdays, and 8:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. Sundays.

• Our Lady of Refuge Church, 3700 Commerce Road, Orchard Lake, olorcc.org, 248-682-4099, Mass is 5 p.m. Saturdays and  8 a.m., 9:30 a.m. or 11:30 a.m. Sundays.

• Our Lady of Sorrows Church, 23815 Power Road, Farmington, church.olsorrows.com.

• Our Lady of the Lakes Catholic Church in-person Mass, Saturday at 5 p.m., Sunday at 8 a.m., 9:30 a.m., 11 a.m., 12:30 p.m., weekdays at 8:15 a.m., 5481 Dixie Hwy., Waterford Twp. Livestream Mass at 5 p.m. Saturdays and 9:30 a.m. Sunday, ollonline.org/live.

• Our Lady of Victory Catholic Parish, 133 Orchard Drive, Northville, https://olvnorthville.org.

• Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, 32340 Pierce St., Beverly Hills, www.olqm-parish.org.

• Our Mother of Perpetual Help, 13500 Oak Park Blvd, Oak Park, www.omoph.org. Saturday mass is at 4:30 p.m. and Sunday mass is at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.

• Oxbow Lake Baptist Church, 10730 Elizabeth Lake Rd, White Lake Charter Township, www.oxbowbc.com, 248-698-3034. Sunday worship services at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m.

• Oxford United Methodist Church, 21 E. Burdick St. Oxford, 248 628-1289, oxfordunitedmc.org. People Feeding People (PFP) free breakfast is 9:30-10:30 a.m. Saturdays. In-person worship services and online at youtube.com/channel/UCN2R96oWdXzxDqwdz8YBlrQ.

• Paint Creek United Methodist Church, 4420 Collins Road, Rochester, www.paintcreekumc.org, 248-373-2360, Sunday worship services are at 11 a.m.

• Prince of Peace Catholic Church, 4300 Walnut Lake Road, West Bloomfield Twp., https://princeofpeacecatholic.church.

• Renaissance Vineyard Church, 1841 Pinecrest Drive, Ferndale, https://renvc.com, 248-545-4664. Sunday worship services at 10:33 a.m.

• The River Church of Auburn Hills, 315 S. Squirrel Road, Auburn Hills, http://riverchurch.faith, 248-853-1524. Worship services are 9 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. Sundays.

• The River Church, Holly, Lake Orion, Waterford and more locations, livestream and videos of sermons, theriverchurch.cc, 248-328-0490.

• River North Church, 67 N Lynn Ave, Waterford Twp., Sunday School is 10 a.m. Sundays, worship services at 11:15 a.m. Sundays and 7:15 p.m. Wednesdays. Also view sermons online at www.youtube.com/@rivernorthchurch2023, nondenominational family church, 248-724-6559, www.facebook.com/Rivernorthchurch.

• River Of Life Christian Church, 5482 Winell St., Independence Twp., 248-599-3074.

• Rochester Christian Church, 4435 Rochester Rd, Rochester Hills, https://rcc4me.com, 248-652-3353, Sunday worship services at 10 a.m.

• Rochester Church of Christ, 250 W. Avon Road, Rochester Hills, www.rochestercoc.org, 248-651-1933, Sunday worship services at 10 a.m.

• Royal Oak First United Methodist Church, 320 W. 7th Street, Royal Oak, www.rofum.org, 248-541-4100. Worship services are 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. Sundays, in person and online, www.rofum.org/live.

• Sacred Heart Catholic Church, 3400 S. Adams Road, Auburn Hills. Mass times are at 4 p.m. Saturday, and 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. Sunday. Weekday Mass services are 9 a.m. Monday through Friday, www.esacredheart.org, 248-852-4170.

• St. Anastasia Roman Catholic Church, 4571 John R Road, Troy, www.stanastasia.org, 248-689-8380.

• St. Andrew Catholic Church, 1400 Inglewood Ave., Rochester, https://standrewchurch.org, (248) 651-7486.

• St. Anne Catholic Church of Ortonville, 825 South Ortonville Road, Ortonville. Mass times are Sunday at 8:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.; Saturday at 5 p.m.; Monday at 7 p.m. and Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday at 9 a.m., 248-627-3965, churchofstanne.org.

• St. Augustine Lutheran Troy (SALT) Church, 5475 Livernois in Troy, www.saltchurch.net, communications@saltchurch.net, 248-879-6400.

• St. Benedict Catholic Church, 60 South Lynn Street, Waterford Twp., 248-681-1534. Sunday Mass times are 9 a.m. and 11 a.m., streaming at stbencc.org/live-stream.

• St. Daniel Catholic Church, 7010 Valley Park Drive, Clarkston, (248) 625-4580, https://stdanielclarkston.org.

• St. David’s Episcopal Church, 16200 W. Twelve Mile Road, Southfield, www.stdavidssf.org. Sunday worship services are at 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. both in person and via zoom. Food pantry is 9 a.m.-noon Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

• St. Damien of Molokai Parish, 46408 Woodward Ave, Pontiac, St. Michael and St. Vincent merged, www.st-damien.org, www.facebook.com/stdamienpontiac, 248-332-0283.

• St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church, 280 E. Square Lake Road, Troy, https://saintliz.org, (248) 879-1310.

• St. Fabian 32200 W. Twelve Mile Road Farmington Hills, www.stfabian.org, 248-553-4610.

• St. George’s Episcopal Church, 801 E Commerce, Milford, 248-684-0495. Sunday worship services 8:30 a.m. and 10:15 a.m., in person and online, www.stgeorgesmilford.org.

• St. George Greek Orthodox Church, 43816 Woodward Ave, Bloomfield Hills, 248-335-8869, www.stgeorgebloomfield.org.

• St. George Orthodox Church, 2160 E Maple Road, Troy, 248-589-0480, www.stgeorgeoftroy.org, www.facebook.com/stgeorgeoftroymi.

• St. Gerald Catholic Church, 21300 Farmington Road, Farmington, https://stgeraldparish.org, ‪(248) 477-7470‬.

• St. Hugo of the Hills, 2215 Opdyke Road, Bloomfield Hills, www.sthugo.org.

• St. Irenaeus Catholic Church, 771 Old Perch Road, Rochester Hills, https://stirenaeus.org.

• St. James Church, 46325 Ten Mile Road, Novi, Mass times are 8 a.m., 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. Sundays, and 4 p.m. Saturdays. Livestream services, 4 p.m. Saturdays, 248-347-7778, https://stjamesnovi.org.

• St. John Fisher University Parish, 3665 E. Walton Blvd., Auburn Hills, www.grizzlycatholic.org.

• St. John Lutheran Church & School, 1011 University Drive, Rochester. Traditional praise worship services are Sundays at  8 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. Modern praise services are Saturdays at 5 p.m. and Sundays at 10:45 p.m. The 8 a.m. and 10:45 a.m. Sunday worship services are livestreamed and posted on the website at stjohnrochester.org.

• St. John Lutheran Church, 23225 Gill Road, Farmington Hills, www.stjohn-elca.org.

• St. John’s Episcopal Church Royal Oak, 26998 Woodward Ave. Royal Oak. Services are 8 a.m. Sundays, in person and 10:15 a.m. Sundays, in-person and online worship, stjohnsroyaloak.org, 248-546-1255.

• St. Joseph Catholic Church, 715 N. Lapeer Road, Lake Orion, view Mass services on the church’s Youtube channel, youtube.com/user/stjosephmassarchive, or at Facebook page, facebook.com/StJoeLo, stjoelo.org, 248-693-0440.

• St. Joseph Catholic Parish, 830 S. Lafayette St., South Lyon, https://stjcc.org.

• St. Joseph Chaldean Church, 2442 E. Big Beaver Road, Troy, https://stjosephccc.com, 248-351-0440.

• St. Joseph Chapel and Shrine of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, 400 South Blvd. West, Pontiac, https://terrasanctaministries.net.

• St. Mark and St. Mary & St. Philopater Coptic Orthodox Church, 3603 Livernois Road, Troy, www.stmarkmi.org. Divine liturgy services are at 7 a.m. (Arabic) and 8:15 a.m. (English), Sundays.

• St. Mary Catholic Church, 730 S Lafayette Ave., Royal Oak, www.stmaryroyaloak.com, 248-547-1818. Mass at 4:30 p.m. Saturday, and 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. Sunday.

• St. Mary of the Hills Roman Catholic Church, 2675 John R. Road, Rochester Hills. In-person Mass is 9 a.m. or 11 a.m. Sunday, 248-853-5390, smoth.org. Live online Mass is 4 p.m. Saturday, on Facebook and YouTube.

• St. Mary Our Lady of the Snows Catholic Church, 1955 E. Commerce Road, Milford, www.stmarymilfordmi.org,(248) 685-1482.

• St. Mary’s In-the-Hills Episcopal Church, 2512 Joslyn Court, Lake Orion, 248-391-0663, www.stmarysinthehills.org. Sunday Services are at 8:30 a.m.-Simple service of Holy Eucharist and at 10 a.m.-Service of Holy Eucharist with choir and Children’s Church School-Service, livestream on YouTube or Facebook or www.stmarysinthehills.org. Adult Bible Study is held Tuesdays at 10 a.m.

• St. Matthew Lutheran Church, 2040 S. Commerce Road, Walled Lake, 248-624-7676, st-matthew.org. Blended Worship services are 8:45 a.m. Sundays (also livestream on YouTube); Prayer & Praise Worship services are 11 a.m. Sundays; Monday Blended Worship services are 7 p.m.

• St. Matthew Lutheran Church, 48380 Pontiac Trail, Wixom, 248-624-9525, st-matthew.org. Sunday worship services are 10 a.m.

• St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, Divine Liturgy at 9:30 a.m. Sundays, 760 W Wattles Road, Troy, 248-362-9575, stnicholastroy.org.

• St. Owen Catholic Church, 6869 Franklin Road  Bloomfield Hills, stowen.org.

• St. Patrick Catholic Parish, 9086 Hutchins Road, White Lake Twp., https://stpatrickwhitelake.org.

• St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church, 1413 E. Thirteen Mile Road, Madison Heights, 248-585-9591, in-person Sunday worship services are at 10 a.m., or online at stpatsmh.org.

• St. Paul Albanian Catholic Church, 525 W Auburn Road, Rochester Hills, www.stpaulalbaniancatholicchurch.org.

• St. Paul Community Lutheran Church, 1133 Joslyn Ave., Pontiac, www.stpaulpontiac.com. 248-758-9019. Sunday worship services at 11 a.m.

• St. Paul Lutheran Church, 202 E. Fifth St, Royal Oak, worship services are 8:15 a.m. and 11 a.m. Sundays. Livestream also at 8:15 a.m. service, stpaulroyaloak.org, 248-930-3100.

• St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, 620 Romeo Street, Rochester. Open door worship services are at 9:30 a.m. Sundays and sanctuary worship services are at 11 a.m., Sundays, livestream available, facebook.com/stpaulsrochester, stpaulsrochester.org.

• St. Perpetua, 134 Airport Road, Waterford Twp., https://stperpetuaparish.org.

• St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, 100 Romeo Road, Rochester, stpfeeds.org.

• St. Regis Catholic Church, 3695 Lincoln Road, Bloomfield Hills, https://stregis.org.

• St. Rita Catholic Church, 309 E Maple, Holly, 248-634-4841, stritaholly.org. Weekend services are 4 p.m. Saturday, and 9 a.m., 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. Sunday.

• St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 5500 N Adams Road, Troy, www.ststephenstroy.org, 248-641-8080, In-person Sunday worship services are at 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. Online service at 10 a.m.

• St. Stephen Missionary Baptist Church, 69 S. Astor St., Pontiac, 248-335-5873, www.saintstephenmbc.com. Sunday worship services are at 11 a.m.

• St. Thomas Chaldean Catholic Church, 6900 West Maple Road, West Bloomfield Twp., www.stccc.org, 248-788-2460.

• St. Thomas More, 4580 N. Adams Road, Troy, https://stthomasmoretroy.org, (248) 647-2222.

• St. Thomas Orthodox Church, Divine Liturgy at 10 a.m. Sundays,  29150 W. 10 Mile Road, Farmington Hills, 248-471-1059, stthomasalbanianorthodoxchurch.org.

• St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church, 28353 Herbert St. Madison Heights, https://stvincentferrer.net, 248-542-8720.

• St. William Parish, 531 Common St., Walled Lake, stwilliam.com, 248-624-1421.

• Sanctuary Church, 300 Willits St., Birmingham, in-person and online services, 10:30 a.m. Sundays, 248-644-0550, sanctuary-church.com.

• Sashabaw Presbyterian Church, Clarkston, worship services via Zoom, services at 11 a.m. on 1st, 3rd and 5th Sundays of the month, and at 6 p.m. on 2nd and 4th Saturdays of the month. Email sashabawpresbyterianchurch@gmail.com for a link to services, sashabawpresbyterianchurch.org, 248-310-0792.

• Scott Lake Baptist Church, 811 Scott Lake Road, Waterford Twp., Sunday worship services at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m., also livestream, https://hisscottlake.org.

• Seymour Lake United Methodist Church, 3050 S. Sashabaw Road, Oxford, in-person or online services at 10 a.m. Sundays, 248-572-4200, email- office@seymourlakeumc.org, seymourlakeumc.org.

• Shepherd of the Lakes Lutheran Church, 2905 S. Commerce Road, Walled Lake, worship services are 10 a.m. Sundays, and Wednesdays at 7 p.m. during Lent and Advent, www.shepherdlakes.org, 248-624-4238.

• Shrine Catholic Church, 12 Mile and Woodward, 248-541-4122, https://shrinechurch.com.

• Silver Lake Church Of The Nazarene, 20 W Walton Blvd., Pontiac, https://slcpontiac.org, 248-977-4698.

• Spirit of Grace Church, 2399 Figa Ave., West Bloomfield Twp., 248-682-0270, Sunday worship at 10 a.m., spiritofgrace.church, facebook.com/spiritograce/videos. The church has a diabetic food pantry for those in need with dietary restrictions. The church seeks donations of non-perishable food items for diabetics including: proteins, nuts, grains and beans, sugar-free foods, low carb and high fiber foods as well as shopping bags and unused boxes. Drive-up diabetic food pantry hours are 10 a.m.-noon, 3rd Saturdays of the month.

• Spirit of Christ Lutheran Church, 749 W 14 Mile Road, Clawson, 248-435-8025, Sunday worship at 10 a.m., www.spiritofchristclawson.org.

• Spiritual Life Center, Troy, www.slctroy.com, 248-925-6214. A Message of Hope is 10 a.m. Sundays at www.youtube.com/c/SLCTroy.

• Temple Beth El Synagogue, 7400 Telegraph Road, Bloomfield Hills, www.tbeonline.org. In person services are Friday at 7 p.m. Online services are Saturdays at 10 a.m. and Sundays at 10:30 a.m. on Zoom, www.tbelive.org and facebook.com/tbeonline/live, 248-851-1100.

• Temple Israel, West Bloomfield Twp., streaming video at temple-israel.org.

• Temple Kol Ami, 5085 Walnut Lake Road, West Bloomfield Twp., tkolami.org, 248-661-0040.

• Temple Shir Shalom, 3999 Walnut Lake Road, West Bloomfield Twp., www.shirshalom.org, 248-737-8700.

• Thrive Church, a Global Methodist Church, 680 W. Livingston Road, Highland Twp., www.thrive-church.us, 248-887-1311.

• Trinity United Methodist Church, 6440 Maceday Drive, Waterford Twp., Services, 11 a.m. Sundays, waterfordtrinityumc.org, 248-623-6860.

• Troy Church of the Nazarene, 6840 Crooks Road, Troy, troynaz.org, 248-802-7650. Worship Services and Bible Study, 11 a.m. Sundays and 6 p.m. Wednesdays.

• Unity of Farmington Hills worship service in person and online at 10 a.m. Sundays, youtube.com/channel/UCi90mgzXUDpw0k21_3JXlTg, Unityfh.com.

• Unity of Lake Orion, 3070 S. Baldwin Road, Orion Twp., unitylakeorion.org, 248-391-9211. Sunday worship services are 10 a.m. Sundays, in person and livestream on Facebook.

• Unity of Royal Oak, 2500 Crooks Road, Royal Oak, unityofroyaloak.org, 248-288-3550. In-person Sunday worship services at 10 a.m., livestream on YouTube and Facebook.

• Universalist Unitarian Church of Farmington, 25301 Halsted Road, Farmington Hills, uufarmington.org. Sunday worship services at 10:30 a.m. Sundays, in person and livestream.

• University Presbyterian Church, 1385 S. Adams, Rochester Hills, universitypres.org, 248-375-0400.

• The Village Church of Ortonville, 93 N Church St. Ortonville, www.facebook.com/oumvillagechurch, 248 627-3125.

• Walled Lake United Methodist Church, 313 E Northport St., Walled Lake. Sunday worship services at 9:30 a.m. in person, or at Facebook Live, facebook.com/walledlakeumc and YouTube, youtube.com/channel/UCjOTQmG5DAGUdd_ghKdp2FQ, walledlakeumc.org, 248-624-2405.

• Warren’s Amazing Grace Lutheran Church, 29860 Dequindre, Warren. Sunday worship services are at 10 a.m. in person and livestream at www.aglc-warren.org, 586-751-7750.

• Waterford Seventh-day Adventist Church, 5725 Pontiac Lake Road, Waterford Twp., www.waterfordadventist.org, 248-681-3334. Worship services in person and livestream, 11 a.m. Saturdays.

• Waypoint Church, 8400 Dixie Hwy., Clarkston, waypoint.org, 248-623-1224. Sunday worship services at 10:30 a.m.

• Welcome Missionary Baptist Church, 143 Oneida St, Pontiac, www.welcomemissionarybaptistchurch.com, 248-335-8740. Sunday worship services are at 8:30 a.m. in person and livestream on Facebook at www.facebook.com/welcomemissionary.church.

• Wellspring Bible Church, 485 Farnsworth, White Lake Twp., worship services are at 10:30 a.m. Sundays, wellspringbiblechurch.org, 248-682-0319.

• West Bloomfield United Methodist Church, 4100 Walnut Lake Road, West Bloomfield Twp., worship services are at 10:30 a.m. Sundays, westbloomfieldumc.org, 248-851-2330.

• White Lake Presbyterian Church, 4805 Highland Road, White Lake Twp., 248-887-4654, www.whitelakepc.org.

• Williams Lake Church, 2840 Airport Road, Waterford Twp., www.facebook.com/williamslakechurch, 248-673-5911, www.williamslakechurch.com.

• Woodside Bible Church, with 14 locations in Southeast Michigan, in-person service times vary by location, online services at 8:15 a.m.10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. Sundays, live.woodsidebible.org, 248-879-8533.

• Zion Lutheran Church, 143 Albany St., Ferndale, in-person and online worship services at 10:30 a.m. Sundays, www.zionlutheranmi.org.

To add a church to this list, visit https://bit.ly/40a2iAm.

— MediaNews Group

By ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Horses whinny to find new friends, greet old ones and celebrate happy moments like feeding time.

How exactly horses produce that distinctive sound — also called a neigh — has long eluded scientists.

The whinny is an unusual combination of both high and low pitched sounds, like a cross between a grunt and a squeal — that come out at the same time.

The low-pitched part wasn’t much of a mystery. It comes from air passing over bands of tissue in the voice box that make noise when they vibrate. It’s a technique similar to how humans speak and sing.

But the high-pitched piece is more puzzling. With some exceptions, larger animals have larger vocal systems and typically make lower sounds. So how do horses do it?

According to a new study, they whistle.

Researchers slid a small camera through horses’ noses to film what happened inside while they whinnied and made another common horse sound, the softer, subtler nicker. They also conducted detailed scans and blew air through the isolated voice boxes of dead horses.

The whinny’s mysterious high-pitched tones, they discovered, are a kind of whistling that starts in the horse’s voice box. Air vibrates the tissues in the voice box while an area just above contracts, leaving a small opening for the whistle to escape.

That’s different from human whistling, which we do with our mouths.

“I’d never imagined that there was a whistling component. It’s really interesting, and I can hear that now,” said Jenifer Nadeau, who studies horses at the University of Connecticut. Nadeau was not involved with the study, which was published Monday in the journal Current Biology.

A few small rodents like rats and mice whistle like this, but horses are the first known large mammal to have a knack for it. They’re also the only animals known to be able to whistle through their voice boxes while they sing.

“Knowing that a ‘whinny’ is not just a ‘whinny’ but that it is actually composed of two different fundamental frequencies that are created by two different mechanisms is exciting,” said Alisa Herbst with Rutgers University’s Equine Science Center, of the study in an email.

A big lingering question is how horses’ two-toned calls came to be. Wild Przewalski’s horses can do something similar, as can elks. But more distant horse relatives like donkeys and zebras can’t make the high-pitched sounds.

The two-toned whinnies could help horses convey multiple messages at the same time. The differently pitched neighs may help them express a more complex range of feelings when socializing, said study author Elodie Mandel-Briefer with the University of Copenhagen.

“They can express emotions in these two dimensions,” Mandel-Briefer said.

—-

Associated Press video journalist James Brooks contributed to this report.

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.

Matthew Nix had driven past the brewery in Sauganash for years, but — not much of a weekday drinker — had never stopped in.

When he finally decided to meet friends at the taproom on a recent Saturday to play some cards, he found bartenders dancing on countertops, dogs wearing sweaters and the last of the beer draining from the tap. It was the farewell party for Alarmist Brewing.

“This is my first time here, first and obviously last,” said Nix, 36, a high school teacher living in the Edgewater neighborhood, about the closure.

In Illinois and across the country, breweries have been struggling as consumers seek healthier drinking habits or have a wider range of options, such as THC-infused drinks, as business costs continue to rise. Many have closed their doors, while others have redefined its meaning as a social space that offers beverage variety and events.

In Chicago alone, a handful of breweries have closed or consolidated in recent years, including Metropolitan Brewing, Revolution Brewing Brewpub and Lo Rez Brewing and Taproom. 

The number of U.S breweries closing outpaced those that opened for the second year in a row in 2025 for a net loss of 179 last year, according to preliminary 2025 data from Brewers Association, a trade group for small American brewers.

It stands in stark contrast from a decade ago — a golden age — for craft brewers when the number of breweries opening was about 10 times higher than those closing, according to Matt Gacioch, staff economist at Brewers Association.

One industry challenge is that Americans are now drinking less. A 2025 Gallup poll showed that only 54% of U.S. adults said they consume alcohol — the lowest percentage in 90 years. 

Figures are even lower among young adults with only 50% reporting that they drink alcohol. These numbers fall in line with healthier drinking trends like “sober curious” and “Dry January,” which seek mindful and moderate drinking.

On top of drinking less, consumers are also seeking wider beverage options from nonalcoholic drinks to hard seltzers, which adds pressure for traditional craft breweries specializing in beer.

Sports and music arena United Center is expected to start selling THC-infused drinks Señorita and Rythm at its stands this month — apparently the largest U.S. arena to do so. 

“Bringing Señorita and Rythm to the United Center reflects a simple truth: Consumers want nonalcoholic options, and leading venues are responding,” Ben Kovler, Rythm, Inc. chairman and interim CEO, said in a statement last month.

Other music venues that sell cannabis-derived drinks are the Salt Shed, Riviera, Ramova Theatre and Thalia Hall, taking up coveted beverage shelf space.

“There’s just so much more competition in terms of consumer attention and physical retail space,” Gacioch said. “There’s this whole world of other options.” 

Rising business expenses and the cost of goods like aluminum have also contributed to the strain, particularly after the pandemic.

“You have the increased cost of just about everything,” said Andrew Heritage, chief economist at the Beer Institute, noting the increase in operating costs, rent and labor. 

Some Chicago breweries were unable to recover, with Lo Rez Brewing in the Pilsen neighborhood closing its doors in 2023 in what cofounder Dave Dahl called a “pandemic casualty.” Another staple in the craft industry, Metropolitan Brewing, one of Chicago’s oldest, closed in 2023 after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Most recently, award-winning Alarmist Brewing closed on Feb. 1 after years of struggling with falling business after the pandemic.

“The bottom line is we’re just not selling,” said Alarmist owner Gary Gulley. “It just never recovered since COVID.”

Illinois lost over 30 breweries in two years after 2020, falling to 218 total breweries, according to data from the Beer Institute. By 2024, the number of Illinois breweries rebounded to 251.

Some breweries have adapted to create third spaces, a place to mingle and play trivia with friends — and pups.

“I like a place where you can bring your dog, you can bring a book,” Nix said, likening these breweries to social spaces where you can play card games. 

One brewery that has been bolstering events and activities is Maplewood Brewery and Distillery in the Logan Square neighborhood. The decade-old brewery holds events like its upcoming Pulaski Day Party to celebrate its Pulaski pilsner, trivia nights and beer festivals to cultivate brand loyalty.

“We have our core brand that we make, but we’re always coming out with something new and fun … that’s helped us out,” said Paul Megalis, co-owner and CFO of Maplewood Brewery.

Their expansive beverage options include ready-to-drink rum punch cocktails, in-house coffee liqueurs for espresso martini lovers and seasonal beer concoctions. 

“We’ve essentially been a beverage company since Day 1, and so we’ve always had a diversified portfolio. I mean, we just hustle,” Megalis said.

They plan to open a second location in Glen Ellyn slated for this spring.

Despite the changing tides in the craft beer business, experts believe craft breweries are evolving not disappearing.

“Craft beer industry is nothing if not creative,” Gacioch said.

Surveillance footage captured a coyote following a 3-year-old boy toward his home in Pasadena earlier this week.

At around 1 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 23, on Tamarac Drive, 3-year-old Salvo Bessemer exited his gated courtyard and headed for the driveway, hoping to give his father, Leonard Bessemer, a hug goodbye before he left for work, his father said.

Salvo did not find his dad, who had left about five minutes earlier. Instead, he spotted a coyote in front of the house, Leonard Bessemer said. The boy then turned around and ran back toward the house, screaming for his mother.

Video footage shows Salvo reaching the door, with the coyote following behind him. Audio captured Salvo’s mother, Aida Svelto, screaming when she spotted the coyote near the entrance.

The coyote then turned around and trotted away. According to Bessemer, the animal did not immediately leave the area, but lingered nearby for a short time, watching the house through ivy on the property.

Coyotes are frequently spotted in the neighborhood, Bessemer said. He sees one at least once a week while on early-morning runs and typically makes noise to deter them, especially when accompanied by the family’s chihuahua, Sam.

Monday’s scare prompted Bessemer and his fiancée to take stricter precautions with both Sam and Salvo.

“We made a rule that he’s not to go to the gate without one of us,” Bessemer said. “It might have gone differently if Salvo had been by himself.”

Bessemer said he also plans to make sure Sam is always leashed when taken outside and that the front door remains closed as a precaution.

Kevin McManus of Pasadena Humane said that while the video may appear frightening, the coyote did not demonstrate signs of aggressive or hunting behavior based on the footage.

“The good news is everybody’s safe,” McManus said.

Bessemer said he has noticed more coyotes in the area recently, including during daytime hours. McManus said this is likely due to mating season, when coyotes are more active and more likely to be seen outside of dawn and dusk.

“People should make noise and try to make coyotes uncomfortable to scare them off,” McManus said. “Remember, we’re bigger than them.”

McManus also advised residents to be extra cautious with pets during this season and to avoid leaving food or unsecured trash around their homes.

Today is Saturday, Feb. 28, the 59th day of 2026. There are 306 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Feb. 28, 2013, Benedict XVI became the first pope in 600 years to resign, ending an eight-year pontificate. (Benedict was succeeded the following month by Pope Francis.)

Also on this date:

In 1844, a massive 12-inch gun aboard the USS Princeton exploded as the ship was sailing on the Potomac River, killing Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur, Navy Secretary Thomas W. Gilmer and several others; President John Tyler, who also was aboard the ship, was uninjured.

In 1953, Francis H.C. Crick announced that he and fellow scientist James D. Watson had discovered the double-helix structure of DNA.

In 1975, 43 people were killed in London’s Underground when a train failed to stop at Moorgate station, smashing into the end of a tunnel.

In 1983, the final episode of the television series “M*A*S*H” aired; nearly 106 million viewers saw the finale, which remains the most-watched episode of any U.S. television series to date.

In 1986, Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was assassinated while walking on a Stockholm street with his wife; his assailant was never captured and remains unidentified.

In 1993, a gun battle erupted at a religious compound near Waco, Texas, when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents tried to arrest Branch Davidian leader David Koresh for stockpiling illegal weapons; four agents and six Davidians were killed as a 51-day standoff began. (On April 19 of that year, FBI agents stormed the compound with tear gas and armored vehicles, with dozens dead before the standoff was over).

In 2014, President Barack Obama delivered a blunt warning to Moscow about reports of military activity inside Ukraine by Russia and said “there will be costs” for any intervention.

In 2023, a passenger train collided head-on with a freight train more than 200 miles north of Athens, Greece, killing 57 people in that country’s deadliest rail disaster.

In 2024, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the longest-serving U.S. Senate leader in history, announced he would step down from the leadership role the following November. (Twelve months later, the octogenarian senator said his term ending in January 2027 would be his last).

Today’s birthdays:

• Rock singer Sam the Sham (aka Domingo Samudio) is 89.
• Actor-director-choreographer Tommy Tune is 87.
• Hall of Fame auto racer Mario Andretti is 86.
• Actor Mercedes Ruehl is 79.
• Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman is 73.
• Basketball Hall of Famer Adrian Dantley is 71.
• Actor John Turturro is 69.
• Actor Robert Sean Leonard is 57.
• Musician Pat Monahan (Train) is 57.
• Actor Tasha Smith is 55.
• Hockey Hall of Famer Eric Lindros is 53.
• Actor Ali Larter is 50.
• Country musician Jason Aldean is 49.
• NBA guard Luka Dončić is 27.

Macomb Dakota did something that few wrestling teams have been able to do against Detroit Catholic Central this season. Build an early lead on the Shamrocks.

But in the end, four-time defending state champion Catholic Central had the last laugh, winning 11 of the 14 weight classes and advancing to the next round with a 61-15 victory over the Cougars in the Division 1 state quarterfinals Friday at Kalamazoo Wings Events Center.

Top-seeded Catholic Central (18-5) advanced to the state semifinals Saturday morning at 9:30 a.m. and will face fifth-seeded Rockford, 48-18 winners over fourth-seeded Temperance Bedford, in Kalamazoo.

Dakota, making its 12th trip to the state quarterfinals in 14 seasons, bows out of the team tournament with a 23-5 record.

Dakota, the eighth seed, won two of the first three matches against CC and took an 11-5 edge over the Shamrocks. Lucas Harper (144) recorded a technical fall victory over CC’s Xavier Wey and Maverick Hendricks (157) pinned Cole Schwegler in 3:50.

CC saw Grayson Fuchs (150) gain a 17-2 tech fall win over Blake De Stefano, as the Shamrocks trailed by six early.

Catholic Central picked up a couple of pins in the next two weight classes for an 17-11 lead, as Jack Moore (165) pinned Jaad Lorth to the mat in 3:44 and Braxten Roche stuck Dakota’s Tyson Dutt in 1:41.

Dakota picked up a major decision win from Benjamin Crowley (190) to trim the deficit down to two points at 17-15. That was the final points the Cougars could muster against the CC machine.

The top-ranked Shamrocks won the final eight weight divisions, including five via pin and two by technical falls, to pull away.  Caden Krueger (215), Gabriel Ryzyi (113), Brent Coak (120), Jamison Gregory (126) and Ryan Totten (132) all recorded pins for the Shamrocks, while Gavin Boller (106) and Wyatt Lees (138) recorded technical fall victories and Paxton Heitsch (285) won by major decision for Catholic Central.

DETROIT CATHOLIC CENTRAL 61, MACOMB DAKOTA 15

(Division 1 state semifinals at Kalamazoo Wings Event Center)

144: Lucas Harper (MD tech. fall Xavier Wey 17-2; 150: Grayson Fuchs (DCC) tech. fall Blake De Stefano 17-2; 157: Maverick Hendricks (MD) p. Cole Schwegler 3:50; 165: Jack Moore (DCC) p. Jaad Lorth 3:44; 175: Braxten Roche (DCC) p. Tyson Dutt 1:41; 190: Benjamin Crowley (MD) maj. dec. Owen Jurkiewicz 12-4; 215: Caden Krueger (DCC) p. Noah Raxter 2:30; 285: Paxton Heitsch (DCC) maj. dec. Jackson Hundrieser 10-1; 106: Gavin Boller (DCC) tech. fall Kevin Shamblin 19-4; 113: Gabriel Ryzyi (DCC) p. Kayson Spens 3:05; 120: Brent Coak (DCC) p. Lucca Guerrero 0:46; 126: Jamison Gregory (DCC) p. Bryce Mahar 0:38; 132: Ryan Totten (DCC) p. Leonardo Deacon 2:18; 138: Wyatt Lees (DCC) tech. fall Carl Nihranz 17-1

A Pontiac teen accused of shooting to death a Warren teen in January is scheduled for a preliminary exam in late March where evidence will be presented for a judge to determine if there’s probable cause to advance the case to Oakland County Circuit Court for possible trial.

Kqualin Isaac Douglas, 19, is charged with second-degree homicide for the death of Cornelius Traves Murphy Jr., 19, whose body was discovered on Jan. 8 near a home in the 100 block of North Jessie Street in Pontiac. A caller had reported seeing a man lying in a field and not breathing, the sheriff’s office said.

The man — subsequently identified as Murphy — had been shot in the chest, the sheriff’s office said.

Investigators said the shooting happened Jan. 7. Douglas turned himself in to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office a few weeks later.

The preliminary exam is scheduled for March 30 before 50th District Judge Ronda Fowlkes Gross.

Along with second-degree homicide, Douglas is charged with tampering with evidence, possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and using a firearm in the commission of a felony. He’s held in the Oakland County Jail with bond set at $300,000.

As stated in his obituary, Murphy was the son of Cornelius T. Murphy, Sr. and Chantell Hunter. He’s also survived by eight siblings, and several other relatives and friends.

Case advances against Royal Oak man accused of ramming car with infant passengers

Days before trial was to start, psych exam ordered for woman accused of abandoning kids in squalor; seen as possible ‘delay tactic’ by defense