The Toledo Blade will print its final edition at the end of the year, unless a buyer steps in before then, according to an email sent by the nearly 200-year-old paper’s current owners to its staff on Tuesday.

Block Communications, which has held The Blade since 1925, reached the “extremely difficult decision” due to financial considerations, president and chief operating officer Jodi Miehls informed staff, as reported by the paper.

“The Block Family’s continued investment to keep the Blade open is no longer an option,” Miehls wrote. “The financial losses the Blade has endured for years are simply not sustainable.”

Miehls’ notice came after negotiations over a contract late last month.

The NewsGuild, which represents Blade’s staff, said that its Toledo chapter voted down a proposed contract in a 46-25 vote.

“The Company’s proposal would have axed seniority, halved severance for its most experienced employees, and allowed the outsourcing of all Guild work,” said Lillian King, Blade features writer and Toledo NewsGuild bargaining chair. “All content at The Blade could be created or edited with Al, with no protections for journalists or requirements to disclose Al usage to its readers.”

Instead of returning to the bargaining table last week, the NewsGuild said that the Block Communications board decided to sell or shutter the paper.

Block Communications similarly cited financial losses when it announced in January that it would cease publishing another newspaper, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. But about two weeks before it was to shut down in May, Block announced that the nonprofit Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism would buy the newspaper and keep it open.

A team of reporters from The Blade won the Pulitzer Prize in investigative reporting in 2004 for articles about an elite Army platoon accused of killing unarmed Vietnamese civilians in 1967. Reporters at the newspaper also were finalists for the prestigious journalism award in 2000, again for investigative reporting, and in 2006 in the public service category.

Among the newspaper’s alums was Mildred Wirt Benson, better known to legions of Nancy Drew fans as Carolyn Keene, the original author of the mystery books featuring the plucky amateur detective.

The Blade was founded in 1835 — two years before Toledo was officially incorporated as a city — and says it is the city’s oldest continually operating business. Paul Block Sr., a newspaper mogul, took over the paper in August 1926.

An advertisement printed the day after Block was introduced to the newspaper staff said the date “will long be remembered by us as the beginning of a new era of good will in our association with the Toledo Blade,” along with a list of all of the newspaper’s employees, according to the paper.

“Block Communications Board of Directors and the Block Family are truly disappointed to have reached this point,” Miehls said in Tuesday’s email, just over a hundred years later. “Unfortunately, the realities facing local journalism have left us in this situation.”

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (AP) — After review, the Mid-American Conference wants Western Michigan recognized as having defeated Michigan after all.

The MAC cited what it believes to be an “extraordinary” circumstance in appealing the outcome of the Michigan-Western Michigan game and asked NCAA and College Football Playoff administrators on Tuesday to recognize the Broncos as the winner instead of the Wolverines. The CFP's bracket selection choices in December carry significant financial benefits to teams that make the playoff.

The NCAA said the result will stand, noting its playing rules do not have a protocol for overturning the outcome of a game and the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision Oversight Committee does not have the authority to do so. According to the NCAA Football Rules Book, the team with the most points at the end of the game is the winner and the score is final when the referee declares the game has ended.

“No rule decision may be changed after the ball is next legally snapped, legally free-kicked or the second or fourth periods have ended,” the rule book says.

Michigan won 13-12 on a Hail Mary pass Saturday night after the replay official had put one second back on the clock when Bryce Underwood’s first try was incomplete.

An NBC replay showed a clock expiring before the ball hit the ground or any player, and Terry McCaulay — the rules analyst on the broadcast — said that was a synced version of the stadium clock.

The Big Ten said later that the call was correct and published a recording of the replay as it was reviewed by officials. The conference said it too used a shot of the game clock in the stadium, which showed 1 second remaining when the ball was touched by WMU’s Micah Davis. Since Davis had just been out of bounds, the clock would stop on such contact.

The Big Ten on Tuesday stood by its postgame statement and declined further comment. Michigan spokesman David Ablauf had no comment on the appeal other than, “The Big Ten handles all replay reviews and discussion. We don’t have any involvement in replay as an institution.”

The CFP did not respond to a request seeking comment.

The controversy was the talk of college football on the long holiday weekend with many questions surrounding how the officiating crew decided to put the second back on the clock and give Michigan one more try at the win. The MAC initially accepted the Big Ten explanation, but that had changed by Tuesday.

In a letter to the FBS Oversight Committee, MAC Commissioner Jon Steinbrecher said “established protocol” in this situation is that the television truck is contacted with a request to insert the in-stadium game clock onto “the program feed” — and that is supposed be the sole source of the replay decision.

“Had the prescribed protocol been followed and the program-feed clock been used, no additional time would have been restored, no additional play would have been awarded and Western Michigan would have won the game 12–7,” Steinbrecher wrote.

Game results are rarely, if ever, changed after the fact unless the NCAA throws out or vacates results because of rules infractions, though there are countless examples of decisions by officiating crews affecting the outcome (Colorado beating Missouri on a fifth down in 1990 is familiar to many).

Western Michigan was voted the preseason favorite in the MAC, and that would suggest that the possibility certainly exists for it to factor into the CFP rankings. The highest-ranked team from the Group of Six leagues gets an automatic bid to the playoff. Michigan was ranked No. 16 in the preseason AP Top 25 poll but dropped out of the rankings Tuesday.

“I recognize that the oversight committee does not ordinarily alter results recorded on the field,” Steinbrecher said. "Nevertheless, the circumstances of this game are extraordinary. ... Western Michigan should not be disadvantaged because the prescribed replay protocol was not followed and an unsynchronized clock was used to award a play that, under the applicable procedure, should not have occurred.”

Longtime coach Kyle Whittingham was unaware the stadium clock he watched Saturday night at Michigan might not reflect the official game time. Purdue coach Barry Odom also was caught off guard as he watched on television more than 250 miles away.

The two Big Ten coaches acknowledged Monday they did not know there could be a discrepancy between what everyone was seeing on television and inside the stadium and the conference's tracking system.

But that's how conference officials explained the dramatic finish in Whittingham's debut for No. 16 Michigan. After time appeared to expire with Western Michigan leading 12-7, the refs added 1 more second and the Wolverines capitalized on their second chance with J.J. Buchanan hauling in Bryce Underwood's desperation heave for a 47-yard touchdown and a stunning 13-12 victory.

"Well, I guess they have this Hawkeye system? I was unaware of that,” Whittingham said Monday. “But as I looked, I knew it was close. When the ball sailed back to the end zone, I glanced up at the clock, and it was just ticking to zero, and somebody touched it. I didn’t know who had touched it, but apparently, it was a defender that had already established an out-of-bounds position. I’m assuming they got it right. They looked at it, and the technology they have is very advanced, I guess.”

It was a learning experience for both longtime coaches, who are relatively new to the Big Ten.

The 66-year-old Whittingham joined Utah's staff in 1994 and stayed through last season, coming out of a brief retirement to take the Michigan job. He won a school record 177 games including 11 bowl games as the Utes head coach from 2005-25.

The 49-year-old Odom returned to his alma mater, Missouri, as an assistant coach in 2003 and spent a total of 14 seasons on the Tigers staff, the last four as their head coach. His tenure at Missouri was split by a short stint at Memphis, from 2012-14, and following his firing as the Tigers head coach in 2019, he went to Arkansas for three seasons before returning to the head coaching ranks at UNLV in 2023 and moving to Purdue in 2025.

The Boilermakers (1-0) beat Indiana State 44-19 on Friday night to snap a 10-game losing streak.

“I didn’t until Saturday night,” Odom said at his weekly news conference when asked if he was aware a second clock, not visible inside the stadium, kept the official game time.

The Big Ten issued a statement two hours after the game, clarifying the process that was used and citing the rule that was enforced about when the clock stops if a player touches the ball out of bounds.

“It was determined (Western Michigan safety Micah Davis) started his jump from an established out-of-bounds position (left foot) and made contact with the ball with 1 second remaining on the clock,” the conference said. “A side-by-side view of the play and the game clock, using a direct shot of the game clock in the stadium, was used to determine the final ruling.”

Based on that explanation, Whittingham and Odom believe the refs got it right.

Mid-American Conference Commissioner Jon Steinbrecher and Western Michigan President Russ Kavalhuna also told ESPN on Sunday night they accepted the explanation though Kavalhuna believes more transparency is needed. The Broncos (0-1) play in the MAC.

“If you look at what they saw, then you reach the conclusion they reached,” Kavalhuna said. “However, if you look at what the broadcasters broadcast, you reach a different conclusion. I think it would be good to ask ourselves, can we sync those up so that the viewers could see what the officials would be looking at?”

The ACC even allows television viewers to hear the discussion between the game officials and the replay center before reaching a conclusion.

But it wasn't just fans who were confused.

“I believe those charged with orchestrating, administering and officiating the game, they have to make decisions based on all the information they get, and then it’s their job to communicate that to us. I would assume that’s what happened in Ann Arbor," Odom said. “Like the other night, we were exiting the field for halftime and the official stopped me and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got to make sure that that last play there...' They wanted to make sure everything lined up the way it did. So it’s never over till it’s over. Until they blow the whistle or whatever that indicator is.”

Whittingham now believes the matter is closed as he moves on from the season-opening win and focuses on hosting No. 10 Oklahoma in one of this week's featured games.

“I think everyone’s fairly satisfied with the explanation. I am, and I think Western Michigan came out with a statement that, ‘Hey, we’re not going to question this anymore,’” he said. "They gave us a fairly transparent answer, and we’ll move forward.”

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AP Sports Writer Larry Lage contributed to this report.

Candidates on the ballot in November’s general election marched with union members at Detroit’s Labor Day parade on Monday. 

A day before, the an armed man charged toward the Democratic candidate for Ohio governor at a campaign event at a local fair.   

The Ohio State Highway Patrol says an armed assailant charged toward the Democratic candidate for Ohio governor, Amy Acton, during a campaign stop at the Canfield Fair, injuring several people before he was stopped by troopers.

The highway patrol said in a statement that a man it identified as Patrick Havas forced his way through a crowd, knocking over multiple members of the audience as he moved toward Acton, the state’s former public health director.

The Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office said two handguns and a set of brass knuckles were recovered after his arrest, and “no weapons were ever brandished or even removed from their holsters.”

Havas was taken to the county jail and booked on charges of disorderly conduct and two counts of assault, the highway patrol statement said.

Acton is facing Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, who called Sunday's incident unacceptable.

“Candidates should be able to meet with voters without having to worry about threats or violence. What happened today is completely unacceptable and has no place in politics,” Ramaswamy’s communications director, Connie Luck, said in a statement.

Jocelyn Benson is the Democrat running for Michigan governor. Benson is running against Republican John James in the November election to replace outgoing Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

Benson spent part of Monday at the annual Labor Day parade in Detroit, surrounded by thousands of union members.

Benson expressed concern about how political rhetoric may be fueling political violence.

“It is a sobering reminder the consequence of the hateful rhetoric that often times even the President himself spews,” said Benson. “In this moment we all have to recognize the importance of seeing each other as humans and civility, keeping people safe.”

Abdul El-Sayed also spent part of Monday shaking hands and taking pictures with supporters along the parade route. The Democratic Party’s U.S. Senate nominee is facing Republican Mike Rogers in the November general election to fill Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat.

El-Sayed calls this a “dangerous moment.”

“Everyone has the collective responsibility to bring some of that temperature down,” said El-Sayed. “Politics and democracy are supposed to be the way by which we resolve our differences peaceably.”

Democratic U.S. Representative Debbie Dingell is a veteran of many political campaigns.

She said this weekend’s violence in Ohio will not deter her from meeting with voters. 

“I’m out so people know they can come and talk to me,” Dingell said, amid a throng of union members.

Dingell pointed out President Trump personally attacked her in a Truth Social post over the weekend, in which he referred to her as “Debbie Dingbat.”

“She says nothing but bad about your favorite President, ME! Every time I see that Third Rate Loser ripping me, I’m amazed, because I’m a loyal person, I don’t do things like that but, that’s OK — It’s Politics. However, it shouldn’t be that way! President DONALD J. TRUMP,” read the Truth Social post.

The country has seen a rise in political violence over the past decade.

Federal political committees spent more than $40 million on expenses labeled as security during the 2023-24 campaign cycle, the most recent one for which data are publicly available, according to a report released in April from the Public Service Alliance, a nonpartisan group that focuses on security for public officials.

Statewide mail voting for this year’s midterm elections kicked off Friday amid a churning legal battle over President Donald Trump’s attempts to limit the practice and mounting concern over Postal Service changes that some state officials blame for a rise in rejected ballots.

The developments have created a sense of uncertainty about a popular voting method used by one-third of the nation’s voters.

North Carolina on Friday became the first state to widely distribute mail ballots for this year’s elections, which will determine the balance of power in Congress for the remainder of Trump’s term.

Election officials said that while they are closely monitoring the litigation, ballots will be mailed out as expected and the state is prepared to administer a secure election even if the new limits go forward.

“We believe that we are well positioned,” Sam Hayes, executive director of the State Board of Elections, told reporters during a news conference in Raleigh on Thursday.

Trump frequently castigates mail voting and has falsely blamed it for his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden, which he sought to overturn. Though he has repeatedly voted by mail himself, the president is pushing to curtail access for others.

In March, Trump signed an executive order seeking to limit mail balloting. States would have to submit lists of eligible voters to the Postal Service through an online portal that apparently is still inactive. Ballot envelopes also would have to comply with new Postal Service rules and include barcodes.

Trump's directive has been held up by multiple lawsuits. One in which Michigan is a plaintiff led to a preliminary injunction Friday against its implementation — a decision the administration quickly appealed.

Election offices move forward, try to combat voter confusion

Election officials warn that headlines about the executive order and court fights have already confused some voters.

“The biggest part of this is that it has sparked questions about what it is. ‘What does this mean? What are you guys doing? Can I not vote by mail anymore?’” said Michael Dickerson, director of the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections.

“I just want people to be assured that, yes, you can still vote by mail,” he said, adding “it’s a safe and secure process.”

While the issue has ping-ponged around the courts, election workers in North Carolina had been working hard to get ready for the Friday deadline, officials there said in interviews.

Wake County elections employees have been processing absentee request forms, which come in daily online and in paper form, said Olivia McCall, the county's director of elections. They've also been coding ballots, running pre-election accuracy testing and packaging absentee packets that include a ballot, instructions and photo ID fliers, she said.

About 5,000 ballots will go out during Wake County's first wave, she said.

The turnaround time for ballots being returned could be quick, too, noted Dickerson, especially for military and overseas voters who can vote through an online portal.

“I guarantee you” votes will begin rolling in that way by Saturday, he said.

‘Business as usual,' North Carolina election official says

North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson is among Democratic state officials who have aligned in one of the lawsuits challenging Trump's executive order and the changes proposed by the Postal Service.

In a recent court filing, a representative of the office argued it was “far too late in the election cycle to introduce such dramatic changes” and warned that implementing them would “imminently cause significant harm, confusion and disruption in North Carolina election administration.”

The League of Women Voters of North Carolina is issuing its standard advice to voters, while urging them not to wait until the last minute to return their mail ballot.

Officials with the State Board of Elections, which is led by a Republican majority, have projected confidence for a midterm cycle that is expected to see robust turnout, especially with a competitive U.S. Senate race on the ballot.

“It is business as usual, as far as I'm concerned,” Hayes, the board's executive director, said during the news conference.

The board has confirmed it has taken some initial steps to comply with the executive order, including submitting its envelopes to USPS for review. Hayes said they were approved. The state opted against submitting its voter information while the legal proceedings are pending.

A whistleblower told Congress this week that with the voter portal, the Postal Service is rushing an untested product that is likely to be riddled with errors that could lead to millions of mail ballots being rejected. On Friday, Postmaster General David Steiner issued a statement saying the agency's standards are not being compromised and he stands behind “the rigor of our process.”

He also sought to address the growing concerns about the agency's ability to deliver ballots and return them on time.

“Regardless of political party or perspective, we share a common goal: ensuring that Americans can have confidence that their election mail will be handled securely and delivered reliably should their election officials choose to use the mail for ballot delivery,” he said.

USPS operational changes blamed for spike in rejected mail ballots

Election officials elsewhere are warning voters to avoid delays in returning mail ballots, but not for reasons related to Trump's attempts to alter the rules.

They are pointing to a change in how the Postal Service processes mail —- with postmarks stamped at distant processing centers rather than local post offices — as a reason for what they say has been a spike in mail ballot rejections. In many states, mail ballots arriving several days after an election can still be counted as long as they are postmarked by the final day of voting.

In California, nearly 150,000 voters had their mail-in ballots rejected in the state's June primary, mostly because they were postmarked too late. Wisconsin officials wrote to the Postal Service after hundreds of ballots arrived too late to be counted during elections in April, which has prompted at least some of the state's 1,850 municipal clerks to start sending mail ballots to voters earlier than usual.

In Washington, where voting is done almost entirely by mail, state officials issued a report this week saying the number of mail ballots rejected in the August primary because of a late postmark was 32% higher than the primary two years earlier.

“Why are we disenfranchising Americans when we've had one of the best systems in the United States?” Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell said during a news conference in her home state to promote the report.

The Postal Service has addressed the issue on its website, saying it is not changing its postmarking practices but acknowledging that “adjustments to our transportation operations” mean that postmark dates might not match the day mail was picked up by a letter carrier or dropped off at a post office. The agency said voters can request a manual postmark at a local post office.

More states are preparing to deliver mail ballots to their voters

Other states will soon follow North Carolina in kicking off their mail ballot process throughout September, including Alabama on September 9 and Michigan on September 19. By the middle of the month, all states are required to send ballots to military and overseas voters.

David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research and a former Department of Justice lawyer, said the time to implement any major election changes for this year's midterms “has long since passed.”

The group has filed legal papers supporting states in the fight against the new postal rules.

“That’s true even if they were good changes, which the mail EO definitely is not," Becker said. “The first ballots being mailed only confirms this fact.”

Don Millis, a Republican who also chairs the Wisconsin Election Commission, said it was not surprising that some local clerks had already started sending out mail ballots earlier than they normally would. The fear is that if the Supreme Court gives a green light to Trump's executive order, it would tilt the election into chaos.

“There’s a fundamental concern this thing is not going to work,” he said.

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Associated Press writers Nicholas Riccardi in Denver and Tom Verdin in Sacramento, California, and video journalist Allen Breed in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — An unexplained Trump administration hold on construction of a state-federal project aimed at preventing invasive carp from reaching the Great Lakes was abruptly lifted this week, hours after a call to President Donald Trump by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

The Army Corps had halted work without explanation on the Brandon Road Interbasin Project near Joliet, Illinois, in July, leaving officials in Illinois and Michigan struggling for answers about the pause even as environmental officials warned that invasive carp were being found alarmingly close to Lake Michigan.

Then Whitmer, a Democrat, called Trump.

The Wednesday phone call was a surprising intervention by the Democratic governor, who has developed an unusual relationship with a president who was once one of her fiercest political foes. Hours after the call, the stop-work order was lifted.

The episode underscores not only the unusual cross-party relationship Whitmer has cultivated with Trump, but also the top-down and relationship-driven nature of his administration — where direct phone calls and displays of deference to the president remain the best way to get things done.

“Governor Whitmer spoke with President Trump today to ask him to direct the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to lift the stop-work order,” Bobby Leddy, a spokesperson for Whitmer, said in a statement. “The governor underscored the urgency of the moment, noting that invasive carp were recently found just 80 miles from Lake Michigan — farther up the Illinois River than ever recorded.”

Whitmer's office said that Wednesday they had been notified that work on the project could resume. The White House referred questions to the Army Corps of Engineers, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A pivotal project in flux under Trump

Illinois, Michigan and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have spent years planning a gantlet of technologies in the Des Plaines River near Joliet to keep invasive carp from reaching Lake Michigan. The project has repeatedly faced uncertainty under Trump, despite his public support for it and hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding approved under President Joe Biden.

In March, Whitmer pressed Trump to release federal funding for Brandon Road. Trump soon posted on Truth Social that he was “working with Governor Gretchen Whitmer” to protect the Great Lakes from invasive carp, and the Army Corps released funding for the project’s next phase the following month. The administration then issued another stop-work order in July, saying the project was undergoing an administrative review but offering little explanation.

“It’s time for the Trump Administration to uphold the federal government’s obligations, stop playing political games, and move this project forward,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said in a July 30 statement.

The urgency increased in August, when the Illinois Department of Natural Resources detected hundreds of juvenile invasive carp about 80 miles from Lake Michigan, the first time carp of that size had been found that far upstream since monitoring began in 2010.

Whitmer's unique relationship with Trump

Whitmer, who is term-limited and set to leave office in January, has operated more freely with Trump during his second term after the two sparred repeatedly during his first. She has traveled to the White House to meet with him and welcomed him to Michigan, drawing criticism at times from fellow Democrats for her willingness to work with the Republican president.

Yet even after Michigan officials received word that the stop-work order had been lifted, officials in Illinois — where the project is located — had not been notified of the decision, raising questions about whether the project could remain in flux.

In stark contrast to Whitmer, Pritzker has emerged as one of Trump's most outspoken critics among the nation's governors as he considers mounting a bid for the 2028 Democratic nomination to replace him.

“Despite the Brandon Road Interbasin Project being in Illinois, the state has received no new communication from the Trump administration,” Matt Hill, spokesperson for Pritzker, wrote in a statement. “You would expect if the administration really cared about protecting the Great Lakes they would notify Illinois.”

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Associated Press reporter Will Weissert contributed to this report.

Three Michigan school districts are betting that a specialized clinic may be the antidote to surging health care costs.

The medical care here at the Corunna Plum Health clinic — inside a collection of converted high school classrooms on the district’s main campus — is free.

The 13 patients scheduled on a recent day handed over no copays and no deductibles for physician assistant Shelley Littleton to tend to a range of maladies — from poison ivy to pink eye and from high blood pressure and high anxiety.

They also left with nearly $550 worth of medications — also free.

What’s more, each had a visit scheduled for at least a half-hour long.

“What I love about it more than anything else is the ability to be seen and have a lengthy conversation,” said John Fattal, superintendent of Corunna Public Schools, northeast of Lansing.

“This is health care the way it’s supposed to be,” he said.

Corunna and two neighboring school districts — Lansing and Van Buren, are part of a consortium that offers health care through Plum Health, a Detroit-based provider of “direct primary care.”

It’s a growing category of health services that bypass traditional insurance in favor of a direct financial transaction between the patient — or in this case the patient’s employer — and the health provider.

Just more than two years ago, Corunna began paying $90 each month for each of its 255 employees to use a two-day-a-week primary care clinic, established to serve its employees and their families.

The districts are charged for deeply discounted medications provided by the clinic — meaning patients have no out-of-pocket prescription drug costs.

It’s a gamble.

The districts expect this type of easy-access, free primary care will help employees and their families reduce trips to the emergency rooms, where costs can easily top $1,000, or urgent care visits that cost hundreds of dollars.

About 110 of the district’s staff carry insurance through the Michigan Education Special Services Association. Like most conventional benefit packages, it covers emergency and urgent care and hospitalization.

But how many ER visits could be avoided, Fattal reasons, if parents knew they could see their doctor first thing in the morning?

One family with strep throat running through it makes a middle-of-the-night ER run, costing the districts’ insurance pool hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars, That cost of that single virus — the ER care, the lab draws and the medications — can trounce more in a single night than a year’s worth of direct primary care fees.

Those crises, repeated throughout the year among hundreds of employees and their families, in turn, drive up the school’s overall health care expenses year after year.

District employees who don’t have that insurance, such as part-time food service workers or paraprofessionals, may have insurance through spouses, from the individual market, or none at all, Fattal said.

But the cost to see Littleton is the same, no matter their insurance status.

No insurance? No problem.

In its most basic form, direct primary care works outside of insurance.

It’s an alluring possibility as insurance grows increasingly out of reach. Nearly 131,000 Michiganders dropped insurance on the federal marketplace this year, and more than 80,000 beneficiaries have disappeared from the state’s safety net since January as Medicaid continues to shrink, according to the latest state data.

The pressure is on, too, for Michigan business and for workers with job-related health coverage.

Health care costs for the nation’s employers are expected to approach double-digit increases next year, according to projections this month by Chicago-based insurance broker Aon. On average, employer costs will rise 9.5% — to more than $19,000 per employee, next year — driven in large part by high-priced drugs and increased use of the medical system, Aon estimates.

On average, workers’ health care costs will jump nearly 8% on average, to $5,297, the broker projected.

Direct primary care doctors say they sidestep those budget-bulging surges, as well as the paperwork complications associated with insurance.

In doing so, they can deliver more personal, more complete care, said Dr. Philip Eskew, a direct primary care physician based in South Carolina.

“You get to spend time with the patient rather than screaming into your medical record to make it happy so that you can bill whatever code you need to bill,” he said.

Eskew’s website, dpcfrontier.com, maps direct primary care providers.

There’s no way to know precisely how many direct primary care doctors there are, since most of them work outside of insurance — a metric for much of the nation’s health care research.

But the numbers are certainly increasing, Eskew said.

Without extra administrative personnel to handle insurance billing, clinics can keep their costs down, too, said Eskew.

At the Detroit and Royal Oak Plum Health sites, patients pay $95 a month to have round-the-clock access to family medicine care.

The monthly fee gives patients access to the clinics — often the same day they call. In contrast, doctors in their insurer’s network might not have an appointment opening for more than a week, said Dr. Paul Thomas, founder of Plum Health.

That’s because the nation’s primary care doctors often are said to have about 2,500 patients on average — a number that some have argued is unrealistically high. In comparison, direct primary care doctors serve just more than 400 patients, according to a 2024 survey of direct primary care doctors by the American Academy of Family Physicians.

At Corunna recently, each of the day’s appointments was scheduled for at least a half hour. Two new patients were scheduled for 60 minutes.

One patient had called at 8 a.m. that day, scheduled the appointment for an hour later. By 9:27, he was on his way out of the clinic and onto work, medication in hand.

In a state short of educators, the districts now can offer easier-access, no-cost medical care to their employees. In the case of Corunna, the clinic is located on the school district’s main campus.

“We see this as a recruitment and retention tool,” Fattal said. Erika Eiseler had stopped by with her daughter, Leigha, 8, for a school physical. The office manager at Corunna’s Elsa Meyer Elementary School and her family are insured by Eiseler’s husband, a manager of an HVAC company.

Here, their access is convenient, not rushed, and free from the $40 copay for a doctor’s visit through the family’s insurance policy, Eiseler said, as Leigha read the letters from an eye chart on the wall.

Eiseler figures the family had at least eight doctors’ appointments last year for the normal seasonal illness that so many families face. “And then there were medications about half the time, so … what? Eight times last year? So you have eight times $40, plus the medicine?” Eiseler said.

Plum buys medications in bulk, charging the schools a 15% markup that’s charged to the school, Thomas said.

Even then, “we’re talking pennies a pill,” Thomas said, from his Detroit office.

The care in these cement block rooms, where a decades-old classroom pencil sharpener still hangs on the walk, costs the family nothing, Eisler said.

“We’re literally putting money back into their pockets,” Fattal said of the district’s employees.

The math doesn’t work

Littleton, the physician assistant who sees patients at the Corunna clinic, doesn’t have regular health coverage herself, although she carries a rider policy to cover “catastrophic” health care costs if necessary.

She did the math, she said. It didn’t add up.

A mammogram each year? Free at certain clinics.

Her OB-GYN appointment each year? $300.

Colonoscopy every third year? $2,000 or so.

At 56 years old, she’d pay $650 a month for insurance, she said. Worse, the $10,000 out-of-pocket max meant she’d probably never see any real benefit from it.

Littleton says she represents “middle-of-the-road” Michiganders — not poor enough to qualify for free health care, but also not wealthy enough to afford it.

“I really understand the insurance runaround because I am the poster child,” she said.

Helping or hurting the larger picture?

The American Academy of Family Physicians and American Medical Association and other medical groups support the ability of physicians to work in direct primary care. Some have argued that expanding direct primary care could expand access in underserved areas.

Earlier this year, the Michigan State Medical Society, which represents doctors of a range of medical specialties, called on the state to build up its primary care network — a “cornerstone” of the larger health care delivery system, it said.

Nearly 1 in 3 Michigan residents lack primary care access, while the state directs about 5% of total health care dollars to primary care, even though experts say 12–15% is necessary for a robust primary care system, according to the report.

Still, there are arguably downsides to increased use of direct primary care: Those physicians take on much smaller patient loads, arguably stretching the number of primary care providers in the state even thinner. In other words, with each doctor that moves to direct primary care, he or she sheds hundreds of patients who then are left to find another doctor.

Plum Health founder Thomas — whose time offering street medicine grounded his belief in more affordable health care — looks at it this way: With few patients and a better work-life balance, today’s primary care doctors won’t burn out early and tomorrow’s doctors will choose primary care as their specialty.

It’s a shift that would take years, but also would transform medicine in a way that saves both costs and lives, Thomas said.

And more immediately? “It’s working out for insured people because they don’t get dinged with (cost-sharing for) those ER and the urgent care visits,” Thomas said.

And for the uninsured, he said, “they have something where they had nothing before.”

This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday he is renaming Lake Ontario to be known as “Lake America” in the United States as he exacerbates his trade war with Canada.

The Republican president signed an executive order directing the Interior Department to update the lake's name in the U.S. geographic naming service. Trump cannot force Canada to follow his preferred naming convention, however.

Trump has been floating the idea of the name change in recent days as the U.S. announced it was imposing 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods over the weekend after talks between the countries broke down. Trump has been needling America’s northern neighbor since he returned to the White House last year, suggesting the ally with whom the U.S. once had warm relations should instead be absorbed as the 51st state.

Canada responded to Trump’s import taxes this week by imposing retaliatory tariffs on $20 billion worth of American goods, including steel, dairy products, appliances and farm equipment.

Trump, who signed the order as he was sitting at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, had a large sign behind him propped on a stand with a map of the Great Lakes. Over Lake Ontario, in big red letters, the map read “Lake America.”

On the other wide of the president was another map with the words, “MAKING THE GREAT LAKES EVEN GREATER.”

The lake is one of multiple Great Lakes that the U.S. and Canada share borders along.

The office of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

There is no single international body that determines names of international bodies of water and Trump has wide latitude over how the U.S. government recognizes geographic places and landmarks.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has traded insults with Trump, this week brushed aside the prospect of Trump changing the lake's name as “a lot of rhetoric."

The name Lake Ontario comes from the Huron Indigenous people’s word “oniatarí:io,” that means “lake of shining waters.” The province of Ontario, founded in 1867, took its name from the lake.

Trump said that while his action was not meant to send any particular geopolitical message, “Canada’s been ripping us off for a long time” on trade and military issues.

“They wanted to be treated like a state and they’re not a state,” the president said. “We just can’t do that anymore.”

“We love the people of Canada,” Trump added. “I don’t think their representatives do, an appropriate job. Maybe they’ll change. I really don’t know. It doesn’t make much difference.”

The move is reminiscent of his move last year to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America."

Trump scribbled his name with a Sharpie pen on the executive order then held it up for the cameras, offering, “And we filed all the necessary papers, documents, everything else.”

“We’ve notified all of the various people that we have to notify. So, we’ve done everything that you have to do,” he said. “And this is official, effective immediately.”

He also suggested his push to rename bodies of water may not be finished.

“So, if you think about it, we have a gulf and we have a lake. Now, all we need is an ocean,” Trump said. “So maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and or the Pacific. Maybe we’ll change them.”

___

Associated Press writer Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.

State taxpayers will spend up to $50 million on the polarizing Copperwood copper mine in the far western Upper Peninsula following a vote Tuesday by the Michigan Strategic Fund.

Toronto-based Highland Copper Inc. pitched the project in 2023 as a $425 million mine that will create 380 jobs during its 11-year lifecycle — and one that needed state dollars to be viable.

After several attempts to obtain a state subsidy, the company succeeded on Tuesday when the Strategic Fund awarded the company $45 million toward an estimated $129 million in site readiness costs. It awarded another $5 million to the Gogebic County Road Commission to make road updates in Wakefield Township.

The funding comes from the controversial — and now-defunded — SOAR (Strategic Operating and Attraction Reserve) Fund. The money had been allocated to the Strategic Fund board in October 2022 and ended up unused. As a result, lawmakers will not have to approve Tuesday’s grant.

The mine project — which would be the first in the Upper Peninsula since 1955 — has been pushed by lawmakers and economic developers, who said recent polling showed that 70% of state residents supported it.

The mine is “the most important economic opportunity” for the entire Upper Peninsula, said Marty Fittante, CEO of InvestUP, an economic development group.

“This grant delivers infrastructure the Western UP desperately needs but cannot afford: infrastructure to attract good-paying jobs like those that Copperwood brings.”

The state’s grant will cover nearly 10% of the $425 million project cost estimate as originally proposed in 2023.

However, Highland Copper said it will be revising project costs by March — along with considering a smaller facility that would use less power and supplies. Unclear is whether hiring will remain at 380 expected new jobs.

Public opposition

During at least two hours of public comments before the vote, many people raised questions about whether the economic value of the mine offset the costs to the region’s ecology and to taxpayers.

Most of the speakers opposed the project, warning of risks to nearby Lake Superior and the Porcupine Mountains from mining and its byproducts.

“We must protect Lake Superior at all costs from this mine,” Brian Mitchell, a Novi-based nature photographer, said. “If we do not protect our fresh water, no other business, economy or investment really matters in this state.”

Many noted that the mine deal first came up for a vote in early 2024, and proponents tried several times to get lawmakers to either approve it as a SOAR appropriation or annual budget earmark. Tuesday’s vote on the company grant was 7-2.

The company is trying to attract additional funding for the Copperwood project. The $45 million state grant is worth more than half of Highland Copper’s (OTC: HDRSF) market value, which stood at $80 million Tuesday based on the company’s stock price of 12 cents a share.

Without the state funding, financing the full project would be “incredibly more challenging,” said company CEO Barry O’Shea told the board.

That alone is a concern, Cindy Warner, a former member of the Strategic Fund board, wrote in a letter sent this week to oppose the property.

“This is a proposal to backstop, with public money, a project that private capital markets have not fully backed on their own merits,” she wrote. “This is not a proper use of Michigan taxpayer dollars.”

The Export-Import Bank of the United States last fall indicated interest in loaning Highland $250 million through its Make More in America Initiative, but no financing has been finalized.

Several tries over years: A timeline

Tuesday’s vote comes three years after the Michigan Economic Development Corp. initially offered Highland Copper Inc. a $50 million subsidy plus additional funding for recruitment and other hiring needs, documents obtained by Bridge through the Freedom of Information Act show.

Several failed attempts to seed the project with public money followed:

• 1. The Strategic Fund board, after asking rare questions during a public meeting in January 2024, postponed a vote to give Highland Copper $50 million. Upon prodding from the board, the company CEO acknowledged it had no investors and a fraction of the capital it needed to build the mine after the subsidy.

  2. The proposal returned in March 2024, and the board passed it without discussion. In committee before the meeting, they’d set up conditions: Highland Copper could only get the money if it had $150 million in capital.

  3. After the proposal stalled in gaining legislative support for the money to be appropriated, Rep. Greg Markkanen, R-Hancock, switched gears: He sought $50 million in summer 2024 for Wakefield Township to fund mine-related infrastructure like roads and internet. His earmark request did not make it into the budget.
  

The proposal “appears in every way identical to what has already been denied three times,” said Tom Grotewohl, founder of Protect the Porkies, a nonprofit organization opposing proposed mines in the UP.

“To propose it a fourth time is a grotesque attempt to steamroll over the clear will of the people,” he told Bridge.

Yet several lawmakers touted the project during Tuesday’s hearing, noting the region’s mine history and saying that state oversight would protect the environment.

Rep. Dave Prestin, R-Cedar River, also spoke of economic revitalization.

“For too long, the state of Michigan and its policies ignored this once prosperous region. The people have been abandoned, employers have left, hospitals have closed, the tax base has been devastated,” he said.

The grant, he said, is a responsible use of state funding.

“The roads, power systems, and telecommunications improvements supported by this grant will remain in place and continue serving the region for decades after the project operations conclude,” he said.

Looking ahead

The mine will add U.S.-based copper production at a time when electronics and data centers rely on the mineral, and the Trump administration seeks to boost domestic production. U.S. copper is about 4% of the world’s supply.

O’Shea, the CEO, said Highland Copper is preparing to start construction in 2028, a year after it releases its updated feasibility study that will refine its Copperwood plans.

So far, the company has spent about $15 million on the project.

Meanwhile, the state said it would reduce the grant award if the overall investment and job creation target declines.

The deal also set a few conditions on the grant award: Highland Copper needs to show $150 million of additional financing by spring 2028, along with a spreadsheet of anticipated spending. Developers also will have to prove they created 380 jobs and finish the infrastructure spending by March 31, 2033.

___

This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.

Shijin Jiang pulled the precision binocular headband magnifier over her eyes and hunched down within a few inches of the ancient text resting on a light board.

Using a pair of hand tools, Shijin carefully inspected the sheet made from the papyrus plant, proceeding with the utmost care. After all, it most likely hadn’t been handled in a century — nor read for thousands of years.

The Papyrus Conservation Summer Seminar at the University of Michigan is the only one of its kind in the Americas, according to the university. And it's one of the few in the world designed to convey the best practices for conserving papyrus manuscripts, ancient texts written on rolls or sheets made from the papyrus plant.

“If you touch this papyrus, you can feel the history,” said Shijin, a native of China who was among nine scholars from across the globe, including Ireland, Italy and the U.S., who took the 10-day course.

Michigan’s Papyrology Collection covers texts and documents from 1000 B.C.E. to 1000 C.E. No institution on this side of the world has more of them, the Ann Arbor school said, giving the researchers access to a vast collection of ancient papyri. There are portions of the Homer epics, “The Odyssey” and “The Iliad,” writings by the philosopher Epicurus and the oldest-known copy of the Epistles of Paul.

“Carrying on this tradition is an incredible responsibility, but it also is incredibly fun and rewarding, because there’s nothing I love more than getting people together from all over the world, sharing ideas, learning from each other,” said Marieka Kaye, who manages library preservation services for physical collections at the University of Michigan Library.

Kaye said she tried to make “things comfortable and not scary, because a lot of people just feel terrified working on these ancient things.”

The seminar introduced the papyrologists and conservators to techniques in the treatment, storage and care of the ancient texts, as well as documentation practices. Papyrus and its ink can crumble, smear or break, so Kaye encouraged the students to carefully remove dirt, sand, salt and debris; use controlled moisture to soften folds and realign fibers; and dry the papyrus slowly under light weight to prevent curling.

The first seminar was held in 2012, and they have been held every two years since, except for the 2020 pandemic year. About 50 students total have taken part.

“If we don’t train the next generations of conservators, this is a craft that is going to be lost,” said Giuliano Sidro, curator of Michigan's Papyrology Collection.

Michigan has so many papyrus manuscripts on hand that its researchers haven’t gone through them all. Some of the items were acquired, while others were excavated, during university expeditions to the ancient site of Karanis, Egypt, from 1924-35. Francis Willey Kelsey, a Latin professor who died in 1927, was the driving force behind the establishment of the Papyrology Collection. He believed Michigan students studying the ancient world needed access not only to books, but to the tangible remains of antiquity. Today, the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology is a fixture on the Michigan campus. Its collection represents one of the finest compilations of daily-life objects from Greco-Roman Egypt located outside of Cairo.

“This is a place where you make discoveries, potentially every day, if you just go into the vault, pick out a box and open something up, and you start reading,” Sidro said.

Of course, to make sense of it, one needs to be able to decipher Arabic, ancient Greek or Latin, and even Egyptian, one of the earliest known written languages that is now extinct. A few of the seminar participants were able to read the papyri, including Arzak Mohamed, who reads Arabic, and Mauro Castiello, a papyrology doctoral student in Milan, who can translate ancient Greek and Latin.

Kaye said she always tries to include a student from Egypt among the seminar participants.

Mohamed, a postdoctoral fellow at Macquarie University in Sydney, had heard about the papyrus seminar for years and always wanted to attend. The 42-year-old mother of three is from Fayoum, Egypt, not far from Karanis.

“Now, I can transfer this information from Michigan to Egypt and even in Australia,” she said. “I will be like the chain, connecting between the three countries.”

“By saving this information, we can transfer the knowledge to the next generation,” she added.

Abdul El-Sayed made history this month in Michigan by becoming the first Muslim nominated by the Democratic Party to run for the U.S. Senate. But elation among many of his fellow Muslim Americans was tempered by awareness of persisting and widespread anti-Muslim sentiment across much of the nation.

Some Republicans, including President Donald Trump, swiftly began referring to the nominee by his full name, Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, while depicting him as a danger to America. “Every single Muslim holding public office in America is a Trojan horse, and a threat to both national security and our republic,'' said U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., in a post on X.

El-Sayed says such attacks betray a weakness in those who launch them.

“We all pray for the same things. ... We want what’s good for our kids and our families,” he told MS NOW after his primary victory. “They're going to use Islamophobia, because their ideas are tired.”

The vitriol extends far beyond the political class. Tensions related to anti-Muslim sentiment have heightened in several communities around the country, where some residents have bitterly opposed proposals to build new mosques.

“American Muslims have made incredible political and societal progress in recent years,” said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR. He cited increased visibility in entertainment and sports and the election of Democrat Zohran Mamdani as New York City's first Muslim mayor.

“But there also is a very concerted backlash to this progress,” Mitchell said. “You've seen this in the resurgence of anti-Muslim hate and rhetoric, the targeting of mosques.”

A Dallas suburb is a flashpoint

McKinney, Texas, a large suburb in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, is one of the flashpoints. Despite angry anti-Islam remarks at a heated city council meeting on Aug. 4, the council voted unanimously to approve a site plan for the McKinney Islamic Association’s proposed new mosque, classroom building and gym.

Among those urging the council to give the plan fair treatment was George Fuller, a former mayor of McKinney, a nonpartisan position. Opponents of the mosque project booed him, and some shouted “traitor” as he left the council chamber. One woman could be seen on video physically accosting him.

“I have never witnessed so much hate, anger and lack of humanity in our beautiful community gathered in one place as I did today at City Hall,” Fuller later wrote on Facebook.

During the hearing, which lasted more than four hours, the speakers included U.S. Rep. Keith Self, a Republican whose district includes McKinney. To loud applause, he urged the council to reject the mosque proposal.

“I know you’re in the accommodation phase, but the intimidation phase follows quickly,” Self said. “Child marriage. Honor killings. Don’t tell me it can’t happen here.”

Fuller also went to the microphone, evoking the broader phenomenon of divisive political rhetoric.

“Sadly, we live in a time when some have discovered that the easiest way to gain attention or win elections is not by offering solutions but by manufacturing fear, dividing communities, demonizing neighbors and turning misinformation into a political strategy,” he said.

In North Carolina, anger flares over approval for a new mosque

The scenario was similar in Mooresville, North Carolina, when town commissioners held a public comment session on Aug. 3 about a proposed mosque that had already been approved, with early phases of construction underway.

Angry residents at the meeting voiced hostility to Islam and assailed the commissioners for not being more forthcoming about the project as it took shape over previous months. One speaker cited violence in Nigeria by Islamist extremists as a reason for concern in Mooresville. Another depicted Islam as “a political regime with the ultimate goal of takeover in regions and nations.”

CAIR’s regional manager, Al Rieder, issued a statement denouncing “the hateful and conspiratorial anti-Muslim rhetoric” that surfaced at the meeting and expressed concern about the safety of Muslims in the area about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Charlotte.

“Muslims are your neighbors, your doctors, your teachers, your local politicians, your police,” he said.

A few hours after the public meeting, the town commissioners released a summary of the mosque project, which calls for a two-building Islamic center on a parcel acquired in 2019 by a local Muslim organization.

The commissioners said that the parcel is in an area zoned to allow religious assembly and that the mosque proposal was handled the same way as a proposal for a new church.

“All decisions must be based on adopted ordinances, objective standards and legal requirements, which do not allow for different rules for different religious groups,” the commissioners said. “We encourage all members of our community to remain respectful in their discussions and interactions as this project moves through the appropriate processes.”

In Oklahoma, Muslim leaders fight against the rebuff of a new mosque

A mosque controversy has been raging for many months in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, Tulsa's largest suburb.

Back in January, at a stormy meeting attended by hundreds of people, the city council voted 4-1 to reject a rezoning proposal by the region's Islamic Society to build Broken Arrow's first mosque. Before the vote, dozens of residents voiced anti-Muslim views while opposing the project.

Council members who rejected the mosque had raised concerns about its potential impact on infrastructure such as roads, sewers and flood plain management.

But the Islamic Society is persisting with its quest. On Aug. 3, it filed a lawsuit against the mayor and four councilors, alleging that the vote reflected “a wave of bigoted opposition from members of the community and local politicians.” The lawsuit contends that the council violated state and federal laws governing religious land use, treating the mosque proposal differently from other comparable rezoning requests.

“They did not want a mosque in their city. They did not want Muslims here,” said Meghan Murphy, an attorney with CAIR’s Legal Defense Fund, at a news conference announcing the lawsuit. ”So they made up a reason, and in doing so they violated the law.”

Some see a terrorism threat while others see baseless scaremongering

Opposition to mosque construction isn't a new phenomenon: In Murfreesboro, Tennessee, an effort launched in 2010 to block a mosque project dragged on for more than three years. The mosque was built anyway as the case moved through the courts, but members of the Muslim community faced public protests, vandalism, arson and a bomb threat during that span.

The latest anti-mosque campaigns coincide with a broad wave of anti-Muslim rhetoric from Republican officeholders over the past year. In Congress, several bills were introduced targeting sharia, the moral and spiritual framework that guides Muslims in prayer and ethical conduct. Some Republicans say they’re concerned about growing Muslim populations in major cities and potential ties to terrorism — fears that CAIR and other civil rights groups say are unfounded and being exploited for political purposes.

Republican governors in Texas and Florida have endorsed efforts to shut down CAIR, saying it has ties to terrorism. CAIR has denied the allegations and filed lawsuits calling the governors' efforts unconstitutional.

Muslim American leaders view the vitriol as political scaremongering.

“Every election year, we expect a rise in anti-Muslim hate,” said CAIR's Mitchell. “It's been worse this year than it has been in years.”

Updated at 10:05 a.m.:

Abdul El-Sayed has won Michigan’s Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, defeating U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens in a massive victory for the party’s progressive wing in a battleground state.

The real test of El-Sayed’s and progressives’ strength will now come in a November matchup against Republican Mike Rogers, a former congressman who ran unopposed for the GOP nomination. The seat is pivotal to Democrats’ chances of flipping the Senate and El-Sayed will face the challenge of uniting a divided Democratic base after a bruising primary.

The race remained tight throughout Tuesday night, with a winner not declared until early Wednesday. In his final remarks at a primary night party before the race was called, El-Sayed said “tomorrow we begin to mend fences.”

El-Sayed's campaign said Stevens called to concede Wednesday.

El-Sayed’s win represents a significant shift for the Democratic Party; in 2018 he lost the gubernatorial primary to now-Gov. Gretchen Whitmer by 21 percentage points.

El-Sayed, a former health official, campaigned on “Medicare for All,” halting military aid to Israel and campaign finance reform. He had support from progressive leaders including Sen. Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who framed the race as a grassroots-focused movement and a broader fight against the establishment and big-money spending.

Stevens, a more moderate candidate, was backed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and tens of millions in outside spending, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s largest outlay ever in a single race.

Now comes the more difficult challenge for Democrats: uniting the party to defeat Rogers, for whom Republicans have already reserved large sums of money ahead of the general election. Democrats consider the seat a must-win if they are to flip control of the Senate this year.

El-Sayed called for unity to defeat Rogers

Early Tuesday evening, El-Sayed’s supporters in Detroit’s Majestic Theatre cheered at the first batches of votes, before mellowing. Hours later Stevens’ previously subdued partygoers roared as she narrowed the margin.

“Whatever happens tonight,” El-Sayed told a thinned but still energetic crowd, “we have a responsibility to ensure that we unite, unite to make sure that Mike Rogers never sees the inside of the U.S. Senate.”

El-Sayed, a former Wayne County health director, campaigned on “Medicare for All,” campaign finance reform and ending military aid to Israel.

Stevens, a four-term congresswoman, focused on manufacturing and the economy. She stressed her past victories in tough races, saying she would be best positioned to beat Rogers.

Stevens benefited from tens of millions of dollars in outside spending, including the largest investment in a race ever from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which supports pro-Israel candidates.

Michigan is a must-win Senate race for Democrats

The race will help decide which party controls the chamber in the last two years of President Donald Trump’s term. Those stakes have added heat to the rivalry, with moderates arguing that El-Sayed would have a harder time than Stevens against a Republican in the general election.

Stevens won election to Congress in 2018 after serving as chief of staff to President Barack Obama’s auto task force, which helped oversee the federal rescue of General Motors and Chrysler. Her campaign and allied groups have repeatedly highlighted that experience.

El-Sayed cast himself as the anti-establishment candidate and argued that Democrats need to reject corporate influence and embrace a more progressive agenda.

While the candidate has said he is not a democratic socialist, he found support from some of the group’s members. That included Melat Kiros, who recently beat a longtime incumbent in a Democratic primary for a Denver-based House seat and was at El-Sayed’s watch party. Also there was Hasan Piker, a progressive and controversial influencer online.

The candidates’ differences were clear to some voters.

Kenneth Woodside, 87, of West Bloomfield, said he voted for El-Sayed over Stevens because “the nation is ready for someone who wants to take some more action rather than on the road we are now, which is on the road to an oligarchy and authoritarianism.”

Nessa Fuller, 51, of Birmingham, said she voted for Stevens because she will “fight to get the right things done, and she’ll work with other people, which is really important to me.”

Outside influences spent millions on the Senate race

National groups poured unprecedented sums into the race, making it one of the country’s biggest tests of outside spending.

Groups backing Stevens spent more than $50 million, led by more than $30 million from AIPAC and its affiliates.

The spending thrust Israel policy into the center of the race even though the ads never mentioned it. While El-Sayed called for ending military aid to Israel, Stevens maintained strong support for the relationship.

Israel became a contentious issue within the Democratic Party amid a war in Gaza that killed more than 73,000 Palestinians in its retaliatory offensive after about 1,200 people were killed and 251 hostages were taken in attacks by the militant group Hamas.

McKinney wins Detroit US House primary

In a heavily Democratic district representing Detroit, the 13th, state Rep. Donavan McKinney defeated Rep. Shri Thanedar. McKinney argued that the city should once again have a Black representative in Congress.

After Thanedar won election in 2022, Detroit had no Black representation in Congress for the first time since the early 1950s.

Originally posted: Aug. 5, 2026, 5:45 a.m.

Congresswoman Haley Stevens (D, MI-11) ended her primary night in the race for Michigan’s Democratic U.S. Senate nomination too close to call. Stevens is running against former Wayne County Health Director Abdul El-Sayed.

Addressing her supporters, Stevens encouraged her supporters to stay focused on beating Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers in the general election.

“Republicans are going to do everything they can to throw all the dirt, all the mud, the kitchen sink at us because they want to keep the U.S. Senate red,” Stevens said.

“We have a responsibility to assure that we unite to make sure that Mike Rogers never sees the inside of the U.S. Senate," El-Sayed told supporters in Detroit this morning.

Former U.S. Congressman Mike Rogers did not have an opponent in the Republican primary.

"And so, Mike, and I know you're listening, Mike. We are coming for you," El-Sayed said.

The night ended with votes still being counted in Detroit, Flint, and Muskegon. All three were cities with sizeable Black populations core to Stevens’ base.

Many tried to paint the race as a test for whether her brand of moderate politics could counter El-Sayed’s progressive message amid a surge in populism.

At her election night party, many of her supporters framed her as a practical candidate best suited for a general election. That’s as Democrats see holding Michigan as a key piece of the party’s journey back to a U.S. Senate majority.

Detroiter Carl Ramsey is a former community organizer. He said Stevens got his support by showing up to events and winning past elections.

“[El-Sayed] was never elected to anything. He was appointed. Her experience elevates her to a position we need in D.C. It’s vicious in D.C. right now,” Ramsey said.

Ramsey said he hoped all Democrats unite around the party’s nominee once results are final.

Several current and former high-ranking Democrats endorsed Stevens during her campaign. The list includes Governor Gretchen Whitmer, retiring U.S. Senator Gary Peters, and former U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow.

El-Sayed, on the other hand, got support from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, New York Congresswoman Alessandria Ocassio-Cortez, and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D, MI-12).

At the watch party, Stabenow said she felt like Stevens’ supporters were more centered on winning in November than proving a point about national politics.

“It’s people in Michigan who have served Michigan, who have won in Michigan, who know what it takes to win in Michigan and do the job, and everybody who knows that has been supporting Haley,” Stabenow said in an interview.

Outside spending was also a considerable factor in the race, with research firm AdImpact ranking Michigan’s as one of the most expensive races in the country when it comes to advertising.

Stevens also saw outside groups, including ones funded by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), spend upwards of $60 million dollars on ads on her behalf. El-Sayed, on the other hand, had around $7 million from outside groups spent on him.

WASHINGTON (AP) — William Lawrence wins the Democratic nomination for U.S. House in Michigan's 7th Congressional District.

LIMA, Peru — Conservative leader Keiko Fujimori was sworn in as Peru's president on Tuesday after winning the June presidential runoff by a margin of fewer than 50,000 votes, a victory that confirmed a regional shift in South America toward the conservative wing.

With the ceremony, Fujimori, a four-time presidential candidate and leader of Peru's largest political party, officially takes office as the country's ninth president in a decade. The 51-year-old is hoping to stabilize Peru's turbulent politics, reduce crime and boost economic growth.

Over the past decade, only three of Peru's presidents have been elected by popular vote. The rest have come into office after their predecessors resigned or were removed by congress amid corruption scandals.

Fujimori's Popular Force party and its main ally, Popular Renovation, will hold half the senate seats once the new legislature is installed, making it harder for opposing legislators to attempt to remove her as president.

An incoming president with a political past and promises for the future

Fujimori centered her campaign around promises to improve security in a nation where extortion rackets have become a significant problem. She has also promised to develop infrastructure by making it easier for government agencies to form partnerships with private investors.

She is the daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, who led the country in the 1990s and stabilized its economy while defeating terror groups, but was later imprisoned for human rights abuses committed under his rule by the Peruvian military as his government took an authoritarian turn. He was pardoned in December 2023 and died in September the following year.

During her campaign, Keiko Fujimori pledged to fight crime with an "iron fist," implementing some policies adopted by Salvadorean President Nayib Bukele, and also build a megaprison modeled after the notorious Cecot penitentiary in El Salvador.

To guarantee judges their safety, she has said she will implement reforms to enable them to hide their identities as they oversee criminal trials.

She also said on Tuesday she would reorganize social services to fight malnutrition in rural communities and announced a 15% increase in the nation's minimum wage.

Fujimori said that the nation's military will "temporarily" lead security operations in crime afflicted areas. And said she will focus on preparing the South American nation for the latest onset of El Niño, a weather pattern that warms ocean temperatures and often leads to flooding along Peru's coast.

"My goal is not only to administer the state" Fujimori said. "My main objective is to narrow the enormous social deficit that affects millions of Peruvians."

Opposition leaders remember those killed in protests

Opposition leaders have asked Fujimori's incoming government to reverse a series of laws approved by Peru's last legislature, which critics say weaken efforts to fight organized crime.

The laws eliminate preventive arrests and stop prosecutors from processing political parties involved in corruption under the same statutes as criminal groups. The laws also make it harder for police to confiscate the goods of criminal groups.

Opposition leaders are also asking the incoming government to create a commission to investigate the deaths of 50 civilians during anti-government protests in late 2022 and early 2023 following the removal of former President Pedro Castillo.

During Fujimori's swearing-ceremony, some opposition lawmakers protested outside the parliament, holding photos of people killed during the protests. Relatives of the dead have said they do not recognize Fujimori as president and that they are protesting her inauguration.

Fujimori will lead a deeply polarized country

Fujimori was widely backed by voters in Peru's capital and along the Pacific coast, but voters in the highlands, where there is a larger Indigenous population, overwhelmingly supported left-wing candidate Roberto Sanchez, an ally of Castillo.

Sanchez challenged the election results, arguing there were irregularities in how votes were counted at Peruvian consulates abroad, but electoral authorities dismissed his complaints.

Despite the political friction, Peru continues to be one of the most stable economies in Latin America. Its central bank has long kept the benchmark interest rate below 5%, and the government is known for a conservative approach toward public spending.

But critics point out a growing gap in living standards between coastal areas and communities in the Andean highlands.

Fujimori's June election victory, along with those of Abelardo de la Espriella in Colombia and José Antonio Kast in Chile, underscored South America's shift toward the conservative wing, a stark contrast from the panorama of a few decades ago when left-wing leaders such as Hugo Chávez in Venezuela or the current Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva emerged.

Conservatives have won seven major presidential elections in Latin American in the past few years, most of the them since the January 2025 inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, in a winning streak propelled by concerns over crime, immigration and slow economic growth

Copyright 2026 NPR

Updated July 28, 2026 at 11:11 AM EDT

TOKYO — An earthquake registering a magnitude of 7.1 shook Japan's southern main island of Kyushu and caused part of a shopping center to collapse on Tuesday, leaving dozens of people missing or injured, officials and reports said. A tsunami advisory was issued but quickly lifted.

The second floor of the Aeon Mall shopping center in Kashima Town collapsed, trapping an unknown number of people. Around 20 to 30 employees were missing while several other people were dug out and taken to a hospital, Kyodo News agency reported, quoting local police.

The affected area is about 900 kilometers (540 miles) southwest of Tokyo. A tsunami advisory for the Ariake and Yatsushiro Seas on the western coasts of Kumamoto prefecture and three neighboring prefectures was lifted within two hours, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told reporters there were reports of damage to roads, bridges and buildings, as well as blackouts and fires, though details were unclear.

Japan's Fire and Disaster Management Agency said there were no reports of damage to major public facilities or infrastructure. Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority said no abnormalities were found at three nearby nuclear power plants.

Kyodo said a hospital in Yatsushiro city took in about 40 people with injuries and about 50 others were taken to a hospital in Kumamoto city.

Shinkansen bullet trains and local trains in Kyushu were suspended for safety checks, and the runway at Aso Kumamoto Airport was closed, with "no prospect of resuming operations," according to a notice on the airport's website. There were no details.

The Japanese Defense Ministry said it dispatched aircraft to the area to assess the situation.

A train derailed and fell on its side at Yatsushiro station, and stone walls were damaged at Kumamoto castle, Kyodo said.

"The shaking reminded me of the Kumamoto quake (10 years ago) and I was frightened," said Hiroki Shimoda, an official at Mifune town hall, who saw roof tiles of nearby homes crash to the ground. Kumamoto was hit with a deadly quake in 2016 that left more than 50 people dead.

Shinji Kiyomoto with the Japan Meteorological Agency urged residents to be cautious over the next two to three days.

Copyright 2026 NPR

In a visit to Michigan on Monday, President Donald Trump argued that his economic policies have revived the auto industry and American manufacturing even as many businesses contend that the sweeping tariffs he’s imposed against Canada and the rest of the world have hurt the state.

Trump defended his policies while visiting a General Motors facility in the Detroit suburb of Milford that is a testing ground for its vehicles. He pumped a fist after watching Corvette, Cadillac and Hummer vehicles compete in a series of drag races.

In a speech, Trump cheered GM's plans to expand production

domestically in coming years and declared himself a president who was standing up for auto workers “at long last.”

“I’ve done more for you than your parents, OK?" he joked.

After being led on a tour of vehicles from different eras of GM, some of which he sat in, Trump claimed the tariffs have helped the automaker.

“They’ve come a long way,” he said to reporters about the Detroit-based automaker. “It’s amazing what tariffs are doing for GM.” Trump said he’s been good to the company but he declined to say more.

“The rest of the world doesn’t love me, but that’s OK,” he said, alluding to tariffs. “It’s called ‘America first.’”

Trump's visit is close to Michigan primary on August 4

Trump called out several Republican candidates and invited them onstage during his remarks Monday.

Republican Mike Rogers is unopposed in the Senate primary, but the GOP gubernatorial contest pits Trump-backed Representative John James against Perry Johnson, a businessman turned politician who has launched unsuccessful campaigns before, including for president in 2024.

Johnson is now trying to style himself in the president's mold — despite missing out on his endorsement. The Democratic Senate primary between Representative Haley Stevens and progressive Abdul El-Sayed has drawn national attention for the right to face Rogers, who was narrowly defeated by Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin in 2024.

Early voting is underway.

Trump's new Canada tariffs could hurt Michigan

Michigan was one of the 2024 battlegrounds Trump flipped after it backed Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020. But the state has seen parts of its economy affected by the president's tariffs, including on imported cars and auto parts.

A new round of steep import levies is taking effect on dozens of U.S. trading partners. But Trump has singled out Canada with tariffs as high as 50% on a wide array of its products, including cars.

The GM facility is in Oakland County, which encompasses much of Detroit's northern suburbs. Once a Republican stronghold, it has increasingly leaned Democratic, backing Biden against Trump in 2020 and Vice President Kamala Harris against Trump four years later.

GM says its facility is the oldest dedicated vehicle testing operation in the United States, where 4,200 employees work to refine nearly every vehicle the company makes before they reach consumers.

Michigan's economy relies heavily on Canada, however, meaning the new tariffs — coupled with inflation still running high and gas prices rising again as the already unpopular war in Iran escalates — have created additional economic concerns statewide.

Those come at a time when voters across the country were already increasingly dissatisfied with Trump's handling of the economy.

Jason Roe, a former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party who tried unsuccessfully to distance it from Trump's “Make America Great Again” movement in 2021, said that more than coinciding with his new round of tariffs, Trump's visit is a function of Michigan's relatively late primary and is meant to ensure that James secures the nomination.

But Roe also said it was a risk for the president to tie himself too closely to top Republicans before the general election, calling it “kryptonite to November voters.”

Trump, who won the White House on a promise to lower the cost of living, also has seen his approval ratings sag, meaning kitchen table issues could be a liability for Republicans trying to hold control of Congress in the November 3 elections.

“We’re happy to have the president here, campaigning with Republicans. We think it highlights the fact that the only thing they care about is Donald Trump and refuse to stand up to him," said Curtis Hertel, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party. "It’s good for us every time the president is here because he’s incredibly unpopular.”

The U.S. and Canada have squabbled over a new border bridge

The Supreme Court struck down many of Trump’s sweeping tariffs, but his administration has tried to find ways around that, including by arguing that he can impose them on Canada because that country is discriminating against American exports of products including automobiles.

But Trump’s latest round of tariffs came after he voiced frustration with Canada for having retaliated and imposed its own levies on U.S. imports in response to Trump’s initial tariffs last year. Trump launched the first round after alleging Canada should do more to stop fentanyl smuggling.

It is Trump's third trip to Michigan in his second term.

In January, he visited a Ford plant in Dearborn and addressed the Detroit Economic Club, offering a defense of tariffs even as auto industry leaders blamed them for increasing the cost of doing business.

The president marked his second term's first 100 days with a rally in Warren, where he mostly mentioned grievances left over from the 2024 campaign.

His latest visit coincides with tensions between his administration and Canada that have marred the opening of a new bridge linking Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.

Canada on Friday held its own event hailing the opening of the $4.7 billion Gordie Howe International Bridge instead of a planned celebration with officials in the U.S. after Trump announced the new Canadian tariffs.