SAN FRANCISCO — For six years, Detroit Pistons fans have grown accustomed to watching Isaiah Stewart serve as an enforcer and defensive anchor. In the first 46 games of this season, Stewart has elevated his production on defense even more.
He is leading the league’s second-best defense and is currently in the running for several defensive awards. While registering a career-best average of 1.9 blocks per game, Stewart ranks sixth in total rejections with 78. He leads the NBA in defended field-goal percentage at the rim, holding his opponents to 43.0% shooting.
Stewart will be honored with a bobblehead giveaway before the Pistons’ home game against the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday. But the bobblehead won’t feature Stewart defending the rim. Instead, it’s Stewart riding a tractor and dressed in farmer’s overalls.
“This bobblehead represents my love and passion for farming. I have a tractor that I operate and use on my land,” Stewart told The Detroit News. “I’m interested in all different kinds of crops. If my mind isn’t on basketball, my mind is on farming. I am always researching something about farming every single day. I feel like it’s my calling.”
In southern California, Stewart owns two agricultural properties called Paraiso De La Luz, which is Spanish for “Paradise of Light.” His main hub focuses on producing tropical and subtropical fruits such as figs, finger limes, grapes, kumquats, mangos, passion fruit and pomegranates. Two hours down the road, he owns a desert hub that solely produces dates, in partnership with Sam Cobb Farms.
During the offseason, Stewart works diligently on his crops. When the Pistons are in season, however, he relies on his employees and the property manager for daily updates.
“It speaks to his character, his intelligence. He’s a guy who wants to make the world better. He understands what the world needs, in terms of farming and the environment. I think it is amazing,” Jalen Duren said to The Detroit News. “He’s always coming in here, talking about the new cows he’s got, or whatever new trees he planted. I think what he’s doing is great. I’m inspired.”
Stewart’s passion for farming began at his childhood home in Rochester, N.Y. He has fond memories of watching his father, Dela Stewart, tending to the family’s backyard garden. His father grew a variety of vegetables, including cucumbers, greens and tomatoes. Stewart’s favorite part of watching his father was seeing him transform his work into delightful meals.
The hard work that the elder Stewart put into the family garden instilled a strong work ethic in his son, which ultimately helped him reach the NBA. However, he could never have predicted that his efforts would later inspire his son to pursue farming as a second career more than 20 years later.
“He had a garden in our backyard. Every year, as soon as the weather got good enough, he would go back there and clean it up. Uproot everything. Make a fence with sections of different plants,” Stewart said. “I know he is proud of what I am doing. With him being from Jamaica, and his father did it – that is who he got it from – and now, I’m doing it.”
Stewart’s upbringing and passion have laid the groundwork for his farming career as he strives to be a pioneer in the industry.
Black farmers once dominated the agricultural business, but over several decades, the demographic has significantly diminished. As he continues to inspire a generation of NBA hopefuls in Detroit, Stewart hopes his agricultural work will increase the number of Black farmers nationwide.
Stewart intends to sell his harvest in grocery stores one day to provide consumers with high-quality produce. It’s his way of bringing better fruits and vegetables to consumers, who might be missing out because of infrastructure problems some farmers face when trying to deliver their crops to supermarkets.
“My family loves it. They see how invested I am in it and how much I care about it,” Stewart said. “They know what I’m striving to be. I am not doing this for fun. I’m doing it because I want to be one of the best farmers in the world when it is all said and done.”
Detroit Pistons forward Isaiah Stewart, left, and Houston Rockets center Alperen Sengun, right, jostle for position during a free throw in the first half of an NBA basketball game Friday, Oct. 24, 2025, in Houston. (ERIC CHRISTIAN SMITH — AP Photo, file)
DETROIT – After the magic of the evening had faded, after all the history of the moment had soaked in, Patrick Kane was ready to put it in the background.
Kane achieved history in Thursday’s 4-3 shootout loss to Washington, assisting on Ben Chiarot’s second-period goal. Kane passed Westland’s Mike Modano with 1,375 points, making the Hall of Fame-bound Buffalo native the NHL all-time leader in points among U.S.-born players.
The Wings knew Kane was going to break the record eventually. It was just a matter of time. But in Kane’s estimation, it was nice to finally get the record, and now concentrate on what the Wings can accomplish the rest of the season. The Wings are among the top teams in the Eastern Conference and poised to break their nine-year playoff drought.
“It’s nice to have it over with in some ways,” Kane said. “Just kind of worry about the rest of the season, and what we can accomplish as a team and hopefully go do something special as a group. At the start of the season there’s a lot of attention and talk about 500 goals and possibly getting this record.
“So, it’s nice to get there, be done with it and move on.”
Kane scored goal No. 500, another impressive milestone, Jan. 8 against Vancouver, also at Little Caesars Arena.
That was an exciting moment for Red Wings fans. But Thursday night might have been even more special.
“One of those hockey moments that you’ll remember where you were when he got it, if you’re a big fan of Patrick Kane or you’re part of our team,” coach Todd McLellan said. “Now he can just move on and stack numbers on top of that number. But you have to work hard to get it and we’re all happy for him.”
On the record-smashing play Thursday, a nice passing play, Kane found Alex DeBrincat, who set up Chiarot for a one-timer.
“Great play all-around,” Kane said. “(Andrew Copp) Copper pulling up, hitting me with some speed, hitting Cat, pulling up and hitting the late guy. Copper gets to the net and a great shot by Benny.”
Kane’s teammates streamed onto the ice and mobbed him. The LCA crowd, which gravitated toward Kane as soon as he signed with the Wings in 2023, erupted in cheers.
“Incredible for him and his family and really special to just be able to witness that live,” captain Dylan Larkin said. “I know a lot of those points were in Chicago (that Kane scored), but to see how our fans have embraced him and how he’s embraced our city is really special and says a lot about how much he loves the game. No matter where he’s playing, if people appreciate him, he’s going to give love back to them.”
The depth of the moment, the history of it all, wasn’t lost on Kane’s teammates.
“It’s hard to really grasp how special it is,” said DeBrincat, a long time teammate of Kane’s in Chicago and now in Detroit. “A lot of people have known he’s going to hit it (get the record) and is one of the best American players to ever play, and we knew that before tonight.
“But it is special to pass Modano. He’s been working hard for it, so he deserves it. It’s part of what makes him special.”
Kane looked to set the record in the first period, setting up DeBrincat for a goal. But video confirmed both players looked to be offside, erasing the goal.
“Pretty crazy the way you think you have it and then it comes back for offside,” Kane said. “I don’t think many of us knew it was offside on the ice, but there was a feeling something was going on when the guys didn’t come from the bench.”
Kane has long been an American player that U.S. youngsters have gravitated to because of his offensive wizardry and team success with the Blackhawks (three Stanley Cups). Thursday’s record was another watershed moment in an impactful career.
“Throughout my career, there’s been some American guys that have come up to me and said some really nice things, some younger guys that appreciated the way I played when I was younger and they were younger and I was a guy they looked up to,” Kane said. “(It’s) pretty cool to hear that when it’s something you’re not really expecting.”
Kane also appreciated a video message Modano supplied that was broadcast during the next timeout after Kane set the points record.
“He’s one of the best American players of all time,” Kane said of Modano. “He’s a guy I looked up to a lot when I was younger. I remember the moment he passed Phil Housley in San Jose on a breakaway goal, and to see him up there (on the scoreboard), as a former Red Wing too, sending a message like that was pretty classy.”
Kane, 37, didn’t immediately delve into his future, other than focusing on the Wings’ potential the rest of this season. He’s playing this season on a one-year, $3 million contract. But it’s extremely likely Kane will play at least one more season, given his success this season.
“He’s still got it,” DeBrincat said. “He’s still one of the smartest players I’ve ever played with, and obviously the skill is there. As long as he wants to go, he’s going to be able to go and be a difference-maker in the league for a while.”
Top of the charts
Most NHL points by U.S.-born players:
Patrick Kane: 1,375
Mike Modano: 1,374
Phil Housley: 1,232
Jeremy Roenick: 1,216
Joe Pavelski: 1,068
Note: Brett Hull (1,391 points) was born in Canada but represented the U.S. in international events.
Detroit right wing Patrick Kane celebrates after earning his 1,375th career point, the most by any U.S. born player, on a goal during the second period of a game between the Detroit Red Wings and the Washington Capitals at Little Caesars Arena, in Detroit, January 29, 2026. (DAVID GURALNICK —Tribune News Service)
PITTSBURGH — Still suffering from a post-holiday drag? After the fun of Christmas and New Year’s, it’s completely understandable if you’re having a hard time snapping back into a routine.
The fact that it’s still getting light too late and dark too early — we won’t set our clocks forward for spring until March 8 — only adds to the funk that is a Western Pennsylvania winter, marked by gray skies, a freezing mix of snow and rain and slushy sidewalks.
After a steady diet of festive desserts, rich and hearty sides and too much alcohol, “everyday” cooking might feel daunting on a busy weeknight. A relaxed holiday schedule has left many of us out of practice in getting dinners on the table at a set time. And if you’ve over-indulged over the past few weeks, you might be trying to eat less to shed those extra holiday pounds.
We get it. It can be tough to get back on track and re-establish home cooking habits, especially when the frozen dinner aisle and takeout make it so easy to compromise. That’s why it’s often best to start the process with baby steps — simple meals that don’t call for lots of ingredients or take too much time (or effort) start to finish.
To help inspire you, we’ve assembled five flavorful recipes that each require no more than six everyday ingredients and only take about a half hour to prepare on the stovetop.
Don’t love washing pans? Me either! All of the following are made and served from a single skillet, guaranteeing easy cleanup.
There is a slight catch: All five dishes assume you have kitchen staples like vegetable oil or extra-virgin olive oil, salt and pepper, garlic cloves, unsalted butter, sugar and various spices already on hand.
All prove, however, that sometimes the simplest dinners are the best ones, and they don’t have to be boring.
Easy Lemon Chicken
PG tested
I’ve made this dish for my family too many times to count, and still it’s a favorite. You can use less butter if you’re trying to cut down on fat and calories. For a gluten-free dish, dust the chicken in cornstarch or almond flour instead of all-purpose flour.
I think it’s best on rice, but kids love their noodles!
2 whole chicken breasts, boned, skinned and halved
4 tablespoons butter, divided
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 cups unbleached flour
Salt and pepper
2 lemons
Chopped fresh parsley
Cooked rice or noodles, for serving
Wash and dry chicken breasts. Pound them flat between two pieces of waxed paper or inside a resealable plastic bag with a mallet or rolling pin.
Melt 2 tablespoons butter and oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Pour flour in a plastic bag, season with salt and pepper, and drop the breasts in to coat. Shake off excess flour.
Turn heat up to moderately high and put chicken breasts in the skillet. Depending on how thin you’ve pounded them, they should cook approximately 3 minutes on each side or until cooked through and still tender. When they’re done, season with salt and pepper, remove to a plate and set aside while you make the sauce.
Add 2 remaining tablespoons of butter to the chicken skillet and melt, scraping up brown bits in the pan.
Juice 1 lemon and slice the other. Add juice and lemon slices to skillet and cook until bubbly, then return chicken to the pan, spooning sauce over. Garnish with fresh parsley.
Serve with rice or cooked noodles.
Serves 4.
— Gretchen McKay, Post-Gazette
Rigatoni with Tomato Cream Sauce
PG tested
Nothing is more comforting in winter than a bowl of pasta with red sauce. Here, crushed tomatoes simmer with cream and grated Parmesan to create a super-fast super-savory sauce for rigatoni. Add a simple green salad and loaf of crusty Italian bread for a complete meal.
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 (28-ounce) can whole San Marzano tomatoes
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon concentrated tomato paste
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
Salt, to taste
Red pepper flakes, to taste
4 cups cooked rigatoni or penne noodles
In a deep skillet, heat butter until melted.
Add tomatoes to pan, crushing them with a fork or potato masher. Simmer, stirring often, until the tomatoes have broken down, about 10 minutes. Season to taste with salt.
Stir in heavy cream and tomato paste and cook until the sauce thickens slightly, about 3 minutes. Stir in Parmesan cheese and toss to combine. Taste, add salt and, if you like some spice, a few pinches of red pepper flakes.
Add cooked pasta to pan and toss to combine.
Serve in warmed bowls, with extra Parmesan cheese.
Serves 4.
— Gretchen McKay, Post-Gazette
Pork and Coconut Pineapple Rice
PG tested
If there ever was a marriage made in culinary heaven, it has to be pork and pineapple. This easy recipe pairs bite-sized chunks of sweet, juicy pineapple with tender bites of teriyaki-marinated pork tenderloin. The combo is piled high on a bed of creamy, equally tropical coconut rice.
For pork
1/4 – 1/2 cup teriyaki sauce
1 pound pork tenderloin, cut into bite-sized chunks
20-ounce can pineapple chunks, drained, or 1 fresh pineapple, peeled, cored and cubed
Olive oil, for sauteing
For rice
2 cups jasmine rice
1 (14-ounce) can unsweetened full-fat coconut milk
1 1/2 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
Generous pinch of sugar
Chopped cilantro, for garnish
Marinate pork in 1/4 cup of teriyaki sauce for 2-3 hours or overnight.
Rinse rice in several changes of cold water until the water runs clear. Use a large fine-mesh sieve to drain any remaining water and place rice in a pot.
Add coconut milk, water, salt and sugar. Bring the mixture to a boil over high heat.
Once it starts to boil, turn the heat down to low, cover and cook for 20 minutes. Uncover and continue to cook for 5 minutes, then fluff and cover to keep warm.
While rice is cooking, prepare pork. Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a nonstick skillet or grill pan over medium-high heat. Add pork, discarding the excess sauce. If you add all the sauce with it, it will steam the meat instead of caramelizing it.
Leave pork undisturbed in the hot pan for a few minutes to get better caramelization. Throw in pineapple and cook for 2-3 minutes so it gets saucy and caramelized, too. If desired, add a few additional tablespoons of sauce after everything is brown.
Portion cooked rice into bowls and top with a scoop or two of the saucy pineapple pork. Finish with chopped cilantro and slices of pickled jalapeño, if you happen to have any in the fridge.
Skillet Tortellini with Sausage and Cherry Tomatoes
A quick one-pan dinner pairs sweet Italian sausage with cheese tortellini and grape tomatoes. (Gretchen McKay/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/TNS)
PG tested
Tortellini are great for last-minute meals because they are so easy to cook and go with many different sauces. In this recipe, they are cooked directly in the pan with sweet Italian sausage along with sweet cherry or grape tomatoes.
The original recipe calls for dried tortellini, but I substituted frozen pasta. Fresh basil adds both color and freshness. If you have some grated Parmesan in the fridge, add that, too, for a cheesy finish.
1 pound bulk sweet or hot Italian sausage
2 garlic cloves, sliced thin
12 ounces frozen cheese tortellini
1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium heat until shimmering.
Add sausage and cook, breaking up meat with wooden spoon, until no longer pink, about 4 minutes.
Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add 1 cup water, tortellini and a pinch of salt and bring to boil.
Reduce heat to medium and simmer, stirring occasionally, until pasta is tender, about 10-12 minutes.
Stir in tomatoes and cook until slightly softened, about 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste, drizzle with olive oil to taste and sprinkle with basil.
Serves 4.
— Adapted from “Five Ingredient Dinners” by America’s Test Kitchen
Single-Seared Garlic Shrimp Tacos
Seared shrimp tacos stuffed with cabbage slaw. (Gretchen McKay/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/TNS)
PG tested
Tacos are a welcome weeknight meal because they don’t take a lot of time or effort. These feature quick marinated shrimp and an easy green cabbage slaw. They’re simple but super satisfying.
Both flour and corn tortillas work; just be sure to warm them on a hot skillet or in the microwave before stuffing them with shrimp and cabbage to keep them pliable.
2 limes
Salt and pepper
2 cups thinly sliced cabbage
1/2 small red onion
4 teaspoons, plus 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, divided
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
24 large shrimp (about 1-1 1/2 pounds), peeled, deveined and patted dry
8 corn or flour tortillas, warmed in a microwave or on a hot skillet
In large bowl, whisk juice from 1 lime, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.
Mix in cabbage and onion. Set aside, tossing occasionally, while you prepare the shrimp.
In medium bowl, stir together 2 teaspoons oil, half the minced garlic, chili powder, 1 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Add shrimp and stir to combine. Allow to marinate for 5 minutes.
In a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high, heat 1 teaspoon of oil until shimmering.
Add half the shrimp in an even layer and cook, undisturbed, until deep golden brown on the bottoms, about 2 minutes. Stir, then transfer to plate.
Repeat with another 1 teaspoon oil and the remaining shrimp, but leave shrimp in pan. Return first batch to pan.
Add remaining minced garlic; cook over medium, stirring, until the shrimp are opaque throughout, about 1 minute.
Transfer to a clean plate or bowl.
Add remaining 1 tablespoon oil and cilantro to the cabbage mixture and toss to combine. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Divide the shrimp among the tortillas (3 to each), top with cabbage mixture and serve with lime wedges.
Serves 4.
— Adapted from “Milk Street Shorts: Recipes That Pack a Punch” by Christopher Kimball
By Ariana Perez-Castells, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Job hunters beware: some of the hard-earned skills listed on your resume are going unnoticed by potential employers.
Workers’ profiles on job posting websites often feature general abilities, like leadership, communication, teamwork, and problem-solving, a recent report from the Wharton School says. But they’re not highlighting the “specialized, execution-oriented skills,” employers are seeking. That’s created a “skills mismatch economy.”
“People are not representing their skills in a way that’s necessarily resonating with the skills that employers want,” said Eric Bradlow, the vice dean of artificial intelligence and analytics at the Wharton School, who co-authored the report.
Meanwhile, AI has been speeding the shift from a “role-based labor market to a skills-based economy,” the report outlines, making it all the more poignant to know what skills employers actually want.
Bradlow, says generative AI has been “a positively destructive bomb on roles and titles,” by making workers able to carry out tasks that they didn’t know how to do in the past. So “having a specific job title is becoming less relevant.”
The Wharton School worked in partnership with Accenture, a professional services firm, to analyze millions of job postings and worker profiles for the report. The study used data from Lightcast, a labor market data provider, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bradlow spoke with The Inquirer about their findings.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: What are some skills included on resumes that don’t make much difference to employers, because everyone seems to have them?
A: Do we think it’s important to communicate? Well, yeah, of course, it is. Do we think it’s important to have leadership skills and manage teams well? Yeah, of course. Last time I checked, those were really important parts of the job — but everybody puts that down. We’re not saying in the report that those skills aren’t important. What we’re saying is there’s an over supply of people stating those skills, as opposed to companies saying these skills are what’s going to get you the job.
Companies are realizing that depth of skill is what’s going to be really important.
Q: Do people lack the specialized skills employers are looking for? Or are they just failing to highlight them on their resumes?
A: That’s something, trust me, I wish I could answer.
If we had people’s transcript data, or if we knew what courses someone had taken, then we could try to get an understanding of what skills people actually have.
I think two things are going to happen, based on this Wharton-Accenture Skills Index gap report. Number one is, you will see a migration where people [will say] “I need to acquire those skills, if I don’t have them, if I want a job.” Second, you’ll see [organizations] — whether it’s an academic institution or a for-profit institution — saying “wait a second, here, we need more people with this skill. We’ll create a certification program.”
Q: You found that some skills are actually tied to higher-paying jobs. Was that surprising?
A: I’m not sure I had hypotheses about which skills would be paid higher or lower.
I think maybe the part that surprised me a little bit was that there wasn’t massive swings and variation like “if you have this skill, your salary doubles.” That’s not what we found in the data.
Q: What advice would you give someone crafting their resume?
A: One is talk about the specific skills you have. Every resume I read says “I’m an effective communicator, experienced leader.” That’s fine, but that’s not what’s going to stick out and become differentiated, because everyone’s going to say that. To the degree that you have specific expertise and depth or skills, those are the kinds of things to put on the resume.
The second thing I would say is that … we should be in the skills acquisition business, be a lifelong learner. Skills will always be valued. Jobs in a particular workflow can go away. People with skills will be hired.
Take, for instance, a customer support agent in a customer satisfaction group. If you’re someone with exceptional problem solving skills, you’re hearing your customer, and you’re able to tie it to some remedy, that skill is not going to go away even if the job you’re currently in happens to go away.
Q: What skills are needed more or needed less because of the adoption of AI recently?
A: I don’t view it as AI replacing humans. I view AI as that decision-support tool you should use for every decision. If I were an employer today, I wouldn’t even consider hiring someone that didn’t recognize the power of artificial intelligence as a decision-support aid. I don’t know what business decision — pricing decision, product launch decision, product design decision, possibly even hiring decision — [for which] I wouldn’t use artificial intelligence as a decision support tool.
I would also say, equally, I’m very concerned about the agentic use of AI — in some sense totally handing over high stakes decisions.
Q: From where you stand, is AI coming for people’s jobs, as we often hear, or is it coming for their skills? What’s the difference?
A: Go through the history of mankind.
The train engine came. So you mean we don’t need as many horses? Electricity came. You mean we don’t need as much coal? Green energy came, and so now we don’t need as much nuclear fusion?
Doesn’t technology always come and translate one set of jobs to another set of jobs? It’s not AI is coming for your job. What companies are realizing about AI is there are certain roles and functions that AI can do extraordinarily well, with high accuracy, and in some cases better than humans can do. These tend to be functions, by the way, that many humans don’t like doing anyway.
I don’t see AI coming for your job any more so than any set of technology. This is an extraordinarily disruptive technology, but we’ve lived through periods of extraordinarily disruptive technology.
DETROIT — Change your perspective heading into the new year with a visit to Detroit’s new Museum of Illusions.
The attraction debuted on Woodward in the Himelhoch building near Grand Circus Park in early December. It’s the 67th Museum of Illusions that has opened around the world. Each location features exhibits and artwork specific to the city.
In Detroit, there’s a vibrant mural of what looks like a Motown singer with eyes that are always locked on you, and a “reversed room” inspired by the auto industry. Look for the illusion that makes you look like you’re sitting on — or hanging from — the marquee of the historic art deco Majestic Theatre a few blocks up Woodward.
“We have received the warmest welcome from the Motor City,” said Museum of Illusions CEO Kim Schaefer at a museum preview in December. “We feel like we are truly family here.”
“We’ve been around for a decade now and this is number 67 and we are proud of being all over the globe,” she said, adding that the museum is filled with “nods to the beautiful, vibrant, historic nature of what makes Detroit so special. We’re excited to be here.”
A light-up optical illusions sculpture at the Museum of Illusions in Detroit. (Melody Baetens/The Detroit News/TNS)
Some attractions at the Museum of Illusions are specific to Detroit, like the auto-themed reversed room. (Melody Baetens/The Detroit News/TNS)
The Museum of Illusions debuted at 1545 Woodward in Detroit in early December. (Melody Baetens/The Detroit News/TNS)
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A light-up optical illusions sculpture at the Museum of Illusions in Detroit. (Melody Baetens/The Detroit News/TNS)
The first Museum of Illusions opened in Zagreb, Croatia, a decade ago, and it has become the largest and fastest-growing chain of privately held museums in the world.
The wheelchair-accessible, hands-on museum is set up like a path, with guests taking about an hour to get through and experience everything, depending on how crowded it is. Visitors are invited to touch, climb and take plenty of photos.
Your camera is as essential to your visit as your eyeballs, because some of the illusions aren’t fully effective until you see your photo. This includes the Beuchet Chair, which places two people in a room for a forced-perspective trick that works best once a third person takes a photo. The museum walls give tips on taking the best photographs.
Others don’t require a camera, like the giant pinscreen, a full-body-size version of the famous desk toy; strike a pose, press yourself into it and then view your impression on the other side. Gaze at the grid illusion and see dancing black spots that aren’t really there. Like many of the installations, the museum offers text that explains the science behind it.
Hold on tight in the vortex tunnel, which is a stationary platform with a revolving tunnel around it that makes you feel like you’re spinning into oblivion. (Just close your eyes to recenter yourself.)
Like any museum, there’s a gift shop, which is a whole Woodward-facing storefront. They sell Museum of Illusions apparel and giftable toys that challenge the mind. The museum is rentable for weddings, birthdays, corporate team building and field trips.
As part of its deportation efforts, the Trump administration has ordered states to hand over personal data from voter rolls, driver’s license records and programs such as Medicaid and food stamps.
At the same time, the administration is trying to consolidate the bits of personal data held across federal agencies, creating a single trove of information on people who live in the United States.
Many left-leaning states and cities are trying to protect their residents’ personal information amid the immigration crackdown. But a growing number of conservative lawmakers also want to curb the use of surveillance technologies, such as automated license plate readers, that can be used to identify and track people.
Conservative-led states such as Arkansas, Idaho and Montana enacted laws last year designed to protect the personal data collected through license plate readers and other means. They joined at least five left-leaning states — Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Washington — that specifically blocked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from accessing their driver’s license records.
The Trump administration’s goal is to create a “surveillance dragnet across the country,” said William Owen, communications director at the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, a nonprofit that advocates for stronger privacy laws.
“We’re entering an increasingly dystopian era of high-tech surveillance,” Owen said. Intelligence sharing between various levels of government, he said, has “allowed ICE to sidestep sanctuary laws and co-opt local police databases and surveillance tools, including license plate readers, facial recognition and other technologies.”
A new Montana law bars government entities from accessing electronic communications and related material without a warrant. Republican state Sen. Daniel Emrich, the law’s author, said “the most important thing that our entire justice system is based on is the principle against unlawful search and seizure” — the right enshrined in the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“It’s tough to find individuals who are constitutionally grounded and understand the necessity of keeping the Fourth Amendment rights intact at all times for all reasons — with minimal or zero exceptions,” Emrich said in an interview.
ICE did not respond to Stateline’s requests for comment.
Automated license plate readers
Recently, cities and states have grown particularly concerned over the use of automated license plate readers (ALPRs), which are high-speed camera and computer systems that capture license plate information on vehicles that drive by. These readers sit on top of police cars and streetlights or can be hidden within construction barrels and utility poles.
Some cameras collect data that gets stored in databases for years, raising concerns among privacy advocates. One report from the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive think tank at New York University, found the data can be susceptible to hacking. Different agencies have varying policies on how long they keep the data, according to the International Association of Chiefs of Police, a law enforcement advocacy group.
Supporters of the technology, including many in law enforcement, say the technology is a powerful tool for tracking down criminal suspects.
Flock Safety says it has cameras in more than 5,000 communities and is connected to more than 4,800 law enforcement agencies across 49 states. The company claims its cameras conduct more than 20 billion license plate reads a month. It collects the data and gives it to police departments, which use the information to locate people.
Holly Beilin, a spokesperson for Flock Safety, told Stateline that while there are local police agencies that may be working with ICE, the company does not have a contractual relationship with the agency. Beilin also said that many liberal and even sanctuary cities continue to sign contracts with Flock Safety. She noted that the cameras have been used to solve some high-profile crimes, including identifying and leading police to the man who committed the Brown University shooting and killed an MIT professor at the end of last year.
“Agencies and cities are very much able to use this technology in a way that complies with their values. So they do not have to share data out of state,” Beilin said.
Pushback over data’s use
But critics, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, say that Flock Safety’s cameras are not only “giving even the smallest-town police chief access to an enormously powerful driver-surveillance tool,” but also that the data is being used by ICE. One news outlet, 404 Media, obtained records of these searches and found many were being carried out by local officers on behalf of ICE.
Last spring, the Denver City Council unanimously voted to terminate its contract with Flock Safety, but Democratic Mayor Mike Johnston unilaterally extended the contract in October, arguing that the technology was a useful crime-fighting tool.
The ACLU of Colorado has vehemently opposed the cameras, saying last August that audit logs from the Denver Police Department show more than 1,400 searches had been conducted for ICE since June 2024.
“The conversation has really gotten bigger because of the federal landscape and the focus, not only on immigrants and the functionality of ICE right now, but also on the side of really trying to reduce and or eliminate protections in regards to access to reproductive care and gender affirming care,” Anaya Robinson, public policy director at the ACLU of Colorado.
“When we erode rights and access for a particular community, it’s just a matter of time before that erosion starts to touch other communities.”
Jimmy Monto, a Democratic city councilor in Syracuse, New York, led the charge to eliminate Flock Safety’s contract in his city.
“Syracuse has a very large immigrant population, a very large new American population, refugees that have resettled and been resettled here. So it’s a very sensitive issue,” Monto said, adding that license plate readers allow anyone reviewing the data to determine someone’s immigration status without a warrant.
“When we sign a contract with someone who is collecting data on the citizens who live in a city, we have to be hyper-focused on exactly what they are doing while we’re also giving police departments the tools that they need to also solve homicides, right?” Monto said.
“Certainly, if license plate readers are helpful in that way, I think the scope is right. But we have to make sure that that’s what we’re using it for, and that the companies that we are contracting with are acting in good faith.”
Emrich, the Montana lawmaker, said everyone should be concerned about protecting constitutional privacy rights, regardless of their political views.
“If the government is obtaining data in violation of constitutional rights, they could be violating a whole slew of individuals’ constitutional rights in pursuit of the individuals who may or may not be protected under those same constitutional rights,” he said.
By Melody Baetens, Adam Graham, Francis X. Donnelly, The Detroit News
It was cold and it was sloshy and it didn’t make a bit of difference Friday night.
When you’re attending the premier social event of the year, the last thing on your mind is meteorology.
The forecast for the Charity Preview gala, which opens the Detroit Auto Show each year, was shiny tuxedos, glittering gowns, bubbly champagne and, oh yeah, cars.
All this finery transpired within the confines of the Huntington Place convention center, where 6,000 revelers oogled the latest designs from automakers.
The oglers sported some fancy designs of their own. Their jewelry alone put the glitz into the social spectacle.
Like most years, the fashion was black-tie with a dash of Motor City swagger and wintertime ritz.
Women have been hip to the fact that the hard, freshly carpeted floors of the showroom can be tough if you’re wearing heels, and many opt for flats. Complimentary comfy slippers were at the ready, piled high near the stage area.
Also spotted were a few gals in expensive sneakers.
Mia Talbott of Rochester Hills rocked an emerald satin mini dress with modern gold jewelry and black-and-white Jordans.
“They’re really comfy and they’re also my favorite pair of shoes,” said the young car fan, who was attending the event for the second time with her mom, Lori Talbott. “I like how they’re every day, but when you style them right, they can be fancier.”
During the entertainment portion of the evening, longtime “Masked Singer” judge Robin Thicke performed a brief 19-minute set that included his hits “Lost Without U” and “Blurred Lines.”
But it was a step down from 2025’s headliner, Flo Rida, who ignited a dance party on stage and brought out Flavor Flav to hype up the crowd, turning the buttoned-up Charity Preview setting upside down. Thicke didn’t bring any of that energy or excitement, and his set was seemingly over before it even got going.
A local guy did a much better job.
Trick Trick performed a 25-minute set on a large stage at the back of Huntington Center. Joined by his brother Diezel, a Detroit sex symbol in his own right due to his heavy Tubi presence, Trick took the stage and was greeted by a rumble of bass that echoed throughout the show floor.
The Detroit rapper had the tux- and gown-clad crowd throwing their hands in the air as he performed songs like “Bet She Wanna Smoke,” “My Name is Trick Trick” and “Booty Bounce,” the 1995 single that put him on the Detroit map.
Crowd faves “Welcome 2 Detroit” and “From the D” followed, and Trick served as a proper scene-setter for headliner Thicke.
Trick left the crowd with some parting words of unity.
“Listen,” he told the crowd. “It don’t matter what political party you represent, there’s always one Detroit.”
Besides fun and fashion, some do-gooderism also abounded.
As Carolyn Clifford and Glenda Lewis welcomed the growing crowd ahead of the ribbon cutting, the WXYZ-TV anchors talked about the financial impact of the event. Clifford said the gala has raised more than $125 million for local children’s nonprofits.
“At the heart of the night is impact,” said Clifford.
Proceeds from the $400-a-ticket event will go to six children’s charities in southeastern Michigan. The final tally won’t be known for several weeks but organizers hope to raise an additional $3 million for the charitable groups.
Todd Szott, auto show chair, echoed the importance of the charity support.
“What you make possible tonight through your support and your presence and your belief has a real and lasting impact on children and families across our region,” he told the crowd.
Lewis introduced the newly elected mayor of Detroit, Mary Sheffield, who said the auto show has had a great economic effect on the city.
Her Honor said the event generated $370 million in economic activity last year and $8 billion over the years.
“The auto show is such an important time and event for our city throughout the years,” she said. “It is more than just cars in glamour. It really is about the heart of our city. It is about the meaningful impact that this event has on our community.”
For former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, it was his first Charity Preview not as the city’s chief executive since 2013. But it felt just like the others, especially when snow fell on the same day as the gala, he said.
He didn’t mind the snow and thought the event was smart to return to winter after giving summer a try.
“Crowds come in from all over, and all you hear is, ‘the city looks incredible,’” he said.
Duggan said he didn’t have any official duties during the soiree, including making speeches, and he was fine with that, too.
“I’m adjusting to retirement without a problem,” he joked.
It may be a short-lived retirement as Duggan is currently running for governor.
Jalen Rose is many things ― a Detroit native, media mogul, and former NBA star, but until Friday night, he was never an attendee of the Charity Preview.
He not only corrected the last part of that, but doubled down as the evening’s master of ceremonies.
“This is incredible,” Rose said. “It’s a celebration of vehicles, and a celebration of the city.”
Rose said he loved that everyone dressed to the nines, and said no one does that better than Detroit. He was among the fashionistas, wearing a black suit, black rimmed glasses and a black hat with a red underbrim.
Marissa Bennett of Richmond wears a dress made of pieces of paper made of iconic Detroit landmarks. (KATY KILDEE-The Detroit News)
Marissa Bennett of Richmond floated through Huntington Place with a dress made of magazine-style paper ads for Vernors, Better Made potato chips, the city’s sports teams and everything else that screams Detroit.
Bennett was constantly stopped by people asking about the outfit, which had a plastic base and was held together with tape and glue.
Standing beside Bennett was Matt Richmond of Pontiac, who designed the dress and assembled it just a few hours before the show.
“It’s pretty crazy. You can’t go more than a few feet without someone stopping and asking about it,” Richmond said. “It’s a showstopper.”
Emerald and similar shades of green were prominent, not only via sparkly gowns but also accents on men’s tuxedos. It may be an ode to cash money or inspired by the latest “Wicked” film.
State Sen. Stephanie Chang was more Glinda than Elphaba in a pale pink, almost-cream gown with sparkling accents, which she purchased at Detroit’s Peacock Room.
“It’s a super fun event, great for networking, but also you get to see all the cars,” she said. “So many great things, but I think the most important thing is raising money for really important organizations.”
Chang said she was especially happy with the financial support for the Children’s Center, which helps kids with mental health and foster care placement.
Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel has been coming to the Charity Preview for years and said he always enjoys meeting people. He said the event also is a great way for the region to show off its attributes.
“It’s not about being a politician, it’s about being a people person,” he said. “It’s a target-rich environment for people who like people so I love it.”
Guests watch a ribbon cutting ceremony during the Detroit Auto Show Charity Preview on Friday, Jan. 16, 2026 at Huntington Place in Detroit. (Katy Kildee, The Detroit News/The Detroit News/TNS)
After Missouri lawmakers passed a gerrymandered congressional map this fall, opponents submitted more than 300,000 signatures seeking to force a statewide vote on whether to overturn the map. But Republican state officials say they will use the map in the meantime.
Missouri courts now appear likely to weigh in.
“If we need to continue to litigate to enforce our constitutional rights, we will,” said Richard von Glahn, a progressive activist who leads People Not Politicians, which is leading the campaign opposing the gerrymandered map.
As some states engage in an extraordinary redraw of congressional districts ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, state courts may decide the fate of the new maps. President Donald Trump has pushed Republican state lawmakers to gerrymander their states’ congressional maps, prompting Democratic state lawmakers to respond in kind.
Nationwide, state judges are poised to play a pivotal role in adjudicating legal challenges to the maps, which have been drafted to maximize partisan advantage for either Republicans or Democrats, depending on the state. Maps are typically only redrawn once a decade following the census.
While some state courts have long heard map-related lawsuits, the U.S. Supreme Court has all but taken federal courts out of the business of reviewing redrawn maps this year. On Dec. 4, a majority of the court allowed Texas’ new map, which seeks to secure five more U.S. House seats for Republicans, to proceed. A federal lawsuit against California’s new gerrymandered map, drawn to favor Democrats, hasn’t reached the high court.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s brief, unsigned majority decision voiced concern about inserting federal courts into an “active primary campaign,” though Texas’s primary election will occur in March. Critics of the court’s decision have said it effectively forecloses federal challenges to this year’s gerrymanders. The justices could also issue a decision next year that makes it more difficult to challenge maps as racially discriminatory.
State courts are taking center stage after gerrymandering opponents have spent decades encouraging them to play a more active role in policing maps that had been drawn for partisan advantage. Those efforts accelerated after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019 limited the power of federal courts to block such maps.
“Basically, every one of the 50 states has something in its constitution that could be used to constrain partisan gerrymandering,” said Samuel Wang, director of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project.
State constitutions, which are interpreted by state supreme courts, typically have language that echoes the right to freedom of speech and association found in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Wang said. They also include a right to equal protection under the law, similar to the 14th Amendment.
Some state constitutions guarantee free and fair elections, language that doesn’t appear in the U.S. Constitution. Thirty states have some form of a constitutional requirement for free elections, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
At least 10 state supreme courts have found that state courts can decide cases involving allegations of partisan gerrymandering, according to a 2024 review by the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
So far this year, California, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Utah have adopted new congressional maps. New maps also appear possible in Florida, Maryland and Virginia. A handful of other states — Alabama, Louisiana, New York and North Dakota — may have to change their maps depending on the outcome of court cases.
Some of those new or potential maps could face legal obstacles. Florida, New York and Ohio all have state supreme courts that have previously found problems with partisan gerrymanders. Maryland Democrats have so far not moved forward with a gerrymander, in part because of fears of an adverse decision from the state Supreme Court.
Four state supreme courts — including in Missouri — have determined that they cannot review partisan gerrymandering claims, though state courts may still consider challenges on other grounds, such as whether the districts are compact or contiguous.
In Missouri’s case, courts could also clear the way for a referendum vote over the new map, which is intended to force out U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat who has represented Kansas City in Congress for the past two decades. Republicans currently hold six of the state’s eight congressional districts.
The map already faces a bevy of lawsuits, most notably over whether state officials must count some 103,000 referendum signatures gathered before the governor signed the map into law; at least 106,000 signatures are needed to send the map to voters.
Opponents of the new map have also filed lawsuits asserting the Missouri Constitution prevents redistricting without new census data and that an area of Kansas City was simultaneously placed into two separate congressional districts.
Missouri Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins’ decision this month (relying on an opinion from Missouri Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanaway) to implement the new congressional map, despite a submitted referendum petition, is expected to become the latest legal flashpoint. Opponents of the map argue it is now paused under state law.
Hoskins spokesperson Rachael Dunn said in a statement to Stateline that local election officials have until late July to verify referendum signatures — months after candidate filing ends March 31 and days before the Aug. 4 primary election. At that point, blocking the new map would be all but impossible, even if map opponents have gathered enough signatures to force a vote.
“Once signatures are all verified, the Secretary will certify the referendum based on constitutionality and verification,” Dunn wrote.
Hanaway’s office didn’t respond to questions.
Breaking out of lockstep
As federal courts limit their review of gerrymandering because of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, some state supreme courts are reluctant to wade into the issue because of a practice called “lockstepping.”
State supreme courts often interpret their state constitutions in line with — or in lockstep with — how the U.S. Supreme Court views similar language in the U.S. Constitution. Because the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to limit partisan gerrymandering, some state supreme courts have also declined to impose limits.
Gerrymandering opponents have used a variety of arguments over the years to try to prod state supreme courts out of lockstep. They have emphasized differences in wording between state constitutions and the federal one, and provisions in state constitutions — such as the free elections requirement — not found in the U.S. Constitution.
Sometimes these arguments work — and sometimes they don’t. The North Carolina Supreme Court in 2022 ruled against partisan gerrymandering. But after two Republicans were elected as justices that fall, the court reversed itself months later.
“Across the country, we have seen advocates turn to state supreme courts, and state courts in general, for state constitutional arguments against gerrymandering or voter suppression more broadly. And it’s been met with mixed success,” said Sharon Brett, a University of Kansas associate professor of law. In 2022 as litigation director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, she unsuccessfully argued a case before the state’s high court challenging Kansas’ congressional map.
In states where legislatures draw congressional maps, some lawmakers argue that state constitutions shouldn’t be interpreted to curb legislative authority over mapmaking. Court-imposed limits amount to violations of the traditional separation of powers, they say, with the judiciary overstepping its authority to interfere in politics.
“We expect them to be nonpartisan. We expect them to be unbiased. We expect them to be fair. We expect them to read the constitution and to protect or at least respect the separation of powers,” said Utah Republican state Rep. Casey Snider, speaking of Utah courts during a floor speech earlier this month.
In Utah, state courts waded through a yearslong legal battle over whether state lawmakers must adopt a non-gerrymandered map. After the Republican-controlled legislature repealed and replaced an independent redistricting process, the Utah Supreme Court last year ruled lawmakers had violated the state constitution.
A Utah district court judge in November then adopted a congressional map that will likely lead next year to the election of a Democrat. The state’s four congressional seats are currently all held by Republicans.
“What we would like is them to redistrict based on population — fairly,” Katharine Biele, president of the League of Women Voters of Utah, said of state lawmakers.
Republican Gov. Spencer Cox called the Utah legislature into special session earlier in December to respond to the judge’s decision. Lawmakers pushed back candidate filing deadlines in hopes that an appeal to the Utah Supreme Court will result in a decision overturning the judge’s adopted map.
They also passed a resolution condemning the judiciary.
Constitutional concerns
As the Indiana legislature weighed a gerrymandered map to boost Republicans this month, some lawmakers were reluctant to constrain state courts. Democrats currently hold two of the state’s nine congressional districts.
The GOP-controlled Indiana Senate voted down the map in a major setback to Trump’s national redistricting push. The vote came after a floor debate where opponents raised concerns about limiting court involvement; the legislation included a provision sending any legal challenge directly to the Indiana Supreme Court, bypassing a jury trial.
Indiana Republican state Sen. Greg Walker said the measure violated the state constitution, which guarantees an “inviolate” right to a jury trial in all civil cases. “In legal terms, ‘inviolate’ has the implication of being sacred, as opposed to being just a piece of the law,” Walker said on the floor.
State Sen. Mike Gaskill, a Republican who sponsored the map, said during a speech that Indiana residents would benefit from a quick process to resolve legal challenges. “Both sides, in any case, want them to be settled quickly so that they don’t cause chaos and interruptions in the elections process,” he said.
If the map had passed, opponents would have likely attacked the measure using a provision of the Indiana Constitution that requires “free and equal” elections.
Missouri Capitol Police officers conduct security checks on boxes of petition signatures submitted to force a referendum vote on the state’ s new congressional map. (Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent/TNS)
No one wants to deal with the inconvenience of long lines every time you have a flight to catch. Instead, you can take a leisurely stroll through airport security by enrolling in TSA PreCheck. This trusted traveler program allows people to access a separate security line at the airport and eliminates some of the hassles involved in clearing airport security … for a price.
A TSA PreCheck membership costs $77 and remains valid for five years, so it’s relatively affordable. However, you may get that fee back if you have one of the top travel credit cards. Many of these cards reimburse the TSA PreCheck or Global Entry fee by granting a credit of up to $120. That means you can make the most of your card benefits and offset part of your annual fee by learning how to get TSA PreCheck with your credit card.
Here’s how to get TSA PreCheck by using your credit card.
How does TSA PreCheck work?
TSA PreCheck is an official trusted traveler program set up through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. It requires you to go through a short online application and in-person interview where you’ll be fingerprinted and have your photo taken.
After you’re approved, you’ll have access to dedicated security lines and expedited security procedures at many U.S. airports, allowing you to keep your laptop and travel-sized liquids in your bag. Plus, you’ll keep your wait time to a minimum since 99% of TSA PreCheck members wait less than 10 minutes to make it through security, according to the TSA.
How to get TSA PreCheck free with a credit card
There are several ways a credit card can help you get TSA PreCheck for free:
—The easiest way is by paying for a Global Entry or TSA PreCheck application with a card that reimburses it. You’ll automatically receive a statement credit to cover the cost.
—You could use the rewards you’ve earned through an airline or hotel loyalty program to pay for it.
—You could use your credit card rewards to cover the fee.
Using a statement credit to get TSA PreCheck
Nearly 40 credit cards offer an application fee credit for TSA PreCheck or Global Entry, and that includes business credit cards and co-branded airline and hotel credit cards. However, it is important to note that most travel credit cards that cover TSA PreCheck come with an annual fee of anywhere from $95 to $695.
While there are travel credit cards with no annual fee, it’s uncommon for them to include a TSA PreCheck benefit. That said, occasionally you may be able to find a travel card with this benefit and no annual fee — but there will likely be a catch.
For example, the Capital One Spark Miles for Business card, which comes with no annual fee the first year, offers an up to $120 reimbursement credit for Global Entry and TSA PreCheck every four years. However, this card charges an annual fee every year thereafter.
However, this method usually isn’t the best option since you’ll typically spend $100 or more in rewards — which is more than the cost of a TSA PreCheck membership. If you have a bank of points or miles that are about to expire, then it could be a decent option.
These loyalty programs also occasionally offer promotions and deals on TSA PreCheck, which may help you to get a discounted membership or a free membership with certain levels of elite status.
Using credit card rewards to get TSA PreCheck
If you’re not interested in a travel credit card or paying an annual fee, rewards from one of the top cash-back cards could help you cover your TSA PreCheck fee. These credit cards allow you to earn rewards or welcome bonuses that you can then redeem as statement credits to cover your TSA PreCheck application.
Bankrate’s take: If you travel internationally and would like to shorten your trips through customs, consider applying for Global Entry instead of TSA PreCheck. Global Entry includes all the benefits of TSA PreCheck plus expedited customs screening for travelers entering the United States, and membership costs $120 for five years.
Which credit card with TSA PreCheck credits is right for you?
You’ll also want to think about how it fits into your current spending habits and lifestyle. If a particular card is only appealing because it pays for TSA PreCheck, then you should consider a different card that better aligns with your spending habits and interests — even if that card is just a general rewards card that will help you to earn enough cash back to cover the application fee.
Keep in mind that many business, airline and hotel credit cards offer a TSA PreCheck benefit. If you own a business, you may want to consider a general business travel credit card (which offers more flexibility) or a credit card for an airline or hotel that you use frequently (which will offer airline- or hotel-specific perks).
The bottom line
If you want to get TSA PreCheck for free, there are a lot of credit cards out there that can help you cover the cost.
Whether you choose a card that reimburses your TSA PreCheck fee or a card that helps you earn rewards to cover the fee, you’ll have plenty of options to save on the cost of your TSA PreCheck membership. And once you’ve got that TSA PreCheck stamp on your boarding pass, you’ll be able to save time (and effort) at the airport.
A TSA Pre-check sign is visible as travelers move through Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on June 28, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images North America/TSA)
When he was to gather with family at his grandparents’ house for Christmas dinner this year, Edward Constantineau of Sterling Heights planned to be surrounded by the people who pushed him to fight to recover from the hardest thing he’s ever faced in his young life, a hurdle he’s still working to overcome.
Constantineau was just 19, working out at his local gym in March of this year, when he suffered the unimaginable for a teenager: a stroke. He underwent immediate surgery on a bleed in his brain and later went through six weeks of inpatient rehab at a facility in Detroit, learning how to move again, talk and regain fine motor skills.
But through it all, Constantineau said his biggest motivator as he’s gone through rehab and fought to recover has been “my family and friends.”
“My family was always there,” said Constantineau, now 20. “I mean, my mom never left my side.”
Henry Ford Health officials say Constantineau’s story highlights the importance of early detection and rapid treatment of strokes, only about 10-15% of which occur in people younger than 50. Constantineau’s stroke was caused by a rare condition called arteriovenous malformation, in which arteries and veins mesh together without capillaries connecting them, said his neurologist, Dr. Mohammed Rehman.
Constantineau didn’t know he had the malformation at the time, but it ruptured.
Rehman said that in Edward’s case, the gym receptionist called 911 “right away.”
“If you ever have a neurological deficit … or you think something is going on and something is off, don’t hesitate” to call 911, Rehman said.
Looking back on her son’s ordeal and how it started, Stephanie Constantineau, Edward’s mom, thinks he “saved his own life” by asking for help when he was in the gym and felt his arm weaken. He was the one who asked the receptionist to call 911.
“I definitely believe there was a stronger force with him, watching over him,” she said. “I don’t know, a guardian angel, if you will.”
And Rehman believes Constantineau’s steadfast support system and drive to get better have played a role in his “remarkable” recovery.
“That’s a very rare thing I see, because at his age, when you face something like this, it’s very tough to cope with a lot of things,” Rehman said. “And I could tell, Eddie was driven.”
The stroke
Constantineau, a 2023 graduate of Henry Ford II High School, where he played varsity baseball, said he doesn’t have any memory of the stroke, but he has been told that it started soon after he got to his gym, The Edge Fitness Clubs, on March 14.
As he was doing lat pulldowns, an exercise that involves pulling down a weighted bar attached to a gym machine while seated, he felt his left arm go weak. He asked the gym’s receptionist to call 911; she also called his parents.
Paramedics brought Constantineau to Henry Ford Macomb Hospital in Clinton Township, where they quickly performed surgery.
The next couple of days were “kind of a blur,” Stephanie Constantineau recalled. She describes them as “emotional” and “hard.” She felt helpless as a parent.
“I think the first 48 to 72 hours were really touch and go with him, like it was just like getting him through those first three days to see how, if he was going to recover from the surgeries,” she said.
A rare medical condition
Rehman, a neuroendovascular physician at Henry Ford Health, said most strokes are caused by a blockage of a blood vessel, while others are caused by a bleed in the brain. He said one of the rare causes of a bleed in the brain is an arteriovenous malformation.
Capillaries connect arteries to veins in the body. An arteriovenous malformation (AVM) is a jumble of arteries and veins with no capillaries between them, according to the Cleveland Clinic. The incidence of the condition is around 1 in 100,000 people. The malformations typically occur in the brain, and they’re usually present from birth, according to Henry Ford Health.
Rehman said AVMs often present in young people, and bleeding most commonly occurs between the ages of 10 and 40. He said the Henry Ford Health system sees three to five ruptured arteriovenous malformations a year, and it also sees around 40 to 50 people a year whose malformations haven’t ruptured. AVMs cause symptoms such as severe headaches, seizures or weakness as damage builds, he said.
Dr. Mark Goldberger, a neurosurgeon, did the initial surgery on Constantineau, removing a significant amount of blood from the brain. In the following weeks, his doctors did a few angiograms, or blood vessel tests. In the second angiogram, they discovered the AVM, Stephanie Constantineau said.
Rehman said it took Constantineau at least five to seven days to wake up from the initial surgery ― he was in a coma. Overall, he spent 27 days in the intensive care unit.
“It’s heartbreaking to see your son go through something like this and not know how it’s gonna end up,” Stephanie Constantineau said, tearfully. “Like I say, ‘You just put all your faith in God and the doctors, and just trust that everything’s going to be OK.’ But it’s hard, because we have two other kids.”
She said she never left her son’s side. She spent every night at the hospital and would return home briefly to shower.
The therapy process
After leaving the hospital, Constantineau spent 43 days in inpatient rehabilitation. He said the beginning of the recovery process was “the toughest.”
“I was at a stage where I couldn’t even sit up straight,” he said, referring to when he was in the hospital and the early days of rehab. “I had lost all my muscle and was just sitting in a wheelchair, which was tough every single day. I just felt like stuck in a place where I couldn’t even move.”
He said therapy was “intense” and “very constant,” occurring five or more days a week. He underwent occupational, physical and speech therapy, the latter of which was necessary because he had “no voice after coming off of intubation,” he said.
Constantineau said fine motor skills were “the most frustrating” part of therapy, and he’s still working on it.
“He still doesn’t have, like, mobility of his left hand, like the wrist and fingers, yet,” said Stephanie Constantineau, adding that the recovery takes “a good 18 months.”
“I mean, we haven’t lost hope,” she said. “He works hard every single day.”
At home, Constantineau continues to do therapy each day, he said. In his family’s basement, he does exercises his therapist has recommended and rides on a stationary bike.
“I’ve been trying to adjust to getting back into my regular life by hanging out with friends” and taking an online class at Macomb Community College this fall, he said.
The signs of stroke
Rehman said in an email that strokes can affect anyone at any age, though the likelihood of it increases with age. He said about 10-15% of strokes occur in people under 50. He urged everyone, including young people, to be aware of the signs of a stroke and shared the acronym F.A.S.T. It stands for “Facial drooping, Arm weakness, Slurred speech, Time to call 911.”
He said that if you or anyone around you experiences these symptoms, you should seek medical attention immediately.
“The fact that Eddie sought help immediately when he began experiencing symptoms is incredibly important,” he said. “That allowed 911 to be called and emergency care to be administered quickly. When a stroke occurs, every second counts. The faster a person seeks treatment, the better their outcome.”
His plans for the future
In January, Constantineau will resume in-person classes at MCC, where he is studying exercise science. He plans to re-do the classes he was taking when the stroke occurred earlier this year.
After finishing his associate’s degree, he plans to transfer to Oakland University and is planning to go into health care, either as a nurse or a physician assistant. Constantineau said he originally wanted to go into health care because of his interest in sports, but after everything he’s experienced since his stroke, it has reinforced his decision to go into the field.
Looking back on his experience, Constantineau said the early days of his recovery were “rough” — “I think I was stuck in that ‘why me?’ mentality” — but is now “very confident” with the progress he has made. But he also knows that recovery takes time.
“I think that’s the tough part … just waiting all that time, but … I’m definitely optimistic for the future,” he said.
Constantineau plans to resume in-person classes at MCC, where he is studying exercise science. (David Guralnick, Detroit News/The Detroit News/TNS)
LOS ANGELES — Even with inflation, endless air travel complaints and the recent flight cancellations caused by the government shutdown, millions of Americans, including me, will begin their holiday celebrations on a plane. And while some are already making their packing lists, I am more concerned about what I should watch. In addition to getting you where you want to go, those hours spent in uncomfortable seats — first at the gate and then on board — are a guilt-free opportunity to catch up on or revisit great shows and films.
In-flight viewing is a specific, and sometimes unintentionally communal, viewing experience; not everything works. Choose tearjerkers and musicals with care. Ugly crying over “The Notebook” or singing along with “Wicked” might feel great, but it can cause your fellow passengers unnecessary consternation and/or annoyance.
If you are traveling with or seated near children, you should avoid hard-R-rated fare — as I discovered while briefly attempting to watch “Game of Thrones” while seated beside my then-young son, nudity and beheadings don’t need the sound on to be inappropriate.
Likewise, avoid anything that involves tragic or problematic air travel — catch up on the “Final Destination” franchise another time — and you also might want to skip full-attention-demanding subtitles. The perfect airplane watch allows you to immerse yourself while also remaining aware of what’s happening around you. (Including and especially requests from flight attendants.)
With all these considerations in mind, here are some suggestions.
Watch at the gate
Comedy series are best, for obvious mood-sweetening reasons (should delays occur), but also because the episodes are short and tend not to have dramatic moments that might keep you watching even after your group number has been called.
“Schitt’s Creek” (Amazon)
Each episode of this perfectly addictive series about a once-rich (and very dysfunctional) family that finds itself forced to start anew in a small town will make you laugh no matter how many times you’ve seen it.
“Derry Girls” (Netflix)
Those unfamiliar with the Northern Ireland accent may find it necessary to use subtitles, which I just cautioned against. But this show is worth breaking the rules for. Living through the Troubles in 1990s Derry, five Catholic school friends and their families cope hilariously with everyday issues, including school life under the redoubtable eye of Sister Michael (Siobhán McSweeney).
“New Girl” (Hulu)
The shenanigans of friends/roomies Jess (Zooey Deschanel), Nick (Jake Johnson), Schmidt (Max Greenfield), Winston (Lamorne Morris) and Cece (Hannah Simone) are always a delight.
“Brooklyn Nine-Nine” (Netflix)
Any time’s a good time to watch the greatest police comedy series since “Barney Miller.” Andy Samberg’s Jake Peralta heads a misfit but inevitably successful team of New York detectives, headed by the driest, wisest chief in TV history — Captain Holt, played by the late, great Andre Braugher.
“Abbott Elementary” (Hulu)
Celebrate the holidays with this quick-witted, revelatory and very sweet teacher-centric mockumentary-comedy created by and starring Quinta Brunson. Compared with classroom chaos, even the airport will seem like an oasis of tranquility.
“What We Do in the Shadows” (Hulu)
If you somehow missed this hilariously unique comedy-horror mockumentary about a group of vampires living in modern-day Staten Island, now is the time to rectify that.
Watch on domestic flights
All of the above comedy series work here as well — but movies are best, especially if you can time it so the film begins when altitude is achieved and ends as you’re returning your seat backs and tray tables to their full upright positions.
FILMS:
“The Da Vinci Code” (AMC+)
The perfect in-flight film, “The Da Vinci Code” offers something like cultural edification (the Louvre! The Knights Templar! Biblical history!) while not forcing you to think too much. A tour of Paris, great action sequences, the always endearing Tom Hanks and a literally beatific conclusion.
“Spy” (Amazon)
Melissa McCarthy is an everywoman intelligence agent who chooses to go into the field for the first time in this strangely unsung hero of modern comedy. Guaranteed to make you laugh even if you’re stuck in the middle seat. (Also set in Paris, it’s a perfect double feature with “The Da Vinci Code” for those five-hour flights.)
“Crazy Rich Asians” (Netflix)
Jon M. Chu’s glorious romantic comedy will transport you into a world far beyond the dreary confines of contemporary air travel and make you feel, if only for a moment, that you too are flying in a first-class compartment that contains an actual double bed.
“Iron Man” (Disney+)
Travel back in time to the moment when Robert Downey Jr. jump-started the Marvel Cinematic Universe and remind yourself why. It really is that good.
“Sense and Sensibility” (Amazon)
The exquisite nature of the performances, writing, direction, cinematography and score has made one of the best Jane Austen adaptations a go-to comfort film for when you’re feeling ill. Which is why it’s perfect while flying.
“Paddington” and/or “Paddington 2” (Netflix)
Come for the adorable bear (voiced by Ben Whishaw), stay for the adventure and sweet hijinks (and, in “Paddington 2,” Hugh Grant!). You will reach your destination feeling more kindly to your fellow travelers, which can only improve any trip.
“Edge of Tomorrow” (Netflix)
Tom Cruise teams up with Emily Blunt to battle an alien invasion, with some help from time travel. Classic dystopian thriller with several clever twists. If you’re feeling hot and cramped, just think of Cruise and Blunt in those super suits.
“The Martian” (Netflix)
Feel bad that your flight got delayed and you might not make your connection? A little time spent with Matt Damon’s astronaut, stranded for years on Mars, will put everything in perspective. At least you don’t have to figure out how to grow potatoes in hostile soil.
“Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” (Amazon)
The ultimate full-immersion movie sees four teenagers sucked into a survival adventure game in which their avatars are played by Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart and Karen Gillan.
“Skyfall” (Amazon)
Honestly, most Bond films are a good choice but Daniel Craig is my favorite Bond and “Skyfall” features a more-than-usual presence of M (Judi Dench). Also, the song.
“Knives Out” (Amazon)
A classic manor house mystery, which revived the genre when it became a hit in 2019, “Knives Out” is the ideal blend of mystery and wit, with a cast of characters to keep you company.
SHOWS:
“Hawkeye” (Disney+)
If you’re looking for a five-hour (or so) miniseries with plenty of Marvel action and a holiday theme, look no further. A year after the events of “Avengers: Endgame,” Hawkeye super fan Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) teams up with her reluctant hero, Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), to face down enemies new and old. Oh, and celebrate Christmas in New York.
“Black Mirror” (Netflix)
This sci-fi anthology series is perfect plane viewing because a.) It’s so very good and b.) Each episode is its own story, so you can construct however many hours you need (and, perhaps, catch up on a show so many people continue to talk about).
“Sherlock” (PBS)
Same principle — each episode is essentially a short film and you get to wallow in the wonder of Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock), Martin Freeman (Watson), Mark Gatiss (Mycroft) and all the rest as they solve crimes in modern twists on the classic tales.
Watch on international flights
For flights six hours and longer, you can hunker down and make your way through a film franchise or an entire season or seasons of a television series.
FILMS:
“The Lord of the Rings” trilogy (HBO Max)
Pick the director’s cut of all three and your journey through Middle-earth will take you almost 12 hours, which is about as long as it takes to fly from L.A. to New Zealand, where it was filmed.
“Hunger Games” (HBO Max)
The four films in which Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and friends attempt to wrest a shattered land from the tyranny of President Snow (Donald Sutherland) clock in at about nine hours total, which, with bathroom and meal breaks, should get you from L.A. to London or Paris.
“Mission Impossible” films (Amazon and other platforms)
Although they often include mishaps in the air, the fantastic (in both senses of the word) nature of “Mission: Impossible” makes these films an ideal high-altitude binge. From first to last, they run more than 18 hours, which is, quite frankly, far too many hours of consecutive movie viewing. But with plenty of installments to choose from, you can accept whichever assignments (and Cruise stunts) appeal to you.
“Harry Potter” (HBO Max)
However one feels about J.K. Rowling’s politics, this is a delightful film franchise that’s even longer than “Mission; Impossible” — about 20 hours. But you can start, and stop, the series wherever you want (though I would urge you not to skip the underrated “Order of the Phoenix”).
SHOWS:
“Black Doves” (Netflix)
Keira Knightley and Whishaw play highly unlikely but ruthlessly skilled mercenary spies who work for an ice-cold Sarah Lancashire. The six-hour-long series tells a complete tale (though Season 2 is in the works) and as the events take place in London as Christmas approaches, makes a fine holiday thriller.
“House”
Pick a season, any season (there are eight of them, with an average of 22 episodes each) and the wit, wisdom and scathing insanity of Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie) and his team will carry you through to any destination. And unlike other medical shows, most of the ailments are so bizarre that you won’t have to worry if that cough or twinge is a sign that you’re getting one of them.
“The Durrells in Corfu” (PBS)
It’s 1935 and young widow Louisa Durrell (Keeley Hawes) decides that the answer to her financial straits is to move herself and her four children to the island of Corfu. Sweet and scenic hilarity ensues, and includes the young Josh O’Connor (“The Crown”) and Callum Woodhouse (“All Creatures Great and Small”) as two of Louisa’s sons. Four seasons, 26 episodes. You’re welcome.
“Call the Midwife” (Netflix)
Seasonal purists could just download the dozen or so Christmas episodes of this long-running and still-exceptional drama about a group of midwives working out of a convent in London’s East End. (Between the nuns and the babies, the specials are always wonderful.) But if you haven’t seen the series, best to start with Season 1 and keep going.
“Mare of Easttown” (HBO Max)
If you somehow missed Kate Winslet’s turn as a small-town Pennsylvania cop (with a great Delco accent) who is trying to solve a brutal murder, then this is your chance. If you didn’t, well, it’s time for an eight-hour rewatch in which you can use the time you spent wondering who dunit to admire all the terrific acting.
“Slow Horses” (Apple TV)
The butt-numbing hours will fly by like minutes when you immerse yourself in the TV adaptation of the first five of Mick Herron’s Slough House novels. Gary Oldman is having a blast as Jackson Lamb, the greasy, rumpled, sharp-tongued and strategically flatulent keeper of a den of MI5 misfits. Who somehow manage to save the day.
“The Crown” (Netflix)
Think your flight is long? Consider the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth, played over the course of six seasons by Claire Foy, Olivia Colman and Imelda Staunton. For a full immersive experience, it’s tough to beat the royal settings, period clothes and changing times. And with 60 hours at your fingertips, you can move through history without ever leaving your seat.
“30 Rock” (Hulu)
Tina Fey’s send-up of a fictional “Saturday Night Live”-type show, and satirical look at the television business in general, is just as biting and gimlet-eyed as it was when it premiered almost 20 years ago. It got better as it aged, so for purposes of downloading, look to Seasons 4 and 5.
“Parks and Recreation” (Peacock/Amazon)
Life is always better when you spend some time with Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler), Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman), April Ludgate (Aubrey Plaza) and the many fine public servants in Pawnee, Indiana’s city government. The mockumentary series found its feet in Season 2, so you might want to start there.
“The Wire” (HBO Max)
David Simon’s five-season Baltimore-based crime drama is definitely R-rated (thus breaking one of our earlier stated rules) but it is the show that is consistently listed as one of the best — if not the best — TV dramas ever. So if a long-haul flight demands that you binge, why not binge big?
Passenger seats with screens are pictured inside an Airbus A350-900 Leipzig of German airline Lufthansa during a press event at Munich International Airport on April 25, 2024. (LUKAS BARTH/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS)
By Maria Salette Ontiveros, The Dallas Morning News
DALLAS — A new version of the common flu is spreading globally, and health officials are monitoring this evolving strain of influenza A(H3N3) Subclade K, which has been increasingly detected worldwide.
Seasonal influenza activity has increased globally in recent months, with influenza A viruses accounting for the majority of detections, according to the World Health Organization.
Health officials are closely monitoring a growing subgroup of influenza A(H3N2) viruses known as J.2.4.1, also referred to as Subclade K.
The WHO says detections of this subclade have risen rapidly since August 2025 based on genetic sequence data shared through the global GISAID database.
Current epidemiological data do not indicate increased disease severity associated with subclade K, the WHO says, though its spread reflects the continued evolution of seasonal influenza viruses.
What is subclade K?
Subclade K is a genetically distinct subgroup of influenza A(H3N2) viruses, according to the WHO.
These viruses have drifted genetically from related J.2.4 viruses and carry several amino acid changes in the haemagglutinin protein, which plays a key role in the virus’s attachment to human cells.
Influenza viruses commonly undergo such changes over time. Global surveillance tracks these shifts to assess potential impacts on transmission, severity, and vaccine effectiveness.
Where is subclade K circulating?
The WHO reports that subclade K viruses were first detected at increased levels beginning in August 2025, particularly in Australia and New Zealand.
Since then, the viruses have been identified in more than 34 countries over the past six months, including the U.S.
Detections are increasing in many regions of the world, except so far in South America, according to the WHO.
What is happening in America?
Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that influenza activity in North America remains relatively low but is increasing, driven mainly by detections of influenza A viruses.
During the 2025 southern hemisphere influenza season in the Americas, transmission exceeded the seasonal threshold in mid-March and mainly remained at low to moderate levels, the CDC says.
The CDC reports a predominance of influenza A(H3N2) in both the United States and Canada, with growing detections of the A(H3N2) subclade K.
Are symptoms different?
The WHO says there is no evidence that infections caused by subclade K produce symptoms that differ from or are more severe than those caused by other seasonal influenza A(H3N2) viruses.
Seasonal influenza symptoms typically include fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, muscle or body aches, headache and fatigue. Severity can vary based on age, underlying health conditions and immune status.
Do vaccines still protect?
Early estimates cited by the WHO suggest that seasonal influenza vaccines continue to protect against severe illness and hospitalization in both children and adults.
While effectiveness against symptomatic infection may vary from season to season, health officials say vaccination remains one of the most effective public health measures, particularly for people at higher risk of influenza complications and their caregivers.
Even when circulating viruses differ genetically from vaccine strains, vaccines may still reduce the risk of severe outcomes, the WHO says.
What happens next?
The WHO says it continues to monitor global influenza activity and viral evolution, while supporting countries in surveillance efforts and updating guidance as new data emerge.
Health officials note that changes in circulating influenza viruses are expected each season and are routinely assessed through international monitoring systems.
Early estimates cited by the World Health Organization suggest that seasonal influenza vaccines continue to protect against severe illness and hospitalization in both children and adults. (Dreamstime/TNS/Dreamstime/TNS)
By Maya Averbuch, Eric Martin and Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Bloomberg News
The U.S. has pursued a third oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, intensifying a blockade that the Trump administration hopes will cut off a vital economic lifeline for the country and isolate the government of President Nicolás Maduro.
The U.S. Coast Guard chased the U.S.-sanctioned Bella 1 on Sunday as it was en route to Venezuela. It boarded Centuries, a ship owned by a Hong Kong-based entity, on Saturday — the first non-sanctioned vessel to be targeted. Another very large crude carrier, the Skipper, was intercepted on Dec. 10.
The moves on three separate vessels represent the most concerted attempt to date to sever the financial links sustaining a government that Washington says is led by a drug-trafficking cartel, and one that it has also recently designated as a foreign terrorist organization. Maduro has so far withstood the onslaught, but the blockade is beginning to limit hard currency and to hurt an already battered economy.
State-owned Petróleos de Venezuela SA, known as PDVSA, ships most of its cargoes to China, usually through intermediaries using so-called dark-fleet tankers, older vessels with obscure ownership that ferry sanctioned oil from Venezuela as well as Iran and Russia. Imports of feedstock from Russia are also vital to dilute Caracas’ thick crude.
“Washington calculates that Maduro depends far more on oil exports than the US or China depends on his barrels,” said Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group. “With global balances loosening and prices falling, the U.S. judges it has growing leverage and is likely to intensify pressure on the Maduro regime.”
Washington’s campaign has caught the attention of oil traders, but Venezuela’s exports have dwindled over the years and now account for less than 1% of global demand. The market is also well supplied, and China has multiple alternative options. Oil prices advanced only marginally in early trade in Asia on Monday, with Brent crude climbing toward $61 a barrel.
Maduro has called the Trump administration’s recent moves — deadly strikes on boats allegedly carrying drugs, the authorization of the Central Intelligence Agency to conduct covert operations and Trump’s order to block tankers — a bid to take Venezuela’s oil and install a puppet government.
“This escalation and stronger enforcement point towards a decline in the volume of exports,” said Francisco Monaldi, an energy expert at Rice University in Houston. “These days are going to be critical.”
The Trump administration’s military deployment in the Caribbean is the largest in the region in decades. The weekend’s maritime offensives are aimed at signaling that all tankers in the waters around Venezuela are at risk of interdiction and seizure, according to a person familiar with this month’s operations, who asked not to be identified discussing deliberations that have not been made public.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the blockade of sanctioned oil tankers would remain in “full force,” according to a post on X on Dec. 20.
The U.S. Treasury imposed oil sanctions on Venezuela in January 2019, during Donald Trump’s first presidential term. Later, the Biden administration adopted a carrot-and-stick approach to try to reverse Venezuela’s democratic backsliding, granting a waiver to Chevron Corp. in 2022 that allowed it to resume oil operations.
This year, U.S. officials reissued its license after it expired, but sought to guarantee that the Houston-based firm pays no royalties or taxes in cash to the Venezuelan government. Chevron has said its “operations in Venezuela continue without disruption and in full compliance with laws and regulations applicable to its business, as well as the sanctions frameworks provided for by the U.S. government.”
Venezuela’s oil industry has seen a dramatic decline in recent years, but Maduro’s administration has weathered sanctions and the exodus of up to eight million Venezuelans.
The country’s oil production reached the government’s 1.2 million barrels per day target, Venezuelan Vice President and Oil Minister Delcy Rodriguez said on Saturday. Production fell to around 400,000 barrels per day after the 2019 sanctions, but rebounded in later years, said Clayton Seigle, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Both ships intercepted over the weekend had Panamanian flags, though people familiar with the matter said a Chinese company holds title to the oil that was aboard the first ship, the Centuries supertanker. A White House spokesperson said the tanker was flying a false flag and carrying sanctioned oil.
“What they’re hoping for is a campaign of maximum pressure that will eventually make the regime collapse, without the need of putting boots on the ground,” said Dany Bahar, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington. “They’re trying to create a credible threat that will make this structure of power collapse, or high-level military turn around and decide to stand up to Maduro, and say, ‘You have to leave.’”
A right-wing shift in recent elections in Latin America is deepening Venezuela’s diplomatic isolation. Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and others signed a statement over the weekend demanding Venezuela respect democratic processes.
Some leaders in the region have still been critical of the campaign. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has said she opposes foreign intervention into sovereign nations, when asked about her stance on opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, the recipient of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said at Saturday’s Mercosur summit in his country that armed conflict in Venezuela would set “a dangerous precedent for the world.”
Maduro’s embattled government will have to reduce production quickly if it cannot export its oil as storage facilities are unable to hold much more crude.
U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the nation from the Diplomatic Room of the White House on Dec. 17, 2025, in Washington, D.C.. (Doug Mills/Pool/Getty Images North America/TNS)
PITTSBURGH — Thiago Leite has a simple philosophy when it comes to making cocktails, and it applies whether you’re hosting a fancy dinner party for friends or simply curling up on the couch for a quiet night with your partner and Netflix.
“Make what you like,” he says.
Consider the Caipiroska he was stirring together on a test run for Fairmont Pittsburgh’s holiday cocktail classes.
Leite, who is both the Downtown hotel’s banquet director and restaurant manager, was born in the U.S., but he spent every summer of his childhood in Brazil with his family. The national drink there is the Caipirinha, a sweet and tangy cocktail made with fresh lime, sugar and cachaca, a vegetal distilled spirit made from fresh sugarcane juice.
Like most bartenders, Leite is a fan of vodka, a “sponge” spirit that readily takes on the flavors of whatever it is mixed with. On this day, he was tweaking the long-established recipe by using Absolut Elyx instead of cachaca, and brown sugar in place of the superfine cane sugar that traditionally sweetens the drink.
Known for its refreshing quality, this twist on a Caipirinha might seem like an odd choice in Pittsburgh in December. But remember Leite’s No. 1 rule about following your bliss.
“Christmas is hot in Brazil. We’re in sandals and flip-flops,” he explained as he muddled wedges of lime and slices of orange with what looked to be heaps of the caramel-colored sugar in a rocks glass.
Here, it’s hot chocolate and hot toddies, but there everything is iced.”
After a taste test, you, too, would have to agree it’s delicious.
A second cocktail featuring whiskey felt a little bit more like Christmas.
Called the Bashful Boulevardier, the spirit-forward drink is also known as a whiskey-based Negroni because it includes Campari, a bitter bright-red Italian aperitif. Here, rich cherry syrup adds a sweet and tangy twist and a dash of raspberry-flavored Chambord lends a definite luxe, holiday feel.
“It’s what we call a conversation drink,” explained Leite.
A Aperol Spritz as The Fairmont Hotel gives a demo class of how to make 3 holiday cocktails on Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025, at The Fairmont Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/TNS)
That is, a sipping cocktail that encourages social interaction while it is enjoyed over time instead of quickly gulped down.
A Prohibition-era drink generally made with rye whiskey, the Boulevardier is also a perfect “freezer door” cocktail that makes entertaining a breeze, he added, because it can be made in advance in large batches. You can scale up the recipe to serve eight, 10 or even 12 people, depending on the size of your guest list.
This is the second year for the hotel’s holiday cocktail classes. Depending on the day, each will feature one of four spirits — vodka, gin, whiskey or tequila.
“Since it’s a cocktail class, you’ll learn to pour from the bottle,” Leite said.
Attendees also will get instruction on blending ingredients, flavors and botanicals, and try their hand at fundamental techniques like shaking, stirring and muddling.
Aromatics used to flavor drinks also will be addressed “since you remember things through smell more than anything,” he said.
One example: cinnamon sticks that are scorched lightly on one end with a lighter and added to espresso martinis in the Fairmont’s upscale bar fl.2. (They sell more than 1,000 a month.)
Once you’ve got the recipes down pat, Leite will offer tips for setting up a home bar so you can create your favorite cocktail whenever the mood strikes. They include:
—Be sure to have the fundamentals: whiskey, vodka, gin, rum and tequila.
—Have the right tools at the ready, including a good shaker for mixing cocktails. He recommends either a two-piece Boston shaker (a metal tin and a mixing glass) or a three-piece cobbler shaker featuring a metal container, a lid with built-in strainer and a cap.
—A muddler to gently mash and mix ingredients like fruit and sugar. The stainless-steel ones used at the hotel have a “tenderizer” head to better crush herbs and fruits.
—A long-handled spoon for stirring cocktails with spirits, liqueurs and vermouth (like a martini, Old Fashioned or Manhattan). Stirring chills and dilutes a cocktail without introducing air bubbles.
—A jigger to precisely measure ingredients. A double-sided, 1 ounce over 2 ounce measuring vessel allows you to maintain consistency and quality in every drink.
—Love cocktails that contain fresh juice, cream, milk or egg whites? A strainer is essential for straining out ice and other solid ingredients in shaken cocktails.
—No bar is complete without a corkscrew for opening wine bottles and some spirits.
—Mixers including bitters (Angostura is considered the standard), tonic water, soda and ginger beer.
—Finally, a selection of glassware — highball and lowball glasses for mixed drinks, martini and coupe glasses for cocktails, and wine and champagne glasses for celebrating special occasions.
Below, we share the recipes for Leite’s cocktails, along with two others that will be served this holiday season at two local restaurants, Downtown’s Ritual House and Shorty’s Pins x Pints on the North Shore.
Happy holidays!
Caipiroska
A Caipi Vodka gets mixed around as The Fairmont Hotel gives a demo class of how to make 3 holiday cocktails on Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025, at The Fairmont Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh. (Justin Guido/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/TNS)
PG tested
Christmastime is hot in Brazil, so holiday celebrations usually feature iced cocktails instead of hot toddies. This refreshing cocktail from the Fairmont Pittsburgh is a vodka-based twist on the Caipirinha, a classic Brazilian cocktail made with cachaca, sugar and lime.
You can make it sweeter or more tart, depending on the amount of brown sugar.
1/2 lime, cut into wedges
1 slice orange
1-2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 ounces vodka
Dried lime slice, for garnish
Place lime wedges in a sturdy glass, such as a rocks glass, or a cocktail shaker. Add orange slice and sugar, and using a muddler, gently crush them together to release the juice and essential oils from the rind. (But be careful not to over-muddle the rind, which can make the drink bitter.)
Pour vodka into the glass or shaker with the muddled lime mixture.
Fill the glass with crushed ice. If using a shaker, add ice and shake well to chill and dilute the mixture.
Pour all contents (liquid, lime pieces and ice) into an old-fashioned or rocks glass filled with ice.
Garnish with dried lime slice and serve immediately.
Serves 1.
— Thiago Leite, Fairmont Pittsburgh
Bashful Boulevardier
A Bashful Boulevardier as The Fairmont Hotel gives a demo class of how to make 3 holiday cocktails on Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025, at The Fairmont Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh. (Justin Guido/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/TNS)
PG tested
2 ounces whiskey
1/2 ounce Luxardo cherry syrup
1/2 ounce Chambord
1 ounce Campari
3 dashes bitters
Add whiskey, cherry syrup, Chambord, Campari and bitters into a mixing glass.
Fill the glass with ice and stir until the mixture is well chilled and silky.
Strain into a rocks glass over a large ice cube to keep the drink cold without diluting too quickly.
Finish with a Luxardo cherry or a gentle twist of orange peel for a subtle aromatic lift.
Serves 1.
— Thiago Leite, Fairmont Pittsburgh
Nutella Espresso Martini
PG tested
This sweet and creamy martini can double as a dessert. It includes Kahlua and Buttershots, a butterscotch-flavored schnapps.
1 scoop Nutella
1 ounce espresso, cooled
1 ounce vodka
1 ounce Kahlua coffee liqueur
1/2 ounce Buttershots
Add 1 generous scoop of Nutella to your shaker.
Add espresso, then give it a quick stir to help the Nutella blend smoothly.
Pour in vodka, Kahlua and Buttershots.
Fill the shaker with ice and shake vigorously until the mixture is chilled and velvety.
Strain into a martini glass for a clean, glossy finish.
Garnish with a light drizzle of Nutella or a few espresso beans for an elegant touch. You also can line the rim of the martini glass with Nutella and roll in crushed nuts or cookies.
Makes 1 cocktail.
— Thiago Leite, Fairmont Pittsburgh
Shorty’s Gingerbread Smash
This festive cocktail is Shorty’s Pins x Pints’ riff on a classic Old Fashioned. It brings together the warm spice of gingerbread cookies and the smoothness of whiskey in a cocktail that’s perfect for the holiday season.
To make simple syrup, combine equal parts sugar and water in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil, stirring, until sugar has dissolved, then allow to cool. Store in the refrigerator for up to 1 month.
2 ounces Bird Dog Gingerbread Whiskey
1 ounce simple syrup
2 dashes orange bitters
Sliced lemon, for muddling
Orange rind, for garnish
Combine whiskey, simple syrup and bitters into a mixing glass.
Add a lemon wedge, and muddle.
Add ice, and stir for 14 rotations, until the dilution is at desired consistency.
Strain into a glass filled with fresh ice.
Rub the rim of the cocktail glass with an orange rind to express it, then drop into the glass.
Serves 1.
— Shorty’s Pins x Pints, North Shore
Ritual House Holiday Beach Margarita
Margaritas are one of the most popular and recognizable cocktails. This one from Ritual House, Downtown, gets the holiday treatment with coconut milk and a cinnamon-brown sugar syrup. It’s best served in a rocks glass.
1 1/2 ounces tequila blanco
1 ounce coconut milk
1 ounce cinnamon brown sugar vanilla syrup
3/4 ounce lime juice
1/4 ounce Cointreau
3-4 dashes orange bitters
Combine tequila, coconut milk, syrup, lime juice, Cointreau and bitters in a cocktail shaker and shake hard.
Strain into a glass over ice. Garnish with cinnamon stick and fresh grated nutmeg.
Bartender Thiago Leite pours brown sugar in his Caipi Vodka as The Fairmont Hotel gives a demo class of how to make 3 holiday cocktails on Sunday, Nov. 23, 2025, at The Fairmont Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/TNS)
By Stephanie Armour, Amanda Seitz, KFF Health News
Maddy Olcott plans to start a career once she graduates from college. But the junior at the State University of New York-Purchase College is so far not planning to start a family — even with the Trump administration dangling inducements like thousand-dollar “baby bonuses” or cheaper infertility drugs.
“Our country wants us to be birthing machines, but they’re cutting what resources there already are,” said Olcott, 20. “And a $1,000 baby bonus? It’s low-key like, what, bro? That wouldn’t even cover my month’s rent.”
The Trump administration wants Americans to have more babies, and the federal government is debuting policy initiatives to reverse the falling U.S. fertility rate. In mid-October, the White House unveiled a plan to increase access to in vitro fertilization treatment. President Donald Trump has heralded such initiatives, calling himself “the fertilization president.”
But reproductive rights groups and other advocacy organizations say these efforts to buttress the birth rate don’t make up for broader administration priorities aimed at cutting federal programs such as Medicaid, its related Children’s Health Insurance Program, and other initiatives that support women and children. The pro-family focus, they say, isn’t just about boosting procreation. Instead, they say, it’s being weaponized to push a conservative agenda that threatens women’s health, reproductive rights, and labor force participation.
Some predict these efforts could deter parenthood and lead to increases in maternal mortality.
“The religious right wants more white Christian babies and is trying to curtail women’s reproductive freedom in order to achieve that aim,” said Marian Starkey, a spokesperson for Population Connection, a nonprofit that promotes population stabilization through increased access to birth control and abortion. “The real danger is the constant whittling down of reproductive rights.”
The White House did not respond to repeated interview requests.
A slate of federal programs that have long helped women and children are also being targeted by Trump and Cabinet members who say they champion pronatalist policies.
Medicaid work requirements, for instance, put in place by the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a budget law enacted in July, will lead to extra paperwork and other requirements that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will cause millions of eligible enrollees to lose coverage. Medicaid covers more than 4 in 10 births in the U.S.
The measure also cuts federal funding for a national program that provides monthly food benefits. Almost 40% of recipients in fiscal 2023 were children.
GOP spending cuts and staffing freezes have hampered Head Start, a federal education program that provides day care and preschool for young, low-income children, even as U.S. adults implore the government to curtail ballooning child care costs.
And the GOP halted Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood of America for one year because it provides abortion services, forcing roughly 50 clinics around the country to close since the beginning of 2025. Planned Parenthood provides a wide range of women’s health services, from wellness exams to breast cancer screenings and initial prenatal care.
Groups that advocate for women’s health and reproductive rights say the actions by the administration and congressional Republicans to attack these programs are making it harder for families to get the support and medical care they need.
“There is a lot of rhetoric about who is worthy of public assistance, and to many policymakers, it’s not the single mother,” said Allyson Crays, a public health law and policy analyst at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University.
The pronatalist perspective generally supports government intervention to encourage procreation and is rooted in a belief that modern culture has failed to celebrate the nuclear family. The movement’s supporters also say policies to encourage childbearing are an economic necessity.
A Declining Birth Rate
The national birth rate has largely been on a downward trajectory since 2007, with the number of births declining by an average 2% per year from 2015 through 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, although the rate has fluctuated since.
The concepts that shape the movement can be found in Project 2025, a political initiative led by the conservative Heritage Foundation that has seen many of its proposals adopted by Trump. The document asserts that children fare best in a “heterosexual, intact marriage.”
“Married men and women are the ideal, natural family structure because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them,” it says.
Project 2025 also includes many proposals that critics say aren’t friendly toward women’s health. For instance, it calls for eliminating access to mifepristone, a drug commonly used in abortions as well as in the management of miscarriages, and encourages states to block Planned Parenthood facilities from receiving Medicaid funding.
The “more babies” mantra is being embraced at the highest levels of the federal government.
“I can’t remember any other administration being so tied to the pronatalist movement,” said Brian Dixon, Population Connection’s senior vice president for government and political affairs.
Just days after he was sworn in, Vice President JD Vance declared, “I want more babies in the United States of America.” He has also criticized the decision-making of women and men who opt not to start families.
The White House in October did announce a discount on certain drugs used in IVF treatments through TrumpRx, a yet-to-debut government website that aims to connect consumers with lower-priced drugs. Mehmet Oz, who heads Medicare and Medicaid, heralded a possible future of “Trump babies,” resulting from the lower-priced infertility drugs.
The administration also announced it would encourage employers to move to a new model for offering fertility benefits as a stand-alone option in which employees can enroll. But that is far from Trump’s earlier pledge to make infertility treatments free and may not be enough to overcome other long-term financial worries that often guide decisions about whether to have children.
Angel Albring, a mother of six, says her dream of having a big family always hinged on her ability to work and avoid child care costs. Her career as a freelance writer enabled her to do so while still contributing to the family’s income, working during nap times and at night, while the rest of her household slept.
“The whole thing of ‘sleep when the baby sleeps’ never applied to me,” Albring said.
Some of her friends, though, aren’t so fortunate. They fear they cannot afford children because of climbing costs for day care, groceries, and housing, she said.
Delivering on ‘Baby Bonuses’?
The Trump administration, meanwhile, has advanced another policy aimed at giving children a future financial boost.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act establishes a tax-advantaged “Trump account” seeded with $1,000 in federal funds — often called a “baby bonus” — on behalf of every eligible American child. The initial deposits are scheduled to start in 2026 with the federal government automatically opening an account for children born after Dec. 31, 2024, and before Jan. 1, 2029.
Parents could contribute up to $5,000 a year initially to the account, with employers able to annually contribute up to $2,500 of that amount. The accounts reportedly would be vehicles for long-term savings. Details are still being ironed out, but funds could not be withdrawn before the child turns 18. After that, the accounts would likely become traditional IRAs.
On Tuesday, billionaires Michael and Susan Dell of Dell computer fame said they would give $250 to 25 million children age 10 and under in the U.S. The donations will be aimed at encouraging participation in the Trump accounts.
Pronatalism extends to other parts of the federal government, too.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who has nine children, instructed his department to prioritize federal funds for communities with high marriage and birth rates, though it has not yet announced any projects directly related to the initiative. For a time, the administration considered bestowing national medals on mothers with six or more children.
Except there’s one hitch: Data suggests the policies and programs the Trump administration has proposed won’t necessarily work.
Other countries have offered more robust programs to encourage childbearing and ease parenting but haven’t seen their birth rates go up, noted Michael Geruso, an economist for the University of Texas-Austin who hopes to see the global population increase. Israel, for example, has offered free IVF treatment for roughly three decades, yet its birth rates have stayed statistically stagnant, at just under three children for every woman, he said.
France and Sweden have extensive social safety-net programs to support families, including paid time off and paid paternity and maternity leave, and subsidized child care and health care, but their fertility rates are also falling, said Peggy O’Donnell Heffington, a University of Chicago assistant senior instructional professor in the history department who wrote a book on non-motherhood.
“Nobody yet knows how to avoid depopulation,” Geruso said.
Some point to a different solution to reverse the United States’ declining population: boost immigration to ensure a younger labor force and stronger tax base. The Trump administration, however, is doing the opposite — revoking visas and creating an environment in which immigrants who are in the U.S. legally feel increasingly uncomfortable because of heavy-handed policies, analysts say.
The country’s immigrant population this year fell for the first time since the 1960s, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.
Meanwhile, to critics of the administration, the focus on encouraging childbirth allows the Trump administration and Republicans to sound as if they support families.
“You’re not seeing policies that support families with children,” said Amy Matsui, vice president of income security and child care at the National Women’s Law Center, a nonprofit focused on gender rights. “It’s a white, heterosexual, fundamentalist Christian, two-parent marriage that’s being held up.”
Elementary school teacher Luciana Lira cares for one-month-old Neysel on May 1, 2020, in Stamford, Connecticut. (John Moore/Getty Images North America/TNS)
New car prices didn’t spike after President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs in the spring, as some experts and dealers projected.
But prices on many models are now pushing notably higher — and analysts said carmakers recouping Trump’s higher import costs is a key factor.
Consider a recent analysis that found automakers are implementing more aggressive price increases on 2026 model-year vehicles compared to when 2025s were hitting dealership lots last year.
Cloud Theory, which tracks car inventory on dealer websites across the country, found the average marketed price increase on 2026 models was nearly $2,000, compared to an approximately $400 uptick during last year’s model year changeover. This year, 23 models have at least a $2,000 price hike; last year there were just nine.
“What I think is different this year is you have a lot of cost increases that are $1,000 or $1,500 or more, $2,000 or more,” said Rick Wainschel, Cloud Theory’s vice president of data and analytics, whose analysis looked at 2026 models with at least 2,000 vehicles in inventory.
“I think that’s a big change and a big shift that’s occurred, and it’s hard to point to any other catalyst for that (except for) tariff costs that the OEMs have had to absorb for the last eight months, and will likely have to absorb going forward,” he said.
Any increase comes on top of average car prices that were already hovering around $50,000. Pair that with stubbornly high interest rates, and the average monthly car payment is now $766, according to Edmunds.com Inc., up more than 3% from a year ago. A record share of subprime borrowers has been falling behind on their auto loans this fall.
Yet the huge car sticker price increases tied to tariffs — which analysts originally warned might tally anywhere from an extra $5,000 to $15,000 per vehicle — haven’t come to pass.
Among the reasons: competitive pressures between rival automakers, concern over blowback from Trump, large pre-tariff vehicle inventories that gave companies a lag time before pricing adjustments were needed, as well as policy adjustments that reduced the pain of the tariffs themselves.
Automakers opted to absorb many of the extra costs in the near term.
But if you’re shopping for a new car right now or plan to in the coming months, experts said it is likely tariffs will cost you in one way or another, even if it’s tough to discern exactly how. Automakers haven’t been eager to publicly disclose any connection between tariffs and their pricing adjustments.
Vehicle destination charges — those mandatory fees for transporting the car to the dealership — are rising, revealing one area where automakers “might be trying to make up a little bit of the costs,” said Erin Keating, an executive analyst at Cox Automotive Inc.
There are also signs of automakers pulling features out of certain models in a bid to trim costs while holding the same sticker price, a phenomenon known as shrinkflation. And then there are indications of carmakers offsetting their tariff costs with higher 2026 model-year MSRPs.
“Automakers really held their prices throughout the ’25 model year, and we’re starting to see a bit (of an impact) in ’26,” said Stephanie Brinley, an auto analyst with S&P Global Mobility. “But it’s being wrapped up in different ways, so it’s very difficult to suss out.”
Car companies often adjust pricing on new model-year vehicles, whether due to minor repackaging of features and trim levels, or full overhauls that include new technology and freshened sheet metal. Brinley said that means there’s no clear way for consumers to figure out where those extra tariff costs might’ve been tacked on.
Keating agrees the tariff impacts have been hard to pin down. Average car prices have been rising steadily much of this year — with September reaching an all-time high above $50,000 — but she said some of that uptick would have been expected anyway because of normal inflation.
Sy Newman of Walled Lake checks out the vehicles in the showroom while waiting for his car to be serviced at the Golling Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram dealership in Bloomfield Hills, April 10, 2025. (David Guralnick, Detroit News/The Detroit News/TNS)
The analyst now feels confident those initial shocking projections of price hikes in the 10% to 15% range aren’t going to happen: “The market just won’t bear it,” she said.
Automakers appear to be settling into their new normal under Trump. They’ve secured at least some tariff relief on parts and vehicles imported from certain countries, while simultaneously feeling the benefits of Trump’s moves to loosen federal vehicle emissions and fuel economy standards.
A September J.P. Morgan report estimated combined tariff costs on vehicles and parts will amount to $41 billion in the first year, rising to $45 billion in year two and $52 billion in year three.
The bank expects automakers and consumers to ultimately share the burden equally, which could lead to a 3% increase in new vehicle prices: “This will hit consumers hard,” the report said, “especially as many are already struggling to afford new vehicles.”
Wainschel, the Cloud Theory analyst, said average prices listed on dealer websites have only increased a few hundred dollars per vehicle since the tariffs took effect in early April. But that’s because automakers have pushed an increasing number of affordable models and trims into the market, which has helped hold the overall average price down.
If the current mix of vehicle types listed for sale was the same as it was back in April, Wainschel said, average prices would, in fact, look approximately $1,300 higher now: “So there are some things that are masking the increases that are taking place, the segment mix being a big part of it.”
Brendan Harrington, president of Autobahn Fort Worth in Texas, which sells Porsche, BMW, Mini, Volvo, Volkswagen, Jaguar and Land Rover brands, said big price hikes didn’t occur early on as companies fretted over losing market share.
But now, carmakers are beginning to make larger changes in response to tariffs, he said, including trimming back slower-selling models and increasing MSRPs where they can. He said Porsche and Land Rover are two examples of brands that have upped prices in response to tariffs.
And carmakers are also passing through higher destination charges, he said — increases that are adding $200 to $300 to the cost of a car. Tariffs also are contributing to steadily rising costs for Harrington’s parts and service departments.
“Until now, every OEM has really tried to hold the line,” he said. “But we are seeing prices now come up.”
(Detroit News Staff Writer Grant Schwab contributed.)
Cars sit in the showroom at the Golling Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram dealership in Bloomfield Hills, April 10, 2025. (David Guralnick, Detroit News/The Detroit News/TNS)
The United States is poised to lose its measles-free status next year. If that happens, the country will enter an era in which outbreaks are common again.
More children would be hospitalized because of this preventable disease. Some would lose their hearing. Some would die. Measles is also expensive. A new study— not yet published in a scientific journal — estimates that the public health response to outbreaks with only a couple of cases costs about $244,000. When a patient requires hospital care, costs average $58,600 per case. The study’s estimates suggest that an outbreak the size of the one in West Texas earlier this year, with 762 cases and 99 hospitalizations, costs about $12.6 million.
America’s status hinges on whether the country’s main outbreaks this year stemmed from the big one in West Texas that officially began Jan. 20. If these outbreaks are linked, and go on through Jan. 20 of next year, the U.S. will no longer be among nations that have banished the disease.
“A lot of people worked very hard for a very long time to achieve elimination — years of figuring out how to make vaccines available, get good vaccine coverage, and have a rapid response to outbreaks to limit their spread,” said Paul Rota, a microbiologist who recently retired from a nearly 40-year career at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Instead of acting fast to prevent a measles comeback, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a lawyer who founded an anti-vaccine organization before taking the helm at the Department of Health and Human Services, has undermined the ability of public health officials to prevent and contain outbreaks by eroding trust in vaccines. The measles vaccine is safe and effective: Only 4% of more than 1,800 confirmed U.S. cases of measles this year have been in people who had received two doses.
Kennedy has fired experts on the vaccine advisory committee to the CDC and has said, without evidence, that vaccines may cause autism, brain swelling, and death. On Nov. 19, scientific information on a CDC webpage about vaccines and autism was replaced with false claims. Kennedy told The New York Times that he ordered the change.
“Do we want to go back into a prevaccine era where 500 kids die of measles each year?” asked Demetre Daskalakis, a former director of the CDC’s national immunization center, who resigned in protest of Kennedy’s actions in August. He and other scientists said the Trump administration appears to be occupied more with downplaying the resurgence of measles than with curbing the disease.
HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement that vaccination remains the most effective tool for preventing measles and that the “CDC and state and local health agencies continue to work together to assess transmission patterns and ensure an effective public health response.”
Looking for Links
CDC scientists are indeed tracking measles, alongside researchers at health departments and universities. To learn whether outbreaks are linked, they’re looking at the genomes of measles viruses, which contain all their genetic information. Genomic analyses could help reveal the origin of outbreaks and their true size, and alert officials to undetected spread.
Scientists have conducted genomic analyses of HIV, the flu, and COVID for years, but it’s new for measles because the virus hasn’t been much of a problem in the U.S. for decades, said Samuel Scarpino, a public health specialist at Northeastern University in Boston. “It’s important to get a surveillance network into place so that we could scale up rapidly if and when we need it,” he said.
“We are working with the CDC and other states to determine whether what we’re seeing is one large outbreak with continued spread from state to state,” said Kelly Oakeson, a genomics researcher at the Utah Department of Health and Human Services.
At first glance, the ongoing outbreak in Utah and Arizona, with 258 cases as of Dec. 1, seems linked to the one in Texas because they’re caused by the same strain of measles, D8-9171. But this strain is also spreading throughout Canada and Mexico, which means the outbreaks could have been sparked separately from people infected abroad. If that happened, this technicality could spare the U.S. from losing its status, Rota said. Being measles-free means the virus isn’t circulating in a country continuously year-round.
A sign outside of a hospital in Rapid City, South Dakota, asks people with measles symptoms to wait outside, because infections are extremely contagious. (Arielle Zionts/KFF Health News/TNS)
Canada lost its measles-elimination status in November because authorities couldn’t prove that various outbreaks from the D8-9171 strain were unrelated, said Daniel Salas, executive manager of the comprehensive immunization program at the Pan American Health Organization. The group, which works with the World Health Organization, includes health officials from countries in North, South, and Central America, and the Caribbean. It makes a call on measles elimination based on reports from scientists in the countries it represents.
Early next year, PAHO will hear from U.S. scientists. If their analyses suggest that measles has spread continuously for a year within the U.S., the organization’s director may revoke the country’s status as measles-free.
“We expect countries to be transparent about the information they have,” Salas said. “We will ask questions, like, ‘How did you determine your findings, and did you consider other angles?’”
In anticipation of PAHO’s assessment, Oakeson and other researchers are studying how closely the D8-9171 strains in Utah match others. Instead of looking at only a short snippet of genes that mark the strain, they’re analyzing the entire genome of the measles virus, about 16,000 genetic letters long. Genetic mutations occur naturally over time, and the accumulation of small changes can act like a clock, revealing how much time has ticked by between outbreaks. “This tells us the evolutionary history of samples,” Oakeson said.
For example, if one child directly infects another, the kids will have matching measles viruses. But measles viruses infecting people at the start of a large outbreak would be slightly different than those infecting people months later.
Although the Texas and Utah outbreaks are caused by the same strain, Oakeson said, “more fine-grained details are leading us to believe they aren’t super closely related.” To learn just how different they are from each other, scientists are comparing them with measles virus genomes from other states and countries.
Ideally scientists could pair genetic studies with shoe-leather investigations into how each outbreak started. However, many investigations have come up dry because the first people infected haven’t sought care or contacted health departments. As in West Texas, the outbreak in Utah and Arizona is concentrated in close-knit, undervaccinated communities that are leery of government authorities and mainstream medicine.
Researchers are also trying to learn how many measles cases have gone undetected. “Confirmed cases require testing, and in some communities, there’s a cost to going to the hospital to get tested: a tank of gas, finding a babysitter, missing work,” Andrew Pavia, an infectious disease doctor at the University of Utah, said. “If your kid has a measles rash but isn’t very sick, why would you bother?”
Subtle Surveillance
Pavia is part of a nationwide outbreak surveillance network led by the CDC. A straightforward way to figure out how large an outbreak is would be through surveys, but that’s complicated when communities don’t trust public health workers.
“In a collaborative setting, we could administer questionnaires asking if anyone in a household had a rash and other measles symptoms,” Pavia said, “but the same issues that make it difficult to get people to quarantine and vaccinate make this hard.”
Instead, Pavia and other researchers are analyzing genomes. A lot of variation suggests an outbreak spread for weeks or months before it was detected, infecting many more people than known.
A less intrusive mode of surveillance is through wastewater. This year, the CDC and state health departments have launched efforts to test sewage from households and buildings for measles viruses that infected people shed. A study in Texas found that this could function as an early warning system, alerting public health authorities to an outbreak before people show up in hospitals.
The quiet research of CDC scientists stands in stark contrast to its dearth of public-facing actions. The CDC hasn’t held a single press briefing on measles since President Donald Trump took office, and its last publication on measles in the agency’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report was in April.
A Feb. 5, 2025, email from Texas health official Scott Milton, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by KFF Health News. Milton wanted to reach measles experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who could answer urgent questions, but the CDC responded sluggishly during the Trump administration’ s layoffs and a freeze on… (KFF Health News/KFF Health News/TNS)
Daskalakis said that as the outbreak in Texas worsened, his CDC team was met by silence when they asked to brief Kennedy and other HHS officials.
“Objectively they weren’t helping with the Texas outbreak, so if we lose elimination, maybe they’ll say, ‘Who cares,’” Daskalakis said.
Nixon, the HHS spokesperson, said Kennedy responded strongly to the Texas outbreak by directing the CDC to help provide measles vaccines and medications to communities, expediting measles testing, and advising doctors and health officials. The U.S. retains its elimination status because there’s no evidence of continuous transmission for 12 months, he added.
“Preliminary genomic analysis suggests the Utah and Arizona cases are not directly linked to Texas,” the CDC’s acting director, Deputy HHS Secretary Jim O’Neill, wrote on the social platform X.
Given Kennedy’s distortions of data on vitamin A, Tylenol, and autism, Daskalakis said the Trump administration may insist that outbreaks aren’t linked or that PAHO is wrong.
“It will be quite a stain on the Kennedy regime if he is the health secretary in the year we lose elimination status,” he said. “I think they will do everything they can to cast doubt on the scientific findings, even if it means throwing scientists under the bus.”
By Renuka Rayasam and Katheryn Houghton and Samantha Liss, KFF Health News
Alejandro Santillan-Garcia is worried he’s going to lose the aid that helps him buy food. The 20-year-old Austin resident qualified for federal food benefits last year because he aged out of the Texas foster care system, which he entered as an infant.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — commonly referred to as food stamps, or SNAP — helps feed 42 million low-income people in the United States. Now, because of changes included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, to keep his food benefits Santillan-Garcia might soon have to prove to officials that he’s working.
He said he lost his last job for taking time off to go to the doctor for recurrent stomach infections. He doesn’t have a car and said he has applied to a grocery store, Walmart, Dollar General, “any place you can think of” that he could walk or ride his bike to.
“No job has hired me.”
Under the new federal budget law, to be eligible for SNAP benefits, more people are required to show that they are working, volunteering, or studying. Those who don’t file paperwork in time risk losing food aid for up to three years. States were initially instructed to start counting strikes against participants on Nov. 1, the same day that millions of people saw their SNAP benefits dry up because of the Trump administration’s refusal to fund the program during the government shutdown. But federal officials backtracked partway through the month, instead giving states until December to enforce the new rules.
The new law further limits when states and counties with high unemployment can waive recipients from requirements. But a legal battle over that provision means that the deadline for people to comply with the new rules varies depending on where recipients live, even within a state in some cases.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture did not respond to a detailed list of questions about how the new rules around SNAP will be implemented, and the White House did not respond to a request for comment about whether the rules could kick off people who rely on the program. The law did extend exemptions to many Native Americans.
Still, states must comply with new rules or accrue penalties that could force them to pay a bigger share of the program’s cost, which was about $100 billion last year.
President Donald Trump signed the massive budget bill, along with the new SNAP rules, into law on July 4. States initially predicted they would need at least 12 months to implement such significant changes, said Chloe Green, an assistant director at the American Public Human Services Association who advises states on federal programs.
Under the law, “able-bodied” people subject to work requirements can lose access to benefits for three years if they go three months without documenting working hours.
Depending on when states implement the rules, many people could start being dropped from SNAP early next year, said Lauren Bauer, a fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, a policy think tank. The changes are expected to knock at least 2.4 million people off SNAP within the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
“It’s really hard to work if you are hungry,” Bauer said.
Many adult SNAP recipients under 55 already needed to meet work requirements before the One Big Beautiful Bill Act became law. Now, for the first time, adults ages 55 to 64 and parents whose children are all 14 or older must document 80 hours of work or other qualifying activities per month. The new law also removes exemptions for veterans, homeless people, and former foster care youths, like Santillan-Garcia, that had been in place since 2023.
Republican policymakers said the new rules are part of a broader effort to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in public assistance programs.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in November that in addition to the law, she will require millions to reapply for benefits to curb fraud, though she did not provide more details. Rollins told Newsmax that she wants to ensure that SNAP benefits are going only to those who “are vulnerable” and “can’t survive without it.”
States are required to notify people that they are subject to changes to their SNAP benefits before they’re cut off, Green said. Some states have announced the changes on websites or by mailing recipients, but many aren’t giving enrollees much time to comply.
Anti-hunger advocates fear the changes, and confusion about them, will increase the number of people in the U.S. experiencing hunger. Food pantries have reported record numbers of people seeking help this year.
Even when adhering to the work rules, people often report challenges uploading documents and getting their benefits processed by overwhelmed state systems. In a survey of SNAP participants, about 1 in 8 adults reported having lost food benefits because they had problems filing their paperwork, according to the Urban Institute. Some enrollees have been dropped from aid as a result of state errors and staffing shortfalls.
Pat Scott, a community health worker for the Beaverhead Resource Assistance Center in rural Dillon, Montana, is the only person within at least an hour’s drive who is helping people access public assistance, including seniors without reliable transportation. But the center is open only once a week, and Scott says she has seen people lose coverage because of problems with the state’s online portal.
Jon Ebelt, a spokesperson with the Montana health department, said the state is always working to improve its programs. He added that while some of the rules have changed, a system is already in place for reporting work requirements.
In Missoula, Montana, Jill Bonny, head of the Poverello Center, said the homeless shelter’s clients already struggle to apply for aid, because they often lose documentation amid the daily challenge of carrying everything they own. She said she’s also worried the federal changes could push more older people into homelessness if they lose SNAP benefits and are forced to pick between paying rent or buying food.
In the U.S., people 50 or older are the fastest-growing group experiencing homelessness, according to federal data.
Sharon Cornu is the executive director at St. Mary’s Center, which helps support homeless seniors in Oakland, California. She said the rule changes are sowing distrust. “This is not normal. We are not playing by the regular rules,” Cornu said, referring to the federal changes. “This is punitive and mean-spirited.”
In early November, a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to deliver full SNAP payments during the government shutdown, which ended Nov. 12. That same judge sought to buffer some of the incoming work requirements. He ordered the government to respect existing agreements that waive work requirements in some states and counties until each agreement is set to end. In total, 28 states and the District of Columbia had such exemptions, with different end dates.
Adding to the confusion, some states, including New Mexico, have waivers that mean people in different counties will be subject to the rules at different times.
If states don’t accurately document SNAP enrollees’ work status, they will be forced to pay later on, Green said. Under the new law, states must cover a portion of the food costs for the first time — and the amount depends on how accurately they calculate benefits.
During the government shutdown, when no one received SNAP benefits, Santillan-Garcia and his girlfriend relied on grocery gift cards they received from a nonprofit to prioritize feeding his girlfriend’s baby. They went to a food pantry for themselves, even though many foods, including dairy, make Santillan-Garcia sick.
He’s worried that he’ll be in that position again in February when he must renew his benefits — without the exemption for former foster care youths. Texas officials have yet to inform him about what he will need to do to stay on SNAP.
Santillan-Garcia said he’s praying that, if he is unable to find a job, he can figure out another way to ensure he qualifies for SNAP long-term.
“They’ll probably take it away from me,” he said.
What You Should Know
Changes to SNAP removed work-requirement exemptions for:
People ages 55 to 64.
Caretakers of dependent children 14 or older
Veterans
People without housing
People 24 or younger who aged out of foster care
What SNAP Participants Should Do:
Check with public assistance organizations to find out when the new rules go into effect in your region. Your benefits may be checked at recertification, but you may be required to meet the monthly work reporting rules long before that.
Let your state know if you’re responsible for a dependent child younger than 14 who lives in your home; pregnant; a student at least half the time; attending a drug or alcohol treatment program; physically or mentally unable to work; a Native American; or a caretaker of an incapacitated household member. If so, you may still be exempt.
Alejandro Santillan-Garcia qualified for federal food benefits in 2024 because he aged out of the Texas foster care system. (Callie Richmond/KFF Health News/TNS)
Four Republican states have agreed to help the Trump administration gain access to state driver’s license data through a nationwide law enforcement computer network as part of the administration’s hunt for alleged noncitizen voters.
The Trump administration said as recently as October that federal officials wanted to obtain driver’s license records through the network.
The commitment from officials in Florida, Indiana, Iowa and Ohio comes as part of a settlement agreement filed on Friday in a federal lawsuit. The lawsuit was originally brought by the states last year alleging the Biden administration wasn’t doing enough to help states verify voter eligibility.
The settlement, between the states and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, requires the federal department to continue its development of a powerful citizenship verification program known as SAVE. Earlier this year, federal officials repurposed SAVE into a program capable of scanning millions of state voter records for instances of noncitizen registered voters.
In return, the states have agreed to support Homeland Security’s efforts to access the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, an obscure computer network that typically allows law enforcement agencies to search driver’s license records across state lines. Nlets — as the system is known — lets police officers easily look up the driving records of out-of-state motorists.
The Trump administration and some Republican election officials have promoted the changes to SAVE as a useful tool to identify potential noncitizen voters, and Indiana had already agreed to provide voter records. Critics, including some Democrats, say the Trump administration is building a massive database of U.S. residents that President Donald Trump or a future president could use for spying or targeting political enemies.
Stateline reported last week, before the settlement agreement was filed in court, that Homeland Security publicly confirmed it wants to connect Nlets to SAVE.
A notice published Oct. 31 in the Federal Register said driver’s licenses are the most widely used form of identification, and that by working with states and national agencies, including Nlets, “SAVE will use driver’s license and state identification card numbers to check and confirm identity information.”
A federal official also previously told a virtual meeting of state election officials in May that Homeland Security was seeking “to avoid having to connect to 50 state databases” and wanted a “simpler solution,” such as Nlets, according to government records published by the transparency group American Oversight.
The new settlement lays out the timeline for how the Trump administration could acquire the four states’ records.
Within 90 days of the execution of the agreement, the four states may provide Homeland Security with 1,000 randomly selected driver’s license records from their state for verification as part of a quality improvement process for SAVE.
According to the agreement, the states that provide the records will “make best efforts to support and encourage DHS’s efforts to receive and have full use of state driver’s license records from the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System” and state driver’s license agencies.
The language in the agreement is open-ended and doesn’t make clear whether the pledge to help Homeland Security obtain access to Nlets is limited to drivers from those four states or is intended to require the states to help the agency acquire the records of drivers nationwide.
An agreement to help
The agreement could pave the way for Republican officials in other states to provide access to license data.
Nlets is a nonprofit organization that facilitates data sharing among law enforcement agencies across state lines. States decide what information to make available through Nlets, and which agencies can access it. That means the four states could try to influence peers to share Nlets data with the Trump administration.
“They’re not just talking about driver’s license numbers, they’re talking about the driver’s records. What possible reason would DHS have in an election or voting context — or any context whatsoever — for obtaining the ‘full use of state driver’s license records,’” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research.
Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, a Republican, said in a statement to Stateline that the settlement agreement provides another layer of election integrity and protection as officials seek to ensure only eligible voters are registered. He didn’t directly address questions about Nlets access.
“The SAVE program provides us with critical information, but we must also continue to utilize information from other state and federal partners to maintain clean and accurate lists,” Pate said in the statement.
Two weeks before the Nov. 5, 2024, election, Pate issued guidance to Iowa county auditors to challenge the ballots of 2,176 registered voters who were identified by the secretary of state’s office as potential noncitizens. The voters had reported to the state Department of Transportation or another government entity that they were not U.S. citizens in the past 12 years and went on to register to vote, according to the guidance.
In March, Pate said his office gained access to the SAVE database and found 277 of those people were confirmed to not have U.S. citizenship — just under 12% of the individuals identified as potential noncitizens.
Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Justice didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.
Matthew Tragesser, a spokesperson for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — the agency under Homeland Security that oversees SAVE — told Stateline last week that USCIS was committed to “eliminating barriers to securing the nation’s electoral process.”
“By allowing states to efficiently verify voter eligibility, we are reinforcing the principle that America’s elections are reserved exclusively for American citizens,” Tragesser said in a statement.
The SAVE program — Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements — was originally intended to help state and local officials verify the immigration status of individual noncitizens seeking government benefits. In the past, SAVE could search only one name at a time. Now it can conduct bulk searches; federal officials in May also connected the program to Social Security data.
“It’s a potentially dangerous mix to put driver’s license and Social Security number and date of birth information out there … where we really don’t know yet how and when and where it’s going to be used,” Minnesota Democratic Secretary of State Steve Simon said in an interview on Monday.
Democratic states object
As the Trump administration has encouraged states to use SAVE, the Justice Department has also demanded states provide the department with unredacted copies of their voter rolls. The Trump administration has previously confirmed the Justice Department is sharing voter information with Homeland Security.
The Justice Department has sued six, mostly Democratic, states for refusing to turn over the data. Those lawsuits remain pending.
On Monday, 12 state secretaries of state submitted a 29-page public comment, in response to SAVE’s Federal Register notice, criticizing the overhaul. The secretaries wrote that while Homeland Security claims the changes make the program an effective tool for verifying voters, the modifications are “likely to degrade, not enhance” states’ efforts to ensure free, fair and secure elections.
“What the modified system will do … is allow the federal government to capture sensitive data on hundreds of millions of voters nationwide and distribute that information as it sees fit,” the secretaries wrote.
The secretaries of state of California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington signed on to the comment.
The settlement agreement purports to make this year’s changes to SAVE legally binding.
The agreement asks that a federal court retain jurisdiction over the case for 20 years for the purposes of enforcing it — a move that in theory could make it harder for a future Democratic president to reverse the changes to SAVE.
But Becker, of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said he doesn’t expect the settlement agreement would make it more difficult for a future administration to undo the overhaul.
“Should a different administration come in that disagrees with this approach,” Becker said, “I would expect that they would almost certainly completely change how the system operates and how the states can access it and what data the federal government procures.”
Iowa Capital Dispatch reporter Robin Opsahl contributed to this report.Stateline reporterJonathan Shormancan be reached atjshorman@stateline.org.
Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.
Delray Beach police officer, Matt Warne, informs a driver that the road to the beach is only open to residents as Hurricane Dorian continues to make its way toward the Florida coast on Sept. 2, 2019, in Delray Beach, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images/TNS)
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