By JOSH BOAK and MARC LEVY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will road-test his claims that he’s tackling Americans’ affordability woes at a Tuesday rally in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania — shifting an argument made in Oval Office appearances and social media posts to a campaign-style event.

The trip comes as polling consistently shows that public trust in Trump’s economic leadership has faltered. Following dismal results for Republicans in last month’s off-cycle elections, the White House has sought to convince voters that the economy will emerge stronger next year and that any anxieties over inflation have nothing to do with Trump.

The president has consistently blamed his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, for inflation even as his own aggressive implementation of policies has pushed up prices that had been settling down after spiking in 2022 to a four-decade high. Inflation began to accelerate after Trump announced his sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs in April. Companies warned that the import taxes could be passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices and reduced hiring, yet Trump continues to insist that inflation has faded.

“We’re bringing prices way down,” Trump said at the White House on Monday. “You can call it ‘affordability’ or anything you want — but the Democrats caused the affordability problem and we’re the ones that are fixing it.”

The president’s reception in the county hosting his Tuesday rally could give a signal of just how much voters trust his claims. Monroe County flipped to Trump in the 2024 election after having backed Biden in 2020, helping the Republican to win the swing state of Pennsylvania and return to the White House after a four-year hiatus.

As home to the Pocono Mountains, the county has largely relied on tourism for skiing, hiking, hunting and other activities as a source of jobs. Its proximity to New York City — under two hours by car — has also attracted people seeking more affordable housing.

It’s also an area that could help decide control of the House in next year’s midterm elections.

Trump is holding his rally in a congressional district held by freshman Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan, who is a top target of Democrats and won his 2024 race by about 1.5 percentage points, among the nation’s closest. Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, a Democrat, is running for the nomination to challenge him.

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said on the online conservative talk show “The Mom View” that Trump would be on the “campaign trail” next year to engage supporters who otherwise might sit out a congressional race.

Wiles, who helped manage Trump’s 2024 campaign, said most administrations try to localize midterm elections and keep the president out of the race, but she intends to do the opposite of that.

“We’re actually going to turn that on its head,” Wiles said, “and put him on the ballot because so many of those low-propensity voters are Trump voters.”

Wiles added, “So I haven’t quite broken it to him yet, but he’s going to campaign like it’s 2024 again.”

Trump has said he’s giving consumers relief by relaxing fuel efficiency standards for autos and signing agreements to reduce list prices on prescription drugs.

Trump has also advocated for cuts to the Federal Reserve’s benchmark interest rate — which influences the supply of money in the U.S. economy. He argues that would reduce the cost of mortgages and auto loans, although critics warn that cuts of the scale sought by Trump could instead worsen inflation.

The U.S. economy has shown signs of resilience with the stock market up this year and overall growth looking solid for the third quarter. But many Americans see the prices of housing, groceries, education, electricity and other basic needs as swallowing up their incomes, a dynamic that the Trump administration has said it expects to fade next year with more investments in artificial intelligence and manufacturing.

Since the November elections where Democrats won key races with a focus on kitchen-table issues, Trump has often dismissed the concerns about prices as a “hoax” and “con job” to suggest that he bears no responsibility for inflation, even though he campaigned on his ability to quickly bring down prices. Just 33% of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, according to a November survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

By Max Reinhart, mreinhart@detroitnews.com

A Florida-based lending firm is suing a Michigan organization that administers retirement plans for government employees, claiming it deceptively convinced them to contribute tens of millions of dollars to an ill-fated coffee-growing venture in Hawaii.

In the lawsuit, filed Monday in a court in Polk County, Florida, AgAmerica alleges that between 2022 and 2024, the Municipal Employees’ Retirement System of Michigan (MERS) conspired with associated firms to get millions of dollars in loans to correct a long list of construction issues and sanitation violations at their Kona Hills coffee plantation.

AgAmerica claims it was led to believe the money would be used strictly to buy and grow coffee trees.

“… Instead of using the funds for the approved purpose of planting and developing coffee trees, they used a significant amount of the financing to redress the undisclosed … issues and violations of Hawaiian law,” the complaint states.

MERS CEO Kerrie Vanden Bosch called AgAmerica’s allegations “baseless and without merit.”

“While this specific investment experienced a loss, it was more than offset by strong gains in other private market investments,” Vanden Bosch said in an email to The News. “… We are confident that the facts will come to light through the court process. We remain dedicated to our mission and to the long-term financial security of those who serve Michigan’s communities.”

MERS manages pension funds for cities, counties and townships in Michigan.

According to AgAmerica, MERS was at the top of the corporate hierarchy managing the Kona Hills project. MERS allegedly oversaw Domain Capital Advisors, a private equity firm, which oversaw Kona Capital, which ran operations at the Kona Hills coffee plantation, located in the Holualoa area in Hawaii County, on the state’s largest island.

In 2021 and 2022, before the defendants sought funding from AgAmerica, Hawaii’s state public works and health departments visited the Kona project site, where inspectors found issues with flooding and drainage, as well as sanitation violations, including illegal cesspools and wastewater discharges onto the ground, the suit alleges.

Other issues at the site included environmental, legal, permitting, stormwater, wastewater, flooding and construction concerns, according to the complaint.

The issues needed to be corrected for the project to move forward. Fixing everything would cost about $16 million, AgAmerica claims.

When Domain came to AgAmerica to seek a loan, the company provided misleading financial projections that did not account for the extensive problems with the site, the suit claims. AgAmerica said MERS had knowledge of the violations as well.

Based on the allegedly fraudulent information provided, AgAmerica issued an almost $30 million loan.

The problems at the site in Hawaii weren’t disclosed to AgAmerica until MERS terminated Domain as the asset manager for the Kona Hills project and replaced them with Ospraie Real Assets, according to the complaint. Officials with Ospraie told the lender that the project was in dire financial straits due to the problems.

AgAmerica then approved a second tranche of more than $10 million to try and salvage its investment.

In January 2025, the lender learned there were serious problems with the coffee harvest and it would take tens of millions of additional dollars to make Kona Hills successful, according to the lawsuit. MERS and Osparie then dropped out of the project, Kona defaulted on its loans and AgAmerica foreclosed on the property.

Officials at Domain did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. Efforts to reach other defendants weren’t immediately successful.

MERS manages more than $16 billion in plan assets, the complaint states. According to the company’s website, it administers retirement plans for more than 150,000 government employees from more than 1,000 Michigan municipalities.

Kona Hills, established in 2016, owns and operates about 1,983 acres of coffee plantations in Hawaii, having started planting coffee trees around 2018, according to the complaint.

Mark McCormick of California and Carolyn Seabolt of Georgia also are named as defendants in the suit. McCormick is identified in the lawsuit as the president and CEO of Kamco Land Co., another defendant which allegedly helped manage operations at the plantation; Seabolt is named as chief operating officer of Domain.

The lawsuit accuses MERS and the other defendants of fraudulent and negligent misrepresentation, as well as conspiracy.

AgAmerica is seeking a jury trial and judgment for an unspecified amount in damages.

Today is Tuesday, Dec. 9, the 343rd day of 2025. There are 22 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Dec. 9, 1965, “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” the first animated TV special featuring characters from the “Peanuts” comic strip by Charles M. Schulz, premiered on CBS.

Also on this date:

In 1979, scientists certified the global eradication of smallpox, a disease which killed an estimated 300 million people in the 20th century.

In 1990, Solidarity founder Lech Wałęsa (lek vah-WEN’-sah) won Poland’s first free presidential election since 1926.

In 1992, the first U.S. Marines made a predawn beach landing in Somalia in support of Operation Restore Hope; they were met by hundreds of reporters awaiting their arrival.

In 2006, the space shuttle Discovery launched on a mission to add to and rewire the International Space Station.

In 2013, scientists revealed that NASA’s Curiosity rover had uncovered signs of an ancient freshwater lake on Mars.

In 2019, an island volcano off New Zealand’s coast called Whakaari, or White Island, erupted, killing 22 tourists and guides and seriously injuring several others. Most of the 47 people on the island were U.S. and Australian cruise ship passengers on a walking tour with the guides.

In 2021, a cargo truck jammed with migrants crashed in southern Mexico, killing at least 53 people and injuring dozens more.

Today’s Birthdays:

• Actor Judi Dench is 91.
• Actor Beau Bridges is 84.
• World Golf Hall of Famer Tom Kite is 76.
• Actor John Malkovich is 72.
• Singer Donny Osmond is 68.
• Actor Felicity Huffman is 63.
• Empress Masako of Japan is 62.
• Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York is 59.
• Rock singer-musician Jakob Dylan (Wallflowers) is 56.
• Actor Simon Helberg is 45.
• Olympic gymnastics gold medalist McKayla Maroney is 30.
• Actor Nico Parker is 21.

By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON

MIAMI (AP) — A candidate backed by President Donald Trump and one supported by national Democratic figures face off Tuesday to be the next Miami mayor, in this sun-kissed city shaped by immigrants where both major political parties are watching for a glimpse into their standing ahead of next year’s midterms, particularly among Hispanic voters.

If elected, Eileen Higgins would become the first Democrat to lead the city of 487,000 in nearly three decades. A win by Emilio Gonzalez could help calm Republicans as they seek to maintain a grip in Miami and show their strength in a Hispanic-majority place.

The Miami mayoral runoff — one of the final electoral battles before the 2026 midterms — comes on the heels of Trump’s influence in shifting the city’s political landscape markedly to the right. That has made Higgins’ candidacy a test for Democratic prospects in Florida and among Latinos in other places.

To be sure, the local race is not predictive of what may happen at the polls next year. Tuesday’s election is a runoff between the two highest vote-getters in the Nov. 4 election, and it is expected to see a small fraction of the turnout of a midterm contest. But that has not stopped national parties and their leaders from getting involved, and some of the big issues animating national politics also have surfaced in the contest.

Big-name Florida Republicans such as Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Rick Scott have weighed in for Gonzalez, the former city manager, in the otherwise nonpartisan race. Well-known Democrats, including U.S. Sen. Ruben Gallego and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, have joined the campaign trail to help Higgins, who served on the county commission before winning a runoff spot last month.

A Democratic victory would add to the party’s momentum heading into a midterm election following successes in November’s elections and a closer-than-expected loss in a special election last week for a Tennessee congressional district that Trump won by double digits last year. The Miami contest is in an area that has increasingly shifted toward Republicans and the site where Trump intends to build his presidential library.

Higgins has proudly identified as La Gringa, a term Spanish speakers use for white Americans, but she also speaks Spanish and has represented the Cuban enclave of Little Havana as part of a district that leans conservative. Higgins has focused her campaign on local issues such as the cost of housing, but she has also mentioned national ones, including the arrest of immigrants under the Trump administration in a city with sizable Hispanic and foreign-born populations.

Meanwhile, Gonzalez has campaigned on repealing Miami’s homestead property tax and streamlining permits for businesses. A former director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services under Republican President George W. Bush, he said during a debate that he supported immigration arrests against those who committed crimes. When pressed that most of those arrested had not committed violent offenses, he said it was “a federal issue.”

Miami is Florida’s second-most populous city, behind Jacksonville, and is considered the epicenter of the state’s diverse culture. It’s part of Miami-Dade County, which Trump flipped last year, handily defeating Democrat Kamala Harris after losing the county to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. He had lost by 30 percentage points here to Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016.

By Craig Mauger, cmauger@detroitnews.com

A Michigan judge ruled against marijuana businesses in the state Monday, rejecting their arguments that a new 24% wholesale tax on their products, imposed by the Legislature as part of a road-funding deal, should be immediately blocked.

The Michigan Cannabis Industry Association has contended that the new tax should have required supermajority support from lawmakers during votes in October, which it didn’t get, because the policy amends a ballot proposal that voters approved in 2018 to legalize recreational marijuana and set a 10% tax on retail sales.

However, Court of Claims Judge Sima Patel said in her 28-page decision Monday that the new wholesale tax bill was “consistent” with the text of the ballot proposal, which recognized “other taxes.”

“Plaintiffs have not met the stiff burden of demonstrating that they will likely succeed on the merits,” Patel wrote of not granting a preliminary injunction against the new law.

For now, her ruling allows the new 24% tax to go into effect Jan. 1.

But it wasn’t an outright victory for the Legislature and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration.

Patel said there “remain questions of fact” whether the 24% wholesale excise tax interferes with the purposes of the 2018 ballot proposal. Patel noted the businesses had argued that voters “purposefully selected the 10% excise tax on retail sales to keep retail prices reasonable” and to diminish the illicit market.

“Discovery will be required to develop the evidence needed to support the parties’ positions in this regard,” Patel wrote, rejecting the state’s pursuit of a summary judgment against the businesses on the matter.

Patel set a scheduling conference for Jan. 13 but referenced “the high likelihood that both parties will seek an appeal to the Court of Appeals.” Whitmer appointed Patel to the Court of Appeals in 2022.

In reaction to the decision, Rose Tantraphol, spokeswoman for the Michigan Cannabis Industry Association, said the organization plans a “swift appeal.”

“We don’t believe the Court of Claims made the right call,” Tantraphol said. “While we are deeply frustrated by this ruling, I can tell you this: The fight is far from over.”

The wholesale tax was at the center of a road-funding compromise that ended a months-long budget standoff between Democrats and Republicans in the Capitol in October.

The nonpartisan Michigan House Fiscal Agency has projected the wholesale marijuana tax would create about $420 million in additional revenue for roads annually.

Under the state Constitution, to amend a voter-approved policy, three-fourths of the lawmakers in the House and Senate would have to support the change. While the new wholesale tax wasn’t added directly to the voter-approved law, the lawyers argued the tax’s passage effectively amended it.

The 24% new tax didn’t get three-fourths support in the House or Senate. In the Senate, only 19 of the 37 lawmakers supported it.

The Michigan Cannabis Industry Association represents about 400 licensed marijuana businesses. Last year, Michigan’s recreational marijuana retail sales came in at about $3.2 billion, according to monthly reports from the Cannabis Regulatory Agency.

By JOSH BOAK, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Monday that he would allow Nvidia to sell an advanced type of computer chip used in the development of artificial intelligence to “approved customers” in China.

There have been concerns about allowing advanced computer chips to be sold to China as it could help the country better compete against the U.S. in building out AI capabilities, but there has also been a desire to develop the AI ecosystem with American companies such as chipmaker Nvidia.

The chip, known as the H200, is not Nvidia’s most advanced product. Those chips, called Blackwell and the upcoming Rubin, were not part of what Trump approved.

Trump said on social media that he had informed China’s leader Xi Jinping about his decision and “President Xi responded positively!”

“This policy will support American Jobs, strengthen U.S. Manufacturing, and benefit American Taxpayers,” Trump said in his post.

Trump said the Commerce Department was “finalizing the details” for other chipmakers such as AMD and Intel to sell their technologies abroad.

The approval of the licenses to sell Nvidia H200 chips reflects the increasing power and close relationship that the company’s founder and CEO, Jensen Huang, enjoys with the president. But there have been concerns that China will find ways to use the chips to develop its own AI products in ways that could pose national security risks for the U.S., a primary concern of the Biden administration that sought to limit exports.

Nvidia has a market cap of $4.5 trillion and Trump’s announcement appeared to drive the stock slightly higher in after hours trading.

By Charles E. Ramirez, cramirez@detroitnews.com

A meteorite was spotted over northern Michigan’s sky on Sunday, according to a company that chases storms and follows the weather.

The fireball was seen over Michigan at about 6 p.m., Michigan Storm Chasers said Sunday on its Facebook page and on X. The southwestern Michigan company also shared video of the shooting star captured by its network of weather- and sky-watching cameras.

Company officials said the meteorite was part of the Geminids meteor shower visible this week.

The Geminids meteor shower peaks in mid-December every year, according to NASA. Its meteors first began appearing in the mid-1800s, and the shower is one of the major ones seen annually.

During its peak, 120 Geminid meteors can be seen per hour under perfect conditions, NASA said. The Geminids are bright and fast meteors and tend to be yellow in color.

Michigan Storm Chasers officials also said the object broke apart over the area between Traverse City and Gaylord.

“Our weather camera network of now 90+ cameras doesn’t let anything sneak by,” the company boasted. “At least ten of our cameras tonight (some live on our YouTube channel 24/7) caught the meteorite as it approximately broke apart somewhere over the Kalkaska county region.”

The American Meteor Society in the State of New York said it received 81 reports about a fireball seen over Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ontario, Canada, and Tamil Nadu, India on Sunday.

This isn’t the first time reports of meteorites created a buzz around Michigan.

A meteor about the size of a cargo van flew over southeast Michigan in January 2018. Meteorite hunters found bits of the space rock on a frozen lake near Hamburg, Michigan. Some of them were taken to the Field Museum in Chicago to be examined by scientists.

Seeking mental health care is complicated for many American Muslims due to cultural expectations and stigma. Oftentimes, Muslims believe troubling issues should be resolved within the family or through an imam.

Mosques around the U.S. are working toward destigmatizing therapy in Muslim communities to make it more accessible.

Danish Hasan, health director at the MY Mental Wellness Clinic in Detroit, says part of that work requires overcoming barriers to access.

“We have a little bit more stigma than some of the other communities,” he says.

When praying isn’t enough

Sabrina Ali is a stay-at-home mother and former teacher who grew up in a South Asian home in Canton, a multicultural suburb of Detroit.

She learned from a young age that she couldn’t talk about all her problems with her immigrant parents.

“It was like they just came from a totally different world… and for them it was like, ‘Well, what do you have to be depressed about? Like, you’re 13, you have a good home, you have a good family, like you have food on the table,’” she says.

Ali says her parents meant well, and suggested she pray more to resolve her internal struggles, “to be more religious, essentially, quote, unquote, whatever, whatever that meant to them,” she shares.

Ali says over the years when she felt distressed, she would pray. But one day, she realized she needed to go to therapy after having recurring nightmares.

So she started going to a free counseling program at the University of Michigan, Dearborn – the Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), which offers free counseling services for full-time students. Ali says she learned about the program through her work with student groups on campus.

She says that although Muslims may feel “God is testing them” with a struggle, challenge, or test, it’s also important to take action.

“Maybe God is testing is me, but even my decision, the path towards making the decision to seek professional help, I think, in a way, was also a test, you know, because what is the saying, ‘trust in God, but tie your camel’, right?”

For many young Muslims, accessing CAPS is a private entryway to seek counseling services without having to tell your parents.

Destigmatizing therapy

Many American Muslims have grown up learning going to therapy is shameful and problems should be kept private. When there is conflict, they usually go to an imam first for advice.

Imam Mohamed Maged, resident scholar of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, also known as the ADAMS Center, says he realized 25 years ago some people needed more support.

“Sometimes they ask for us to pray for them, and we do provide that spiritual support, but I realized that some of them really might be suffering from mental health issues and they need somebody to help them,” he says.

To bridge this gap, ADAMS Center opened a Mental Health Program about 13 years ago. The program offers some mental health services inside the mosque, but also contracts to 17 providers through subsided services for 12 sessions.

They also serve the community at large.

Magid says showing people that imams and therapists are working together goes a long way.

“When you tell them this is a partnership between me and a mental health provider, both of us who can help you, they feel relief,” he says.

In partnership with existing community

In California, there are similar services provided at the Maristan clinic. It’s a holistic mental health clinic that is a part of The Muslim Community Center- East Bay, a faith based organization and mosque.

Founder Rania Awaad, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, School of Medicine, says mosques are community gathering spaces.

“To have the mental health services is a major pro. It’s built in. It’s within the same institution that they’re already attending and that they trust,” she says.

Awaad says her research shows that many American Muslims want mosques to have mental health centers, while others want counseling services in a stand alone space for more privacy.1

Along with therapy provided by a Muslim therapist, in some cases people can request Islamic psychology, or the integration of faith into therapy.

Religion can provide structure for mental well being

For example, a patient who has obsessive-compulsive disorder exploring an Islamic psychology session might include learning about Islamic regulations for wudu or ablutions as a way to cope with religious compulsions.

“How much time, and how many limits of how much to wash, how many times to pray or redo your prayers,” Awaad explains.

Providers can point to a hadith, or a teaching of the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, to draw the point home.

“Bringing in, well here’s the Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu Salam, that says no more than three washings in wudu,” she says.

This concept of having therapists placed inside the mosque is gaining traction.

MY Mental Wellness Clinic

Last year, the Islamic Center of Detroit began offering mental health services through the new program called the MY Mental Wellness Clinic, a youth-led initiative that began in 2016 through psychoeducation workshops.

Last year Hasan welcomed a crowd of state dignitaries and community members during the opening ceremony.

“We’re gathered here today to celebrate a vital initiative that has the power to transform lives in our community, the launch of our new mental health clinic,” he says.

Hasan says the clinic hopes to remove barriers and normalize taking care of ones’ wellbeing. He says the clinic began through youth initiatives to tackle mental health. Now, about half of the patients are the youth.

“The idea with this project is to be visible, to be present, to be accessible in an affordable for those that we serve,” he shares.

The clinic offers free mental health services to area residents, mosque attendees and has branched out to work with local institutions.

Similar clinics can be found around the U.S.

As more people seek therapy, Muslim providers are finding new ways to meet people where they’re at.

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By BILL BARROW and JOHN HANNA

Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett launched a campaign Monday for the U.S. Senate in Texas, bringing a national profile to a race that may be critical to Democrats’ long-shot hopes of reclaiming a Senate majority in next year’s midterm elections.

Crockett, one of Congress’ most outspoken Democrats and a frequent target of GOP attacks, jumped into the race on the final day of qualifying in Texas. She is seeking the Senate seat held by Republican John Cornyn, who is running for reelection in the GOP-dominated state.

Democrats need a net gain of four Senate seats to wrest control from Republicans next November, when most of the seats up for reelection are in states like Texas that President Donald Trump won last year. Democrats have long hoped to make Texas more competitive after decades of Republican dominance. Cornyn, first elected to the Senate since 2002, is facing the toughest GOP primary of his career against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt.

Crockett’s announcement came hours after former Rep. Colin Allred ended his own campaign for the Democratic nomination in favor of attempting a House comeback bid. She faces a March 3 primary against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, a former teacher with a rising national profile fueled by viral social media posts challenging Republican policies such as private school vouchers and requiring the Ten Commandments in classrooms.

“It’s going to be a sprint from now until the primary, but in Texas you have to think about the voter base overall in November, too,” said Kamau Marshall, a Democratic consultant who has worked for Allred before and worked on other campaigns in Texas. “Who can do the work on the ground? After the primary, who can win in the general?”

GOP hopes to make Crockett’s style a liability

Talarico raised almost $6.3 million in the three weeks after he formally organized his primary campaign committee in September, according to its first campaign finance report, and he had nearly $5 million in cash on hand at the end of the month. Crockett raised about $2.7 million for her House campaign fund from July through September and ended the month with $4.6 million in cash on hand.

Crockett also could test Democratic voters’ appetite for a blunt communicator who is eager to take on Republicans as their party sets out again in pursuit of a statewide victory in Texas for the first time since 1994. She did not issue a statement ahead of a formal announcement of her candidacy Monday afternoon in Dallas.

Republicans were quick to try to turn Crockett’s national profile and her penchant for public clashes with opponents into liabilities. Paxton issued a statement calling her “Crazy Crockett,” and Republican National Committee spokesperson Delanie Bomar said, “Jasmine Crockett’s shenanigans are an embarrassment to Texas.”

“Everything’s bigger in Texas — except her ability to win this race,” Bomar said.

Talarico welcomed Crockett to the Democratic primary but pointed to his fundraising and said he has 10,000 volunteers, adding, “Our movement is rooted in unity over division.”

Democrats see their best opportunity to pick up the Texas seat if Paxton wins the Republican nomination because he has been shadowed for much of his career by legal and personal issues. Yet Paxton is popular with Trump’s most ardent supporters.

Hunt, who has served two terms representing a Houston-area district, defied GOP leaders by entering the GOP race.

Crockett is known for her viral moments

Crockett, a civil rights attorney serving her second House term, built her national profile with a candid style and viral moments on Capitol Hill. Among those who have taken notice is Trump, who has called her a “low IQ person.” In response, Crockett said she would agree to take an IQ test against the president.

She traded insults with Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who announced last month that she would resign in January, and had heated exchanges with Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina.

She also mocked Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott — who uses a wheelchair — as “Gov. Hot Wheels.” She later said she was referring to Abbott’s policy of using “planes, trains and automobiles” to send thousands of immigrants in Texas illegally to Democratic-led cities.

Democrats came closest in the past 30 years to winning a statewide contest in 2018, when former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke came within 3 points of ousting Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. That was during the midterm election of Trump’s first administration, and Democrats believe next year’s race could be similarly favorable to their party.

Allred lost to Cruz by 8.5 points last year. He is running for the House in a newly drawn district in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, which he represented in Congress before his Senate bid in 2024.

Allred says he wants to avoid a bruising primary

An internal party battle, Allred said, “would prevent the Democratic Party from going into this critical election unified against the danger posed to our communities and our Constitution by Donald Trump and one of his Republican bootlickers.”

Marshall said Allred made the right call. But he said Talarico and Crockett both face distinct challenges and added that Democrats have work to do across the nation’s second most populous state.

He said Crockett is a “solid national figure” who has a large social media following and is a frequent presence on cable news. That could be an advantage with Democratic primary voters, Marshall said, but not necessarily afterward.

Talarico, meanwhile, must raise money and build name recognition to make the leap from the Texas House of Representatives to a strong statewide candidacy, Marshall said.

A winning Democratic candidate in Texas, Marshall said, would have to energize Black voters, mainly in metro Houston and Dallas, win the kind of diverse suburbs and exurbs like those Allred once represented in Congress, and get enough rural votes, especially among Latinos in the Rio Grande Valley.

“It’s about building complicated coalitions in a big state,” Marshall said.

Allred’s House bid comes under a new GOP map

Allred’s new district is part of the new congressional map that Texas lawmakers approved earlier this year as part of Trump’s push to redraw House boundaries to Republicans’ advantage. It includes some areas that Allred represented in Congress from 2019-2025. Most of the district is currently being represented by Rep. Marc Veasey, but he has planned to run in a new, neighboring district.

A former professional football player and civil rights attorney, Allred was among Democrats’ star recruits for the 2018 midterms. That year, the party gained a net of 40 House seats, including multiple suburban and exurban districts in Texas, and won a House majority that redefined Trump’s first presidency.

Marshall said Allred also is helping Democrats’ cause by becoming a candidate for another office, and he said that’s a key for the party to have any shot at flipping the state.

“The infrastructure isn’t terrible but it clearly needs improvement,” he said. “Having strong, competitive candidates for every office is part of building that energy and operation. Texas needs strong candidates in House races, for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general — every office — so that voters are hearing from Democrats everywhere.”

By MICHAEL R. SISAK The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Moments after Luigi Mangione was put in handcuffs at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s, a police officer searching his backpack found a loaded gun magazine wrapped in a pair of underwear.

The discovery, recounted in court Monday as Mangione fights to exclude evidence from his New York murder case, convinced police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, that he was the man wanted for killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan five days earlier.

“It’s him, dude. It’s him, 100%,” an officer was heard saying on body-worn camera video from Mangione’s Dec. 9, 2024 arrest, punctuating the remark with expletives as the officer combing the bag, Christy Wasser, held up the magazine.

Wasser, a 19-year Altoona police veteran, testified on the fourth day of a pretrial hearing as Mangione seeks to bar prosecutors from using the magazine and other evidence against him, including a 9 mm handgun and a notebook that were found during a subsequent search of the bag.

Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty to state and federal murder charges. He appeared in good health on Monday, intently watching the video and occasionally jotting notes. The hearing, which began Dec. 1 and was postponed Friday because of his apparent illness, applies only to the state case. His lawyers are making a similar push to exclude the evidence from his federal case, where prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Prosecutors have said the handgun found in the backpack matches the firearm used in the killing and that writings in the notebook showed Mangione’s disdain for health insurers and ideas about killing a CEO at an investor conference.

Mangione’s lawyers contend the items should be excluded because police didn’t have a search warrant for the backpack. Prosecutors contend the search was legal and that officers eventually obtained a warrant.

Wasser, testifying in full uniform, said she was following Altoona police protocols that require promptly searching a suspect’s property at the time of an arrest, in part to check for potentially dangerous items. She was heard on body-worn camera footage played in court that she wanted to check the bag for bombs before removing it from the McDonald’s.

Wasser told another officer she didn’t want to repeat an incident in which another Altoona officer had inadvertently brought a bomb to the police station.

Thompson, 50, was killed as he walked to a Manhattan hotel for his company’s investor conference on Dec. 4, 2024. Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.

Mangione was arrested in Altoona, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan, after police there received a 911 call about a McDonald’s customer who appeared to resemble the suspect.

Wasser said that prior to responding to the McDonald’s she had seen some coverage of Thompson’s killing on Fox News, including the surveillance video of the shooting and images of the suspected shooter.

Wasser began searching his bag as officers took him into custody on initial charges of forgery and false identification, after he acknowledged giving them a bogus driving license, police said. The same fake name was used by the alleged gunman used at a Manhattan hostel days before the shooting.

By then, a handcuffed Mangione had been informed of his right to remain silent — and invoked it — when asked if there was anything in the bag that officers should be concerned about.

According to body-worn camera video, the first few items Wasser found were innocuous: a hoagie, a loaf of bread and a smaller bag containing a passport, cellphone and computer chip.

Then she pulled out the underwear, unwrapping the gray pair to reveal the magazine.

Satisfied there was no bomb, she suspended her search and placed some of the items back in the bag. She resumed her search at the police station, almost immediately finding the gun and silencer. Later, while cataloging everything in the bag in what’s known as an inventory search, she found the notebook.

A Blair County, Pennsylvania, prosecutor testified that a judge later signed off on a search warrant for the bag, a few hours after the searches were completed. The warrant, she said, provided a legal mechanism for Altoona police to turn the evidence over to New York City detectives investigating Thompson’s killing.

As he has through the case, Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann described Thompson’s killing as an “execution” and referred to his notebook as a “manifesto” — terms that Mangione’s lawyers said were prejudicial and inappropriate.

Judge Gregory Carro said the wording had “no bearing” on him, but warned Seidemann that he’s “certainly not going to do that at trial” when jurors are present.

New York City reached a record-tying 12 days with no murders — a streak only ended when a 38-year-old man was shot in the stairwell of a Bronx NYCHA building, police said Monday.

Gregory Stewart was shot in the head about 9:05 p.m. Sunday inside a Sotomayor Houses building on Watson Ave. near Rosedale Ave. in Soundview, cops said. Medics rushed the victim to Jacobi Medical Center but he could not be saved.

Stewart’s murder ended a stretch of 12 days, beginning Nov. 25, that saw no new recorded homicides citywide. The only other time the city is known to have gone that long with no murders was in 2015, which also saw a 12-day stretch with no homicides, according to NYPD stats.

“Right strategy. Great execution. That’s how you set record after record,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in a statement Monday. “Thank you to the members of the NYPD who have sacrificed so much this year to drive down violent crime to record lows.”

A man was taken into custody in Sunday’ slaying but has not yet been charged. The victim lived in the Wakefield section of the Bronx, according to cops.

The last known murder in the city before Sunday’s homicide was the stabbing death of 80-year-old Lev Vayner inside his apartment on Overlook Terrace near W. 184th St. in Washington Heights on Nov. 24.

The suspect, 45-year-old Alon Riabichev, whom Vayner was kindly letting crash with him, called 911 around 3:15 a.m. and confessed to having killed Vayner, according to prosecutors. Riabichev is charged with murder.

By FATIMA HUSSEIN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has proclaimed solidarity with U.S. farmers in recent months as they grappled with the loss of a major soybean buyer due to President Donald Trump’s trade war with China.

But now, Bessent says he’s divested his holdings in North Dakota soybean farmland. “I actually just divested it this week as part of my ethics agreement, so I’m out of that business,” Bessent said on the CBS program “Face the Nation,” Sunday.

Bessent’s holdings had raised eyebrows as he headed Trump administration negotiations with China over trade and tariffs. On Monday, he’s expected to be part of an announcement for a new $12 billion farm aid package at the White House.

Bessent, a millionaire former hedge fund manager, had in October stated that he shared the concerns of U.S. farmers who bore the brunt of the trade war between the U.S. and China, telling ABC News “I’m actually a soybean farmer.”

China had been the largest buyer of American soybeans, but significantly increased tariffs on farm products in May after Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese goods — and cut its purchases of U.S. soybeans.

“I have felt this pain too,” Bessent said.

An ethics agreement compliance certification filing on the U.S. Office of Government Ethics website, dated Dec. 5, provides some explanation about the financial disclosure, but not much detail.

As part of his ethics agreement, Bessent was required to divest his portion of the investment, which he had described was made through a family partnership. A Treasury representative did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment.

A suspect has been arrested upstate for the Midtown Manhattan shooting that wounded Jets player Kris Boyd last month, law enforcement sources said Monday.

The 20-year-old suspect was not immediately charged but sources say he is expected to face charges of attempted murder after he is transported to Manhattan from Amherst, a Buffalo suburb where a U.S. Marshals task force nabbed him.

The suspect lives in the Bronx and has four prior arrests, including one last year for reckless endangerment and a 2018 robbery arrest as a juvenile delinquent that was sealed, law enforcement sources said.

The gunman early on Nov. 16 was part of a group of men who mocked the stylish clothes Boyd and his friends were wearing when they arrived at Sei Less, a W. 38th St. Asian fusion hot spot popular with the well-heeled.

Boyd and his friends, including fellow Jets players Irvin Charles and Jamien Sherwood, ignored the taunts, police said, but left the club after a short while and were mocked again by the same group, sparking an argument that got physical.

Boyd was shot in the chest, the bullet travelling into his lung, as the fight escalated.

The shooter and his accomplics ran off, police said, with the shooter later identified after cops released surveillance footage of him in the hopes someone would recognize him.

The suspect’s name has not been publicly released as detectives worked to establish probable cause to charge him.

Boyd was rushed to Bellevue Hospital and later released but was returned to the hospital over Thanksgiving after facing setback in his recovery, he posted on social media,

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.

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

By JAKE OFFENHARTZ and ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, Associated Press

President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, Alina Habba, resigned Monday as the top federal prosecutor for New Jersey, leaving the job after an appeals court said she had been serving in the post unlawfully.

In a statement posted on social media, Habba assailed the court’s ruling as political, but said she was resigning “to protect the stability and integrity” of her office.

“But do not mistake compliance for surrender,” she said, adding that the administration would continue its appeal of the court rulings ousting her from the position. “This decision will not weaken the Justice Department and it will not weaken me.”

Habba said she would remain with the Justice Department as a senior adviser to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. Her former duties will, for now, be split between three lawyers in the office.

Habba, 41, was appointed in March to serve a temporary term as acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey, a powerful post charged with enforcing federal criminal and civil law.

Once a partner in a small New Jersey law firm, Habba was among Trump’s most visible legal defenders during the four years he was out of power, representing him in court and frequently appearing on cable TV news as his “legal spokesperson.”

But she had limited federal court experience and no experience as a prosecutor, and New Jersey’s two Democratic senators indicated they would block her confirmation in the U.S. Senate.

When her term expired in July, a panel of federal judges appointed one of her subordinates to the role instead. But Bondi promptly fired the replacement, blaming Habba’s removal on “politically minded judges.”

A lower-court judge’s finding that Habba was unlawfully serving in the position soon triggered a monthslong legal standoff, prompting confusion and delays within New Jersey’s federal court system.

Then, earlier this month, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia disqualified her from serving in the role, writing in their opinion that “the citizens of New Jersey and the loyal employees in the U.S. Attorney’s Office deserve some clarity and stability.”

Trump’s critics say he has been exploiting legally questionable loopholes to put unqualified loyalists in jobs that require U.S. Senate confirmation.

Bondi said the department will continue to fight to reverse the courts’ ruling on Habba, and she will return as U.S. attorney if those appeals are successful. But the attorney general said the ruling “has made it untenable” for Habba to remain “with politicized judges pausing trials designed to bring violent criminals to justice.”

“These judges should not be able to countermand the President’s choice of attorneys entrusted with carrying out the executive branch’s core responsibility of prosecuting crime,” Bondi said.

Habba is one of several Trump administration prosecutors whose appointments have faced challenges.

The Justice Department had vowed to appeal a judge’s ruling dismissing the criminal cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James on the grounds that the prosecutor who filed the charges, Lindsey Halligan, was unlawfully appointed as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

It’s unclear whether the administration’s decision to abandon the fight to keep Habba in office may impact other U.S. attorneys whose appointments have been challenged by defense lawyers.

In a statement posted on X on Monday, Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche accused judges of engaging in an “unconscionable campaign of bias and hostility” against Halligan for questioning why she was still being identified as U.S. attorney on court documents.

By GLENN GAMBOA

Michael R. Bloomberg has believed mayors have plenty to teach each other since he was mayor of New York City and supported the effort to share good municipal ideas through his nonprofit Bloomberg Philanthropies since he left office in 2013.

However, as more nations get bogged down in what the media entrepreneur and philanthropist calls “ideological battles and finger-pointing,” Bloomberg says mayors can do even more. He is expanding his support for them internationally, with the Bloomberg LSE European City Leadership Initiative, a collaboration with the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Hertie School in Berlin. And other philanthropists are investing in building stronger municipal governments to strengthen urban communities.

“Mayors are more important than ever because cities are more important than ever,” Bloomberg told The Associated Press in a statement. “For the first time in the history of the world, a growing majority of the world’s people live in cities – and cities lie at the heart of many of the biggest challenges facing countries, including expanding economic opportunity.”

The new international initiative, established by a $50 million investment from Bloomberg Philanthropies, brings together 30 mayors and 60 senior officials from 17 countries, representing over 21 million residents.

After one meeting in October, some already see the potential.

Oliver Coppard, mayor of South Yorkshire, England, jumped at the chance to work with Bloomberg Philanthropies again. Coppard learned much at the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, which focuses on training American mayors, but offers 25% of its seats to international mayors. And even he was surprised by how much he had in common with the first international class of mayors. They all look for ways to get their organizations to move faster, deal with social media, and communicate better with their communities.

“It was actually really surprising,” Coppard said. “There are a bunch of areas where, we all felt, despite the very different context that we work in, we were facing very similar challenges.”

A ‘show me, not trust me’ moment for mayors

Despite the varying political ideologies and viewpoints from a wide range of countries, Coppard said what united the mayors was a desire to serve their communities better through health care, transportation, and communication.

It’s exactly what James Anderson, head of Government Innovation programs at Bloomberg Philanthropies, hoped they would find. But he says tackling those issues has broader implications that require more philanthropic involvement.

“All of these mayors are recognizing that local governments have become the bulwark for democratic legitimacy,” Anderson said. “They feel the burden of that. And they want new and better ways to rebuild trust and a sense amongst their citizenry that government — local government, in particular — sees them and can respond to their needs in impactful ways.”

Anderson said the mayors also understand they have to show how government works for its community. Public safety, trash pickup and snow plowing have taken on new significance.

“We are in a moment where trust in institutions is very low,” he said. “This is a ‘Show me, not trust me’ moment. And mayors recognize that means they need to govern differently.”

Joseph Deitch, founder of the Elevate Prize Foundation, believes that philanthropy also has to support mayors and their cities differently.

“These days, there’s so much polarization,” he said. “Everyone is defending their corner. So where can we have common ground? I think one of those places is love of our cities.”

Launching Elevate Cities in Miami

To cultivate a stronger bond to those places, Deitch has launched Elevate Cities, a new initiative that both celebrates what makes cities special and convenes community leaders to make them better. The initiative will start in Deitch’s current home with Elevate Miami, though he hopes to expand it quickly to other cities.

In November, Elevate Miami awarded $25,000 unrestricted grants to three different Miami nonprofits to increase their impact on the city. Later this month, there will be a citywide scavenger hunt to introduce Miami residents to nonprofits in the area. And in January, Elevate Miami will launch a contest to write a love song to the city.

Kim Coupounas, Elevate Cities CEO, says that getting people to recognize all the positive things happening around them in their city makes it easier to cultivate civic pride. It also makes it easier for municipal leaders to get support from the community.

“We’re really trying to engage all of the city,” she said. “There’s so much potential and possibility that can come to life because we join hands and recognize what a good place we live in and what more can happen here.”

Bloomberg said he hopes the new Bloomberg LSE European City Leadership Initiative and other programs supporting municipal leaders will help spread good ideas and the diversity of viewpoints needed to try new strategies for their cities.

“If mayors want to do big things, they can’t afford to play it safe,” he said.

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

By Melissa Nann Burke, mburke@detroitnews.com

A compromise draft of the annual defense policy bill released late Sunday maintains authorization to spend $14 million for infrastructure upgrades at Selfridge Air National Guard Base in Macomb County ahead of the arrival of two new airframes, the F-15EX fighters and KC-46 tankers.

The provision had been included in version of the National Defense Authorization Act passed by the Senate in October. The House is expected to take up the compromise text Thursday or Friday.

The $14 million is allocated to provide $9 million for design of the runway improvements needed at the Harrison Township base, $2.8 million for taxiway “alpha” improvements and $2.4 million for the “bravo” runway improvements design, according to the bill text. The runway work is part of a realignment project at Selfridge estimated to cost $124 million.

Democratic Sens. Gary Peters of Bloomfield Township and Elissa Slotkin of Holly secured the funding over the summer as members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The text also includes $4.4 million for the Camp Grayling All-Domain Warfighting Training Complex.

The broader National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2026 includes an $8 billion increase in the Pentagon’s topline budget, a 3.8% pay raise for military members, puts limits on future troop reductions in Europe and South Korea and authorizes $400 million for Ukraine security assistance, according to bill summaries.

The authorization for funding at Selfridge follows President Donald Trump’s directive earlier this year for the Air Force to send 21 F-15EX aircraft to Selfridge starting in 2028 to replace the aging A-10 Thunderbolt II squadron that is set to be retired at the base on Lake St. Clair northeast of Detroit.

Trump in doing so overruled the Air Force in a gesture that the president said should “save this place.”

The NDAA compromise prohibits the Air Force from retiring the “Warthog” Thunderbolt II “early” in fiscal 2026, including those at Selfridge ― something that Michigan’s delegation had pushed for in a letter this fall to leaders of the Armed Services panels.

The lawmakers’ aim in retaining the provision in NDAA is to minimize the gap between the time when the A-10s will roll out of Selfridge and the replacement flying mission, F-15EX fighters, is supposed to arrive in 2028 in an effort to maintain the workforce of pilots and maintenance staff for the aircraft.

Led by U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett, a Charlotte Republican, Michigan lawmakers in late October wrote in the letter asking for the NDAA to use the Senate’s language that required the Air Force to maintain a minimum fleet size of 162 A-10 aircraft and prohibited the early retirement of the A-10s without the approval of Congress.

“This would basically do a transition between the two (platforms) without a significant or sizable gap between them,” Barrett told The Detroit News of the effort in October. “And that’s the big issue we’re trying to stop. Now that we have the commitment for the new F-15EX aircraft, we don’t want the A-10s to go dormant early and present a gap.”

The lawmakers have fretted that a gap of a year or two between flying missions would potentially see the staff at Selfridge devoted to pilot training, maintenance and other tasks reassigned or placed elsewhere without the aircraft at the base.

Idaho’s congressional delegation also joined the Michigan delegation’s letter, including GOP Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, whose state hosts an A-10 squadron at Gowen Field that is set to be replaced with F-16s.

The Air Force has long planned to divest the aging A-10 Thunderbolt fleet to spend instead on next-generation aircraft. The Maryland Air National Guard, based in eastern Baltimore County, deactivated its last remaining A-10s in September, sending most to a boneyard in Arizona and two to Selfridge in Harrison Township.

A general picked to serve as the next chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, Kenneth S. Wilsbach, this fall reiterated the Pentagon’s plans to send a squadron of F-15EX fighter aircraft to Selfridge on time in 2028, assuming the required infrastructure upgrades are complete.

Wilsbach said the Air Force would have to train the new crews and maintenance personnel as they transition from the A-10 to the F-15EX, a process that could take six to 18 months.

“So we’ll have to work on that timing,” Wilsbach said at the time.

Michigan’s delegation and state officials lobbied for over a decade for a fighter mission to replace the A-10 Thunderbolt II squadron at Selfridge.

By MARK SHERMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration’s push to expand control over independent federal agencies comes before a sympathetic Supreme Court that could overturn a 90-year-old decision limiting when presidents can fire board members.

Lawyers for the administration are defending President Donald Trump’s decision to fire Federal Trade Commission member Rebecca Slaughter without cause and calling on the court to jettison the unanimous 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor.

Arguments are taking place Monday.

The court’s six conservative justices already have signaled strong support for the administration’s position, over the objection of their three liberal colleagues, by allowing Slaughter and the board members of other agencies to be removed from their jobs even as their legal challenges continue.

Members of the National Labor Relations Board, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Consumer Product Safety Commission also have been fired by Trump.

The only officials who have so far survived efforts to remove them are Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor, and Shira Perlmutter, a copyright official with the Library of Congress. The court has suggested that it will view the Fed differently from other independent agencies, and Trump has said he wants her out because of allegations of mortgage fraud. Cook says she did nothing wrong.

A second question in the Slaughter case could affect Cook. Even if a firing turns out to be illegal, the court wants to decide whether judges have the power to reinstate someone.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote earlier this year that fired employees who win in court can likely get back pay, but not reinstatement.

That might affect Cook’s ability to remain in her job. The justices have seemed wary about the economic uncertainty that might result if Trump can fire the leaders of the central bank. The court will hear separate arguments in January about whether Cook can remain in her job as her court challenge proceeds.

Chief Justice John Roberts has written a series of opinions dating back to 2010 that have steadily whittled away at laws restricting the president’s ability to fire people.

In 2020, Roberts wrote for the court that “the President’s removal power is the rule, not the exception” in a decision upholding Trump’s firing of the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau despite job protections similar to those upheld in Humphrey’s case.

In the 2024 immunity decision that spared Trump from being prosecuted for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, Roberts included the power to fire among the president’s “conclusive and preclusive” powers that Congress lacks the authority to restrict.

The court also was dealing with an FTC member who was fired, by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935, who preferred his own choice at an agency that would have a lot to say about the New Deal.

William Humphrey refused Roosevelt’s request for his resignation. After Humphrey died the next year, the person charged with administering his estate, Humphrey’s executor, sued for back pay.

The justices unanimously upheld the law establishing the FTC and limiting the president to removing a commissioner only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

Multiple reports of larcenies from unlocked vehicles parked in Bloomfield Township were reported during the overnight hours from Dec. 4 to Dec. 5, officials said.

Purses, computers, shopping bags full of merchandise, and other personal property were reported stolen from eight vehicles, according to Bloomfield Township police. All the vehicles had been left unlocked in driveways, police said.

While an investigation continues, the Bloomfield Township Police Department said the community’s support is needed to thwart any more would-be thieves.

Residents are strongly urged to remove all valuables from inside their cars, keep them locked and don’t leave keys inside when they aren’t occupied.

Teen found stabbed at Royal Oak Township hotel