By MARTHA BELLISLE

SEATTLE (AP) — In what appears to be the first major challenge to the new $100,000 fee required for H-1B visa applications, a coalition of health care providers, religious groups, university professors and others filed a federal lawsuit Friday to stop the plan, saying it has “thrown employers, workers and federal agencies into chaos.”

President Donald Trump signed a proclamation on Sept. 19 requiring the new fee, saying the H-1B visa program “has been deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor.” The changes were slated to go into effect in 36 hours, which caused panic for employers, who instructed their workers to return to the U.S. immediately.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, said the H-1B program is a critical pathway to hiring healthcare workers and educators. It drives innovation and economic growth in the U.S., and allows employers to fill jobs in specialized fields, the lawsuit said.

“Without relief, hospitals will lose medical staff, churches will lose pastors, classrooms will lose teachers, and industries across the country risk losing key innovators,” Democracy Forward Foundation and Justice Action Center said in a press release. “The suit asks the court to immediately block the order and restore predictability for employers and workers.”

They called the new fee “Trump’s latest anti-immigration power grab.”

Messages seeking comment from the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which are named as defendants along with Trump and the State Department, were not immediately returned.

The H-1B visa program was created by Congress to attract high-skilled workers to fill jobs that tech companies find difficult to fill. About a third of H-1B workers are nurses, teachers, physicians, scholars, priests and pastors, according to the lawsuit.

Critics say the program is a pipeline for overseas workers who are often willing to work for as little as $60,000 annually, well below the $100,000-plus salaries typically paid to U.S. technology workers.

Historically, H-1B visas have been doled out through a lottery. This year, Seattle-based Amazon was by far the top recipient of H-1B visas with more than 10,000 awarded, followed by Tata Consultancy, Microsoft, Apple and Google. Geographically, California has the highest number of H-1B workers.

The $100,000 fee will discourage the best and brightest minds from bringing life-saving research to the U.S., said Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors.

Mike Miller, Region 6 Director of the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, said Trump’s plan “prioritizes wealth and connections over scientific acumen and diligence.”

Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, contends the “exorbitant fee” invites corruption and is illegal. Congress created the program and Trump can’t rewrite it overnight or levy new taxes by executive order, the groups said.

By MICHAEL CASEY

BOSTON (AP) — A federal appeals court in Boston ruled on Friday that the Trump administration cannot withhold citizenship from children born to people in the country illegally or temporarily, adding to the mounting legal setbacks for the president’s birthright order.

A three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals became the fifth federal court since June to either issue or uphold orders blocking the president’s birthright order. The court concluded that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on their claims that the children described in the order are entitled to birthright citizenship under the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment.

The panel upheld lower courts’ preliminary injunctions, which blocked the birthright order while lawsuits challenging it moved ahead. The order, signed the day the president took office in January, would halt automatic citizenship for babies born to people in the U.S. illegally or temporarily.

“The ‘lessons of history’ thus give us every reason to be wary of now blessing this most recent effort to break with our established tradition of recognizing birthright citizenship and to make citizenship depend on the actions of one’s parents rather than — in all but the rarest of circumstances — the simple fact of being born in the United States,” the court wrote.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, whose state was one of nearly 20 that were part of the lawsuit challenging the order, welcomed the ruling.

“The First Circuit reaffirmed what we already knew to be true: The President’s attack on birthright citizenship flagrantly defies the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and a nationwide injunction is the only reasonable way to protect against its catastrophic implications,” Bonta said in a statement. “We are glad that the courts have continued to protect Americans’ fundamental rights.”

In July, U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston issued the third court ruling blocking the birthright order nationwide after a key Supreme Court decision in June. Less than two weeks later, a federal judge in Maryland also issued a nationwide preliminary injunction against the order. The issue is expected to move quickly back to the nation’s highest court.

The justices ruled in June that lower courts generally can’t issue nationwide injunctions, but they didn’t rule out other court orders that could have nationwide effects, including in class-action lawsuits and those brought by states.

A federal judge in New Hampshire later issued a ruling prohibiting Trump’s executive order from taking effect nationwide in a new class-action suit, and a San Francisco-based appeals court affirmed a different lower court’s nationwide injunction in a lawsuit that included state plaintiffs.

In September, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to uphold its birthright citizenship order. The appeal sets in motion a process at the high court that could lead to a definitive ruling from the justices by early summer on whether the citizenship restrictions are constitutional.

“The court is misinterpreting the 14th Amendment. We look forward to being vindicated by the Supreme Court,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement.

At the heart of the lawsuits challenging the birthright order is the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which includes a citizenship clause that says all people born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to U.S. jurisdiction, are citizens.

Plaintiffs in the Boston case — one of the cases the 1st Circuit considered — told Sorokin that the principle of birthright citizenship is “enshrined in the Constitution,” and that Trump does not have the authority to issue the order, which they called a “flagrantly unlawful attempt to strip hundreds of thousands of American-born children of their citizenship based on their parentage.”

Justice Department attorneys argued the phrase “subject to United States jurisdiction” in the amendment means that citizenship isn’t automatically conferred to children based on their birth location alone.

In a landmark birthright citizenship case, the Supreme Court in 1898 found a child born in San Francisco to Chinese parents was a citizen by virtue of his birth on American soil.

By Gregory Korte, Bloomberg News

WASHINGTON — The White House still employs 45 staffers for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency despite the Tesla Inc. CEO’s departure in May — and they’re exempt from being furloughed during the government shutdown.

The arrangement was revealed in a memo released Thursday from the White House Office of Administration detailing the staffing plan while funding from Congress remains in limbo.

The White House shutdown plan also highlights a pattern of shifting definitions of essential and non-essential workers under President Donald Trump, who has furloughed 514 fewer White House staffers than he did during the last government shutdown under his watch in 2018.

Under the earlier plan, which former President Joe Biden also adopted but never had to implement, about 61% of staff in the Executive Office of the President were temporarily laid off. The current plan furloughs only 32% of the staff.

Despite keeping more of the White House staff on-the-job during the shutdown, Trump has said he is looking to lay off federal workers, instead of just furloughing them. The White House has said the cuts could number in the “thousands.”

Among the offices fully open despite the shutdown is DOGE, the government cost-cutting operation once led by Musk before he and Trump had a falling out over the president’s support of a deficit-expanding tax cut bill.

After Musk’s departure in May, the White House said DOGE had been decentralized, and that its teams throughout the government would report to their presidentially appointed agency heads. But the shutdown plan reveals that 45 DOGE staffers still work in the US DOGE Service, a component within the Executive Office of the President.

The memo from Joshua Fisher, the director of the White House Office of Administration, did not explain why the DOGE staffers were exempt from furloughs. But DOGE’s predecessor office, the US Digital Service, was able to function through previous shutdowns because it had a separate source of funding from fees it charged other government agencies for its work.

Other parts of the White House are also seeing fewer furloughs this time. The Office of Management and Budget keeps 437 employees on duty, compared with 161 under the 2018 plan. The tax cut law — dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill — provided $100 million in long-term funding for the budget office.

The White House Office itself — the president’s immediate staff — holds on to 175 aides, slightly more than the 156 in the last shutdown. And Trump has almost doubled the number of retained workers in the executive residence to 40.

At the same time, Trump officials have signaled they will use the lapse in funding to pare back or shutter programs they oppose — especially in states that voted for his opponent last year. And the White House has threatened to permanently fire thousands of federal employees in the coming days, citing the lack of congressional funding.

The White House press office did not respond to a request for comment on the shutdown plan, but instead sent an automated out-of-office reply echoing the administration’s political talking points.

“Due to staff shortages resulting from the Democrat Shutdown, the typical 24/7 monitoring of this press inbox may experience delays,” the message said. “Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By MARK SHERMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to strip legal protections from more than 300,000 Venezuelan migrants.

The justices issued an emergency order, which will last as long as the court case continues, putting on hold a lower-court ruling by U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco that found the administration had wrongly ended temporary protected status for the Venezuelans. The three liberal justices dissented.

Trump’s Republican administration has moved to withdraw various protections that have allowed immigrants to remain in the United States and work legally, including ending TPS for a total of 600,000 Venezuelans and 500,000 Haitians who were granted protection under President Joe Biden, a Democrat. TPS is granted in 18-month increments.

In May, the Supreme Court reversed a preliminary order from Chen that affected another 350,000 Venezuelans whose protections expired in April. The high court provided no explanation at the time, which is common in emergency appeals.

“The same result that we reached in May is appropriate here,” the court wrote Friday in an unsigned order.

Some migrants have lost their jobs and homes while others have been detained and deported after the justices stepped in the first time, lawyers for the migrants told the court.

“I view today’s decision as yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote. “Because, respectfully, I cannot abide our repeated, gratuitous and harmful interference with cases pending in the lower courts while lives hang in the balance, I dissent.”

Congress created TPS in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters, civil strife or other dangerous conditions. The designation can be granted by the Homeland Security secretary.

Chen found that the Department of Homeland Security acted “with unprecedented haste and in an unprecedented manner … for the preordained purpose of expediting termination of Venezuela’s TPS” status.

In earlier denying the Trump administration’s emergency appeal, Judge Kim Wardlaw wrote for a unanimous three-judge appellate panel that Chen determined that DHS made its “decisions first and searched for a valid basis for those decisions second.”

Solicitor General D. John Sauer, the administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, had argued in the new court filing that the justices’ May order should also apply to the current case.

“This case is familiar to the court and involves the increasingly familiar and untenable phenomenon of lower courts disregarding this Court’s orders on the emergency docket,” Sauer wrote.

The result, he said, is that the “new order, just like the old one, halted the vacatur and termination of TPS affecting over 300,000 aliens based on meritless legal theories.”

Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

The Home Bakery in downtown Rochester debuted a tribute to Taylor Swift and her latest album, “The Life of a Showgirl” with a life-size cake.

It took five designers 75 hours to transform 30 pounds of fondant, 12 quarts of buttercream, eight sheets of crisped rice and one full sheet cake, into Swift-as-Vegas-style showgirl, complete with champagne glass.

Bakery owner Heather Tocco unveiled the new Swift cake on Friday at the bakery, 300 S. Main Street in Rochester.

“I chose to create a Taylor Swift-inspired window because, honestly, we’re a bunch of Swifties in here!” Tocco said, adding that she’s happy to celebrate the global superstar’s music because “I really admire her. Taylor isn’t just an incredibly talented artist, she’s a brilliant businesswoman, a master storyteller, and someone who has built a global community through creativity, resilience, and authenticity.”

Tocco said she thinks of her bakery’s windows as canvases for storytelling and celebrating cultural moments that bring people together.

Swift is a popular role model, especially for young women, she said because the singer-songwriter-director shows success comes from hard work, imagination “and the courage to reinvent yourself.”

Tocco plans to display the Swift cake through mid-November.

The bakery’s front window drew crowds in January for a tribute to the Lions’ Amon-Ra St. Brown’s iconic headstand and earlier for a life-size Spiderman cake.

By Craig Mauger, MediaNews Group

Michigan’s new budget will channel $203 million toward increasing the compensation of public school employees, a move supporters are hailing as a win for the state’s teachers.

The Republican-led House and Democratic-controlled Senate approved the new annual funding proposal for state operations early Friday morning. It is expected to be signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in the coming days.

Embedded within one of the bills was a provision to repurpose $203 million that had been previously allocated to provide financial assistance to educators who were repaying student loans, but which had gone unused.

Now, the dollars will be given to schools “to increase compensation” for employees and the pay bumps must be on top of “any existing compensation negotiated in a collective bargaining agreement” between a school district and union representing educators or support staff, according to the budget blueprint.

Sen. Darrin Camilleri, D-Trenton, said the $225 million student loan forgiveness program, authorized in 2023, didn’t work as he intended and he wanted the dollars to now be used for financial relief for school employees who are facing rising health care costs.

“It was important to put more money back in the pockets of our educators,” Camilleri said.

In addition to teachers, the new initiative will benefit a wide array of school employees covered by union contracts, including librarians, counselors, social workers, custodians, bus drivers and literacy coaches, according to the bill.

Camilleri, a former teacher and the top Senate Democrat on the K-12 budget, said it will be up to districts and local unions to negotiate how the money will be handed out.

There will likely be one-time payments to staff at some point this school year, Camilleri said.

Somewhere around 381,000 people work for K-12 schools in Michigan, according to state data. It’s not clear how many of them would qualify for the new compensation. If they all did, which is not likely, and everyone got the same amount, an individual would receive $532.

“It should be a good one-time bonus,” Camilleri said.

The Michigan Education Association, which represents school staff in many districts across the state, touted the $203 million allocation in a statement on the budget Friday.

“Most critically, it provides $200 million in funding to directly put money in the paychecks of public school employees — whose pay increases are being consumed by skyrocketing out-of-pocket health insurance costs,” said Chandra Madafferi, president and CEO of the state’s largest teacher union.

Waterford Township planning commissioners have approved a three-story 60-unit senior-living building on Scott Lake, over the objections of nearby residents.

Lourdes Senior Community has a nearly 40-acres campus along Watkins Lake Road next to Scott Lake, currently offering nearly 150 units devoted to independent and assisted living options, rehabilitation, short-term and long-term care and hospice care.

Scott Lake is a private, spring-fed 77-acre lake with depths up to 35 feet. It is considered an all-sports lake.

The township allows up to 10 units per acre; the new-building site is just over three acres on the campus and would allow up to 62 units, according to township officials.

The one- and two-bedroom apartments will have full kitchens and in-unit laundry utilities. The units range in size from just over 700 square feet to just under 1,200 square feet. Amenities in the building will include a bistro, theater, game room, chapel, salon, fitness center and multipurpose rooms. Apartments would cost $5,000 to $6,800 a month, depending on size. Lourdes existing independent-living units cost between $2,875 and $4,200.

Two docks are planned on the lake, with an agreement for a total of two pontoon boats that would be operated by staff, according to plans submitted to the township.

Lourdes’ President and CEO, Rich Acho, told The Oakland Press the company started in 1965 and remains one of the few Catholic nonprofit retirement communities in Oakland County. He said aging baby boomers will need more options in the near future.

Within a five-mile radius of Lourdes’ campus, Southeast Michigan Council of Governments’ 2050 economic forecasts show a 22% increase in households with people 75 years or older at a time when their children or other potential caregivers are moving out of the area.

“In our market area, ages 65+ will see a 32% increase by 2028,” Acho said. “With the workforce shortage, it is becoming increasingly difficult to hire private caregivers.”

But plans to add the 60-unit independent-living building to the campus riled many Scott Lake residents. They appealed to township planning commissioners to stop the project.

Lourdes revised the site plan to address township officials’ and residents’ concerns, including relocating the building to meet setback rules, redesigning the parking lot to meet township standards and hiring a company to do a traffic study. Lourdes widened a fire lane and added a sidewalk along Watkins Lake Road, while dropping plans for a pickleball court in favor of a courtyard designed for quiet activities.

Lourdes officials told the township that because residents are considered independent, there would only be a single staff member in the building to assist in the event an emergency required a 911 call.

David Cyplik lives two-tenths of a mile from Lourdes, closer to Watkins Lake. His wife was a patient there near the end of her life, he said, adding that he donates to Lourdes and supports the senior community in other ways. But he doesn’t support a 60-unit building and worries about traffic on Watkins Lake Road, especially during rush hours.

“If you live nearby, as I do, I see the traffic backing up every day,” he said. “It backs up for a long period of time.”

Jennifer Almassy said despite changes in Lourdes’ site plan, she remains concerned.

“It’s still a stark-white three-story building adding 60 units when there’s not even barely 100 houses on the lake. I think that’s excessive,” she said.

Another neighbor, Frank Scerbo, said he liked having the Lourdes across the lake.

“It’s nice and quiet. We’d just like to keep it that way,” he said.
“I ask you respectfully: Do not allow 60 units to be built there to stick out like a white elephant.”

Scerbo said one or two residents per unit would increase Watkins Lake Road traffic, either because they will be driving or having visitors.

Several asked for a traffic light for safety reasons.

Supporters included Lourdes residents and employees, who also spoke at the Sept. 23 meeting.

A retired priest, the Rev. Joe Lang, said he’s lived on Lourdes’ campus for three years and found it peaceful.

“It’s an environment in which people take good care of themselves,” he told the board, noting that many no longer drive.

Some Lourdes residents were accompanied by the company’s caregivers. One said she heard more noise from the 80 households that share Scott Lake than from her Lourdes neighbors.

The Southeast Michigan Council of Governments’ 2050 forecast of regional trends to predict how changes will affect the economy and the movement of residents and companies. The report is used to help decide how the infrastructure changes and what services are needed. SEMCOG’s report shows that aging is a major issue, with more older adults than children by 2026 in southeast Michigan, a trend that will be national by 2034 and global by 2050.

Higher-density housing is one SEMCOG recommendation for making sure older residents have access to transportation, food, housing, public spaces and social engagement.

By Melissa Nann Burke, MediaNews Group

The Grand Blanc community has set up an official fund to benefit the victims, families and first-responders affected by Sunday’s mass shooting and fire that destroyed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel in Grand Blanc Township.

The Victim Compassion Fund is hosted by the ELGA Credit Union Foundation for Impact in collaboration with Grand Blanc Township, the township’s police department and the Latter-day Saints Church, which many people know as the Mormon church.

The intent of the fund is to help victims of Sunday’s tragedy, their families, and the injured, as well as first-responders and others with needs, including paying medical bills, financial support, and counseling, organizers said.

“We are going to make sure that the people that actually receive this money are victims of the situation here in Grand Blanc Township,” Township Supervisor Scott Bennett said Friday.

“We had 37 different agencies respond to the fire, so we want to make sure that, whether it’s counseling services or if they need medical bills paid, what have you, we want to be here for them,” Bennett added.

“We have families where the parents can’t work right now because of injury or just being afraid to leave their homes. We want ot make sure we take care of them, as well.”

A committee comprising representatives from the LDS Church, the township and the police department will determine how to distribute the funds based on financial need and the available resources. Those who want to seek financial support from the fund should contact the church or the township at (810) 424-2692 or email assist@gbtgov.com.

“We said, let’s do this where people know it’s safe, and it’s trusted. ELGA Credit Union is a trusted source in Genesee County and beyond here, and people know that,” said Cheryl Sclater, president of the ELGA Credit Union Foundation for Impact.

“As the needs come in, we will fill them, and that’s how it’s going to work. There’s been a few side fundraisers that have been out there in our community, and those people are coming back and giving the money to this fund, so that it actually goes out to victims of this tragedy.”

The LDS church is pointing to the fund as the recommended place for the community to contribute to help victims of the disaster, both to help church members and others, said Greg Geiger, communications director for the LDS Church in Southeast Michigan.

“None of the money will go to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One-hundred percent of the proceeds will go to victims of this tragedy,” said Geiger, who noted there are no fees associated with the fund.

“We appreciate and acknowledge their effort in trying to help the community.”

Geiger added that the LDS Church is not seeking or accepting funds from any organization to rebuild the church in Grand Blanc Township.

The impetus for the coordinated fundraising effort was, in part, to dissuade scammers, fraudulent fundraisers, and GoFundMe efforts that began circulating in the wake of Sunday’s fire. Community leaders wanted to establish a fund that could be trusted to support the who truly need help, they said.

“This is going to go far beyond even the physical and the health part. It will go on for a while with people who need that support financially for any type of therapy that they might need,” Sclater said.

“There will be a short grant process to have people please explain your needs. … But we want to get this money out. The people in this community have a heart, and they have come together like you can’t even imagine, to gift. We have had people out of state gifting, and it’s pretty amazing.”

Sclater didn’t have an estimated total available as of Friday afternoon, but said people can donate online or visit any EGLA branch in person to donate. She is working with the Mott Foundation and the Community Foundation of Greater Flint, which will accept some of the larger donations to the cause, she said.

She acknowledged that a number of victims’ families have set up GoFundMe accounts, and she stressed the Victim Compassion Fund is entirely separate.

“We are simply that vehicle to give our community a safe place to give back, because they don’t know what else they can do, and they want to give,” Sclater said. “We are that safe haven where they know their dollars are going to go out and be deployed.”

By VALERIE GONZALEZ

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — The Trump administration said Friday that it would pay migrant children $2,500 to voluntarily return to their home countries, dangling a new incentive in efforts to persuade people to self-deport.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn’t say how much migrants would get or when the offer would take effect, but The Associated Press obtained an email to migrant shelters saying children 14 years of age and older would get $2,500 each. Children were given 24 hours to respond.

The notice to shelters from the U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s Administration for Families and Children did not indicate any consequences for children who decline the offer. It asked shelter directors to acknowledge the offer within four hours.

ICE said in a statement that the offer would initially be for 17-year-olds.

“Any payment to support a return home would be provided after an immigration judge grants the request and the individual arrives in their country of origin,” ICE said. “Access to financial support when returning home would assist should they choose that option.”

ICE, the Department of Homeland Security and the Health and Human Services Department did not immediately respond to questions about the amount of the payment and age eligibility.

ICE dismissed widespread reports among immigration lawyers and advocates that it was launching a much broader crackdown Friday to deport migrant children who entered the country without their parents, called “Freaky Friday.”

The administration has also offered $1,000 to adults who voluntarily leave the country. Advocates said $2,500 may prevent children from making informed decisions.

“For a child, $2,500 might be the most money they’ve ever seen in their life, and that may make it very, very difficult for them to accurately weigh the long-term risks of taking voluntary departure versus trying to stay in the United States and going through the immigration court process to get relief that they may be legally entitled to,” said Melissa Adamson, senior attorney at the National Center for Youth Law.

Murad Awawdeh, president of the New York Immigration Coalition, echoed concerns about the offer, saying it “pressures children to abandon their legal claims and return to a life of fear and danger without ever receiving a fair hearing.”

U.S. border authorities have arrested children crossing the border without parents more than 400,000 times since October 2021. A 2008 law requires them to appear before an immigration judge before being returned to their countries.

Children have been spending more time in government-run shelters since the Trump administration put them under closer scrutiny before releasing them to family in the United States to pursue their immigration cases.

The additional scrutiny includes fingerprinting, DNA testing and home visits by immigration officers. Over the summer, immigration officers started showing up and arresting parents.

The average length of stay at government-run shelters for those released in the U.S. was 171 days in July, down from a peak of 217 days in April but well above 37 days in January, when Trump took office.

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It’s the home stretch for Detroit City Council candidates with election day only about a month away.

On the city’s northeast side incumbent Scott Benson faces a challenge from a life-long resident of Council District 3, Cranstana Anderson.

She’s a former UAW local official and administrator who works from home preparing taxes.

Anderson says she wants to change how city government operates on the eastside.

Listen: Detroit Council candidate Cranstana Anderson says she can represent struggling residents—she’s one too

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Cranstana Anderson: For instance, the rainfall sewage fee. They call it a fee but it’s actually a tax. If people want to build around their homes and they put more cement down, there is nowhere to absorb the rainwater. So your drainage fees are higher. A lot of churches experienced it because they made parking lots or created more sidewalks. Anything that is not grass or trees to absorb, that rainfall becomes an additional charge.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: If you were elected to council, how would you address those kind of problems?

CA: I would first have to see how we get out of something that we got into. I really believe Detroit not having control over the water has led to these types of actions by leadership. The water bill used to be less than what it is every month now, even every three months. So, it seems like that’s a long-term consequence of them giving control of it to the Great Lakes Water Authority.

QK: There’s been a lot of talk about a “financial cliff” that Detroit could be facing because federal funding and some other money is running out. Some of the mayoral candidates have talked about increasing revenue by perhaps raising certain taxes on things like events downtown. Do you think that that’s a way to go?

CA: I do believe that we’ve given out enough tax abatements and incentives for those businesses downtown to be a contributor into paying a higher tax, if that’s what’s going to help the neighborhoods. Because originally, that’s what downtown was getting built up for. It was to change the dynamics of the way downtown looked, to change the dynamics of economic growth in Detroit and build-up downtown. But it was also supposed to contribute to building up the residential communities, making sure those who have retired, bought their home, worked their 30 years, are not left out. And that’s what we want to focus on, not leaving those who have already paved the way for us to stabilize the community be forced out by business or investors. I believe in gentrification versus nullification. So if it’s nothing, then gentrification sounds pretty good when it’s nothing.

QK: I still hear lots of concerns about crime, not just on the northeast side, but throughout the city. If you were on council, how would you try and help address that?

CA: I would try to create some different policies about how we retain our public safety officers. I believe when they were given the option to live outside of Detroit, that’s when we had more crime created. The crime rate is just at a flat line right now. I don’t see the quality of policing in Detroit, in my area and in many other areas, the way it used to be. When I grew up, relying on police was the route to go to keep the community safe. But now, to engage with them, to build a certain amount of trust with them, and have none of our officers that want to live in Detroit, that says a lot about their policing.

There’s a lot that needs to be done. But I want to make sure we look right.

QK: You’ve mentioned that you’d like to see more political accountability. Do you think that’s lacking at the moment with some of the Detroit officials?

CA: Yes, especially mine, in my district. I think we’ve compromised our office.

QK: You’re talking about Detroit City Council member Scott Benson. There had been some allegations made about bribery charges. But federal authorities said that they had closed that case. And Benson said he and his staff came up completely clean. So, in your view, wouldn’t that kind of clean his slate in terms of that?

CA: No, not with me. Because I’m analytical. I’m from Detroit. And I know everybody who is in prison is not guilty and some of those who are guilty are still walking around.

QK: In any political campaign it is often hard to beat an incumbent. And you’re the challenger in this one. What do you say to people in District 3 if they ask why they should vote for you for council?

CA: Because I understand exactly the hardships that they’re going through. I am a person that’s just like them. And I will fight harder for them. The people who live there, who built there, who are maintaining their property and shopping in that area, doing business in that area, should be entitled to good service. There needs to be some type of resources made available that help these residents qualify for the investors that we want to come into our community.

As far as jobs go, you have the Work First program. But the jobs pay minimum wages, $15-$16 an hour. That’s just not a fair wage. We’re supposed to live off 30% of our income. How do we manage that? Affordable housing is $1,200 and your wages are $1,500. What does that calculate up to? That calculates up to a struggle.

One of the things that hasn’t been invested in is the blighted buildings in my community. A lot of schools shut down. And no one’s talking about doing anything with them except maybe utilizing them as training spots for the police or other public safety departments. These are buildings in the community that used to educate. And we believe, not just myself but a lot of residents, that we can turn these buildings into community hubs where they teach about things like drones, auto mechanics. We don’t want those buildings torn down. We want to utilize those buildings to put back into the education system what they took away. Creative arts. Let the residents, the children, tap into their natural talents or introduce them to the skills that they don’t know they have. Those are places that we can renovate and make into state-of-the art facilities. To make sure that we have the resources not 50 miles from us, not across town, but right here in our own community, where our children can actually walk to school. There’s a lot that needs to be done.

But I want to make sure we look right, so that we don’t invite the wrong type of activity into the community. Get rid of what we do have that’s not a positive influence in our community. Our children are becoming a product of their environment. We say we want to help them, but we have an overpopulation of alcohol stores. We have a population of marijuana dispensaries. It’s legal and a lot of people voted for it because they were tired of people going to jail for marijuana, which is understandable. But it’s something we need to go back to the drawing board about to make sure that it’s regulated properly, that our children don’t have such easy access to it. It’s really hurting us. And in order to build a community up, you have to eliminate the things that take them down.

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By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Drawing upon her personal and political past, Jane Fonda has revived an activist group from the Cold War era that was backed by her father and fellow Oscar winner, Henry Fonda.

Jane Fonda announced she had launched a 21st century incarnation of the Committee for the First Amendment, originally formed in 1947 in response to Congressional hearings aimed against screenwriters and directors — notably the so-called “Hollywood Ten” — and their alleged Communist ties. Signers of the new organization’s mission statement include Florence Pugh, Sean Penn,Billie Eilish, Pedro Pascal and hundreds of others.

Wednesday’s news comes in the wake of Jimmy Kimmel’s brief suspension by ABC over his on-air comments after conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination. President Donald Trump was among those who had wanted Kimmel to be fired.

“The federal government is once again engaged in a coordinated campaign to silence critics in the government, the media, the judiciary, academia, and the entertainment industry,” the committee’s mission statement reads in part.

“We refuse to stand by and let that happen. Free speech and free expression are the inalienable rights of every American of all backgrounds and political beliefs — no matter how liberal or conservative you may be. The ability to criticize, question, protest, and even mock those in power is foundational to what America has always aspired to be.”

The Fondas each have had long histories of activism, whether Jane Fonda’s opposition to the Vietnam War or Henry Fonda’s prominent support for Democratic Party candidates, including John F. Kennedy, for whom the elder Fonda appeared in a campaign ad in 1960.

Henry Fonda, who died in 1982, joined the 1947 First Amendment committee along with such actors and filmmakers as Humphrey Bogart, John Huston, Lucille Ball and Frank Sinatra. Although highly publicized at the time, the committee had a short and troubled history. Bogart and others would find themselves accused of Communist sympathies and would express surprise when a handful of the Hollywood Ten, including screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, turned to have been Communist Party members at one time or another.

By the following year, Bogart had published an essay in Photoplay magazine entitled “I’m No Communist,” in which he confided that “actors and actresses always go overboard about things” and warned against being “used as dupes by Commie organizations.” Trumbo and others in the Hollywood Ten would be jailed for refusing to cooperate with Congress and found themselves among many to be blacklisted through the end of the 1950s and beyond.

By AAMER MADHANI and LISA MASCARO, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has declared drug cartels to be unlawful combatants and says the United States is now in a “non-international armed conflict,” according to a Trump administration memo obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, after recent U.S. strikes on boats in the Caribbean.

A person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly said the Congress was notified about the designation by Pentagon officials on Wednesday.

The move comes after the U.S. military last month carried out three deadly strikes against alleged drug smuggling boats in the Caribbean. At least two of those operations were carried out on vessels that originated from Venezuela.

Pentagon officials could not provide a list of the designated terrorist organizations at the center of the conflict, a matter that was a major source of frustration for some of the lawmakers who were briefed, according to the person.

Democrats have been pressing Trump to go to Congress and seek war powers authority for such operations.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

What the administration laid out at the closed-door classified briefing was perceived by several senators as pursuing a new legal framework that raised questions particularly regarding the role of Congress in authorizing any such action, the person familiar with the matter said.

As the administration takes aim at vessels in the Caribbean, senators and lawmakers of both major political parties have raised stark objections. Some had previously called on Congress to exert its authority under the war powers act that would prohibit the administration’s strikes unless they were authorized by Congress.

The first military strike, carried out on Sept. 2, on what the Trump administration said was a drug-carrying speedboat, killed 11 people. Trump claimed the boat was operated by the Tren de Aragua gang, which was listed by the U.S. as a foreign terrorist organization earlier this year.

The Trump administration has justified the military action as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.

But several senators, Democrats and some Republicans, as well as human rights groups questioned the legality of Trump’s action. They called it potential overreach of executive authority in part because the military was used for law enforcement purposes.

By claiming his campaign against drug cartels is an active armed conflict, Trump appears to be claiming extraordinary wartime powers to justify his action.

An Afghan refugee accused of stabbing a caseworker in Orion Township early this year has a trial date in Oakland County Circuit Court.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Feb. 2, 2026 for the case against Gul Nabi Rahmati, 34, of Dearborn Heights, charged with assault with intent to murder — punishable by up to life in prison — and assault with a dangerous weapon — a four-year felony. Rahmati allegedly stabbed Zubair Mansuori at Mansuori’s home on Jan. 22.

According to the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office, Rahmati came to Mansuori’s home where he was met by Mansuori, a caseworker for the social services non-profit Samaritas. Rahmati, who was one of Mansuori’s clients, allegedly stabbed Mansuori multiple times then tried to attack another man who came to Mansuori’s aid.

Rahmati fled the scene but turned himself in at the Dearborn Heights Police Department later that day, the prosecutor’s office said.

The prosecutor’s office said Rahmati and Mansuori are Afghan nationals and are in the United States legally.

Earlier this year, Rahmati underwent a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation and was found to be competent for trial.

As previously reported, Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said a possible motive related to religion was being considered.

Rahmati is in the Oakland County Jail with bond set at $350,000. Court records state Judge Jacob Cunningham will preside over the trial, which is expected to take three to four days.

Felony charge issued for man found living with wife’s ‘severely decomposed’ body in Bloomfield Township

By MICHAEL PHILLIS and MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is cancelling $7.6 billion in grants that supported hundreds of clean energy projects in 16 states, all of which voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential election.

The cuts were announced in a social media post late Wednesday by Russell Vought, the White House budget director: “Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled.”

The move comes as President Donald Trump threatens cuts and firings in his fight with congressional Democrats over the federal government shutdown.

These cuts are likely to affect battery plants, hydrogen technology projects, upgrades to the electric grid and carbon-capture efforts, among many others, according to the environmental nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.

The Energy Department said in a statement Thursday that 223 projects were terminated after a review determined they did not adequately advance the nation’s energy needs or were not economically viable. Officials did not provide details about which projects are being cut, but said funding came from the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and other DOE bureaus.

The cuts include $1.2 billion for California’s hydrogen hub that is aimed at accelerating hydrogen technology and production, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office. The private sector has committed $10 billion for the hydrogen hub, Newsom’s office said, adding that canceling the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems threatens over 200,000 jobs.

“Clean hydrogen deserves to be part of California’s energy future — creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs and saving billions in health costs,” the Democratic governor said.

California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla called cancelation of the project “vindictive, shortsighted and proof this administration is not serious about American energy dominance.”

The DOE said it has reviewed billions of dollars awarded by the Biden administration after Trump won the presidential election last November. More than a quarter of the rescinded grants were awarded between Election Day and Inauguration Day, the department said. The awards totaled more than $3.1 billion.

“President Trump promised to protect taxpayer dollars and expand America’s supply of affordable, reliable, and secure energy. Today’s cancellations deliver on that commitment,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said.

The Trump administration has broadly targeted climate programs and clean energy, and is proposing to roll back vehicle emission and other greenhouse gas rules it says can’t be justified. The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed overturning a 2009 finding that climate change threatens public health. Many climate scientists have criticized the EPA effort as biased and misleading.

Democrats and environmental organizations were quick to slam the latest cuts, saying they would raise energy costs.

“This is yet another blow by the Trump administration against innovative technology, jobs and the clean energy needed to meet skyrocketing demand,” said Jackie Wong, a senior vice president at NRDC.

Vought said the projects being cut are in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state.

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

By JOEY CAPPELLETTI and STEPHEN GROVES, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Gathered in the unusually quiet halls of the U.S. Capitol, Republican leaders faced the cameras for a second day and implored Democrats to reopen the government.

“We want to protect hardworking federal workers,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday morning, before criticizing his counterparts. “Democrats are the ones who have decided to inflict the pain.”

It’s a striking role reversal. Budget standoffs for years have been the bane of Republican congressional leaders who had to wrestle with conservatives on their side ready to shut down the government to get their policy demands. Democrats often stood as willing partners to keeping the government open, lending crucial votes to protect programs they had championed.

“Both parties have completely flip-flopped to the opposite side of the same issue that hasn’t changed,” said GOP Sen. Rand Paul. “Congress has truly entered the upside down world.”

The change is happening in large part because President Donald Trump exercises top-down control over a mostly unified GOP — and faces little internal resistance to his budget priorities. The shift is unfolding as the shutdown threatens government services, forces the furlough of federal workers and gives the Trump administration another opportunity to remake the federal government.

Democrats, meanwhile, have been left scrambling for leverage in the first year of Trump’s second term, using the funding fight to exert what influence they can. It’s an awkward posture for a party that has long cast itself as the adults in the room during shutdown threats — something not lost on Republicans.

At a Wednesday morning news conference, Republicans looped an old clip of New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declaring, “It’s not normal to shut down the government if we don’t get what we want.”

A new GOP consensus on short-term spending

Short-term government funding legislation — known as continuing resolutions on Capitol Hill – once roiled hardline conservatives who viewed them as a dereliction of their duty to set the government’s funding levels. That fight became so bitter in 2023 that right-wing lawmakers initiated the ouster of Kevin McCarthy as House speaker after he relied on Democrats to pass a “clean” continuing resolution.

But now, Paul of Kentucky has been the lone Republican to join Senate Democrats in opposing a short-term funding measure backed by GOP leaders that would keep government funding generally at current levels through Nov. 21. In explaining his vote, Paul said the measure “continues Biden spending levels” which Trump had previously pledged to roll back.

Many of Paul’s previous fiscal hawk allies, however, have changed their tune.

“We need to reopen the government. Let’s fix America’s problems, let’s work together to solve them, but let’s reopen the government,” Vice President JD Vance said Thursday.

When he was in the Senate, Vance never voted in favor of final passage of a continuing resolution. Instead he argued that the leverage should be used to gain significant policy wins.

“Why shouldn’t we be trying to force this government shutdown fight to get something out of it that’s good for the American people?” Vance said last September on the Shawn Ryan Show podcast.

This week, Vance said: “You don’t have policy disagreements that serve as the basis for a government shutdown.”

Trump’s budget director, Russ Vought, has also taken a new tack now that he is back in the White House. While Joe Biden was president, Vought directed a conservative organization called The Center for Renewing America and counseled Republicans in Congress to use the prospect of a shutdown to gain policy concessions.

Yet this week, he charged that Democrats were “hostage taking” as they demanded that Congress take up health care policy.

In retaliation, Vought has threatened to initiate mass layoffs of federal workers and Wednesday announced that the White House was withholding funding for already approved projects in some blue states.

Trump’s tight grip unifies the GOP on the surface

The shutdown, which began Wednesday, shows no sign of resolution. Republicans appear increasingly comfortable with their position, reflecting Trump’s firm control on the party’s agenda.

In a striking contrast to the internal division that once plagued GOP spending fights, party leaders displayed unity on the Capitol balcony on the first day of the shutdown.

“The President, House Republicans, Senate Republicans, we’re all united on this,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said at the gathering, while holding the pages of the Republicans’ continuing resolution that has already passed the House. That bill would reopen the government if it passed the Senate.

Trump’s second term has seen far less resistance from Republicans than his first. His major tax and spending proposal, along with his personnel appointments, have largely moved forward unchallenged — a break from his first term when GOP lawmakers frequently pushed back against his proposals and actions.

Still, tensions remain just below the surface. The Republican administration’s push for aggressive spending cuts — and its resistance to renewing certain health care subsidies — has sparked quiet concern inside the party.

Signs of Republican unease

One of the biggest flashpoints is the impending expiration of Affordable Care Act tax credits.

Some Republicans are sympathetic to the Democratic demands for an extension of the tax credits. If they allowed to expire, there will be large rate increases for many people who purchase their health care coverage on the marketplace. It would add financial stress to key Republican constituencies like small business owners, contractors, farmers and ranchers.

When Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican, floated a one-year extension to the health care subsidies during a Senate floor vote Wednesday, it attracted attention from Democrats and Republicans alike.

“Sometimes there’s a misunderstanding that we’re divided on the ACA credits, we’re not. So now we’re moving forward to eliminate the fraud and also find a way back to pre-pandemic levels,” Rounds said.

There’s also a growing unease with how the Trump administration is leading Republicans through the shutdown. GOP lawmakers feel they hold the political advantage in the fight, but some are beginning to express doubts as the president and his budget director prepare to unleash mass layoffs and permanent program cuts.

Trump’s penchant for hurling insults at Democratic lawmakers – many who will be crucial to leading Congress out of the spending impasse – has also undercut the messaging of Republican leaders. When Johnson was asked Thursday what he thought about Trump posting doctored videos of House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero, he offered a bit of advice for his Democratic counterpart.

“Man, just ignore it,” Johnson said.