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.
FILE – Jane Fonda appears at the 31st annual Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles on Feb. 23, 2025. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
The owner of a Troy medical facility where a 5-year-old boy died in a hyperbaric chamber explosion was sent to jail Tuesday, reportedly for failing to meet the conditions of her release on bond.
According to online Oakland County Jail inmate information, Tamela Peterson, who faces felony charges of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter in the death in January, was booked into the jail Tuesday and will be released Wednesday.
Peterson, 58, was released from police custody in April after posting a $2 million bond. However, she returned to 52-4 District Court in Troy on Tuesday for a hearing related to a bond violation, according to online court records.
There, she told Judge Maureen M. McGinnis that she sold a firearm that she had possessed rather than surrendering it to the court, per the conditions of her bond, according to a WDIV-TV (Channel 4) report.
Peterson’s attorney, Thomas W. Cranmer, didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.
Five-year-old Thomas Cooper died Jan. 31 at the Oxford Center in Troy after the hyperbaric chamber in which he was being treated for sleep apnea and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder suddenly exploded, attorneys for the boy’s family said.
In addition to Peterson, the center’s safety director, Jeffrey Mosteller, and its primary manager, Gary Marken, also are charged with murder and involuntary manslaughter. If convicted of murder, they face up to life in prison. Aleta Moffitt, who worked at the center and operated the chamber, is charged with involuntary manslaughter and intentionally placing false information on a medical record.
All four are accused of disregarding safety protocols and failing to follow the manufacturer’s recommended guidelines for hyperbaric treatment, according to the Michigan Attorney General’s Office, which is handling the case.
Last week, attorneys for Cooper’s family announced a more than $100 million lawsuit against the four suspects, as well as the chamber’s manufacturer, Anaheim, California-based Sechrist Industries Inc., and Office Ventures Troy I LLC, which owns the Troy property where the Oxford Center operated. The center’s nonprofit is also named in the litigation.
Attorneys say the defendants failed to explain the potential dangers of the treatment to the boy’s family. They also allege that the Oxford Center deceitfully sold hyperbaric treatment plans for more than 100 conditions although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has only approved it for treatment of 13 conditions, which does not include ADHD or sleep apnea.
Tamela Peterson sits for a preliminary examination in the death of 5-year-old Thomas Cooper on Sept. 15, 2025 in Oakland County's 52-4 District Court in Troy. (Jose Juarez, Special to The Detroit News)
The case against a 33-year-old Texas man accused of human trafficking and other crimes in Oakland County has been bound over to circuit court for possible trial following a Sept.30 preliminary exam in Southfield’s 46th District Court.
Randolph Lewis was arrested July 21 in Southfield. The case against him unfolded when — according to police — officers responded to the Quality Inn on Telegraph Road for a malicious destruction of property complaint, and spoke with a woman who said a man she described as her boyfriend had broken her car windshield.
An investigation revealed the woman may be a victim of human trafficking; she reportedly told police she had met Lewis in Louisiana and he had introduced her to sex dates — listing her online for commercial sex services and collecting her earnings after the encounters, police said.
The woman also told officers that Lewis had sexually assaulted her, police said.
Randolph Lewis (photo shared by Southfield Police Dept.)
Lewis was located at another hotel nearby and taken into custody. A second possible human trafficking victim was with him, but she refused assistance from officers, police said.
The investigation also revealed that Lewis has operated in several cities, police said.
Lewis, of Arlington, Texas, is charged with human trafficking enterprise resulting in injury/commercial sexual activity, prostitution, and using a computer to commit a crime. Two counts of assault with intent to commit sexual penetration he had been charged with have been dismissed. Arraignment in Oakland County Circuit Court is scheduled for Oct. 8 before Judge Michael Warren.
Lewis is in the Oakland County Jail with bond set at $300,000 cash or surety.
Police said Lewis also has charges pending in Louisiana.
Colorism is defined in the Oxford dictionary as “prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group.”
It’s one facet of discrimination that often goes without proper acknowledgment, and one that Professor Rogerio Pinto aims to shine a light on through his work.
Rogerio Pinto is a University Diversity Social Transformation Professor. He is a Berit Ingersoll-Dayton Collegiate Professor of Social Work and he’s a Professor of Theatre and Drama, School of Music, Theatre & Dance at The University of Michigan.
Born in Brazil, Professor Pinto has dedicated his life to breaking the social constructs of colorism and other “-isms” that divide people.
Earlier this year, Professor Pinto curated and hosted “Colorism,” a mixed-media installation that used video, photography, tactile elements and a montage to explore colorism. “Colorism” took a look at the term from its roots to where we are today in society.
Professor Pinto stopped by The Metro to explore the complexities of colorism and its impact on people immigrating to the U.S., and how to tackle identity in times of division.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.
Video surveillance caught the liquid larceny: A man pulled a box truck behind a Minnesota strip mall in the wee hours in late October, got out, grabbed a hose and jammed it into a bin of used cooking oil outside Great Moon Buffet.
He siphoned nearly $800 worth of grease from the restaurant, pumping it into a storage container in the back of the truck and slipping away into the darkness, according to felony charges against the alleged culprit, who’s also accused of hitting up two other restaurants.
“I had never heard of anything like this before,” said Derek Fritze, a 10-year Maplewood police detective who investigated the case. “Apparently, it’s a big thing.”
But it’s not new, just more widespread as used cooking oil has become liquid gold over the past decade because it’s recycled for the production of biofuel, said Kent Swisher, president and CEO of the North American Renderers Association. He said thieves are stealing up to $80 million worth of the grease every year, up from $42 million in 2013.
“So, yeah, it’s across the country,” he said of the thievery. “And as prices have gotten stronger over time, you’d think the renderers would be happy. But it actually created more problems, because it created more people trying to steal it.”
Renderers and smaller businesses collect the oil from restaurants, who are compensated depending on the volume. It’s then processed and sold to refineries. Besides biofuel, it’s used as a nutritional additive in animal feed.
The global used cooking oil market is expanding rapidly. It was valued at $7 billion in 2023 and is expected to top $14 billion by 2033, according to market analysts.
A manager at Great Moon Buffet noticed the restaurant had only been getting about $15 a month — instead of the usual $600 to $700 — because the amount of used cooking oil in the barrel out back was low when picked up by Sanimax, a rendering company with a plant in South St. Paul.
So he put up surveillance cameras, which caught the illicit act going down just before 4 a.m. Oct. 23. Cameras got an image of the man’s face, and the back license plate of his white box truck. The manager reported the theft to police on Oct. 28.
Less than two weeks later, around 4:20 a.m. Nov. 7, police saw the truck parked outside a restaurant on Beam Avenue, the criminal complaint says. The driver denied stealing used oil from any restaurant. He said the truck belonged to his friends, and that he stopped in the parking lot because his truck was not working.
Police say they later matched the driver’s face to the man in the Great Moon Buffet surveillance video.
Sanimax gave police a list of other restaurants where surveillance cameras allegedly caught the same man stealing grease: New Hong Kong Wok in New Brighton about 6:30 a.m. on Aug. 10, 2024, and Peking Garden Restaurant in St. Paul around 4 a.m. eight days later.
Sanimax put the value of the oil stolen from the three restaurants at just over $3,600.
The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office charged the Minneapolis man with three counts of theft, two at the felony level. His attorney did not respond to the Pioneer Press’ requests for comment on the allegations.
Prevention tactics
Sanimax driver Jimmy Lee keeps an eye on a container full of grease as it is lifted and emptied into a recycling truck during a pickup in South St. Paul. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
On a recent weekday morning, a Sanimax driver pulled up to Concord Lanes and sucked out used cooking oil from a large bin on the side of the bowling alley. It’ll end up just down the road at the company’s South St. Paul plant, a remnant of the city’s stockyards and meatpacking days.
Mike Karman, Sanimax vice president of procurement, said used cooking oil theft has been a problem for at least a decade — mostly in larger metropolitan areas — and it’s been more prevalent in the Twin Cities over the past two summers compared to neighboring states.
“We see multiple different trucks, so we know it’s more than one actor,” he said of the local spate of thefts. “So I can say that there’s more than one truck running around doing it.”
To try to prevent the thievery, Sanimax puts its bins inside restaurants when there’s room or puts locks on them. “But the problem is,” Karman said, “most of these thieves, even if there is a lock on where you dump in the oil, they’ll just lift and bend up a corner of the lid and stick in a pipe to suck it out.”
Expensive anti-theft lids are also an option, although thieves are known to drill through the bin to get at the oil, he said.
Samimax also does its own surveillance, he said, without getting into the details.
Sanimax told police that man who took the Great Moon Buffet grease could be employed or contracted by rival recycling business Greasehauler. Sanimax did its own investigation and found the man’s truck parked at Greasehauler’s plant in Plato, Minn., several times.
Karman said he couldn’t get into all that, but added: “We take our business seriously, so when we see that there is theft, we utilize all of our resources.”
Greasehauler owner Lev Mirman, when contacted by the Pioneer Press, said he had never heard of the man charged in the Great Moon Buffet theft. He said he gets used cooking oil from several sources and that it’s possible someone gave him a fake name.
Karman said Sanimax does not buy grease from non-vetted suppliers, but there is no regulation stopping other processors from doing so.
Syndicates charged federally
Swisher, from the Virginia-based renderers association, said they started a task force in 2013 to try to get law enforcement to put more focus on the thefts “because at the time, everybody kind of giggled about stolen used cooking oil.”
That’s no longer the case, he said.
“It’s become such a big thing over the years that it’s even gotten the FBI’s attention. And some of the syndicates are quite large,” he said. “When you Google it, it’s kind of amazing how many stories pop up these days.”
The alleged capers range from a lone man with a single truck to an organized ring running a whole fleet.
A federal grand jury in North Carolina indicted 21 co-conspirators — including 12 from Mexico and one from Turkey — on several charges in 2019 for allegedly stealing nearly $4 million worth of used cooking oil over five years. The ring operated across North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, storing the stolen grease in a warehouse, the indictment says.
In December, a federal grand jury in western New York announced the indictment of six New York men for allegedly stealing at least 90,000 pounds of used grease from restaurants in and around Rochester. They sold the oil to a broker, who sold it to a refinery in Erie, Pennsylvania, the indictment says.
Swisher said his association disbanded their task force after renderers started taking theft precautions. Many now have cameras, hire private investigators and offer cash rewards to try to catch the thieves. He knows of at least one renderer that puts electronic anti-theft devices on its bins that sense when the oil is being stolen and alerts police or private investigators.
An apology, cash offer
Peking Garden co-owner Teresa Nguyen said she didn’t know someone stole their grease last year. But that wasn’t the case five years ago at their former University Avenue location, when she caught a guy siphoning oil from a bin they shared with a neighboring restaurant, Golden Gate Cafe.
She thought at first he was a Sanimax driver collecting the grease. But then he “looked afraid” and apologized, she said, and offered her $100 cash on the spot to not call the police.
She refused, told him it wasn’t just her oil. She asked him to go to Golden Gate and explain what he had done because both restaurants had been noticing the Sanimax compensation checks were smaller than usual.
The man left in his box truck, but didn’t go to Golden Gate. The theft went unreported to police.
“Honestly, we have a lot of customers in the cities that we know get stolen from, but we can’t quite quantify it because a lot of times they don’t take all of it,” said Karman, of Sanimax. “But then the customer goes, ‘Oh, my checks are half the size they used to be. I wonder why.’ And then they just go on to doing something else and don’t report it.”
Sanimax driver Jimmy Lee uses a hose to empty grease from a container into a recycling truck during one of his stops in South St. Paul on Friday, Sept. 5, 2025. Cooking oil recyclers, like South St. Paul-based Sanimax, have reported people stealing grease from their collection containers. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
Wayne State University President Kimberly Espy is resigning. That’s according to a source with knowledge of the situation. Espy has reportedly been under pressure from the school’s board of governors to step down. In recent weeks, there’s been criticism about the unexplained decision to place the dean of Wayne State’s Medical School on leave.
A story by the Detroit News says the Interim Med School Dean resigned because his appointment did not follow proper channels. Espy was also criticized for not fully engaging in the Detroit community. She did not appear at an event on campus earlier this week to announce a program to make it easier for DPSCD high school students to attend Wayne State. Espy became the President of the university in August 2023.
A Wayne State Board of Governors’ meeting has been scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 17 at 5 p.m.
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NEW YORK (AP) — Former federal prosecutor Maurene Comey sued the U.S. government Monday to get her job back, saying her firing was for political reasons and was unconstitutional.
Her lawsuit in Manhattan federal court blamed the firing on the fact that her father is James Comey, a former F.B.I. director, “or because of her perceived political affiliation and beliefs, or both.”
Comey is seeking to be reinstated as well as a declaration that her firing was unlawful and a violation of the “Separation of Powers” clause in the U.S. Constitution.
“Defendants have not provided any explanation whatsoever for terminating Ms. Comey. In truth, there is no legitimate explanation,” the lawsuit said.
Comey, who successfully prosecuted hundreds of cases since becoming an assistant U.S. attorney in 2015, was notified of her dismissal in an email with an attachment saying she was being fired “(p)ursuant to Article II of the United States Constitution and the laws of the United States,” the lawsuit said.
James Comey was fired as FBI director by President Donald Trump in 2017. The lawsuit noted that he has since written a memoir critical of Trump and has continued to publicly criticize Trump and his administration, including a social media post in May that Trump and others perceived as threatening.
The lawsuit noted that Maurene Comey’s firing in July came the day after her supervisors had asked her to take the lead on a major public corruption case and three months after she’d received her latest “Outstanding” review.
“The politically motivated termination of Ms. Comey — ostensibly under ‘Article II of the Constitution’ — upends bedrock principles of our democracy and justice system,” the lawsuit said. “Assistant United States Attorneys like Ms. Comey must do their jobs without fearing or favoring any political party or perspective, guided solely by the law, the facts, and the pursuit of justice.”
Named as defendants in the lawsuit were, among others, the Justice Department, the Executive Office of the President, U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi, the Office of Personnel Management and the United States.
A message for comment from the Justice Department was not immediately returned.
Comey’s July 16 firing came amid a spate of dismissals of prosecutors by the Justice Department without explanation, raising alarm that civil service protections meant to prevent terminations for political reasons were being overlooked.
Comey’s lawsuit noted that she was employed with protections under the Civil Service Reform Act governing how and why she could be terminated, including specific prohibitions against termination for discriminatory reasons such as political affiliation.
“Her termination violated every one of those protections,” the lawsuit said.
The Justice Department also has fired some prosecutors who worked on cases that have provoked Trump’s ire, including some who handled U.S. Capitol riot cases and lawyers and support staff who worked on special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutions of Trump.
She became a rising star in her office for her work on the case against financier Jeffrey Epstein and his onetime girlfriend, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, and the recent prosecution of music mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs.
Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence after her December 2021 conviction on sex trafficking charges. She was recently transferred from a prison in Florida to a prison camp in Texas.
Epstein took his own life in a federal jail in August 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges. Combs is awaiting sentencing next month after his conviction on prostitution-related charges after he was exonerated in July of more serious sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges.
FILE – This photo combination shows, from left, former FBI Director James Comey in Washington, Dec. 7, 2018, President Donald Trump at Morristown Airport, Sept. 14, 2025, in Morristown, N.J., and Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey in New York, July 8, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, Alex Brandon, Richard Drew)
Pharmacies in Black and Latino neighborhoods are less likely to dispense buprenorphine — one of the main treatments for opioid use disorder — even though people of color are more likely to die from opioid overdoses.
The drug helps reduce cravings for opioids and the likelihood of a fatal overdose.
While the nation as a whole has seen decreases in opioid overdose deaths in recent years, overdose deaths among Black, Latino and Indigenous people have continued to increase.
Many medical and health policy experts fear the broad domestic policy law President Donald Trump signed in July will worsen the problem by increasing the number of people without health insurance. As a result of the law, the number of people without coverage will increase by about 10 million by 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
About 7.5 million of the people who will lose coverage under the new law are covered by Medicaid. Shortly before Trump signed the bill into law, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and Boston University estimated that roughly 156,000 Medicaid recipients will lose access to medications for opioid addiction because of the cuts, resulting in approximately 1,000 more overdose deaths annually.
Because Black and Hispanic people are overrepresented on the rolls, the Medicaid cuts will have a disproportionate effect on communities that already face higher barriers to getting medications to treat addiction.
From 2017 to 2023, the percentage of U.S. retail pharmacies regularly dispensing buprenorphine increased from 33% to 39%, according to a study published last week in Health Affairs.
But researchers found the drug was much less likely to be available in pharmacies in mostly Black (18% of pharmacies) and Hispanic neighborhoods (17%), compared with mostly white ones (46%).
In some states, the disparity was even worse. In California, for example, only about 9% of pharmacies in Black neighborhoods dispensed buprenorphine, compared with 52% in white neighborhoods.
The researchers found buprenorphine was least available in Black and Latino neighborhoods across nearly all states.
Barriers to treatment
Dr. Rebecca Trotzky-Sirr, a family physician who specializes in addiction medicine, said many communities of color are “pharmacy deserts.” Even the pharmacies that do exist in those neighborhoods tend to “have additional barriers to obtain buprenorphine and other controlled substances out of a concern for historic overuse of some treatments,” said Trotzky-Sirr, who wasn’t involved in the study.
In addition to its federal classification as a controlled substance, buprenorphine is also subject to state regulations to prevent illegal use. Pharmacies that carry it know that wholesalers and distributors audit their orders, which dissuades some from stocking or dispensing it.
Dima Qato, associate professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of Southern California and an author of the Health Affairs study, said that without changes in policy, Black and Hispanic people will continue to have an especially hard time getting buprenorphine.
“If you don’t address these dispensing regulations, or regulate buprenorphine from the aspect of pharmacy regulations, people are still going to encounter barriers accessing it,” she said.
In neighborhoods where at least a fifth of the population is on Medicaid, just 35% of pharmacies dispensed buprenorphine, Qato and her team found. But in neighborhoods with fewer residents on Medicaid, about 42% of pharmacies carried the drug.
Medicaid covers nearly half— 47% — of nonelderly adults who suffer from opioid use disorder. In states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, another recent study found an increase in people getting prescriptions for buprenorphine.
“Medicaid is the backbone of care for people struggling with opioid use disorder,” said Cherlette McCullough, a Florida-based mental health therapist. “We’re going to see people in relapse. We’re going to see more overdoses. We’re going to see more people in the ER.”
Qato said the shortage of pharmacies in minority communities is likely to get worse, as many independent pharmacists are already struggling to stay open.
“We know they’re more likely to close in neighborhoods of color, so there’s going to be even fewer pharmacies that carry it in the neighborhoods that really need it,” she said.
‘There needs to be urgency’
Qato and her colleagues say states and local governments should mandate that pharmacies carry a minimum stock of buprenorphine and dispense it to anyone coming in with a legitimate prescription. As examples, they point to a Philadelphia ordinance mandating that pharmacies carry the opioid overdose-reversal drug naloxone and similar emergency contraception requirements in Massachusetts.
“We need to create expectations. We need to encourage our pharmacies to carry this to make it accessible, same day, and there needs to be urgency,” said Arianna Campbell, a physician assistant and co-founder of the Bridge Center, a California-based organization that aims to help increase addiction treatment in emergency rooms.
“In many of the conversations I have with pharmacies, when I’m getting some pushback, I have to say: ‘Hey, this person’s at the highest risk of dying right now. They need this medication right now.’”
She said patients frequently become discouraged due to barriers they face in getting prescriptions filled. The Bridge Center has been expanding its patient navigator program across the state, and helping other states start their own. The program helps patients identify pharmacies where they can fill their prescription fastest.
“There’s a medication that can help you, but at every turn it’s really hard to get it,” she said, calling the disparities in access to medication treatment “unacceptable.”
Trotzky-Sirr, the California doctor, fears the looming Medicaid cuts will cause many of her patients to discontinue treatment and relapse. Many of her patients are covered by Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program.
“A lot of our patients are able to obtain medications for treatment of addiction like buprenorphine, because of the state covering the cost of the medication,” said Trotzky-Sirr, who also is a regional coordinator at the Bridge Center.
“They don’t have the resources to pay for it, cash, out of pocket.”
Some low-income patients switch between multiple providers or clinics as they try to find care and coverage, she added. These could be interpreted as red flags to a pharmacy.
Trotzky-Sirr argued buprenorphine does not need to be monitored as carefully as opioids and other drugs that are easier to misuse or overuse.
“Buprenorphine does not have those features and really needs to be in a class by itself,” she said. “Unfortunately, it’s hard to explain that to a pharmacist in 30 seconds over the phone.”
More is known about the medication now than when it was placed on the controlled substances list about two decades ago, said Brendan Saloner, a Bloomberg Professor of American Health in Addiction and Overdose at Johns Hopkins University.
Pharmacies are fearful of regulatory scrutiny and don’t have “countervailing pressure” to ensure patients get the treatments, he said.
On top of that fear, Medicaid managed care plans’ prior authorization processes may also be adding to the pharmacy bottleneck, he said.
“Black and Latino communities have higher rates of Medicaid enrollment, so to the extent that Medicaid prior authorization techniques are a hassle to pharmacies, that may also kind of discourage them [pharmacies] from stocking buprenorphine,” he said.
In some states, buprenorphine is much more readily available. In Maine, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah and Vermont, more than 70% of pharmacies carried the drug, according to the study. Buprenorphine availability was highest in states such as Oregon that have the least restrictive regulations for dispensing it.
In contrast, less than a quarter of pharmacies in Iowa, North Dakota, Texas, Virginia and Washington, D.C., carried the medication.
“We’re going to see more people becoming unhoused, because without treatment, they’re going to go back to those old habits,” McCullough, the Florida therapist, said. “When we talk about marginalized communities, these are the populations that are going to suffer the most because they already have challenges with access to care.”
KINI, Mexico — On a hot June night Jesús Cruz at last returned to Kini, the small town in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula where he spent the first 17 years of his life.
His sister greeted him with tearful hugs. The next morning she took him to see their infirm mother, who whispered in his ear: “I didn’t think you’d ever come back.”
After decades away, Cruz was finally home.
Yet he was not home.
So much of what he loved was 3,000 miles away in Southern California, where he resided for 33 years until immigration agents swarmed the car wash where he worked and hauled him away in handcuffs.
Cruz missed his friends and Booka, his little white dog. His missed his house, his car, his job.
But most of all, he missed his wife, Noemi Ciau, and their four children. Ciau worked nights, so Cruz was in charge of getting the kids fed, clothed and to and from school and music lessons, a chaotic routine that he relished because he knew he was helping them get ahead.
“I want them to have a better life,” he said. “Not the one I had.”
Now that he was back in Mexico, living alone in an empty house that belonged to his in-laws, he and Ciau, who is a U.S. permanent resident, faced an impossible decision.
Should she and the children join Cruz in Mexico?
Or stay in Inglewood?
Cruz and Ciau both had families that had been broken by the border, and they didn’t want that for their kids. In the months since Cruz had been detained, his eldest daughter, 16-year-old Dhelainy, had barely slept and had stopped playing her beloved piano, and his youngest son, 5-year-old Gabriel, had started acting out. Esther, 14, and Angel, 10, were hurting, too.
But bringing four American kids to Mexico didn’t seem fair, either. None of them spoke Spanish, and the schools in Kini didn’t compare with those in the U.S. Dhelainy was a few years from graduating high school, and she dreamed of attending the University of California and then Harvard Law.
There was also the question of money. At the car wash, Cruz earned $220 a day. But the day rate for laborers in Kini is just $8. Ciau had a good job at Los Angeles International Airport, selling cargo space for an international airline. It seemed crazy to give that up.
Ciau wanted to hug her husband again. She wanted to know what it would feel like to have the whole family in Mexico. So in early August she packed up the kids and surprised Cruz with a visit.
Kini lies an hour outside of Merida in a dense tropical forest. Like many people here, Cruz grew up speaking Spanish and a dialect of Maya and lived in a one-room, thatched-roof house. He, his parents and his five brothers and sisters slept in hammocks crisscrossed from the rafters.
His parents were too poor to buy shoes for their children, so when he was a boy Cruz left school to work alongside his father, caring for cows and crops. At 17 he joined a wave of young men leaving Kini to work in the United States.
He arrived in Inglewood, where a cousin lived, in 1992, just as Los Angeles was erupting in protest over the police beating of Rodney King.
Cruz, soft-spoken and hardworking, was overwhelmed by the big city but found refuge in a green stucco apartment complex that had become a home away from home for migrants from Kini, who cooked and played soccer together in the evenings.
Eventually he fell for a young woman living there: Ciau, whose parents had brought her from Kini as a young girl, and who obtained legal status under an amnesty extended by President Reagan. They married when she turned 18.
As their family grew, they developed rituals. When one of the kids made honor roll, they’d celebrate at Dave & Buster’s. Each summer they’d visit Disneyland. And every weekend they’d dine at Casa Gambino, a classic Mexican restaurant with vinyl booths, piña coladas and a bison head mounted on the wall. On Fridays, Cruz and Ciau left the kids with her parents and went on a date.
As the father of four Americans, Cruz was eligible for a green card. But the attorneys he consulted warned that he would have to apply from Mexico and that the wait could last years.
Cruz didn’t want to leave his children. So he stayed. When President Trump was reelected last fall on a vow to carry out mass deportations, he tried not to worry. The government, he knew, usually targeted immigrants who had committed crimes, and his record was spotless. But the Trump administration took a different approach.
On June 8, masked federal agents swarmed Westchester Hand Wash. Cruz said they slammed him into the back of a patrol car with such force and shackled his wrists so tightly that he was left with bruises across his body and a serious shoulder injury.
At the Westchester Hand Wash last June, an employee tells a customer that they are closed due to a recent immigration raid. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
Ciau, who was helping Esther buy a dress for a middle school honors ceremony, heard about the raid and raced over. She had been at the car wash just hours earlier, bringing lunch to her husband and his colleagues. Now it was eerily empty.
Cruz was transferred to a jail in El Paso, where he says he was denied requests to speak to a lawyer or call his family.
One day, an agent handed him a document and told him to sign. The agent said that if Cruz fought his case, he would remain in detention for up to a year and be deported anyway. Signing the document — which said he would voluntarily return to Mexico — meant he could avoid a deportation order, giving him a better shot at fixing his papers in the future.
Cruz couldn’t read the text without his glasses. He didn’t know that he very likely would have been eligible for release on bond because of his family ties to the U.S. But he was in pain and afraid and so he signed.
Returning to Kini after decades away was surreal.
Sprawling new homes with columns, tile roofs and other architectural flourishes imported by people who had lived in the U.S. rose from what had once been fields. There were new faces, too, including a cohort of young men who appraised Cruz with curiosity and suspicion. With his polo shirts and running shoes, he stood out in a town where most wore flip-flops and as few clothes as possible in the oppressive heat.
Cruz found work on a small ranch. Before dawn, he would pedal out there on an old bicycle, clearing weeds and feeding cows, the world silent except for the rustle of palm leaves. In all his years in the big city, he had missed the tranquility of these lands.
He had missed his mother, too. She has multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair. Some days, she could speak, and would ask about his family and whether Cruz was eating enough. Other days, they would sit in silence, him occasionally leaning over to kiss her forehead.
He always kept his phone near, in case Ciau or one of the kids called. He tried his best to parent from afar, mediating arguments and reminding the kids to be kind to their mother. He tracked his daughters via GPS when they left the neighborhood, and phoned before bed to make sure everyone had brushed their teeth.
He worried about them, especially Dhelainy, a talented musician who liked to serenade him on the piano while he cooked dinner. The burden of caring for the younger siblings had fallen on her. Since Cruz had been taken, she hadn’t touched the piano once.
During one conversation, Dhelainy let it slip that they were coming to Mexico. Cruz surged with joy, then shuddered at the thought of having to say goodbye again. He picked them up at the airport.
That first evening, they shared pizza and laughed and cried. Gabriel, the only family member who had never been to Mexico, was intrigued by the thick forest and the climate, playing outside in the monsoon rain. For the first time in months, Dhelainy slept through the night.
“We finally felt like a happy family again,” Ciau said. But as soon as she and the kids arrived, they started counting the hours to when they’d have to go back.
During the heat of the day, the family hid inside, lounging in hammocks. They were also dodging unwanted attention. It seemed everywhere they went, someone asked Cruz to relive his arrest, and he would oblige, describing cold nights in detention with nothing to keep warm but a plastic blanket.
But at night, after the sky opened up, and then cleared, they went out.
It was fair time in Kini, part of an annual celebration to honor the Virgin Mary. A small circus had been erected and a bull ring constructed of wooden posts and leaves. A bright moon rose as the family took their seats and the animal charged out of its pen, agitated, and barreled toward the matador’s pink cape.
Cruz turned to his kids. When he was growing up, he told them, the matador killed the bull, whose body was cut up and sold to spectators. Now the fights ended without violence — with the bull lassoed and returned to pasture.
It was one of the ways that Mexico had modernized, he felt. He felt pride at how far Mexico had come, recently electing its first female president.
The bull ran by, close enough for the family to hear his snorts and see his body heave with breath.
“Are you scared?” Esther asked Gabriel.
Wide-eyed, the boy shook his head no. But he reached out to touch his father’s hand.
Later, as the kids slept, Cruz and Ciau stayed up, dancing cumbia deep into the night.
The day before Ciau and the kids were scheduled to leave, the family went to the beach. Two of Ciau’s nieces came. It was the first time Gabriel had met a cousin. The girls spoke little English, but they played well with Gabriel, showing him games on their phones. (For days after, he would giddily ask his mother when he could next see them.)
That evening, the air was heavy with moisture.
The kids went into the bedroom to rest. Cruz and Ciau sat at the kitchen table, holding hands and wiping away tears.
They had heard of a U.S. employer who, having lost so many workers to immigration raids, was offering to pay a smuggler to bring people across the border. Cruz and Ciau agreed that was too risky.
They had just paid a lawyer to file a lawsuit saying Cruz had been coerced into accepting voluntary departure and asking a judge to order his return to the U.S. so that he could apply for relief from removal. The first hearing was scheduled for mid-September.
Cruz wanted to return to the U.S. But he was increasingly convinced that the family could make it work in Mexico. “We were poor before,” he told Ciau. “We can be poor again.”
Ciau wasn’t sure. Her children had big — and expensive — ambitions.
Dhelainy had proposed staying in the U.S. with her grandparents if the rest of the family moved back. Cruz and Ciau talked about the logistics of that, and Ciau vowed to explore whether the younger kids could remain enrolled in U.S. schools, but switch to online classes.
When the rain began, Cruz got up and closed the door.
The next morning, Cruz would not accompany his family to the airport. It would be too hard, he thought, “like when somebody gives you something you’ve always wanted, and then suddenly takes it away.”
Gabriel wrapped his arms around his father’s waist, his small body convulsed with tears: “I love you.”
“It’s OK, baby,” Cruz said. “I love you, too.”
“Thank you for coming,” he said to Ciau. He kissed her. And then they were gone.
That afternoon, he walked the streets of Kini. The fair was wrapping up. Workers sweating in the heat were dismantling the circus rides and packing them onto the backs of trucks.
He thought back to a few evenings earlier, when they had celebrated Dhelainy’s birthday.
The family had planned to host a joint sweet 16 and quinceñera party for her and Esther in July. They had rented an event hall, hired a band and sent out invitations. After Cruz was detained, they called the party off.
They celebrated Dhelainy’s Aug. 8 birthday at the house in Kini instead. A mariachi played the Juan Gabriel classic, “Amor Eterno.”
“You are my sun and my calm,” the mariachis sang as Cruz swayed with his daughter. “You are my life / My eternal love.”
At a news conference in June at Culver City Express Hand Car Wash and Detail, Noemi Ciau shows a photo of her husband, Jesús Cruz, who was taken into custody by immigration agents that month at a car wash. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
By SAFIYAH RIDDLE, Associated Press/Report For America
The Posse Comitatus Act is a nearly 150-year-old federal law that limits the U.S. military’s role in enforcing domestic laws. At its core, experts say the law reflects America’s long-standing belief that law enforcement should remain in civilian hands, separate from military power.
President Donald Trump has tested the law’s limits in the first few months of his second term, as he expands the footprint of the U.S. military on domestic soil.
Here’s what to know about the law.
Posse Comitatus Act stops military from enforcing US law
The criminal statute prohibits military enforcement of domestic law. It also prevents the military from investigating local crimes, overriding local law enforcement or compelling certain behavior.
There are key exceptions. Congress can vote to suspend the act, or the president can order it suspended in defense of the Constitution. The Insurrection Act of 1807 allows the president to deploy troops during invasions, rebellions or when local authorities can’t maintain order.
National Guard members are under state authority and commanded by governors, so they’re generally exempt. However, the Posse Comitatus Act applies to National Guard forces when they’re “federalized,” meaning the president puts them under his control. That’s what Trump did in California over the governor’s objections.
The military is allowed to share intelligence and certain resources if there’s an overlap with civilian law enforcement jurisdiction, according to the Library of Congress. There’s also an exception for the U.S. Coast Guard, which has some law enforcement responsibilities.
The US Capitol is seen past a member of the South Carolina National Guard standing at the Washington Monument, Sunday, Aug. 31, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)
Law was enacted after the Reconstruction era
The law was enacted in 1878 following the post-Civil War era known as Reconstruction. At that time, segregationist lawmakers didn’t want the U.S. military from blocking Jim Crow laws that imposed racial segregation.
But the spirit of the law has roots going all the way back to the Revolutionary War, when the nation’s founders were scarred by the British monarchy’s absolute military control, said William C. Banks, a professor at the Syracuse University College of Law.
“We have a tradition in the United States — which is more a norm than a law — that we want law enforcement to be conducted by civilians, not the military,” Banks said.
Courts have rarely interpreted the Posse Comitatus Act, leaving much of its scope shaped by executive branch policy and military regulations rather than judicial precedent.
Steve Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University, notes that this lack of legal rulings makes the law unusual.
“There is no authoritative precedent on exactly where these lines are, and so that’s why over the years the military’s own interpretation has been so important,” Vladeck said.
New tests for the law
A federal judge has ruled that the Trump administration violated federal law by sending troops to accompany federal agents on immigration raids in Los Angeles this summer. The ruling does not require the remaining troops to withdraw.
Trump administration attorneys argued the law doesn’t apply because the troops were protecting federal officers, not enforcing laws.
Trump also sent 800 troops to Washington D.C., saying without substantiation that they were needed to reduce crime in the “lawless” city.
In Washington, a federal district, the president is already in charge of the National Guard and can legally deploy troops for 30 days without congressional approval.
Riddle is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
FILE – Federal agents stage at MacArthur Park, July 7, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)
Detroit’s Department of Transportation is installing new boarding platforms on East Jefferson for bus riders.
It’s part of a pilot program to enhance safety and efficiency for bus passengers. 21 new elevated platforms will extend from the curb across bike and parking lanes to provide faster boarding for passengers.
Buses will stay in the right lane to pick up riders instead of pulling to the curb and moving in and out of traffic.
The platforms will have ramps on each side to allow for bikers to seamlessly pass over the platforms without leaving the bike lane.
New shelters will be placed at each of the platform locations. Construction is expected to be completed by the end of next month.
Additional headlines from Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025
Section of Southwest Detroit nominated for historic designation
The Detroit City Council Historic Designation Advisory Board is nominating a section of the Bagley and West Vernor highway commercial district for a listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
The designation would honor Southwest Detroit’s century old legacy of Latin American culture.
The Board will present the nomination at its public monthly board meeting on September 11th at 4 p.m. Attendees will be able to comment on the proposed historic district designation, ask questions about the process, and learn more about the benefits of a National Register historic district.
The meeting will be held at the Mexicantown Community Development Corporation offices at 2853 Bagley.
Labor Day events in metro Detroit
Labor Day Weekend is here and there are several events happening across the Metro Detroit Area.
The Michigan State Fair at the Suburban Collection Showcase in Novi Starts today. The fair will feature a farmer’s market, carnival rides, livestock exhibits and competitions, a beer festival and more.
The Detroit Jazz Festival kicks off tomorrow, Friday, August 29 with a special performance by the 2025 Artist-in Residence Jason Moran.
Royal Oak’s Arts, Beats, and Eats returns. The four-day festival will feature over 200 performers, dozens of food vendors, and artists showcasing and selling their work.
Eastern Market is hosting the Detroit Sandwich Party on Sunday. The one-day festival for sandwich enthusiasts will feature many small format sandwiches for purchase along with beer, wine and other non-alcoholic beverages from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Campgrounds almost fully booked for this weekend
Michigan’s state park campgrounds are almost fully reserved this Labor Day weekend. Last minute campers can check the Michigan Department of Natural Resources digital dashboard map which tracks the booking status of state parks.
State forest campgrounds offer camping on a first-come, first-serve basis, meaning campsites can’t be reserved.
Listen to the latest episode of the “Detroit Evening Report” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.
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