Michigan Advance

07/07/2025

President Donald Trump on Monday threatened tariffs from 25% to 40% on all goods from seven countries, including major U.S. trade partners Japan and South Korea.

The tariffs would go into effect Aug. 1, rather than Wednesday, which was the deadline Trump already extended once from an initial April date, Trump wrote in a series of letters to the countries’ leaders that he posted on his social media platform.

Countries that will see 25% tariffs are Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Kazakhstan, with South Africa subject to a 30% rate and Laos and Myanmar seeing a 40% tariff rate.

The letters are nearly identical and begin by acknowledging the United States faces a trade deficit with the other country.

President Donald Trump on Monday threatened tariffs from 25% to 40% on all goods from seven countries, including major U.S. trade partners Japan and South Korea. The tariffs would go into effect Aug. 1, rather than Wednesday, which was the deadline Trump already extended once from an initial April d...

07/07/2025

GREENBELT, Maryland — A federal judge at a hearing Monday sought more information on the Trump administration’s plans for wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose attorneys are pressing to have him transferred to Maryland from a Tennessee jail.

Abrego Garcia lived in Maryland with his wife and family before he was mistakenly deported to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador in March. While there, he said he was tortured, physically and psychologically, by Salvadoran officials, according to court records.

Now he is in custody in Tennessee, where he faces federal criminal charges related to human smuggling. He could be released as soon as July 16, and Maryland District Judge Paula Xinis questioned Department of Justice lawyers about their intentions for him upon his release.

GREENBELT, Maryland — A federal judge at a hearing Monday sought more information on the Trump administration’s plans for wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose attorneys are pressing to have him transferred to Maryland from a Tennessee jail. Abrego Garcia lived in Maryland with his wife a...

07/07/2025

WASHINGTON — U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ended temporary protections Monday for nationals from Nicaragua and Honduras, opening up roughly 76,000 people to deportations by early September.

The move is the latest effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to wind down legal statuses, such as Temporary Protected Status, amid an immigration crackdown and pledge to carry out mass deportations.

So far, the Trump administration has moved to end legal statuses, including work authorizations and deportation protections, for more than half a million immigrants.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ended temporary protections Monday for nationals from Nicaragua and Honduras, opening up roughly 76,000 people to deportations by early September. The move is the latest effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to wind down legal...

07/07/2025

As residents throughout the state made their annual pilgrimages north in celebration of Independence Day weekend, a group of activists posted their first billboard along the Interstate 75 corridor into northern Michigan, raising concerns about the 72-year-old pipeline’s continued operations in the Great Lakes.

Owned by Canadian energy company Enbridge, Line 5 stretches from northwestern Wisconsin, through the Upper Peninsula, into lakebed in the Straits of Mackinac where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet and down into the lower peninsula ending in Sarnia, Ontario.

Transporting more than 22 million gallons of light crude oil and natural gas liquids daily, activists have called the pipeline a ticking time bomb, pointing to a July 2010 spill, where Enbridge’s Line 6B ruptured, releasing 840,000 gallons of crude oil into Talmadge Creek, which flows into the Kalamazoo River

As residents throughout the state made their annual pilgrimages north in celebration of Independence Day weekend, a group of activists posted their first billboard along the Interstate 75 corridor into northern Michigan, raising concerns about the 72-year-old pipeline’s continued operations in the...

07/07/2025

A federal lawsuit against the Michigan Department of Corrections, alleging toxic mold at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility made inmates ill, may move forward after a judge rejected the department’s call to end the case.

In a recent opinion issued by U.S. District Judge Stephen Murphy of the Eastern District of Michigan in Bailey v. Washington, the court found that the department’s defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity. Murphy also denied the bulk of the department’s motion for judgment based on facts already pleaded in the case.

Murphy also found that Paula Bailey and the lawsuit’s plaintiffs pleaded sufficient facts to show the defendants were personally involved in decisions that led to dangerous and poor conditions at the facility in Washtenaw County’s Pittsfield Township.

A federal lawsuit against the Michigan Department of Corrections, alleging toxic mold at the Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility made inmates ill, may move forward after a judge rejected the department’s call to end the case. In a recent opinion issued by U.S. District Judge Stephen Murph...

07/07/2025

Detroit will be cracking down on juvenile curfew violations and ticketing parents who are not ensuring their children are staying out of trouble at night, Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison told reporters after shootings in the city over Fourth of July weekend left a teen dead, as well as injuring an officer and two-year-old boy.

On Saturday, the two-year-old was watching fireworks with his family at a home just before midnight when an altercation between juveniles at a park a block away escalated to shots being fired, with a stray bullet striking the toddler, according to the Detroit Police Department.

The toddler’s injuries were a temporary serious status, Bettison said following the Saturday shooting, but the incident will spark a crackdown on juveniles violating the city’s curfew.

Detroit will be cracking down on juvenile curfew violations and ticketing parents who are not ensuring their children are staying out of trouble at night, Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison told reporters after shootings in the city over Fourth of July weekend left a teen dead, as well as injuring a...

07/07/2025

McALLEN — A Michigan man is dead after opening fire on a U.S. Border Patrol station in McAllen early Monday morning, injuring one McAllen police officer.

McAllen police responded to the scene shortly before 6 a.m., where the shooter, Ryan Louis Mosqueda — believed to be 27 or 28 years old — attacked the federal building with an assault rifle. U.S. Border Patrol agents returned fire, killing the suspect.

Ismael Garcia, a 10-year veteran with the McAllen police who responded to the scene, was struck in the knee during the shootout and is in recovery, Chief Victor Rodriguez said during a news conference Monday.

“Michigan man dead after firing at U.S. Border Patrol station in South Texas” was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. Subscribe to The Y...

07/07/2025

The giant tax and spending bill President Donald Trump signed into law over the weekend includes the biggest health care spending cuts in U.S. history. In response, states are scrambling to shield their hospitals from the looming loss of hundreds of millions in federal funding.

In Georgia, a key state panel late last month took steps to send more state Medicaid money to hospitals, hoping to maximize federal matching dollars before the cuts take effect. Other states are considering new grant programs that would funnel additional money to rural hospitals. Some state legislatures likely will reconvene to discuss how to fill holes in their Medicaid budgets.

The tax and spending bill cuts more than $1 trillion from Medicaid, the public health insurance program for people with low incomes that’s jointly funded by states and the federal government. Under the measure, payments to hospitals or nursing facilities would probably decrease in at least 29 states, according to an analysis by KFF, a nonprofit health policy group.

The giant tax and spending bill President Donald Trump signed into law over the weekend includes the biggest health care spending cuts in U.S. history. In response, states are scrambling to shield their hospitals from the looming loss of hundreds of millions in federal funding. In Georgia, a key sta...

07/07/2025

Michigan’s top education leader is urging the Trump administration to release nearly $7 billion in funding the federal government is withholding from schools nationwide.

In Michigan, that includes nearly $160 million.

The funding, approved by Congress earlier this year as part of a continuing budget resolution signed by President Donald Trump in March, was supposed to be distributed July 1. But the Trump administration said last week it would not release the funds, Chalkbeat reported.

“These federal dollars support some of our most economically disadvantaged and vulnerable students,” Michigan State Superintendent Michael Rice said in a statement Wednesday. “The U.S. Department of Education should provide the approved funding immediately.”

Story by Chalkbeat Detroit

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for Chalkbeat Detroit’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system and Michigan education policy. Michigan’s top education leader is urging the Trump administration to release nearly $7 billion in funding the federa...

06/07/2025

A barge that has twice sunk into Lake Michigan, has been successfully relocated, the Michigan Department of Attorney General announced Thursday, laying to rest years of environmental concerns and legal proceedings.

The barge’s owner, Donald Lewis Balcom, 90, of Traverse City, pled guilty last April in the 13th Circuit Court in Leelanau County to one count of Water Resources Protection Violation for Discharge of Injurious Substances to Waters of the State, a two-year felony. The charge stemmed from an incident in November 2020, when the barge sank and released oil into Lake Michigan.

Under a deferred sentencing agreement, Balcom was given until June 27, 2025 to relocate the barge to a legal location, converting his felony conviction into a one count of Watercraft Pollution – Littering from Vessel, a misdemeanor punishable by up to 92 days in jail.

A barge that has twice sunk into Lake Michigan, has been successfully relocated, the Michigan Department of Attorney General announced Thursday, laying to rest years of environmental concerns and legal proceedings. The barge’s owner, Donald Lewis Balcom, 90, of Traverse City, pled guilty last Apri...

06/07/2025

“It takes time, commitment to dig below the surface and discover the deeper meaning of people’s lives.”
— The late Bill Moyers, who spent a lifetime doing just that through journalism.

Remembering a great American journalist: