LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) — It’s a beach run, a coastal row and a music party rolled into one, and it’s about to become an Olympic event.
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On a sunny Southern California morning, nearly two dozen athletes gathered to try their hand at beach sprints at a camp run by USRowing in Long Beach, not far from where the inaugural Olympic races will be held in 2028.
Many were long-time flatwater rowers who wanted to take a shot at something new. Others were already hooked on the quick-paced and unpredictable race format and have been training with an eye on LA28. Two at a time, athletes run to the waterline, hop in a boat, row a slalom course, then turn around and return to shore to jump out and dash across the sand to hit a finish-line buzzer — all in about three minutes.
“You don’t just have to be a good rower — you also have to be a good athlete, and what that means is you’ve got to be able to be dynamic and adapt to whatever Mother Nature throws at you,” said Maurice Scott, a long-time rower from Philadelphia who moved to Long Beach to prepare for the Olympics.
The next summer Olympics will be held in Los Angeles and nearby cities. Interest in beach sprints has risen since the International Olympic Committee announced its inclusion, especially since the games will no longer feature a lightweight rowing category popular among smaller athletes.
Athletes train at a beach sprints camp organized by USRowing in Long Beach, Calif., Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Rowing officials developed the beach sprint format a little over a decade ago hoping to engage spectators in a sport that’s otherwise removed from people watching from the shore. A standard 2,000 meter-flatwater race is typically only visible closer to the finish line.
In beach sprints, athletes compete close to the crowds in a dynamic and much shorter race that fans can easily track from the sand. Guin Batten, chair of World Rowing’s coastal commission, said the vision is to have a fun, lively event on the beach where spectators can listen to good music, be close to the action and follow their favorite athletes. The entire event runs just an hour.
“It’s knockout. It’s chaotic,” said Batten, an Olympic rower who helped develop the format. “Until you cross a finish line, anyone can win that race.”
Many traditional flatwater rowers accustomed to steady strokes on calm waterways have no interest in the ups and downs of wind and waves.
But other long-time rowers are hooked. Christine Cavallo, a beach sprinter on the U.S. national team, said she loves the unpredictability of the waves, which can humble even the most incredible athletes.
Athletes train at a beach sprints camp organized by USRowing in Long Beach, Calif., Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
“You could be the best rower in the world and get flipped by the wave,” Cavallo said.
Coastal rowing has long been popular throughout the world but different cultures have used different boats and rules. Part of the appeal of beach sprints is the boat has been standardized and is provided at competitions, which makes it easier for more athletes to try it.
The first major international beach sprints competition was at the 2015 Mediterranean Beach Games in Italy.
Head of the Charles, known for its yearly October flatwater regatta in Massachusetts, hosted its first beach sprints event in July. About 100 rowers, twice as many as expected, participated, said Brendan Mulvey, race director.
Since the Olympic announcement, Tom Pattichis, British Rowing’s head coach for beach sprints, said he now has athletes training full-time in the event.
An athlete trains at a beach sprints camp organized by USRowing in Long Beach, Calif., Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
Meanwhile, Marc Oria, the USA Beach Sprint head coach, said camps in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Long Beach aim to bring the race to long-time rowers and others who haven’t tried it. Athletes find it exhilarating because it requires them to be agile and adaptive as well as superb rowers, he said.
“It’s growing exponentially in the last four years all around the world,” Oria said. “Our goal for U.S. rowing is to create more events, more opportunities, and to create a good pipeline for 2028.”
At the camp in Long Beach, competitors included a teacher, an Olympic rower, a marketing professional who began rowing a few weeks earlier and a high school senior.
“I tried it and I really loved it, so I came back,” said Bridgette Hanson, a 17-year-old rower from Arizona who raced in beach sprints for the first time this year in Florida. “It requires a lot more brute force.”
Veronica Toro trains at a beach sprints camp organized by USRowing in Long Beach, Calif., Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
John Wojtkiewicz, coach of the Long Beach Coastal Team, called out to racers to help guide them through the course. He said he’s eager to see how the Olympic venue is set up and hopes spectators can get a good view like they do at surfing events.
“What is great about the beach sprint — and this may have helped its development — is you can watch the entire race,” Wojtkiewicz said. “Anything can happen.”
GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — To earn his freedom, 15-year-old Cayden Gillespie had to complete three school assignments a day. But school had gone virtual for Cayden and other incarcerated young people in Florida. And sometimes, he didn’t understand it.
One day last summer, he kept failing an online pre-algebra test. There were too many words to read. He didn’t know how to find the value of x. And there were no math teachers to show him.
“I couldn’t figure it out, and it kept failing me,” Cayden says. He asked the adult supervising the classroom for help. “She didn’t understand either.”
Frustrated, Cayden picked up his metal desk and threw it against the wall. A security guard radioed the office for help.
Cayden worried what might happen next.
Cayden and his mother Robyn Gillespie walk in a county park Saturday, April 26, 2025, in Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
A respected online school — and a rocky rollout
No matter the offense, states must educate students in juvenile detention. It’s a complicated challenge, no doubt — and success stories are scarce.
Struggling to educate its more than 1,000 students in long-term confinement, Florida embarked last year on a risky experiment. Despite strong evidence that online learning failed many students during the pandemic, Florida juvenile justice leaders adopted the approach for 10- to 21-year-olds sentenced to residential commitment centers for offenses including theft, assault and drug abuse.
The Florida Virtual School is one of the nation’s largest and oldest online school systems. Adopting it in Florida’s residential commitment facilities would bring more rigorous, uniform standards and tailored classes, officials argued. And students could continue in the online school, the theory went, once they leave detention, since incarcerated youth often struggle to reintegrate into their local public schools.
But students, parents, staff, and outside providers say the online learning has been disastrous, especially since students on average spend seven to 11 months in residential commitment. Not only are students struggling to learn online, their frustration with virtual school is sometimes leading them to get into more trouble — and thus extending their stay.
In embracing Florida Virtual School, the residential commitment centers stopped providing in-person teachers for each subject, relying instead on online faculty. The adults left to supervise classrooms rarely can answer questions or offer assistance, students say.
A dozen letters from incarcerated students, written to lawmakers and obtained by The Associated Press, describe online schoolwork that’s hard to access or understand — with little support from in-person or online staff.
“Dear Law maker, I really be trying to do my work so I won’t be getting in trouble but I don’t be understanding the work,” wrote one student. “They don’t really hands on help me.”
Illustration of an excerpt from incarcerated students’ letters, written to Florida lawmakers and obtained by The Associated Press. (AP Illustration)
Illustration of an excerpt from incarcerated students’ letters, written to Florida lawmakers and obtained by The Associated Press. (AP Illustration)
Illustration of an excerpt from incarcerated students’ letters, written to Florida lawmakers and obtained by The Associated Press. (AP Illustration)
Illustration of an excerpt from incarcerated students’ letters, written to Florida lawmakers and obtained by The Associated Press. (AP Illustration)
Illustration of an excerpt from incarcerated students’ letters, written to Florida lawmakers and obtained by The Associated Press. (AP Illustration)
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Illustration of an excerpt from incarcerated students’ letters, written to Florida lawmakers and obtained by The Associated Press. (AP Illustration)
When Cayden arrived at the Orlando Youth Academy in January 2024, after four months in juvenile detention waiting for a bed in long-term confinement, he felt disoriented. He and his family had been told he would be placed at a residential center near their Gainesville home so they could visit on the weekends. The judge had recommended 30 days in the residential center — called “treatment” — after Cayden pleaded guilty to two fraud felonies for using stolen credit cards, including one belonging to his parents.
As he sat in a metal chair at his new case manager’s desk, she described the routine and expectations of what she called “the program.” He’d attend more than six hours of school a day and therapy five days a week, including with his parents over Zoom. None of this surprised Cayden.
But then she said something that got his attention. “The program” would likely last six to nine months.
Panicked, he asked to call his mother.
A monthslong stay in ‘a teenage jail’
Robyn Gillespie stepped outside the Gainesville McDonald’s she managed when she saw a call from the Department of Juvenile Justice. That can’t be true, she said, when Cayden told her his sentence was far longer than expected.
So Cayden, still sitting next to his case manager, put down the phone and asked her again: Ma’am, you said six to nine months, right?
Gillespie hung up and cried. “They wouldn’t understand him,” she remembers thinking.
Gillespie’s husband, Kenny Roach, initially thought going to juvenile detention could help Cayden, who had grown out of control. The family had recently moved to Florida to care for aging relatives, but Cayden’s beloved older brother decided to return to Virginia, where they’d lived before.
Cayden, who has autism, struggled being in a new place without his brother. He began leaving the house in the evening with neighborhood teens when the parents worked late. That led to shoplifting and, eventually, credit-card fraud. Roach and Gillespie pressed charges against their son.
“He really needs to get a week in a detention home,” Roach thought. As a youth, he himself had gone to juvenile detention twice, for as long as two weeks, and credited it for a life turnaround. “I thought it would be a learning experience.”
When he learned Cayden’s time in the juvenile detention system would last much longer, he was in shock.
“Good lord, what do they hope to accomplish? A kid his age, with his diagnosis?” Roach remembers thinking. “That’s like being in a teenage jail.”
Robyn Gillespie listens to her son Cayden as he recalls his educational experience while in juvenile detention, April 26, 2025, in Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
Life in custody: Not much privacy, avoiding a ‘level freeze’
Cayden and the other detainees inside Orlando Youth Academy woke up every day at 6 a.m. and cleaned their cells. Only when they passed inspection could they enter the common area.
Each detained youth had a toilet in their cell. For privacy, they were encouraged to lodge notebook paper into the door jamb to cover the narrow vertical window in their doors.
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Phone calls with their parents were monitored. At family visits, Cayden’s parents couldn’t get too close or hug him more than once at the beginning and end, to prevent visitors from sharing contraband with the teens.
To relax, Cayden would lie on his stomach on his plastic-covered mattress and draw and write. He developed a Pokemon-inspired story about a hero named One — the only time he allowed his mind to wander away from Orlando Youth Academy.
When the teens got in trouble, they had to go to bed early — 5:30 p.m. — and skip playing cards or watching TV, some of the only downtime they got. But the real punishment was called a “level freeze.” When a detainee got in trouble for fighting, damaging property, not attending therapy or refusing to log into online school, they stopped making progress toward release.
Online school lacked special education supports
Before Orlando Youth Academy and Florida’s other commitment centers adopted virtual learning in July 2024, Cayden’s main source of stress was the other students. They antagonized Cayden until he exploded. Therapists and staff coached him to avoid these situations.
School wasn’t a source of stress or conflict. Four teachers from the local schools came to their portable classroom and lectured students ages 12 to 18 from the front of the room.
Cayden came to the program midway through what should have been his seventh grade year. But after assessing him, the teachers placed Cayden in sixth grade.
When the state adopted virtual schooling, it was partly trying to meet the needs of students across different ages and abilities. But Cayden felt some of the new classes were too advanced, and he didn’t receive help he needed to do the work.
The complaints from other Florida detainees are similar.
“My zoom teachers they never email me back or try to help me with my work. It’s like they think we’re normal kids,” one youth wrote in a letter to Florida lawmakers. “Half of us don’t even know what we’re looking at.”
Under Cayden’s special education plan, which federal law requires detention center schools to follow, he’s entitled to receive assistance reading long texts. But he didn’t receive it after the virtual school started.
Florida Virtual School wouldn’t comment on Cayden’s case, citing privacy concerns. Within their school for students in long-term confinement, “every student with a disability receives specially designed instruction, support, and accommodations comparable to those listed in the student’s Individualized Education Plan (IEP),” says Robin Winder, chief academic officer of Florida Virtual School.
The instructor assigned to help Cayden and more than a dozen other students with their online work was overwhelmed by the students’ needs, Cayden says. Three different people held that job during the nine months he attended virtual school inside Orlando Youth Academy.
When Cayden threw the desk out of frustration with the new online learning program, he received a “level freeze” of three to five days, essentially extending his time at the residential commitment center.
Julie Nicoll shows shows an undated photo with her grandson Xavier Thursday, April 24, 2025, in Naples, Fla. Julie and her husband have spent more than $20,000 in legal fees trying to get him released from a youth detention center. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
Julie Nicoll sits in her grandson Xavier’s bedroom Thursday, April 24, 2025, in Naples, Fla., after Xavier’s juvenile detention sentence was lengthened for breaking multiple laptops out of frustration with online learning. . (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
The Miami Youth Academy, a residential facility for male juveniles, is seen in this photo Friday, June 6, 2025, in Kendall, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
A photo and letter from Xavier Nicoll is posted on the kitchen of his grandparents Bill and Julie’s home Thursday, April 24, 2025, in Naples, Fla. Xavier has been incarcerated longer than his original sentence due behavioral issues during virtual school. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
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Julie Nicoll shows shows an undated photo with her grandson Xavier Thursday, April 24, 2025, in Naples, Fla. Julie and her husband have spent more than $20,000 in legal fees trying to get him released from a youth detention center. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
Internal documents obtained by The Associated Press, plus interviews with parents, staff and outside specialists, show staff have recommended or given level freezes when students have broken laptops, refused to log into Zoom and even sent an email to ask for help initiating an online class. And when students don’t participate in virtual school, the department’s written protocol calls for taking away points they earn toward getting out.
“Students who have their heads down will be prompted by the teacher no more than two times to sit up and participate,” reads the Classroom Behavior Management Plan for Florida’s juvenile justice schools.
The first time Xavier Nicoll, 15, broke a laptop at his residential commitment center in Miami, it was because an online teacher wouldn’t respond to his questions, according to his grandmother, Julie, who has raised him. He was arrested and sent to a different detention center to face charges. The three weeks he spent there didn’t count toward his overall sentence because he can’t receive “treatment” there. Detainees call it “dead time.”
Once back at the residential center, he broke another laptop, his grandmother says, because a teen dared him to. Back he went to county detention and court for more dead time. Then, in January, when the in-person class supervisor wouldn’t help him get into a locked online assignment, he broke a third, says Julie Nicoll.
Xavier was initially meant to be held for six to nine months after breaking into a vape store. He’s now on track to be confined at least 28 months.
He’s grown at least five inches in detention — and gone through puberty. Yet in school, Nicoll said in April, he was making no progress. “He went in as an eighth grader and is still an eighth grader — and failing,” Nicoll said.
Xavier’s March report card showed he was earning a 34% in Civics and Career Planning, 12% in Pre-Algebra, 13% in Comprehensive Science and 58% in Language Arts.
Nicoll has complained that her grandson, who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, hasn’t been receiving special education services. The Department of Juvenile Justice and Florida Virtual School have canceled multiple meetings to discuss his education plan because Xavier keeps getting arrested and sent for dead time.
“He’s trapped,” says Nicoll. “No matter what we do, we can’t seem to get him out.”
Trouble rejoining the community?
Nicoll and her husband have spent more than $20,000 in legal fees trying to win his release. They argue untreated brain inflammation due to mold exposure in detention, plus his disability, make it impossible for him to control his frustration during online school.
In May, Xavier was arrested a fourth time. After turning in an assignment, he realized he’d made a mistake and asked the in-class supervisor to return it. The supervisor wouldn’t give back his work, and he broke another laptop.
Xavier pleaded guilty in August to two felonies for breaking laptops. “They’re setting him up to go into the community a failure,” said Nicoll.
It’s unclear how many students are getting in trouble or extending their time because of behavior during virtual school. Arrests inside residential centers increased slightly in the first nine months after the department adopted virtual school, compared with the same period during the previous year. An analysis of publicly available data shows staff use of verbal and physical interventions has also risen slightly, to 2.4 physical or verbal interventions per 100 days from 1.8 interventions the previous year.
The total number of youth in Florida’s residential commitment centers increased to 1,388 in June, the latest data reported by the state, up 177 since July 2024, when the department adopted virtual instruction. That could indicate detainees are staying in confinement longer.
“Correlation does not equal causation,” responded Amanda Slama, a Department of Juvenile Justice spokeswoman. “Other contributing factors could explain an increase in arrests if there is one.”
Since December, the department has ignored or refused AP requests to visit juvenile confinement, speak to officials and release anonymized exit documents for students leaving commitment centers.
John Terry holds a photograph of his son Jalen Wilkinson, Saturday, April 26, 2025, in Haines City, Fla. Jalen’s academic experience changed when the detention center he was in switched to virtual learning. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
Not all students are getting in trouble during online schooling, but that doesn’t mean they’re learning. Jalen Wilkinson, 17, received punishment during detention for fighting, but his father was unaware of punishment related to school.
But when school went online in July 2024, Jalen started complaining that there weren’t enough adults to help students with the virtual program. School, he says, is basically free time.
Jalen has been especially frustrated that he couldn’t complete his GED while confined — even though Florida Virtual School leaders say they’ve made it easier for detainees to take the exam.
He was released in July. His father, John Terry, worries the time locked up was a waste and Jalen will struggle to re-enter high school and graduate. “There’s no rehabilitation whatsoever.”
Cayden is still trying to restart school
In March, shackled with an ankle monitor, Cayden Gillespie finally left Orlando Youth Academy. The six to nine months his case manager predicted turned into 15. Between that and the “dead time” waiting for a residential center bed, he was detained 19 months.
Through therapy at the residential center, Cayden learned how to recognize his anger building and to take a break. His parents say the family therapy helped them better understand Cayden’s needs and helped them all communicate.
“But the school part,” Robyn Gillespie says, “that was a disaster.”
Gillespie, her husband and Cayden are still trying to understand the consequences of going so long without proper schooling. Initially, they thought he’d go to the local public middle school, but the school said, at 15, he’s too old. This spring, they tried to sign him up for Florida Virtual School, the same program he did in custody. Indeed, this was one of the arguments the state made for using virtual school inside confinement. But Robyn Gillespie says Florida Virtual told them he couldn’t join so late in the year.
Asked about Cayden’s case, Florida Virtual said all students “released from a facility receive one-on-one support from an FLVS transition specialist.”
But Cayden’s family said they were never offered transition help or told how he could continue where he left off in detention.
The best option, they’ve been told by the local school district, is a charter school, where he can make up coursework quickly.
“That’s the kind of place where they dismiss you if you don’t show up on time,” says Robyn Gillespie. “And there’s no transportation. I’m just not sure that’s going to work well for our family.”
The terms of Cayden’s probation require him to attend school or face confinement again. He starts at the charter school later this month. Says Gillespie: “He has to be in school.”
The Associated Press receives support from the Public Welfare Foundation for reporting focused on criminal justice, and AP’s education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
BENXI, China (AP) — Eighty years after the end of World War II, Japan and China are marking the anniversary with major events, but on different dates and in different ways.
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Japan remembers the victims in a solemn ceremony on Aug. 15, the day then-Emperor Hirohito announced in a crackly radio message that the government had surrendered, while China showcases its military strength with a parade on Sept. 3, the day after the formal surrender on an American battleship in Tokyo Bay.
Japan occupied much of China before and during WWII in a devastating and brutal invasion that, by some estimates, killed 20 million people. The wartime experience still bedevils relations between the two countries today.
A museum in the Chinese city of Benxi highlights the struggles of anti-Japanese resistance fighters who holed up in log cabins through fierce winters in the country’s northeast, then known as Manchuria, before retreating into Russia.
They returned only after the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and launched an offensive into Manchuria on Aug. 9, 1945 — the same day the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki — adding to the pressure on Japan to surrender.
Nowadays, it is China’s military that raises alarm as it seeks to enforce the government’s territorial claims in the Pacific. When Japan talks of building up its defense to counter the threat, its militaristic past gives China a convenient retort.
“We urge Japan to deeply reflect on its historical culpability, earnestly draw lessons from history and stop using hype over regional tensions and China-related issues to conceal its true intent of military expansion,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said last month.
Japan’s surrender broadcast
Hirohito’s prerecorded surrender broadcast on Aug. 15, 1945, was incomprehensible to many Japanese. He used arcane language and the sound quality was poor.
What was important, historians say, was that the message came from the emperor himself. Hirohito was considered a living god, and the war was fought in his name. Most Japanese had never heard his voice before.
“The speech is a reminder of what it took to end the wrong war,” Nihon University professor Takahisa Furukawa told The Associated Press in 2015.
The current emperor, Hirohito’s grandson Naruhito, and the prime minister are set to make remarks at the annual ceremony in Tokyo on Aug. 15, broadcast live by public broadcaster NHK.
FILE – Japanese people kneel in front of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo as Emperor Hirohito announced on radio that Japan was defeated in the World War II, on Aug. 15, 1945. (Kyodo New via AP, File)
FILE – Japan’s Emperor Naruhito, rear right, and Empress Masako, rear left, observe a moment of silence during a memorial service for the war dead at the Nippon Budokan hall in Tokyo, as the country marks the 79th anniversary of its defeat in the World War II, on Aug. 15, 2024. (Kyodo News via AP, File)
FILE – Military vehicles carrying Wing Loong, a Chinese made medium-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle, drive past Tiananmen Gate during a military parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Japan’s World War II defeat in Beijing, on Sept. 3, 2015. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool, File)
FILE – A guest of honor with medals on his coat arrives at his seat to watch a military parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Beijing, on Sept. 3, 2015. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, Pool, File)
FILE – Then Japanese Foreign Minister, Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Japanese unconditional surrender papers for Emperor Hirohito aboard the U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo harbor on Sept. 2, 1945. (AP Photo, File)
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FILE – Japanese people kneel in front of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo as Emperor Hirohito announced on radio that Japan was defeated in the World War II, on Aug. 15, 1945. (Kyodo New via AP, File)
At last year’s event, Naruhito expressed deep remorse over Japan’s actions during the war. But on the same day, three Japanese cabinet ministers visited Tokyo’s Yasukuni shrine, drawing criticism from China and South Korea, which see the shrine as a symbol of militarism.
China marks Victory Day
Japan surrendered on Sept. 2, 1945, in a ceremony on board the American battleship USS Missouri.
The foreign minister, in a top hat and tails, and the army chief signed on behalf of Hirohito. The signatories on the other side were U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur and representatives from China and other nations that had fought Japan.
China designated the next day, Sept. 3, as Victory Day.
Eleven years ago, the Communist Party stepped up how China marks the anniversary. All of China’s top leaders, including President Xi Jinping, attended a commemorative event on Sept. 3. The renewed focus came at a time of rising tension with Japan over conflicting interpretations of wartime history and a still-ongoing territorial dispute in the East China Sea.
The next year, China staged a military parade on the 70th anniversary of the end of the war.
A decade later, preparations are underway for another grand parade with missiles, tanks and fighter jets overhead. Russian President Vladimir Putin is among those expected to attend.
WATERLOO, Iowa — John-Paul Sager appreciates the care he has received at Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals and clinics, but he thinks it should be easier for veterans like him to use their benefits elsewhere.
Sager, a Marine Corps and Army veteran, uses his VA coverage for non-VA treatment of back injuries stemming from his military service. But he said he sometimes must make several phone calls to obtain approval to see a local chiropractor. “It seems like it takes entirely too long,” he said.
Many veterans live hours from VA facilities, or they need health services that aren’t readily available from the VA. In such cases, the department is supposed to provide a referral and pay for private care. Critics say it often hesitates to do so.
John-Paul Sager, a veteran of the Marine Corps and Army, is treated for chronic back and shoulder pain by chiropractor Matt Gronewold in Waterloo, Iowa, on June 20, 2025. (Tony Leys/KFF Health News/TNS)
Republicans controlling Congress aim to streamline the process of obtaining what is known as community care.
Two Republican senators have introduced legislation that would make it easier for rural veterans to seek care at local hospitals and clinics. The proposals would build on VA community care programs that started under Democratic President Barack Obama and were expanded in Trump’s first term.
Critics worry that steering veterans to private care facilities drains federal money from the VA hospital and clinic system. But supporters say veterans shouldn’t be forced to travel long distances or wait months for the treatment they could obtain at local hospitals and clinics.
“My main concern is for veterans, not for the VA,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., told KFF Health News. “I don’t believe we have an obligation to sustain the bureaucracy.”
About 9 million veterans are enrolled in the VA health system. Last year, about 3 million of them — including 1.2 million rural veterans — used their benefits to cover care at non-VA facilities, according to data provided by the department.
Cramer co-sponsored a bill that would allow veterans who live within 35 miles of a rural, “critical access” hospital to use VA benefits to cover care there or at affiliated clinics without referrals from VA staff.
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Cramer, who serves on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, noted his state has just one VA hospital. It’s in Fargo, on the state’s eastern border, which is more than 400 miles by car from parts of western North Dakota.
Many North Dakota veterans drive past multiple community hospitals to get to the VA hospital for treatment, he said. Meanwhile, many rural hospitals are desperate for more patients and income. “I kept thinking to myself, ‘This doesn’t make any sense at all,’” Cramer said.
Cramer said previous laws, including the VA Mission Act, made it easier for veterans to use their benefits to cover care at community hospitals and clinics.
But he said veterans still must fill out too much paperwork and obtain approval from VA staffers to use non-VA facilities.
“We can’t let the VA itself determine whether a veteran is qualified to receive local care,” he said.
U.S. Rep. Mark Takano of California, who is the top Democrat on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said he sees the need for outside care for some veterans. But he contends Republicans are going overboard in shifting the department’s money to support private health care facilities.
The VA provides specialized care that responds to veterans’ needs and experiences, he argues.
“We must prevent funds from being siphoned away from veterans’ hospitals and clinics, or VA will crumble,” Takano said in a statement released by his office. “Veterans cannot afford for us to dismantle VA direct care in favor of shifting more care to the community.”
Some veterans’ advocacy groups have also expressed concerns.
Jon Retzer, deputy national legislative director for the Disabled American Veterans, said the group wants to make it easier for veterans to find care. Rural and female veterans can have a particularly tough time finding appropriate, timely services at VA hospitals and clinics, he said. But the Disabled American Veterans doesn’t want to see VA facilities weakened by having too much federal money diverted to private hospitals and clinics.
Retzer said it’s true that patients sometimes wait for VA care, but so do patients at many private hospitals and clinics. Most delays stem from staff shortages, he said, which afflict many health facilities. “This is a national crisis.”
Retzer said the Disabled American Veterans favors continuing to require referrals from VA physicians before veterans can seek VA-financed care elsewhere. “We want to ensure that the VA is the primary provider of that care,” he said.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins has pledged to improve the community care program while maintaining the strength of the department’s hospitals and clinics. The department declined a KFF Health News request to interview Collins.
Marcus Lewis, CEO of First Care Health Center, which includes a hospital in Park River, North Dakota, supports Cramer’s bill. Lewis is a Navy veteran who uses the VA’s community care option to pay for treatment of a back injury stemming from his military service.
Overall, Lewis said, the community care program has become easier to use. But the application process remains complicated, and participants must repeatedly obtain VA referrals for treatment of chronic issues, he said. “It’s frustrating.”
Park River is a 1,400-person town about 50 miles south of the Canadian border. Its 14-bed hospital offers an array of services, including surgery, cancer care, and mental health treatment. But Lewis regularly sees a VA van picking up local veterans, some of whom travel 140 miles to Fargo for care they’re entitled to receive locally.
“I think a lot of folks just don’t want to fight the system,” he said. “They don’t want to go through the extra hoops, and so they’ll jump in the van, and they’ll ride along.”
Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.), chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said veterans in some areas of the country have had more trouble than others in getting VA approval for care from private clinics and hospitals.
Bost helped gain the House’s approval for Trump’s request for $34.7 billion for the community care program in 2026. Although spending on the program has gone up and down in recent years, the appropriation represents an increase of about 50% from what it was in 2025 and 2022. The Senate included similar figures for next year in its version of a military spending budget that passed Aug. 1.
Bost also co-sponsored a House bill that would spell out requirements for the VA to pay for community care.
John-Paul Sager developed chronic back and shoulder pain during his military service, including his role as an Army drill sergeant at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where he took this photo in 2014.. (John-Paul Sager/KFF Health News/TNS)
Sager hopes the new proposals make life easier for veterans. The Gulf War veteran lives in the northeastern Iowa town of Denver. He travels about 15 miles to Waterloo to see a chiropractor, who treats him for back and shoulder pain from injuries he suffered while training Saudi troops in hand-to-hand combat.
Sager, who remains active in the Army Reserve, also visits a Waterloo outpatient clinic run by the VA, where his primary care doctor practices. He appreciates the agency’s mission, including its employment of many veterans. “You just feel like you’re being taken care of by your own,” he said.
He believes the VA can run a strong hospital and clinic system while offering alternatives for veterans who live far from those facilities or who need care the VA can’t promptly provide.
The local VA doesn’t offer chiropractic care, so it pays for Sager to visit the private clinic. But every few months, he needs to obtain fresh approval from the VA. That often requires several phone calls, he said.
Sager is one of about a dozen veterans who use the community care program to pay for visits at Vanderloo Chiropractic Clinic, office manager Linda Gill said.
Gill said the VA program pays about $34 for a typical visit, which is comparable to private insurance, but the paperwork is more burdensome. She said leaders of the chiropractic practice considered pulling out of the VA program but decided to put up with the hassles for a good cause. She wishes veterans didn’t have to jump through so many hoops to obtain convenient care.
“After what they’ve done for us? Please,” she said.
