The Twins’ trade deadline binge was an acknowledgement of reality: This team isn’t making the playoffs. But though there won’t be much need for scoreboard watching over the final six weeks of the season, there’s still plenty to pay attention to.

That being said, here are five storylines to watch during the season’s final six weeks:

What will injured starters do?

Simeon Woods Richardson, who is building back from a parasite, started a rehab game on Friday. Pablo López (teres major strain) is inching closer to a rehab assignment of his own. And David Festa (shoulder) is still hoping to return this year and “finish the season strong.”

Getting those three back, particularly the latter two, who have been sidelined for large periods of time with shoulder issues, will be important for the Twins over the next month and a half. And once they do come back, can they return to form?

López, out since early June, seems to be on track to return early next month.

“Utmost priority is definitely being able to walk into the offseason, full normal, full go,” he said. “But then the second most priority, for me, I want to squeeze as many starts as possible.”

Will we see Bradley, Abel?

Almost everyone the Twins acquired at the deadline — 10 players in all — began their tenure in their new organization in the minor leagues. The only one initially up with the Twins was outfielder Alan Roden, who suffered a season-ending thumb injury, leading the Twins to promote fellow outfielder James Outman, whom they acquired from Los Angeles.

The Twins have been opting for bullpen games while Taj Bradley and Mick Abel pitch at Triple-A. Bradley, who has more MLB experience of the two, had a strong first start with the St. Paul Saints but has given up 11 runs over his past two starts while Abel has made three solid starts, striking out 11 in his last outing.

Both seem likely to figure into their 2026 plans. But the question remains: When will they first pitch for the Twins?

Can Lee handle shortstop?

Brooks Lee was drafted as a shortstop and came through the minor league system at the position, but moved off of it upon reaching the major league level in favor for Carlos Correa. He would, from time to time, fill in there if Correa was hurt or needed a day off. But now with Correa out of the picture, Lee is getting an extended look there.

“Sometimes, especially at a demanding position, you can only come into your own when you’re actually able to play that position,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “I think he wants to show what he can do as a major league shortstop, and he’s doing it right now.”

Who will emerge in bullpen?

The Twins imploded their bullpen at the trade deadline, shipping off Jhoan Duran, Griffin Jax, Louie Varland, Brock Stewart and Danny Coulombe, their top five relievers.

That leaves these next six weeks as virtually a tryout for next year’s bullpen with a mix of veterans and younger pitchers getting to pitch in important situations.

How will Buxton finish?

Byron Buxton has been providing a reason to tune in since the year started and if nothing else, the end to one of the best seasons of his career is worth watching over the next six weeks.

Buxton, who played in his 93rd game of the season Tuesday, is on track to eclipse 100 games for the second consecutive season and only the third time in his career. He has already driven in a career-high runs batted in (61 entering Tuesday) and is threatening his own home run high with 25, three off his career best.

How will he finish his season? It’s likely Buxton will receive some down-ballot Most Valuable Player votes come end of season.

“He’s having an all-star caliber season, but not just an all-star caliber season,” Baldelli said. “It’s like he’s an all-star amongst the all-stars.”

Ryan Jeffers #27 of the Minnesota Twins embraces Erasmo Ramírez #30 after the game against the Detroit Tigers at Target Field on Aug. 17, 2025 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Twins defeated the Tigers 8-1. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

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By NICHOLAS RICCARDI

President Donald Trump has made clear in recent weeks that he’s willing to use the vast powers of his office to prevent his party from losing control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections.

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Some of the steps Trump has taken to intervene in the election are typical, but controversial, political maneuvers taken to his trademark extremes. That includes pushing Republican lawmakers in Texas and other conservative-controlled states to redraw their legislative maps to expand the number of U.S. House seats favorable to the GOP.

Others involve the direct use of official presidential power in ways that have no modern precedent, such as ordering his Department of Justice to investigate the main liberal fundraising entity, ActBlue. The department also is demanding the detailed voter files from each state in an apparent attempt to look for ineligible voters on a vast scale.

And on Monday, Trump posted a falsehood-filled rant on social media pledging to lead a “movement” to outlaw voting machines and mail balloting, the latter of which has become a mainstay of Democratic voting since Trump pushed Republicans to avoid it in 2020 — before flipping on the issue ahead of last year’s presidential election.

The individual actions add up to an unprecedented attempt by a sitting president to interfere in a critical election before it’s even held, moves that have raised alarms among those concerned about the future of U.S. democracy.

“Those are actions that you don’t see in healthy democracies,” said Ian Bassin, executive director of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan organization that has sued the Trump administration. “Those are actions you see in authoritarian states.”

Trump has already tried to overturn an election

Bassin noted that presidents routinely stump for their party in midterm elections and try to bolster incumbents by steering projects and support to their districts. But he said Trump’s history is part of what’s driving alarm about the midterms.

He referenced Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which ended with a violent assault on the Capitol by his supporters.

“The one thing we know for certain from experience in 2020 is that this is a person who will use every measure and try every tactic to stay in power, regardless of the outcome of an election,” Bassin said.

He noted that in 2020, Trump was checked by elected Republicans in Congress and statehouses who refused to bend the rules, along with members of his own administration and even military leaders who distanced themselves from the defeated incumbent. In his second term, the president has locked down near-total loyalty from the GOP and stacked the administration with loyalists.

The incumbent president’s party normally loses seats in Congress during midterm elections. That’s what happened to Trump in 2018, when Democrats won enough seats to take back the House of Representatives, stymieing the president’s agenda and eventually leading to his two impeachments.

Trump has said he doesn’t want a repeat.

He also has argued that his actions are actually attempts to preserve democracy. Repeating baseless allegations of fraud, he said Monday during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that “you can never have a real democracy with mail-in ballots.” Earlier this month, Trump said that, because he handily won Texas in the 2024 presidential election, “we are entitled to five more seats.”

An attempt to engineer GOP control of the US House

Republicans currently have a three-seat margin in the House of Representatives. Trump pushed Texas Republicans to redraw their congressional map to create up to five new winnable GOP seats and is lobbying other red states, including Indiana and Missouri, to take similar steps to pad the margin even more.

The Texas Legislature is likely to vote on its map on Wednesday. There’s no guarantee that Trump’s gambit will work, but also no legal prohibition against fiddling with maps in those states for partisan advantage. In response, California Democrats are moving forward with their own redistricting effort as a way to counter Republicans in Texas.

Mid-decade map adjustments have happened before, though usually in response to court orders rather than presidents openly hoping to manufacture more seats for their party. Larry Diamond, a political scientist at Stanford University, said there’s a chance the redrawing of House districts won’t succeed as Trump anticipates — but could end up motivating Democratic voters.

Still, Diamond said he’s concerned. “It’s the overall pattern that’s alarming and that the reason to do this is for pure partisan advantage,” he said of Trump’s tactic.

Diamond noted that in 2019 he wrote a book about a “12-step” process to turn a democracy into an autocracy, and “the last step in the process is to rig the electoral process.”

The Justice Department acts on Trump’s priorities

Trump has required loyalty from all levels of his administration and demanded that the Department of Justice follow his directives. One of those was to probe ActBlue, an online portal that raised hundreds of millions of dollars in small-dollar donations for Democratic candidates over two decades.

The site was so successful that Republicans launched a similar venture, called WinRed. Trump, notably, did not order a federal probe into WinRed.

Trump’s appointees at the Department of Justice also have demanded voting data from at least 19 states, as Trump continues to insist he actually won the 2020 election and proposed a special prosecutor to investigate that year’s vote tally. Much as he did before winning the 2024 election, Trump has baselessly implied that Democrats may rig upcoming vote counts against him.

In at least two of those states, California and Minnesota, the DOJ followed up with election officials last week, threatening legal action if they didn’t hand over their voter registration lists by this Thursday, according to letters shared with The Associated Press. Neither state — both controlled by Democrats — has responded publicly.

Attempts to interfere with voting and elections

Trump’s threat this week to end mail voting and do away with voting machines is just his latest attempt to sway how elections are run. An executive order he signed earlier this year sought documented proof of citizenship to register to vote, among other changes, though much of it has been blocked by courts.

In the days leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol to reverse his 2020 loss, Trump’s allies proposed having the military seize voting machines to investigate purported fraud, even though Trump’s own attorney general said there was no evidence of significant wrongdoing.

The Constitution says states and Congress, rather than the president, set the rules for elections, so it’s unclear what Trump could do to make his promises a reality. But election officials saw them as an obvious sign of his 2026 interests.

“Let’s see this for what it really is: An attempt to change voting going into the midterms because he’s afraid the Republicans will lose,” wrote Ann Jacobs, the Democratic chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, on X.

The president has very few levers to influence an election

Derek Muller, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, said the idea of seizing voting machines in 2020 was a sign of how few levers the president has to influence an election, not of his power. Under the U.S. Constitution, elections are run by states and only Congress can “alter” the procedures — and, even then, for federal races alone.

“It’s a deeply decentralized system,” Muller said.

There are fewer legal constraints on presidential powers, such as criminal investigations and deployment of law enforcement and military resources, Muller noted. But, he added, people usually err in forecasting election catastrophes.

He noted that in 2022 and 2024, a wide range of experts braced for violence, disruption and attempts to overturn losses by Trump allies, and no serious threats materialized.

“One lesson I’ve learned in decades of doing this is people are often preparing for the last election rather than what actually happens in the new ones,” Muller said.

By COREY WILLIAMS and VALERIE GONZALEZ

Immigrants seeking a legal pathway to live and work in the United States will now be subject to screening for “anti-Americanism’,” authorities said Tuesday, raising concerns among critics that it gives officers too much leeway in rejecting foreigners based on a subjective judgment.

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U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said officers will now consider whether an applicant for benefits, such as a green card, “endorsed, promoted, supported, or otherwise espoused” anti-American, terrorist or antisemitic views.

“America’s benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies,” Matthew Tragesser, USCIS spokesman, said in a statement. “Immigration benefits—including to live and work in the United States—remain a privilege, not a right.”

It isn’t specified what constitutes anti-Americanism and it isn’t clear how and when the directive would be applied.

“The message is that the U.S. and immigration agencies are going to be less tolerant of anti-Americanism or antisemitism when making immigration decisions,” Elizabeth Jacobs, director of regulatory affairs and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that advocates for immigration restrictions, said on Tuesday.

Jacobs said the government is being more explicit in the kind of behaviors and practices officers should consider, but emphasized that discretion is still in place. “The agency cannot tell officers that they have to deny — just to consider it as a negative discretion,” she said.

Critics worry the policy update will allow for more subjective views of what is considered anti-American and allow an officer’s personal bias to cloud his or her judgment.

“For me, the really big story is they are opening the door for stereotypes and prejudice and implicit bias to take the wheel in these decisions. That’s really worrisome,” said Jane Lilly Lopez, associate professor of sociology at Brigham Young University.

The policy changes follow others recently implemented since the start of the Trump administration including social media vetting and the most recent addition of assessing applicants seeking naturalization for ‘good moral character’. That will not only consider “not simply the absence of misconduct” but also factor the applicant’s positive attributes and contributions.

“It means you are going to just do a whole lot more work to provide evidence that you meet our standards,” Lopez said.

Experts disagree on the constitutionality of the policy involving people who are not U.S. citizens and their freedom of speech. Jacobs, of the Center for Immigration Studies, said First Amendment rights do not extend to people outside the U.S. or who are not U.S. citizens.

Ruby Robinson, senior managing attorney with the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, believes the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution protects all people in the United States, regardless of their immigration status, against government encroachment. “A lot of this administration’s activities infringe on constitutional rights and do need to be resolved, ultimately, in courts,” Robinson added.

Attorneys are advising clients to adjust their expectations.

“People need to understand that we have a different system today and a lot more things that apply to U.S. citizens are not going to apply to somebody who’s trying to enter the United States,” said Jaime Diez, an immigration attorney based in Brownsville, Texas.

Jonathan Grode, managing partner of Green and Spiegel immigration law firm, said the policy update was not unexpected considering how the Trump administration approaches immigration.

“This is what was elected. They’re allowed to interpret the rules the way they want,” Grode said. “The policy always to them is to shrink the strike zone. The law is still the same.”

By KATE PAYNE

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Jury selection began Tuesday in the trial of the matriarch of a South Florida family on charges of orchestrating the hit man murder of her ex-son-in-law.

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Donna Adelson is accused of arranging the 2014 killing of Florida State University law professor Daniel Markel, who was shot in the head inside his Tallahassee garage.

Adelson faces charges of first-degree murder, as well as conspiracy and solicitation to commit first-degree murder, in a trial that could extend into the week of Sept. 8.

Adelson is the latest to go on trial for what prosecutors say was a murder-for-hire plot to kill Markel, her former son-in-law, who had been involved in a bitter custody battle with his ex-wife, lawyer Wendi Adelson. Markel had gotten a court order barring her from moving from Tallahassee back to South Florida with their two young sons to be closer to her family, who made their fortune practicing dentistry.

Authorities say Donna Adelson helped orchestrate the plot to murder Markel, conspiring with her son Charles Adelson and his then-girlfriend Katherine Magbanua, who prosecutors say served as the go-between with two men hired to carry out the killing, Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera.

Charles Adelson, Magbanua and her ex-boyfriend, Garcia, were all sentenced to life in prison after being convicted earlier of first-degree murder. Garcia’s friend, Rivera, is serving a 19-year sentence after pleading guilty to second-degree murder and testifying against the others.

The case has riveted Florida’s capital for more than a decade, as sordid details emerged about a messy divorce, tensions with in-laws and child custody battles that culminated in the murder of a prominent local professor.

Donna Adelson, who is charged in the 2014 murder-for-hire of Florida State University law professor Dan Markel, listens to potential jurors answer questions during the first day of jury selection Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025 in Tallahassee, Fla. (Alicia Devine/Tallahassee Democrat via AP, Pool)

Donna Adelson was arrested in 2023 as she and her husband were about to use one-way tickets to board a flight to Vietnam, a country that does not have an extradition treaty with the United States. The arrest came one week after her oral surgeon son was found guilty.

Authorities say the Adelsons considered offering Markel $1 million to let his ex-wife and sons move to South Florida, but then members of the family began plotting his death.

Wendi Adelson and her father, Harvey Adelson, have denied involvement and have not been charged.

Kate Payne 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.