Kathleen Ford of Solano County was a nurse for more than 20 years, until one day she squatted down to help a patient and, hobbled by terrible joint pain, couldn’t stand up.

Then in her 60s, Ford had been diagnosed with lupus years earlier. It’s a mysterious autoimmune disease that drives inflammation as the body’s own immune system fights tissue and organs instead of foreign intruders like viruses and bacteria. Symptoms are a rollercoaster, from hair loss to joint pain that afflicted Ford so badly that she had to quit the job she loved. Strange rashes also broke out on her legs — then quickly disappeared.

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About 1.5 million Americans have lupus and almost all — 90% — are women  There is no cure. Treatments may relieve symptoms, but the troubling side effects can include osteoporosis and eye damage. More rarely, lupus can be fatal.

“It’s not a fun disease, at all,” said Ford, now 77, who lives in the northern Solano County city of Dixon. “You never know when it’s going to exacerbate. And for no reason.”

The cause of lupus has eluded medical researchers for decades. But this week a team of Stanford Medicine researchers claim they’ve cracked the code, a development some independent lupus experts described as a “major breakthrough” that could lay the groundwork for a potential cure.

RELATED: Stanford, UCSF launch cancer research and care collaboration

In a paper published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Science Translational Medicine, the Stanford researchers said they have connected the dots between lupus and the Epstein-Barr virus, a virus 95% of Americans carry.

According to the study, that common virus infects certain white blood cells that are part of the immune system until, ultimately, more and more cells are recruited into a battle against the command centers of cells in one’s own body.

Betty Tsao, a prolific autoimmune disease researcher and professor of medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, said other biological factors may complicate the race to cure lupus. But she described the Stanford research team’s paper as “a major breakthrough” and said the study is “convincing” in illustrating the biology behind lupus.

“This is an exciting time,” Tsao said. “And we hope we will have much better therapy options for patients in a very short horizon.”

Bill Robinson, professor of immunology and rheumatology at the Stanford medical school, who is the study’s senior author, said the “breakthrough” reveals “the key missing link for how EBV causes lupus,” using the acronym for the virus.

The discovery may reveal new possibilities for effective prevention and treatment. Currently, doctors offer lupus patients a wide range of medications with limited results and a slew of possible side effects.

By identifying the biological process that leads to lupus, Robinson said he and his colleagues can pursue treatment to interrupt the immune system’s misguided — and dangerous — attack against the body it is designed to protect. In particular, the co-authors plan to use a targeted sequencing technology to identify and remove the white blood cells infected with the Epstein-Barr virus.

That would “effectively cure lupus,” he said.

That’s now the mission of EBVio Inc., a privately-held biotech company co-founded by Robinson and two of his Stanford colleagues. On Wednesday, Robinson said they did not have immediate plans to take the company public.

“Our goal is to make a good drug,” Robinson said. “We’re still pretty early-stage.”

The study landed as other scientists advance early research into the application of a cancer treatment to lupus patients. In that approach, CAR T-cell therapy, white blood cells called B cells are removed en masse from the body. That could put lupus into remission, but at the cost of a weakened immune system, according to the Lupus Foundation of America.

In the Bay Area and Northern California, the new research was greeted with gratitude and praise in the community of people living with lupus, or those supporting a family member.

By tying lupus to the Epstein-Barr virus, the Stanford paper “represents a transformative moment for millions of people living with this devastating disease,” said Thomas Bakewell, executive director of the Lupus Foundation of Northern California. “This finding brings us closer than ever to understanding the ‘why’ behind lupus and, importantly, opens the door to new pathways for prevention and cure.”

The possibility of a cure for lupus would “truly be amazing,” said Shauntay Davis-Patterson, 48. The Sacramento parent of two adopted boys knows all too well the journey of living with lupus, over the course of 30 years.

Davis-Patterson has contended with joint paint so severe that she couldn’t walk, hair loss, hospitalizations and bouts with chemotherapy. Lupus has attacked her kidneys so viciously that she’s waiting for a transplant. On top of that, she’s endured the “toxic” side effects of medication intended to help her. Prednisone, a steroid, improved her symptoms, but at the cost of osteoporosis, she said.

“We all kind of suffer in silence a lot because people don’t understand what we go through,” said Davis-Patterson, who runs a support group for lupus patients as part of the lupus foundation.

Ford also developed osteoporosis, a brittleness and weakness in bones, because of Prednisone. And Plaquenil, which eases pain and swelling, can cause eye damage in patients who are older or have taken the drug for many years. Every six months, Ford has a doctor examine the health of her retinas.

But, big picture, both women consider themselves blessed. Davis-Patterson said she is grateful she can run after her boys, and that she was diagnosed quickly all those years ago. Some have to navigate the health system for years to nail down a diagnosis, she said.

And Ford is grateful that she’s as healthy as she is — even after two hip replacements. On Thursday, she laughed and brushed off talk of her symptoms and the pile of pills she has to take every week.

“I’m really not that bad,” she said. “I think I’m one of the lucky ones, actually.”

By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is falling sharply again on Tuesday, joining a global-sell off stretching from Asia to Europe, as Nvidia, bitcoin and other Wall Street stars keep falling on worries that their prices shot too high.

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The S&P 500 dropped 1% and pulled further from its all-time high set late last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 484 points, or 1%, as of 10 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.5% lower.

Nvidia was again the heaviest weight on the market, and its drop of 3.2% brought its loss for the month so far to 10.8%. That’s a steep enough fall that Wall Street has a name for it: a correction.

What Nvidia does matters disproportionately to investors because it’s the most influential stock on Wall Street. It can almost single-handedly steer the direction of the S&P 500 on some days because of its immense size, after fervent demand for its AI chips helped it briefly top $5 trillion in total value. And the S&P 500 sits at the heart of many investors’ 401(k) accounts.

Nvidia’s and the U.S. stock market’s struggles are a sharp turnaround from months of relentless rallying since April, when Wall Street sold off after President Donald Trump shocked the world with stiff tariffs.

That rally, though, was so strong that critics said it may have carried stock prices too high, too fast and left the market at risk of a sharp drop. They pointed in particular to stocks swept up in the mania around artificial-intelligence technology, which have been surging at spectacular speeds.

Many big investors still seem to be expecting stock prices to rise further, according to the latest monthly survey of global fund managers by Bank of America Global Research. But when asked what the No. 1 risk for the market is, one with a lower probability of happening but a high chance of damage, 45% pointed to an AI bubble. That beat out trouble in the bond market, inflation and trade wars.

The highest net percentage of investors in 20 years is also saying companies are “overinvesting,” according to the survey. The worry is that all the investment pouring into AI chips and data centers worldwide may not produce the kind of revolution that proponents have been predicting, or at least not as profitable a one.

Other high-flying areas of the market with their own evangelists have also been struggling lately. Bitcoin’s price briefly fell below $90,000 during the morning, down from nearly $125,000 last month.

Home Depot helped drag the market lower after falling 3.1%. It reported a weaker profit for the summer than analysts expected and cited a variety of reasons. Chief among them was a lack of storms, which would have driven customers to buy more home-improvement supplies. But CEO Ted Decker also pointed to “consumer uncertainty and continued pressure in housing” for preventing an expected increase in demand from happening.

Reporting stronger profits is one of the ways a company can make its stock price look less expensive, because stock prices tend to track with earnings over the long term.

Elsewhere on Wall Street, Cloudflare fell 3.1% after an issue at the internet infrastructure provider caused global outages for ChatGPT and other services.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased. The yield on the 10-year Treasury sank to 4.09% from 4.13% late Monday.

In stock markets abroad, indexes tumbled across Europe and Asia.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 3.2% after feeling extra pressure from a jump in Japanese government bond yields, reflecting rising risks as Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi prepares to boost government spending and push back the timetable for bringing down Japan’s huge national debt.

South Korea’s Kospi sank 3.3%, and France’s CAC 40 fell 1.6% for two of the larger drops worldwide.

AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

Con la drástica reducción del número de inmigrantes que llegan a la frontera, el gobierno se ha enfocado en la deportación desde el interior del país, con el objetivo de lograr deportaciones masivas.

El presidente Trump en la frontera junto a Calexico, California, en 2019. (Foto oficial de la Casa Blanca por Shealah Craighead)

En materia de inmigración, la segunda administración del presidente Donald Trump ha traído varios hitos. El más reciente, según estimaciones de expertos, es el número de deportaciones de personas en el interior del país.

De acuerdo con el análisis realizado por el Migration Policy Institute (MPI), se estima que el Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas de los Estados Unidos (ICE por sus siglas en inglés) y la Oficina de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza de Estados Unidos están en camino de alcanzar casi 600.000 deportaciones al final de su primer año.

Esta cifra supone un hito histórico: por primera vez, desde el 2014, ICE deportó a más personas desde el interior de los Estados Unidos que desde sus fronteras, señala el informe.

En comparación, sin embargo, el número de deportaciones está por debajo de las 685.000 deportaciones registradas por la administración de Joe Biden en el año fiscal 2024, y se encuentra lejos de la promesa de un millón de deportaciones al año.

Según las nuevas estimaciones, los encuentros con inmigrantes bajaron a unos 444.000 en el año fiscal 2025, lo que supone un dramático descenso con respecto a los 2.1 millones del año anterior. Es decir, una caída de casi el 80 por ciento.

Con la drástica reducción del número de inmigrantes que llegan a la frontera, el gobierno se ha enfocado en la deportación desde el interior del país, con el objetivo de lograr deportaciones masivas.

Pero con este nuevo foco, vienen mayores costos y transformaciones en las comunidades migrantes, dice el MPI, ya que las deportaciones desde el interior suelen requerir más recursos y causar más trastornos sociales al remover personas con profundos lazos en la comunidad.

Con el nuevo enfoque, el promedio de inmigrantes en los centros de detención de ICE ha aumentado rápidamente, alcanzando unos 60 000 a finales del año fiscal 2025. En septiembre de 2025, sólo el 3 por ciento de los detenidos lograron libertad bajo fianza frente al 26 por ciento del año anterior.

Aunque el gobierno prometió deportar a “criminales peligrosos”, el número de detenidos con antecedentes penales bajó del 65 por ciento en octubre de 2024 al 35 por ciento en septiembre de 2025, dice el informe.

Así que para hablar sobre el reporte y los cambios en inmigración, invitamos a Ariel Ruiz Soto, analista político del Migration Policy Institute y quien es el autor del reporte.

Más detalles en nuestra conversación a continuación.

Ciudad Sin Límites, el proyecto en español de City Limits, y El Diario de Nueva York se han unido para crear el pódcast “El Diario Sin Límites” para hablar sobre latinos y política. Para no perderse ningún episodio de nuestro pódcast “El Diario Sin Límites” síguenos en Spotify, Soundcloud, Apple Pódcast y Stitcher. Todos los episodios están allí. ¡Suscríbete!

The post PODCAST: ¿Cómo han cambiado las deportaciones bajo la segunda administración de Trump?  appeared first on City Limits.

By Candice Williams and Myesha Johnson, The Detroit News

FERNDALE, Michigan — Concerned about this year’s holiday season, the owners of Modern Natural Baby and Kids planned ahead. In addition to mailing out 10,000 Christmas catalogs for the first time, the store opened a warehouse to house more inventory, including stuffed animals and books.

“We bought a lot of this stuff in March and April when we were worried about tariffs and not having stuff available for Christmas,” said Emily Murray, who co-owns the Ferndale store with her husband, John. “We’ve been buying this stuff for a long time this year, and we have a warehouse that we’ve never had before, so primarily that was a result of tariffs.”

Retailers are preparing for a holiday season clouded by tariffs, inflation and economic uncertainty. Consumers will see higher prices, fewer deep discounts and tighter inventory in some categories. As a result, they are expected to be more selective with their purchases, trading down on everyday items like groceries to afford higher-priced gifts.

Deloitte projects that overall holiday spending will decline about 10% this year as consumers spend less due to economic concerns, while Adobe Analytics expects online holiday sales to rise about 5%, pointing to the strength of e-commerce even among increasingly budget-conscious households.

Despite these mixed forecasts, retailers remain optimistic that holiday sales will improve over slower traffic earlier this year.

“We’ve had such a long season of decline,” said Vic Veda, vice president of communications for the Michigan Retailers Association. “We’re continually hoping that we’re going to turn that corner. Seeing our retail index as high as it is for the outlook at the end of the year really tells us that retailers are very much looking forward to this holiday shopping season and hoping that the holidays will get folks back a little more compared to what they were this summer.”

Shoppers face higher prices

According to the Michigan Retailers Association, about 63% of retailers surveyed expect sales to increase through the end of the year, one of the highest outlooks in recent months. Of those surveyed, 31% said they anticipate their sales will decline, while 6% expect no change.

Veda said robust Halloween spending could point to a stronger-than-expected holiday season; the National Retail Federation projected sales would total a record $13.1 billion. She said that while inventory levels are generally stable, smaller stores face greater uncertainty due to tariffs and limited funds to buy ahead.

Overall, prices of goods are expected to keep increasing due to the tariffs and inflation, said Juan Mundel, associate professor of advertising and public relations at Michigan State University.

“Prices are expected to be higher this season, and while retailers are going to introduce discounts … consumers should not expect the same prices as last year,” he said.

Then there’s the issue of leaner supply. Stanley Lim, assistant professor of supply chain management at Michigan State, advises shoppers to buy early if they see something they want. This year’s retail challenges stem mostly from economic pressures, particularly rising logistics costs and tariffs.

“The supply chain isn’t broken … but it’s definitely running a lot leaner and more compact than before,” he said. “And so retailers will not feel the tinge of not having the stock or missing the containers, but (instead) maybe longer replenishment cycles and tighter margins. So they may be more selective in terms of what items they want to make available on the shelf this holiday season.”

Lim said many retailers are launching promotions at the beginning of November to get ahead of Black Friday, and even offering price guarantees to assure customers that early purchases will match any later markdowns.

Some retailers have already announced Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. For example, Walmart offered a sneak peek last week of its first Black Friday Deals event that begins Nov. 14 online and in-store. The retailer is promoting what it calls its biggest lineup of deals, including “thousands of deals under $20,” John Furner, president and CEO of Walmart U.S., said in a statement.

Earlier this month, Meijer announced an early promotion of double mPerks savings on toys through Nov. 4, as well as the return of its Santa Bucks during select weeks in November and December. The retailer said it has hundreds of toys and gifts priced under $10, $20 and $30.

Mundel said Black Friday sales are ideal for consumers shopping for items like TVs and sportswear, while Cyber Monday will offer the best overall deals of the season.

“After Cyber Monday, prices will continue to increase, leading to the holiday season,” he said. Consumers will likely trade down on everyday goods like groceries and cosmetics to free up money for higher-priced gifts such as electronics and video games.

According to Deloitte, consumers are expected to spend an average of $1,595 this holiday season, down 10% from $1,778 in 2024. A majority of shoppers, 70%, plan to shop during the Thanksgiving week, up slightly from 68% in 2024. Traffic is expected to peak between late November and early December, including shopping events on Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday.

One recent weekend at Modern Natural Baby and Kids, shoppers including Marisa Vinsky, 31, and Jon Young, 34, took advantage of the store’s free gift wrapping service. The Lansing, Michigan, couple bought a pop-up book that says “Hello” in seven languages as well as a sensory, weighted stuffed octopus for a 10-month-old baby girl.

Vinsky said she’d be shopping again online and at big-box stores like Costco and Home Depot around Black Friday in search of the best deals for an electric meat smoker for Young.

“The way the economy is right now … I typically shop online,” she said. “I don’t really go to stores, and that’s how I find things. One year, I got him a KitchenAid, and that was really easy to find online. I can imagine that with the economy and how much everything is being raised with tariffs, I can imagine the prices are going to be higher than average.”

At Twelve Oaks Mall in Novi, Michigan, last week, holiday decorations were already on display amid preparations for Santa’s visit this week. General Manager Scott Lofton said he expects the mall to be busy during the holiday shopping season, especially on Black Friday.

Sisters Constance Laderoot and Chibwe Powell, both in their 40s, brought their mother to the mall to walk around. They weren’t holiday shopping just yet — instead, they picked up some clothing for themselves.

Laderoot said she thinks Black Friday shopping habits have changed, with fewer people lining up before dawn for deals. She said she’d like to see retailers offer more in-person deals and increase the number of items available at discount prices.

“I think most of us have scaled back a little, right?” she said. “So most people are doing online shopping, and then there’s some in-person shopping.”

Powell said she plans to start holiday shopping right after Thanksgiving, adding that because she also has some birthday gifts to buy: “I start shopping early.”

She’s looking forward to Macy’s perfume deals during the holidays. “Macy’s perfume situation, when it happens, it’s impressive,” she said.

Black Friday is still relevant, Powell said. “It’s just been a tradition. You don’t want to always go away from the tradition. I remember being nine months pregnant and shopping.”

‘If you see it now, get it’

Elle Dare, owner of Genuine Toys in Plymouth, Michigan, said preparing for this year’s holiday season has been especially challenging because tariffs have disrupted toy production and driven up prices.

“The toys that are produced for Christmas are made in the summer, and they stopped production because of tariffs,” she said. “So it’s spotty getting things in. Some things we know aren’t going to come in until January. One company, we get a box every other day of just one item. It’s hard.”

Dare said she hopes to have the store fully stocked by mid-November, ahead of Black Friday and Small Business Saturday. Vendors can’t guarantee delivery dates since overseas shipments take about eight weeks and face customs and tariff delays once they reach U.S. ports.

“I would tell people, if you see it now, get it,” she said. “If it does sell out, there’s no way we’re ever going to get another shipment before the holidays.”

Prices have increased due to tariffs. For example, an item that used to sell for $50 is now going to be $65. “At $50, it was a good deal, but will our customers be willing to pay $65 for it?” she said. “This is such an odd situation.”

MSU’s Lim said price increases due to tariffs are based on factors such as the product category and country of origin.

“Some (retailers) may be willing to absorb the cost, the additional cost to gain demand and loyalty, but others may not have sufficient margins to absorb, and so they will have to then pass down to the customers,” he said.

Some shoppers have already finished their holiday buying, Dare said, anticipating further price increases, while others are waiting to see what happens. She said some families may focus on one main gift for their children and supplement with a few less-expensive gifts.

“Even if the tariffs ended today, the tariffs have still been paid on the toys that are in the warehouses, so that cost still has to be passed on,” she said. “They wouldn’t immediately come down.”

Among the most popular products are Calico Critters and Smiskis, small collectible figurines sold at a handful of stores in Michigan. Genuine Toys limits purchases to two per customer due to high demand, Dare said.

Modern Natural Baby and Kids has already seen an influx of customers for the holiday season, said John Murray. The store carries brands including Jellycat and Sam & Julia.

“It’s insane already,” he said. “People have already started shopping. That’s the crazy part about it. Everybody’s kind of afraid that there’s not going to be inventory. … Everybody’s worried not that there’s not going to be toys, but will the best toys be available.”

The store employs 10 people, adding three staff members for the holiday season. “It’s going to help us out for the holiday season having the extra help,” said Emily Murray.

Larger retailers are also hiring seasonal workers to handle an increase in shoppers. For example, Target is offering additional hours to current employees and hiring seasonal team members across its nearly 2,000 stores and more than 60 supply chain facilities. Amazon said it is creating 250,000 seasonal positions nationwide, including 6,500 jobs in Michigan.

At Genuine Toys, Dare said she’s adding two workers to a staff of five.

Catching Fireflies plans to add three to five part-time workers at each of its locations in Berkley, Rochester and Ann Arborm, Michigan, to meet expected holiday demand. The store sells whimsical gifts, including novelty socks, kitchen gadgets and specialty cookbooks.

“Twenty percent of our sales happen in the month of December alone,” said owner April McCrumb. “Hanukkah and Christmas definitely play a huge part in our retail success. Once the holidays kick in, that’s when a lot of profit from being in the gift business comes.”

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