By Kate Wells, Michigan Public, KFF Health News

On the last day of patient care at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Marquette, Michigan, a port town on the shore of Lake Superior, dozens of people crowded into the parking lot and alley, holding pink homemade signs that read “Thank You!” and “Forever Grateful.”

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“Oh my God,” physician assistant Anna Rink gasped, as she and three other Planned Parenthood employees finally walked outside. The crowd whooped and cheered. Then Rink addressed the gathering.

“Thank you for trusting us with your care,” Rink called out, her voice quavering. “And I’m not stopping here. I’m only going to make it better. I promise. I’m going to find a way.”

“We’re not done!” someone called out. “We’re not giving up!”

But Planned Parenthood of Michigan is giving up on four of its health centers in the state, citing financial challenges. That includes Marquette, the only clinic that provided abortion in the vast, sparsely populated Upper Peninsula. For the roughly 1,100 patients who visit the clinic each year for anything from cancer screenings to contraceptive implants, the next-closest Planned Parenthood will now be a nearly five-hour drive south.

It’s part of a growing trend: At least 17 clinics closed last year in states where abortion remains legal, and another 17 have closed in just the first five months of this year, according to data gathered by ineedana.com. That includes states that have become abortion destinations, like Illinois, and those where voters have enshrined broad reproductive rights into the state constitution, like Michigan.

Experts say the closures indicate that financial and operational challenges, rather than future legal bans, may be the biggest threats to abortion access in states whose laws still protect it.

“These states that we have touted as being really the best kind of versions of our vision for reproductive justice, they too struggle with problems,” said Erin Grant, a co-executive director of the Abortion Care Network, a national membership organization for independent clinics.

“It’s gotten more expensive to provide care, it’s gotten more dangerous to provide care, and it’s just gotten, frankly, harder to provide care, when you’re expected to be in the clinic and then on the statehouse steps, and also speaking to your representatives and trying to find somebody who will fix your roof or paint your walls who’s not going to insert their opinion about health care rights.”

Now, patients will need to drive nearly five hours to the next-closest Planned Parenthood clinic. ((Victoria Tullila for KFF Health News)/KFF Health News/TNS)

But some abortion rights supporters question whether leaders are prioritizing patient care for the most vulnerable populations. Planned Parenthood of Michigan isn’t cutting executive pay, even as it reduces staff by 10% and shuts down brick-and-mortar clinics in areas already facing health care shortages.

“I wish I had been in the room so I could have fought for us, and I could have fought for our community,” said Viktoria Koskenoja, an emergency medicine physician in the Upper Peninsula, who previously worked for Planned Parenthood in Marquette. “I just have to hope that they did the math of trying to hurt as few people as possible, and that’s how they made their decision. And we just weren’t part of the group that was going to be saved.”

Why Now?

If a clinic could survive the fall of Roe v. Wade, “you would think that resilience could carry you forward,” said Brittany Fonteno, president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation.

But clinic operators say they face new financial strain, including rising costs, limited reimbursement rates, and growing demand for telehealth services. They’re also bracing for the Trump administration to again exclude them from Title X, the federal funding for low- and no-cost family planning services, as the previous Trump administration did in 2019.

PPMI says the cuts are painful but necessary for the organization’s long-term sustainability. The clinics being closed are “our smallest health centers,” said Sarah Wallett, PPMI’s chief medical operating officer. And while the thousands of patients those clinics served each year are important, she said, the clinics’ small size made them “the most difficult to operate.” The clinics being closed offered medication abortion, which is available in Michigan up until 11 weeks of pregnancy, but not procedural abortion.

Planned Parenthood of Illinois (a state that’s become a post-Roe v. Wade abortion destination) shuttered four clinics in March, pointing to a “financial shortfall.” Planned Parenthood of Greater New York is now selling its only Manhattan clinic, after closing four clinics last summer due to “compounding financial and political challenges.” And Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, where courts have blocked a near-total abortion ban and abortion is currently legal until 18 weeks of pregnancy, announced it closed two centers as of May 2.

Earlier this spring, the Trump administration began temporarily freezing funds to many clinics, including all Title X providers in California, Hawaii, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, and Utah, according to a KFF analysis.

While the current Title X freeze doesn’t yet include Planned Parenthood of Michigan, PPMI’s chief advocacy officer, Ashlea Phenicie, said it would amount to a loss of about $5.4 million annually, or 16% of its budget.

But Planned Parenthood of Michigan didn’t close clinics the last time the Trump administration froze its Title X funding. Its leader said that’s because the funding was stopped for only about two years, from 2019 until 2021, when the Biden administration restored it. “Now we’re faced with a longer period of time that we will be forced out of Title X, as opposed to the first administration,” said PPMI president and CEO Paula Thornton Greear.

And at the same time, the rise of telehealth abortion has put “new pressures in the older-school brick-and-mortar facilities,” said Caitlin Myers, a Middlebury College economics professor who maps brick-and-mortar clinics across the U.S. that provide abortion.

Until a few years ago, doctors could prescribe abortion pills only in person. Those restrictions were lifted during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it was the Dobbs decision in 2022 that really “accelerated expansions in telehealth,” Myers said, “because it drew all this attention to models of providing abortion services.”

Suddenly, new online providers entered the field, advertising virtual consultations and pills shipped directly to your home. And plenty of patients who still have access to a brick-and-mortar clinic prefer that option. “Put more simply, it’s gotta change their business model,” she said.

Balancing Cost and Care

Historically, about 28% of PPMI’s patients receive Medicaid benefits, according to Phenicie. And, like many states, Michigan’s Medicaid program doesn’t cover abortion, leaving those patients to either pay out-of-pocket or rely on help from abortion funds, several of which have also been struggling financially.

“When patients can’t afford care, that means that they might not be showing up to clinics,” said Fonteno of the National Abortion Federation, which had to cut its monthly budget nearly in half last year, from covering up to 50% of an eligible patient’s costs to 30%. “So seeing a sort of decline in patient volume, and then associated revenue, is definitely something that we’ve seen.”

Meanwhile, more clinics and abortion funds say patients have delayed care because of those rising costs. According to a small November-December 2024 survey of providers and funds conducted by ineedana.com, “85% of clinics reported seeing an increase of clients delaying care due to lack of funding.” One abortion fund said the number of patients who had to delay care until their second trimester had “grown by over 60%.”

Even when non-abortion services like birth control and cervical cancer screenings are covered by insurance, clinics aren’t always reimbursed for the full cost, Thornton Greear said.

“The reality is that insurance reimbursement rates across the board are low,” she said. “It’s been that way for a while. When you start looking at the costs to run a health care organization, from supply costs, etc., when you layer on these funding impacts, it creates a chasm that’s impossible to fill.”

Yet, unlike some independent clinics that have had to close, Planned Parenthood’s national federation brings in hundreds of millions of dollars a year, the majority of which is spent on policy and legal efforts rather than state-level medical services. The organization and some of its state affiliates have also battled allegations of mismanagement, as well as complaints about staffing and patient care problems. Planned Parenthood of Michigan staffers in five clinics unionized last year, with some citing management problems and workplace and patient care conditions.

Asked whether Planned Parenthood’s national funding structure needs to change, PPMI CEO Thornton Greear said: “I think that it needs to be looked at, and what they’re able to do. And I know that that is actively happening.”

The Gaps That Telehealth Can’t Fill

When the Marquette clinic’s closure was announced, dozens of patients voiced their concerns in Google reviews, with several saying the clinic had “saved my life,” and describing how they’d been helped after an assault, or been able to get low-cost care when they couldn’t afford other options.

Planned Parenthood of Michigan responded to most comments with the same statement and pointed patients to telehealth in the clinic’s absence:

“Please know that closing health centers wasn’t a choice that was made lightly, but one forced upon us by the escalating attacks against sexual and reproductive health providers like Planned Parenthood. We are doing everything we can to protect as much access to care as possible. We know you’re sad and angry — we are, too.

“We know that telehealth cannot bridge every gap; however, the majority of the services PPMI provides will remain available via the Virtual Health Center and PP Direct, including medication abortion, birth control, HIV services, UTI treatment, emergency contraception, gender-affirming care, and yeast infection treatment. Learn more at ppmi.org/telehealth.”

PPMI’s virtual health center is already its most popular clinic, according to the organization, serving more than 10,000 patients a year. And PPMI plans to expand virtual appointments by 40%, including weekend and evening hours.

“For some rural communities, having access to telehealth has made significant changes in their health,” said Wallett, PPMI’s chief medical operating officer. “In telehealth, I can have an appointment in my car during lunch. I don’t have to take extra time off. I don’t have to drive there. I don’t have to find child care.”

Yet even as the number of clinics has dropped nationally, about 80% of clinician-provided abortions are still done by brick-and-mortar clinics, according to the most recent #WeCount report, which looked at 2024 data from April to June.

Hannah Harriman, a nurse with the Marquette County Health Department, previously worked for Planned Parenthood of Marquette for 12 years. ((Victoria Tullila for KFF Health News)/KFF Health News/TNS)

And Hannah Harriman, a Marquette County Health Department nurse who previously spent 12 years working for Planned Parenthood of Marquette, is skeptical of any suggestion that telehealth can replace a rural brick-and-mortar clinic. “I say that those people have never spent any time in the U.P.,” she said, referring to the Upper Peninsula.

Some areas are “dark zones” for cell coverage, she said. And some residents “have to drive to McDonald’s to use their Wi-Fi. There are places here that don’t even have internet coverage. I mean, you can’t get it.”

Telehealth has its advantages, said Koskenoja, the emergency medicine physician who previously worked for Planned Parenthood in Marquette, “but for a lot of health problems, it’s just not a safe or realistic way to take care of people.”

She recently had a patient in the emergency room who was having a complication from a gynecological surgery. “She needed to see a gynecologist, and I called the local OB office,” Koskenoja said. “They told me they have 30 or 40 new referrals a month,” and simply don’t have enough clinicians to see all those patients. “So adding in the burden of all the patients that were being seen at Planned Parenthood is going to be impossible.”

Koskenoja, Harriman, and other local health care providers have been strategizing privately to figure out what to do next to help people access everything from Pap smears to IUDs. The local health department can provide Title X family planning services 1½ days a week, but that won’t be enough, Harriman said. And there are a few private “providers in town that offer medication abortion to their patients only — very, very quietly,” she said. But that won’t help patients who don’t have good insurance or are stuck on waitlists.

“It’s going to be a patchwork of trying to fill in those gaps,” Koskenoja said. “But we lost a very functional system for delivering this care to patients. And now, we’re just having to make it up as we go.”

This article is from a partnership with Michigan Public and NPR .

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By MARIA SHERMAN, AP Music Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Taylor Swift has regained control over her entire body of work.

In a lengthy note posted to her official website on Friday, Swift announced: “All of the music I’ve ever made now belongs to me.”

According to the note, the pop star has purchased her catalog of recordings — originally released through Big Machine Records — from their most recent owner, the private equity firm Shamrock Capital. She did not disclose the amount.

“We are thrilled with this outcome and are so happy for Taylor,” Shamrock Capital said in a statement.

Over the last few years, Swift has been re-recording and releasing her first six albums in an attempt to regain control of her music.

The series was instigated by music manager Scooter Braun’s purchase and sale of her early catalog and represents Swift’s effort to control her own songs and how they’re used. Previous “Taylor’s Version” releases have been more than conventional re-recordings, arriving with new “from the vault” music, Easter eggs and visuals that deepen understanding of her work.

In between re-recordings, she has released new music, including last year’s “The Tortured Poets Department,” announced during the 2024 Grammys and released during her record-breaking tour.

So far, there have been four re-recorded albums.

Swift’s last re-recording, “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” arrived in October 2023, just four months after the release of “Speak Now (Taylor’s Version).” That was the same year Swift claimed the record for the woman with the most No. 1 albums in history.

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Fans have theorized that “Reputation (Taylor’s Version)” would be next: On May 19, “Look What You Made Me Do (Taylor’s Version)” aired nearly in full during the opening scene of a Season 6 episode of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Prior to that, the song was teased in 2023’s Prime Video limited-series thriller “Wilderness” and in Apple TV+’s “The Dynasty: New England Patriots” in 2024. Also in 2023, she contributed “Delicate (Taylor’s Version)” to Prime Video’s “The Summer I Turned Pretty.”

But according to the note shared Friday, Swift says she hasn’t “even re-recorded a quarter of it.”

She did say, however, that she has completely rerecorded her self-titled debut album “and I really love how it sounds now.”

Swift writes that both her self-titled and “Reputation (Taylor’s Version)” “can still have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right.”

A representative for Swift did not immediately respond to request for comment.

By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — The nation’s top public health agency posted new recommendations that say healthy children may get COVID-19 vaccinations, removing language that said kids should get the shots.

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The change comes days after U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that COVID-19 vaccines will no longer be recommended for healthy children and pregnant women.

But the updated guidance on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website does not appear to end recommendations for vaccination of pregnant women, a change that was heavily criticized by medical and public health experts.

CDC and HHS officials did not immediately respond to questions about the new guidance.

Kennedy announced the coming changes in a 58-second video posted on the social media site X on Tuesday. No one from the CDC was in the video, and CDC officials referred questions about the announcement to Kennedy and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

On Thursday, the CDC updated its website. The agency said that shots may be given to children ages 6 months to 17 years who do not have moderate or severe problems with their immune systems. Instead of recommending the shots, the CDC page now says parents may decide to get their children vaccinated in consultation with a doctor.

That kind of recommendation, known as shared decision-making, still means health insurers must pay for the vaccinations, according to the CDC. However, experts say vaccination rates tend to be lower when health authorities use that language and doctors are less emphatic with patients about getting shots.

Childhood vaccination rates for COVID-19 are already low — just 13% of children and 23% of adults have received the 2024-25 COVID-19 vaccine, according to CDC data.

Talk of changing the recommendations has been brewing. As the COVID-19 pandemic has waned, experts have discussed the possibility of focusing vaccination efforts on people 65 and older — who are among those most as risk for death and hospitalization.

A CDC advisory panel is set to meet in June to make recommendations about the fall shots. Among its options are suggesting shots for high-risk groups but still giving lower-risk people the choice to get vaccinated. A committee work group has endorsed the idea.

But Kennedy, a leading anti-vaccine advocate before becoming health secretary, decided not to wait for the scientific panel’s review.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By KRISTIE RIEKEN, AP Sports Writer

HOUSTON (AP) — Soon after Lance McCullers Jr.’s family received online death threats following a tough start by the Houston Astros’ pitcher, his 5-year-old daughter, Ava, overheard wife Kara talking on the phone about it.

What followed was a painful conversation between McCullers and his little girl.

“She asked me when I came home: ‘Daddy like what is threats? Who wants to hurt us? Who wants to hurt me?’” McCullers told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “So, those conversations are tough to deal with.”

McCullers is one of two MLB pitchers whose families have received online death threats this month as internet abuse of players and their families is on the rise. Boston reliever Liam Hendriks took to social media soon after the incident with McCullers to call out people who were threatening his wife’s life and directing “vile” comments at him.

The Astros contacted MLB security and the Houston Police Department following the threats to McCullers. An police spokesperson said Thursday that it remains an ongoing investigation.

McCullers, who has two young daughters, took immediate action after the threats and hired 24-hour security for his family.

“You have to at that point,” he said.

Milwaukee Brewers’ Christian Yelich gestures after hitting a walk off grand slam during the 10th inning of a baseball game against the Boston Red Sox, Tuesday, May 27, 2025, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Aaron Gash)

Abuse increasing with rise in sports gambling

Players from around the league agree that online abuse has gotten progressively worse in recent years. Milwaukee’s Christian Yelich, a 13-year MLB veteran and the 2018 NL MVP, said receiving online abuse is “a nightly thing” for most players.

“I think over the last few years it’s definitely increased,” he said. “It’s increased to the point that you’re just: ‘All right, here we go.’ It doesn’t even really register on your radar anymore. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. You’re just so used to that on a day-to-day, night-to-night basis. It’s not just me. It’s everybody in here, based on performance.”

And many players believe it’s directly linked to the rise in legalized sports betting.

“You get a lot of DMs or stuff like that about you ruining someone’s bet or something ridiculous like that,” veteran Red Sox reliever Justin Wilson said. “I guess they should make better bets.”

Boston Red Sox pitcher Liam Hendriks celebrates after the final out of a baseball game against the Minnesota Twins at Fenway Park, Friday, May 2, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Hendriks has had enough

Hendriks, a 36-year-old reliever who previously battled non-Hodgkin lymphoma, said on Instagram that he and his wife received death threats after a loss to the Mets. He added that people left comments saying that they wished he would have died from cancer among other abusive comments.

He later discussed the issue and his decision to speak out about it.

“Enough is enough,” he said. “Like at some point, everyone just like sucking up and dealing with it isn’t accomplishing anything. And we pass along to security. We pass along to whoever we need to, but nothing ends up happening. And it happens again the next night. And so, at some point, someone has to make a stand. And it’s one of those things where the more eyes we get on it, the more voices we get talking about it. Hopefully it can push it in the right direction.”

What teams are doing

Both the Astros and the Red Sox are working with MLB security to take action against social media users who direct threats toward players and their families. Red Sox spokesperson Abby Murphy added that they’ve taken steps in recent years to make sure player’ families are safe during games. That includes security staff and Boston police stationed in the family section at home and dedicated security in the traveling party to monitor the family section on the road.

Murphy said identifying those who make anonymous threats online is difficult, but: “both the Red Sox and MLB have cyber programs and analysts dedicated to identifying and removing these accounts.”

The Astros have uniformed police officers stationed in the family section, a practice that was implemented well before the threats to McCullers and his family.

Abandoning social media

For some players, online abuse has gotten so bad that they’ve abandoned social media. Detroit All-Star outfielder Riley Greene is one of them, saying he got off because he received so many messages from people blaming him for failed bets.

“I deleted it,” he said of Instagram. “I’m off it. It sucks, but it’s the world we live in, and we can’t do anything about it. People would DM me and say nasty things, tell me how bad of a player I am, and say nasty stuff that we don’t want to hear.”

Criticism is part of the game, threats are not

The 31-year-old McCullers, who returned this year after missing two full seasons with injuries, said dealing with this has been the worst thing that’s happened in his career. He understands the passion of fans and knows that being criticized for a poor performance is part of the game. But he believes there’s a “moral line” that fans shouldn’t cross.

“People should want us to succeed,” he said. “We want to succeed, but it shouldn’t come at a cost to our families, the kids in our life, having to feel like they’re not safe where they live or where they sit at games.”

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Houston manager Joe Espada was livid when he learned about the threats to McCullers and his family and was visibly upset when he addressed what happened with reporters.

Espada added that the team has mental health professionals available to the players to talk about the toll such abuse takes on them and any other issues they may be dealing with.

“We are aware that when we step on the field, fans expect and we expect the best out of ourselves,” Espada said this week. “But when we are trying to do our best and things don’t go our way while we’re trying to give you everything we got and now you’re threatening our families and kids — now I do have a big issue with that, right? I just did not like it.”

Kansas City Royals designated hitter Salvador Perez, right, celebrates his RBI single against the Minnesota Twins during the fifth inning of baseball game Saturday, May 24, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Matt Krohn)

Kansas City’s Salvador Perez, a 14-year MLB veteran, hasn’t experienced online abuse but was appalled by what happened to McCullers. If something like that happened to him he said it would change the way he interacts with fans.

“Now some fans, real fans, they’re gonna pay for that, too,” he said. “Because if I was him, I wouldn’t take a picture or sign anything for noboby because of that one day.”

McCullers wouldn’t go that far but admitted it has changed his mindset.

“It does make you kind of shell up a little bit,” he said. “It does make you kind of not want to go places. I guess that’s just probably the human reaction to it.”

Houston Astros starting pitcher Lance McCullers Jr. reacts after Athletics’ Jacob Wilson’s home run during the fifth inning of a baseball game, Wednesday, May 28, 2025, in Houston. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)

Finding a solution

While most players have dealt with some level of online abuse in their careers, no one has a good idea of how to stop it.

“I’m thankful I’m not in a position where I have to find a solution to this,” Tigers’ pitcher Tyler Holton said. “But as a person who is involved in this, I wish this wasn’t a topic of conversation.”

White Sox outfielder Mike Tauchman is disheartened at how bad player abuse has gotten. While it’s mostly online, he added that he’s had teammates that have had racist and homophobic things yelled at them during games.

“Outside of just simply not having social media I really don’t see that getting better before it just continues to get worse,” he said. “I mean, I think it’s kind of the way things are now. Like, people just feel like they have the right to say whatever they want to whoever they want and it’s behind a keyboard and there’s really no repercussions, right?”

AP Baseball Writer Mike Fitzpatrick and AP Sports Writers Jimmy Golen, Kyle Hightower, Larry Lage and Steve Megargee contributed to this report.