By DAVID A. LIEB, Associated Press

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The U.S. Treasury is seeking to recoup COVID-19 pandemic relief funds from hundreds of local governments that received millions of dollars but never complied with requirements to report how they used the money.

The federal government distributed $350 billion to state, local, territorial and tribal governments as part of the American Rescue Plan approved by Congress and President Joe Biden in 2021. More than 30,000 governments, from the largest state to the tiniest town, were to get a share.

Governments had until the end of 2024 to obligate the money for specific projects and were supposed to file either quarterly or annual progress reports, depending on their population and how much money they received. Most complied. But as of January, about 1,000 mostly smaller governments had failed to file any reports with the Treasury detailing how they used a total of $139 million, according to an analysis by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

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A GAO report released last week said the Treasury sent notices to the local governments seeking to recoup the money.

As of June 24, a total of 740 local governments subsequently filed reports and will no longer be subject to repaying their funds, the Treasury said in a letter attached to the GAO report. Thirteen governments returned their funds to the Treasury. But that still left 235 local governments that had never filed a report nor returned their pandemic relief funds.

The GAO told The Associated Press it does not have list of the specific governments that haven’t complied with the reporting requirements. The Treasury has not responded to an AP request for a list of the 13 governments that returned their funds and those that still haven’t reported how they used it.

This is not the first time concerns have been raised about governments failing to disclose how they used their pandemic relief funds.

The GAO reported in October 2023 that the Treasury had sent noncompliance notices to more than 3,500 local governments that hadn’t filed progress reports on their pandemic relief funds. The Treasury at that time declined to provide the noncompliance letters to the AP. So the AP in January 2024 submitted a Freedom of Information Act request seeking copies of the noncompliance notices and related correspondence. The Treasury still has not fulfilled that request.

In its most recent report, the GAO said the failure of local governments to file regular progress reports is limiting the Treasury’s ability to determine whether they are spending the funds on allowable uses.

There’s no telling what the Twins’ roster might look like the next time the team takes the field.

In between the end of Wednesday’s game — a 13-1 loss to the Boston Red Sox that demonstrated why the Twins are in this position in the first place — and the Twins’ next game on Friday night in Cleveland, Thursday’s trade deadline will come and go.

The Twins have already executed one deal, sending Chris Paddack to the Detroit Tigers, and are expected to make more before 5 p.m. CDT on Thursday.

Speculation has been running rampant about a team that is now 51-57 trading off some of its veteran players, and it reached a fever pitch in the ninth inning of the blowout loss when Willi Castro, who had taken his position at second base, came off the field and was replaced before the inning started. Castro is considered likely to be moved because he is an impending free agent.

Shortly after, Griffin Jax, another player whose name has been included in trade rumors, was replaced mid-inning on the mound by Kody Clemens once the Twins had reached the necessary deficit to allow a position player to pitch.

Jax, who left with a pair of runners on, appeared displeased with the decision. Clemens promptly gave up a three-run home run to Romy Gonzalez, with two of those runs charged to Jax.

It didn’t much matter at that point in the grand scheme of things, because the Twins had been trailing badly since the middle of the game.

Boston broke away in the fifth inning, scoring four runs and forcing starter Zebby Matthews from the game. Another pair of runs scored in the sixth inning, when Jarren Duran hit a two-run home run off new Twin Noah Davis, who was added to the roster Wednesday morning.

The Twins’ offense, meanwhile, finished with just five hits. The one run they scored came in the second inning when Matt Wallner hit his 13th home run of the season.

Connor Wong #12 of the Boston Red Sox fields the ball to tag out Kody Clemens #18 of the Minnesota Twins at home plate in the first inning at Target Field on July 30, 2025 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by David Berding/Getty Images)
Boston Red Sox designated hitter Masataka Yoshida, right, celebrates his RBI single as Minnesota Twins first baseman Kody Clemens looks on during the fifth inning of baseball game, Wednesday, July 30, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Matt Krohn)

BEIJING (AP) — The Chinese military announced Wednesday that it would hold an annual naval exercise and conduct a maritime joint patrol with Russian forces next month.

Defense Ministry spokesperson Zhang Xiaogang said that the Joint Sea 2025 exercise would be held in the air and seas near the Russian port city of Vladivostok, which lies across the sea from Japan’s west coast. Last year, the drill was held off southern China in the South China Sea.

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The Chinese and Russian governments have deepened their ties in recent years, with China providing an economic lifeline to Russia in the face of Western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. European leaders asked China again last week to use its influence to pressure Russia to end the war, now in its fourth year, but there was no sign that Beijing would do so.

Japan’s Defense Ministry said in an annual report earlier this month that China’s growing military cooperation with Russia poses serious security concerns.

Zhang said the exercise and patrol are part of an annual cooperation plan and are not aimed at any other country or related to the current international or regional situation.

He didn’t provide specific dates for the drill or the joint patrol in the Pacific, which he said would be the sixth of its kind.

Zhang, speaking at a monthly press conference, criticized ongoing drills that the U.S. Air Force is conducting with Japan and other partners in the western Pacific. Resolute Force Pacific is the largest contingency-response exercise ever conducted by the Air Force in the region, according to the U.S. military.

“The U.S. has been blindly flexing muscles in the Asia-Pacific region and attempting to use military drills as a pretext to gang up, intimidate and pressure other countries, and undermine peace and stability in the region,” Zhang said.

The Air Force has said the exercise will train its forces to maintain readiness and execute missions under stress to demonstrate their ability to defend the United States and partner nations in the Pacific.

By OBED LAMY and JULIE CARR SMYTH

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio city whose Haitian migrants were disparaged by President Donald Trump last year as he pitched voters on his plans for an immigration crackdown is now bracing to defend the community against possible deportation.

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A group of about 100 community members, clergy and Haitian leaders in Springfield, Ohio, gathered this week for several days of training sessions as they prepare to defend potential deportees and provide them refuge.

“We feel that this is something that our faith requires, that people of faith are typically law-abiding people — that’s who we want to be — but if there are laws that are unjust, if there are laws that don’t respect human dignity, we feel that our commitment to Christ requires that we put ourselves in places where we may face some of the same threats,” said Carl Ruby, senior pastor of Central Christian Church.

Ruby said the ultimate goal of the group is to persuade the Trump administration to reverse its decision to terminate legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitians in the U.S. under temporary protected status, or TPS.

“One way of standing with the Haitians is getting out the message of how much value they bring to the city of Springfield,” he said. “It would be an absolute disaster if we lost 10,000 of our best workers overnight because their TPS ends and they can no longer work.”

In lieu of that, Ruby said participants in the effort are learning how to help Haitians in other ways. That includes by building relationships, accompanying migrants to appointments with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and providing their families with physical shelter.

Springfield in crosshairs of immigration debate

Springfield found itself in an unwelcome spotlight last year after Trump amplified false rumors during a presidential debate that members of the mid-sized city’s burgeoning Haitian population were abducting and eating cats and dogs. It was the type of inflammatory and anti-immigrant rhetoric he promoted throughout his campaign.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced in June that it would terminate TPS as soon as Sept. 2 for about 500,000 Haitians who are already in the United States, some of whom have lived here for more than a decade. The department said conditions in the island nation have improved adequately to allow their safe return.

The announcement came three months after the Trump administration revoked legal protections for thousands of Haitians who arrived legally in the country under a humanitarian parole program as part of a series of measures implemented to curb immigration. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned a federal judge’s order preventing the administration from revoking the parole program.

Earlier this month, a federal judge in New York blocked the administration from accelerating an end to Haitians’ TPS protections, which the Biden administration had extended through at least Feb. 3, 2026, due to gang violence, political unrest, a major earthquake in 2021 and several other factors.

DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said at the time that the Trump administration would eventually prevail and that its predecessors treated TPS like a “de facto asylum program.” In the meantime, the government has set the expiration date back to early February.

TPS allows people already in the United States to stay and work legally if their homelands are deemed unsafe. Immigrants from 17 countries, including Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan and Lebanon, were receiving those protections before Trump took office for his second term in January.

Residents ponder what actions to take

Charla Weiss, a founding member of Undivided, the group that hosted the Springfield workshop, said participants were asked the question of how far they would go to help Haitian residents avoid deportation.

“The question that I know was before me is how far am I willing to go to support my passion about the unlawful detainment and deportation of Haitians, in particular here in Springfield,” she said.

It was something Weiss said she continued to contemplate “as an organizer, as a mother, as an African-American who was brought to these states that my ancestors in 1619” throughout the training. “So it is an unanswered question. But I’m willing to continue to look at that question. What will I do? How can I do it? And the other question is, for me, is like, who else will I bring with me?”

Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a longtime supporter of the Haitian community, was briefed by Springfield leaders during a visit to the city Friday. He told reporters that the state is bracing for the potential of mass layoffs in the region as a result of the TPS policy change, a negative for both the workers and the companies that employ them.

“It’s not going to be good,” he said.

Smyth reported from Columbus, Ohio.