In St. Paul, two parks-based nonprofits are poised for a merger.

The St. Paul Parks Conservancy, which launched in 2008 to promote the city’s park system, will effectively absorb the Great River Passage Conservancy, which was established in 2018 to advocate for better public access to the Mississippi River. On Jan. 1, the two boards will merge while retaining key staff, including Parks Conservancy executive director Michael-jon Pease and Great River Passage interim executive director Jodi Massey, though their titles will change.

Massey noted that about half of the city’s parklands sit along the river itself. Members of both organizations “felt like there was just a lot of overlap in the work that we were doing,” she said, and “confusion in the marketplace about who you come to if you have concerns about parks. (That led to) a really wonderful conversation with our board members and it felt like a really good fit.”

The new organization will retain the name St. Paul Parks Conservancy and be led by Pease, its president and chief parks champion. Shari Blindt will serve as director of Parks and Play, and Massey will remain director of Great River Passage.

Over the past five years, the Parks Conservancy has raised $5 million toward citywide parks initiatives, from the revitalization of Rice Park and the opening of downtown Pedro Park to a field project at the new North End Community Center. An Equal Play Initiative has aimed to add sport courts and replace outdated equipment in neighborhood playgrounds. There’s even a conservancy-sponsored coloring book about the city’s parks.

The Great River Passage Conservancy has focused on more long-term projects, advocating for a Mississippi River Learning Center near Watergate Marina, a 1.5-mile downtown river balcony, and an East Side River District spanning 1,000 acres.

The Great River Passage Conservancy grew out of a Mississippi River master plan adopted by the city in 2013.

“That’s a long time ago,” Massey said, though “the desire to be connected to the river hasn’t changed.”

The merged organization will operate on a budget of $1.4 million for 2026 and maintain the equivalent of three and a half staffers. Pease said the two organizations contracted strategic coaching consultants about the mechanics of a merger, and “they’d never had one that was this straightforward and this simple.”

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By HUSSEIN MALLA, BASSEM MROUE and WAFAA SHURAFA, Associated Press

SIDON, Lebanon (AP) — The Israeli military carried out multiple barrages of airstrikes in southern Lebanon Wednesday on what it said were Hezbollah weapons storage facilities after a drone strike earlier in the day killed one person and wounded several others, including students on a bus.

The new wave of strikes came as tensions between Israel and fighters are escalating. An airstrike Tuesday night killed 13 people in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, the deadliest of Israeli attacks since a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war a year ago.

Meanwhile, hospitals in Gaza said Israeli strikes killed at least 21 Palestinians.

Israel claims Hezbollah is regrouping

The Israeli military warned Wednesday afternoon it would strike targets in several villages in southern Lebanon, describing them as Hezbollah infrastructure, and called on people to move away from the locations. More than an hour later, the strikes began in the villages of Shehour and Deir Kifa. There was no immediate word on casualties.

Israel’s military said Hezbollah was working to reestablish itself and rebuild its capacity in southern Lebanon, without providing evidence. It said the weapons’ facilities targeted were embedded among civilians and violated understandings between Israel and Lebanon. Israel agreed to a ceasefire and withdraw from southern Lebanon last year and Lebanon agreed to quell Hezbollah activity in the area.

Earlier Wednesday, an Israeli airstrike on a car in the southern Lebanese village of Tiri killed one person and wounded 11, including students aboard a nearby bus, the Lebanese Health Ministry and state media said.

State-run National News Agency said the school bus happened to be passing near the car that was hit. The bus driver and several students were wounded, the report said.

The Israeli military later said it killed a Hezbollah operative in the drone strike.

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In Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp, just outside the port city of Sidon, life appeared normal Wednesday, but Lebanese authorities prevented journalists from entering. At the scene of the strike, paramedics searched for human remains around a wall that was stained with blood. Several cars were burnt and broken glass and debris littered the ground.

The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas training compound that was being used to prepare an attack against Israel and its army. It added that the Israeli army would continue to act against Hamas wherever it operates.

Hamas condemned the attack and denied in a statement that the sports playground that was hit was its training compound.

Palestinian factions in Lebanon’s 12 refugee camps earlier this year began handing over their weapons to the Lebanese state. The government has said that it will also work on disarming Hezbollah, but Hezbollah has rejected it as long as Israel continues to occupy several hills along the border and carries out almost daily strikes.

The U.S. has recently increased pressure on Lebanon to work harder on disarming Hezbollah and canceled a planned trip to Washington this week by Lebanese army commander Gen. Rudolph Haikal.

A senior Lebanese army officer told The Associated Press that U.S. officials were angered by an army statement on Sunday that blamed Israel for destabilizing Lebanon and blocking the Lebanese military deployment in south Lebanon. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.

The latest Israel-Hezbollah war began Oct. 8, 2023, a day after Hamas attacked southern Israel, after Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in solidarity with Hamas. Israel launched a widespread bombardment of Lebanon two months ago that severely weakened Hezbollah, followed by a ground invasion.

That war, the most recent of several conflicts involving Hezbollah over the past four decades, killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon, including hundreds of civilians, and caused an estimated $11 billion worth of destruction, according to the World Bank. In Israel, 127 people died, including 80 soldiers.

Israeli strikes kill 21 in Gaza

Hospitals in Gaza said at least 21 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes Wednesday on both sides of the yellow line established in last month’s ceasefire. The boundary splits the enclave in two, leaving the border zone under Israeli military control while the area beyond it is meant to serve as a safe zone.

Officials at al-Ahli, Shifa, Nasser and Kuwaiti hospitals reported they received the bodies of those killed from Gaza City, Khan Younis and the Muwasi area, the southern Gaza displacement camp. An Israeli strike also killed one person in Shijaiyah, a Gaza City neighborhood outside the safe zone where Israeli forces remain deployed.

The Israeli military said its strikes responded to fighters who had opened fire on Israeli forces in Khan Younis earlier in the day. It said no soldiers were killed.

Israeli strikes have decreased since the ceasefire agreement took effect on Oct. 10, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, though they have not stopped entirely. The ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, has reported 280 deaths since the truce began, an average of more than seven per day. Each side has accused the other of violating its terms, which include increasing the flow of aid into Gaza and returning hostages — dead or alive — to Israel.

The deaths are among the more than 69,000 Palestinians killed since Israel launched its sweeping offensive more than two years ago in response to Hamas-led fighters abducting 251 people and killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war. Gaza’s Health Ministry, part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, maintains detailed records seen as a reliable estimate by the U.N. and many independent experts.

Mroue reported from Beirut. Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip. Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel contributed to this report.

By MICHAEL CASEY, AMANDA SWINHART and DEVI SHASTRI

FRANCONIA, N.H. (AP) — For more than two decades, Susan Bushby, a 70-year-old housekeeper from a rural ski town in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, took comfort in knowing she only had a short drive to reach the community health center.

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The lodge-like medical building, which sits on a hill overlooking town, was like a second home for Bushby and many other patients. The front desk staff knew their names and never missed a chance to celebrate a birthday or anniversary. Staff photos of the wilderness that makes the place such a draw hung on the walls, and bumping into a neighbor in the waiting room was routine.

But last month, the Ammonoosuc Community Health Services location in Franconia, a town of around 1,000 people, closed for good.

Closure raises concerns

Officials blamed cuts in Medicaid, the federal program that millions of low-income Americans rely on for health care. The 1,400 patients, almost half of them older and some facing serious health challenges like cancer and early-stage dementia, must now drive at least 10 miles (16 kilometers) along rural roads to reach the nearest health center, which also is near a regional hospital. A second center is twice as far.

“I was very disturbed. I was downright angry,” said Bushby, who was brought to tears as she discussed the challenges of starting over at a new health center. “I just really like it there. I don’t know, I’m just really going to miss it. It’s really hard for me to explain, but it’s going to be sad.”

The closure of the Franconia center reflects the financial struggles facing community health centers and rural health care systems more broadly amid Medicaid cuts and a feared spike in health insurance rates. The government shutdown, which ended last week, was driven by a Democratic demand to extend tax credits, which ensure low- and middle-income people can afford health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, or ACA.

Patients rattled by closure

Marsha Luce, whose family moved from the Washington, D.C., area in 2000, is especially concerned about the impact on her 72-year-old husband, a former volunteer firefighter who has had his left ear and part of his jaw removed due to cancer. He also has heart and memory issues.

She worries about longer waits to see his doctor and the loss of relationships built up over decades in Franconia.

“It’s going to be hard,” she said. “But it’s a relationship that’s going to be missed. It’s a relationship that you can talk to people and you tell them something and you go, yeah, well, I’ve had cancer. Oh, let’s see. Oh, yeah. There it is in your chart. Do you know what I mean?”

Demise of rural health care

More than 100 hospitals closed over the past decade, according to the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, a policy and advocacy group, and more than 700 more hospitals are at risk of closure. A branch of the HealthFirst Family Care Center, a facility in Canaan, New Hampshire, also announced it was closing at the end of October due in part to “changes in Medicaid reimbursement and federal funding” for these facilities.

“Because of these Medicaid cuts, we’re going to see rural hospitals, in particular, hit hard,” New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat, told The Associated Press. “And obviously, the failure to extend the ACA tax credits right now is going to compound the problem. … These providers are going to see more and more uninsured patients. And that means they’re going to have to make really difficult decisions.”

The sustainability of the centers is critical because they serve as the nation’s primary care safety net, treating patients regardless of insurance coverage or ability to pay.

Though federally-funded community health centers like the one in Franconia have expanded their reach in recent years, treating 1 in 10 Americans and 1 in 5 rural Americans, they’ve often done so in the face of major financial constraints, according to data from the National Association of Community Health Centers.

On average, the centers are losing money — relying heavily on cash reserves, making service changes and sometimes closing locations to stay afloat, NACHC found. Nearly half have less than 90 days’ cash on hand, according to the association. The future is even more bleak, with at least 2 million community health center patients expected to lose Medicaid coverage by 2034 and 2 million more who are newly uninsured turning to the centers for care.

“There’s nothing left to trim without cutting into care itself,” said Peter Shin, the chief science officer at the association.

Tough choices for Ammonoosuc

When President Donald Trump’s bill passed this summer, Ed Shanshala, the CEO of Ammonoosuc, knew he was in trouble.

A meticulous planner and strategist, Shanshala projected that his network of five New Hampshire health centers — which relies on more than $2 million in federal funding out of a $12 million budget — would face a $500,000 shortfall partly due to Medicaid funding cuts. He also expected work requirements in the bill and spikes in health insurance premiums to have an impact.

Shanshala knew he needed to make cuts to save his centers and zeroed in on Franconia because the building was leased, whereas Ammonoosuc owns the other facilities.

“We’re really left with no choice,” Shanshala said, adding the closure would save $250,000. Finding additional cuts is hard, given that the centers provide services to anyone under 200% of the federal poverty line, he said. If he cuts additional services, Shanshala fears some patients will end up in a hospital emergency room or “stop engaging in health care period.”

“To have to pull out of a community is devastating on a relational level,” he said. “People still have access to health care. We’ll help them with transportation, but it’s clearly a grieving process. Whenever a business leaves a community, regardless if it’s health care or something else, there’s an emotional fabric tear.”

Sense of loss

The closure has brought little controversy. Just a lot of grief.

Most of the patients come from the small towns of Franconia, Easton, Lincoln and Sugar Hill, communities whose economies rely on hikers, skiers and leaf peepers. Many are older, sicker and more spread out than the rest of the state.

Luce, who volunteers at the local Head Start program and delivers food to schools in Franconia, said the closure has her mostly frustrated with politicians, adding that she wished lawmakers in Washington could “just live the way regular people live” for a few months.

“They would have a much different idea of what goes on in the real world,” she added.

More closures coming?

Patients like Jill Brewer, the chair of the Franconia Board of Selectmen whose family has been going there for decades, worry about the future and whether the closure signals the gradual collapse of the health care system in this part of the state.

“Is this kind of the first domino to fall?” said Brewer, noting how disbanding the town’s volunteer ambulance service in 2023 angered many residents.

“It definitely leaves you feeling pretty anxious that this is going to continue to kind of snowball and become an even bigger issue,” she added.

On the clinic’s last day, it was business as usual — no balloons, no cakes, no farewell speeches. The staff were stoic as they tended to patients, three of whom came in for their physicals and four for checkups. Bushby, who had come to have her blood pressure checked, hugged a staffer as crews dismantled the clinic and wheeled out exam tables.

“I’ll come see you, honey. I will,” Bushby said, hugging Diane LaDuke, a patient access specialist. “It’s been such a joy coming here.”

Shastri reported from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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

By MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A federal judge in Florida is pushing for a resolution in a lawsuit over whether detainees at an immigration center in the Florida Everglades are getting adequate access to attorneys.

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U.S. District Judge Sheri Polster Chappell last Friday ordered a two-day conference to be held next month in her Fort Myers courtroom, with attorneys present who have the authority to settle. The judge asked for an update at a hearing next Monday.

“The court will not entertain excuses regarding leaving early for flights or other meetings,” the judge wrote about next month’s conference.

The lawsuit filed by detainees against the federal and state governments over legal access is one of three federal cases challenging practices at the immigration detention center that was built this summer at a remote airstrip in the Florida Everglades by the administration of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

In a separate environmental lawsuit, a federal appellate court panel in September allowed the center to continue operating by putting on hold a lower court’s preliminary injunction ordering the facility to wind down by the end of October. The appeal was put on hold during the government shutdown but resumed last week.

A third lawsuit claims immigration is a federal issue and Florida agencies and private contractors hired by the state have no authority to operate the facility.

President Donald Trump toured the facility in July and suggested it could be a model for future lockups nationwide as his administration pushes to expand the infrastructure needed to increase deportations. While the facility was built and operated by the state and its private contractors, federal officials have approved reimbursing Florida for $608 million.

In the legal access case, attorneys representing detainees at the Everglades facility are seeking a preliminary injunction that will make it easier for their clients to meet and communicate with their individual attorneys.

They claim that detainees’ attorneys must make an appointment to visit three days in advance, unlike at other detention facilities where the lawyers can just show up during visiting hours; that detainees often are transferred to other facilities after their attorneys have made an appointment to see them; and that scheduling delays have been so lengthy that detainees are unable to meet with attorneys before key deadlines.

Florida officials said in a motion to dismiss that the case is now moot since the concerns initially raised by the detainees and their attorneys have been addressed. Any delays were due to trying to construct a facility for thousands of detainees in a remote area with little infrastructure, they said.

“In other words, there is no longer a live controversy,” Florida officials said in their court filing.

Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social.