By AMANDA SEITZ, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — New Trump administration rules that give millions of people a shorter timeframe to sign up for the Affordable Care Act’s health care coverage are facing a legal challenge from Democratic mayors around the country.

The rules, rolled out last month, reverse a Biden-era effort to expand access to the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance, commonly called “Obamacare” or the ACA. The previous Democratic administration expanded the enrollment window for the coverage, which led to record enrollment.

The Department of Health and Human Services rolled out a series of new restrictions for Obamacare late last month, just as Congress was weighing a major bill that will decrease enrollment in the health care program that Republican President Donald Trump has scorned for years. As many as 2 million people — nearly 10% — are expected to lose coverage from the health department’s new rules.

The mayors of Baltimore, Chicago and Columbus, Ohio sued the federal health department on Tuesday over the rules, saying they will result in more uninsured residents and overburden city services.

“Cloaked in the pretense of government efficiency and fraud prevention, the 2025 Rule creates numerous barriers to affordable insurance coverage, negating the purpose of the ACA to extend affordable health coverage to all Americans, and instead increasing the population of underinsured and uninsured Americans,” the filing alleges.

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Two liberal advocacy groups — Doctors for America and Main Street Alliance — joined in on the complaint.

The federal health department announced a series of changes late last month to the ACA. It will shorten the enrollment period for the federal marketplace by a month, limiting it to Nov. 1 to Dec. 15 in 2026. Income verification checks will become more stringent and a $5 fee will be tacked on for some people who automatically re-enroll in a free plan.

Insurers will also be able to deny coverage to people who have not paid their premiums on past plans. The rules also bar roughly 100,000 immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children from signing up for the coverage.

HHS said in a statement that the polices “are temporary measures to immediately tamp down on improper enrollments and the improper flow of federal funds.”

The mayors — all Democrats — argue that the polices were introduced without an adequate public comment period on the policies.

“This unlawful rule will force families off their health insurance and raise costs on millions of Americans. This does nothing to help people and instead harms Americans’ health and safety across our country,” said Skye Perryman, the president of Democracy Forward, which is representing the coalition of plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

The lawsuit does not challenge the Trump administration’s restriction on immigrants signing up for the coverage.

The Biden administration saw gains in Obamacare enrollment as a major success of the Democratic president’s term, noting that a record 24 million people signed up for the coverage, thanks to generous tax breaks offered through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.

But the program has been a target of Trump, who has said it is riddled with problems that make the coverage unaffordable for many without large subsidies. Enrollment in the program dipped during his first term in office.

When Royce Lewis pulled up at first base in pain a couple weeks ago in Houston, it evoked fears of a more serious injury, much like the one he suffered a few months back. On the same type of play, Lewis strained his left hamstring while running during a spring training game and it cost him the first 35 games of the season.

But pretty quickly after the second injury occurred on June 14, the Twins said they believed the hamstring injury to be mild, and on Tuesday Lewis was activated from the injured list. His return comes as the Twins are in Miami for a three-game series against the Marlins set to begin Tuesday night.

The move has been all-but-official for days because the Twins made the corresponding move to clear a space on the roster on Sunday night, when the Twins outrighted infielder Jonah Bride for release or assignment. Acquired for cash from the Marlins in April, Bride was hitting .208 with a .511 OPS while playing sparingly. Notably, he pitched in four games for the Twins, handling six innings of mop-up duty.

Lewis returns after spending the weekend playing for Triple-A St. Paul, where he went 0 for 8. After going through an 0-for-36 stretch earlier in his season, Lewis had been hitting .393 with three extra-base hits in the nine games before his injury.

Because of the two hamstring injuries, Lewis has played in just 30 games for the Twins this season, entering Tuesday hitting .202 with a .585 OPS. During his latest absence, Brooks Lee saw a majority of the playing time at third base. On Tuesday, Lee was in the lineup at second base with Lewis back at third, hitting eighth.

Culpepper named to Futures Game

Kaelen Culpepper’s solid start to his minor league career has earned him a trip to the Futures Game later this month in Atlanta.

Culpepper, drafter by the Twins 21st overall in the 2024 draft, began his season at Class-A Advanced Cedar Rapids, where he hit .293 with nine home runs, 34 RBIs, 15 stolen bases and 63 hits in 54 games before earning a promotion. Entering Tuesday, in eight games at Double-A, the shortstop was hitting .273 with a pair of home runs.

Culpepper, the Twins’ No. 4 prospect per MLB Pipeline, is their only representative at the game, which will take place at 3 p.m. CT on July 12 at Truist Park in Atlanta, days before the All-Star Game is held there.

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MEXICO CITY (AP) — Hurricane Flossie strengthened to a Category 2 cyclone Tuesday off the Pacific coast of Mexico and could become a major hurricane before weakening later this week, forecasters said.

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The National Hurricane Center said Flossie had maximum sustained winds at 110 mph and that rain was falling over parts of coastal Mexico. The hurricane was centered 180 miles southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico. On Tuesday afternoon, it was on the brink of becoming a Category 3 hurricane.

The hurricane was forecast to continue strengthening and could be a major hurricane as soon as Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. A major hurricane is classified as Category 3 or higher, with maximum sustained winds of at least 111 mph.

Flossie was moving to the northwest at 10 mph and was expected to generally continue that motion over the next few days. The system should move away from southwestern Mexico by Tuesday night, forecasters said.

A tropical storm warning was in effect from Punta San Telmo to Playa Perula. Rainfall totals up to 6 inches were possible in some areas, the hurricane center said.

Forecasters expect Flossie to rapidly weaken starting late Wednesday.

By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Chinese nationals have been charged with spying inside the United States on behalf of Beijing, including by taking photographs of a naval base, coordinating a cash dead-drop and by participating in efforts to recruit members of the military who they thought might be open to working for Chinese intelligence.

The case, filed in federal court in San Francisco and unsealed Monday, is the latest Justice Department prosecution to target what officials say are active efforts by the Chinese government to secretly collect intelligence about American military capabilities — a practice laid bare in startling fashion two years ago with China’s launching of a surveillance balloon that U.S. officials ultimately shot down over the coast of South Carolina.

“This case underscores the Chinese government’s sustained and aggressive effort to infiltrate our military and undermine our national security from within,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement announcing the case. “The Justice Department will not stand by while hostile nations embed spies in our country – we will expose foreign operatives, hold their agents to account, and protect the American people from covert threats to our national security.”

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Officials identified the defendants as Yuance Chen, 38, who arrived in the U.S. on a visa in 2015 and later became a lawful permanent resident, and Liren “Ryan” Lai, 39, who prosecutors say lives in China but came to Texas this past spring as part of an effort to supervise clandestine espionage operations on behalf of China’s Ministry of State Security or MSS.

The two were arrested on charges of secretly doing China’s bidding without registering as foreign agents with the Justice Department, as required by law. It was not immediately clear if they had lawyers. A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately return a message seeking comment Tuesday.

According to an FBI affidavit filed in connection with the case, investigators believe Lai had been developing Chen to be a Chinese intelligence asset since at least mid-2021.

Their activities, the FBI says, included coordinating on a dead-drop of at least $10,000 in cash to another person operating at the direction of the MSS. They also conducted surveillance of a Navy recruiting station in California and Navy base in Washington state, including through photographs and videos that investigators believe were sent to Chinese intelligence.

Authorities say Lai and Chen also discussed recruiting Navy employees to work for China, with Chen obtaining during a tour of a Navy installation photographs of names and hometowns of recent recruits. Many listed China as their hometown and investigators believe the information was sent to China, the FBI affidavit says.

The case is one in a series of prosecutions concerning Chinese intelligence-gathering, including concerning the military.

Last year, for instance, the Justice Department charged five Chinese nationals with lying and trying to cover their tracks, more than a year after they were confronted in the dark near a remote Michigan military site where thousands of people had gathered for summer drills.

And in 2023, two Navy sailors were charged with providing sensitive military information to China, including details on wartime exercises, naval operations and critical technical material.