Today: Michigan reopens sentences for young offenders, while Congress struggles to keep its pace with AI.

In Michigan, prosecutors are pulling decades-old murder cases out of storage because the rules around sentencing young offenders have changed.

Some of those cases were considered finished 30 or 40 years ago.

Meanwhile, Washington is dealing with the opposite problem: trying to write rules for artificial intelligence before the technology changes again.

Lyndsay Keith speaks with NewsChannel 3 anchor Andy Dominianni about what Michigan’s changing sentencing rules mean for prosecutors, offenders and victims’ families.

Then, Capitol Hill reporter Ahtra Elnashar explains why lawmakers in both parties are debating AI safeguards, even as the White House favors a largely voluntary approach.

Michigan Is Reopening Murder Sentences, With Some Going Back Decades

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that mandatory life without parole for juvenile offenders violates the Eighth Amendment.

Michigan has since taken it a step further.

The Michigan Supreme Court extended protections against mandatory life without parole to 18-year-olds and later to people who were 19 or 20 when they committed first-degree murder. These rulings apply retroactively, meaning old sentences can be sent back to the court.

The court has also begun scrutinizing extremely long sentences imposed on juveniles that may function much like life without parole. In July, it ruled that a 50-year minimum sentence imposed on James Eads, who was 16 when he committed second-degree murder, was constitutionally problematic.

That means prosecutors are reopening cases that may predate the lawyers now responsible for handling them.

In his original NewsChannel 3 reporting, Andy Dominianni found that hundreds of Michigan prisoners could be affected.

One prosecutor showed Dominianni exactly what that looks like.

“(The prosecutor) showed me a stack of 50 boxes that had dust on them from the basement dating back to the 60s and 70s, even before he was born. So the workload for his staff just doubled because, of course, they have current cases, the future cases, and now they have boxes of old cases where they need to reconnect witnesses if they’re alive and findable.”

Those prosecutors may have to reconstruct police reports, locate witnesses and find surviving relatives before deciding what position to take in court.

And the cases are not abstract legal exercises.

Dominianni covered one of them himself more than 30 years ago.

Timothy Putman was a teenager when he was charged in the 1995 death of his 12-week-old niece. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and received a sentence of 30 to 60 years. His case is now among those that could receive another look.

The rationale behind these changes rests partly on research into adolescent brain development.

Courts have increasingly considered the fact that judgment, impulse control, and the understanding of consequences continue developing into early adulthood. They have also emphasized that young offenders may have a greater capacity for rehabilitation.

But that runs directly into another question:

How much should the severity of the crime matter?

For victims’ families, resentencing can mean reopening a case they believed was over.

And Michigan’s debate is part of a broader national shift. More states and courts are reconsidering where to draw the line between a juvenile and an adult when imposing the harshest punishments.

Subscribe now

Moving on to our next story:

Can Congress Regulate AI Before Something Goes Wrong?

Artificial intelligence is giving Washington the opposite timing problem. The tech is changing rapidly, but Congress is not.

President Donald Trump has favored voluntary safeguards over sweeping new federal AI regulations. Earlier this month, he brought tech executives to the White House for what he called a “morally binding” agreement involving safety controls and independent audits.

But the agreement actually carries no legal penalties for companies that fail to follow it.

Ahtra Elnashar says this has exposed a split in Washington.

Lawmakers pushing regulation want enforceable standards companies are legally required to follow.

Those opposed to moving quickly argue that aggressive rules could slow American innovation, particularly as the United States competes with China.

Elnashar has reported on lawmakers in both parties proposing AI safety legislation, even as congressional leaders and the White House remain wary of broad new regulation.

But underneath the policy disagreements is a more basic problem:

Congress has historically struggled to move quickly on technology, and Elnashar has seen that unfold firsthand.

“I started covering Capitol Hill two months before the COVID pandemic. Since then, I have only seen them move urgently once. And that was on the COVID pandemic, the CARES act, the stimulus. It often takes a crisis like that for Congress to feel the fire beneath their feet.”

For years, both sides of the aisle have argued that large technology platforms need stronger safeguards, particularly for children.

And yet, these proposals continue to stall, while AI continues advancing at a breakneck pace.

The Trump administration argues that regulation cannot slow the U.S.’s race for leadership in AI. Critics of that approach say “winning” the AI race is meaningless unless policymakers also define guidelines for responsible development.

“We cannot lose to China. Nothing is worth that. But I’ve also heard the argument that if America wins on AI, which again, no one can define what that is. If AI destroys humanity, you didn’t really beat China, right?”

Subscribe now

That’s the briefing for today.

When someone commits murder at 16, 18, or 20, how much should their age and capacity to change matter decades later?

And when it comes to AI, should Congress establish safeguards now that can be enforced, or wait until the risks are clearer, which could potentially be too late?

Join the conversation and tell us what’s happening in your community that deserves wider attention.

The National Press

Real reporting. From real America.

Are you affected by this story in your community? Do you have something you’d like to share? Write to us at hi@thenationalpress.com

When we talk about the growth of commercial spaceflight, we usually focus on what goes up.

Along the Gulf Coast, environmental groups and fishermen are asking a different question:

What comes back down?

Today: SpaceX debris is turning up along the Mexican Gulf Coast, raising questions about cleanup, environmental monitoring and who is responsible for what commercial spaceflight leaves behind.

Lyndsay Keith speaks with Fox San Antonio investigative reporter Yami Virgin, who has covered the Texas-Mexico border for decades, about debris being documented just across the Rio Grande from SpaceX’s Starbase.

Then, former NASA astronaut Daniel Tani helps put the larger debris problem in perspective as space launches and satellite traffic accelerate.

Subscribe now

What Comes Back Down After a SpaceX Launch?

Just across the Rio Grande from SpaceX’s Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, conservationists release endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtles into the Gulf from Playa Bagdad, Mexico.

They are the smallest sea turtles in the world and among the most endangered.

But the nonprofit helping protect them says it is finding something else along the same coastline: debris it associates with SpaceX launches and testing.

Conibio Global says it has documented plastic, foam, aluminum, wiring, tanks and other debris along nearly 25 miles of Mexican coastline.

Some pieces are small and sharp. Others are much larger.

Virgin says she has seen photographs of debris collected farther down the Mexican coast that required a truck to move.

Underwater surveys by Conibio Global have also identified submerged material the group believes is connected to rocket hardware.

That creates a striking image: conservationists trying to shepherd endangered turtles safely into the Gulf while finding pieces of the commercial space industry in the same environment.

What’s Happening in the Water?

The debris itself is visible.

The environmental impact is much harder to establish.

Fishermen interviewed by Fox San Antonio say red snapper and other species they once caught closer to Playa Bagdad have become harder to find. Some have estimated their fishing activity has declined dramatically.

But those claims have not been independently verified, and researchers have not established that SpaceX operations caused a decline in fish populations or harmed marine life.

Virgin says that distinction is essential.

“I need the facts, I need to look at the data. I want to see what they’ve sent into the government. We have also requested that from the EPA to see exactly what they’re testing.”

Virgin is also seeking environmental testing from Mexico so she can compare what regulators on both sides of the border are finding.

Conibio Global says its own testing has raised concerns about levels of chromium, copper and aluminum.

But Virgin says she wants independent records before drawing conclusions.

That is particularly important because SpaceX has disputed concerns about the toxicity of its debris, saying material tested after Starship incidents does not pose chemical, biological or toxicological risks.

At the time of Virgin’s interview with The National Press, she said SpaceX had not responded directly to her station’s requests for information about its reporting.

The Turtles Make the Stakes Easier to See

For Virgin, the Kemp’s ridley sea turtles are what make the environmental questions tangible.

She has taken her own children to South Padre Island to watch turtle releases.

The same species also nests along the Mexican side of the Gulf.

Conservationists are now asking whether changes to the coastline and surrounding waters could eventually affect where those turtles feed and reproduce.

Again, there is no established scientific link showing SpaceX operations are harming the turtles.

That is the question researchers would need data to answer.

Virgin says the nonprofit working in the area has also shown her photographs of injured dolphins and turtles, but she emphasized that her team has not independently collected or verified those animals as evidence of harm caused by SpaceX.

A Former Astronaut Puts the Risk in Perspective

Debris around a launch site is only one part of a much larger challenge created by the growth of spaceflight.

Former NASA astronaut Daniel Tani spent 120 days aboard the International Space Station and performed six spacewalks.

During one of them in 2007, he encountered metal shavings inside a mechanism that rotates the station’s solar arrays.

NASA eventually used adhesive Kapton tape to collect samples of the material so engineers could determine what was going wrong.

Tani is careful, though, to distinguish that kind of debris and the material falling around launch sites from orbital debris, the defunct satellites, spent rocket components and fragments moving around Earth at enormous speeds.

That problem is growing as the number of launches and satellites increases.

But Tani says it has not reached a crisis point.

“I don’t think that it’s eminent that things are going to run into each other. I think we’re well before that. And so I think the time is right.”

For Tani, the key is establishing standards before congestion becomes much worse.

He says satellite operators increasingly need common rules for what happens when a spacecraft reaches the end of its life, including how it is moved out of active orbits and how future spacecraft could be designed to make disposal easier.

And for people worried about objects literally falling from space, Tani offers some perspective.

Most spacecraft hardware burns up during atmospheric reentry, he says, and much of the planet below is ocean or sparsely populated land.

The space industry is growing faster than it ever has before, and governments, companies, and communities are still working out the rules for what gets left behind.

That means the conversation can no longer end with whether a rocket successfully reaches orbit.

It also has to include what happens to the hardware afterward, who monitors it, who cleans it up and what evidence should be required to determine whether the surrounding environment is being affected.

That’s the briefing for today.

As commercial spaceflight expands, how much responsibility should launch companies have for tracking and cleaning up what comes back down?

And should environmental monitoring around major launch sites become more transparent as launch frequency increases?

Join the conversation at TheNationalPress.com and tell us what’s happening in your community that deserves wider attention.

Thanks for spending part of your day with us.

Subscribe now

The National Press

Real reporting. From real America.

Are you affected by this story in your community? Do you have something you’d like to share? Write to us at hi@thenationalpress.com

Baltimore City Public Schools has a nearly $2 billion operating budget.

It is one of the highest-funded large school systems in the country.

And yet, investigative reporter Chris Papst says many of the district’s most important academic indicators have barely improved, or have gotten worse.

So where is the money going? And what does Baltimore tell us about the limits of simply spending more on struggling schools?

Today: Lyndsay Keith speaks with Papst, the lead investigative reporter for FOX45’s Project Baltimore, who has spent nearly a decade examining public education in Maryland.

Subscribe now

Baltimore Is Spending More on Schools. Why Aren’t the Results Following?

Baltimore City Public Schools has approved a $1.95 billion operating budget for the 2026-27 school year.

When Project Baltimore launched in 2017, Chris Papst says the district was spending substantially less while educating more students.

Since then, funding has risen sharply while enrollment has fallen.

The results have been far less dramatic.

“More money to educate fewer kids, but yet the educational outcomes are simply not getting better. Now the main educational outcome that people look at is graduation rates. In 2017, the graduation rate in Baltimore City Schools was 71%. The graduation rate right now, in 2026, is 72%.”

Papst says attendance is lower than when Project Baltimore began, chronic absenteeism is higher, and average SAT scores have declined.

Baltimore has also consistently ranked among the country’s highest-spending large school districts on a per pupil basis.

That makes it a useful case study for a much bigger question:

What happens when a school system gets more money, but student outcomes don’t improve at the same pace?

Where Is the Money Going?

Papst says the overwhelming majority goes to people: salaries, benefits, and pensions.

But he argues the more important question is which positions are growing.

In recent years, Maryland public schools have added thousands of employees even as enrollment has declined. Papst says non-instructional positions have grown faster than teaching positions.

He also points to the way school funding is structured.

Schools generally receive money based heavily on enrollment. That funding is not directly tied to whether an individual student becomes proficient in reading or math.

Papst says that creates a problem of incentives.

“The incentive structure that has been set up is one where the student doesn’t have to learn for the schools to get the money.”

His argument is that the system rewards enrollment more directly than it rewards achievement.

Papst also points out Baltimore’s grading policy as an example of how schools try to keep struggling students moving toward graduation.

Under what he calls the “50 percent rule,” students cannot receive below a 50% for a marking period, even if they complete no work.

“The student never has to show up, never has to take a test, never has to do an assignment, and that student will get half credit for that course.”

The logic is that a zero can make it almost impossible for a student to recover later.

Papst argues the tradeoff is lower expectations.

He says teachers have told him some students understand the system well enough to calculate how much work they can skip and still pass.

Papst has also spent years looking at schools that succeed despite serving many of the same students and communities.

One Maryland elementary school he profiled sends teachers to students’ homes before the school year begins.

They meet parents, see where students live and establish a relationship before the first day of class.

Papst says the school continues to outperform state averages despite serving a high-poverty student population.

For him, that is evidence that outcomes are not determined by money or demographics alone.

Baltimore’s school district says its current budget is investing heavily in literacy, math, tutoring, counselors, and special education.

Maryland education leaders also point to recent incremental improvements in statewide test scores.

But Papst argues the larger system has changed very little.

“It’s the same system as when I went to school. I graduated high school in 1998 and it’s the same public education system, when the world has drastically changed.”

The harder question is what happens after the money arrives.

What does the system reward? What happens inside the classroom? And how should taxpayers measure whether the investment is actually working?

Baltimore City Public Schools’ approved operating budget for the 2026-27 school year.

Papst’s reporting asks whether the size of that $1.95 billion investment is translating into the outcomes parents and taxpayers expect.

That’s the briefing for today.

If your local school district received a major funding increase, what result would convince you it was working?

Higher test scores? Better attendance? More students reading at grade level?

Join the conversation at TheNationalPress.com and tell us what’s happening in your community that deserves wider attention.

Thanks for spending part of your day with us.

The National Press

Real reporting. From real America.

Subscribe now

Are you affected by this story in your community? Do you have something you’d like to share? Write to us at hi@thenationalpress.com