HERMOSILLO, Mexico (AP) — The U.S.-Mexico border is preparing to reopen to cattle exports, with ranchers in northern Mexico cautiously looking north. After a yearlong ban over concerns about the New World screwworm, they hope to once again be able to send their cattle to the U.S.

HONOLULU (AP) — Tropical Storm Moke advanced toward Hawaii Saturday, likely bringing more heavy rainfall and strong gusts to the Big Island, where residents are still dealing with the aftermath of heavy flooding and damaging winds from Hurricane Lala.

Moke, which formed Friday in the Pacific Ocean, was located about 470 miles (755 kilometers) southeast of Hilo, moving west-northwest at 12 mph (19 kph), as of 5 a.m. on Saturday in Hawaii. Maximum sustained winds were around 50 mph (85 kph), the National Hurricane Center said.

As with Hurricane Lala, the Big Island is expected to bear the brunt of Moke’s rain and heavy winds as it passes south of a direct hit late Saturday into early Sunday.

Moke will then continue its westward path near the islands through early Tuesday, said Casey Oswant, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Honolulu.

“There will still be impacts, especially to the windward and southeast sides of the Big Island, but it will probably be a little bit more limited than what we saw with Lala,” Oswant said.

Lala downed trees, swept buildings off their foundations, damaged roads and bridges and left roads covered in mud and rocks. One storm-related death was reported.

Rainfall predictions for this weekend for the southeast and windward sides of the Big Island were 5 to 10 inches (13 to 25 centimeters), with as much as 15 inches (38 centimeters) in isolated areas, Oswant said. Across the rest of the island chain, 1 to 2 inches (2 to 5 centimeters) of rain was expected, though parts of east Maui could see up to 4 inches (10 centimeters), she said.

There were no coastal watches or warnings in effect early Saturday morning, but people were urged to closely monitor the storm’s progress. The rainfall has the potential to cause dangerous rip currents, life-threatening flooding and mudslides, especially in steep areas and places where the ground remains saturated, the center said.

The northeast coast of the Big Island saw the heaviest total rainfall from Lala, at 43.54 inches (1.1 meters), according to the weather service. About 9,000 customers on the Big Island remained without power Saturday, according to poweroutage.us.

Hawaii Gov. Josh Green and other state officials held a news conference ahead of Moke, urging people to prepare by restocking food, medicine and other essentials.

“There’s definitely tension in the air” at the thought of more rain in communities that floodwaters turned into rivers, said Tiffany Edwards Hunt, a teacher living in Keaau, on the east side of the Big Island.

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Associated Press writer Alexa St. John contributed from Detroit.

WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) — An arrest warrant has been issued for a mental health advocate who remained missing Saturday, more than four days after police found the Massachusetts officer she had been married to dead in their home.

Karen Solomon, 58, was last spotted in a doorbell camera video, walking down a street in a T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops early Tuesday morning, just minutes after Worcester police officers responded to a call from the home where Kurt Solomon was found dead.

Worcester Police Chief Paul Saucier said the warrant charges Karen Solomon with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. Saucier said Kurt Solomon, a 31-year-veteran officer, was mortally injured with a sharp object — he wouldn’t say what. Meanwhile the city of Worcester said Friday that public spaces around Coes Pond will remain closed as a search involving dive teams and police dogs continues.

“Kurt was a hell of a guy. He was an awesome police officer and an awesome person, and he’s going to be truly missed,” Saucier said. A wake will be held on Tuesday and his funeral on Wednesday, the chief said.

Karen Solomon wrote two books about the physical and psychological experiences of first responders and helped start First H.E.L.P., an organization that advocates for their mental health. The Solomons shared a home and had been married, court records indicated, but authorities declined to discuss their current relationship, citing domestic violence privacy rules.

Early Motown songwriter Janie Bradford Hobbs, who helped pen hits including “Money (That’s What I Want)” and “Too Busy Thinking About My Baby,” has died following an extended illness at a Los Angeles hospital, her family said Saturday. She was 87.

Bradford Hobbs was born in Charleston, Missouri, and later moved to Detroit.

She was introduced in the late 1950s to Motown founder Berry Gordy by neighbor and singer Jackie Wilson. She joined Motown as a receptionist in 1958 and like many of the company’s employees took part in the creative process that helped make Motown a music industry powerhouse.

She and Gordy co-wrote “Money (That’s What I Want).” The song was recorded in 1959 by Barrett Strong and became an early hit. It was covered by The Beatles and also became one of that group’s hits.

“Too Busy Thinking About My Baby” first was recorded by The Temptations and later became a hit for Marvin Gaye. Bradford Hobbs also wrote songs for Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, Martha & The Vandellas and others.

“Janie was there with me from the very beginning, before there was even a Motown, and she will always hold a very special place in my heart and in the Motown family,” Gordy said in a statement.

“Janie was one of a special group I have always thought of as the original Motown family — the unsung heroes who believed in the dream before anyone knew what Motown would become,” Gordy continued. “She was one of the people who helped make Motown what it became.”

Bradford Hobbs later became head of Writer Relations for Jobete, Motown’s publishing company. After leaving Motown, she founded the annual Heroes and Legends Awards. The event spanned about 30 years, honoring music icons and awarding scholarships, according to her family.

She is survived by her husband, Wardean Hobbs; daughter, Nicole Hobbs; son, Lance Finney; and two grandsons. Funeral services have not been completed.

CHICAGO (AP) — President Donald Trump’s barrage of tariffs — and threats of even more — has strained the United States’ longstanding relationship with Canada.

Over the course of his second term in office, Trump has threatened Canada’s economy and sovereignty with steep new import taxes on its goods. He’s gone as far as suggesting that his northern neighbor could be “the 51st state.” That rhetoric — paired with volleys of on-again, off-again new tariffs — has outraged Canadians, whose government has responded with its own retaliatory measures. All the while, uncertainty for businesses and consumers across both sides of the border only grows.

Most recently, Trump followed through on a threat to impose 50% U.S. tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian imports. Those levies kicked in Saturday after last-ditch negotiations failed, and Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney quickly promised to match the new import taxes.

Here’s a timeline of how we got here.

On his first day back in office, Trump says he expects to put 25% tariffs on imports from Canada.

The president later signs an executive order to impose 25% tariffs on imports from Canada starting Feb. 4, 2025 — invoking this power by declaring a national emergency over undocumented immigration and drug trafficking. Outgoing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promises retaliatory levies.

But the tariffs soon get pushed back, cooling tensions at least temporarily. Trump first agrees to a 30-day pause, and more limited tariffs on Canadian imports kick in March 4. Within days, the U.S. rolls out an additional exemption for automakers and postpones the 25% tariff on goods that comply with the US-Mexico Canada Agreement, a trade pact from Trump’s first term.

Meanwhile, worldwide, Trump’s new steel and aluminum tariffs — which now tax imports of both metals at 25% — still go into effect. Canada imposes more retaliatory tariffs worth $29.8 billion Canadian dollars ($20.7 billion) on U.S. imports.

Trump announces his long-promised “reciprocal” tariffs on nearly all of America’s trading partners on April 2, 2025, but doesn’t unveil additional levies on Canada.

Trump soon faces legal challenges to these sweeping tariffs he invoked emergency powers to impose — which beyond “reciprocal” levies, include the 25% rate he slapped on Canadian goods earlier in the year. The U.S. Court of International Trade rules that Trump overstepped his authority in late May 2025, but a federal appeals court quickly halts that order temporarily.

Meanwhile, separate sectoral levies continue to pile up worldwide. Trump’s sweeping 25% tariffs on auto imports also begin in April 2025, and Canada’s Carney responds by matching the 25% rate with a tariff on non-USMCA compliant vehicles imported from the U.S.

Trump’s new 50% tariffs of nearly all foreign steel and aluminum later take effect in June 2025. Carney similarly threatens to impose new tariffs on U.S. steel and aluminum starting in July, pending progress of trade talks. Negotiations hit a temporary snag after Trump takes aim at Canada’s plans to continue with a tax on tech firms, which Carney soon walks back on.

Trade tensions bubble up again in the second half of the year. Trump threatens and then imposes a heightened 35% tariff rate on a range of Canadian goods starting Aug. 1, 2025. Globally, the U.S.’s new 50% levy on imported copper also kicks in the same day.

Later that month, Carney says Canada will drop many of its retaliatory tariffs to match U.S. exemptions for goods covered under the USMCA pact. Critics decry the move as capitulation to Trump, but the prime minister maintains Canada is in a good position and that such exemptions would jump-start further trade talks.

All the while, Trump imposes more tariffs worldwide in the coming weeks and months and ends the “de minimis” rule on Aug. 29 for low-value imports coming into the U.S.

In late October, Carney outlines plans for Canada to double its non-U.S. exports in the next decade, citing the affects of Trump’s tariffs. Separately, Trump’s anger over a television ad opposing U.S. tariffs leads him to pull the plug on all trade talks with Canada. Ontario Premier Doug Ford, whose provincial government paid for the ad, later says he’ll pull it so talks may resume, although Trump still threatens an added 10% tariff.

Trump’s legal fight over the tariffs he imposed using emergency powers eventually makes it to the Supreme Court, with arguments in November. In February, a 6-3 decision strikes down those import taxes — including country-specific levies imposed on Canada. Trump quickly enacts a temporary 10% global levy using a different law.

U.S.-Canada trade relations had been souring ahead of that ruling. Notably in January, Canada’s Carney focuses on mending trading ties with China — and in a break from the U.S., soon agrees to cut Canadian tariffs on Chinese EVs. An angry Trump later threatens an (eventually unrealized) 100% tariff on Canadian goods that he says he will impose if Canada moves forward with a trade deal with China, but Carney says his country has no intention of pursuing a more sweeping agreement.

Trump at one point also threatens a 50% levy on Canadian aircraft sold to the U.S., but that similarly goes unrealized. He also later threatened to block the opening of a new Canadian-built bridge across the Detroit River.

Negotiations to renew the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, kick off in March — and ahead of the official July 1 review date, Canada calls for the pact to be renewed for 16 years.

But the outlook remains cloudy. And the U.S. eventually rules that it’s not ready to renew that pact for that length of time, leaving the current USMCA in effect until at least its 2036 expiration date.

Then later in July, Trump threatens to impose even steeper tariffs on Canada. He says the U.S. will slap 50% levies on many Canadian goods — including those previously-protected under the USMCA — while claiming that Canada unfairly discriminates against U.S. automobiles, alcohol and dairy products.

Those levies were originally slated to start kicking in Aug. 19. Trump declared the U.S. had reached a deal with Canada to delay the taxes until at least Saturday (Aug. 22), but its key terms weren’t disclosed, and when last-minute negotiations failed, the new tariffs kicked in just after midnight.

The 50% tariffs tax about 5% of what Canada ships to the United States every year, including products that range from hockey sticks to tongue depressors. Carney promises to match them “dollar for dollar” with retaliatory tariffs taking effect Sept. 8.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Nancy Kassebaum Baker, a Kansas governor’s daughter who became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate without following a spouse into office, has died. She was 94.

Kassebaum Baker died Friday of natural causes, according to her son, Bill Kassebaum.

“She loved Kansas. She loved people from Kansas and representing Kansas for 18 years in the U.S. Senate,” he told The Associated Press. “She was an independent-minded Republican who was willing to stand up for what she thought was right, even if that meant going against the party.”

She was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1978 and served three terms. Her modest demeanor endeared her to voters of all political stripes, though she shared the moderate, progressive Republican politics of her father, Gov. Alf Landon, the unsuccessful 1936 GOP nominee for president. Even after leaving the Senate early in 1997, she continued taking on public service roles.

She married former Sen. Howard Baker, a Tennessee Republican, in 1996. He died in 2014.

Kassebaum Baker remained an icon for Kansans generally. She could work with Senate colleagues of all political philosophies, and a 1996 health insurance law bore her name, along with that of liberal Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy.

Her election to the Senate brought her immediate national attention. When she announced her retirement, she was among eight women senators and the only one to chair a Senate committee, the Labor and Human Resources panel.

She was also in a dwindling bloc of moderate-to-liberal Republicans, having supported for example a ban on assault weapons championed by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat.

Yet she never polarized Kansas conservatives as other GOP moderates did. She connected with voters because she never seemed caught up in the trappings of power, and when she retired, she acknowledged, “I’d rather cuddle up and do needlepoint all day.”

She was born on July 29, 1932, as her father, an oilman from Independence, was running for the first of his two terms as governor. She earned a political science degree from the University of Kansas and a master’s degree in diplomatic history from the University of Michigan in the mid-1950s.

She was a radio-station executive, spent a year in the 1970s on the staff of Kansas Sen. James Pearson and served on the school board in the Wichita suburb of Maize. She had four children with her first husband, Phil Kassebaum, including Bill, who served a term in the Kansas House. The marriage ended in divorce in 1979.

When Kassebaum Baker decided to run for the U.S. Senate, she figured that “a woman with a background different from a man might be appealing” to people growing weary of politics. Pundits at the time estimated a Senate race would require the then-huge-for-Kansas sum of $1 million. In the first quarter of 1978, she spent less than $12,000 on her campaign, and saw herself “at the bottom of the totem pole.”

However, nine candidates crowded the primary field, including three state senators and a prominent Wichita businessman. Kassebaum Baker won the GOP nomination with less than 31 percent of the vote.

Running as Nancy Landon Kassebaum, she won almost 54 percent of the vote that November against former two-term Democratic congressman Bill Roy.

Her moderate politics quickly came to the fore, when only months later, she refused to endorse an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to require a balanced budget.

“We should be wary of the seemingly simple solution,” she said.

Her father, who would die at age 100 in 1987, still cast a long political shadow during her first years in office. Though he’d overwhelmingly lost the 1936 presidential race to Democratic incumbent Franklin Roosevelt, he later became an elder statesman for the party. A lecture series named for him at Kansas State University attracted presidents and foreign leaders.

Kassebaum Baker became even more popular in her time. She won re-election in 1984 with 76 percent of the vote and in 1990 with 74 percent of the vote.

But she frustrated conservative activists, despite her popularity. She said her vote in favor of the assault weapons ban inspired the angriest mail of her career.

She’d contemplated not seeking a third term, but Republican leaders had prevailed upon her to run one more time. In 1996, when she decided not to seek re-election, she said she would return to a ranch and 90-year-old farmhouse in Kansas’ scenic Flint Hills and babysit her grandchildren — she had seven, as well as two great-grandchildren.

When there briefly was talk of naming a new highway in Topeka after her, she said, “Oh, goodness. Absolutely not — no.”

She and Baker kept their romance low-key, and speculation about a possible marriage didn’t emerge until mid-1996, in a Washington Post story. They married that December.

It was the first time a man and a woman who had both served in the Senate had wed. Baker was elected to three terms and served from 1967 to 1985 before becoming President Ronald Reagan’s chief of staff. His first wife, Joy, had died in 1993 after a long battle with cancer.

After the marriage, public service still beckoned, including as a member of a bipartisan commission on campaign finance reform under Clinton and on a British commission in Africa in 2004-05.

President George W. Bush named her husband ambassador to Japan in 2001, and she went with him for the four-year posting. Baker said she became an important figure in the Asian nation.

Before she left for Tokyo, she told a reporter she saw her stint in Japan as an adventure but added, “All I can say is, I will miss the Kansas prairie.”

Later in life, Kassebaum Baker broke with the Republican Party as it became more conservative, endorsing Democratic candidates for Kansas governor and U.S. senator, including Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly both times — even though Kelly’s 2022 GOP opponent, then state-Attorney General Derek Schmidt, had worked on her Senate staff.

She also declared in 2021 that President Donald Trump should be impeached after Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol hoping to stop congressional certification of Trump’s defeat in 2020 by Democrat Joe Biden.

“This just has gone too far,” she told Kansas City’s KMBC.

A federal judge in New York has vacated a Trump administration policy that suspended the processing of visas from 75 countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, Russia and Somalia, whose nationals the Trump administration deemed likely to require public assistance in the United States.

U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, set aside the policy Friday as “contrary to law and in excess of statutory authority.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio exceeded his authority by issuing the policy, which “runs afoul” of the Immigration and Nationality Act by mandating “the refusal of visas to eligible applicants without any basis in law,” the judge ruled.

Vargas said the policy also undermines the congressional requirement that puts consular officers at the forefront of any visa decision.

“Congress imbued these officers with exclusive authority and discretion to determine if an immigrant is eligible for a visa based upon review of specific and detailed criteria set forth in the statute,” she wrote. “The Policy, which categorically prohibits the issuance of immigrant visas based upon the nationality of the applicant, represents a direct abrogation of this statutory scheme.”

The policy was challenged by two nonprofit organizations along with 11 individuals, including six whose family members had been refused visas. The remaining five are outside the country and had filed “employment-based petitions” to come to the United States.

“We welcome this ruling because, at its heart, this case is about keeping families together,” said Anna Gallagher, the executive director of CLINIC, a national nonprofit that provides training, resources, and support to a network of immigration legal service providers and was one of the plaintiffs.

“Catholic social teaching calls us to uphold the dignity of every person and recognize the family as the foundation of society,” she said in a statement. “This decision affirms both those values and the rule of law, allowing families to once again move forward toward reunification.”

Another plaintiff is African Communities Together, a Harlem-based nonprofit. One of its leaders called the ruling “a tremendous victory for the rule of law.”

“This unlawful and racist ban caused immeasurable harm, cruelly keeping families and loved ones apart,” Diana Konate, deputy executive director for policy and advocacy, said in a statement. “Today, we are elated to tell our community members: this ban is no more.”

President Donald Trump has imposed a growing list of immigration and travel bans mostly for people from Africa, Asia and Latin America. The State Department said Saturday that the Trump administration is “protecting the American people by upholding the highest standards of screening and vetting of visa applicants,” and that it would not comment on pending litigation.

At the time the policy was issued, the State Department said it had instructed consular officers to halt immigrant visa applications from the 75 countries in accordance with a broader order in November that tightened rules around potential immigrants who might become “public charges.” Relying on Council of Economic Advisers data, the State Department said that more than 30 percent of households with immigrants from these countries received some form of public assistance.

A separate notice sent to all U.S. embassies and consulates said that non-immigrant visa applicants also should be “fully vetted and screened” for the possibility that they might seek public benefits in the United States.

The cable, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, noted several times that the applicant must prove they won’t apply for public benefits while in the U.S., and that consular officers who suspect the applicant might apply should require them to fill out a form proving their financial bona fides.

The ruling is the latest example of the courts upending Trump’s immigration agenda. In June, a federal judge struck down a Trump administration policy that made it harder for immigrants from dozens of countries to enter and stay in America — affecting elements like asylum, work permits, green cards, and citizenship applications. That judge said the policy threw countless immigrants’ lives “into indeterminate legal limbo,” and accused the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services of ignoring the law.

Bitcoin and gold shot higher this week, with both getting a boost from some frantic action surrounding the bond market, and the cryptocurrency also benefiting from activity in Washington.

Bitcoin had dropped from a January high around $95,000 to below $60,000 at the end of June. Investors shied away from speculative assets earlier in the year and crypto supporters were concerned about the lack of movement on proposed regulation of the industry. On Friday, bitcoin rose above $77,000.

Gold hit a high above $5,300 in January but dropped to around $4,000 in June as rising rates made interest-bearing investments more attractive. Gold rose to $4,661 on Friday.

The first jolt arrived Wednesday when the Treasury Department announced plans to significantly increase its buybacks of long-term Treasurys, or government debt. On the same day, President Donald Trump, who made about $1.2 billion last year from various crypto holdings, urged Congress to move quickly on crypto legislation.

There was an almost immediate reaction, which included a dollar sell-off, and a jump in the value of gold and bitcoin as investors moved toward alternative assets.

How these two investments caught fire can be understood in the context of several developments this week.

In a surprise announcement Wednesday, the U.S. Treasury Department said that it would at least double the size of its planned purchases of longer-term government debt. The maneuver was intended to calm bond markets after a sustained sell-off, meaning investors were asking for higher yields to lend money to the U.S., which suddenly seemed more risky.

That’s because while the Treasury intervention worked, at least for a short period, it also raised questions about whether the government is trying to push borrowing costs lower despite inflationary pressures. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is attempting to lower long-term borrowing costs, a move that can put upward pressure on inflation at a time when inflation is already elevated. Bessent’s maneuver could handcuff the Federal Reserve, which fights inflation by raising interest rates.

Then there’s the national debt, which surpassed a record $40 trillion on the same day that the Treasury’s actions unfolded. The milestone figure was recorded just five months after the U.S. hit a record $39 trillion debt in March. It reached $38 trillion five months before that, in October.

There is already a lot of anxiety over inflation, particularly because of the conflict in Iran and soaring energy prices. If yields on U.S. bonds are not truly reflecting risk, you can often see that play out in the value of the U.S. currency, which took a significant downward swoop Wednesday.

So where does the money that was invested in the dollar or Treasurys go? This week, it appears to have been funneled into what is known as the “debasement trade,” when investors flood into alternative assets such as gold, which rose more than 2% Wednesday. The debasement trade now includes bitcoin. Bitcoin jumped more than 20% this week.

On Wednesday President Donald Trump, who banked nearly $1.2 billion from his crypto businesses last year, held a crypt conference at the White House where he called on Congress to pass the crypto-friendly Clarity Act, saying that it would “keep us ahead of China, keep us ahead of everyone else.”

Trump then yielded the floor to Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Mike Selig, who vowed to “use every tool available” to advance Trump’s agenda.

Selig’s comments came ahead of a CFTC meeting Thursday examining ways the agency can use its existing authority to ease crypto rules. A day earlier, other regulators proposed rules making it easier for crypto companies and projects to raise money from the public.

Since taking office, Trump has pushed policies friendly to the crypto industry and reversed a Biden administration regulatory crackdown.

Bitcoin can sometimes get a bump when the U.S. dollar is on the ropes as investors try to unload the U.S. currency. But you don’t typically see the kind of related movement that was observed with bitcoin this week.

The price of bitcoin had been stuck between $62,000 and $67,000 for weeks. Investors seized on that weakness, many placing bets that the cryptocurrency would be stuck in that range for some time to come.

However, on the day that the Treasury announced its buybacks, Treasury yields fell, as did the dollar, and bitcoin blasted through that upper level of $67,000.

The Treasury’s actions negatively affected the money investors could make on U.S. bonds and the dollar, and boosted the value of bitcoin. That meant that many investors who had shorted bitcoin, or bet that its price would remain subdued, were forced to close their positions as bitcoin surged. Closing those bearish positions required buying back the digital asset, adding even more upward pressure to bitcoin’s price.

By Friday, more than $4 billion in bearish crypto positions had been liquidated during the rally, according to CoinGlass, which tracks cryptocurrency derivatives markets.

And because bitcoin was already rising, those forced purchases added fuel to the rally, potentially triggering still more liquidations as prices climbed.

Hand grip strength. Balance tests. Standing up from a seated position on the floor. These physical challenges are often touted as measurements of healthy aging and even predictors of longevity.

They can provide valuable indications of your stamina and strength. They can estimate the risk of falls, which increase older adults ‘ risk of death. And they’re useful to doctors who work to address aging or people with injuries.

But they’re no crystal ball.

“A poor or declining result is a reason for a health professional to investigate why function is changing, rather than gauging how long someone will live,” said Auriel Willette, an expert on brain aging at Rutgers University.

Here’s a look at what mobility tests entail and how to apply the results to your health.

“Sit-to-stand” tests come in several forms. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 30-second chair-stand test is designed for patients older than 60, to see how many times they can stand up in that time period.

Another test, popularized on social media, asks someone to move from standing, to sitting cross-legged on the ground, and then back up to standing. Making your way down to the floor is worth 5 points, as is standing up, for a total score of 10. You lose a point for each support you use (such as a hand or knee) and half a point if you’re unsteady. The score is zero if you’re unable to sit or stand without external help.

Doctors said they haven’t seen the test used with older U.S. adults, but researchers in Brazil published studies in 2020 and 2025 that concluded middle-aged people who scored higher were less likely to die within about a decade.

Many American doctors use a test called “Timed Up and Go,” or TUG. It requires the patient to get up from a chair, walk 10 feet (3 meters) and come back to their seat. That allows doctors to evaluate a person’s balance, mobility and lower extremity strength all at once.

Dr. George Hennawi, who treats older adults at MedStar Health in Baltimore, said all the tests are meant to pinpoint specific weaknesses and narrow down their underlying cause, whether that’s knee pain, slow reflexes, poor balance or feeling winded or dizzy because of cardiovascular issues.

“The key to react to it is to understand where did we not do well,” he said.

Tests like the viral sit-to-stand one are what doctors call screening tools. They’re helpful in narrowing down issues, but they don’t provide enough information for a full diagnosis.

Other popular tests for a person’s “physiological age,” or how your body is aging, include tests of grip strength, walking speed, gait steadiness and balance. Such tests look at how hard your hand can squeeze something, whether you favor one side while walking, how long and well can you stand on one leg and how far forward can you reach without becoming unsteady.

Many doctors also use these challenges to understand a person’s risk for “frailty,” a medical condition that means the body is less able to handle strain from illness or injury.

Doctors sometimes use a 10-minute assessment called the Short Physical Performance Battery, which includes several tests including gait, balance and strength. It was developed by the National Institute on Aging and large clinical trials have shown it predicts mortality, disability and more.

At the University of California, Los Angeles’ Multidisciplinary Falls Clinic, Dr. David Lee said it’s important to look across multiple tests in combination. Grip strength, for example, is predictive of many different things, but it can be affected by arthritis, stroke or even simply not conditioning those muscles.

“It’s one measure of many,” Lee said.

Experts note that strength and mobility are just one part of healthy aging. Tests of cognition, memory, hearing, eyesight and many other measures are key to evaluating how someone is aging.

They also cautioned against training to pass a test. Instead, keep the big picture in mind. Exercise your whole body. Eat nutritious meals. Address stress in a healthy way. Prioritize your sleep. Take care of your heart.

Finally, experts said it’s important to know the context in which a test has been studied and verified. If it’s shown to predict an outcome for one age group, the performance standards won’t necessarily apply to others.

If you score poorly in a mobility test and are concerned about your fall risk, or have recently fallen, talk to your doctor. The test results are the first step in determining if you need an assistive device, physical therapy, a change in medications or something else, said Emily Nabors, a falls prevention expert with The National Council on Aging.

She cited one estimate that more than a quarter of older adults fall each year, but most of them don’t tell their doctor about it.

“If you’ve fallen, you might feel fine,” she said, “but you might not be fine at all.”

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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.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — “Do they still like Trump in Nebraska? I think so,” the president said during a recent event in Washington.

Given that the state easily backed Republican Donald Trump three times and hasn’t supported a Democrat for the White House since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, the answer may seem obvious.

But in Nebraska’s largest city, it’s an open question and could decide one of the country’s most-watched congressional races. Retiring Rep. Don Bacon ’s open seat pits fellow Republican and Omaha City Councilmember Brinker Harding against Democratic activist Denise Powell.

The district encompasses an increasingly Democratic-leaning Omaha metro area of 1 million-plus and its more conservative suburbs — famous for steaks and the Reuben sandwich’s birthplace, though New York disputes that.

It’s one of just eight districts nationwide that elected Republicans in House races while supporting Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris over Trump two years ago.

Harding and Powell have been making the rounds at parades and festivals where meat raffles offer oversized sausages as prizes. However, those on-the-ground appeals could be drowned out by Trump who, like most things in politics, has moved to shape November’s midterm elections in his own image.

The president is organizing a Republican midterm convention in Dallas next month that will serve as much a two-day rally for him as a boon to party candidates nationwide. Trump is also frequently visiting tightly contested districts, despite his low approval ratings and the unpopular war in Iran.

While Trump centers himself, Democrats are happy to oblige.

When Powell knocks on doors to talk to voters, she asks, “What’s keeping you up at night?” On a sweaty Saturday afternoon, John Rosseter responded without hesitation. “Well, Trump.”

“I want to see the history books written years from now,” said Rosseter, 67, who owns a carpentry business. “They won’t be pretty.”

Nebraska splits its presidential electoral votes, and the 2nd Congressional District’s delegate has gone to Democrats three out of five times since 2008, making it a “ blue dot ” in an otherwise Republican red state. But a Democrat has won the House seat just once since 1994.

Harding plays up Trump’s primary endorsement, and House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise campaigned for him. Harding said he has “the full confidence of, not only the White House, but leadership in the Congress.”

He has also tried to appeal to swing voters and says he knows the district better than does Powell, co-founder of Women Who Run Nebraska, which supports female candidates.

Two possible Democratic 2028 presidential candidates — ex-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Rahm Emanuel, an ex-Chicago mayor who was President Barack Obama’s first White House chief of staff — have campaigned with Powell.

She talks about how Medicare cuts have increased anxiety about affordability. Powell also points to Trump and his family’s business dealings as an example of “the choices that they have made while people on the ground are struggling” and she says that resonates with Republicans.

“Even the ones who aren’t necessarily anti-Trump,” Powell said, “understand the need for checks and balances.”

Jason Brown and his wife, Ruth Huebner-Brown, caused a sensation in 2024 by spray painting about 50 reused lawn signs with blue dots and distributing them around Omaha’s Dundee neighborhood. The couple has since expanded to professionally produce signs promoting a “Blue Dot Wave.”

Brown said the Republican-controlled Congress has capitulated on “every Trump nominee, every Trump policy, all the way down to putting gilding gold on statues.”

Supporters of Harding have countered with red “Brinker Dot” signs.

“We need to make sure that we keep this country on the track to being even better,” Harding said.

Jack Hosking, the 90-year-old retired former head of a title insurance company, organizes a weekly coffee to discuss political and community issues. He estimated that about 70% of attendees are Trump voters and “maybe even more so lately, because of the crap that the New York mayor started,” referring to Zohran Mamdani’s efforts at pushing the Democratic Party to the left.

Both Powell and Harding have addressed Hosking’s group, though, and he predicted that as much as half will support the Democrat.

“She spoke well enough that, my sense is, a lot of them will cross over,” Hosking said, noting that when it came to campaigning, “Brinker’s not doing much.”

The Republican National Committee views Trump as a national asset, betting he can prevent complacency in a year without a presidential race, when enthusiasm for the party in power typically wanes.

The committee rebranded its “Young Guns” program for key candidates to “MAGA Majority” in deference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement, and many congressional candidates will be at the Dallas convention with Trump.

Others aren’t waiting that long.

Republican Reps. Mike Lawler of New York and Tom Barrett of Michigan, whom Democrats are aiming to unseat, both appeared with Trump during his rallies in their districts. When the president visited Macungie, Pennsylvania, in June, he joined Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, saying, “I’m here for him.”

Trump also traveled to the Wisconsin district of Republican Rep. Derreck Van Orden, as have Cabinet members.

Rep. Juan Ciscomani, facing a reelection fight, appeared with Trump during an April event in Arizona. Two Iowa Republicans in what could be toss-up reelection contests, Reps Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, both were by Trump’s side when he kicked off his midterm campaign outside Des Moines.

Bacon sometimes defied the White House in his final term. He criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and tried to curb Trump’s ability to impose tariffs and was the only House Republican who opposed renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

Mary Jane Truemper, who heads the Nebraska Republican Party, said Powell and the state’s Democrats have moved too far to the left. She called Harding “a steady force” and said the nominee is not as fond of picking high-profile fights the way Bacon sometimes was.

“I think he speaks to the moderate Democrats as well as the Republicans,” said Truemper, who managed Bacon’s reelection campaign in 2018 and also worked for an unsuccessful primary challenger to him.

Even Powell said, “Don Bacon was a good representative of this district, and I think that there are a lot of people drawn to a pragmatic style of leadership in a state like ours.” But that may not be enough this year.

“People are worse off than they were before,” Powell said.

In the Elmwood Park neighborhood, Andy Maxwell, a 58-year-old pediatrician, said he likes to find the middle ground in politics and his community. But he recalled that, after putting up a Biden sign in his yard in 2020, his neighbors erected a Trump one.

“We don’t like all the turmoil part of it,” Maxwell said of politics nationally.

Nearby, 80-year-old Jerard Pearson called Democrats “feckless,” but said of Trump’s base supporters, “I’ve always been curious about this one-third level of crazy out there, a third of the population.” He is also no fan of a neighbor’s large “Harding for Congress” sign.

Truemper said Harding appreciates Trump’s endorsement but Nebraskans like to be wooed “person-to-person, rather than a national entity coming in.”

“Is that going to be the deciding factor?” she asked of Trump. “I don’t know.”