TODAY’S IMMIGRATION story

US Catholic bishops rebuke Trump deportation push

What happened
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops yesterday issued a rare “special message” that implicitly rebuked President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown. The pastoral statement — approved 216-5, with three abstentions — came at the end of the bishops’ annual meeting in Baltimore. The last time the Catholic bishops “invoked this particularly urgent way of speaking,” the USCCB noted, was in 2013, in response to the Obama administration’s contraceptive coverage mandate.

Who said what
The message did not call out Trump by name, but it was clearly a “public reproach of his immigration policies,” Axios said. The government’s treatment of immigrants, including “arbitrarily” revoking legal statuses, separating families and denying sacraments, is creating a “climate of fear” and “we feel compelled now” to “raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity,” the bishops said. “We oppose the indiscriminate mass deportation of people” and “pray for an end to dehumanizing rhetoric and violence” directed at immigrants and law enforcement.

U.S. bishops “were often divided by American politics in the Pope Francis era,” The New York Times said, but they “showed a united front in standing behind Pope Leo XIV, the first pope from the United States.” Leo “has been blunt — more so than the U.S. bishops — in his criticism of the Trump administration’s treatment of migrants,” The Washington Post said. Some observers view the “USCCB’s actions this week” as a sign they have “begun to stiffen their resolve to support immigrants, who represent one-third of the U.S. church.”

What next?
The bishops narrowly elected conservative Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley to a three-year term as USCCB president, and Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas — the more moderate runner-up — as vice president.

TODAY’S BUSINESS Story

US mints final penny after 232-year run

What happened
The U.S. Mint in Philadelphia yesterday stamped what the Treasury Department said were the final pennies, ending production of the one-cent coin after 232 years. President Donald Trump had ordered the Treasury to stop producing pennies in February, but the government provided no guidance on how to handle the phaseout, leaving stores and banks scrambling as supplies ran low over the summer.

Who said what
“When it was introduced in 1793, a penny could buy a biscuit, a candle or a piece of candy,” The Associated Press said. “Now most of them are cast aside to sit in jars or junk drawers.” But the real impetus for their demise was cost: Each penny costs 3.69 cents to make. “God bless America, and we’re going to save the taxpayers $56 million,” U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach (pictured above) said before hitting a button to strike the final penny.

The penny’s demise ends a “years-long farce of the government producing coins that cost more to make than they are worth,” The Washington Post said in an editorial. But Trump “did not have the legal authority to cancel penny production unilaterally,” and beginning the process with Congress, as stipulated in the Constitution, “would have facilitated solutions for the problems inherent in eliminating a coin” nearly as old as the U.S.

What next?
The estimated 250 billion pennies still in circulation remain legal tender. The final five pennies minted yesterday were part of a batch of 232, each “marked with an Omega symbol to signify the last of their kind,” that will be auctioned off next month, Reuters said.

It’s not all bad

A new patch developed by MIT engineers could one day be used to restore damaged cardiac tissue following a heart attack. In a study with rats, researchers found that when the patch released several drugs on a preprogrammed schedule, cardiac function was improved and the amount of damaged heart tissue was reduced by 50%. If the patch is approved for human use, it will be attached to the patient’s heart during bypass surgery.

Under the radar

China’s burgeoning coffee culture

Starbucks is selling a majority stake in its business in China. Yet even as the U.S. coffee chain’s popularity has waned in China in recent years, the country’s coffee consumption has been “increasing by double-digits annually,” to a 300 billion yuan ($42 billion) industry today, said the South China Morning Post. So what gives?

Starbucks opened its first store in China nearly 30 years ago. There was “much fanfare,” including a “troupe” performing a traditional “golden lion” dance and “eager customers” sampling cappuccinos, said CNN. The arrival of the U.S. brand “helped spur the rise of a thriving coffee culture among the middle class” in a country that traditionally drank tea, and by 2017, the coffee giant was opening a new store every 15 hours in China.

But “dozens” of domestic chains have “exploded onto the scene” in recent years, offering coffee at “steep discounts,” CNN said. Last year, Luckin Coffee opened its 20,000th store in China, having “doubled its footprint in a single year,” said marketing news site Campaign. “The message is clear”: China’s “coffee game” is being “rewritten by local players.”

Chinese brands are “constantly dropping seasonal specials with local ingredients, herbs, superfoods, the works,” Roolee Lu, the food-and-drink category director at Mintel China, told Campaign. There are “lattes drizzled with pork sauce” or “spiked” with Chinese alcohol, said NBC News. Tea has “long been the drink of choice” for Chinese people, said the South China Morning Post, but a “coffee culture has boomed.”

On this day

November 13, 1956

The Supreme Court affirmed a lower-court ruling declaring segregation on Alabama buses unconstitutional. The court case, Browder v. Gayle, grew from the Montgomery Bus Boycotts following the arrest of Rosa Parks. The ruling is considered a key inflection point in the Civil Rights Movement.

TODAY’S newspaperS

‘Longest shutdown ends’

“Record-long shutdown comes to an end,” The Washington Post says on Thursday’s front page. “Longest shutdown ends as funding is signed,” The Wall Street Journal says. “Americans did ‘a lot of juggling’ to get by during long shutdown,” says USA Today. “Epstein email trove names Trump,” the Los Angeles Times says. “Epstein’s emails suggested Trump knew of conduct,” says The New York Times. “Epstein: Trump ‘spent hours at my house’ with a victim,” The Palm Beach Post says. “Don ‘knew about the girls,’” the New York Daily News says. “Judge orders release of 615 people arrested in feds’ ‘Blitz,’” says the Chicago Sun-Times.

► See the newspaper front pages

Tall tale

Make a run for the border

In a stunning feat, a woman accused of stealing a minivan led police on a 173-mile chase Monday, racing unimpeded through four Southern California counties before zipping across the Mexican border. Police tried using spike strips to slow her down, but she swerved to avoid them and kept heading south. The chase lasted over two hours, and despite occurring midday, the woman didn’t hit any traffic. She was arrested in San Diego on Tuesday after driving back over the border.

Morning Report was written and edited by Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Chas Newkey-Burden, Rafi Schwartz, Peter Weber and Kari Wilkin, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.