ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — The Tampa Bay Rays lost a combined no-hitter against the Kansas City Royals when Carter Jensen hit a two-run homer off Craig Kimbrel in the ninth inning on Thursday.
Opener Casey Legumina retired all five batters he faced through 1 1/3 innings before Ian Seymour took over in the second. Seymour struck out seven batters. Kimbrel started the ninth and allowed a walk to Starling Marte before Jensen went deep with one out.
Tampa Bay was leading Kansas City 13-0 to start the ninth behind three home runs by Junior Caminero.
The Rays retired the first 16 batters they faced before Marte drew a one-out walk on a full count in the top of the sixth before Seymour retired Tyler Tolbert and Jensen to end the inning.
Left fielder Chandler Simpson made a running catch near the foul pole to track down a fly ball off the bat of Salvador Perez in the fifth to keep the perfect game intact. Simpson also caught a hard line drive off the bat of Ian Collins to end the eighth.
The Rays have never thrown a perfect game in franchise history. Matt Garza has the only no-hitter in Tampa Bay history on July 26, 2010, against the Detroit Tigers.
This would have been the second no-hitter in the majors this year, following the Astros' combined no-hitter against the Rangers on May 25.
Kimbrel himself finished a combined no-hitter for the Chicago Cubs against the Los Angeles Dodgers on June 24, 2021, at Dodger Stadium.
Tampa Bay has been no-hit six times in franchise history, the most recent on May 10, 2022, against the Los Angeles Angels’ Reid Detmers. The last time Kansas City was no-hit was May 19, 2008, against Boston’s Jon Lester.
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Kansas City Royals catcher Carter Jensen waits as Tampa Bay Rays' Victor Mesa Jr. walks after challenging a called strike by home plate umpire Emil Jimenez (82) during the second inning of a baseball game Thursday, June 25, 2026, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Jason Behnken)
Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Ian Seymour throws during the second inning a baseball game against the Kansas City Royals, Thursday, June 25, 2026, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Jason Behnken)
Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Casey Legumina throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the Kansas City Royals, Thursday, June 25, 2026, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Jason Behnken)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the Trump administration to end legal protections for migrants fleeing violence and natural disaster in Haiti and Syria, exposing hundreds of thousands more people to potential deportation.
The 6-3 decision overturns lower court orders and allows the Department of Homeland Security to swiftly end temporary protected status, a program that protects a total of 1.3 million people from 17 countries.
It marked another victory at the high court for Republican President Donald Trump's sweeping crackdown on immigration. Though the conservative-dominated court has put the brakes on some of Trump’s immigration policies over the last year, it handed him a second win Thursday in a decision clearing the way for the revival of a policy restricting immigrants seeking asylum.
The court’s conservative majority found that immigration authorities have sole authority over the program, and the law doesn't allow judges to intervene.
The majority opinion from Justice Samuel Alito also brushed aside arguments that derogatory comments from Trump about Haitians showed the decision was unlawfully tinged by prejudice. He called the statements “insufficient to show that the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation was based on the race of the Haitian people.”
Justice Elena Kagan forcefully disagreed, calling Trump's comments “so repellent and racially inflected that the majority declines to put them in print." She pointed out that Trump had said Haitians in the U.S. “probably have AIDS," and he also amplified false rumors during the 2024 campaign that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were abducting and eating dogs and cats.
Lawyers said Haitian immigrants would be in serious danger if they are sent back. “Simply put, the Supreme Court’s ruling will directly result in thousands of innocent people dying violent, needless deaths,” Geoff Pipoly and Andy Tauber said.
They urged the Senate to approve an extension of deportation protections for Haitians that' passed the House on a rare bipartisan vote in April.
“Families are here, kids are going to school, parents are going into work, folks are trying to commute, and it’s like the Supreme Court just put all those activities on stop and put folks in limbo,” said Viles Dorsainvil, who runs a support center for Haitians in Springfield, Ohio.
Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, called the “a devastating betrayal of Haitian families who have lived, worked, and contributed to this country for years –- only to be cast out based on anti-Black immigration sentiment.”
Haitians with TPS are also a key part of the workforce in long-term care facilities. “This would be a dreadful loss for all seniors in our community,” said Rita Siebenaler, a resident at Goodwin Living, a senior living community in Virginia.
The Justice Department appealed to the Supreme Court after judges postponed the end of the program for about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians. The high court sided with the administration before and allowed the end of the program for people from Venezuela.
Federal authorities deny prejudice played a role. They also cited a Supreme Court decision from Trump’s first term that rejected bias claims based on his social media posts and upheld a travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries.
James Percival, DHS general counsel, applauded Thursday's ruling. He said the program had, in many cases, become “de facto amnesty. This is a win for the rule of law and common sense.”
Since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, Homeland Security has ended the protections, including some that had been in place for more than a decade, for people from 13 countries.
The terminations were made even though countries such as Haiti and Syria remain dangerous, immigration lawyers said. Four Haitian women who were deported from the United States in February were found beheaded and dumped in a river several months later, lawyers said in court documents.
The United States first granted protections to Haitians in 2010 after a catastrophic earthquake and extended them multiple times amid ongoing gang violence that has displaced more than a million people, according to court documents.
Syrians were first granted protected status in 2012, during a civil war that lasted for more than a decade before the fall of President Bashar Assad’s government in late 2024.
“Today, many of our community members they feel lost,” Farrah AlKhorfan of Immigrants Act Now said about Syrian immigrants losing TPS protections. “They are trying to understand … what this decision means for them and how it will be implemented and how much time they will have to prepare for what comes next.”
The program was created by Congress in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters, civil strife and other instability. It allows people already in the country to stay with work permits in increments of up to 18 months, but it does not provide a path to citizenship.
Associated Press writer Tim Sullivan in Minneapolis contributed to this report.
FILE - The U.S. Supreme Court is seen, June 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, File)
FILE - Linda Joseph holds a candle during a vigil at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex after a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary immigration status, or TPS, for Haitians, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026, in North Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)
