I was shocked, said Prophete, who refinanced her two-family home in 2006, six years after arriving from Haiti. I dont even know these people because they never contacted me. They never called me.

Prophete is part of a wave of homeowners who say they were blindsided by the start of foreclosure actions on their homes over second loans that were taken out more than a decade ago. The trusts and mortgage loan servicers behind the actions say the loans were defaulted on years ago.

Some of these homeowners say they werent even aware they had a second mortgage because of confusing loan structures. Others believed their second loans were rolled in with their first mortgage payments or forgiven. Typically, they say they had not received statements on their second loans for years as they paid down their first mortgages.

Now theyre being told the loans werent dead after all. Instead, theyre what critics call zombie debt old loans with new collection actions.

While no federal government agency tracks the number of foreclosure actions on second mortgages, attorneys aiding homeowners say they have surged in recent years. The attorneys say many of the loans are owned by purchasers of troubled mortgages and are being pursued now because home values have increased and theres more equity in them.

Theyve been holding them, having no communication with the borrowers, said Andrea Bopp Stark, an attorney with the Boston-based National Consumer Law Center. And then all of a sudden theyre coming out of the woodwork and are threatening to foreclose because now there is value in the property. They can foreclose on the property and actually get something after the first mortgages are paid off.

Attorneys for owners of the loans and the companies that service them argue that they are pursuing legitimately owed debt, no matter what the borrower believed. And they say they are acting legally to claim it.

How did this happen?

Court actions now can be traced to the tail end of the housing boom earlier this century. Some involve home equity lines of credit. Others stem from 80/20 loans, in which homebuyers could take out a first loan covering about 80% of the purchase price, and a second loan covering the remaining 20%.

Splitting loans allowed borrowers to avoid large down payments. But the second loans could carry interest rates of 9% or more and balloon payments. Consumer advocates say the loans many originating with since-discredited lenders included predatory terms and were marketed in communities of color and lower-income neighborhoods.

The surge in people falling behind on mortgage payments after the Great Recession began included homeowners with second loans. They were among the people who took advantage of federal loan modification programs, refinanced or declared bankruptcy to help keep their homes.

In some cases, the first loans were modified but the second ones werent.

Some second mortgages at that time were charged off, meaning the creditor had stopped seeking payment. That doesnt mean the loan was forgiven. But that was the impression of many homeowners, some of whom apparently misunderstood the 80/20 loan structure.

Other borrowers say they had difficulty getting answers about their second loans.

In the Miami area, Pastor Carlos Mendez and his wife, Lisset Garcia, signed a modification on their first mortgage in 2012, after financial hardships resulted in missed payments and a bankruptcy filing. The couple had bought the home in Hialeah in 2006, two years after arriving from Cuba, and raised their two daughters there.

Mendez said they were unable to get answers about the status of their second mortgage from the bank and were eventually told that the debt was canceled, or would be canceled.

Then in 2020, they received foreclosure paperwork from a different debt owner.

Their attorney, Ricardo M. Corona, said they are being told they owe $70,000 in past due payments plus $47,000 in principal. But he said records show the loan was charged off in 2013 and that the loan holders are not entitled to interest payments stemming from the years when the couple did not receive periodic statements. The case is pending.

Despite everything, we are fighting and trusting justice, keeping our faith in God, so we can solve this and keep the house, Mendez said in Spanish.

Second loans were packaged and sold, some multiple times. The parties behind the court actions that have been launched to collect the money now are often investors who buy so-called distressed mortgage loans at deep discounts, advocates say. Many of the debt buyers are limited liability companies that are not regulated in the way that big banks are.

The plaintiff in the action on the Mendez and Garcia home is listed as Wilmington Savings Fund Society, FSB, not in its individual capacity but solely as a Trustee for BCMB1 Trust.

A spokeswoman for Wilmington said it acts as a trustee on behalf of many trusts and has no authority with respect to the management of the real estate in the portfolio. Efforts to find someone associated with BCMB1 Trust to respond to questions were not successful.

Some people facing foreclosure have filed their own lawsuits citing federal requirements related to periodic statements or other consumer protection laws. In Georgia, a woman facing foreclosure claimed in federal court that she never received periodic notices about her second mortgage or notices when it was transferred to new owners, as required by federal law. The case was settled in June under confidential terms, according to court filings.

In New York, Prophete is one of 13 plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit claiming that mortgage debt is being sought beyond New Yorks six-year statute of limitations, resulting in violations of federal and state law.

I think what makes it so pernicious is these are homeowners who worked very hard to become current on their loans, said Rachel Geballe, a deputy director at Brooklyn Legal Services, which is litigating the case with The Legal Aid Society. They thought they were taking care of their debt.

The defendants in that case are the loan servicer SN Servicing and the law firm Richland and Falkowski, which represented mortgage trusts involved in the court actions, including BCMB1 Trust, according to the complaint. In court filings, the defendants dispute the plaintiffs interpretation of the statute of limitations, say they acted properly and are seeking to dismiss the lawsuit.

The allegations in the various mortgage foreclosure actions are truthful and not misleading or deceptive, Attorney Daniel Richland wrote in a letter to the judge. Plaintiffs allegations, by contrast, are implausible and thus warrant dismissal.

If all goes well during the three-week, make-or-break shakedown flight, the crew capsule will be propelled into a wide orbit around the moon and then return to Earth with a Pacific splashdown in December.

After years of delays and billions in cost overruns, the Space Launch System rocket thundered skyward, rising from Kennedy Space Center on 8.8 million pounds (4 million kilograms) of thrust and hitting 100 mph (160 kph) within seconds. The Orion capsule was perched on top and, less than two hours into the flight, busted out of Earths orbit toward the moon.

Its a great day, said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

The moonshot follows nearly three months of vexing fuel leaks that kept the rocket bouncing between its hangar and the pad. Forced back indoors by Hurricane Ian at the end of September, the rocket stood its ground outside as Nicole swept through last week with gusts of more than 80 mph (130 kph). Although the wind caused some damage, managers gave the green light for the launch.

An estimated 15,000 people jammed the launch site, with thousands more lining the beaches and roads outside the gates, to witness NASAs long-awaited sequel to Project Apollo, when 12 astronauts walked on the moon from 1969 and 1972. Crowds also gathered outside NASA centers in Houston and Huntsville, Alabama, to watch the spectacle on giant screens.

Cheers accompanied the rocket as it rode a huge trail of flames toward space, with a half-moon glowing brightly and buildings shaking as though hit by a major quake.

For the Artemis generation, this is for you, launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson called out, referring to all those born after Apollo.

The liftoff marked the start of NASAs Artemis lunar-exploration program, named after Apollos mythological twin sister. The space agency is aiming to send four astronauts around the moon on the next flight, in 2024, and land humans there as early as 2025.

You have earned your place in history, Blackwell-Thompson told her team following liftoff.

The 322-foot (98-meter) SLS is the most powerful rocket ever built by NASA, with more thrust than either the space shuttle or the mighty Saturn V that carried men to the moon. A series of hydrogen fuel leaks plagued the summertime launch attempts as well as countdown tests. A fresh leak erupted at a new location during Tuesday nights fueling, but an emergency team managed to tighten the faulty valve on the pad. Then a U.S. Space Force radar station went down, resulting in another scramble, this time to replace an ethernet switch.

The rocket, its alive. Its creaking. Its making venting noises. Its pretty scary. My heart was pumping. My nerves were going, said Trent Annis, one of the three men who entered the blast danger zone to fix Tuesday nights leak.

Orion should reach the moon by Monday, more than 230,000 miles (370,000 kilometers) from Earth. After coming within 80 miles (130 kilometers) of the moon, the capsule will enter a far-flung orbit stretching about 40,000 miles (64,000 kilometers) beyond.

The $4.1 billion test flight is set to last 25 days, roughly the same as when crews will be aboard. The space agency intends to push the spacecraft to its limits and uncover any problems before astronauts strap in. The mannequins NASA calls them moonequins are fitted with sensors to measure such things as vibration, acceleration and cosmic radiation.

The rocket was supposed to have made its dry run by 2017. Government watchdogs estimate NASA will have spent $93 billion on the project by 2025.

Ultimately, NASA hopes to establish a base on the moon and send astronauts to Mars by the late 2030s or early 2040s.

But many hurdles still need to be cleared. The Orion capsule will take astronauts only to lunar orbit, not the surface.

NASA has hired Elon Musks SpaceX to develop Starship, the 21st-century answer to Apollos lunar lander. Starship will carry astronauts back and forth between Orion and the lunar surface, at least on the first trip in 2025. The plan is to station Starship and eventually other companies landers in orbit around the moon, ready for use whenever new Orion crews pull up.

Reprising an argument that was made during the 1960s, Duke University historian Alex Roland questions the value of human spaceflight, saying robots and remote-controlled spacecraft could get the job done more cheaply, efficiently and safely.

In all these years, no evidence has emerged to justify the investment we have made in human spaceflight save the prestige involved in this conspicuous consumption, he said.

NASA is waiting until this test flight is over before introducing the astronauts who will be on the next one and those who will follow in the bootsteps of Apollo 11s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin.

Most of NASAs corps of 42 active astronauts and 10 trainees were not even born yet when Apollo 17 moonwalkers Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt closed out the era, 50 years ago next month.

We are jumping out of our spacesuits with excitement, astronaut Christina Koch said Tuesday.

After a nearly yearlong space station mission and all-female spacewalk, Koch, 43, is on NASAs short list for a lunar flight. So is astronaut Kayla Barron, 35, who finally got to witness her first rocket launch, not counting her own a year ago.

It took my breath away, and I was tearing up, Barron said. What an amazing accomplishment for this team.

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Biden spoke after he convened an emergency meeting of the Group of Seven and NATO leaders in Indonesia Wednesday morning for consultations on the explosion that killed two people in the eastern part of Poland near the Ukraine border.

There is preliminary information that contests that, Biden told reporters when asked if the missile had been fired from Russia. It is unlikely in the lines of the trajectory that it was fired from Russia, but well see.

Three U.S. officials said preliminary assessments suggested the missile was fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian missile amid a crushing salvo against Ukraines electrical infrastructure Tuesday. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Ukraine still maintains stocks of former Soviet and Russian-made weaponry, including the S-300 air-defense missile system.

The president, who was awakened overnight by staff with the news of the missile explosion while in Indonesia for the Group of 20 summit, called Polish President Andrzej Duda early Wednesday to express his deep condolences for the loss of life. Biden promised on Twitter full U.S support for and assistance with Polands investigation, and reaffirmed the United States ironclad commitment to NATO.

Biden said that he briefed the allies on his conversations with Duda and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and that there was Total unanimity among the folks at the table to support Polands investigation into the explosion.

Im going to make sure we find out exactly what happened, Biden said. And then were going to collectively determine our next step as we investigate.

Meeting at a large round table in a ballroom in his hotel, the U.S. president hosted the leaders of the G-7, which includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the European Union, along with the president of the European Council and the prime ministers of NATO allies Spain and the Netherlands.

Biden held a separate meeting later with new British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, in their first extended conversation since he took office last month.

Were going to continue to support Ukraine as long as Russia continues their aggression, Biden said alongside Sunak, adding that he was glad were on the same page in backing Ukraine.

A statement from the Polish Foreign Ministry identified the missile as being made in Russia. But Polands president, Duda, was more cautious about its origin, saying that officials did not know for sure who fired it or where it was made. He said it was most probably Russian-made, but that is being still verified. If confirmed, it would be the first time since the invasion of Ukraine that a Russian weapon came down on a NATO country.

Biden also said the leaders condemned the latest series of Russian missile attacks, referring to the confirmed Russian strikes in recent days that have targeted Ukraines power grid and caused widespread blackouts.

The moment when the world came together at the G-20 to urge de-escalation, Russia continues to escalate in Ukraine, while were meeting, Biden said. There were scores and scores of missile attacks in western Ukraine.

Biden and his allies had set out to isolate Russia at the G-20 summit and the groups final communique was expected to show that most of the nations in the G-20 condemn Russias invasion.

Underscoring the extraordinarily tense situation, CIA Director William Burns was in Kyiv on Tuesday during the barrage of Russian missiles. He remained in the U.S. embassy in Kyiv during the strikes.

Burns briefed Zelenskyy and Ukrainian officials on his meeting in Turkey with the head of Russias foreign intelligence service, according to another U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

Burns told Ukrainian officials that he had delivered a U.S. warning to Russia not to use nuclear weapons, the U.S. official said.

In addition to Bidens conversations, Secretary of State Antony Blinken held talks with his Polish and Ukrainian counterparts Wednesday, the State Department said.

Army Gen. Mark Milley spoke with Polish Chief of the General Staff Gen. Rajmund Andrzejczak on Tuesday. The Joint Staff said the two generals discussed the explosion in Poland and the loss of life there. He provided no other details.

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In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States, Trump said to an audience of several hundred supporters, club members and gathered press in a chandeliered ballroom at his Mar-a-Lago club, where he stood flanked by more than 30 American flags and banners bearing his Make America Great Again slogan. I am running because I believe the world has not yet seen the true glory of what this nation can be.

We will again put America first, he added.

Another campaign is a remarkable turn for any former president, much less one who made history as the first to be impeached twice and whose term ended with his supporters violently storming the Capitol in a deadly bid to halt the peaceful transition of power on Jan. 6, 2021.

Trump enters the race in a moment of political vulnerability. He hoped to launch his campaign in the wake of resounding GOP midterm victories, fueled by candidates he elevated during this years primaries. Instead, many of those candidates lost, allowing Democrats to keep the Senate and leaving the GOP with a path to only a bare majority in the House.

Far from the undisputed leader of the party, Trump is now facing criticism from some of his own allies, who say its time for Republicans to look to the future, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis emerging as an early favorite White House contender.

The former president is still popular with the GOP base. But other Republicans, including former Vice President Mike Pence, are taking increasingly public steps toward campaigns of their own, raising the prospect that Trump will have to navigate a competitive GOP primary.

Hes launching his candidacy amid a series of escalating criminal investigations, including several that could lead to indictments. They include the probe into dozens of documents with classified markings that were seized by the FBI from Mar-a-Lago and ongoing state and federal inquiries into his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

But Trump, according to people close to him, has been eager to return to politics and try to halt the rise of other potential challengers. Aides have spent the last months readying paperwork, identifying potential staff and sketching out the contours of a campaign that is being modeled on his 2016 operation, when a small clutch of aides zipping between rallies on his private jet defied the odds and defeated far better-funded and more experienced rivals by tapping into deep political fault lines and using shocking statements to drive relentless media attention.

Even after GOP losses, Trump remains the most powerful force in his party. For years he has consistently topped his fellow Republican contenders by wide margins in hypothetical head-to-head matchups. And even out of office, he consistently attracts thousands to his rallies and remains his partys most prolific fundraiser, raising hundreds of millions of dollars.

But Trump is also a deeply polarizing figure. Fifty-four percent of voters in last weeks midterm elections viewed him very or somewhat unfavorably, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 94,000 voters nationwide. And an October AP-NORC poll found even Republicans have their reservations about him remaining the partys standard-bearer, with 43% saying they dont want to see him run for president in 2024.

Trumps candidacy poses profound questions about Americas democratic future. The final days of his presidency were consumed by a desperate effort to stay in power, undermining the centuries-old tradition of a peaceful transfer. And in the two years since he lost, Trumps persistent and baseless lies about widespread election fraud have eroded confidence in the nations political process. By late January 2021, about two-thirds of Republicans said they did not believe President Joe Biden was legitimately elected in 2020, an AP-NORC poll found.

VoteCast showed roughly as many Republican voters in the midterm elections continued to hold that belief.

Federal and state election officials and Trumps own attorney general have said there is no credible evidence the 2020 election was tainted. The former presidents allegations of fraud were also roundly rejected by numerous courts, including by judges Trump appointed.

But that didnt stop hundreds of midterm candidates from parroting his lies as they sought to win over his loyal base and score his coveted endorsement. In the end, many of those candidates went on to lose their races in a sign that voters rejected such extreme rhetoric.

While some Republicans with presidential ambitions, like former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, have long ruled out running against Trump, others have said he would not figure into their decisions, even before his midterm losses.

They include Pence, who released a book Tuesday, and Trumps former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, as well as former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who ran against Trump in 2016. Other potential candidates include Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin. Trump is also likely to face challenges from members of the anti-Trump wing of the party like Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, vice chair of the House committee that has been investigating Jan. 6.

But the person who has most occupied Trump and his allies in recent months is DeSantis, whose commanding reelection as governor last week was a bright spot for Republicans this cycle. The former congressman, who became a popular national figure among conservatives during the pandemic as he pushed back on COVID-19 restrictions, shares Trumps pugilistic instincts and has embraced fights over social issues with similar zeal.

Even some enthusiastic Trump supporters say they are eager for DeSantis to run, seeing him as a natural successor to Trump but without the former presidents considerable baggage.

Trump has already begun to lash out at DeSantis publicly. On Tuesday, the Florida governor shot back.

At the end of the day, I would just tell people to go check out the scoreboard from last Tuesday night, DeSantis told reporters.

A crowded field of GOP rivals could ultimately play to Trumps advantage, as it did in 2016, when he prevailed over more than a dozen other candidates who splintered the anti-Trump vote.

Trumps decision paves the way for a potential rematch with Biden, who has said he intends to run for reelection despite concerns from some in his party over his age and low approval ratings. The two men were already the oldest presidential nominees ever when they ran in 2020. Trump, who is 76, would be 82 at the end of a second term in 2029. Biden, who is about to turn 80, would be 86.

If he is ultimately successful, Trump would be just the second U.S. president in history to serve two nonconsecutive terms, following Grover Clevelands wins in 1884 and 1892.

But Trump enters the race facing enormous challenges beyond his partys growing trepidations. The former president is the subject of numerous investigations, including the monthslong probe into the hundreds of documents with classified markings found in boxes at Mar-a-Lago.

Meanwhile, Trump is facing Justice Department scrutiny over efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. In Georgia, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is investigating what she alleges was a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the 2020 results.

And in New York, Attorney General Letitia James has sued Trump, alleging his namesake company engaged in decades worth of fraudulent bookkeeping by misleading banks about the value of his assets. The Trump Organization is also now on trial, facing criminal tax fraud charges.

Some in Trumps orbit believe that running will help shield him against potential indictment, but there is no legal statute that would prevent the Justice Department from moving forward or prevent Trump from continuing to run if he is charged.

It wasnt any secret what he had been planning.

At a White House Christmas party in December 2020, Trump told guests it had been an amazing four years.

We are trying to do another four years, he said. Otherwise, Ill see you in four years.