The United States hit Venezuela with a “large-scale strike” early Saturday and said President Nicolás Maduro and his wife were captured and flown out of the country after months of stepped-up pressure by Washington.
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Federal prosecutors accused Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan of helping a man evade immigration enforcement. Last month, a jury found her guilty of one of two counts against her.
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Smoke is seen over buildings after explosions and low-flying aircraft were heard on Jan. 3, 2026 in Caracas, Venezuela. According to some reports, explosions were heard in Caracas and other cities near airports and military bases around 2 a.m. (Photo by Jesus Vargas/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Saturday that the United States will “run the country” of Venezuela until “a proper transition can take place,” following the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a strike against the South American nation, a stunning move conducted without congressional notice or approval.
Trump in a press conference from his Florida estate made it clear how much the secret military operation earlier Saturday related to securing oil, and he detailed how petroleum companies would finance the rebuilding of Venezuela’s oil infrastructure.
Trump as well as Secretary of State Marco Rubio also signaled other countries, such as Cuba, could face the same interventionist fate as Venezuela. “If I lived in Havana and worked for the government I’d be concerned,” Rubio said, referring to the communist nation’s capital.
Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, who was also captured, will be brought to New York to face a U.S. indictment on narco-terrorism and conspiracy charges originally levied in 2020. The Venezuelan’s reelection to the presidency in 2024 was determined by many countries, including the U.S., to be illegitimate, and he has been characterized by the administration as the leader of a drug cartel.
“This extremely successful operation should serve as (a) warning to anyone who would threaten American sovereignty or endanger American lives,” Trump said. “What happened to Maduro could happen to them.”
The military strike quickly drew strong rebukes from Democratic lawmakers, who said the action superseded Congress’ authority to declare war. It’s also caused deep concern among world leaders, some of whom pushed for an emergency United Nations meeting.
However, Republicans in Congress stood by the president’s decision, saying it was justified.
Trump did not give a timeline for how long the unusual U.S. intervention in Venezuela might go on, but said the next year would look different for the nation.
“We are going to run the country until such time that we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said. He added that the U.S. would make Venezuela safe for “the great people of Venezuela, and that includes many from Venezuela that are now living in the United States and want to go back to their country.”
Since taking office, the Trump administration has tried to end temporary and humanitarian legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants. Trump during the press conference repeated accusations that Maduro has sent Venezuelan immigrants with ties to the Tren de Aragua gang to the U.S.
Trump’s military action campaign, named “Absolute Resolve,” came after he waged a months-long pressure campaign to oust the authoritarian leader. Dozens of boat strikes have been carried out in the Caribbean that the president and members of his administration have justified, without showing evidence, by saying the boats were carrying drugs to the U.S.
“The United States of America has successfully carried out a large scale strike against Venezuela and its leader, President Nicolas Maduro, who has been, along with his wife, captured and flown out of the Country,” Trump wrote on his social media site, Truth Social, early Saturday. “This operation was done in conjunction with U.S. Law Enforcement.”
Before the Saturday press event at Mar-a-Lago started, the president posted a picture to social media of Maduro handcuffed, blindfolded and aboard the U.S.S. Iwo Jima Navy ship.
Trump at the press conference was joined by Rubio; Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth; Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine; CIA Director John Ratcliffe; and senior White House adviser Stephen Miller, who is a lead architect of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Trump said that an “overwhelming American military power” was used to capture Maduro and his wife in the “dead of night” from “air, land and sea.”
He added that no U.S. military members were killed in the operation, but did not rule out a continued presence for American troops in Venezuelan territory.
“We’re not afraid of boots on the ground,” Trump said.
Trump said those officials standing behind him at his press conference, “for a period of time,” would “be running” Venezuela.
The president offered few details on what that U.S. intervention would look like, but called it a “partnership.” It’s unclear if there are any American officials or troops stationed yet in or near Venezuela.
Trump also lodged a thinly veiled threat against the Cuban government.
“Cuba is not doing really well right now,” Trump said. “I think Cuba is going to be something we’ll end up talking about.”
He added that the U.S. also wants to help Cubans who have been “forced out of their country,” so they can return to the island nation. The Trump administration has also moved to end humanitarian protections for more than 110,000 Cubans.
Rubio, whose parents were part of the first wave of Cuban exiles before the Fidel Castro regime took over the country, agreed, and criticized Cuba’s government as being run by “incompetent, senile men.”
It’s unclear how the next in line to the presidency for Venezuela, Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, will fare.
Trump said that Rubio had a conversation with Rodríguez, and said “she’s essentially willing to do what is necessary to make Venezuela great again.”
María Corina Machado, the leader of Venezuela’s opposition party, and recent Nobel Peace Prize winner for her work to advance democracy in her home country, called for national unity and said that “the hour for freedom has arrived.”
“We have struggled for years, we have given it our all, and it has been worth it. What had to happen is happening,” she said in a statement.
Maduro and his wife will face a trial in the U.S. They have been indicted in the Southern District of New York, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on social media.
The DOJ also indicted their son, Nicolás Ernesto Maduro Guerra, along with several other Venezuelan politicians, and the alleged leader of the Tren de Aragua Venezuelan gang, Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores.
President Maduro is charged with “Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States,” Bondi said.
In 2020, the first Trump administration lodged the same four counts of narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of machine guns and conspiracy to possess machine guns.
The new indictment includes Maduro’s wife, son and the alleged leader of the Tren de Aragua gang.
The news drew ire from Congress, which has the authority to declare war. New Jersey Democratic Sen. Andy Kim said for weeks Trump officials briefed Congress that the boat strikes were not “about regime change.”
“I didn’t trust them then and we see now that they blatantly lied to Congress,” Kim wrote on social media. “Trump rejected our Constitutionally required approval process for armed conflict because the Administration knows the American people overwhelmingly reject risks pulling our nation into another war.”
However, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, said the capture of Maduro meant the Venezuelan president would be held accountable.
“President Trump’s decisive action to disrupt the unacceptable status quo and apprehend Maduro, through the execution of a valid Department of Justice warrant, is an important first step to bring him to justice for the drug crimes for which he has been indicted in the United States,” Thune said.
He added that when senators return to Congress Monday, he looks forward to additional security briefings from Trump officials.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, made similar remarks and called the attack “justified.” He said he’s working with the Trump administration to schedule briefings with House lawmakers when they return to Washington.
The top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, wrote on social media that without “authorization from Congress, and with the vast majority of Americans opposed to military action, Trump just launched an unjustified, illegal strike on Venezuela.”
Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, who is also co-chair of the Congressional Venezuela Democracy Caucus, said in a statement that the “capture of the brutal, illegitimate ruler of Venezuela … is welcome news for my friends and neighbors who fled his violent, lawless, and disastrous rule.”
However, she called for the opportunity for Venezuelans to partake in democracy, such as being able to swear in the presidential candidate who won Venezuela’s election in the summer of 2024.
President-elect Edmundo Gonzalez was forced into exile and fled to Spain under asylum. Voter results showed that Gonzalez won by a large margin, but Venezuelan government officials, without providing proof, determined that Maduro won.
Utah’s GOP Sen. Mike Lee initially questioned “what, if anything, might constitutionally justify this action in the absence of a declaration of war or authorization for the use of military force.”
But Lee later changed course after speaking with Rubio.
“He informed me that Nicolás Maduro has been arrested by U.S. personnel to stand trial on criminal charges in the United States, and that the kinetic action we saw tonight was deployed to protect and defend those executing the arrest warrant,” Lee said of Rubio.
Rubio has long stated that Venezuela’s president is not legitimate, nor is his government. Rubio accused him of being the head of a drug cartel.
“He is not the legitimate president of Venezuela,” Rubio said during Saturday’s press conference. “He is a fugitive of American justice.”
Rubio, who while in Congress was a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also defended a lack of notification to lawmakers.
“This is not the kind of mission you can do congressional notification,” Rubio said.
For months, Democrats and a handful of Republican lawmakers have tried to curb the president’s strikes in the Caribbean, which have killed about 115, but Congress failed to pass several War Powers Resolutions.
The War Powers Resolution of 1973 is a tool for Congress to check the power of the executive branch by limiting the president’s ability to initiate or escalate military actions abroad.
Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, who has pushed for the Senate to vote on the War Powers Resolution, said he will again advocate a vote to curb Trump’s military actions in Venezuela.
As the U.S. conducts military land strikes on Venezuela, more than half a million Venezuelan immigrants are legally fighting the Trump administration’s move to end Temporary Protected Status.
TPS is granted when a nation’s home country is deemed too dangerous to return to, due to violence, such as war, or a major natural disaster.
More than 600,000 Venezuelans have TPS, which was initially granted in 2021, just one day before the first Trump administration finished its term. Temporary protections were granted to Venezuelans due to Maduro’s regime.
Trump has also tried to apply the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to any Venezuelan national, aged 14 and older, who is a suspected gang member, for the purpose of removing them from the U.S. without due process.
Trump and Maduro also clashed after several deportation planes carrying Venezuelan immigrants landed in El Salvador, where more than 200 men were detained at a brutal mega-prison known as CECOT.
Maduro called the move a “kidnapping,” and several months later the Venezuelans were returned to their home country in a prisoner exchange.
It’s unclear what the consequences of the Trump administration’s move to capture a foreign leader will have on international relations, but many world leaders disavowed the attacks and called for an emergency United Nations General Assembly meeting.
The U.N., which is five miles away from the New York court where Maduro will stand trial, did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo condemned the attacks and said they violated Article 2 of the United Nations Charter.
“Based on its foreign policy principles and its pacifist vocation, Mexico makes an urgent call to respect international law, as well as the principles and purposes of the UN Charter, and to cease any act of aggression against the Venezuelan government and people,” she said in a statement.
Sheinbaum Pardo called on the United Nations to “act immediately to contribute to the de-escalation of tensions, facilitate dialogue and create conditions that allow a peaceful, sustainable solution in accordance with international law.”
Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also criticized the attack in Caracas, Venezuela.
“The justifications put forward for these actions have no factual basis. Ideological hostility has prevailed over pragmatic, businesslike approaches and over efforts to build relationships based on trust and predictability,” according to Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, said on social media that the U.S. moves to capture Maduro and bomb Venezuela “cross an unacceptable line.”
“Attacking countries, in flagrant violation of international law, is the first step toward a world of violence, chaos, and instability, where the law of the strongest prevails over multilateralism,” he wrote.
The prime minister of Spain, Pedro Sanchez, called for de-escalation and said that international law “and the principles of the United Nations Charter must be respected.”
Cori Salchert leaves the Christmas lights on year round.
It’s not to celebrate the holidays, but so an ambulance can easily spot her house any time of year.
“Hearing that an 11-year-old stopped breathing … can be a scary thing for an EMT, so we just lessen the difficulty for finding our home,” Cori said.
Since 2012, Cori and her husband, Mark, have adopted five children, all with a terminal prognosis — meaning the Salcherts adopt these children knowing their lives will be cut short. They get most of their needs met at the Salcherts’ Sheboygan home, which is equipped with a stairlift and handicap shower.
“Our hope is that our kids are whole and well and that we’re going to see them again, and that they’re going to be able to say, ‘Hey mom,’ or, ‘Hey dad’ — something that they never were able to say while we had them,” she said.
Cori is known as the hospice mom.
She adopts children with complex medical conditions, many from the foster care system.
Children in foster care often have worse medical health than children in the general population. And there are hundreds of kids in foster care with terminal illnesses, according to research published in the National Library of Medicine.
The Salcherts’ first adopted child was Emmalynn. She lived with them for 50 days and died in 2012. She had difficulty regulating body temperature, so she spent most of her life bundled in someone’s arms, like she was the moment she died.
Samuel was adopted at 13. He died two years later from a rare genetic disorder affecting the brain’s white matter.
And Nehemiah was just 3 1/2 when he died on Dec. 2, 2021, in the Salcherts’ family room. He was lying next to Cori as she sang “Jesus Loves Me.”
“He opened his eyes — he hadn’t done that in about 48 hours — and took his last breath, and he was gone,” Cori said as she showed a photo of Nehemiah. “He woke up in heaven and he will never have to have another surgical procedure.”
Social workers and doctors close to Cori call her a unicorn. She said that idea of being exceptionally rare often makes her sad because she wished more people could give dying children a loving place to spend the rest of their lives.
To others, it might seem like a daunting endeavor to continuously lose and grieve children.
“One of our pastors had told us, ‘These kids are going to wreck your life. But they are not going to ruin it. So your heart is never going to recover the same as it was before you had them. And that’s an OK thing,’” she said.
The Salcherts say they have 17 children: five adopted, eight adult biological kids and four fostered children. There is a sign on their front door that reads: “There’s like a lot of kids in here.”
Two of the Salcherts’ adopted children, Charlie and Kassidy, were home from school recently for the holidays.
Kassidy is 6. She was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. She loves balloons and gets a big smile on her face when the family walks into the room.
Charlie is 11. He has school awards taped to his wall. One reads: “Ray of Sunshine award presented to Charlie Salchert for making our classroom a better place.” He has hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, in which his brain was damaged from a lack of oxygen and blood flow.
Providing care for Charlie and Kassidy is a family effort. Their adult children pitch in. One child sleeps in Charlie’s room at night, and another helps care for Kassidy.
Charlie’s condition makes him technically deaf and blind. But Cori said there are moments when she’s not so sure.
At school, Charlie has an eye gaze machine that helps him communicate.
He’ll do things like turn up the volume and play music as loud as the machine goes. Cori said teachers have to remind him repeatedly to stop.
“He can be a very naughty 11-year-old in his own way,” she said with a laugh.
That day at the Salcherts’ home, Kassidy’s biological mother messaged Cori to see how her daughter is doing. Cori gave her an update and reminded her she is always welcome at the house.
Many people ask the Salcherts about the children’s biological parents and the circumstances that led them to give up their parental rights. She usually tells them to walk one day in their shoes.
Kassidy’s biological mother didn’t want to give her daughter up. However, her second daughter was born with a congenital heart defect, and she couldn’t care for two children with such complex medical issues.
The biological mother remains in contact and often receives pictures from school and was there when Kassidy got her ears pierced.
“Kassidy’s family has just gotten bigger rather than exclusionary,” Cori said. “She has two moms who love her a lot.”
Cori rejects the notion that she is a “Disney princess mom.” She simply has the ability to care for the children, as well as the special equipment, stairlifts and accessible home that some children need.
And she thinks others have the ability to do it, too.
“We live in the miracle zone,” she said. “If you don’t live in the miracle zone, well, you don’t need miracles.
“But we need them and we’ve seen them.”
This story was originally published by WPR.
‘The miracle zone’: This Wisconsin family adopts terminally ill children is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Days after the Trump administration said it would pause federal child care funds nationwide in response to allegations of fraud at Minnesota daycares, Wisconsin providers have more questions than answers about what comes next.
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The Pettit National Ice Center in Milwaukee is hosting the 2026 U.S. Olympic Team long track speed skating trials this weekend.
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Rebecca Seibel teaches outdoors classes geared for women and gender minorities in the male-dominated arborist industry
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A Marshfield-based company founded by a Civil War veteran is in danger of closing and laying off 107 employees next month if its assets aren’t sold.
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The U.S. women’s hockey team heading to the winter Olympics has deep ties to Wisconsin, with four current and two former Badgers on the roster and a Fox Valley-native serving as head coach.
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As the cost of everything, especially energy, increases, nonprofit organizations stockpile wood to help neighbors stay warm through winter.
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The Cannonball and Wingra Creek Paths would be linked by creating a median-separated lane along Fish Hatchery Road. The changes are meant to increase bike safety on a road that sees about 30,000 cars a day.
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California National Guard members stand guard at an entrance to the Wilshire Federal Building on June 13, 2025, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he will back off his plans to use National Guard troops in the Democratic-led cities of Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon.
The move follows the Supreme Court’s decision last week that found Trump could not deploy guard members to Chicago, ruling that the president did not meet the requirements to send guard members to the Windy City for the purpose of assisting with federal immigration enforcement.
Several federal judges have either blocked the deployments or found them unlawful. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, generally prevents the military from participating in civilian law enforcement.
“We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again – Only a question of time!” Trump wrote on his social media site, TruthSocial.
The president first deployed National Guard troops earlier this summer to Los Angeles, following massive protests against immigration raids.
He has continued to send service members to cities with Democratic leaders, a decision that has tested the legal bounds of presidential authority on military law all the way up to the Supreme Court.
An appeals court in early December ruled that the Trump administration must remove troops from Los Angeles, which upheld a lower court ruling that found it illegal to keep an extended military presence long after protests quelled.
In November, a federal judge permanently blocked the Trump administration from deploying hundreds of National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon.
The judge, Karin Immergut, found the move to use service members for the purpose of protecting a federal immigration facility exceeded presidential authority. Trump nominated Immergut in his first term.
Guard members are still deployed in the District of Columbia; Memphis, Tennessee; and New Orleans, Louisiana.
A homeless teen, holding a sign “Only 19, alone on the street,” asks for help in Manhattan in New York City. A report from the Covenant House and researchers at the University of California, Berkeley finds that schools and agencies could do more to intervene when youth struggle at home. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Twenty-year-old Mikayla Foreman knows her experience is meaningful. Dealing with homelessness since 18 and currently living in a shelter, Foreman has managed to continue her academic journey, studying for exams this month in hopes of attaining a nursing degree.
But Foreman believes there were intervention points that could’ve prevented her from experiencing homelessness in the first place.
“If someone in school had understood what I was going through, things could’ve been very different,” she said in an interview with Stateline.
As more cities impose bans, fines or jail time for adults living on the streets, young people who have been homeless say they face unique problems that could have been addressed earlier. Through more than 400 interviews and survey responses, young people across the country recently told researchers how earlier guidance and intervention might have made a difference for them. The research suggests the country is missing its biggest opportunity to prevent youth homelessness — by intervening well before a young person reaches a shelter and years before they are chronically homeless.
The report, from Covenant House and the University of California, Berkeley, finds that the pathways into youth homelessness are different from those of adults experiencing temporary or chronic homelessness. A young person coming out to their family, or becoming pregnant, or experiencing untreated trauma can create conflicts that push them into homelessness. A lot of that doesn’t show up in current data.
If someone in school had understood what I was going through, things could’ve been very different.
– Mikayla Foreman, 20
The survey responses offer the nation’s schools and social services agencies the chance to get ahead of youth homelessness, researchers say, not only by intervening earlier, but also by pinpointing and responding to the diversity of needs among teenagers and young adults who might be close to losing their housing.
Advocates say there are multiple intervention points — in school, in child welfare organizations and inside family dynamics — where the worst outcomes can be avoided. States such as California, Florida, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington have explored some of those intervention points in policies that range from guaranteed income pilot programs to youth-specific rental assistance and campus housing protections.
Hawaii has made its youth drop-in and crisis-diversion program permanent, and Oregon and Washington have expanded rental assistance and education-centered supports for vulnerable youth. Florida now requires colleges to prioritize housing for homeless and foster students.
“With young people, we have opportunities to intervene much further upstream — in schools, in families, in child welfare — before anyone has to spend a single night on the streets. That’s simply not the case with older adults,” said David Howard, former senior vice president for Covenant House and a co-author of the new research, in an interview with Stateline.
“Even at 18, 20 or 24 [years old], young people are still developing,” Howard said. “Their vulnerabilities look very different from middle-aged adults, and the support systems they need are different too.”
One of the key points of intervention for potentially homeless youth is school. Public schools across the country have increasingly reported more homeless students since the COVID-19 pandemic.
And homelessness has many various regional factors outside of individual circumstances, such as climate-driven homelessness. More than 5,100 students in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina became homeless as a result of hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024.
“Homelessness is multifaceted and lots of us slip through the cracks because the system isn’t designed for our reality,” said Foreman, a former Covenant House resident who helped conduct the new research.
Foreman’s insights and lived experience were included in the study, which showed that youth homelessness rarely begins with an eviction or job loss — frequent causes of homelessness among adults.
The top three reasons that young people experience homelessness for the first time, according to respondents, were being kicked out of their family homes, running away, and leaving an unsafe living situation such as one affected by domestic violence. Other instigators included being unable to afford housing, aging out of foster care, being kicked out of or running away from foster care, and moving away from gang violence.
However, respondents also had suggestions for ways government, schools and the community could help or prevent youth homelessness. They suggested youth-specific housing options, identifying and helping at-risk youth in health care settings, providing direct cash assistance and offering conflict resolution support within families.
Among the most common suggestions was to offer services that create long-lasting connections for young people.
“Strong relationships with non-parental adults, including mentors, teachers, service providers, and elders, were identified as especially important when family connections were strained or absent,” the report said.
The surveys and interviews also demonstrated that young people want mental health care tailored to their personal experience, said Benjamin Parry, a lead researcher on the report, speaking during a September webinar hosted by Point Source Youth, a nonprofit that works to end youth homelessness.
The research breaks out responses from a few specific groups — Indigenous, Latino, immigrant, LGBTQ+ people of color and pregnant or parenting youth — to understand their distinct needs, said Parry, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Public Health. “There’s so much nuance and specificity within these different groups.”
Indigenous youth, for example, often are dealing with the effects of intergenerational trauma and alcoholism that have been projected onto them, Parry said. Those young people have far different needs than pregnant or parenting youth, he noted.
“They are like, ‘I don’t know where my next paycheck’s going to come from, I don’t know how to put food in my baby’s stomach, I don’t have a support network or someone to go to for this advice,’” he said. “That specificity is exactly why we need to understand this better and do better to tailor our approaches and responses.”
Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Every year in Wisconsin state government, billions of taxpayer dollars are spent on programs and policies that impact every citizen, community, school and business.
While many people roll their eyes and tune out the sometimes messy, partisan, unpredictable work of state government, WisconsinEye Public Affairs Network encourages citizens to lean in. For the past 18 years, Wisconsin’s equivalent to C-SPAN has provided an inside look into the workings of state government. This inside look, which I have been involved in from the start, has included:
As the nation’s first independent, non-government-controlled state Capitol network, WisconsinEye does not favor the political left or right, but is rooted firmly in that all-important middle ground where diverse voices are welcome and informed dialogue contributes to positive outcomes for Wisconsin. The transparency that it delivers is essential to building the trust that keeps democracy functioning. Once citizens in a democracy come to understand how decisions are made, they can better use their voices and voting power to shape outcomes.
As an independent not-for-profit resource, WisconsinEye has relied on charitable donations to support its lean annual budget of $900,000. But this funding approach is no longer sustainable in what has become a highly competitive, post-pandemic philanthropic environment. That’s why the painful decision was made to shut down the functions of WisconsinEye, beginning Dec. 15, until the funding gap is plugged.
To this end, WisconsinEye is asking the Legislature and governor to reconfigure a previously designated $10 million matching grant approved in a unanimous bipartisan act, to help WisconsinEye build a permanent $20 million endowment. We are asking for lawmakers to remove the “match” requirement and instead allocate $900,000 for the network’s 2026 budget.
Additionally, we are calling on the state to invest the rest of the endowment, with earnings flowing annually to the network to cover two-thirds of its annual budget. The remaining one-third will be raised through three proven streams: annual program sponsorships, small-gift and online donations, and an annual fundraising dinner.
Meetings with state officials are underway, but it will potentially take three months to work its way through the state process.
In the meantime, WisconsinEye needs to raise $250,000 (three months of its operating budget) to bridge the financial gap and allow state Capitol programming to resume. Without this bridge funding, WisconsinEye could lose up to four highly skilled, cross-trained staff members. The domino effect would put the network at considerable risk of failure.
An alternative plan, that of a state government takeover of the network, was introduced by several Democratic legislators. Their plan, in my view, is in opposition with the decades-long commitment of the Wisconsin Legislature to provide citizens with an independent, trusted, neutral view of state government.
WisconsinEye cannot continue to provide a valued space where citizens can see for themselves, consider events and issues in context, and draw their own conclusions — if it is operated and controlled by the very entity it exists to cover.
Please consider joining the movement to save WisconsinEye by going to wiseye.org/donate. Your donation is tax-deductible.
Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a nonprofit, nonpartisan group dedicated to open government. Jon Henkes is the president and CEO of Wisconsin Eye.
Your Right to Know: Protect transparency, save WisconsinEye is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
When Denny Blodgett learned his northwest Wisconsin county intended to burn wood harvested during a road-widening project near his home, he thought it would be unthinkable for that fuel to go to waste.
As Blodgett recalls, he offered some of the harvested wood to an older man from his church, and word spread around his community of Danbury that he had firewood to give.
“And pretty soon, we’re helping 125 families,” said Blodgett, who founded Interfaith Caregivers’ Heat-A-Home program.
That was three decades ago.
Last year, volunteers delivered nearly 200 loads of split wood to local households.
And as the cost of living increases amid federal cuts to social safety net programs, struggling families increasingly face a winter of tough choices as they try to meet their basic needs.
Food, medicine or heat?
Interfaith is one of about 250 known firewood banks across the country that seek to ameliorate the demand for energy assistance.
There isn’t a clear definition for firewood banks, which have been around since at least the 1970s, but have roots in Native traditions since time immemorial. They can take the informal form of Good Samaritans delivering logs to neighbors to large take-what-you-need distribution sites operated by cities or Indigenous tribes.
But the common denominator to these networks of care is their low- or no-cost service to people who lack the means to purchase alternative forms of heat and process their own firewood. Often, both factors stem from the same issue, such as illness or aging.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimated as of 2020 that 2.3 million households in the United States rely on firewood as their primary source of heating fuel.
But one of the great paradoxes of what researchers term “fuel poverty” is that those struggling to keep their homes warm in rural, often heavily forested areas lack ready access to wood.
“I’ve got 20 acres of oak and hardwood here and a chainsaw and a log splitter, but I’m pretty much unable to really do much with it,” said Danbury resident Peter Brask, 78, who struggles with neuropathy. “I just still feel embarrassed asking for help because I’ve been so self-sufficient all my life.”
Last year’s wood delivery from Interfaith was a “lifesaver” for getting through the winter, the retired IBM software specialist said.
Blodgett, a former U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, purchases and accepts donated wood, delivered to a yard adjacent to his home. A processor cuts “cattywampus” piles of timber into smaller pieces, and volunteers split them into burnable portions.
The wood dries until it’s “seasoned.” The less moisture in a log, the cleaner and more efficiently it burns.
Interfaith purchased two trailers a few years ago with money the group obtained from the Alliance for Green Heat, a nonprofit that advocates for the use of modern wood-burning heating systems.
Buoyed with money from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, it has issued more than $2 million in grants to firewood banks that help them purchase safety equipment, chainsaws and wood splitters, as well as smoke detectors for wood recipients.
Overlooking a renewable resource like wood at the potential cost to human health is unthinkable, said the organization’s founder John Ackerly, especially when so much potential firewood ends up in landfills — the “scraggly stuff” that lumber mills can’t offload. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calculated 12.2 million tons of wood ended up as municipal solid waste in 2018.
“Usually, firewood is not a very profitable thing to sell, very labor-intensive and very heavy,” Ackerly said.
Another opportunity presented by firewood banks is providing a local outlet that avoids spreading wood infested with invasive species. Banks also avert the dumping of wood sourced from storm-damaged trees, exacerbated by climate-change-magnified severe weather — winds and snow.
“We’re losing our power, our electricity in these storms all the time,” said Jessica Leahy, a University of Maine professor, who co-authored a guide to starting community wood banks. “It would be great to have everybody in the most carbon-neutral heating source for their house. That sounds great, but there are people burning their kitchen cabinets in order to stay warm.”
Now in its fourth year issuing grants with federal dollars, the Alliance for Green Heat had to rebrand after the Trump administration pushed for increased timber harvests on federal lands in the name of national economic security.
This year, firewood banks seeking grants must source wood from actively managed federal forests, a potential problem for the handful of states that lack them.
“Before, we really touted the program as serving ‘low-income populations’ with a ‘renewable, low-carbon fuel,’” Ackerly said. “We had to remove that language, but we were able to keep doing what we had been doing the same way.”
Researchers who mapped wood banks across the U.S. identified a second in Wisconsin — the Bear Ridge Firewood Bank, sponsored by the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians — and a handful in other Midwestern states, including Indiana, Michigan and Minnesota.
Clarisse Hart — director of outreach and education at Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts, and one of the researchers — said firewood banks often go by different names depending on the region: firewood assistance program, firewood for elders, firewood ministry, wood pantry and charity cut, to name a few.
Other exchanges happen behind the scenes, she said, often on private, community social media pages — making banks harder to identify.
Often, the operations depend on the commitment of volunteers.
“A lot of people want to give back, but they don’t know what to do,” said Ed Hultgren, who started an Ozark, Missouri, wood bank in 2009. “It doesn’t have to be wood ministry. You find a gap in your area and see if there’s something you can do to fill it.”
Wayne Kinning — a retired surgeon who volunteers with his Fenton , Michigan, Knights of Columbus council — is one of a dozen or so men from St. John the Evangelist parish who cut, split and sell low-cost firewood. The proceeds support local charities.
“We donate all our time and even our chainsaws,” he said. “That, of course, then gives a person a sense of meaning in their day and a sense of worth in their giving.”
Among Blodgett’s helpers are a snowmobile club, several churches and a Jewish summer camp. Another dedicated volunteer — Wendy Truhler, 74, of Danbury — has assisted Blodgett for nearly two decades, since her spouse died.
“Listen, I helped my husband split for 30 years. I know how to lift and work a splitter and this and that,” she told Blodgett when she started. “I would rather be outside than glued to a little 12-inch computer screen.”
Blodgett delivers wood throughout the year, which takes the pressure off the winter rush.
He fills the extra time working on other Interfaith projects: constructing wheelchair ramps for families and running the Christmas for Kids program.
Last year, 335 children received toys and clothes from their wish lists. Families also get a $50 food card. And he makes sure they get another resource wood provides.
A decorated tree for Christmas.
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Firewood banks offer heat, and hope, to rural homes in need is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
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