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Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health have shown a new AI tool was successful at flagging patients at risk of opioid addiction and at reducing hospital readmissions.
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As the stock markets around the world have shown, changes to tariffs have far-reaching effects, such as in northwest Wisconsin, with the Port of Duluth-Superior being a major import and export hub.
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After facing stiff opposition from within their own party, Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin have introduced a new version of a bill aimed at giving state utility companies first dibs on building new high-voltage transmission lines.
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The Bear River flows out of Flambeau Lake. Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner
Tuesday afternoon, April 8, T.J. Bill, chief of police for the Lac du Flambeau (LDF) Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, said his department and other agencies had spent over 1,000 hours in the search for Melissa Beson, 37, a tribal member who has been missing since March 17.
As the snow melts under rising temperatures, the plan for Saturday, April 12, is to continue an organized ground, air and water search in and around the surrounding vast forest, thousands of acres where one could quickly become lost.
Beson was last seen between 4:30 and 5 p.m. on March 17 on the outskirts of the Town of Lac du Flambeau, by Indian Village Road and Chequamegon Forest Trail, near the Bear River.
Early in the search, the LDF Tribal Police Department flew a drone over the river’s open water and sent a submersible drone under the ice.
A search of the area forest, which covers most of Vilas County, was impeded by snow cover.
After Beson was last seen on March 17, there was a heavy snowfall of over 6 inches, and then after her family reported her missing on March 23, another 3-inch snowfall covered the area. Some of the snow has melted with rising temperatures, but deeper in the woods snow is still covering downed logs and branches, making it difficult to detect what could be on the forest floor.
“We still have 6 inches of snow in the woods,” said Bill on April 8.
However, Bill anticipated that much of that snow would be melted by Saturday. Once the snow is totally off the ground, he plans to request that the Wisconsin State Patrol search the area by airplane.
On the previous Saturday, April 5, 25 people went out looking for Beson, including those from canine units and others operating drones in the water and air. However, it was difficult with the snow still on the ground.
On Tuesday, Bill was driving on a side road when he came across LDF Emergency Manager Kat Milton, who was out collecting the GIS coordinates to help organize the Saturday, April 12, search in one of the large sections of woods near where Beson was last seen.
Bill’s concern about covering a large forest is volunteers getting lost while searching for Beson.
On Saturday, he also anticipates needing the drones to look over bogs and swamps scattered around the forest.
“We can’t walk into a bog unless we throw boards down that we can walk over,” he said.
Bill said he has to consider that Beson could have gotten lost in the large forest.
Since joining the department in 2013, he has participated in three searches for lost persons who were found deceased. The missing person is not always found deep in the woods.
“The Newbold Search and Rescue found one individual a half-mile from his residence,” he said.
After Benson went missing, the LDF Police Department reviewed recordings from over 360 surveillance cameras located around the reservation but didn’t turn up any footage of Beson.
“We didn’t have any surveillance cameras where Mellisa was last seen,” said Bill.
But the police department has other cameras that record the license plates of vehicles on the roads on March 17.
“We recorded the license plates of hundreds of vehicles,” he said.
As Bill’s office prepares for the weekend ground search, it is also coordinating with law enforcement in other areas of the state on leads that Beson might be living with friends off the reservation in larger communities.
“We are following up all the information we have, but we are also searching locally to eliminate the possibility that she might have walked off into the woods and gotten lost,” he said.
Beson’s mother, Winifred Ann Beson, “Winnie,” said her daughter might be with friends, but she also said she is afraid Melissa might have been taken by human trafficking. Native American populations have been targeted by human traffickers who prey on vulnerable populations where there is poverty and high drug use.
Winnie said her daughter likes to travel to other states, but she has always stayed in communication.
“Usually, she calls me if she needs money or is in trouble, but she hasn’t called me,” she said.
The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women/Relatives MMIW/R movement has been raising awareness of the plight of Indigenous women who have a much higher rate of being victims of violence.
The MMIW/R issue has touched the LDF band. On the edge of the Town of Lac du Flambeau, there is a new billboard asking for information on the death of Susan Poupart, a tribal woman who was murdered on May 20, 1990, and her case remains unsolved.
Winnie, who suffers from lung cancer, said it is difficult for her emotionally to not know where her daughter is or if she is safe.
“It’s hard,” Winnie said of her missing daughter. “She is big-hearted, loveable, funny. She is right by me all the time. Me and her are close.”
Melissa Beson is 5’7” with a medium build, brown hair, and brown eyes. She has numerous tattoos, including on her neck, arms and legs.
Anyone with information on Beson’s whereabouts is asked to contact the Lac du Flambeau Tribal Police Department at (715) 558-7717 or the Vilas County Sheriff’s Office at (715) 479-4441.
Anyone with information on the Susan Poupart case is asked to call Deputy Cody Remick at (715) 479-4441 or (800) 479-4441 or the Wisconsin Department of Justice at (608) 266-1221.
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A Union Pacific train transports coal through Spanish Fork Canyon in Utah County, Utah. on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. President Donald Trump signed an order on April 8, 2025, aimed at boosting coal production. (Photo by Spenser Heaps/Utah News Dispatch)
An executive order President Donald Trump signed Tuesday to block state-level renewable-energy initiatives set off alarm bells among climate advocates.
But experts and state policy groups said constitutional protections will blunt any effect the order would have on state operations.
The order, one of four Trump signed Tuesday aiming to revitalize the coal industry, directs the U.S. Justice Department to investigate and block enforcement of state laws that restrict fossil fuel production. It specifically targets state and local policies involving climate change, environmental justice and carbon emissions reductions — popular among blue states.
By attempting to strip states of their own authority to make and enforce laws, the order violates basic constitutional principles and would likely be struck down in court, environmental law experts said Wednesday.
Brad Campbell, the president of the New England-based environmental advocacy group Conservation Law Foundation, said in an interview with States Newsroom the order does not cite any federal law or interest the administration is seeking to protect — though the order does mention interstate commerce and an objective to improve national security — revealing it is more about messaging than policymaking.
“This is political theater more than it is law,” Campbell said. “It completely disregards the understanding of federalism that has been in place for centuries and the language of the Constitution itself.”
While the order itself may be unlikely to withstand legal scrutiny, it signals the administration could make demands about climate policy that would have to be obeyed at risk of losing federal cash, advocates said.
Trump officials already have shown an eagerness in their first months for using federal funding as leverage with states, universities and other institutions that are outside the federal government’s control.
In a statement, White House spokesman Taylor Rogers said Wednesday the order would protect against states assuming the power to regulate international issues like climate change.
“The President is right to ensure that Americans in both red and blue states are not beholden to State overreach stifling American energy that are unconstitutional or contradict federal law,” she said.
The order includes a lengthy preamble attempting to justify federal involvement in state and local policymaking, while also noting that state policies focusing on emissions reductions and climate protections are at odds with Trump’s goals.
“These State laws and policies try to dictate interstate and international disputes over air, water, and natural resources; unduly discriminate against out-of-State businesses; contravene the equality of States; and retroactively impose arbitrary and excessive fines without legitimate justification,” the order’s opening section reads.
“These State laws and policies are fundamentally irreconcilable with my Administration’s objective to unleash American energy. They should not stand.”
At the Tuesday signing ceremony for the order and three others on coal production, White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf told the president that states promoting renewable sources of energy were a major part of the coal industry’s decline.
“One of the biggest problems we have in this space is Democrat states, radical leftist states, enacting policies and enacting an agenda that discriminates against coal, against secure sources of energy,” Scharf said.
The order, though, does little to change the market and technological forces that have led to the coal industry’s decline, Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, the executive director of the environmental group Western Environmental Law Center, said Wednesday.
“I just don’t see how the order … is going to do anything but create confusion and uncertainties for communities that are transitioning away from coal right now,” he said.
“In many respects, it does an injustice to those communities by giving them a false sense of hope that somehow coal mines and coal-fired power plants are suddenly going to be resurrected from the dead or be pushed well beyond their economic and technological lifespan.”
Environmental lawyers and climate advocates said the order does not change the constitutional structure of the U.S. government that empowers states to set their own laws.
Casey Katims, the executive director of the U.S. Climate Alliance, a coalition of 24 governors seeking to prioritize state-focused climate policy, said the group’s members would not be moved by the order.
“The reality is that states continue to enjoy broad, independent constitutional authority to advance solutions to meet the needs of communities, businesses and workers,” Katims said in a Wednesday interview. “The president cannot change the Constitution by fiat.”
The group’s co-chairs, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, both Democrats, said in a Tuesday statement the administration had no power to block state authority and the coalition would be undeterred by the order.
“The federal government cannot unilaterally strip states’ independent constitutional authority,” they said. “We are a nation of states — and laws — and we will not be deterred.”
If the Justice Department, under Attorney General Pam Bondi, sues to stop enforcement of state laws, courts would likely reinforce states’ well-understood power to govern themselves, Campbell said.
Even the U.S. Supreme Court, which has a conservative supermajority that includes three members appointed by Trump and has shown deference to even the most controversial actions of his second presidency, would move to restrain that federal power, Campbell predicted.
“I think the notion that the president can stop enforcement of state laws that don’t align with his political program will be too much of an overreach even for this very Trump-friendly Supreme Court majority,” he said.
Further, he said, even Republican governors, whose party has traditionally advocated for increased states’ rights in relation to the federal government, might object to the intrusion of the executive branch into state policymaking. Allowing action under the order would set a precedent for a future Democratic president to meddle in Republican states, he said.
The lack of legal authority to directly block enforcement of state laws may not keep the Trump administration from exercising power in another way: withholding federal funds from uncooperative states.
The order signals the administration, which has been bold in asserting a power to deny congressionally appropriated funding, could target states over climate policy, Schlenker-Goodrich said.
“Do they have a legal basis? Not really,” he said. “Can they use political weapons, in particular relative to funding, against states that are stepping up on climate action? That is very much a possibility. That is the direction you will see the White House going.”
State Rep. Jerry O'Connor gives testimony in favor of a bill that would require state agencies to report on various metrics for training and workforce development programs they supervise. (Screenshot/WisEye)
Republicans in the state Legislature are taking another run at changes to unemployment insurance and workforce programs in Wisconsin that Gov. Tony Evers vetoed in August 2023.
While sponsors of the bills cited a couple of modifications in some measures, they are for the most part unchanged, they said during public hearings Wednesday for four bills in the Assembly’s labor committee.
One, AB 162, would require state agencies to compile a series of metrics on training and workforce development programs under their supervision, including the unemployment rates and median earnings of participants six months after they graduate from a program.
“We want to make certain our money’s being spent in a way that generates a positive beneficial return both for taxpayers and for the individuals participating in the programs,” said state Rep. Jerry O’Connor (R-Fond du Lac), testifying in favor of the bill. “We’d look at the percent of individuals enrolled in training programs who obtained a measurable skill gain.”
O’Connor said the bill draws its performance measures from the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), a federal workforce training law updated in 2014.
In vetoing the version of the bill that passed the last session of the Legislature, Evers said that many state programs it covered didn’t fit with WIOA’s reporting structure and “have separate requirements under current state law.”
Three other bills would impose tighter restrictions on the unemployment insurance (UI) system.
AB 167 would expand the definition of employee misconduct that would be grounds for denying an unemployment insurance claim as well as for a worker’s compensation claim. The bill would also require DWD to conduct random audits of 50% of all work searches reported by people claiming UI.
AB 168 would extend the statute of limitations for prosecuting felony fraudulent UI claims to eight years. It would also require the state Department of Workforce Development (DWD) to produce more training materials for employers and UI claimants, operate a call center and expand its hours in times of higher volume, check various state and national databases to verify that UI applicants qualify, and implement “identity-proofing” measures.
AB 169 would penalize UI recipients who do not show up for a job interview they have been granted or a job they’ve been offered — “commonly referred to as ghosting,” said state Rep. Dan Knodl (R-Germantown), the bill’s author.
A UI recipient who fails to respond to an interview request or job offer, fails to report for a scheduled job interview or who is not available to return to work at their previous job would lose unemployment benefits for the week in which that occurred. The bill does not impose the penalty for the first offense.
State Rep. Joan Fitzgerald (D-Fort Atkinson) asked Knodl whether the bill had gone through the state’s Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council. The joint labor-management body revises the state’s UI law every two years. In the past Evers has vetoed UI proposals for not going through the council.
“This is one of those that they’re not going to visit,” Knodl said. “So that’s why we’re here as a stand-alone bill.”
Nobody testified against the bills Wednesday, but Victor Forberger, a Madison attorney who represents people with UI claims, sent the committee a four-page memo opposing them. He wrote that DWD already does most of what AB 168 would require, and that it would “hamstring” the department “when new practices and resources emerge.”
The measures “will do nothing to make unemployment more useful and efficient for Wisconsin workers and employers,” Forberger wrote.
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The U.S. Capitol, as seen on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson postponed a vote on the budget resolution that was supposed to take place Wednesday, as he tried to get the support of far-right members of the party who object because it won’t go far enough to achieve their goals of slashing government spending.
Johnson, R-La., said he hoped the House would be able to vote on the tax and spending blueprint Thursday, before leaving town for a two-week recess, though he didn’t rule out setting up a conference process with the Senate, or changing the budget resolution and sending it back across the Capitol.
“We are working through some good ideas and solutions to get everybody there,” Johnson said. “It may not happen tonight, but probably by tomorrow morning.”
Johnson’s comments came after he huddled behind closed doors for about an hour with more than a dozen far-right House Republicans who believe the budget resolution doesn’t require the Senate to cut enough spending.
“We want everybody to have a high degree of comfort about what is happening here,” Johnson said. “And we have a small subset of members who weren’t totally satisfied with the product as it stands. So we’re going to talk about maybe going to conference with the Senate, or adding an amendment. But we’re going to make that decision. We are going to continue to move forward. This is all positive.”
The House and Senate are far from agreement on how much to reduce federal spending later this year when they write the reconciliation bill.
The House instructions call on numerous committees to cut spending by at least $1.5 trillion, with more than half of that deficit savings coming from the committee that oversees Medicaid. Those instructions would likely lead to hundreds of billions in federal funding being pulled from the program, though Republicans insisted during floor debate they were only looking to address waste, fraud and abuse.
The Senate has given itself a floor of $4 billion in spending cuts, which could lead to substantial deficit increases. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released analysis last week, showing the reconciliation package could bolster deficits by up to $5.8 trillion during the next decade.
House debate, which took place before the vote was delayed, followed days of lobbying by House GOP leaders and President Donald Trump, who urged holdouts to adopt the budget resolution during a campaign fundraising dinner Tuesday evening.
“I think we are there,” Trump said. “But just in case there are a couple of Republicans out there, you just got to get there, close your eyes and get there. It’s a phenomenal bill. Stop grandstanding, just stop grandstanding.”
That didn’t sway everyone, however, leading Speaker Johnson to pull about a dozen of the far-right members off the floor Wednesday evening just as the House was supposed to move on to the budget vote.
The rest of the chamber’s lawmakers waited on the floor for more than an hour as the group huddled nearby.
Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry, South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman, Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett and Texas Rep. Chip Roy were among the members to get summoned off the floor by Johnson.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., called on Republicans to adopt the budget resolution earlier in the day during floor debate, saying it “just opens the door to” using the complex budget reconciliation process to enact their agenda.
“The process where 11 of our committees here in the House will go to work to start making improvements in so many areas to get America back on track,” Scalise said. “And ultimately, that’s why we all come here. We come here to solve big problems. We deal with small issues too. But every now and then — and it’s not often — you deal with a big issue that can actually improve the lives of families all across this country.”
Budget Committee ranking member Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., said members of his party wouldn’t allow the parts of the 2017 tax law that benefit the middle class to expire at the end of the year, rejecting claims from GOP lawmakers.
“If you’re a middle-class American, if you are in the 99%, you will not see your taxes go up next year,” Boyle said. “There is no question about that. What is at issue is the tax cuts for multimillionaires, billionaires and big corporations.”
Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Lloyd Smucker said he couldn’t vote to approve the budget resolution since the Senate’s instructions for spending cuts were “not acceptable.”
“To me, it’s important we have the guardrails in the initial resolution,” Smucker said, before encouraging House leaders to amend the budget resolution to increase the amount of spending cuts the Senate must implement.
“I can’t vote on this bill as it is, but there’s a path forward here and that is very, very important,” Smucker said.
Roy of Texas also spoke out against the budget resolution, saying the Senate’s instructions didn’t go far enough to reduce deficits.
“The Senate sent over a joke. And we’re going to capitulate to the Senate, knowing full well that the Senate instructions carry the day,” Roy said. “And we’re going to be sitting there in a reconciliation debate, where we’re going to end up on the short end of the stick. But worse, the American people are going to end up on the short end of the stick because it absolutely increases deficits. No one can deny it.”
Roy added that members of Congress should “pass a math test” because the numbers in the budget resolution didn’t add up.
Republican leaders have struggled for months to get the vast majority of their members on board with the outline.
Even if the House finally approves the resolution, Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., have months of work ahead of them as committees begin writing and debating their sections of the reconciliation package.
The budget resolution tasks 11 House committees and 10 Senate panels with meeting vague budget targets. Committees either have a minimum amount of spending to cut or a maximum amount of deficits they can create.
The House and Senate are relatively aligned on some of those targets, though they are far apart on spending cuts and potentially tax policy.
In the House, the Agriculture Committee needs to slice at least $230 billion; Education and Workforce must reduce spending by a minimum of $330 billion; Energy and Commerce needs to cut no less than $880 billion; Financial Services must find at least $1 billion in savings; Natural Resources has a minimum of $1 billion; Oversight and Government Reform has a floor of $50 billion; and the Transportation Committee needs to reduce deficits by $10 billion or more.
The Energy and Commerce Committee’s instructions have been a central issue for Democrats, and many centrist Republicans, who are concerned that Medicaid, the state-federal health program for lower-income people, will be a target for hundreds of billions in cuts.
Four Senate committees — Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; Energy and Natural Resources; and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, or HELP — must each find at least $1 billion in spending cuts over the 10-year budget window.
House committees that can increase the federal deficit include the Armed Services Committee with a cap of $100 billion in new spending, Homeland Security with a $90 billion ceiling for new funding for programs it oversees, Judiciary with a maximum of $110 billion and Ways and Means, which can increase deficits up to $4.5 trillion for tax cuts.
Senate committees also got instructions for increasing the deficit, which will allow them to spend up to the dollar amount outlined in the budget resolution. Those committees include Armed Services at $150 billion; Commerce, Science and Transportation with $20 billion; Environment and Public Works at $1 billion; Finance with $1.5 trillion in new deficits, likely for tax cuts; Homeland Security at $175 billion and Judiciary with $175 billion.
House instructions call for the reconciliation package to raise the debt limit by $4 trillion while the Senate’s plans say lawmakers can raise it by up to $5 trillion.
Assuming the House adopts the budget resolution, GOP leaders will need to keep nearly all of their members supportive during the next couple months as those numbers turn into tangible policy proposals.
House Republican leaders can only lose three members on party-line votes, given their paper-thin 220-lawmaker majority.
The same number of GOP senators can vote against the final reconciliation package as long as Vice President J.D. Vance casts the tie-breaking vote.
Any more Republicans opposing the package would prevent it from becoming law.
Minister of Justice and Public Security Héctor Villatoro, right, accompanies U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, center, during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center, or CECOT, on March 26, 2025 in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Federal judges in Texas and New York Wednesday temporarily halted the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in parts of those two states where Venezuelans set for deportation are incarcerated.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed cases in the Southern District of New York and the Southern District of Texas, after the U.S. Supreme Court this week deemed challenges to the wartime law must be brought in the location of those subject to President Donald Trump’s proclamation on use of the act. The cases earlier were argued in the District of Columbia.
That Monday decision from the high court lifted a lower court’s order that barred the Trump administration from invoking the wartime law to deport any Venezuelan nationals 14 or older who are suspected gang members — but the justices also said unanimously that the Venezuelans must be allowed court hearings.
Texas Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. issued a temporary restraining order to prevent the deportation of Venezuelans in the entire state of Texas under the Alien Enemies Act, as well as the facility where the three men who brought the case are currently detained, the El Valle Detention Center in Raymondville.
The restraining order from Rodriguez Jr. is in place until April 23. The order also states that the three Venezuelan men cannot be removed from the El Valle Detention Center, which is the same center from which the Trump administration on March 15 transferred those subject to the wartime law and placed them on a plane to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.
The temporary restraining order from New York Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein that he plans to sign Wednesday would cover Venezuelans in the Southern District of New York, according to The Associated Press. That would include New York City, the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx and Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan and Westchester counties.
Two Venezuelans brought the suit in the Southern District of New York.
Hellerstein, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, will hold an April 22 hearing to determine if the temporary restraining order should become a preliminary injunction. The ACLU is also pushing for a class certification.
The Supreme Court said this week it will allow, for now, the Trump administration to use the Alien Enemies Act, but those subject to the proclamation must be allowed to bring a challenge in court.
The original suit against the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act came from five men detained in Texas. The justices argued that the proper court venue should be where they were being detained in Texas rather than before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
More than 238 Venezuelans have been deported to the brutal prison, Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, known as CECOT.
Judge Rodriguez Jr., whom President Donald Trump appointed in 2017, in placing the temporary restraining order noted that anyone who is erroneously deported under the Alien Enemies Act potentially cannot be returned to the United States.
In his reasoning, he cited the Trump administration’s stance in a high-profile case that led to a Maryland man being sent to a prison in El Salvador by mistake.
The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to strike down a lower court’s order that officials return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia of Beltsville, Maryland, who had a 2019 court order barring his removal to El Salvador. On Monday the Supreme Court temporarily paused the deadline until the high court could make a full decision.
“Furthermore, if the United States erroneously removed an individual to another country based on the Proclamation, a substantial likelihood exists that the individual could not be returned to the United States,” Rodriguez Jr. wrote.
A hearing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in the Brownsville division, is set for Friday 1:30 p.m. Central.
Rodriguez said of the upcoming Friday hearing, “the Court will consider whether to extend the temporary restraining order or issue other forms of emergency relief.”
Jennifer Vasquez Sura, left, and Congressional Hispanic Chair Adriano Espaillat, a New York Democrat, center, talk with Democratic Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, right, after a press conference calling for the return of Vasquez Sura's husband, who was erroneously deported. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Jennifer Vasquez Sura has a message for her husband, who was erroneously deported to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador by the Trump administration.
“I’m still fighting for you,” she said during a Thursday press conference with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Maryland Democratic lawmakers who are demanding the Trump administration return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the United States.
Abrego Garcia, a national of El Salvador with deportation protections, was not charged with any offense but was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement March 12 due to a “change in status.”
Trump officials have admitted his removal on March 15 to the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, was a mistake, but have stood by their decision.
“This so-called administrative error has destroyed my family’s happiness, my children’s innocence,” Vasquez Sura said, her voice shaking as she took small breaks before continuing to read her statement.
The chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Adriano Espaillat, said he is writing a letter to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele to ask for Abrego Garcia’s release as well as request for a congressional delegation to visit CECOT.
Bukele is scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House April 14. Espaillat, a New York Democrat, said if he does not receive a response from Bukele, he will ask for a response from Bukele when he visits the White House.
“We don’t know his condition,” Espaillat said of Abrego Garcia. “The family deserves to know his condition, and if they don’t tell us, we will visit the prison ourselves.”
Democratic Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Democratic Rep. Glenn Ivey, whose district includes the family’s home in Beltsville, criticized the Trump administration for not only accidentally deporting Abrego Garcia, but labeling him as a MS-13 gang member, despite his lack of a criminal record in any country, including the U.S.
“He was whisked off without any due process, and is now in a torturous … jail in El Salvador,” Van Hollen said.
In 2019 Abrego Garcia was given removal orders to his home country. He was granted protections from removal by an immigration judge because it was more “likely than not that he would be persecuted by gangs in El Salvador” if he were returned, according to court documents.
On Tuesday, two dozen Senate Democrats sent a letter to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, demanding Abrego Garcia be returned to the U.S.
The Trump administration was ordered by a federal judge to return Abrego Garcia by Monday, and while the order was unanimously held up by a panel of judges on an appeals court, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily paused the deadline to return Abrego Garcia.
The high court will make a full decision on whether or not the Trump administration will be required to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an executive order signing in the Oval Office at the White House on Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Suddenly veering from his declaration a week ago, President Donald Trump on Wednesday paused his sweeping “liberation day” tariffs for 90 days on countries he’s said are willing to negotiate new trade deals.
Stocks surged upon his announcement after days of wrecked markets erased trillions of dollars from investor portfolios. The Nasdaq index saw the biggest single-day hike in five years as of Wednesday afternoon, according to financial media.
The pause will not extend to China, which he announced will see a further hike to 125% on imports to the U.S. “effective immediately,” he said.
“At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” Trump posted on Truth Social just after 1 p.m. Eastern.
The president said more than 75 countries have reached out to negotiate, and that because “these Countries have not, at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form against the United States” he is dropping their tariff rates to a universal 10%.
Several rounds of tariffs the president enacted in March will remain in place, including 25% import taxes on foreign steel, aluminum and cars — charges which sparked the European Union to approve retaliatory tariffs Wednesday.
Canada and Mexico, which both face up to 25% tariffs on a sizable chunk of products, will continue to see the levies but will not face an additional 10% stacked on top.
Trump’s 25% tax on imports from any country that buys oil from Venezuela also remains unchanged.
The president told the press outside the White House Wednesday afternoon that he saw people getting “queasy” and “yippy” about the market turmoil.
“You have to have flexibility,” Trump said about his decision to pause the levies.
The tariffs, which the administration maintains are “reciprocal,” though under a formula disputed by economists, went into effect just after midnight Wednesday.
When asked by reporters if he’ll consider exempting any large companies that lost big in the market crash from paying the baseline 10% import tax, Trump said he’ll rely on his “instinct” to make the decision.
The announcement came just hours after the president posted on social media “BE COOL!” and “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.”
Trump’s sudden pause also came just after U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer defended the steep tariffs to nervous lawmakers for the second day in a row.
Administration officials quickly claimed the sudden pause was part of Trump’s strategy all along — despite several saying over the last few days that the tariffs were here to stay and that Americans needed to have patience as the market crashed. More than half of Americans are invested in the stock market.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller characterized Trump’s about-face on tariffs as “the greatest economic master strategy from an American President in history,” in a post on X Wednesday afternoon.
Trump’s tariff plan sent shock waves through the economy after he unveiled import taxes on trading partners and allies, including 46% for Vietnam, a major tech exporter to the U.S.
The administration calculated the steep tariff rates based on each country’s trade deficit with the U.S.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters outside the White House Wednesday that the tariffs were “a successful negotiating strategy.”
“As I told everyone a week ago in this very spot: Do not retaliate, and you will be rewarded,” Bessent said.
The administration met with Vietnamese officials Wednesday, according to Bessent, and meetings with Japan, South Korea and India are expected shortly, though he didn’t provide details.
When asked by reporters if Trump’s tariff policy was mainly now focused on China, Bessent said “it’s about bad actors” but added that China “is the biggest source of the U.S. trade problems.”
The trade war — a term Bessent rejected — between the U.S. and China expanded rapidly overnight Wednesday when Chinese officials raised levies on U.S. goods to 84%.
“The US’s practice of escalating tariffs on China is a mistake on top of a mistake, which seriously infringes on China’s legitimate rights and interests and seriously damages the rules-based multilateral trading system,” according to a translation of a statement Wednesday from the country’s State Council Tariff Commission.
A Trump campaign account posted on X a screenshot of the president’s morning message urging people to buy stocks and asked “Did the Panicans listen to @POTUS’s advice this morning?”
“Panicans” is a term Trump used recently to mock lawmakers who openly criticized losses to retirement funds and questioned how the tariffs would affect small businesses in their districts.
Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and James Lankford of Oklahoma grilled Greer Tuesday during a hearing before the Senate Committee on Finance.
“Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves wrong?” Tillis asked.
Greer faced questions Wednesday morning from the House Committee on Ways and Means, where Chair Jason Smith of Missouri cheered on Trump’s choice to unleash tariffs on almost every country at once.
Rep. Richard Neal, the panel’s top Democrat, told Greer that his office has been “inundated” with calls from constituents worried about their 401k funds.
“They don’t know what to expect, trillions of dollars of market value being lost even as we meet,” the Massachusetts Democrat said at the morning hearing before Trump called off the tariffs.
Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff said Wednesday that he’s asking the White House if any insider trading occurred while Trump was “creating giant market fluctuations with his on-again, off-again tariffs.”
“Who in the administration knew about Trump’s latest tariff flip flop ahead of time? Did anyone buy or sell stocks, and profit at the public’s expense?” Schiff wrote on X.
Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington and Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa introduced a bipartisan bill to claw back Congressional power over trade decisions from the president, who currently has near-unilateral authority.
GOP Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska introduced companion legislation in the House.
While Trump imposed some of his tariffs — including those on foreign steel and aluminum — under a national security provision, he levied the charges on Canadian and Mexican imports as well as his recent worldwide tariffs by declaring a national emergency.
The Milwaukee County Courthouse. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office of Milwaukee released new information Tuesday regarding the arrests of two undocumented immigrants at the county courthouse.
A spokesperson wrote in an email statement that Edwin Bustamante-Sierre, 27, and Marco Cruz-Garcia, 24, were arrested by ICE at the courthouse. The statement said that Bustamante-Sierre, a citizen of Nicaragua, was arrested on April 3, and convicted in Fond du Lac County for reckless driving on Dec. 5, 2024. He is currently charged with endangering safety, reckless use of a firearm, use of a dangerous weapon and cocaine possession in Milwaukee County, the email statement read.
Mexican citizen Cruz-Garcia, the spokesperson wrote, was detained by ICE on March 20. The agency’s statement accuses Cruz-Garcia of being a known member of the “Sureños transnational criminal street gang” and states that he’d been arrested for “multiple criminal charges including breaking and entering, car theft, and assault.” The spokesperson wrote that an immigration judge ordered Cruz-Garcia to be deported to Mexico on Feb. 5, 2020.
Wisconsin Examiner was unable to locate an online court record related to Bustamante-Sierre. For Cruz-Garcia, online court records show a case filed on Jan. 18 involving one count of misdemeanor battery with a domestic abuse modifier. The court record shows that on March 9, Cruz-Garcia was in custody and appeared in court via video, where it was noted that he was indigent. Cruz-Garcia’s case was assigned to another judge and he was turned over for supervison to Justice Point, a non-profit organization which provides a variety of evidence-based criminal justice programs.
All Cruz-Garcia’s prior court orders, including a no-contact order and no possession of firearms, remained in place, as he was required to attend all future court proceedings. On March 20, the day he was detained by ICE, Cruz-Garcia appeared in family court where a domestic violence restraining order was dismissed.
Days later in early April, there was a courtroom discussion about Cruz-Garcia having been deported to Mexico. Rather than dismissing the case, as defense attorneys asked, Circuit Court Judge Marshall Murray (serving as a reserve for Judge Rebecca Kiefer) granted a prosecutor’s request for a warrant to be issued, according to online court records. An order to review the dismissal of the case against Cruz-Garcia 60 days from April 2 was also issued.
Courthouses are not immune from the Trump administration’s deportation efforts. On Jan. 21, ICE was directed to conduct “civil immigration enforcement actions in or near courthouses when they have credible information that leads them to believe the targeted alien(s) is or will be present at a specific location, and where such action is not precluded by laws imposed by the jurisdiction in which the civil immigration enforcement action will take place.”
Agents are instructed to conduct enforcement actions “in non-public areas of the courthouse” in collaboration with court security staff, and to use “non-public entrances and exits.” Wherever possible, ICE agents should operate “discreetly to minimize their impact on court proceedings,” the directive states. The order also says ICE agents and officers should avoid actions in or near non-criminal courthouses, such as family or small claims court.
Last week, the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) said in a press statement that it did not participate in the arrests. Although MCSO was aware of the first arrest, the office was not given advance notice of the second arrest. The press release did not name the people who were arrested, and noted that it’s “not uncommon” for law enforcement agencies to search available databases for upcoming court hearings to find targeted individuals.
The courthouse arrests were widely condemned by community members. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said “an attack on this safe, community-serving space undermines public trust, breeds fear among citizens and staff and disrupts the due process essential to our courts.” Senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin Tim Muth echoed concerns that the arrests would create an atmosphere of fear around the courthouse. “Research by the ACLU has shown that when ICE is known to be active in courthouses, members of the immigrant community are less likely to report crimes, less likely to cooperate with police and prosecutors and less likely to make their court appearances,” said Muth. “Our communities become less safe as a consequence.”
Activists from the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression also expressed concerns about database sharing between local and federal law enforcement, and called for the courthouse to be a safe space for people to come for legal support, services and to seek justice. Over the weekend, at a rally protesting policies by the Trump administration and Elon Musk, local immigration activists raised those same concerns. “People will be afraid to come to the courthouse if that is not a protected zone,” said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera during the protest. “And we know that these local fights are our frontline battles.”
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A sign at an SEIU Wisconsin rally for nurses in contract talks at UnityPoint Health-Meriter hospital. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
Union nurses at UnityPoint Health-Meriter hospital in Madison rallied Tuesday, warning that they would strike if they can’t reach a satisfactory labor agreement in their current contract talks.
The rally was held in advance of a bargaining session scheduled for Wednesday between the hospital and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents about 800 nurses at the hospital.
The nurses are currently working without a contract after their previous agreement expired March 16 and was extended to March 23.
The union is highlighting its demands for written language addressing safety issues, said Pat Raes, SEIU Wisconsin president and a nurse for 35 years at Meriter.
“We are fighting for the safety of every last person there. And part of that in today’s society when rules are being turned upside down, inside out, and backwards, means that we have to find ways to make sure that our safety is codified,” Raes said at the Tuesday afternoon rally. “And one of those ways to do that is with having a contract that talks about safety.”
Sherry Casali, chief nursing executive and vice president of patient care at the hospital, said in a statement Tuesday that the hospital management is “committed to working with SEIU WI to address their concerns through a fair contract that both parties can support.”
The statement said the hospital has implemented a number of safety and security measures and has competitive salaries for nurses.
Raes said the hospital has safety plans, but that nurses want those plans to go farther, including being enshrined in the labor agreement. She said the union wants to see guaranteed staffing ratios in the name of patient safety as well.
“We are preparing if needed to move forward to a strike,” Raes said. “These nurses are ready to strike. Let me tell you — they are not afraid. But we do not want to strike if we don’t have to.”
To date, the union has not issued a formal strike notice.
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