Milwaukee leaders are hopeful higher fines, a hidden camera operation, posting photos of frequent offenders online and a $1,000 reward will help address illegal dumping in the city.
The post Milwaukee using hidden cameras, reward offers to combat illegal dumping appeared first on WPR.
“I'm hoping to bring the independent film lovers and independent filmmakers together for support and exchange of ideas,” Wausau Film Farm & Culture Fest organizer Jila Nikpay told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.”
The post Wausau’s first-ever Film Farm & Culture Fest aims to amplify the city’s film community appeared first on WPR.
An investigative journalist found that Teflon was first invented for use in the development of atomic bombs.
The post PFAS were originally used to contain nuclear chemicals, new book finds appeared first on WPR.
In Wisconsin, deaths tied to liver cirrhosis from drinking alcohol jumped more than a third from 2019 to 2023.
The post More Wisconsin residents dying from alcohol-related liver failure, according to new research appeared first on WPR.
The Board of Regents for the Universities of Wisconsin unanimously approved a tuition increase of up to 5 percent for the 2025-26 academic year.
The post Board of Regents approves 5 percent tuition hike at UW campuses next year appeared first on WPR.
Tuesday’s lawsuit argues the issue with the map is that it's an "anti-competitive gerrymander that artificially suppresses electoral competition in most of the plan’s districts."
The post New lawsuit takes different path in effort to overturn Wisconsin’s congressional map appeared first on WPR.
Once, thousands of workers built tractors and trucks on the General Motors site in Janesville. Now, saplings grow among its concrete rubble. In the future, at least part of the site could host a very different user — a data center.
The post Janesville hopes to attract data center proposals for abandoned GM site appeared first on WPR.
A Wisconsin State Patrol director and his wife were killed by their son at their Middleton home, and the suspect later died by suicide during a standoff with police, according to the Dane County Sheriff’s Office.
The post Wisconsin State Patrol bureau director and wife die in town of Middleton double homicide appeared first on WPR.
The controversial Division of Diversity, Equity and Education Achievement at UW-Madison is closing, Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin announced this week.
The post UW-Madison closes DEI division, moves programs to other departments appeared first on WPR.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, a former congressman from Wisconsin, will lead NASA as its interim administrator, President Donald Trump announced Wednesday.
The post Wisconsin’s Sean Duffy picked to lead NASA as interim administrator appeared first on WPR.
Gov. Tony Evers signed the budget, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 15, at 1:32 a.m. in his office Thursday, less than an hour after the Assembly passed it. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The budget that Governor Tony Evers recently signed was a missed opportunity for Wisconsin. It’s also a cautionary tale about the consequences of a Democratic leadership style that cedes power and demobilizes the public in the face of an increasingly authoritarian opponent.
During the budget process, Wisconsin Democrats had more leverage than they have had since the 2000s, holding the governorship and, due to fairer maps and GOP divisions, the deciding votes in the state Senate. Combined with an unusual state budget surplus made possible by Biden-era policies, and the striking unpopularity of the GOP’s budget stands on the big issues, this was a golden opportunity to start to undo the damage wrought by Republicans during the administration of former Gov. Scott Walker. This budget could have begun to reverse Wisconsin’s long term disinvestment in public education and local government services, expand BadgerCare, start to address the affordability crisis in child care, housing, home energy, and health care, and build a buffer against a coming tsunami of slashing cuts from President Donald Trump’s Big Ugly Bill.
But rather than marshalling all the power at his disposal to achieve progress on at least some of these objectives, the Governor gave away his leverage by not bringing Senate Democrats into negotiations until the very end, and then signing off on a concessionary bargain without a public fight, even whipping Democratic votes to support the disappointing deal.
Despite improved leverage, Evers followed the script of his first three budgets. In 2019, facing a gerrymandered supermajority, Evers appeared to have a fighting spirit. I was there with dozens of Citizen Action members when he seemed to throw down the gauntlet, memorably declaring days after Republicans removed BadgerCare Expansion from the budget: “I’m going to fight like hell.” Democratic legislators and advocacy groups were blindsided when he suddenly backed down.
The governor and his team are spinning the latest deal as the kind of bipartisan compromise necessary under divided rule in a purple state, hoping that voters will not read the fine print. Republicans were right to brag during the floor debate that the one-sided deal was much closer to their priorities than the ultra moderate blueprint Evers proposed.
Evers also rewards his opposition for the damage they are willing to inflict on the body politic, wrapping appeasement in the tinsel of a mythic bipartisanship which borders on delusional in the face of an increasingly authoritarian GOP.
The budget lowlights include the first $0 increase in general school aid in decades. (after inflation, that amounts to a real dollar cut in state support for public schools contrasted with yet another large increase for unaccountable voucher schools); a cut in support for child care in the midst of an affordability and access crisis; a $0 increase for mass transit at a time the state’s largest transit system is facing service cuts; and $1.5 billion on regressive tax giveaway which, according to a Kids Forward analysis of the original legislation, funnels nearly 60% of the benefit to the wealthiest households, and a miniscule proportion to Black and Latino families. It contains a huge giveaway to the hospital industry, the Capitol’s most powerful lobby, with no requirements to reduce cost and increase access for patients, or keep facilities open in underserved areas, while missing yet another opportunity to expand BadgerCare in the last year Wisconsin can secure the full financial benefit of 95% federal funding.
After Evers’ second budget surrender in 2021, I wrote a column for the Wisconsin Examiner arguing that hand-wringing over the leadership of establishment Democrats like Evers is counterproductive because it deflects responsibilities away from grassroots progressives for not building enough power to force their hand. As Shakespeare put it in Julius Caesar, “The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”
This year, the reaction from the organized grassroots was dramatically different. For the first time organizing groups and education unions, representing tens of thousands of Wisconsinites, publicly campaigned for the governor to fight by wielding his potent veto power and appealing over the heads of the Legislature to the public. As Ruth Conniff reported for the Wisconsin Examiner, at a joint lobby day in late May a raucous crowd filled the hallway at the State Capitol leading to the governor’s office to deliver a letter demanding that he veto any budget that did not meet minimum standards on education, health care, child care and criminal justice. In the weeks leading up to the deal, grassroots leaders kept the pressure on.
The governor’s concessionary bargain also divided his own party. Dozens of rank and file Democrats at the party convention wore stickers urging Evers to veto a bad budget. A striking number of progressive state legislators spoke out against the budget deal, and despite the administration using the power and resources of the governor’s office to whip votes, 80% of Democratic legislators rejected a budget Evers touts as a victory.
The reaction against Evers’ refusal to fight is parallel to the growing frustration with the failure of national Democratic leaders to adjust their leadership to the authoritarian situation. The critique of establishment Democrats focuses on two dimensions: their willingness to cede power to authoritarians, and their lack of appreciation of the increasingly important role of mass public organization and mobilization as traditional inside levers of power lose their effectiveness.
The Republicans began shredding the 20th century governing norms well before the rise of Trump. The national GOP has steadily devolved from the conservatism of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan to the Newt Gingrich insurgency, the Tea Party, Mitch McConnell’s power grabs during the administration of President Barack Obama, and finally MAGA, into an authoritarian populist movement seeking to totalize its grip on power by erasing what remains of the checks and balances of the liberal constitutional order.
Wisconsin’s GOP has followed a parallel path towards authoritarianism, including voter suppression laws targeting Democratic constituencies, the scuttling of settled law by a former Republican-backed majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court to legally sanitize Walker’s gross violations of campaign finance laws, a lame duck session stripping Evers of powers, and the unprecedented refusal to confirm the governor’s appointments to cabinet positions and state boards so they can be fired at will by the Legislature. Wisconsin did not meet the accepted political science definitions of democracy in its lawmaking branch of government from 2012-2024 because of a partisan gerrymander so severe that, as in Viktor Orbán’s Hungry, one party was guaranteed victory.
In the face of the onslaught in the second Trump administration, establishment Democrats at the national level are violating historian Timothy Snyder’s well-known first lesson in fighting authoritarianism: Do not freely cede power by obeying in advance. Emblematic was Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s decision to supply the votes needed to keep the government open. Schumer ratified many of Trump’s illegal cancellations of programs without the consent of Congress, arguing that in a shutdown he would have even more power to ransack federal agencies. In effect, Trump and his allies took the government hostage, reaping the rewards of their own lawlessness.
Evers also rewards his opposition for the damage they are willing to inflict on the body politic, wrapping appeasement in the tinsel of a mythic bipartisanship which borders on delusional in the face of an increasingly authoritarian GOP. Evers has long argued that using his power to veto a bad budget, or force an impasse to mobilize public opposition, would empower Republicans to do worse damage by “going back to base.” The “base,” in Wisconsin budget-ese, is the last state budget, which would, factoring inflation, constitute a massive cut in all state programs. By Evers’ logic, a bad deal is better than no deal.
The second lesson in an authoritarian situation violated by the likes of Schumer and Evers is the necessity of empowering mass mobilization. There is an overwhelming consensus among democracy scholars that resistance to authoritarians requires the large-scale and sustained marshalling of the power of the public. An impressive body of political science research documents that large scale peaceful nonviolent resistance movements are the most effective vehicles for overturning authoritarian regimes.
This populist orientation is not entirely new. In the early 20th century Wisconsin’s progressive Gov. Fighting Bob La Follette and Progressive Era presidents mobilized the public to break the stranglehold of the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age, winning the power to enact major reform.
The lesson also applies to the liminal status of the U.S., somewhere between healthy democracy and autocracy, where traditional levers of power are losing their effectiveness, and large-scale popular resistance is an essential power to slow and ultimately reverse the authoritarian advance.
In this light, the problem with Evers’ approach to governing is that by making it entirely an inside game of bargaining with the Legislature, he freely gives away power, cutting out civil society groups that want to mobilize on behalf of his agenda and denying the public clear rallying points for exerting pressure on the process. This leadership style also erodes democracy by failing to deliver for average people, building an audience for authoritarian scapegoating of marginalized people and fake solutions.
If Evers had established a clear bottom line in the budget process on popular issues like public education and health care, and used both his veto power and the need for Democratic votes in the Senate to block a budget that did not include them, then he would have been in a position to work with grassroots groups and use his bully pulpit to rally public opinion against his opponents ahead of an election where control of the Legislature is in play, exerting tremendous pressure. Instead the public is left with no clear understanding of why they still can’t afford health care and child care, and why more schools are closing or cutting vital academic programs, as property taxes skyrocket to pay for less and less.
Despite these catastrophic failures in leadership, the future of multiracial democracy does not depend on Evers or other Democrats. It depends on us. Political parties and social movements make leaders, not the other way around. Grassroots organizing groups and education unions made progress this budget cycle, but we need more people to join and commit, and greater investments in organizing, to win a more progressive Wisconsin. The national resistance to Trump, as measured by the number of people coming to rallies, is gaining steam, but that does not mean we are winning. The history of mass resistance shows that large scale mobilizations lose momentum over time unless enough people actively participate in permanent community-rooted organizing groups that demand bold and transformational leadership. The beating heart of democracy is direct personal engagement in cause-driven voluntary groups. In the end, it’s up to all of us.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
A summer day on Golden Trout Lake in the Salmon-Challis National Forest, in east-central Idaho. (USDA Forest Service photo)
Members of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee differed along party lines at a Thursday hearing about how the U.S. Forest Service should partner with states and how the federal wildfire response should be organized.
Senators of both parties emphasized the importance of working with state forest managers. But while Republicans praised the efforts of Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz, a former state forest administrator in Idaho and Montana, to reach out to state governments, Democrats noted that President Donald Trump’s budget request for fiscal 2026 proposed eliminating a key program for state and tribal partnerships.
Democrats on the panel also raised a series of questions about the still-unfinished Forest Service budget request as the next fiscal year approaches in less than three months.
Schultz told the senators the budget proposal was not yet final, but confirmed the agency was telling states to prepare for zero dollars in discretionary spending for the State, Private, and Tribal Forestry program in fiscal 2026.
The program received more than $300 million in discretionary funding in fiscal 2024, plus another roughly $300 million in supplemental funding.
The Trump budget request does include $300 million for supplemental funds to the program that can be used for disaster relief.
Ranking Democrat Martin Heinrich of New Mexico noted states are facing tighter budgets after passage of Republicans’ “big, beautiful” budget reconciliation law that includes a host of policy tweaks meant to reduce federal safety net spending while extending tax cuts for high earners.
Under the law, states will be required to pay billions more per year to cover a greater share of major federal-state partnership programs for food assistance and health coverage.
“States need that funding,” Heinrich said of the forestry program. “That is an example of a successful partnership. If we don’t have that funding, that’s not shared responsibility, that’s abdicating our federal responsibility… at a time when (state) budgets are being decimated by Medicaid cuts thanks to the big, whatever bill.”
Schultz said the state foresters had relayed similar concerns, which the administration was considering as it finalized the budget request.
Chairman Mike Lee of Utah said the Forest Service under Schultz had given states greater flexibility to set their own forest management policies.
“I want to thank you, Chief, for giving the states more and more authority, more involvement and more of an ability to set a course for the proper management of these lands,” he said. “I know that Utah is really looking forward to working with you to expand these partnerships and I know my state is not alone in that.”
Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California also blasted the administration for cutting the state forestry spending.
“Every state that I’m aware of is having a tougher budget picture to face,” he told Schultz. “The threat of fires is real. The threat of fires is growing. How does it make sense for the federal government to zero out these programs?”
Schultz answered that the agency would continue “partnering with the states in dialogue and discussion.”
“But you’re zeroing out their resources,” Padilla said.
“That’s correct,” Schultz said. “It’s sharing that responsibility and pushing it to the states.”
Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper, a former governor and Denver mayor, said the Trump budget request more broadly called for shifting more funding responsibilities to state and local governments.
“I see again and again, throughout all the budgets we’re seeing, is more costs shifted from the federal government to states and local areas that are going through their own budget struggles right now,” he said.
Montana Republican Steve Daines defended the idea of greater state responsibility, saying he had found the Gem State’s approach to land management more effective than the federal government’s.
“If you take a look at the landscapes across Montana and look at federal lands versus state lands, I can tell you the state’s doing a much, much better job in terms of stewardship of public lands than the federal government,” Daines said.
Schultz said several times the administration had not yet finalized a plan to shift federal firefighting authorities to the Interior Department. The responsibility is currently split between the Forest Service, which is under the Department of Agriculture, and various Interior agencies, primarily the Bureau of Land Management.
Heinrich, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, raised concerns about the lack of a plan.
Heinrich said he was open-minded about the reorganization effort but was concerned that Congress had not yet seen a blueprint.
“I think there are many of us who are more concerned about the adequacy of that plan and would like to see that plan before we start making budgetary decisions about whether it’s a good idea or not,” he said. “I am very open to different ways of organizing how we fight fires on our national forests and our public lands. But I want to see the plan.”
Wyden raised opposition to the idea more broadly, saying the Forest Service should remain involved in firefighting.
“Nobody in my home state… has told me, in effect, ‘Ron we gotta have the Forest Service less involved in fighting fires,’” Wyden said. “But that is the net effect of your organizational plan.”
Schultz said the proposed reorganization would not cut any federal firefighting resources, but move the federal agency responsible for overseeing the issue. The administration would not put the reorganization in place this fire season, he added.
The FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 23, 2023. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
This report has been updated.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s plan to relocate the Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters to the Ronald Reagan building in the District of Columbia, and not a previously selected location in suburban Maryland, hit a roadblock Thursday.
The Senate Appropriations Committee voted to adopt an amendment from Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen that would bar any federal funding from being used to move the FBI from its current headquarters in the deteriorating J. Edgar Hoover Building to anywhere other than the Greenbelt location.
The amendment was added to the FBI’s annual government funding bill, though that legislation’s bipartisan support dried up after the change was made, leaving the committee searching for a solution. The panel went into an indefinite recess.
Van Hollen argued the Trump administration’s choice to abandon the site in his state was arbitrary and didn’t follow the decade-long process that ultimately resulted in the federal government selecting a more suburban location.
“If we allow the executive, whoever the president may be, to snatch monies that this committee and this Congress have set aside for purposes that we mandated, we are opening the door to taking a lot more money,” Van Hollen said.
The Trump administration, he added, failed to analyze whether the Ronald Reagan building would meet the FBI’s security and mission requirements. The building at 1300 Pennsylvania NW, down the street from the White House and coupled with the International Trade Center, now houses U.S. Customs and Border Protection offices, which Trump administration officials said would move elsewhere.
Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski voted with all of the committee’s Democrats to approve the amendment on a 15-14 vote.
Murkowski said that “in fairness” she was one of many who believed the new location for the FBI headquarters was long settled and “was a little bit surprised to see that this was now an issue in front of us.”
She said she wanted to understand how exactly the Trump administration decided the Ronald Reagan building was a secure enough location for the FBI headquarters and suggested that Van Hollen withdraw his amendment until the committee could be briefed.
“I, for one, would like to know that this analysis has actually been going on for more than just a couple months — that there’s actually been that effort to ensure that (if) we’re going to move forward, this is the right place and it’s the right place, not for a Trump administration, not for a Biden administration, not for a Jon Ossoff administration, but this is the right place for the FBI,” Murkowski said, referring to the Democratic senator from Georgia.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to start any rumors,” she added to laughs.
Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, asked Van Hollen if he’d withdraw his amendment in exchange for a briefing from the FBI director, noting he could still offer the amendment if the bill is brought to the floor for debate. He declined.
“The best way forward would be for the committee to say that we will not allow funds to be spent on an alternative site,” Van Hollen said. “And then, if we are persuaded, which is what we’ve decided in the past, if we’re persuaded by the FBI that we could revisit that decision.”
Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin spoke against the amendment, saying the Trump administration should be allowed to use funding to move the FBI to whichever headquarters it wishes.
“For us to try to micromanage their site planning is ridiculous,” Mullin said. “They’re not going to put their men and women in harm. We need to allow them to make a decision.”
Several hours after the amendment was adopted, it upended debate on the entire bill — which includes funding for the Departments of Commerce and Justice as well as science programs, like NASA and the National Science Foundation.
Collins had given Van Hollen and subcommittee Chairman Jerry Moran, R-Kan., a few hours to broker some sort of deal, but after they were unable to do so, several GOP senators switched from voting for the bill to opposing it.
She then sent the committee into a recess that will likely last until at least next week to give everyone involved more time to find some sort of bipartisan agreement.
“I think it is sad that one issue is sinking a bill that was completely bipartisan and strongly supported on both sides of the aisle,” Collins said.
Moran said his “overriding goal has been to work with Sen. Van Hollen to draft a bill, to work with all of you to draft a bill that can pass not only this committee but pass the United States Senate.”
“And while we have worked to try to find an agreement that would take us in that direction, we are not there,” Moran added. “I don’t know whether we’re even close to being there.”
Murkowski said she hopes the pause will lead to “a more earnest conversation” between members of the committee and the Trump administration about the FBI headquarters.
“We’re in a place where we’re trying to scramble right now, and we haven’t been able to scramble fast enough,” Murkowski said. “And it has caused people who, in good faith, chose to vote in the affirmative at the beginning and now in the negative, and switch back both ways. So there is now total confusion.”
Van Hollen said he believed resolving the dispute about who gets to choose the new FBI headquarters location “is important, not just for this particular case, but for the larger precedent.”
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on Feb. 3, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Trump was joined by, left to right, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, former Executive Chairman of Fox Corporation Rupert Murdoch and Oracle CTO Larry Ellison. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — U.S. Democratic lawmakers argued in a new legal filing this week that President Donald Trump’s sweeping emergency tariffs usurped congressional power, and they urged a federal appellate court to strike down the duties on foreign imports.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is set to hear oral arguments over some of Trump’s tariffs after a lower court blocked them in May. Despite being tied up in court, Trump continued threatening tariffs Wednesday on numerous trading partners, including a 50% import tax on goods from Brazil.
Nearly 200 lawmakers signed onto the amicus brief Tuesday, asserting that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, under which Trump triggered the duties, “does not confer the power to impose or remove tariffs.”
The lawmakers argued that Trump’s unprecedented use of IEEPA violates Article I of the U.S. Constitution that authorizes Congress to “lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises” and “regulate commerce with foreign nations.”
“This reflects the Framers’ interest in ensuring the most democratically accountable branch — the one closest to the People — be responsible for enacting taxes, duties, and tariffs,” wrote the 191 Democratic members of Congress, citing the Federalist Papers, in their 65-page brief.
Congress has “explicitly and specifically” delegated tariff-raising powers to the president, but not under IEEPA, according to the lawmakers.
“Unmoored from the structural safeguards Congress built into actual tariff statutes, the President’s unlawful ‘emergency’ tariffs under IEEPA have led to chaos and uncertainty,” the lawmakers wrote.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, top Democrat on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, co-led the brief with Oregon’s Sen. Ron Wyden, top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries also co-led, along with Reps. Gregory Meeks of New York, Joe Neguse of Colorado, Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Richard Neal of Massachusetts.
In a statement Wednesday, Shaheen said Trump’s “reckless tariff agenda has caused economic chaos and raised prices for families and businesses across the country at a moment in which the cost of living is far too high.”
“The Trump Administration’s unlawful abuse of emergency powers to impose tariffs ignores that he does not have the authority to unilaterally impose the largest tax increase in decades on Americans. This brief makes clear that IEEPA cannot be used to impose tariffs,” Shaheen said.
The U.S. Court of International Trade struck down Trump’s emergency tariffs in a May 28 decision, following two legal challenges brought by a handful of business owners and a dozen Democratic state attorneys general.
Arizona, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon were among the states that brought the suit.
The lead business plaintiff is V.O.S. Selections, a New York-based company that imports wine and spirits from 16 countries, according to its website. Other plaintiffs include a Utah-based plastics producer, a Virginia-based children’s electricity learning kit maker, a Pennsylvania-based fishing gear company, and a Vermont-based women’s cycling apparel company.
Following an appeal from the White House, the Federal Circuit allowed Trump’s tariffs to remain in place while the case moved forward.
Trump used IEEPA to declare international trade a national emergency and announced tariffs on nearly every other country on April 2 in what he dubbed as “Liberation Day.”
Tariffs reached staggering levels on major U.S. trading partners, including 46% on Vietnam, 25% on South Korea and 20% on the European Union.
The announcement wiped trillions from markets, which have largely recovered. Trump delayed all but a 10% base tariff for 90 days on every country except China. Trump fueled a trade war with the massive Asian nation, peaking at a 145% tariff rate, but then temporarily settling between 10% and 55%, depending on the good.
Even before Trump shocked the world with his “Liberation Day” announcement, small business owners from around the U.S. told States Newsroom they were bracing for potentially devastating economic effects.
The trade court’s ruling — a pending appeals litigation — does not apply to tariffs Trump imposed under other statutes, including national security-related duties on foreign automobiles, as well as steel and aluminum. Some of the steel tariffs, imposed during Trump’s first term, were left in place under former President Joe Biden.
Protesters outside the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Greenbelt rally on April 4, 2025, in support of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, calling for him to be returned to the U.S. (Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom).
GREENBELT, Maryland — A top U.S. immigration official testifying in federal court Thursday did not give details of the Trump administration’s plans to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia if he is released from pre-trial detention next week in Tennessee.
Thomas Giles, the assistant director for enforcement and removal operations at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was noncommittal about how the agency would handle Abrego Garcia if he is released from jail in Tennessee where he awaits trial on federal charges, saying officials could not consider the question until he’s in ICE custody.
“There’s been no decision made as he’s not in ICE custody,” Giles said.
Department of Justice attorneys have said they would seek Abrego Garcia’s removal again, because he has a final order of removal, but have not detailed the process for that deportation, raising concerns of a lack of due process in the closely watched case that were not answered by Giles’ testimony Thursday.
Giles appeared after U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the Trump administration on Monday to produce a witness to detail the plan for Abrego Garcia’s removal.
The government is likely to pursue either a revocation of the deportation protections the El Salvador national and longtime Maryland resident has had since 2019 that bar deportation to his home country, or removal to a country other than El Salvador.
Abrego Garcia was wrongly removed in March to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador where he says he faced psychological and physical torture.
Giles said that ICE placed a detainer on Abrego Garcia last month, meaning the agency requested the U.S. Marshals to notify ICE when he will be released so immigration officials can detain him. Abrego Garcia could be released July 16 after a pretrial hearing that day in Tennessee.
The Trump administration returned Abrego Garcia to the U.S. last month to face federal charges of human smuggling that stemmed from a 2019 traffic stop. Abrego Garcia has denied the charges.
Abrego Garcia’s attorneys said in court Thursday that they found out Abrego Garcia was brought back to the U.S. through media reports and they were given no information by the Trump administration.
DOJ attorneys said that Abrego Garcia will be removed from the U.S. before his trial in Tennessee is complete.
Attorneys for Abrego Garcia said Thursday they are concerned he will again be removed without due process or the ability to challenge his removal to another country if he fears he will experience harm or persecution.
Earlier in the week, they pressed for Xinis to have Abrego Garcia brought back to Maryland, rather than remain in Tennessee.
Xinis is still mulling that request from Abrego Garcia’s attorneys. This week, she also denied the Department of Justice’s move to dismiss the case as moot, because Abrego Garcia had been returned to the U.S.
Xinis said Thursday she is considering issuing a temporary restraining order if Abrego Garcia is released on pre-trial detention. The order would last for 48 business hours and bar immigration officials from removing Abrego Garcia to a detention center outside of Tennessee or from the U.S.
She also called for a hearing on Friday at 9 a.m. ET on the temporary restraining order.
Sascha Rand, an attorney representing Abrego Garcia in the immigration case in Maryland, grilled Giles on how familiar he was with Abrego Garcia’s case.
Giles said that he had not directly overseen Abrego Garcia’s case and had about four hours to prepare for Thursday’s hearing.
Rand asked Giles which country Abrego Garcia would be removed to if not El Salvador.
Giles said that if Abrego Garcia is removed to a third country, it would take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to determine which country.
Giles said that Mexico is one country that accepts nationals from other countries – including El Salvador – and has diplomatic assurance that an individual removed won’t face harm.
He added that South Sudan is also a country that the Trump administration has deemed acceptable to send deportees to.
In a ruling last month, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to move forward with removing eight men from different nationalities to South Sudan, which recently experienced a civil war. The U.S. State Department advises against traveling to the country.
Xinis asked Giles if Mexico, “at a minimum,” would be a country Abrego Garcia could be removed to.
Giles said that was possible.
Rand asked if South Sudan was a possibility.
Giles said that “we have removed people to South Sudan.”
Rand then asked Giles multiple times which path the Trump administration was considering for Abrego Garica, either deportation to a third country, or trying to remove the 2019 bar on removal to El Salvador.
“Do you have any actual knowledge of which one of these tracks Mr. Abrego Garcia might be put on next Wednesday?” Rand asked.
Giles said because Abrego Garcia is not in ICE custody, a discussion on the options for his removal is not happening. He said those determinations will be made once Abrego Garcia is in ICE detention.
Giles added that it’s also unclear where Abrego Garcia will be held in ICE detention, as it’s based on available bed space, meaning Abrego Garcia could be transferred anywhere in the U.S.
Enbridge is working to reroute Line 5 off the Bad River reservation in northern Wisconsin, but the tribe is fighting the permit process. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
The Sierra Club announced Thursday that it has broken the world record for the largest display of origami fish in an effort to bring attention to Enbridge’s Line 5 oil pipeline, which passes through northern Wisconsin and Michigan.
Line 5 has been the target of sustained activism for years, with environmental groups and Native American tribes arguing the pipeline’s continued existence puts the water supply for thousands of residents at risk.
By next year, Enbridge, the Canadian company that owns the pipeline, must reroute a part of the pipeline that runs through a portion of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa tribe’s reservation. As the company works through the permit process for moving the pipeline, the tribe and environmental groups have pushed the state Department of Natural Resources and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers not to approve the permits.
The tribe says the pipeline’s continued operation, even if it no longer runs across tribal land, will harm water quality in the watershed, encourage the growth of invasive species and damage wetlands, diminishing their ability to filter pollutants out of runoff before reaching surface waters.
At a two-day hearing in May, tribal members testified against the Army Corps’ approval of the permit. A series of hearings are set to be held from August-October on a challenge to the DNR’s permitting decision.
The Sierra Club organized the origami fish project to bring attention to the years of activism against Line 5 and the continued fight against its path through the Bad River reservation and under the Straits of Mackinac between Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas.
The Trump Administration, as part of its effort to increase production of oil and other fossil fuels, has expedited permit approval of a new pipeline tunnel in Michigan.
The previous origami fish record was 18,303. With the help of folders from all 50 states, Canada and Mexico, the Sierra Club has created a display of more than 70,000 origami fish. On Thursday, the fish were put on display in the Sierra Club of Wisconsin’s Madison office as staff continued pinning them onto boards. A press conference about Line 5’s effect on Wisconsin’s water was held in front of the boards full of paper fish.
State Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison) told the Wisconsin Examiner the fish project was a symbol of people’s ability to work together to fight injustice.
“You topple regimes with people power,” she said.
Hong added that even if the Line 5’s permits are approved, the “fight to protect water has renewed energy” because of it.
Despite the years of activism and push for the DNR not to approve the permits, there is little the department can do to stop the project. The DNR’s authority is limited so that if the proposed project fits within state laws, the permits must be approved, something that Hong said needs to be changed.
“We certainly have to look at amending those laws and holding polluters responsible, not compromising hundreds, thousands of people’s drinking water for tens or hundreds of jobs,” she said.
The fish display will be available to view at the Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee on Saturday.
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A 2024 provision under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) protects reproductive health information from disclosure to law enforcement when care was legally obtained, such as in another state with abortion access. (Photo by Dave Whitney/Getty Images)
Two pending lawsuits over a 2024 federal rule protecting certain reproductive health information from disclosure are on hold while the Trump administration decides whether to appeal a Texas judge’s June decision that declared the rule unlawful and void.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued an opinion nullifying the federal rule that shielded reproductive health information from law enforcement when care was legally obtained, such as in another state with abortion access. In this case, Dr. Carmen Purl argued that the U.S. Health and Human Services rule conflicted with the laws requiring her to report child abuse. Purl said in court documents she believes abortion and gender-affirming care fall under the definitions of child abuse.
Purl lives in the judicial district where Kacsmaryk — who has taken anti-abortion stances in the past — is the only judge. His ruling applied nationwide and took effect immediately.
Without the rule, law enforcement officials in states with abortion bans may issue subpoenas for records related to reproductive health care obtained legally in another state, as some have already recently tried to do. According to health policy nonprofit KFF, 22 states and the District of Columbia have laws limiting what reproductive health information can be obtained, but others with legal abortion access do not, such as New Hampshire and Virginia.
Abortion-rights advocates say it’s largely an intimidation tactic meant to sow fear in patients and providers. Since the Dobbs decision in 2022, anti-abortion attorney Jonathan Mitchell filed nine petitions in Texas seeking to legally question abortion funds, providers and researchers, and two individual women who sought abortions in other states, according to the Texas Tribune.
Carmel Shachar, a Harvard law professor who has extensively researched data privacy and health policy, said it’s possible for a patient to travel to a state with legal access and have that information stored in their medical records that is shared with their providers back home.
“Without the reproductive privacy rule, the concern will be, ‘OK, will some of these states that have taken a very strong stance against abortion be able to pinpoint where residents of their states travel to receive abortion care?’” Shachar said.
Two lawsuits challenging the legality of the rule are frozen at least until the government’s Aug. 18 deadline to appeal. One case is in Missouri, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the other. Paxton’s office had also challenged the legality of the underlying privacy rule or HIPAA established in 2000, which could have opened more avenues for state investigations if a judge agreed to throw it out. But according to recent court filings, the state is no longer asking the court to do that.
A Tennessee lawsuit includes 17 other states that heavily restrict or ban abortion as plaintiffs. Their attorneys general asked the court to find the 2024 rule unlawful because they said it impedes their right to investigate cases of waste, fraud and abuse. In the most recent court brief, attorneys for Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said the case can still be decided by U.S. District Judge Katherine Crytzer, an appointee of Republican President Donald Trump.
Until judgment is affirmed on appeal and no further appellate review is available or the deadline to appeal passes, “the plaintiff states’ claims remain live and ready for this court to resolve,” the brief said.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) allows law enforcement to obtain health information for investigation purposes. But the addition of the 2024 provision under former Democratic President Joe Biden prohibited disclosure of protected health information in investigations against any person for the mere act of seeking, obtaining, or facilitating reproductive health care, to impose criminal or civil liabilities for that conduct, or to identify the person involved in seeking or obtaining that care. It also applied to gender-affirming care.
The U.S. Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment. Whether it appeals Kacsmaryk’s ruling is in question, as the Justice Department under Trump did not address whether it thought the 2024 rule was proper and lawful prior to Kacsmaryk’s decision. Attorneys instead said they were reviewing the rule but had no other updates. In the Missouri and Tennessee cases, DOJ attorneys have argued for dismissal for other legal reasons, but also have not defended the 2024 rule itself.
In March, the DOJ dropped the case that argued the federal law mandating stabilizing emergency care should apply to those who need emergency abortion care. And in early June, U.S. Health and Human Services rescinded guidance that said that care should be required in emergencies.
Attorneys for Democracy Forward, a nonprofit legal organization, are representing Doctors for America and the cities of Columbus, Ohio, and Madison, Wisconsin, and attempted to intervene in the case because they did not expect the government to defend the rule. If they were allowed to intervene, they could appeal Kacsmaryk’s opinion striking down the rule regardless of the Trump administration’s decision.
Kacsmaryk denied their motion, while a decision in the other three cases is pending. Carrie Flaxman, senior legal adviser for Democracy Forward, said they have appealed that denial to a higher court. Given that the Department of Justice attorneys chose not to defend the rule on the merits in court proceedings, Flaxman said, she thinks they have a good argument for appeal.
Repealing the rule was a directive in Project 2025, the blueprint document for the next presidential administration published by the conservative Heritage Foundation. Several prominent anti-abortion organizations were part of the panel that drafted Project 2025, and many of the individuals involved in writing the 900-page document now work for the Trump administration.
The National Public Radio headquarters in Washington, D.C., is pictured on Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Congress has just one week left to approve the Trump administration’s request to cancel $9.4 billion in previously approved funding for public media and foreign aid, setting up yet another tight deadline for lawmakers.
The Senate must pass the bill before July 18, otherwise the White House budget office will be required to spend the funding and be barred from sending up the same proposal again for what are called rescissions.
But objections from several GOP senators could stop the legislation in its tracks, or change it substantially, requiring another House vote in a very short time frame. Rejecting the plan would represent a loss for the Trump administration after passage of the “big, beautiful” tax and spending cut law earlier this month.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., appears optimistic he can secure the votes needed to begin debate, though he hasn’t said publicly if he thinks the bill can actually pass.
“We’ll have it up on the floor next week. Hopefully, we get on it and then we’ll have an amendment process,” Thune said during a Wednesday press conference. “And kind of like a budget reconciliation bill, it’s an open amendment process, a vote-a-rama type process, which I’m sure you’re very excited about.”
At least 50 Republicans must agree to proceed to the legislation amid unified opposition from Democrats. Thune can only lose three GOP senators and still begin debate with Vice President JD Vance’s tie-breaking vote. Rescissions bills are exempt from the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster.
After a maximum of 10 hours of debate, the Senate will begin a marathon amendment voting session that could substantially reshape the measure.
There may be enough Republican votes to completely remove the section rescinding $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds the Public Broadcasting Service, National Public Radio and hundreds of local public media stations.
Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds all brought up misgivings during a June hearing about how canceling previously approved funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would impact rural communities and emergency alerts.
Collins, R-Maine, also raised concerns about the Trump administration’s efforts to claw back previously approved funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, and is likely to bring an amendment to the floor on that issue, according to her office. PEPFAR is a global initiative to combat HIV/AIDS that was led by President George W. Bush.
Democrats will get to offer as many amendments as they want during the vote-a-rama and could try to remove each section of the bill one by one, forcing Republicans to weigh in publicly on numerous foreign aid programs.
President Donald Trump sent Congress the rescissions request in early June, starting a 45-day clock for lawmakers to consider his proposal.
The recommendation asked lawmakers to cancel $8.3 billion in foreign aid funding, including $500 million for certain global health programs at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
“This proposal would not reduce treatment but would eliminate programs that are antithetical to American interests and worsen the lives of women and children, like ‘family planning’ and ‘reproductive health,’ LGBTQI+ activities, and ‘equity’ programs,” the request states. “This rescission proposal aligns with the Administration’s efforts to eliminate wasteful USAID foreign assistance programs.”
The House voted mostly along party lines in mid-June to approve the rescissions request, but the legislation sat around the Senate for weeks as Republicans struggled to pass their “big, beautiful” law.
The Senate can vote to approve the proposal as is, change it, or let it expire, forcing the White House budget office to spend the money, which it’s been able to legally freeze since sending Congress the rescissions request.
Senators’ decision will impact how Republicans in that chamber, especially Thune and those on the Appropriations Committee, work with White House budget director Russ Vought in the coming months and years.
Congress and the Trump administration must broker some sort of funding agreement before the start of the next fiscal year on Oct. 1 to stave off a shutdown.
Vought has also said he plans to send lawmakers additional rescissions requests, though he hasn’t said exactly when or what programs he’ll include.
Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., said Thursday as the panel debated three of the full-year government funding bills that the rescissions package is not acceptable and could impede the committee’s traditionally bipartisan work.
“We need to make sure decisions about what to fund and, yes, what to rescind are made here in Congress on a bipartisan basis and within our annual funding process,” Murray said. “We cannot allow bipartisan funding bills with partisan rescission packages. It will not work. And that is why I will repeat my commitment to all of my colleagues that on this side of the dais, we stand ready to discuss rescissions as part of these bipartisan spending bills.”
Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, joined demonstrators outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, May 15, 2025, to protest the Trump administration's effort to strip birthright citizenship from the Constitution. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — A federal judge in New Hampshire Thursday issued a preliminary injunction against President Donald Trump’s executive order that would rewrite the constitutional right to birthright citizenship, and granted a class certification to infants who would be affected by the order.
The ruling from U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante came after the Supreme Court last month limited lower courts’ ability to grant nationwide injunctions. Multiple courts had blocked the president’s executive order ending birthright citizenship, which is granted under the 14th Amendment to any infant born on U.S. soil. There is an exception for children born to foreign diplomats.
Laplante will stay his ruling for seven days to give the Trump administration time to appeal, according to his written order. Laplante was nominated by former President George W. Bush.
The high court in June deemed that lower courts should seek a narrower way to issue orders with wide effect, such as a class action suit. Under the ruling, the Trump administration’s executive order could take effect by July 27 in the 28 states that did not initially sue.
After the Supreme Court ruling, the American Civil Liberties Union filed the suit on behalf of immigrants whose babies would be affected by the order.
However, Laplante narrowed his injunction to focus on the infants as the plaintiffs rather than the parents.
“This ruling is a huge victory and will help protect the citizenship of all children born in the United States, as the Constitution intended,” said Cody Wofsy, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, who argued the case. “We are fighting to ensure President Trump doesn’t trample on the citizenship rights of one single child.”
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