Madison’s Black community more than a century ago was concentrated in a neighborhood just blocks from the Capitol, where business owners, church leaders and civil rights advocates built institutions that helped shape the city.

On Thursday evening, participants in a Wisconsin Historical Society walking tour retraced that history, stopping at homes and businesses tied to Black Madisonians.

A group of about 12 Wisconsinites gathered on the corner of E. Dayton and N. Blount Street, near a white house that belongs to the Hill family early Thursday evening. 

Jenny Peterson of the Historical Society led the tour.

“We know from Census records and data that African-Americans have lived in the county as long as Europeans have since before the Civil War,” Peterson said. Dane County’s early Black residents included free and enslaved individuals. “There were African-American men, women and children that were settled in the community and after the Civil War, they experienced many of the increasing freedoms.” 

In 1910, there were about 143 Black people residing in Madison and Peterson said that 19 out of the 39 Black households in Madison lived in the neighborhood near East Dayton Street. 

Peterson said that area of town was accessible for Black families looking to establish themselves in Madison. 

The water in the area was swampy,  Peterson said. “The prices were a little bit cheaper,” which made it possible for African-American families and other groups with few resources to settle the area. 

John and Amanda Hill moved to Madison from Atlanta in 1910 and bought a grocery store on Dayton Street that served the neighborhood for generations. A sign for the store still hangs in the building’s window.

“In addition to running the store, John was also appointed to several city committees, including the committee on minority housing and the advisory committee, which encouraged citizen participation in community improvement projects,” Peterson said. 

Throughout the tour, Peterson passed around photos of the Black Madisonians whose lives she described and pictures of the places as they used to look. 

“We have this photo of [John] standing in front of the store with his businesswear on and for the audience, it creates a moment where all of these connections are made,” Peterson said. “You’re like, OK, this helps me imagine what this would have been like in 1915 as community members are going in and out of this business, John is talking to his customers, asking them how their day was… It brings it to life.” 

A yellow and blue house next door was the home of William and Anna Mae Miller.

William Miller, who was from Kentucky and studied law, faced discrimination that prevented him from becoming a practicing lawyer. He moved to Milwaukee with his wife and worked as a waiter until he met Wisconsin Gov. Robert M. La Follette, who took him on as an aide. 

Miller went on to help found the St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in the community in 1902. He and Anna Mae also helped establish the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Peterson noted that the family owned multiple buildings and rented out rooms to other Black people who needed a place to stay as there weren’t many places in Madison that were open to Black people. 

Peterson also noted that William Miller tried to help save documents from the state Capitol building when it caught on fire in February 1904. 

“He was one of those brave individuals who went up to the Capitol to do what he could to save documents to save materials from the Capitol on that cold night,” she said. 

Two books served as the starting research for the Madison Black History walking tour: “Settlin’: Stories of Madison’s Early African American Families,” by Muriel Simms and “Make Way for Liberty: Wisconsin African Americans in the Civil War,” by Jeff Kannel. 

Peterson also pulled out Settlin’ throughout the tour, using photos from the book to illustrate the stories she shared including one of Leo Vinton Butts, the first Black man to play in a University of Wisconsin-Madison football game. His father, Benjamin Butts, was enslaved as a child in Virginia before moving to Wisconsin after the Civil War at age 11, and the home where the elder Butts raised eight children is also a stop on the tour.

“At the height of the Civil War, he reportedly hung around the camp,” Peterson said, of the 5th Independent Battery Wisconsin Light Artillery, which was stationed in Virginia. Butts “started helping out with different tasks and responsibilities and chores, became very well beloved by and well regarded by the soldiers in the unit, and when the regiment decided to return home to Wisconsin following the war, Butts decided to follow.”

Peterson said he worked as a clerk and porter before securing a job at a barber shop, which she said was among the few jobs that African-Americans could access at the time. Butts then bought his own barber shop on the Capitol Square where he made connections, including with Gov. La Follette. 

“By 1895, Butts was an established and influential leader within the Madison African-American community,” Peterson said. 

Renee Moe, the CEO of United Way of Dane County, who joined the tour, she had wanted to attend for several years.

“So many of the issues that all of us are facing today in our communities, in our country and our world, have deep historic roots. And the more we can understand about our communities and build relationships with those stories and with each other, I think the better context we have to actually work together to improve the quality of life for everyone.” 

Moe said she was struck by how geography and housing has shifted since the 1800s. Most of the neighborhood on the tour is made up of student housing these days. She said she remembered that “there used to be some nonprofits there, like Access Community Health, and Urban League, and they’ve moved to the south side or to the east side.”

The tour ended outside of the state Capitol by the statue of Vel Phillips, the former Secretary of State who was the first Black statewide official in Wisconsin and the first Black judge in the state  and who worked to fight against racially restrictive housing covenants. The statue honoring her outside the Capitol was unveiled in 2024.

“Vel Phillips’ work was talking about housing access and fair housing practices,” Moe said. “Today we’re still working on housing access and affordability, so that’s what struck me was how neighborhoods shift, how wealth and opportunities shift over generations, and the fact that we need to stay committed to making sure that all community members and neighbors have access to that opportunity to rise.” 

Peterson, who was born and raised in Madison and has worked for the Historical Society for two years, said she has learned a lot of history that she didn’t previously know from conducting the tour. 

“The people that are part of this tour, and the families that they created, and the community institutions that they created, and the businesses that were part of this neighborhood, like this thriving space, the complexity and the nuance of that — I didn’t know about,” she said. “I also have felt very grateful to be able to learn and take this in and continue to ask questions about it.”

The Madison Black History walking tour is just one of the walking tours that the Wisconsin Historical Society offers. Recent additions include  an LGBTQ+ history tour and a “Democracy in Action” tour, added for the 250th anniversary of the United States.

“What’s important is making sure we share these stories now, and that we continue to ask questions, so that we can learn more about these people and their contributions to Madison’s history,” Peterson said.

The Trump administration U.S. Justice Department has no authority at all to demand Wisconsin voter records that it has sought in federal court, the Wisconsin Justice Department said in federal court papers filed Thursday.

In addition, Attorney General Josh Kaul and assistant AG Charlotte Gibson wrote, the federal government has shown no evidence to justify assertions that a flood of ineligible voters could receive absentee ballots to vote in the coming August primary election and November general election.

Representing officials with the Wisconsin Elections Commission, the Wisconsin DOJ filed a five-page response Thursday with the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, opposing the U.S. DOJ demand for Wisconsin’s unredacted voter list.

U.S. District Judge James Peterson dismissed the Trump administration’s lawsuit seeking the list May 21. The U.S. DOJ appealed the dismissal more than three weeks later with the 7 th Circuit on June 12, and the appeals court directed Wisconsin to file its response by Thursday.

In his dismissal ruling, Peterson declared that the unredacted voter list the DOJ has demanded isn’t a record the federal justice department can demand under the Civil Rights Act of 1960. The list contains voters’ personal information including birthdays, Social Security numbers and driver’s license details.

The Trump administration filing  asked for “an expedited appeal” in order “to investigate Wisconsin’s compliance with federal law regarding voter registration under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).”

Wisconsin’s reply Thursday said Congress hasn’t granted the U.S. DOJ the power to “regulate Wisconsin’s voter list” under either the NVRA or HAVA. The feds have no regulatory authority under those two laws, the Wisconsin reply states.

Moreover, where Wisconsin is concerned, “US DOJ has even less to say: Wisconsin is exempt from NVRA’s list maintenance provisions because Wisconsin has offered same-day voter registration since 1994,” the Wisconsin response states.

In its appeal, the U.S. DOJ declared that among the hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots that will be sent to voters for the Nov. 3 elections, “many of those ballots” would go “potentially … to ineligible voters, fraudulent registrants, or other individuals who should not have been registered. Wisconsin voters need to know that their election is secure and that non-citizens, deceased individuals, former residents, non-residents, and voters with multiple records are not registered to vote in that election.”

Wisconsin dismissed that claim as unsubstantiated.

“US DOJ has presented no evidence that Wisconsin is rife with ineligible voters. Its motion asserts that ‘potentially’ ineligible people may vote.” Such “an unsupported, potential harm” doesn’t justify an emergency action such as the feds are seeking, the Wisconsin response declared.

The response said that with only a few months before the election, the U.S. Supreme Court has warned against “modifying election procedures this close to elections” to avoid voter confusion and to avoid discouraging voters from going to the polls.

Groups intervening in the cases responded as well on Thursday.

Law Forward, the Wisconsin democracy-focused nonprofit law firm, said in its response that the U.S. DOJ failed to show “good cause” for its demand.

“And despite the Appellant’s fact-free innuendo,” the U.S. DOJ “does not allege — let alone provide any actual proof of — any supposed ‘ineligible voters remaining on [Wisconsin’s] voter rolls,’” stated Law Forward’s response, representing the nonpartisan voting rights group Common Cause.

A response for the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans and Forward Latino argued that the U.S. “DOJ’s lackadaisical pace in this litigation belies any need to expedite” the case. The groups are represented by Elias Law Group in Washington, D.C., an election- and voting rights-focused firm that works with progressive organizations.

The U.S. DOJ has made “baseless insinuations that upcoming elections will not be ‘secure’ if it does not get unprecedented access to personal voter information,” the response stated. “That unsubstantiated allegation is absurd.”

The federal lawsuit against Wisconsin “is one of 31 similar lawsuits commenced by [U.S.] DOJ as part of its unprecedented campaign to amass personally identifying information about every registered voter in the country,” the interveners’ response stated. “All eight federal courts to address DOJ’s claims to date have dismissed them,” with the dismissals now under appeal.

Final peace negotiations between the United States and Iran officially began Thursday, Vice President JD Vance said at a late morning press conference in Washington, starting a 60-day countdown for the Islamic Republic to safely open the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. to lift a blockade on Iranian oil, and for the two nations to hammer out a nuclear deal.

The agreement is “a win-win situation” for the U.S., Vance said.

“If they change their behavior, big things are going to happen for Iran and for the world,” Vance said. “If they don’t, no skin off our backs” because Iran’s nuclear program and military are “still destroyed.”

The agreement immediately stops hostilities that began Feb. 28. The war claimed the lives of 13 U.S. service members, thousands of civilians in Iran, Lebanon and across the Gulf region, and disrupted the global economy. 

Vance said the “Israelis, just like everybody else, have to respect this process,” highlighting that the agreement binds Israel to ceasing its bombing campaign in Lebanon against Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters.

Without specifying a date, Vance said he expects to brief Congress but is “quite confident” the administration does not need congressional approval on terms of the deal that will lift sanctions on Iran, despite the claims of some U.S. senators.

‘Just signed it’

Vance was slated to finalize the 14-point memorandum of understanding in Switzerland Friday, but President Donald Trump unexpectedly announced early Thursday morning that he had signed the deal while attending a state dinner hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles after the G7 summit among the world’s wealthiest nations concluded.

“Just signed it,” Trump told journalists after hugging and saying goodbye to France’s president and first lady Brigitte Macron just after 1 a.m. local time, according to the traveling press.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian posted images on social media early Thursday of the signed agreement in English and Farsi. 

“This text is the reflection of the voice of a nation that did not trade its dignity and independence for any threat or pressure. What was recorded today was the result of national resilience, political rationality, and responsible diplomacy,” he wrote, according to a translation on X.

Trump posted a series of messages about the signed memorandum on his own social media site, Truth Social, Thursday morning, including a link to a news article about Pope Leo commending the deal. The Trump administration engaged in a public war of words with Leo in April.

“These fools, who think I haven’t been tough enough on Iran, when the Stock Market Just Hit A RECORD HIGH, and Oil prices are ‘tumbling’ down, are either jealous, bad people, or stupid. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!! President DJT” the president posted online early Thursday.

Hours later, in all caps, he wrote: “OIL IS FLOWING, IRAN CAN NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON (THE WORLD WILL BE SAFE!), THE STOCK MARKETS ARE ROARING, JOBS ARE AT RECORDS, AND PRICES ARE DROPPING (AFFORDABILITY!). OUR COUNTRY IS STRONG, SAFE, AND RESPECTED LIKE NEVER BEFORE. ‘YOU’RE WELCOME!’ President DJT”

‘Foreign policy blunder’

Several, including some from the president’s own party, have been critical of the agreement.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican who recently lost his primary after Trump endorsed an opponent, said in a statement on social media the deal “is the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.”

“Reagan is rolling over in his grave. Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the Strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future. Now, Iran gets to build brand-new infrastructure under this deal.

“Before the war, the strait was open, Iran was being crushed by sanctions, and 13 service members were still alive. Now, 13 Americans are dead, families have paid billions at the pump, sanctions will be lifted, and the bombing has stopped.”

Sen. John Kennedy, also a Louisiana Republican, said on the Senate floor Thursday morning “We ought to give peace a chance. It’s only 60 days and we’re going to just have to trust the president on this one.”

Jonathan Shorman contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education will temporarily reduce interest rates for federal student loan borrowers enrolled in auto pay starting July 1, the agency announced Thursday. 

Borrowers who enroll in auto pay — the optional feature that allows a borrower to have their monthly loan payment automatically deducted from their checking or savings account — will see a reduction in their interest rate by one full percentage point from July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2028. 

The change means a 6% interest rate would drop to 5%, for instance. 

Federal student loan borrowers currently enrolled in auto pay already receive an interest rate reduction of 0.25 percentage points from their servicer. Those borrowers do not need to take any additional action and will automatically receive an extra interest rate reduction of 0.75 percentage points, the department said. 

“This temporary incentive is designed to help borrowers pay down their balances more quickly, take full advantage of new repayment benefits, remain on track toward loan discharge opportunities and to strengthen the overall health of the federal student loan portfolio,” Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said during a Thursday call with reporters. 

Kent said the benefit is estimated to cost the agency $6 billion.   

Changes coming

The announcement came ahead of major changes for the federal student loan system — with many provisions slated to also begin July 1 — stemming from congressional Republicans’ mega tax and spending cut bill that President Donald Trump signed last year.

The overhaul includes new loan limits for graduate and professional students, a restructured repayment system that gives new borrowers only two plans to choose from and the elimination of a key loan program for graduate and professional students that allowed for unlimited borrowing.

Meanwhile, millions of borrowers under the now defunct Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan will receive notices from their federal loan servicers starting July 1 that instruct them to enter into a legal repayment plan within 90 days. 

Auto pay enrollment halved

The federal student loan portfolio stands at a “staggering $1.7 trillion,” with about 37% of borrowers currently in repayment, according to Kent.

The under secretary noted that at the end of 2019, nearly 83% of borrowers were enrolled in auto pay but that the figure stood at just 40% by the end of 2025.

There are also 9.16 million borrowers in default as of April, per the latest available department data.  

Borrowers have until Sept. 30, 2026, to opt in to auto pay to be eligible for the two-year benefit. 

The benefit is open to borrowers whose federal student loans originated after July 1, 2012, the department said. 

Kent encouraged borrowers to “take advantage of this opportunity and enroll in auto debit as soon as possible.” 

Borrowers can enroll by logging in to their loan servicer account and selecting “auto pay” from a navigation bar, he said.

The department clarified that borrowers will need to stay in auto pay to continue receiving the reduced interest rate.

WASHINGTON — When the overhead lights turn off at the Farmville Detention Center in Virginia, it not only means that night has arrived for Aliaksei Scharbachenia, but that panic attacks will soon follow.

The attacks, which started after his detention began last August, he said, have only grown worse, stemming from the fear that he will be returned to his country of Belarus and face persecution due to his opposition to the authoritarian government.

“With the panic attacks, I was able to take care of myself before,” he said in Russian. “But now it’s kind of getting worse, so I really need some medication, which will help me.”

States Newsroom interviewed Scharbachenia by video with the help of an interpreter.

As the Trump administration increases the scale of its immigrant detention program, now up to 68,000 immigrants in custody, reports have surfaced of inhumane conditions and inadequate medical care at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities like the one housing Scharbachenia. Congress recently boosted funding for immigration enforcement by $70 billion over three years, through the end of President Donald Trump’s term.

ICE acknowledged receiving, but did not respond to, a detailed list of questions from States Newsroom regarding Scharbachenia’s treatment at Farmville.

Ailments ignored

The nightly panic attacks, and the lack of medication to treat them, are not the only health issues that 37-year-old Scharbachenia said he has brought to medical staff at the Virginia facility.

He’s lost feeling in his right pinky and ring fingers, which he attributes to an-egg sized mass that developed on the back of his biceps during his 11-month detention. The few items that he purchased at the center – earplugs and a small blanket – were confiscated after he spent two weeks in solitary confinement after sharing know-your-rights information to newly arrived immigrants, he said. 

“I totally understand that’s another way of punishment to beat me, you know, so I will be quiet,” Scharbachenia said of his two weeks in solitary confinement.

Scharbachenia told States Newsroom that on May 20,  ICE agents tried to deport him to Belarus, despite his active legal petition challenging his detention. He said he was eventually placed on a deportation flight back to the United States from Turkey, his hands and feet bound for the nine-hour journey, and returned to the Farmville detention.  

States Newsroom could not independently verify the May 20 deportation attempt, and ICE did not respond to questions about it.

Poor conditions at multiple facilities 

Scharbachenia’s complaints fit a pattern of reports from independent government inspectors that have found unsafe conditions and inadequate medical care provided to immigrants detained in facilities in Texas and Louisiana.  

A recent report from the Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog found a detention center in Louisiana failed to ensure sanitary conditions, properly store perishable food, report use-of-force incidents and maintain medical records of detainees. 

Congress this month passed the three-year, $70 billion immigration enforcement package that contains no restraints on ICE activities. The tens of billions in funding is on top of roughly $170 billion provided to DHS last year for detention and deportations. 

Democratic lawmakers conducting oversight visits at some facilities have raised concerns about poor conditions and lack of medical care provided. 

U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, a New York Democrat who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said during a recent press conference that the additional $70 billion in funding will only continue a “detention and deportation industry that profits from human suffering.” 

New Jersey facility

Civil rights groups have filed two major lawsuits charging poor and inadequate conditions at detention centers in Texas and New Jersey run by ICE and private contractors.

In New Jersey, Sen. Andy Kim called for the Delaney Hall facility to be shut down after detained immigrants went on a hunger strike to protest their conditions. While Kim and dozens of advocates demonstrated at the facility, he was hit with pepper smoke deployed by immigration officers. 

“At Delaney Hall, we learned of unsanitary living conditions, lack of adequate medical care and unhealthy food,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said after conducting oversight at the facility. “The situation is unacceptable. Delaney Hall must be shut down immediately.”

In response to the criticism of poor conditions at Delaney Hall, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin argued before lawmakers that the detention centers have higher standards than jails and prisons. He described the complaints about food as detainees wanting “ethnic food.”

With House Democrats in the minority, the authority to make unannounced oversight visits at any federal facility that houses immigrants is one of the few tools they have. The power is codified in a 2019 appropriations law, but the Trump administration has not adhered to that policy. 

Democrats have sued to regain access in a case now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Outbreaks at Farmville

Prior to Trump’s current deportation push, lawmakers had raised concerns about issues at the detention center where Scharbachenia is held. In 2019, a mumps outbreak started at the facility, and in 2020, 93% of the detained population contracted the coronavirus.

Roughly now three-quarters of the immigrants detained at Farmville, nearly 500, have no criminal record, according to the most recent government data. On the campaign trail, the president vowed to focus enforcement on immigrants with criminal records, but those in detention are there on a civil charge of violating U.S. immigration law. 

Virginia Democrats have continued to conduct oversight of the facility. 

U.S. Sen. Mark Warner went last August to visit Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was transferred to Farmville after the Trump administration brought him back to the U.S. after erroneously deporting him to a brutal mega-prison in El Salvador.

Warner also raised concerns about the facility during the coronavirus outbreak in 2020. 

During his August visit, Warner’s office said he “secured a commitment from the facility’s private operator to work with legislators to address concerns regarding food quality and access to health care.”

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine also visited the facility in March and his office said he “continues to track conditions there closely.”

Scharbachenia, who is still detained at Farmville, has a pending habeas corpus petition, which is challenging his detention. 

He has a final order of removal from an immigration judge, but said if he is removed back to Belarus, the country’s special police force will be waiting for him, “along with electric shock torture and death.” 

Salah Sarsour, a Muslim leader in Milwaukee and the president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque, who was arrested by immigration agents in late March, has been ordered released by a federal judge. The news comes after sustained pressure from Sarsour’s family, his community and elected officials. 

“We are ecstatic for Salah Sarsour and his family that they will soon be reunited,” Sarsour’s lawyers said in a statement. “In issuing this order, the federal judge made clear that the government cannot detain a lawful permanent resident for speaking out about Palestinian rights.” 

In his 29-page decision, U.S. District Judge James P. Hanlon, an appointee of President Donald Trump, ruled against arguments by prosecutors that the federal court had no jurisdiction over immigration detentions. Hanlon sided with Sarsour’s attorneys who charged that Sarsour’s arrest was based on his speech supporting Palestinian human rights. Hanlon wrote that Sarsour “has presented a substantial claim of First Amendment retaliation” that his detention is unlawful. Hanlon’s decision has no sway over his pending immigration proceedings for possible deportation, the judge wrote. 

The Trump administration maintains that Sarsour should not have been granted legal residency in the U.S. in 1993 because of a decades-old conviction by an Israeli military court of attacking Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.

While lawyers “continue to fight these baseless claims in court, today is about celebrating a family being reunited,” Sarsour’s lawyers said in their statement. “It is also a sober reminder that, if the government can target Mr. Sarsour, everyone’s free speech rights are at risk.”

Sarsour’s oldest son, Kareem, praised the news. “We’re getting our dad back!” he said in a statement. “This experience has been a nightmare to wake up to every day, with his health at risk in a cruel basement cell simply for speaking up for Palestine. But we know who my dad is, he’s been a voice for the voiceless and the heart of our family and our community. I can’t wait to hug him, and I hope everyone like him will be released.”

Earlier this month, Sarsour’s attorneys also said that staff at the jail had impeded his religious liberties by interrupting or blocking his ability to pray. Jail staff offered Sarsour pork rinds — a food that is forbidden under Muslim dietary laws — his attorneys and family say, and did not provide adequate treatment for his type 2 diabetes, causing him to lose over 30 pounds while in detention. The Department of Homeland Security has denied the accusations.

U.S. Rep.  Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) applauded Sarsour’s release. Moore visited Sarsour at the Clay County Jail in Indiana last Sunday as an interfaith rally of supporters gathered outside and to protest.

“Over the course of two visits, I observed troubling signs of declining health and raised serious concerns about the conditions of his confinement,” said Moore. “No person in ICE custody should be denied adequate nutrition, medical attention, or humane treatment.”

Targeted First Amendment retaliation

Judge Hanlon acknowledged in his decision that Sarsour was born in the West Bank, where he was convicted in 1989 “by the Israeli Ramallah Military Court” of throwing Molotov cocktails and stones at Israeli forces, and of attempting to possess weapons in 1995. Sarsour became a conditional lawful U.S. resident in 1993, and became a full lawful permanent resident in 1998. Under Republican president George W. Bush, Sarsour’s naturalization application was approved by immigration authorities in 2002. Sarsour has not had a criminal record of any kind since arriving in the U.S. over 30 years ago.

Since his arrest, the Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly brought up Sarsour’s conviction by the Israeli military. Sarsour’s family and supporters, however, say that such convictions are often based on coerced confessions and should not be given weight. Sarsour often told stories of being detained and tortured by Israeli forces, his family members said. United Nations experts found that Israel has denied due process rights to Palestinians in the West Bank for the last 60 years, and there are pervasive reports from Palestinian prisoners of torture, sexual abuse, and maltreatment by Israeli authorities. 

Hanlon noted that Sarsour is president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, the largest mosque in Wisconsin, and is also a board member of American Muslims for Palestine. “Mr. Sarsour speaks openly about his support for Palestinian human rights,” Hanlon wrote. For this, Sarsour was added to the Canary Mission, an Israel-based doxxing website with “anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian animus,” Hanlon wrote. 

In October 2024, American Muslims for Palestine was labeled as part of a terrorist network which supports Hamas in a report authored by the conservative Heritage Foundations’ called “Project Esther: A National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism.” Hanlon noted that the New York Times reported on Project Esther’s plan to brand “a broad range of critics of Israel as ‘effectively a terrorist support network,’ so that they could be deported, defunded, sued, fired, expelled, ostracized and otherwise excluded from what it considered ‘open society.’” 

 

Video of Salah Sarsour being reunited with his family. (Video courtesy of Yaseen Najeed)

 

Shortly after Trump was reelected, “government agents arrested or attempted to arrest noncitizens who had spoken publicly in support of Palestinian rights or critically of the Israeli government,” Hanlon wrote. In June 2025,  Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a Homeland Security memorandum stating that Sarsour was eligible for deportation “because his actions undermine U.S. foreign policy to combat antisemitism around the world as well [as] U.S. foreign policy to combat activity that supports foreign terrorist organizations.” 

Hanlon highlighted that in early February 2026 the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for civil rights announced that the department would “investigate,” “prosecute” and “dismantle” organizations like American Muslims for Palestine. Sarsour’s profile on the Canary Mission was updated on March 26, followed by his arrest by armed plainclothes agents four days later on March 30.

The judge denied requests from prosecutors to impose a $25,000 bond and an ankle monitor on Sarsour. 

“Such conditions are not necessary here,” Hanlon wrote. “Mr. Sarsour has no history of non-compliance and is well established in the Milwaukee community.” Sarsour’s family members all live in the U.S. and he has not traveled outside the country since 1998. Hanlon ruled that Sarsour had “provided voluminous evidence demonstrating that he is not a risk of flight.” 

Sarsour was ordered to be released on his own recognizance with the conditions that he remain in Wisconsin, attend all court hearings and participate in his removal proceedings.

“The court’s ruling affirms what many of us have been saying for months,” said Moore, “Mr. Sarsour’s continued detention is unjustifiable.” She expressed gratitude “to the legal advocates, community leaders and family members who fought tirelessly for Mr. Sarsour’s release.”

Nihad Awad, national executive director for the Council on American Islamic Relations, called the court decision “a welcome and long-overdue step toward justice for Salah Sarsour, a respected Muslim community leader whose detention has caused immense pain to his family and community.” 

Awad said that “no one should be punished for their faith, advocacy, or identity. We urge ICE to immediately comply with the judge’s order, reunite Mr. Sarsour with his loved ones, and end the disturbing pattern of targeting Muslim, Palestinian, and other community members for detention and intimidation. This case is a reminder that due process, human dignity, and constitutional rights must never be optional.”

Moore visits Sarsour in jail  

In an interview on Wednesday, before Hanlon issued his order, Moore told the Wisconsin Examiner that she believed Sarsour had become a “high value target for censoring people” as the Trump administration carried out its mass deportation campaign and the targeting of pro-Palestine activists. She visited Sarsour Sunday at the Indiana Clay County Jail, where he was detained. 

“It’s not a rundown place,” Moore said, adding that some of the facility was “definitely a new construction.” However, during her visit, she said, “I didn’t go back into the area where the prisoners live.”

After surrendering her phone, Moore sat with Sarsour, who she said appeared surprised to see her. 

Sarsour hugged her, Moore said. He’d clearly lost weight, even since her last visit in late April, she noted. 

“His health is at risk,” said Moore. “He has diabetes, as has been reported. And you know, I’m not a doctor, I’m not in a position to diagnose anything, but he has continued to lose weight. And he says that’s because he tries to exercise to manage his blood sugar.”

She added that she saw “other things that I noticed that I reported to his doctor, and I think he needs to see a doctor about his diabetes.”

Moore said that since Sarsour’s health began deteriorating, the facility had been asked to change his diet to accommodate his diabetes. She said jail personnel didn’t change his diet but simply gave him smaller portions of food. 

“If they served bread they just gave him a smaller piece. If they had mashed potatoes, they served him a smaller portion of mashed potatoes,” she said. “He hasn’t seen a fresh fruit or vegetable since he’s been in there.”

 Moore stressed that while in custody Sarsour “had earlier episodes of illness and he had to just wing it on his own.” She said that neither his doctor nor a jail doctor have visited him.

While Moore was visiting the jail on Sunday, a large Jewish-led interfaith rally uniting 150 supporters had gathered outside, Moore said. They chanted so loud that Sarsour could hear the commotion from inside the facility. 

They chanted “Free Salah Sarsour!” “No ICE Terror!” “You can’t deport a movement!” Kareem Sarsour was also outside the jail in support of his father’s release. 

“We never imagined we would be placed in the situation we are today,” said Kareem, according to a press release from the group that led the rally. “Every day is nerve-wracking knowing my father is only a few hours away, suffering, and we can’t reach him.”

Moore said she told Sarsour about the rally. “I told him that indeed there were people out there and described the crowd, and he was very — he said that it gave him hope for justice,” said Moore. 

The rally demonstrated how important Sarsour is to his community as a leader, activist, business owner and bridge builder, Moore said.

Moore said she met a minister outside the rally who told her he was a Trump supporter. “He was just hanging around,” said Moore. “Before that was over we had him praying for justice for Mr. Sarsour.” 

Like Sarsour’s attorneys, Moore said she believes Sarsour is a victim of retaliation by the Trump administration for speech. 

“Nobody gets to speak against the Trump deportation strategy,” she said. “We know that he told people who voted for him that he was going to target the murders and the rapists and the gang members. And these are people that no one has any problem with him removing. But no, people like teachers — like Yessenia Ruano —  people like Abrego Garcia, people like Salah Sarsour.”

Administration officials, Moore charged, are “thinking that they can create an inflammatory environment to cover up the outrageous immigration raids and programs that they’re conducting.”

Wisconsin must stop awarding small-dollar grants to help deter students from dropping out of college under a program available only to specific racial and ethnic groups, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

Although unanimous in part, the opinion also included concurrences by three of the Court’s liberal justices. They sharply critiqued a U.S. Supreme Court opinion that set the stage for the ruling, while acknowledging that its precedent required them to follow its contours.

At issue is the Minority Undergraduate Retention Grant Program operated by the state Higher Educational Aids Board. The program, established in 1985, provides grants from $250 to $2,500 for students who are Black, Hispanic, Native American and for immigrants or descendants of immigrants from Laos, Vietnam or Cambodia following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.

Eligible recipients are students at Wisconsin’s technical colleges, private universities and tribal colleges. The program and a companion program for University of Wisconsin students were both created “to reduce the financial burden which causes many minority students to leave school,” then-Gov. Tony Earl wrote in the 1985 budget proposal that led to their creation.

A 2023 Wisconsin Examiner analysis found that the money in the program largely went to Black students at Milwaukee Area Technical College who got training and jobs in building and construction and other trades.

In a February 2025 ruling the Wisconsin 2nd District Court of Appeals sided with the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, overturning a lower court and ruling that the retention grant program violates the Equal Protection Clause in the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment. WILL filed the lawsuit with a group of families.

The appeals judges cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, issued in June 2023. That opinion, referred to as SFFA for short, held that the consideration of race in college admission policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina “cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause” in the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Thursday’s opinion, written by Justice Annette Ziegler, affirmed the appeals court decision and cited the SFFA U.S. Supreme Court opinion.

The Higher Educational Aids Board argued that the retention grants were needed to help maintain student diversity.

Ziegler wrote, however, that when trying to ensure a diverse student body, race cannot be a defining factor. Rather, it can be one of  many factors in a flexible process that evaluates each applicant as individuals, she wrote.

“Under the Grant Program, race is not but one factor in a ‘highly individualized, holistic review.’ Race is the only factor,” Ziegler wrote. “Either a student is, or is not, a member of the preferred racial group.”

When the Wisconsin law that established the grant program was enacted 41 years ago, “the record does not reflect that Wisconsin’s technical or private colleges needed the legislature to enact a race-, national origin-, ancestry-, or alienage-based remedy in the 1980s,” Ziegler wrote. Lacking such evidence, “we cannot assume that the legislature enacted [the program] to address an unidentified retention and graduation problem at private and technical colleges.”

Ziegler was joined in the main opinion by Justices Rebecca Bradley, Brian Hagedorn and Janet Protasiewicz.

In a concurrence, Chief Justice Jill Karofsky acknowledged that “I am bound” by the 2023 SFFA opinion and that the grant program cannot survive as a consequence. But Karofsky described the SFFA opinion as part of a broader trend that was turning the 14th Amendment in the opposite direction from its original intent.

“Rather than turn a blind-eye to the scourge of racism and slavery, the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause faces it head-on by demanding change and requiring equal protection of the laws for all people. Inherent in its language is a recognition of the wrongs of prejudice, discrimination, and injustice,” Karofsky wrote.

“Why, instead of wielding the Equal Protection Clause as a sword against racism, do we employ it to shield against the promise of equality for all?” Karofsky asked rhetorically. “The answer appears to be that we have failed to fully recognize how societal and governmental practices have long continued to enforce a preference for White Americans and to burden Black Americans and those of other disadvantaged races or backgrounds.”

She was joined in the concurrence by Justice Susan Crawford.

Citing arguments made by dissenting justices in the 2023 SFFA opinion, Karofsky wrote that in Wisconsin, disparities between students of color and white students when they enter college “[are] about a reality where past state-sponsored racism continues to affect educational opportunities, and systemic racism continues to rob non-White people of equal educational opportunities. And as difficult and uncomfortable as that may be for some to acknowledge, it is the truth, and it cannot and should not be ignored.”

In the second concurrence, Justice Rebecca Dallet wrote that under current U.S. Supreme Court rulings that the Wisconsin Court must follow, the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause now imposes “substantial barriers to the adoption of race-conscious laws — even ones that seek to remedy the deep, structural inequalities in our society.” Karofsky and Crawford joined her concurrence.

The Higher Educational Aids Board’s defense of the grant program failed because there was “no evidence in the record establishing a problem with retention at Wisconsin’s private and technical colleges, or that race cannot be separated from that problem,” Dallet wrote.

Nevertheless, she suggested that it might yet be possible to redirect the Court with the production of “greater factual support” in the future.

State lawmakers react

Thursday’s ruling drew contrasting reactions from Wisconsin lawmakers.

Sen. Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee), chair of the Wisconsin Legislative Black Caucus, criticized the decision for applying the U.S. Supreme Court ruling to a different set of circumstances.

“That federal case was based on admissions while this program is about a student retention enacted by the state legislature and funded since 1985,” Drake said in a statement. The state Supreme Court justices “are setting a dangerous precedent by applying this federal ruling to distinctly different programs.”

Drake said she was a recipient of the grant when she attended Marquette University as a first-generation college graduate. She said she would introduce new legislation in the next two-year legislative session to replace the program with one that would support students based on income and zip code. “Disadvantaged communities need more resources, not fewer,” she said. “We can’t continue to make the same mistakes like our nation did post reconstruction and Jim Crow if we do we will never achieve true equity in our democracy.”

Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Gillett) praised the ruling in a statement. Wimberger authored a bill that would have changed the retention grant and several other programs, redefining them to apply to students who were identified as “disadvantaged” while excluding race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, sexual orientation or religion, or to “a student’s identity as a member of a group without regard to individual qualities.” The measure passed the Legislature on party-line votes and was vetoed by Gov. Tony Evers.

“Today, the state Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the policy outcome of my bill,” Wimberger said. “Giving benefits based solely on race presumes someone has individual personal characteristics simply because they belong to a race category. That is stereotyping and racism at their plainest and simplest.”

Wimberger said that there are “other state programs that give benefits based on race” and that he would “continue to fight against those policies and pursue equality under the law.”

This report has been updated with statements from Wisconsin lawmakers. 

A federal poverty-fighting program focused on reducing unintended pregnancies is about to undergo a major overhaul.

Reproductive health clinics use Title X federal grant money to provide birth control, cancer screenings and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections to people with little or no health insurance. Title X money cannot be used for abortions.

The Guttmacher Institute estimates that Title X, which was signed into law by Republican President Richard Nixon in 1970, has prevented almost 20 million unintended pregnancies and 9 million abortions. It has also helped reduce child poverty, according to the group, which supports abortion rights.

But President Donald Trump has taken aim at the program, which has long been a target for abortion opponents. Since regaining the White House, Trump has temporarily blocked and then restored grants to certain reproductive health clinics, and proposed a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services budget with no funding for the program.

The department’s recently issued funding guidelines for Title X grants represent a significant mission shift.

Instead of expanding access to contraception, the focus of Title X will be “to strengthen family formation and assist clients in achieving healthy pregnancies,” according to the new guidance. That will align the program with the administration’s efforts to increase the U.S. birth rate.

The new rules say Title X will prioritize educating Americans about natural methods to avoid pregnancy and overcome infertility, and will promote “body literacy education” and “informed, preventive, and restorative approaches to reproductive health.” Some conservative groups tout an obscure alternative treatment for infertility called “restorative reproductive medicine,” which is based on the idea that the underlying causes of infertility can be treated through lifestyle changes and improving a person’s overall health.

The guidance directs Title X clinics to promote “fertility-awareness-based methods,” such as period-tracking apps, which the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says can be helpful for getting pregnant but less effective at preventing pregnancy. It also calls on clinics to offer counseling on male fertility issues and to address environmental causes of infertility, including pornography use. And it includes a prohibition on DEI efforts and warns grantees that federal money cannot be used to “facilitate or incentivize illegal immigration.”

Anti-abortion groups support the changes, but many health policy researchers say they will disproportionately harm low-income and minority women, who are more reliant on Title X services and are more likely to have unintended pregnancies. Researchers also say the new guidelines are unlikely to achieve the administration’s “pronatalist” goal of reversing declining birth rates.

Corinne Rocca, an epidemiology professor at the University of California, San Francisco, said the way to do that would be to spend more on childcare subsidies and other social programs to help new parents.

“Policies that help people and families feel supported to meet their childbearing preferences … would actually help people who are open to the prospect of childbearing to do so,” Rocca said.

Rocca co-authored a study published in JAMA Network Open last fall suggesting Black and Hispanic women are less likely than other racial groups to be able to choose if, when and how to start a family.

Clinics must reapply for funding under these new guidelines by Jan. 9, 2027. HHS did not respond to a request for comment.

During his first term, Trump banned Title X clinics from referring patients to other providers for an abortion or even mentioning it as an option. He also prohibited grantees from offering family planning services and abortions in the same building. As a result, many grantees quit the program, including about a dozen state health departments and all participating Planned Parenthood chapters.

The program served about 844,000 fewer patients in 2019 than it did in 2018, when it served 3.9 million patients, according to HHS. About 225,000 fewer patients received oral contraceptives; about 50,000 fewer received hormonal implants; and about 86,000 fewer received IUDs.

The reframing of Title X that is reflected in the new guidelines was a recommendation laid out in the controversial blueprint known as Project 2025, created by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation as a guide for the second Trump administration.

In line with Project 2025’s recommendations, HHS says Title X grantees will no longer be required to counsel or refer for abortions, and tells applicants that relationship counseling should encourage marriage as a precursor to having children.

“In a time when we are facing a rapidly declining birth rate that falls far short of the replacement fertility rate, we should be doing all we can to encourage and support family formation and fertility,” Dr. Christina Francis, CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told MedPage Today in April.

“Women deserve accurate information about their fertility and their health — and this includes highlighting the many benefits of pregnancy and motherhood.”

Some abortion opponents have criticized Title X for promoting certain forms of contraception, such as IUDs, that they view as abortifacients. A spokesperson for the National Right to Life Committee said the organization does not take a stance on contraception that prevents fertilization, “however, National Right to Life does oppose any device or drug that would destroy a life already created at fertilization.”

“If there is any doubt, we recommend that a woman speak with her doctor to determine if an agent would cause an abortion,” the spokesperson said in an email.

But Leonard Lopoo, a professor at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University who has studied fertility and family policies for the past three decades, said the federal government could help families achieve their family planning goals by expanding pregnancy prevention and infertility treatments at all income levels.

“When you’re trying to take away the funding for someone who doesn’t want to have a child, that’s not the same as providing funding to support someone who does,” Lopoo said.

As a Black woman and researcher focused on Black maternal health at Ibis Reproductive Health, Terri-Ann Thompson is better informed than most on the ways having children can be disproportionately more dangerous and less affordable for women who look like her.

But she says what she wasn’t expecting to uncover — during research for a study she co-authored in the journal Frontiers in Public Health this spring — is how much the fear of negative medical and criminal justice outcomes makes many Black women in Georgia and North Carolina scared of pregnancy.

“I was very surprised to see that folks were actually thinking about the context within which a Black child is born and raised well before they even contemplated starting a family,” Thompson said. “We had a lot of, just, stories of folks saying, ‘Why would I want to bring a child into this context; how does one prepare Black women to bring a child into this context?’”

Thompson said her team’s findings show how much Black women depend on low-cost access to long-acting reversible contraceptives such as IUDs.

“We have people who drove very, very far just to get a sliding scale to either get an IUD placed, an IUD removed, or to even get on birth control pills,” Thompson said.

“If the administration moves forward with these restrictions, what we are doing is we are removing access to contraceptives for a population that is at higher risk.”

Stateline reporter Sofia Resnick can be reached at sresnick@stateline.org.

Far from “unconditional surrender” or the “total and complete victory” President Donald Trump claimed would result from his unilateral decision to launch a war against Iran, the protracted U.S. military action is reportedly winding down with a memorandum of understanding between U.S. and Iranian officials that includes lifting U.S. sanctions, unfreezing Iranian assets, ending the U.S. blockade, reopening the Strait of Hormuz with Iran still in control, creating a $300 billion reconstruction fund, and the promise of further negotiations to end Iran’s nuclear program. 

In other words, the provisional agreement to end the war that has cost $30 billion and 13 U.S. lives appears to more or less restore the status quo before the war started. The biggest achievement of the outlined deal is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which wasn’t closed until the U.S. started bombing. Details of a proposed effort to keep Iran from building a nuclear weapon are still not figured out. Iran’s hardline regime is still in power.

None of this sounds like a win to Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who has repeatedly tried and failed to get her colleagues to pass a War Powers resolution to assert congressional warmaking authority, end the bombing and stop what she calls Trump’s illegitimate and “100% unnecessary” war.

“We have no assurances that war won’t continue, and no evidence that Americans are any better off today than they were before this all started,” Baldwin said in a press call Wednesday, calling the Iran war “a disaster for Wisconsinites.”

Baldwin is not alone. According to an April Marquette University Law School poll, 63% of Americans said there was not sufficient reason to start the war, and 68% said they disapproved of the way Trump has handled it.

Even Wisconsin’s Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, an ever-dependable Trump ally, told Bloomberg Television this week, “I don’t like the final outcome here. I’m sure President Trump doesn’t like the outcome. He would have liked unconditional surrender. It didn’t happen.” 

Johnson threw in a loopy tangent, blaming “gun control” for the inability of the Iranian people to overthrow their country’s brutal regime, calling it “a good lesson for the American people.” 

But Baldwin and Johnson appear to be mostly in agreement that, unproductive as it was, it’s better to wind down the war than to continue pushing forward with a costly and fruitless military adventure.  

“Look, peace is unequivocally a good thing, and something I have been fighting for since this president launched this unnecessary war,” Baldwin said Wednesday.

Speaking to Bloomberg on Tuesday, Johnson said: “If you’re going to recognize reality and realize that they still had a stranglehold over the straits and you want to open the straits up, there’s got to be some give and take.” 

So there it is: without knowing the details, Johnson supported Trump’s deal to end the war because it got Iran to reopen the strait it closed because Trump started the war in the first place. As for Iran’s nuclear program, “We can always go back in, the minute they make a move toward their nuclear sites, we can bomb them again,” Johnson asserted, echoing Trump.

“I don’t know what’s in the memorandum of understanding,” he added.

Being left in the dark about the details did not appear to trouble Johnson. Baldwin, in contrast, made it a point of her press conference, noting that Trump had repeatedly declared victory in Iran only to have the war continue.

“We need to make sure that whatever is in this agreement is real and also good for the American people,” she said, flagging the surge in gas prices that cost the average Wisconsin family $378 more since the war started as well as a huge hike in fertilizer prices that has taken a heavy toll on farmers.

The Iran nuclear deal Trump tore up, negotiated under the administration of President Barack Obama, included intrusive inspections that ensured Iran’s nuclear weapons capacity was not advancing, Baldwin noted. “I can’t see possibly how we could end up with a stronger deal curtailing Iran’s nuclear program 60 days from now than we did back in 2015 after months of multilateral negotiation,”  she said. “But again, Trump ripped up that deal, and we’re going to possibly, probably end up in a much worse place when we finally see this wind down and end.

Asked whether it still makes sense to push Congress to step up and pass a War Powers resolution, Baldwin answered, “absolutely.”

“When this president brought us into his war of choice, we weren’t under attack, we weren’t under any imminent threat of attack from Iran, he brought us into an illegal war.” Ever since then, Democrats have been introducing War Powers resolutions. 

“At first we had one Republican join us, then two, then three, then four. We are going to carry on until we are able to bring this to a close,” Baldwin said. 

Unlike Johnson, she was not reassured by Trump’s assertions that if the deal doesn’t work out, the U.S. can just start bombing again.

“I think it’s quite possible that some of my Republican colleagues who had previously joined us were taking the president’s word that a deal to end the war, an agreement to end the war, was upon us, and around the corner. I think they’ll soon find out that that’s not the case,” she said.

No matter how many conflicting assertions Trump makes about the war, it’s up to Congress to do its job. 

The days of ground beef and chicken legs are long gone at the Ritenour Co-Care Food Pantry just outside of St. Louis. The nonprofit has swapped out those staple proteins for cheaper ground chicken and hot dogs as it faces higher food costs and surging demand.

“We have to adapt just like everybody else,” Executive Director Angela Gabel said about rising grocery prices.

Last year, Ritenour spent about $120,000 on food. The pantry budgeted $180,000 for this year, though Gabel said that may not be sufficient.

And the number of people looking for food has increased: The pantry signed up seven new families on a recent weekday morning and expected to add 15 by the end of the day. Gabel said more people are traveling further to visit multiple food pantries each month to stock their shelves.

Families are facing rising grocery prices at the same time that many of the most vulnerable are losing access to the nation’s largest food assistance program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. More than 4 million Americans lost SNAP benefits between February 2025 and this February, according to analyses of the most recent federal data. The numbers are expected to increase as states whittle the rolls further as required by the broad tax and spending law President Donald Trump signed last summer, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“I’m absolutely terrified,” Gabel said. “We will absolutely do our best, but I think we were meant to supplement SNAP or to help in emergency situations. I just don’t think we can replace the government.”

After One Big Beautiful Bill Act, 100,000 Tennesseans’ lose SNAP food aid

Since the fall, states and counties that administer SNAP have been notifying residents who rely on food stamps that they must meet new work requirements or lose their food assistance. The federal tax and spending law ended exemptions to work requirements for older adults, homeless people, veterans and some rural residents, among others. The changes will put more pressure on states, likely leading to further benefit cuts as they reevaluate eligibility and begin paying for more program costs. The new rules also will further stress the already-stretched charitable food system.

Gina Plata-Nino, SNAP director at the Food Research & Action Center, a nonprofit working to combat hunger, noted that children, older adults and people with disabilities are most reliant on the program. The left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated the average benefit per person this year would be $188 per month, or $6.17 per day.

“And a majority of them are making less than $1,100 a month,” she said. “So when you lose your SNAP benefit, it really does exacerbate your situation of having to choose between shelter, food, and other basic needs.”

Rising need for food

National data on hunger is limited since the Trump administration terminated the annual Household Food Security report last year. But other measures indicate that more people are missing regular meals.

In May, the federal Reserve Bank of New York found a “remarkable” increase in food insecurity across the country, with more people struggling than during the peak of the pandemic. Its national surveys last October and this February found more households dipped into savings accounts, relied on food donations or had trouble finding enough food to eat or had kids who missed meals.

Democrats and anti-hunger advocates have been urging Congress to rescind SNAP cuts for months. Current negotiations over reauthorizing the federal farm bill, which includes SNAP, have put the issue front and center in Congress. The House has passed a version of that legislation that won’t reverse the cuts.

Republicans have downplayed the effect of the changes and defended the SNAP cuts, arguing they are aimed at rooting out fraud and abuse.

U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, a Wisconsin Republican, said he was raised in “abject, rural poverty,” by a single mother who relied on food stamps, subsidized lunches and government cheese.

But in late April, he urged support of the farm bill that cements cuts to the food stamp program.

“We do have to know that there is a tremendous amount of fraud that takes place in SNAP,” he said on the House floor, “and we want to make sure that every single dollar that is allocated to go to a hungry child or a veteran or one of our senior citizens goes to them.”

Last week, 23 state attorneys general wrote to Senate leaders who are now considering the farm bill, saying the Senate has an opportunity to “reverse course and reaffirm a bipartisan commitment that no American should go hungry because they cannot afford food.”

In Nebraska, where SNAP participation has dropped by about 11%, state lawmakers this year proposed legislation to ask the federal government for waivers from some of the new restrictions. Those bills, which did not advance, sought to protect benefits for veterans, former foster youth, homeless people and refugees.

But the problem demands a federal response, said Megan Hamann, the senior community organizer for food and nutrition access at Nebraska Appleseed, an advocacy nonprofit that works against poverty and discrimination.

“We’re going to be working with patchwork solutions in the meantime,” Hamann said. She described “a real reckoning as a result of loss of federal support and programming that has for a long time in our state and others offered stability and consistency that is no longer present.”

She said putting food on the table has become a widespread challenge for many in Nebraska as the price of housing, utilities and other everyday necessities squeezes household budgets.

“I talk to people on the daily who say, ‘I’m worried about the price of groceries, I’m worried about the price of gas, I feel like everything except for my wage is going up,’” she said.

Though generally focused on housing, the Omaha organization Restoring Dignity has launched a new food assistance program to help refugees who lost SNAP benefits late last year.

“A big chunk of what we do now revolves around food,” said founder and executive director Hannah Vlach.

Community donations allow Restoring Dignity to provide grocery store gift cards to those refugees. But the organization, which generally serves about 5,000 refugees per year, is helping only about 200 of the most vulnerable.

“Right now we’re just focused on the families who absolutely will be evicted and will be on the streets if they don’t get any assistance,” she said, “and I have no idea how those other families are surviving.”

Vlach emphasized that the federal government has specifically sanctioned the arrival of refugees her organization serves, many of whom served with U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

“This can’t become our new normal — this just can’t,” she said. “It’s unethical, it’s immoral.”

States triaging needs

West Virginian Raine Gibbons said she relies more on cheap staples such as pasta and pasta sauce, trimming the amount of meat and treats she buys.

She said her family of five recently saw a reduction in monthly SNAP benefits, which now provide just over $300 per month.

Gibbons supervises an in-home education program for parents at one of the state-run Family Support Centers, which provide parenting classes, baby supplies such as diapers and emergency food aid.

Aside from grappling with higher prices and reduced SNAP eligibility among clients, the West Virginians who rely on those 57 federally funded centers face an uncertain future because of unresolved state contracting issues.

“It’s really, really stressful,” Gibbons said. “It’s so hard to stay present and be the parent that you want to be when you’re worried about those daily struggles of just how to feed your family.”

Gibbons said SNAP is not a luxury, but an essential support for many families.

“It’s really what’s keeping families like mine — who do work outside of the home, who do have a full-time job — afloat to be able to feed our families and our babies, and try to just get through this economy.”

California lawmakers are trying to help fill some of the federal void in their state. Democratic Assemblymember Alex Lee is pushing to add $100 million to a state program that doubles the purchasing power of SNAP when used for fresh fruits and vegetables. Separate pending legislation would petition the federal government for a waiver, allowing California to maintain an exemption from work requirements for former foster youth.

In California, nearly one-third of all families with young children struggled to put food on the table between July 2024 and January 2026, according to survey results from the Stanford University Center on Early Childhood.

“States are in a position of trying to triage what is the most important need for families, when really families have all of these needs that are considered pretty basic,” said Abigail Stewart-Kahn, managing director of the center. “It puts states in an untenable position to try to make decisions of which gaps to fill and for whom.”

Stewart-Kahn said many families face immediate decisions of which bills to pay and which needs to forgo, but that the parental stress and childhood distress will have long-term consequences for society.

“Every time we make a policy change that potentially increases stress in the lives of a child, we are deciding as a society that we’re okay with harming their healthy development, so that the next generation will struggle further with everything from educational attainment to mental health challenges,” she said.

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

Gov. Tony Evers, lawmakers and advocates celebrated Juneteenth on Wednesday, praising the progress the U.S. has made toward racial equality while also committing to continue to work to expand opportunity. 

Juneteenth marks the official end of slavery in the United States. While the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, enslaved people on plantations in Texas were not notified until June 19, 1865 when Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay to tell more than 250,000 enslaved Black people there that they were free. 

“As we celebrate the critical progress that we’ve made, we also commit to continuing our work to build a more just, more equitable and a freer state and country for all,” said Evers, who is serving his final year in office. “Especially when there are those that would rather rewrite history than learn from it and as leaders in D.C. try to sow division and hate, we must remember that there is more that unites us than divides us and our diversity is our strength.”

Juneteenth was made a federal holiday in 2021 under a law signed by former President Joe Biden, although President Donald Trump’s administration removed the holiday, along with Martin Luther King Jr. Day, from the list of fee-free days at national parks. In 2025, Trump said on Juneteenth that there were “too many nonworking holidays in America” that were costing the country “billions of dollars.”

At the flag raising, community leaders delivered remarks about the significance of Juneteenth and honored Michael Johnson, CEO of the Dane County Boys & Girls Club, who died earlier this month. Participants conducted a libation prayer and performed songs to celebrate freedom.

“For over 160 years, this day has been recognized across the nation to celebrate the true end to slavery in the U.S.,” Evers said, crediting former Sen. Spencer Coggs and Rep. Marcia Coggs, who proposed the first bill to recognize the holiday, as well as Stubbs, Annie Weatherby-Flowers and other advocates for getting the state to recognize the day. “Unfortunately, it took us another two decades for us to get it right and become the 32nd state to formally recognize Juneteenth. We’re not turning our backs now.”

Wisconsin has recognized Juneteenth since 2009, but Evers first raised the Juneteenth flag over the state Capitol in 2020. Wednesday’s was his seventh and final flag-raising. He called the holiday a “reminder that the human spirit cannot be silenced and freedom will always triumph.” 

The Juneteenth flag includes a star in the center to represent Texas, the Lone Star State, as well as a nova to signify a new beginning and freedom for Black Americans. The red, white and blue colors represent that enslaved people and their descendants are Americans and shall be forever free.

Camden Hargrove, an alderman from the city of Menomonie and the first Black, openly trans man elected to public office in Wisconsin, said the flag is a “symbol that reminds us all of our responsibility — our responsibility to make sure all children have equal opportunities, our responsibility to build each other up so we can all thrive, our responsibility to protect and expand democracy.” 

The flag will temporarily replace the Progress Pride flag, which Evers raised over the Capitol on June 1, because there isn’t enough room on the East Wing flag pole for more than three flags. The U.S. flag and Wisconsin state flag will continue flying alongside the Juneteenth flag. The POW-MIA flag will also continue flying on the North Wing flagpole. 

The Juneteenth flag will stay up until June 21. 

Other elected officials at the celebration included state Treasurer John Leiber, a Republican, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, state Rep. Shelia Stubbs (D-Madison), state Sen. Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee), who chairs the legislative Black caucus and state Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee).

Drake said the day is more than just a holiday.

“It is a reminder of the ongoing struggle for liberation even beyond bondage,” Drake said. “Juneteenth was only the first barrier. We had to overcome retaliation against Reconstruction by the institution of Jim Crow, followed by mass incarceration and institutions meant to prohibit the advancements of African-Americans and now the attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion.” 

Evers called the late Boys & Girls Club CEO Johnson a “force for good,” saying that he was always looking for new ways to lead and to support families and communities. 

Johnson’s daughter, Micayla, said in remarks that her dad dedicated his life to advancing the ideals that Juneteenth are about: freedom, resilience and the ongoing pursuit of opportunity for everyone.

“We understand that freedom is not merely the absence of barriers, but the presence of opportunity, education, mentorship, and hope,” she said. “He worked tirelessly to open doors for young people and families, particularly those who had too often been denied access to resources and pathways for success. He believed that every child, regardless of background or circumstance, deserves the chance to dream, achieve, and thrive in doing so. For him, this work was never simply a profession, it was a calling.”

She added that her father’s impact is “a testament to the belief that when we invest in people, strengthen communities and expand opportunities, we move closer to the future that Juneteenth calls us to build.”

A survey of more than 3,800 people nationwide who gave birth in 2023 and 2024 found those using Medicaid described worse outcomes than those on private insurance, that access to care remains limited for some, and that women often feel unheard and disregarded during pregnancy and labor and delivery.

The Listening to Mothers survey, conducted by the nonpartisan nonprofit National Partnership for Women and Families, was released earlier this month. The partnership says the survey is the largest of its kind, and it’s the fourth time the organization has published this type of survey since 2002. The organization says its survey represents approximately 90% of the childbearing population, defined as those at least age 18 who gave birth in a U.S. hospital to a single baby whom they lived with.

The survey highlighted what it called “hard-won gains” in policy changes, such as the expansion of Medicaid coverage from 60 days to 12 months postpartum in all but one state, as well as expanded state paid leave programs and new investments in maternal health and perinatal quality. But it said those gains are threatened by hospital maternity units closing in many states, as well as deep cuts to Medicaid programs at the state and federal levels.

Report: Arkansas child well-being improves in some areas but lags behind overall

“While preventing catastrophic outcomes rightly commands attention, surviving childbirth is the floor and not the ceiling,” the survey said. “Extensive evidence shows that precious few childbearing families are getting the care and support they need to truly thrive.”

Most respondents — 61% — said they received prenatal care by eight weeks’ gestation, which is earlier than the generally accepted recommendation to see a provider before 10 weeks. About 19% said they saw a provider between nine and 11 weeks, while 21% didn’t see one until after 12 weeks, which is past the end of the first trimester. About 1% said they received no prenatal care at all.

Among those respondents, 25% indicated they were unable to receive prenatal care as early as they wanted to, and about one-third of those were covered by Medicaid. The most common reasons for receiving care later were that no earlier appointments were available and that the provider wanted to see the patient at a later gestation. Others said they had to find a clinic accepting new patients or accepting Medicaid, or they had to wait to be enrolled in Medicaid.

Medicaid patients also had higher rates of complications such as high blood pressure and gestational diabetes during pregnancy, and higher rates of mental health issues such as depression and substance abuse disorders. 

About 43% of respondents said they received less than optimal care during pregnancy because their knowledge and experiences were not valued, while 42% said their providers did not respond in a timely manner to requests for help, and 40% said they generally felt unheard by providers.

About 6% of respondents said some kind of discrimination played a role in those feelings, with the most common area being discrimination based on race, including a lack of respect for the pregnant patient’s culture. American Indian and Alaska Native groups were most likely to report a lack of respect for their culture.

Stateline reporter Kelcie Moseley-Morris can be reached at kmoseley@stateline.org.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against a transgender healthcare nonprofit Wednesday, accusing it of misleading and coercing parents over gender-affirming treatment for their children. 

The FTC’s complaint against the World Professional Association of Transgender Health is the latest in a series of legal actions from the Trump administration against organizations that provide gender-affirming treatment or work on transgender healthcare issues. 

“WPATH deceived parents and children about the medical and scientific basis for such services, as well as their medical necessity, safety and efficacy,” a senior FTC official, who wished not to be identified, said in a call with reporters Wednesday.

The FTC was joined by Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska and Texas in the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Texas. Another senior FTC official on the call Wednesday said that the suit is seeking to prevent the nonprofit from making “future false, misleading, or unsubstantiated claims to parents and children.” 

The suit alleges that the association’s standards of care, which are widely adopted by healthcare providers, were crafted with the specific goal of guaranteeing that insurance companies would cover the treatment as medically necessary, in turn generating profit for the association’s members. 

But the association described the complaint as “baseless,” and said in a statement Wednesday that it’s just another example of the Trump administration’s attempts to “interfere with Americans’ rights to seek and obtain the healthcare that should be decided between a patient and their physician.”

The guidelines are informed by established scientific standards, expert consensus, and patient-centered values, the association said, adding that it supports individualized patient care, rather than a “one size fits all” approach.  

The association also said the FTC is not a medical provider, and as such, has no right to interfere with individualized medical decision-making and doesn’t have jurisdiction over WPATH or its speech. It said the states’ claims have similar factual and legal flaws.

WPATH likes its chances

The lawsuit comes after the association filed its own suit against the FTC in February, seeking to block an investigation which it described as being part of an “all-of-government campaign to undermine access to gender-affirming care and attack the First Amendment rights of medical organizations.”

A federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled in favor of the association in May, temporarily pausing the FTC’s probe into the organization.

The association said Wednesday it’s predicting a similar outcome this go-around as well. 

“A federal district court has already found WPATH is in a strong position to prove that the FTC is acting out of pure retaliation as part of the federal government’s relentless and targeted campaign to undermine gender-affirming care by attacking the First Amendment rights and the independence of professional medical organizations,” the organization said in its statement. “We expect the same result when we oppose this latest attack on WPATH and its mission to promote evidence-informed care and guidance for doctors and their patients.” 

WASHINGTON — The White House on Wednesday read to reporters a 14-point memorandum of understanding with Iran to stop the ongoing war and allow for further negotiations, but did not release the exact text.

The 60-day MOU outlines the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, sanctions relief and reconstruction funds for Iran, and the promise of negotiations on Iran ending its nuclear program. Senior administration officials say economic and sanctions relief will only occur if Iran is on “good behavior.”

“If we think that they’re just dragging us along and kind of bull- – – -ting us, then we’ll be very quick to pull the plug on it and go back to tightening the screws on them very, very aggressively,” a senior administration official who did not want to be identified said on a Wednesday afternoon call with reporters.

President Donald Trump told reporters in France he “might” stay in Europe for the ceremonial signing of the memo, but doubted it.

“This is a memorandum of understanding. It’s very important, but it might not be the kind of a document that I should be signing,” Trump told reporters at his final press conference of the G7 summit, a meeting of the world’s wealthiest capitalist economies.

Earlier Wednesday he told reporters at the G7, “If I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them, dropping bombs on their head.”

Trump announced Monday he had reached a ceasefire agreement with Iranian officials to temporarily end the war, which has lasted longer than 100 days, but the administration had not released any part of the agreement until Wednesday. Members of the U.S. Senate complained they had not seen the details and some said they wanted to vote on a final agreement.

Iran’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif confirmed in a social media post Monday that a deal had been reached.

Iranians requested the United States not release the text until language was finalized, according to a second senior administration official who added “it was obviously unfortunate we weren’t able to put it out right away.” 

“We were trying to accommodate their domestic messaging and their domestic politics. We’re trying to build trust with them, and that’s what they asked us to do, so we agreed to do it.”

Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi warned on social media June 12 against speculation on the deal which “has never been closer” and said details would be shared with the public “in due course.”

Nuclear weapons

The 14-paragraph “Islamabad memorandum of understanding between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran,” which the second senior administration official read on the call, declares an “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.”

The White House declined to provide a written copy of the MOU to reporters.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not agreed publicly to withdraw forces from Lebanon, which emerged as a second front of the war that the U.S. launched in tandem with Israel in February.

The U.S. and Iran have 60 days, “extendable with consent” to reach a final deal.

According to the agreement, Iran “reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons.”

The document charges the U.S. and Iran to agree on how to deal with Iran’s buried stockpile of enriched uranium, with the minimum arrangement being the “down blending” of the material on site under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency.  

“The two parties also agreed to discuss the issue of enrichment and other mutually agreed matters related to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear needs based on a satisfactory framework being agreed upon in the final deal,” according to the MOU.

In 2018, Trump pulled the U.S. out of a previous nuclear agreement brokered by former President Barack Obama’s administration.

Obama appeared skeptical Saturday of Trump’s nuclear negotiations with Iran.

“It is doubtful that any agreement that arises is going to be significantly different or a significant improvement from the deal that we had in the first place and had worked for, for a long stretch of time before we, the United States, pulled out of it,” he told ABC News’ Robin Roberts.

Reopening Strait of Hormuz

The agreement also commits the U.S. to “immediately” begin the removal of its naval blockade on Iranian ports, with a full and final stoppage to occur within 30 days.

The U.S. will also have to remove military forces from the vicinity of Iran, meaning the American forces “will return our force posture in the region to that which existed before the conflict started,” according to the administration official.

Roughly 40,000 troops were in the region prior to the war. That number increased to approximately 50,000 after Feb. 28.

For its part, Iran must “make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge for 60 days only from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa,” according to the agreement. 

However, the MOU continues: “The traffic of commercial vessels will immediately start in considering the need for removing the technical and military obstacles, and demining by the Islamic Republic of Iran will be instated within 30 days.”

From there, Iranian officials agreed to negotiate a plan with the sultan of Oman and Persian Gulf states on “future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz.”

The war’s de facto closing of the strait has rocked economies across the globe, as 20% of the world’s petroleum exports passed uninterrupted through the narrow waterway prior to the conflict. Oil prices reached $120 per barrel during the height of the conflict but have fallen to roughly $79 this week.

Article 38 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of Sea declares passage through straits a right that should not be impeded, though neither the U.S. nor Iran are party to the international agreement.

$300B in reconstruction funds

In perhaps one of the most “controversial” parts of the MOU, according to the senior official, Iran could see up to $300 billion in reconstruction funds.

The White House official was quick to downplay the prospect of Iran reaping billions of U.S. dollars.

“Note that it doesn’t require us to do anything to, one, to ever pay a cent of money to the Iranians, (and) to ever contribute money to this reconstruction fund,” the official said.

“What it says is that if we get to a final deal, and if the Iranians behave, we will permit the sanctions relief that would allow, for example, the Emiratis to build a power plant in Iran. That’s all it says. If they do what they have to do, we will permit the investment and the reconstruction of their country,” the official said.

Additionally, upon the signing of the MOU, the U.S. Department of Treasury will immediately issue waivers for the export of Iranian crude oil and other petroleum products, as well as associated activities, including bank transactions and insurance, according to the document.

WASHINGTON — U.S. House and Senate Democrats, mostly from Western states, are demanding transparency from the Interior Department after media reports revealed the Trump administration redirected roughly $90 million in national parks fees to help fund renovations and upcoming celebratory displays in Washington, D.C. 

The administration’s use of fee revenues to pay for fountain repairs, statue upgrades and fireworks shows in preparation for America’s 250th birthday on July 4 diverts money from national parks in desperate need of billions of dollars in maintenance, lawmakers wrote in two separate early-June letters to Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum.

“The public deserves to know how their park fees are being spent, and Congress cannot conduct appropriate oversight without basic information about these transactions,” Rep. Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico and seven other Democratic representatives wrote in their letter, dated June 12.  

A group of 11 Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Adam Schiff of California, sent a similar letter to Burgum on June 10. 

According to a DOI spokesperson, the National Park Service “has not only been focused on beautifying the district but has also been working on many deferred maintenance projects throughout the country,” pooling money from “endowment funds” and the sale of park passes. 

How the funding stream works

The National Park Service, housed within Interior, gets a portion of its funding from entry fees and visitors’ purchase of recreational passes. Under the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, at least 80% of the fee money must go back to the national park where it is collected. 

The remaining 20% is available for overall Park Service use, a policy meant to help support parks that do not charge entry fees or only make a small amount of revenue, according to NPS. Just over 100 parks charge an entrance fee out of the more than 400 that make up the National Park System.  

The National Mall in Washington and various memorial sites are part of the crop that do not charge visitors to enter, meaning it is legal for the DOI to spend leftover revenue on projects in its own backyard. 

But the amount the department has allocated to renovations so far this year appears to greatly exceed how much it has put toward maintaining the district’s public spaces in the past, according to Tony Irish, a former Interior senior attorney under Trump and attorney under earlier presidents who is now senior counsel with the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Reflecting pool repair

Multiple news outlets, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, reported NPS is using at least $60 million in fees paid by parkgoers to fund the repair of nine ornamental fountains across Washington, D.C.

Documents showed an additional $7 million was redirected to help pay for the renovation of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, while more will be put toward funding a $1.6 million Fourth of July fireworks display. 

“While other administrations have let the city fall into decay, President Trump has made Washington, D.C. Safe and Beautiful again and we should all be grateful,” the Interior spokesperson said in an emailed statement on June 16.

In their letters to Burgum, lawmakers also demanded clarity on the reported use of revenue from the sale of digital park passes—called “America the Beautiful Passes”—as there is no current law that requires those funds be spent in a specific place. 

“Credible sources with direct knowledge of these matters have now reported to Congress that much, if not all, fee revenue from online America the Beautiful Passes is being used to fund the President’s ‘beautification’ projects in Washington,” they wrote. 

Along with Vasquez, the House letter was signed by Reps. Sarah Elfreth of Maryland, Darren Soto of Florida, Adelita Grijalva of Arizona, Dina Titus and Susie Lee of Nevada, Joe Neguse of Colorado and Jill Tokuda of Hawaii.

Joining Schiff in signing the Senate letter were Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Luján of New Mexico, Angus King of Maine, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Ron Wyden and Jeffrey Merkley of Oregon, Edward Markey of Massachusetts, Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper of Colorado. 

Delayed park maintenance

Many critics are pushing back against the Trump administration for not channeling fee funds back into the national parks that need them, including popular travel destinations such as Grand Teton and Yellowstone.

“Last month, I was in Joshua Tree exploring one of our beautiful national parks and was again reminded what a treasured legacy these lands represent,” said Schiff in a June 17 statement to States Newsroom. 

“This is just the latest scheme by the President to put himself before the American people, and it will have devastating impacts on parks that millions of people visit every year,” he added. 

The National Park System is backlogged with about $24 billion worth of repairs to buildings and infrastructure, according to NPS.  

Vasquez said New Mexico’s Carlsbad Caverns National Park, which runs through his district, “has over $45 million in deferred maintenance” alone. 

“The Administration is choosing to let roads, trails, and wastewater systems in the park fall into disrepair amidst the peak summer visitor season so it can paint statues gold in Washington,” he said in a June 15 statement to States Newsroom. “This is unacceptable, and I am demanding action from the Department of Interior to correct course.”

Irish also said the DOI’s current use of fee revenues for D.C.-area renovations could lead to more money being spent in the long run because of the rush to complete some projects, like the $14 million reflecting pool. Completed just at the beginning of June, the reflecting pool has already amassed clumps of green algae. 

“Not only are we displacing higher-priority needs right now, but we’re still going to have unmet needs in the future at an additional cost to the taxpayer, the fee payers within that,” Irish said.   

Vasquez and his colleagues in their letter asked that NPS restore funding to national parks to help preserve them for future generations. 

U.S. senators went even further, including a list of detailed questions about park funding in their letter for the DOI to respond to by June 23. 

Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hessenbein (D-Middleton) said legislative Democrats, who are seeking to win majorities for the first time in more than 15 years, are talking about their priorities for the next session including school funding and affordable housing. 

Hesselbein said at an event hosted by WisPolitics on Tuesday that Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), who is retiring, has had a “stranglehold” for a long time and that she hopes new leadership will lead to “new ideas and a real true willingness to work together to get things done for the state of Wisconsin.” Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) is not running for another term in office either.

As they seek a majority, Senate Dems starting policy discussions 

Hesselbein said Senate Democrats are targeting four seats to flip this year — two more than they need to win a majority. Republicans currently hold 17 of the 33 Senate seats, and half are up for election this year in newly drawn districts. 

The seats include Senate District 5, an open district currently represented by retiring Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield), Senate District 17, currently represented by incumbent Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green), Senate District 21, an open district currently represented by Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine), and Senate District 25, an open district currently represented by Sen. Romaine Quinn, who plans to run in a different district this year.

Hesselbein noted that in 2024 people said Senate Democrats were “too ambitious” in targeting five seats even with the new maps, yet they won all five in a year when President Donald Trump carried Wisconsin while Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin won a third term.

Hesselbein addressed the public falling-out between legislative Democrats and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers over a tax cut and school funding deal the governor reached with Republicans and most  lawmakers refused to support.

Hesselbein said during the event that it was the “overall package” that made Senate Democrats vote against it and there were no political calculations involved. She said it was “unsustainable.” 

Democrats will have more say in how the state’s $2.5 billion budget surplus is spent because of the deal’s failure.

Hesselbein confirmed that she was not involved in the negotiation process and it was hard to think about “hypotheticals” that would have made her caucus support the deal. This is not the first time Democratic votes have been needed in the Republican-majority Senate to pass a proposal because a handful of Republicans have opposed legislation.

After the deal failed, Evers said he was sure Hesselbein had “people wrapped around her finger by giving them jobs that they want” next legislative session. The majority leader gets to decide who gets which committee assignments in the Senate. 

Sounding the same note as Evers in his unity address at the convention, Hesselbein said that Democrats are moving forward and that there are no hard feelings remaining after her caucus’ rejection of a Evers’ bill. She said her caucus is united in wanting to ensure the financial health of the state.

“Evers has done a good job for the state of Wisconsin,” she said. 

“It’s been good,” Hesselbein said of the relationship between lawmakers and Evers. 

On whether there could be another attempt to get a tax cut and spending deal passed, Hesselbein said “never say never” and that her “door is always open.” She added that no one has tried to contact her recently about the issue.

Democrats’ top priorities 

Hesselbein said some of the big priorities for a Democratic Senate include “funding K-12 education, doing something meaningful for childcare, making sure that no matter where you live in the state of Wisconsin that you can afford a home.” Other issues, she said, are healthcare and the environment. 

Hesselbein said it would be a goal in the next state budget to fund schools so they can make financial  plans while taking some of the burden off property taxpayers.

“People really care about their community schools,” Hesselbein said. “They are sick and tired of these school boards…having to go to referendum over and over because they want to keep the lights on. We have schools closing all over Wisconsin and that’s a big problem.”

Hesselbein called the funding formula “convoluted” and said that some Senate and Assembly Democrats recently started meeting to look at the state’s funding formula, including looking at how other states structure their funding. She said they want to bring in people from the Department of Public Instruction and Bob Lang of the Legislative Fiscal Bureau to help.

“Is there something else that other states do that makes more sense than what we’re doing and what does that look like?” Hesselbein said she wants to ask. 

On specific questions about school funding, Hesselbein was noncommittal. 

“It might be something that we can’t get right now…  but we’re starting to look at that. We’re starting to think of those things right now to figure out what we can do to make it more sustainable and equitable.”

Hesselbein said declining enrollment is a challenge for schools, but a bigger  problem is that the state isn’t adequately funding schools. She said the state “possibly” relies on property taxes too much to fund schools, adding “but how else do you come up with it?” 

“That’s the kind of conversations we’re having right now to figure it out,” she said.

Hesselbein also did not commit to offering free school meals as the state of Minnesota has done. 

“It’s pretty darn expensive. We’re not sure if we’re going to be able to get all the way there,” she said, adding that the caucus is trying to figure out “what do we want to get done and how do we get there.”

Tackling the cost of living, land conservation

Hesselbein said Democrats are beginning conversations with developers and realtors about how to ensure that people can work and afford a home in Wisconsin. 

“We’re just now starting those conversations now to figure out what we can do,” she said. 

The Knowles-Nelson Conservation program is on track to sunset in June. Hesselbein said she is disappointed that Republicans and Democrats could not agree on a bill to reauthorize the program. She said there was only a “30-second” conversation about the popular land conservation program during the negotiations on the rejected tax rebate and school funding package.

“We absolutely need it. Knowles-Nelson has been around for so long and it’s worked so well making sure we have green spaces in the state of Wisconsin to enjoy,” Hesselbein said. “If Democrats are in charge and we have a Democratic trifecta, Knowles-Nelson will be back.” 

Undecided on gov primary 

Wisconsin will also have a new governor next year, who will help shape the state alongside new legislative leaders. 

The seven Democrats who will appear on the August primary ballots include Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, state Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison), Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, state Sen. Kelda Roys, former Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. CEO Missy Hughes, former head of Gov. Tony Evers’ Department of Administration Joel Brennan and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes.

Hesselbein said it is “exciting” there are so many choices. 

She added that she, like other Democrats, hasn’t made up her mind about who she will vote for in August. She said she also does not know whether she’ll endorse anyone in the primary for governor, noting that she has served with several of the candidates in the Legislature including Roys, Hong, Rodriguez, Crowley and Barnes. She also said she wants to hear them debate. A candidate debate  is scheduled for July 28, hosted by WISN-12.

“They’re all really good people,” Hesselbein said.

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany is running on the Republican side with the endorsement of President Donald Trump and the state party. 

Hesselbein said having a competitive primary is a good thing, noting that Evers won a crowded primary in 2018 and went on to win two terms in office. 

“I think it really lets the people of Wisconsin decide who they want to be supporting in the November election,” Hesselbein said. “I think it’s too bad that the Republicans put their thumb on the scale and Trump did in endorsing Tiffany early, I think it would’ve been better for them to have a robust primary as well.”

A federal judge has denied a request by former Milwaukee judge Hannah Dugan to either overturn her December conviction for obstructing an immigration proceeding. In a 32-page decision filed Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman disagreed with Dugan’s attorneys that a recent appeals court decision that immigration enforcement actions are not “proceedings” means  her conviction should be overturned. 

In early 2025, Dugan was in court when she learned of that plain-clothes immigration agents were in the hall outside her courtroom, waiting to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, who was appearing for a routine hearing, for being in the country illegally. How to handle immigration enforcement had been a top concern among local judges, following a string of arrests by federal agents in and around the Milwaukee County Courthouse. Neither the county sheriff nor the Milwaukee Police Department participate in immigration enforcement and detention. 

Dugan confronted the agents in her judge’s robes, and directed them to check in with the chief judge. When most of the arrest team went to the office, Dugan went back into her courtroom and called Flores-Ruiz, set a new court date, and then led  him and his attorney out of the courtroom through a non-public hallway. Flores-Ruiz rode down in an elevator with one of the federal agents and was arrested outside after a brief foot pursuit. Dugan was later charged with obstructing agents and concealing Flores-Ruiz from them.

The appeals court decision centered around United States v. Hernandez, involving a man who’d been charged with obstruction after escaping immigration custody. In that case, the defendant argued that executing his removal order was not part of the proceeding, which ended once the final removal order was issued. When Dugan went to trial, the Hernandez case was still on appeal. Adelman instructed Dugan’s jury that “‘pending proceeding’ simply means any process taking place in the manner and form prescribed for conducting business by or before a department or government agency, including all steps and stages in such an action from its inception to its conclusion.” Federal agents testified that there are a number of steps in an immigration proceeding, beginning before an arrest and continuing through removal.

When Adelman approved the jury instructions, which were recommended by prosecutors, he relied on United States v. Hernandez. Adelman said that the instructions proposed by the defense team defined “proceeding” too narrowly. “In the present case, the government alleged that defendant obstructed an arrest (step eight),” Adelman wrote in his decision denying Dugan acquittal or a re-trial. Adelman also wrote that motions for reconsideration serve the limited function of correcting errors of law or fact, or to present newly discovered evidence. “Motions for reconsideration are not to be granted lightly,” Adelman wrote. 

Dugan’s attorneys argued that Adelman originally relied on the Hernandez case in deciding that “proceeding” was broad enough to include obstructing immigration agents from executing an administrative warrant. Now that an appeals court reversed the decision in Hernandez and ruled that  immigration enforcement is not a “pending proceeding” as presented to Dugan’s jury, they said Adelman should reconsider his own decision and grant an acquittal. 

Prosecutors countered that the Hernandez ruling “is neither binding nor persuasive, and thus fails to satisfy the ‘heavy burden required for consideration,’” according to Adelman’s summary of the arguments. 

“The problem for the defense is that this case did not involve some random encounter on the street,” Adelman wrote. “It was a targeted operation, conducted pursuant to agency procedures, including the issuance of an arrest warrant for a specific person.” Adelman also wrote that classifying immigration enforcement as “mere police activity” is inappropriate, as “the FBI, ICE can issue its own warrants and adjudicate and effectuate a removal…without the involvement of a court.”

For those reasons, Adelman ruled that the burden for reconsideration in Dugan’s case had not been met. A new court date for Dugan’s sentencing or other proceedings was not yet available Tuesday in online court records.

A final agreement has been reached to release the remaining beagles housed at the Ridglan Farms dog breeding and research facility in Dane County, finding them medical treatment and new homes. Animal welfare groups praised the settlement. 

Dr. Alka Chandna, vice president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), called the news “a milestone” which reflects years of “relentless pressure” from people “who refuse to accept a system that breeds dogs and other animals only to confine, mutilate, poison, and kill them in laboratories.”

Ridglan Farms operated for decades, accumulating a long list of complaints from concerned citizens. The facility both breeds beagles which are sold to labs for animal testing and maintains its own research branch. Animal rights groups have spent years bringing attention to what they described as deplorable living conditions for the dogs as well as painful medical procedures without anesthesia. 

Last year, prosecutors found that Ridglan Farms had violated state animal cruelty laws and ordered the facility to shut down its breeding operation. Animal rights groups, fearing that Ridglan would euthanize the dogs if it couldn’t sell them off, stormed the facility earlier this year, breaking into the farm and carrying off  some of the more than 2,000 beagles housed there. A larger group numbering hundreds of people arrived for a second rescue attempt, but was  confronted by local law enforcement using tear gas and rubber bullets. In the aftermath of the raid, the participants were described as violent burglars by Ridglan Farms and Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett. 

Four activists, including lead organizer Wayne Hsiung, were charged with felony burglary, and Ridglan Farms was cited for filling a trench around the facility with manure to deter the crowd, creating  an environmental hazard. As the activists prepared for court proceedings, animal welfare groups worked out a deal to purchase 1,500 of the dogs to find them new homes and medical treatment. 

The remaining dogs were included in the latest agreement to shut down the farm. In a statement, Ridglan Farms said the dogs were sold to Big Dog Ranch, with the remaining dogs to be re-housed by the end of August. The farm called the dogs “happy, healthy animals,” despite reports of sores and other medical and behavioral issues among the rescued beagles. Ridglan highlights that it passed federal regulatory inspections. “Now that transfer plans have been finalized for the rest of Ridglan Farms’ dogs, we ask that the years-long harassment campaign targeting the research facility’s owners, staff, and neighbors comes to an end,” the facility said in a statement. “We also hope Wisconsin’s legal system will hold accountable the individuals who organized and carried out the repeated violent assaults and thefts that have recently taken place at our facility.”

Former Dane County Judge James Troupis and a pair of other former Trump aides pleaded not guilty Tuesday to felony forgery charges for their role in planning the fake elector plot that played an instrumental role in what became the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. 

Troupis, attorney Kenneth Cheseboro and Trump campaign aide Mike Roman entered the pleas in Dane County Circuit Court Tuesday. The trio is accused of falsifying Electoral College documents to say President Donald Trump won the 2020 election in the state. 

The three men face 11 felony forgery charges which are each punishable by up to six years in prison and a $10,000 fine. They argue they committed no crime and were just keeping the president’s appeal options open. 

Prosecutors argue that the three men misled Wisconsin’s 10 Republican electors, telling them the Electoral College votes for Trump were only being cast in case the various court challenges against the election results were successful. Those challenges ultimately failed, but the Electoral College votes were presented to Congress as a pretense to reject the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. 

Troupis has spent months trying to avoid his prosecution. He penned a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice late last month asking for more than $3 million from Trump’s since-scrapped “anti-weaponization” fund to compensate him for the “nightmare” of facing the charges against him. Last week, he filed a motion seeking to have his case moved to Jefferson County Court, arguing he can’t receive a fair trial from the liberal jurors in  Dane County. He’s also filed to have the case against him dismissed because he was pardoned by Trump for any potential federal charges related to the fake electors scheme.

WASHINGTON — U.S. senators from both political parties said Tuesday they had yet to see the text of the deal Trump administration officials struck over the weekend to end the war in Iran, though several indicated any final agreement will require their approval. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said administration officials have signaled they expect to share the text of the memorandum of understanding with lawmakers, though he didn’t know when. 

“Hopefully that’ll happen sooner rather than later,” he said. “But, you know, obviously it sounds like they’re not going public with it until later in the week. So we’ll see.”

Thune said he’s heard the deal sets up a 60-day framework for negotiators to reach agreement on more specifics, including about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. 

“I think at the end of the day the goal here is to make sure that Iran ends its nuclear program and whatever financial incentives they have should be conditioned upon that,” he said. “But we’ll see when we know more.”

President Donald Trump, speaking from the G7 convention in Europe, said he may hold a press conference in “a couple days” to release the text of the memorandum of understanding and appeared ready for a vote in Congress.

“What I would like to do is send it to Congress, saying you shouldn’t approve it. And I will get it approved. Whatever I say, they want to do the opposite,” he said. “It is not working too well for them, by the way.”

North Dakota Republican Sen. John Hoeven said he believes the plan is to vote to approve the Iran agreement at some point. 

“I think anytime you have Congress ratify something, it gives it longevity,” Hoeven said. “You can’t have the next president come in and change it with an executive order. So I think that’s a benefit. I think it helps strengthen it.”

Hoeven said he hasn’t heard from administration officials why they haven’t shared the text of the memorandum of understanding with senators, even in a classified setting. But he said he’s more focused on U.S. enforcement of agreements on Iran’s nuclear program in the long term. 

“The real issue is that we have something that we can enforce and that’s hard with Iran because they don’t honor any agreement,” Hoeven said.  

Is the agreement a treaty?

Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy said he believes an agreement with Iran would represent a treaty and be subject to Senate approval. 

“It sounds like a treaty,” he said. “And if it’s a treaty, it certainly seems like it.”

That would require strong bipartisanship, since the Constitution sets a two-thirds threshold for the Senate to approve a treaty. 

Cassidy added it appears the administration will need the Israeli government — which initiated the attack on Iran with the United States — to stop its war in Lebanon in order to reach a final deal with Iran during the next two months.

“To make a deal, it takes two sides. In this case, maybe three, maybe four because you have Hezbollah and Israel,” Cassidy said, referring to a powerful Lebanese political party and militant group opposed to Israel. “Hezbollah can just stir it up with impunity if they want to under certain circumstances. So you tell me, I mean, it takes two to dance, and so now it takes four to dance. Can you pull it off in 60 days? I don’t know.” 

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said the administration needs to be as transparent as possible about what exactly is in the memorandum of understanding it’s reached with Iran. 

“Minimally, there has to be maximum transparency,” he said. 

Tillis said it “makes sense” for the Senate to approve any final deal, saying President Barack Obama made a mistake when he didn’t have lawmakers ratify the agreement his administration struck with Iran in 2015. That deal was named the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. 

“I’ve said repeatedly Obama made a mistake when he didn’t do the work to have it rise to the level of a treaty, and I believe that we should here,” he said. “Otherwise, it’s only good for two and a half years.”

Tillis said he wasn’t concerned Congress hasn’t received the text of the memorandum of understanding yet, but that it’s imperative the administration share those documents.

“Trust but verify,” he said.  

‘Essentially a surrender’

Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said he “doubts” the memorandum of understanding is actually real, but that if it is, lawmakers should expect there are “side deals” the administration may not share. 

“If what’s reported is real, it’s Iran’s terms. I mean, it’s essentially a surrender. But I think that’s the only play we can make at this point,” he said. “We have to end this war and stop wasting money and stop killing Americans and civilians and stop driving up prices. So it’s a bad deal but he’s not going to get a better deal. So we just have to accept the humiliation. But I don’t even know if it’s real.”

West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said that lawmakers need to see the memorandum of understanding so she and others can “express our opinions.”

“But right now we can’t because it’s not fully out there,” she said. 

Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Mark Warner, D-Va., said he hadn’t seen the text of the memorandum of understanding or been briefed by administration officials. But he does believe the administration needs to submit it to lawmakers within five days, as outlined in a 2015 law. 

“My fear is that the details are not going to be as good as the president represents,” Warner said. 

Law requirements

Congress approved legislation in 2015 that requires any presidential administration to submit the text of a deal addressing Iran’s nuclear program within five days. Those documents don’t need to be sent to every lawmaker but are supposed to go to the congressional leaders as well as eight committees with jurisdiction. 

That transmission creates a 30-day review period for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee to hold hearings and briefings. 

The law created a pathway for Congress to approve a joint resolution of disapproval for any Iran nuclear deal. The House and Senate would likely need the support of at least two-thirds of members in order to override a likely veto from Trump. 

Congress overriding a presidential veto of a disapproval resolution would block the Trump administration from lifting sanctions on Iran, though that seems an unlikely scenario given both chambers are controlled by Republicans. 

A report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service says a joint resolution of disapproval taking effect “would not invalidate the agreement itself but would affect only the possibility of presidential sanctions relief to Iran; nevertheless, precluding the President from providing such relief would almost certainly result in a dissolution of the agreement by Iran.”

The law, officially titled the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, also clears the way for Congress to approve a joint resolution of approval. 

The CRS report says that “would, upon enactment, allow the President to waive sanctions, apparently even if the review period had not yet elapsed.”

Congress taking no action during the 30-day review period would allow the administration to begin sanctions relief as soon as that deadline passes.