WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court Friday blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order that disallowed immigrants claiming asylum at the southern border.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found that immigration law allows those fleeing persecution to apply for asylum. 

“Congress did not intend to grant the Executive the expansive removal authority it asserts,” Judge J. Michelle Childs wrote, adding that they upheld a lower court’s ruling.

The three panel judges who heard the case were Childs, Justin R. Walker and Cornelia T.L. Pillard. Walker, a Trump appointee, filed a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part from the majority.

Childs was appointed by former President Joe Biden and Pillard was appointed by former President Barack Obama. 

“The (Immigration Nationality Act) does not allow the President to remove Plaintiffs under summary removal procedures of his own making,” according to the ruling. “Nor does it allow the Executive to suspend Plaintiffs’ right to apply for asylum, deny Plaintiffs’ access to withholding of removal under the INA, or curtail mandatory procedures for adjudicating Plaintiffs’ Convention Against Torture claims.”

The White House did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment. 

“This decision puts an end to the inhumane Trump policy of sending people, including families with little children, back to horrific danger without even a hearing,” American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt, who argued the appeal, said in a statement. “The court made clear that the president does not have the unilateral power to wipe away all of the asylum laws enacted by Congress.”

One of Trump’s first executive orders suspended entry to the southern border on the grounds that there was an “invasion,” which the administration claimed was a condition that allowed the president to invoke a section of the law to suspend asylum claims.

The executive order is part of Trump’s immigration crackdown, as he aims to conduct mass deportations of immigrants in the interior and cease migration to the U.S. through curbing access to asylum and refugee resettlement. 

In response to the order, immigration advocacy groups filed a class action lawsuit against the Trump administration. The groups who brought the suit were the ACLU, the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, and Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project.

RAICES, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and the Florence Immigrant And Refugee Rights Project provide legal services to immigrants, and argued that Trump’s executive order harms the legal aid work of the individual plaintiffs.

WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice dropped its investigation Friday of the Federal Reserve and Chair Jerome Powell over building renovation costs, a move that could open the door for new Fed leadership next month — and signaled a victory for North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis.

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said her office closed the probe after a request to the Fed’s inspector general to examine the cost overruns.

“The IG has the authority to hold the Federal Reserve accountable to American taxpayers. I expect a comprehensive report in short order and am confident the outcome will assist in resolving, once and for all, the questions that led this office to issue subpoenas,” Pirro wrote on X just after 10 a.m. Eastern.

Pirro said she “will not hesitate to restart a criminal investigation should the facts warrant doing so.”

Powell, whose term expires in May, has been the target of repeated public criticism from President Donald Trump, who threatened to fire the central bank’s chair if he did not lower interest rates.

The Trump administration’s criminal inquiry into Powell for a $2.5 billion renovation project at the Fed’s offices has been eyed with suspicion, including from his own party.

Tillis, R-N.C., said he would not vote for Trump’s pick to replace Powell, former Fed Board Governor Kevin Warsh, unless the administration dropped its “bogus” investigation.

A favorable vote by Tillis on the closely divided Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs is necessary to advance Warsh’s nomination, as all panel Democrats oppose him.

Tillis’s office did not immediately respond for comment.

A federal judge last month blocked the administration’s subpoenas to probe the Fed and Powell.

The Department of Justice declined to comment and referred States Newsroom to Pirro’s social media post.

A White House official reaffirmed Pirro’s announcement Friday.

“American taxpayers deserve answers about the Federal Reserve’s fiscal mismanagement, and the Office of the Inspector General’s more powerful authorities best position it to get to the bottom of the matter. The White House remains as confident as before that the Senate will swiftly confirm Kevin Warsh as the next Federal Reserve Chairman to finally restore competence and confidence in Fed decision-making,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai told States Newsroom in a statement.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., issued a statement dismissing the DOJ’s announcement as “an attempt to clear the path for Senate Republicans to install President Trump’s sock puppet Kevin Warsh as Fed Chair.”

“Let’s be clear what the Justice Department announced today: they threatened to restart the bogus criminal investigation into Fed Chair Powell at any time while failing to drop their ridiculous criminal probe against Governor (Lisa) Cook. Anyone who believes Donald Trump’s corrupt scheme to take over the Fed is over is fooling themselves,” she wrote on X and Bluesky late Friday morning, referring to Trump’s abrupt August firing of Feb Board Governor Cook over alleged financial fraud.

Cook successfully challenged her firing in two lower courts. The U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing whether Trump legally dismissed Cook. 

Trump, who routinely posts about news of the day on his own social media platform Truth Social, had not commented on the announcement as of 12:30 p.m. Eastern.

During an unrelated Oval Office event Thursday, Trump sidestepped a question about what he hoped to learn from Pirro’s investigation into Powell and the Fed.

Instead, Trump responded by saying he could have completed the Fed’s Washington, D.C., headquarters renovation for $25 million and “had money left over.”

“On top of that, he’s been terrible on interest rates because he should have lowered interest rates. That’s why call him Jerome ‘too late.’ ‘Too late’ — that’s his nickname — Jerome ‘too late’ Powell. He likes me a lot,” Trump said.

Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.

 

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is looking to eliminate funding in fiscal 2027 for the agency that serves as the primary federal funding source for libraries and museums nationwide.

But congressional appropriators — who rebuffed similar efforts to gut the agency in fiscal 2026 — expressed little enthusiasm for the proposed cut in interviews with States Newsroom. Groups representing museums and libraries across the country also blasted the president’s proposal. 

The administration is requesting $6 million in fiscal 2027 for the agency, known as the Institute of Museum and Library Services, “for necessary expenses to carry out (its) closure.”

U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies, noted that her panel did not agree to the same Trump request in fiscal 2026 to eliminate funding for the agency. 

“I personally have always been a fan of libraries, and it does a lot for local communities,” said Capito, a West Virginia Republican whose panel writes the annual bill to fund the Institute of Museum and Library Services. 

“So, that’s what he does, he proposes, and then we look at it and make our own decisions,” she said. 

Last year’s request turned down

The spending package signed into law by Trump in February provides roughly $292 million for the agency this fiscal year — a sharp rejection of Trump’s efforts. 

Capito said that though her committee will consider the president’s fiscal 2027 request, “if you look at what we did last year, it shows that we kind of rejected that premise.” 

Rep. Robert Aderholt, an Alabama Republican and chair of the corresponding Appropriations subcommittee in the House, appeared noncommittal about pursuing Trump’s fiscal 2027 request to gut the agency.

In response to States Newsroom’s request for a phone interview, Aderholt provided a written statement. 

“We are reviewing the request from the Administration and the requests from every member of the House,” Aderholt said, adding that “this is a member-driven process, and we look forward to working with our colleagues in putting together a strong bill for the American taxpayers.” 

Legal battles

The agency was created by Congress in 1996 and has a mission to “advance, support, and empower America’s museums, libraries, and related organizations through grantmaking, research, and policy development.”

The administration has taken major steps to try to dismantle the agency, including through a March 2025 executive order. 

However, Trump’s Department of Justice reached a settlement earlier in April with the American Library Association — the nation’s largest library association — and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — the country’s largest union of cultural workers — that protects the agency and guarantees it will continue issuing grants and program operations. 

In another setback for the administration, the DOJ dropped its appeal this month in a case brought by 21 attorneys general, who challenged the administration’s efforts to dismantle the agency and had secured a major court victory in November. 

‘The barbarians are at the door’

Meanwhile, leading Democrats on the House and Senate appropriations panels dealing with the agency’s spending were quick to lambaste Trump’s proposal in interviews with States Newsroom. 

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, ranking member of the Senate subcommittee and a Wisconsin Democrat, described the agency as “such an incredibly valuable entity” and vowed to fight “tooth and nail” to protect it. 

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking member of the full House Appropriations Committee and the spending subcommittee with jurisdiction over the agency, said the administration’s request is “just neanderthal.”

The Connecticut Democrat said “we’ll work to restore like we try to do every time,” while adding that Trump’s request indicates that “the barbarians are at the door.” 

Library, museum organizations push back

Leading library and museum organizations fiercely opposed Trump’s request and called on Congress to reject the proposal. 

In a statement, Sam Helmick, president of the American Library Association, said Trump’s “continued attack” on the agency in the budget request and the March 2025 executive order to shutter it “shows the extent to which the administration is tone deaf to the needs of millions of Americans who rely on libraries every day: older adults and veterans who use library telehealth spaces; unemployed people who use library resources to find a new job or learn new skills; families who count on story time; and students and faculty who do research in school and academic libraries.”

John Chrastka, founder and executive director of EveryLibrary, said Trump’s proposal is “a direct threat to the infrastructure that millions of Americans rely on every day,” in a statement. 

Chrastka, whose organization is dedicated to building support for libraries, said “libraries are not optional,” but instead represent “essential public resources that support literacy, workforce development, and community connection in every state.”

The American Alliance of Museums blasted the proposal as “misguided and out of step with the American public and Congress,” noting that similar efforts in fiscal 2026 and prior budget cycles to yank funding for the agency were rejected due to “strong bipartisan, bicameral support in Congress and sustained advocacy from the museum community.” 

The Institute of Museum and Library Services declined to comment on Trump’s fiscal 2027 budget request. 

The Trump administration’s recently announced plans to radically restructure the U.S. Forest Service have raised concerns among advocates that forest land across Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest could suffer. 

The plan, announced late last month, will relocate the agency’s head office from Washington D.C. to Salt Lake City while closing regional offices and research stations across the country. In Wisconsin, the changes are expected to affect about 250 employees across the agency’s offices in Madison and Milwaukee and smaller stations spread across the state. 

Research stations in Prairie du Chien and Wisconsin Rapids are being evaluated for closure while the Madison office has been selected to serve as the state office covering Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri and Wisconsin. 

These proposed changes come to an agency that has already seen staff attrition over the past year due to the Trump administration’s efforts to severely reduce the size of the federal government. Last year, Wisconsin saw a 19% attrition rate in its U.S. Department of Agriculture staffing level, which includes the forest service. 

Proponents of the reorganization say that moving the headquarters out west will bring decision-makers closer to the majority of the public lands managed by the agency. However, through a combination of logging activity in the Upper Midwest, New England and southeastern states, more timber is harvested each year in states east of the Mississippi River. 

But opponents have pointed out that Salt Lake City is the epicenter of the growing anti-public lands movement within the Republican Party. U.S. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has worked to sell off millions of acres of federally owned land while the state of Utah has sued the federal government over its ownership of millions of acres of land in the state. 

The advocacy infrastructure surrounding the anti-public lands movement has at times worked to influence environmental policy in Wisconsin. 

In the large scope of the Forest Service’s public lands portfolio, Wisconsin’s Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest is just a drop in the bucket. But the existence of the national forest in the Northwoods makes the federal government the largest landowner in Wisconsin. 

The Trump administration has explicitly worked to make it easier for extractive industries such as logging and mining to work on public lands. Green Light Metals, a Canadian company, has conducted exploratory drilling on national forest land in Taylor County. Last week, Congress voted to allow mining in the Superior National Forest on the edge of  Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Environmental advocates and union representatives of Forest Service employees say that sweeping changes to the agency could have dramatic repercussions for the rural communities where agency employees often work and could do irreparable damage to the forests themselves and the scientific research conducted at Forest Service stations. 

Howard Lerner, president of the Environmental Law and Policy Center, said the plan was clearly an effort to undermine the Forest Service’s ability to conduct research while supercharging the extraction of resources from the country’s public forests. 

“The Trump administration’s effort to take apart, as an effective matter, the U.S. Forest Service is deplorable,” Lerner said. “The U.S. Forest Service needs to do a job making sure that its forests, the vast lands across our country that are our national forests, are protected and managed.” 

He noted that the agency is currently proposing one of its largest timber sales ever in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, which ELPC is working to stop, and that it’s much harder for regulators to protect the country’s forests if they’re based in a far-away office.

Several people from the National Federation of Federal Employees, which represents many forest service staff members, said the changes were coming to an already demoralized group of staff members while noting that the biggest harm would be felt by the rural areas where the national forests are located.

“Most Forest Service offices are in very rural, poor communities, so if these people are forced to move to Salt Lake, that could be two or three, good paying, middle-class jobs taken out of Rhinelander or wherever they may be sitting,” said Warner Vanderheul, president of union’s Forest Service council.

Steven Gutierrez, a business representative in the federal workers union’s  land management division, said that staff members will be divided between those who can’t take any more meddling from the White House and those who stick it out in an effort to do what they can to defend the forests. 

“There’s a lot that are standing strong in solidarity right now, and saying ‘I’m going to hold the line to protect democracy,’” Gutierrez said. “And that just by being a civil servant and being a Forest Service employee, that’s their way of standing up against this tyranny that’s happening from this administration.” 

But, he said, others will leave and the risk from those departures is the end to all sorts of research projects. 

“Now programs get shut down because there’s no one there anymore,” he said. “That research, that institutional knowledge, gets lost because now nobody’s there to do it. Nobody knows what anybody was working on.” 

Jenny Van Sickle, a spokesperson for the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, said she’s concerned about the drain of expertise from Wisconsin. 

“Moving these regional models to state-based models really complicates and piecemeals out decision-making with these arbitrary borders,” she said. “All of these waterways are connected. All of these forests are connected. So a comprehensive approach to management is vital.” 

She said that an organization such as the fish and wildlife commission can help supplement the research done by the Forest Service, but not fully replace it. She noted that the commission has recently worked with the agency to study American marten habitat, wild rice and tribal climate adaptation. Vanderheul said that Forest Service research conducted in Wisconsin has helped produce recyclable glue on U.S. postage stamps and less breakable bats used by Major League Baseball teams. 

“A massive reduction in the workforce and professionals that have dedicated their lives to research and protecting these ecological systems is concerning,” Van Sickle said.

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President Donald Trump’s executive order on mail voting would shatter decades of U.S. Postal Service independence intended to shield it from partisan politics, postal experts and attorneys say.

Postal experts said Trump ordering the postmaster general to take any action — let alone on a matter as sensitive as elections — violates guardrails in federal law against presidential control of the mail. Multiple people with deep knowledge of Postal Service history said they couldn’t recall a similar order in the agency’s modern era.

“For the president to direct the postmaster general to do anything, including handling these ballots, is contrary to the statutes, contrary to law,” said James Campbell Jr., an attorney in the Washington, D.C., area who consults on postal law.

The order, signed March 31, attracted swift condemnation as an unconstitutional attempt by Trump to control state-run elections. If it stands, the directive would also represent a White House power grab over the Postal Service, which remains a key part of American life and business.

Trump’s order directs the postmaster general, who acts as the Postal Service’s CEO, to set out rules that would require states to notify the Postal Service if they intend to send ballots through the mail during federal elections. States that want to use the mail would be required to provide lists of mail voters to the Postal Service, which would be prohibited from delivering ballots to individuals not on a list.

A Board of Governors leads the Postal Service, and holds the power to hire and fire the postmaster general. No more than five of the nine governors may belong to the same political party. 

While presidents nominate the governors and the Senate confirms them, they serve seven-year terms. The length, in theory, insulates them from political pressure.

S. David Fineman, a Philadelphia attorney nominated to the Board of Governors by President Bill Clinton who served as its chairman from 2003 to 2005, said he had never heard of the White House or a president directing the postmaster general to take certain actions. He called the executive order highly unusual.

“The postmaster general serves at the pleasure of the board,” Fineman said.

The board currently has only four members, all appointed by President Joe Biden, and five vacancies. Trump has sent four nominations to the U.S. Senate this year. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has not scheduled confirmation hearings for the nominees.

Cash-strapped service

Trump has expressed interest in having more control over the mail. 

Last year, he floated the possibility of merging the Postal Service with the Commerce Department, a move that would require approval by Congress. The Washington Post reported in February 2025 that Trump was expected to try to fire the Board of Governors and take control of the Postal Service.

The Trump administration takes a dim view of independent agencies. Many allies of the president subscribe to the unitary executive theory, the idea that the U.S. Constitution grants the president full power over the entirety of the executive branch — meaning Congress cannot constitutionally create agencies that exist outside of White House control.

Trump has moved to assert authority over a number of independent and quasi-independent agencies since taking office, most notably the Federal Reserve. The Department of Justice is investigating cost overruns on a Federal Reserve construction project, widely seen as a pretext to target Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman whose interest rate policy has angered Trump.

The Postal Service is under tremendous financial pressure — potentially making it more vulnerable to proposals to bring it under White House control. Mail volume peaked in 2006 at 213 billion pieces that year. The Postal Service today handles 109 billion pieces annually.

The current postmaster general, David Steiner, told a U.S. House committee last month that the Postal Service will run out of cash within a year without changes to its prices and operations. The Postal Service is generally funded through stamps and other forms of user revenue, not by tax dollars.

Steiner emphasized the independent nature of the Postal Service throughout his prepared testimony. He has laid out a number of options to improve the Postal Service’s financial stability, including changes to pension funding and raising its borrowing limit from $15 billion, a level that’s remained unchanged since 1992.

“It is important to remember that we face these challenges as a self-financed, independent establishment of the Executive Branch,” Steiner wrote.

Congress approved sweeping legislation in 1970 reorganizing the U.S. Post Office Department into the U.S. Postal Service, an independent corporation. Before that, the postmaster general was a Cabinet-level position nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

Trump’s order marks “a dramatic shift away from the intent of the 1970 legislation to insulate the Postal Service from interference,” Joseph M. Adelman, a history professor at Framingham State University in Massachusetts who has researched mail history, said.

Election security

The White House didn’t directly answer States Newsroom’s questions about Trump’s views on the independence of the Postal Service or the legal justification for the executive order.

“Election integrity has always been a top priority for President Trump, and the American people sent him back to the White House because they overwhelmingly supported his commonsense election integrity agenda,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement.

“The President will do everything in his power to lawfully defend the safety and security of American elections and to ensure that only American citizens are voting in them.”

Jackson also called on Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require voters to prove their citizenship when registering. 

The Postal Service didn’t answer questions about how it plans to respond to the order. A USPS spokesperson said only that the Postal Service was reviewing it. 

Lawsuits

Steiner has indicated he’s awaiting a court decision on how to proceed. 

“If a court says that’s not what the law means, we’ll follow that,” Steiner told The New York Times after the executive order was signed. “And so from our perspective, we don’t get involved in policy or law, we just follow the law.”

The order on mail ballots faces at least five lawsuits. The Democratic National Committee, top Democrats in Congress and Democratic state officials have all sued. The legal challenges emphasize the Postal Service’s independence in federal law.

The lawsuit filed by the DNC, top Democratic lawmakers and other Democratic campaign groups, asserts the Postal Service is structured to operate independently of partisan politics. The complaint calls the Postal Service “indispensable” to voting by mail, noting that it delivered more than 222 million pieces of ballot mail in 2024, including nearly 100 million general election ballots.

A dozen Republican state attorneys general filed motions in court this week seeking to defend the executive order from the Democratic legal challenges. The motions call the order an example of cooperative federalism to provide states with optional resources to help protect their elections.

The GOP officials argue the Democrats lack standing to challenge the Postal Service provisions of the order and that their objections are premature because the Postal Service hasn’t finalized any new rules on mail ballots.

The order “simply directs” the Postal Service “to initiate rulemaking—it does not regulate the States directly and it does not directly inhibit anyone’s voting rights,” a court filing by the state attorneys general says.

The states involved in the Republican-led defense of the order include Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas.

Vote-by-mail 

Mail-in voting surged in 2020’s general election amid the COVID-19 pandemic, when 43% of voters cast their votes by mail. The percentage of voters mailing their ballots has fallen from that peak but remains above pre-pandemic levels. About 30% of voters cast mail ballots in 2024, according to data gathered by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

During the 2024 election, 584,463 mail ballots returned by voters were rejected by election officials — 1.2% of returned mail ballots. About 18% of those ballots were rejected because they didn’t arrive on time.

American Postal Workers Union President Jonathan Smith said in a statement that the Postal Service doesn’t block mailers from sending letters or refuse to deliver letters because of the identity of the sender. Postal workers take extraordinary measures to ensure ballots reach their destinations promptly and securely, he said.

“Postal workers take the sanctity of the mail seriously, and every process and policy of the Postal Service ensures that mail is accepted, processed, and delivered, no matter who sent it or where it is going,” Smith said.

On Monday, more than 100 U.S. House Democrats sent a letter to Trump demanding he refrain from future actions that undermine the Postal Service’s independence and calling on him to rescind the executive order. The letter says the order sets “a dangerous precedent for political interference” in postal service operations.

Senate Democrats followed up with a letter to Steiner and the USPS Board of Governors on Tuesday, urging the Postal Service to not implement the order. The letter, signed by 37 senators, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, calls the Postal Service’s independence a “hallmark” of its operations.

“The Postal Service doesn’t care which politicians you may support,” Sen. Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat, said on the Senate floor last week. “Its only priority is to deliver the mail to every community in the country.”

“The president is now trying to corrupt this mission,” Peters, the top Democrat on the Senate committee that oversees USPS, said. “If the president is successful in forcing the Postal Service to play a role in running elections, he will completely erode the trust of this storied institution.” 

Wisconsin filed three lawsuits Thursday against online prediction market companies that the state Department of Justice accused of “working together to facilitate illegal sports betting throughout the state.”

“Except in limited circumstances, sports betting and other forms of commercial gambling have long been illegal in the state of Wisconsin,” Attorney General Josh Kaul said during a news conference Thursday afternoon. “No company is above this law, no matter how creatively those companies try to disguise the activity that they’re engaged in.”

The lawsuits were filed as Wisconsin prepares to renegotiate 11 tribal gaming compacts to include online sports betting under a law Gov. Tony Evers signed earlier this month. The legislation legalized online sports betting on the condition that the required computer servers are housed on tribal land.

Sports betting has been legal in Wisconsin since 2021, but only in person at tribal casinos.

The state’s lawsuits target online prediction markets that allow users to put money on the outcome of everything from major world events to sports outcomes.

The emergence of prediction markets including Kalshi and Polymarket has prompted states across the country to enact legislation and file lawsuits, Stateline reported in March.

The online platforms have been estimated to generate more than $13 billion every month, with the bulk of those revenues coming from sports betting, Stateline reported.

Kaul said Wisconsin was filing its own lawsuit, but a handful of other states, including recently New York, have filed similar suits citing their own state regulations.

“These companies have chosen to flout Wisconsin law by thinly disguising the sports betting that they facilitate through what are called event contracts,” Kaul explained. “But our position in this case is that event contracts are no different than ordinary sports bets. The companies collect a fee, we allege, for every bet that’s made, leading them to earn significant revenue from Wisconsinites through violations of our state’s gambling regulations.”

The goal of the suits is to shut down the platforms in Wisconsin, Kaul said. The state isn’t currently seeking monetary damages, but he said that possibility hasn’t been ruled out should there be a legal basis to demand them and the facts to support such a demand.

He said the suit was filed in response to “a huge increase in this type of activity” in the last few years.

Each of the three lawsuits is filed in Dane County circuit court as a “complaint to abate public nuisance” and accuse the defendants of “facilitating illegal sports betting throughout the state.” They ask the court to find them in violation of state law and to issue an injunction against the companies for sports-related trading by Wisconsin users.

One suit names Kalshi Inc., along with four affiliates; Robinhood Markets and two affiliates; and two Coinbase companies. The second names three companies doing business as Polymarket or affiliates of Polymarket. The third suit names Foris Dax Markets and North American Derivatives Exchange Inc., doing business as Crypto.com.

All of the businesses in the lawsuits list an identical street address in Wilmington, Delaware, except for the three Robinhood companies, which list an address in Dover, Delaware.

All three suits also include as defendants unnamed private individuals or entities that “facilitate” the platforms’ transactions.

The lawsuits focus on sports betting, although the platforms also host transactions involving other kinds of events and predictions. Kaul said the state alleges sports-related gambling is “a very large part” of the activity on Kalshi and other platforms.

The suits describe transactions on the platforms as “indistinguishable from an ordinary sports bet” as defined in Wisconsin law.

Crypto.com, for example, “relabels its sports bets as ‘event contracts,’ meaning contracts traded between buyers and sellers at agreed upon prices that mimic the odds of a sports-related outcome,” the lawsuit naming Crypto.com states. “Parties to these ‘event contracts’ wager money on whether a given sports-related outcome will occur, just as when people bet on that same outcome using traditional casino-style sportsbooks.”

On April 3, 2026, the suit states, “traders could buy contracts taking the position that the University of Michigan would win its Final Four matchup with the University of Arizona for around $0.54, which reflected a roughly 54% projected chance of Michigan winning. When Michigan won, event contract holders who bet on that team winning received $1 per contract and those who instead bet on Arizona winning received nothing.”

Kaul said there was “no direct relationship” between the lawsuits and the enactment of the new law allowing online sports betting. “What we are alleging is violations of Wisconsin law, and the allegations would be the same whether or not there had been the new legislation passed.”

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Medicinal marijuana products that are legal at the state level will see looser federal regulation under an order the U.S. Department of Justice published Thursday, while a process that could remove the drug in all forms from the federal list of the most dangerous drugs is set to begin in late June.

The order, signed by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, shifts many marijuana products from Schedule I — the Drug Enforcement Administration’s list of drugs with the greatest potential for abuse and least legitimate use — to Schedule III. 

That will open the door to greater research and provide an effective tax break for businesses that sell medicinal marijuana that is legal under state law.

The move follows President Donald Trump’s executive order last year directing the DOJ to move toward rescheduling.

“The Department of Justice is delivering on President Trump’s promise to expand Americans’ access to medical treatment options,” Blanche said in a statement. “This rescheduling action allows for research on the safety and efficacy of this substance, ultimately providing patients with better care and doctors with more reliable information.”

The order applies to state-licensed medical marijuana products in the states that allow medicinal use of the drug.

The move means those businesses can deduct business expenses from their federal taxes and researchers have access to state-legal products. As a Schedule I drug, only cannabis grown in a federal facility could be studied, severely limiting the supply available to researchers.

The DEA also scheduled a hearing on broader reclassification to begin June 29 and end no later than July 15. That hearing will explore the possibility of rescheduling marijuana products that could include recreational use.

The order likely has no immediate impact on the difficulty marijuana businesses have had accessing the banking system. Institutions that lend to even state-legal businesses could be prosecuted on federal money laundering charges for offering banking services to businesses that violate federal drug laws.

‘Historic’ shift

Moving a limited number of products from Schedule I, which includes drugs such as heroin and cocaine, to Schedule III, which includes highly regulated prescription drugs such as acetaminophen with codeine, does not satisfy advocates who have called for complete legalization. 

But it does represent a major shift in the federal government’s official position on cannabis, several pro-legalization groups said.

“It’s historic because the federal government, historically, has denied the existence of medical cannabis, even as a concept,” Paul Armentano, the deputy director of the advocacy group the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said in an interview. 

The federal government was in recent memory “outright hostile” to medicinal marijuana, Armentano added. The order “finally acknowledges and recognizes not only the legitimacy of marijuana as a medicine, but also the legitimacy of these state programs, and it is trying now to integrate these state programs into our own existing federal regulatory schemes.”

Forty states and the District of Columbia allow medicinal marijuana.

Jasmine Johnson, CEO of Florida-based cannabis company GŪD Essence, wrote in an email that the federal government’s acknowledgement of cannabis’ legitimate medical value was the most important part of the order. 

“That shift alone helps move the industry out of decades of stigma and opens the door for expanded research, more institutional participation, and a more rational regulatory framework,” she wrote.

Medicinal vs. recreational

Recreational use will see no immediate changes from the order. In the 24 states in which recreational use, also called adult use, is legal, businesses that sell both medicinal and recreational products may experience confusion.

Chuck Smith, the CEO of Colorado Leads, an industry group, said in a statement that for Colorado cannabis businesses, “the immediate effects of this order are significant but relatively narrow.”

“Hybrid businesses should expect a transitional period in which federally covered medical activity and federally non-covered adult-use activity may be treated differently for registration, tax, and compliance purposes,” Smith said.

Such businesses would likely not see a tax benefit “when it comes to producing and selling, arguably, the products that consist of the majority of their business,” Armentano said.

Ryan Hunter, the chief revenue officer for Colorado-based marijuana company Spherex, called the DOJ order “a very silly announcement,” noting that it created a third regulatory category of a single plant species.

“Though this is all the same plant,” hemp and medical marijuana “are now considered Schedule III substances under the Controlled Substances Act (similar to Tylenol + Codeine),” while non-medical use is still considered Schedule I, he wrote in a statement. “My mind boggles at these arbitrary and artificial distinctions, but here we are.”

Eventual changes

Johnson, the Florida CEO, said she expected regulators to eventually merge how they treat different uses of the drug.

“The distinction between medicinal and recreational use has always been more regulatory than practical. From an operator’s standpoint, the same plant, supply chain, and compliance standards exist regardless of how it’s categorized,” she wrote. 

“Over time, we’ll likely see a continued shift toward a more unified framework that reflects how consumers actually engage with cannabis, rather than maintaining rigid distinctions that complicate operations.”

Amal Khalifa “felt human” for the first time after she fled Egypt in 2019 for the United States and found kind treatment from police when she reported being a victim of domestic violence.

“When I walked into that precinct I felt like a human being for the first time in my whole life,” Khalifa said. “I like the system here — it is there to help the people.”

Khalifa still faced a long road to asylum, which she gained last year, based on her fear of returning home to Egypt. As a government worker there she faced persecution for reporting corrupt activity by criminals and illegal pressure from the outlawed but powerful Muslim Brotherhood, she said.

But leaving her former fiancé after she got to the United States meant she had to support herself as her asylum case proceeded, and she was able to do that by working as an auditor for the New York State Department of Labor. She credits her ability to earn a living with legal work permission she could get after establishing her case.

That option to work could close soon for asylum-seekers for the foreseeable future.

Currently asylum-seekers must wait six months after filing an asylum request before they can work legally, but the Trump administration is seeking to extend that to one year. The new rule is open for comment until Friday. No effective date has been announced.

The proposal would also pause any new requests for work permission during times of high asylum case processing backlogs. Since the backlog is now 1.4 million asylum cases, that would effectively stop new and renewal work request applications for anywhere from 14 to 173 years, the administration estimates.

The rule would “make it impossible for asylum-seekers to work legally to support themselves,” and would result in more poverty and off-the-books workers competing with legal workers for jobs, according to a February statement from The Forum, a coalition of immigration-related advocacy groups.

At least half a million asylum cases would be affected immediately, if the rule takes effect, causing wage loss of $27 billion to $127 billion a year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security estimated.

Not only new requests are affected — renewals will have to go through the same process and, if they’re even granted, would be shorter based on a rule change from December 2025. That new rule limits employment authorization and renewals to 18 months instead of the previous limit of five years.

“This makes it harder for people to gain work authorization and also more arduous to stay work-authorized,” said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an associate policy analyst for the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank that researches immigration policy.

The rule is meant to discourage “frivolous” asylum cases and “allow our asylum system to prioritize those actually seeking refuge from danger,” according to a February statement from the federal Department of Homeland Security.

“For too long, a fraudulent asylum claim has been an easy path to working in the United States, overwhelming our immigration system with meritless applications,” the statement said.

Amy Grenier, associate director for government affairs for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, a trade group, said there are less drastic ways to curb frivolous asylum claims. For instance, the Migration Policy Institute has proposed new policies such as posting asylum officers at borders who are trained to make quick decisions on cases before the applications clog immigration courts.

“This rule seems designed to make it impossible for people to apply for asylum in the first place — a right which is protected under our laws,” Grenier said. “The administration will cause hardship for American businesses that rely on these legal workers, worsen asylum backlogs and harm people already fleeing for their lives.”

The move is likely to exacerbate the number of immigrants not authorized to work, especially the millions who arrived earlier this decade and sought asylum.

A Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas analysis found that nearly 550,000 immigrants without legal status left the United States last year, including through deportations and voluntary departure. That has put a lid on job growth but has also kept unemployment stable, the report concluded.

Two groups that recruit asylum-seekers for jobs told Stateline they’re opposed to the proposed new rules. Many industries need immigrants such as Khalifa with valid asylum cases and professional experience in their home countries.

“Immigration is a vital part of the solution to labor shortages, especially in health care,” said Avigail Ziv, chief program officer at Upwardly Global, an organization that helps work-authorized immigrants, refugees and asylees restart their careers in the U.S. The group helped Khalifa find her state job in New York.

“In the U.S. right now there’s over 270,000 underemployed immigrants that have been trained in health care in their home countries,” Ziv said.

Another group that helps asylum-seekers find jobs is Tent Partnership for Refugees, whose CEO Gideon Maltz said, “When the U.S. government curtails employment authorization for those who are already here and working, they’re not only hurting people seeking refuge, they’re undercutting the companies and communities that depend on their labor.”

Employers in manufacturing, hospitality and logistics need more workers, Maltz said, and “refugees and asylum-seekers have been helping keep those industries running, reliably stepping into the hardest-to-fill jobs and contributing from Day One.”

Many asylum-seekers waiting for work authorization work in low-paying gig economy jobs such as food delivery, said Ernesto Castañeda, director of American University’s Center for Latin American and Latino Studies, which interviewed hundreds of asylum-seekers in New York City and the Washington, D.C., area for a research project.

The New York State Labor Department, in an attempt to clear clogged migrant shelters, set up a program in 2023 to connect asylum-seekers with valid work permission to jobs. Employers who participated included those in the industries of home health care, food processing, parking and building services, according to information the department sent to Stateline at the time.

The proposed federal rule suggests that American workers could benefit from the changes, and that employers would benefit by hiring available Americans. States could benefit as well, the department said, if lower immigration numbers reduce the strain on social services.

There were similar attempts by the first Trump administration to curtail work permission for asylum seekers, but they were all struck down in court, sometimes on technicalities.

A one-year waiting rule, as well as longer permitted processing times, were struck down in 2022 after a judge ruled that an acting Department of Homeland Security secretary did not have the authority to implement the rules in 2020. A 2018 court ruling also forced fast 30-day processing of work permission requests for asylum-seekers.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify Upwardly Global’s role in helping asylum-seekers get jobs. 

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

Nearly one-fifth of Americans relied on drinking water systems with elevated and potentially dangerous levels of nitrate in recent years, according to a new study released Thursday.

The nonprofit Environmental Working Group examined test data collected by water systems across the country between 2021 and 2023, the most recent data available. 

Water systems serving more than 3 million people exceeded the federal safety limit of 10 milligrams per liter over the three years, the research and advocacy organization found.

The analysis also found that thousands of water systems serving more than 62 million people reported nitrate levels above 3 milligrams per liter at least once during those years, which indicates human-caused drinking-water contamination. 

Researchers are increasingly questioning whether the federal threshold should be lowered as more studies find links between even low levels of nitrate consumption and cancer and birth defects. Federal law limits nitrate levels in drinking water because of its association with blue-baby syndrome. 

Nitrate is a natural component of soil, but has become a growing problem for drinking water systems because of crop farming’s use of nitrogen fertilizers and runoff of nitrogen-rich manure from livestock operations.

States with big agricultural industries recorded more reports of elevated nitrate levels. In fact, the report found that 64% of all water systems that recorded nitrate levels at or above the legal limit were in just five states: California, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma. 

But Anne Schechinger, the organization’s senior director of agriculture and climate research who authored the report, said the issue affects urban and rural areas alike.

“A lot of people have this idea that this issue is just a rural issue for small towns near farms. But we found with this analysis that that is not just the case,” she told Stateline. “Based on how watersheds work, you can live very far from a farm and still be drinking water contaminated with nitrate.”

The analysis relies on public records obtained from public drinking water systems in every state except New Hampshire, where data was not provided, she said. In addition to its report, the Environmental Working Group created a map showing community water systems with elevated nitrate levels across the country.

Elevated nitrate levels have befuddled water providers across the country for years. Not only are they expensive to remove from drinking water supplies, but nitrate levels can fluctuate with the seasons as heavy rains can quickly push remnants of fertilizer or manure into streams and rivers. 

Iowa’s largest water provider last year asked residents to refrain from watering lawns, filling pools and washing cars as its nitrate removal system struggled to keep up with elevated levels. 

Des Moines is home to one of the largest nitrate removal systems in the world, which costs about $16,000 per day to operate, officials said. Smaller communities that rely on groundwater have been forced to dig deeper wells, Schechinger said.

Climate change is further fueling the problem: Agriculture is a major driver of greenhouse gas emission. The heavy rainfalls and prolonged droughts from more extreme weather worsen nitrate runoff into lakes, rivers and groundwater. 

“We know those climate conditions are going to make this problem worse,” Schechinger said. “And that’s likely to cost us all more and also (raise) more concerns for our health.”

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

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans approved a budget resolution early Thursday intended to speed the way for billions for immigration enforcement, sending the measure to the House, where GOP lawmakers in that chamber need to adopt it to unlock the reconciliation process. 

The 50-48 vote followed a marathon amendment voting session that Democrats used to highlight policy differences on cost-of-living issues and stalled federal emergency relief dollars for states. 

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul were the two Republicans to vote against approving the measure. Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Mark Warner, D-Va., did not vote.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said just before the vote-a-rama began that Democrats would put Republicans on the record about the soaring cost of living and the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. 

“America will see even more clearly tonight where the Republicans are — not on the side of lowering costs, but on the side of masked agents occupying our streets,” he said. 

Republicans plan to use the complex budget reconciliation process, which avoids the need for Democratic support in the Senate, to provide between $70 billion and $140 billion in additional funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol.

The money is supposed to cover those agencies for the next three years, avoiding the need for Republicans to negotiate constraints on immigration activities with Democrats, who have been calling for guardrails since federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January. 

When combined with the Senate-passed bill that funds the vast majority of the Department of Homeland Security for the current fiscal year, the two pieces of legislation are expected to end the ongoing shutdown at that department, which began in mid-February. 

One amendment adopted, 15 turned down

Senators ultimately debated 16 amendments, 12 offered by Democrats and four proposed by Republicans. The only one adopted was from South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, which senators approved on a 98-0 vote. 

The proposal would create a reserve fund to bolster federal immigration agents’ ability to detain and deport adults who entered the country without proper documentation and were then convicted of rape, murder, or sexual abuse of a minor.

“Everybody in this body should be for this,” Graham said. “These people need to be caught, put in jail, or kicked out of our country.”

Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin said he supported the amendment because “under current law, undocumented immigrants who are convicted of rape, murder, or sexual abuse of a minor are subject to mandatory detention and deportation.” 

“What we object to is what is happening in the streets of Minneapolis and Chicago,” he added.

SAVE America Act sidelined

Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy tried but was ultimately unable to convince his colleagues to add a new set of instructions to the budget resolution that would have allowed the Rules & Administration Committee to write a voter identification law. 

Kennedy said he wanted that bill to have three provisions. 

“Require that in federal elections, you have to be an American citizen to vote and provide for the provisions to enforce that. Number two, it would require that in federal elections, you have to prove you are who you say you are in order to vote, and it would provide provisions to enforce that,” he said. “Number three, it further instructs the Rules Committee that we’re going to go back to having an Election Day and not an election month, and it instructs the Rules Committee to provide the provisions to enforce that.”

California Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla, the ranking member of the rules panel, opposed the amendment during debate, saying he couldn’t believe lawmakers were once again experiencing a “partisan attempt to rush through what I refer to as a solution in search of a problem.”

“Despite the president’s claims, there is zero evidence of massive voter fraud across the country, which is the premise of these proposals,” he said. “So not only is it a solution in search of a problem, to paraphrase a wise man, this measure is all foam and no beer.”

Padilla added that a provision in Kennedy’s amendment would have required states to count ballots within 36 hours of an election, a new mandate he said could cause considerable problems for larger states with millions of voters. 

“It’s unfortunate elections administration has been turned into a partisan issue,” he said. “I actually ask our colleagues to protect the early voters, not just in my state but in yours. Protect vote-by-mail opportunities, not just in my state but in yours. Let’s protect women who are married and change their name and their right to vote, not just in my state but in yours.”

Senators did not agree to waive a point of order against Kennedy’s amendment on a 48-50 vote. Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Murkowski and Thom Tillis of North Carolina voted with Democrats. 

Ban on Planned Parenthood funding via Medicaid

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley tried unsuccessfully to create a pathway to extend the one-year prohibition on Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood that the GOP included in its “big, beautiful” law. That funding ban expires on July 4. 

Hawley didn’t speak about abortion access during debate but focused his criticism of the organization on gender-affirming health care services for transgender youth. 

“Under no circumstance should Medicaid money dedicated to the poor and the needy be used for transgender surgeries and treatments for minor children,” he said. “It is a moral outrage. This body has a duty to stand against it.”

Planned Parenthood’s website states the organization provides surgery referrals as well as hormone therapy, puberty blockers and “transition support.”

Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden argued the amendment represented “Republicans’ latest attempt to strip women of the health care they need and depend on so that they can go score some political points.” 

Senators didn’t agree to waive a point of order against the amendment, which would have allowed it to move forward, by a vote of 50-48. Collins and Murkowski voted with Democrats. 

Private equity and home ownership

Senators rejected an amendment from Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley that would have addressed the rising cost of housing after he invoked comments President Donald Trump made during his State of the Union address. 

“We have an opportunity tonight to send a message that we agree with the president, that we have a challenge in home ownership, because home ownership is dying,” Merkley said. “And one of the factors is private equity buying up the homes.” 

Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno spoke out against adopting the amendment, saying lawmakers have already addressed it in a bipartisan way. 

“I obviously urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, because we’ve already passed it,” he said. We’ve already solved this problem. In fact, congratulations to all of us. 89 to 10. We banned institutional ownership of single-family homes. I think that’s fantastic.”

The Senate voted in March to approve a bill designed to increase the country’s housing supply, according to reporting from NPR. But since the House has approved a bill of its own, the two chambers will need to work out their differences before any housing bill becomes law. 

Senators did not agree to adopt Merkley’s amendment following a 46-52 party-line vote. 

Disaster relief funds from FEMA

California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff proposed an amendment that would have addressed stalled funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which he said is “holding more than $3 billion in disaster relief funding for California.”

“But as we debate this budget resolution, I know our state of California is not alone,” he said. “North Carolina is waiting on millions in relief designated for Hurricane Helene in 2024. Kentucky saw landslides and flooding just weeks after Los Angeles County burned. Florida and the Gulf Coast have also been battered. Texas communities under siege from last year’s floods have still not seen the federal relief their communities need and deserve.”

Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford opposed the amendment, saying that while he agrees FEMA funds need to get to communities, the best way to do that is for the House to pass the annual funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security, which the Senate already approved. 

House GOP leaders are holding on to that bill instead of putting it on the floor as they wait for the reconciliation process to play out. That Senate-passed DHS bill funds FEMA and all of the agencies that make up the department except ICE and Border Patrol. 

“Our challenge has been, we’ve been in a government shutdown on DHS now for two months,” Lankford said. “We’ve got to be able to get those funds released. That means we’ve got to get DHS funding completely done for all of DHS. We have FEMA employees that are being paid but they don’t have program dollars that they can actually release.”

The Senate rejected the amendment following a 49-49 vote. Collins, Florida Sen. Ashley Moody and Murkowski voted with Democrats. 

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) held a public information hearing on four permit applications by Enbridge for streambank erosion control on the 41-mile reroute of Line 5, a light crude oil and natural gas pipeline. The 16 people who spoke all voiced opposition, either specifically to the permits or to the reroute itself, and many cast aspersions on the Canadian pipeline corporation.

In addition to ongoing legal challenges, the four permits are among the last hurdles in Wisconsin that Enbridge needs to clear to reroute its pipeline around the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians Reservation, which borders Lake Superior.

Enbridge is under a court order that has been stayed in a federal appeals court to remove the existing Line 5 pipeline from the reservation by June. The Bad River Band has rejected several offers from Enbridge to keep the line on the reservation, and after Enbridge was ordered to remove the line from the reservation, the Band redirected its opposition to the reroute, arguing that it poses an environmental threat to its watershed.

Enbridge is seeking four streambank erosion-control permits for four waterways in Ashland County: an unnamed tributary to the Brunsweiler River, Beartrap Creek, Bay City Creek, and Little Beartrap Creek.

Joe McGaver of Enbridge Environment Projects detailed the work proposed for each of the four sites. He noted that Lake Superior Consulting identified the erosion issues, and the measures to address them are intended to “stabilize the streambanks and prevent continued erosion” below the ordinary high-water marks.

He also noted that Enbridge and the riparian landowners — those owning the land along the waterways — are “co-applicants” and also “co-permittees.”

At a recent Bayfield County Court hearing on April 16 requesting a stay of ongoing work on the reroute, pending a judicial review of approved permits, lawyers representing Bad River and environmental groups contended that under state statute only the riparian owner can seek a permit for modification of the shoreline. But the legal counsel for the DNR responded that it was its practice to use “co-applicants” in similar projects.

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Ashley Guardado of Hempstead, New York, representing Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network, urged the DNR to deny the four permits because they would jeopardize the waterways and the “pristine ecosystems that depend on them.”

“Approving these permits would also enable construction activities that pose long-term risks to water quality, habitat, and the broader watershed,” she said, and noted beyond the local creeks and river, the larger concern is the Great Lakes, which hold 20% of the world’s fresh water.

“So I urge you to consider what it really means to jeopardize these waterways and the ecosystems at both a local and a global level, be it encroaching on the tribal sovereignty and the rights of Indigenous nations that are within this territory to exacerbating the climate crisis and deepening our dependence on fossil fuels that move us only further away from the just transition that Wisconsin, the United States and the world very urgently need,” she said.

Gracie Waukechon, a Wisconsin resident, said the DNR shouldn’t approve the permits out of concern for the environment, and also because Enbridge isn’t legally qualified to seek the permits regarding riparian ownership and Enbridge’s history of environmental damage, including the 2010 crude oil spill of nearly 1 million gallons into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan.

Skylar Harris, representing Midwest Environmental Advocates (MEA), said her organization would submit detailed written objections to the specific permit application, but addressed the DNR’s interpretation of Wisconsin’s Public Trust Doctrine.

“Riparian ownership language in Section 30.12 of the Wisconsin statutes was created in 1949 pursuant to the public trust doctrine to give landowners the ability to live along navigable waters and engage in limited construction activity that would improve navigation or protect the property from erosion and other hazards,” she said. “Because the Legislature was trying to limit the types of construction that could occur in navigable waters, non-riparians were explicitly excluded from permit eligibility. Enbridge has filed these applications for project permits, which is a non-riparian claiming that easements and co-applicant agreements with landowners are sufficient to get around the clear statutory prohibition against construction by non-riparians.”

She said the DNR supports Enbridge’s position and had “tentatively” made the determination to grant the permits, which, she said, would be “a blatant violation of explicit statutory mandates and a violation of the public’s constitutional right to use and enjoy Wisconsin’s navigable waters,” and would set a precedent for other commercial development and environmental damage.

Jadine Sonoda of Madison said Enbridge had raised concerns for Wisconsin because of issues during its Line 3 construction in Minnesota, where it had pierced an aquifer in Northern Minnesota and had agreed to a $2.8 million legal settlement.

Matthew Bourke of Michigan wondered if the DNR investigated any concerns raised in prior hearings, and he questioned why Enbridge had been allowed to pursue permits when it had been found to be trespassing on the Bad River reservations, and a court case in Michigan is challenging the closing of a section of the pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac.

Patricia Hale, an attorney from Antigo also argued Enbridge didn’t have a right for the permits.  

“This is not their (Enbridge) property,” she said of the waterway banks, adding that Enbridge shouldn’t be allowed to request permits based on the easement, because the public has voiced its opposition to Enbridge’s latest permit application for a Line 5 reroute.

Joe Bates, a Bad River tribal elder from Odanah, said Enbridge is endangering Wisconsin waterways by operating a pipeline originally built in 1953.

“This reroute also violates our treaty of 1854,” said Bates. “It (1854 treaty) guarantees us a permanent homeland.”

Bates said the reroute would surround the reservation, requiring members to seek permission from Enbridge to cross it to gather, hunt, or fish in the ceded territories, lands off the reservation where tribal members have rights to pursue resources. At the April 16 court hearing, legal counsel for Enbridge said the corporation would allow permission to tribal members to cross its pipeline for those who have a legal reason to do so. 

“I urge you to please deny permits to Enbridge,” said Bates.

Jennifer Boulley, a Bad River member living in Washburn, also noted that just that morning the US Supreme Court ruled the case in Michigan regarding Line 5 under the Straits of Mackinac will stay in a state of Michigan court and not a federal court as Enbridge had requested.

“Were just hoping that the DNR will continue to listen to the people and not the money, so we can save this water for future generations,” she said.

RJ Claire of Ashland County said the focus of the hearing is on specific technical issues, but she encouraged the DNR to consider a broader perspective on potential harm and environmental impact, and she accused the DNR of being complicit in enabling Enbridge to commit “violence” against the environment.

“Again and again and again and again, tribal members have been expressing to the rest of us that what’s happening right now is an act of violence,” she said. “The DNR is participating in enabling the violence of Enbridge. Who among you is willing to start breaking that pattern? Again, I know this is a technical hearing, but I think it’s really, really, really, really important and crucial that we are looking at this in a holistic way. Because I would argue that from when we focus on the technical parts, that’s a form of just dismissing the violence that is occurring.”

Melanie Conners, a Bad Rivers member who said she lived near Bad River and the Kakagon Sloughs, a wetland that has received international recognition due to its environmental niche and wild rice bed for the band, read a definition from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of “environmental justice” as “fair treatment and meaningful involvement of people, regardless of color, race, national origin or income, with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement and environmental law, regulations and policies.”

She questioned why Bad River members had to “bear the weight” of potential oil contamination.

“It’s Bad River tribal members who will be directly impacted,” she said, and added, “I harvest rice every year to sustain my family. How are you allowing this? This is environmental racism. Enbridge cannot guarantee that it will not contaminate our waters, our Kakagon Slough.”

Additional comments will be accepted until  May 2. Comments should be either emailed to macaulay.haller@wisconsin.gov or left via voice message at (608) 347-0240 or sent by mail to Macaulay Haller, 101 S. Webster Street, Madison,  53707-7921.

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Among the proposals that died when the Wisconsin Legislature wrapped up its regular session work in March were efforts to help homeless youth get medical care, among other support services. Advocates said at a briefing Wednesday that they will keep pushing for the changes in the next session.

Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara (R-Fox Crossing) and members of the Wisconsin Association for Homeless and Runaway Services (WAHRS) held a press conference in the state Capitol to call attention to the issue. 

Joli Guenther, the WAHRS executive director, said that expanding outreach and easy access to resources and support is important for helping homeless youth, adding that youth homelessness is different from adult homelessness. She said WAHRS was started in 1982 to raise awareness and provide for the needs of young people.

“We don’t necessarily see young people visibly on the street. They tend to disappear,” Guenther said. “Often when they find informal resources that allow them to find temporary shelter, so even when their families are not able to provide for their needs, we don’t necessarily see them and meet the needs that are there.”

A 2025 Wisconsin Policy Forum report found that student homelessness hit an all-time high after the COVID-19 pandemic. According to DPI data, there were 20,195 students in Wisconsin public schools who identified as homeless during the 2023-24 school year. That marked a 9.1% increase over the previous year even as the number of enrolled students declined by 1.1% that year.

Guenther said that unaccompanied youth tend to be under-identified in her experience. In 2021, during the pandemic, the number of homeless students recorded by DPI hit a low of 13,449. She said this was partially due to fewer students going to schools.

“My hope for today in having this discussion as we reach the end of the legislative session is that maybe we can start to present a package to help people to understand the needs better,’ Guenther said. “If we have this package of interrelated bills related to the needs of unaccompanied homeless young people… maybe people will get it. Maybe people will understand that we don’t see this population but at the end of the day we’re not meeting the needs of our children.” 

Guenther highlighted previous successes, including the passage of 2019 Wisconsin Act 22, which allowed 17-year-old unaccompanied minors to consent to shelter.

“That has been very, very successful in opening up some of our limited resources and removing young people from the immediate dangers of the street,” Guenther said. “We know that if we don’t have ways of better providing for their needs, there are definitely those out there who will do so, and young people will become vulnerable to crime and exploitation as a result of that.” 

However, advocates said, there is still work to be done.

Tim Baack, President and CEO of Pathfinders, said Wisconsin has been falling short for years when it comes to dedicating state funds to address youth homelessness. Pathfinders is a Milwaukee-based organization that provides emergency housing and support for homeless youth. 

“We pale in comparison to the states that surround Wisconsin in our region, and we know we can do better,” Baack said. Focusing on “legal policies and legislation” is necessary, he added, but “what accompanies that is the resources.”

Gov. Tony Evers proposed $10.5 million to expand independent living services for youth who are aging out of the out-of-home care system and a $7.4 million increase in funding for programs that serve runaway and homeless youth in the 2025-27 state budget. However, the proposals were not included in the bill that passed the Legislature. 

“We hope the Legislature will continue to give serious consideration for those recommendations either when the next biennial budget is considered or looking for alternative ways to support the governor and his team to support the runaway youth service providers across the state,” Baack said. 

When policymakers return in January 2027, there will be a new governor and the makeup of the Legislature could look quite different. Many Republican lawmakers are retiring, including both top leaders, and Democratic lawmakers hope to win control of the Senate and Assembly.

Advocates highlighted four failed bills this session that they want to see brought back in the next session. 

SB 70 would have allowed unaccompanied minors age 14 or older to get medically necessary care without a parent or guardian’s permission if they aren’t under the supervision of a public welfare agency or the Department of Corrections. It received a public hearing in the state Senate this session but did not advance further.

Katie Van Groll, the Home Base director for the Boys & Girls Club of the Fox Valley, said many homeless youth are navigating unstable and unpredictable situations that can make it difficult to access medical care.

“Some youth have left unsafe environments that can involve abuse and neglect. Others could be couch-surfing, staying with a relative or a friend and a shelter or a host home,” Van Groll said. “Requiring parental consent assumes access to that adult, which is often not the reality for these young people. When youth can’t consent to the care that they need, they may delay or avoid seeking medical attention altogether, and then minor health concerns escalate to serious conditions and preventable issues.”

Van Groll noted medically necessary care is not referring to elective procedures, but rather to addressing illnesses and chronic conditions, including asthma, diabetes and immune disorders. She said a lack of access to care can increase emergency room use, long-term health complications and lead to increased public assistance costs.

Van Groll said her organization serves about 70 to 80 youths one-on-one each year and between 2,000 and 4,000 each year in prevention and awareness including providing information at schools.

“Not a single one of those youth is able to access the medical health care,” Van Groll said. “And one thing that we can’t ever speak with them about [in school] is the medical care because they can’t access it, and we don’t want to create more frustration.” 

Cabral-Guevara, who coauthored the bill, said she could not speak for her colleagues, but she thinks a lack of understanding and knowledge of the legislation was partially to blame for the failure this session. She said there was not enough support from within her caucus to get it over the finish line in part because some members did not understand what constituted “medically necessary.” 

“That legislation is common-sense legislation for me, but what we find is there’s a lot of individuals within this building that don’t do health care,” Cabral-Guevara told the Examiner. “I would like to bring it back again, and I feel that with more education, I think people would be more apt to support this because it is just basic fundamentals.” 

The other bills highlighted during the briefing include: 

• AB 1196, introduced by Democratic lawmakers including Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee), would have allowed respite care providers who offer emergency services for foster parents to provide housing or services to a child runaway. The current places allowed to provide housing include licensed foster homes, group homes and shelters. 

• AB 1233 would have extended the amount of time before a foster home, group home or shelter must inform child welfare services that they have a minor in their care from 12 hours, as is currently required, to 72 hours. It was introduced by Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire) and other Democrats. 
• SB 73, coauthored by Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp), would have prevented minors from being prosecuted or adjudicated delinquent for committing an act of prostitution. The bill did not receive a public hearing this legislative session. 

“Some of these solutions don’t cost us anything,” Guenther said, “but they remove barriers that make all of the difference in young people’s lives.”

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The race by each party to redraw U.S. House districts in their favor could be headed for a draw after Tuesday’s big win for Democrats in Virginia, though major shifts are still possible before crucial midterm elections in November.

Virginia voters approved a constitutional amendment that clears the path for the state’s legislature, controlled by Democrats, to redraw congressional district lines to benefit Democrats in 10 of the commonwealth’s 11 U.S. House districts. 

That could net the party four new seats in Virginia, though state court cases challenging the proposal are still to be decided.

Former U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Florida Democrat who now leads the Graduate School of Political Management at The George Washington University, said the results showed a dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump and the nation’s capital in general.

“It sends a clear message to the administration, to the White House, to Washington, D.C., that they’re not happy with the status quo, with the policies that are coming out of Washington, that they want to see a change,” she said in an interview Wednesday.

After 10 months of bitter back-and-forth that began with Trump urging Texas Republicans to revise their congressional map to help gain seats in the House, neither party has netted a significant advantage.

But the tit-for-tat may have a lasting harmful effect on U.S. democracy, experts said.

If Virginia’s proposal goes into effect, Democrats would be favored in one more House district nationwide than they had been in 2024, according to the nonpartisan election research organization Ballotpedia.

Further changes, including the Florida Legislature potentially redrawing its House map and a U.S. Supreme Court decision to gut the federal Voting Rights Act’s protection of majority-Black districts in Southern states, could tilt the advantage back to the GOP. 

Republicans narrowly control the chamber now, 217-212, with one independent and five vacancies after Georgia Democrat David Scott died Wednesday. 

The president’s party typically loses House seats in midterm elections, and Trump’s sagging poll numbers and the results of special elections do not suggest anything different this year.

Good for Democrats, bad for democracy

Elected Democrats largely framed the Virginia results as a win for free and fair elections.

“Virginia voters have spoken, and tonight they pushed back against a President who claims he is ‘entitled’ to more Republican seats in Congress,” Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, wrote on X.

But the entire cycle could deepen political polarization, leading to less compromise and policymaking in Congress and ceding power to the executive branch, Erik Nisbet, the director of the Center for Communication & Public Policy at Northwestern University, said Wednesday.

“There were some quotes today from some leading Democrats about how you can’t bring a knife to a gunfight, and this is the only way to, like, save democracy, and sort of rationalizing it,” he said. “It’s still bad for democracy long term… It means that Congress, long term, is even more polarized and ineffectual.”

Mucarsel-Powell, who represented one of the country’s few competitive House districts, also said redistricting would make legislating more difficult.

“Redistricting doesn’t necessarily help the country overall,” she said. “As we continue to become more polarized, I think that having these maps being redrawn to favor one or the other party is just going to deepen the polarization. I think it makes it more difficult for members to be able to reach consensus. I’ve seen it, right? When you represent a solid red or a solid blue district, there’s really no incentive to compromise.”

Republicans sour on Virginia result

Republicans, from Trump on down, complained Wednesday that the result was unfair because it could give Democrats 91% of the U.S. House seats in a state where the party’s most recent presidential candidate gained only 52% of the vote.

In a post to his social media site Wednesday afternoon, Trump said the result was illegitimate — repeating, without evidence, his frequent assertion in elections he has lost that mail ballots were fraudulent — and called for courts to “fix” the result.

“A RIGGED ELECTION TOOK PLACE LAST NIGHT IN THE GREAT COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA!” Trump wrote. “All day long Republicans were winning, the Spirit was unbelievable, until the very end when, of course, there was a massive ‘Mail In Ballot Drop!’ Where have I heard that before — And the Democrats eked out another Crooked Victory!”

Questionable strategy

But the proposed Virginia map would only even the playing field after Trump initiated a rare mid-decade redistricting cycle last year by asking Texas officials to redraw the state’s districts. 

Texas’ new map could net Republicans five more House seats. But its creation kicked off an arms race that included California drawing five new Democratic-leaning districts, effectively neutralizing Texas’ move. 

Legislatures in Missouri and North Carolina then voluntarily redrew their maps, while an Ohio constitutional amendment and a Utah Supreme Court decision led to new district lines in those states.

Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary under Republican President George W. Bush, bemoaned the Virginia results but called them a self-inflicted wound. States should stick to redistricting once a decade after a census, he said, blasting the GOP strategy to attempt mid-decade redistricting in some states.

“The GOP will now lose net seats across the country. If you’re going to pick a fight, at least win it. The other side will always fight back,” he wrote. “All this was foreseeable and avoidable. We should not have started this fight.” 

Fleischer linked to a post he’d written in August criticizing the GOP effort in Texas as that state geared up for a vote on the new map. “Mid-census change” was not the way to win more seats in the House, he’d said.

National Democrats celebrated.

“House Democrats have crushed Donald Trump’s national gerrymandering scheme,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York wrote on social media Tuesday night. “Maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time.”

What’s next?

Two more decisions could further alter the landscape for U.S. House races before November.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments last year in a case challenging a Voting Rights Act provision that has been interpreted to require majority-Black districts in Southern states equal to their population. Louisiana is challenging a lower court ruling that threw out a map in which only one of the state’s six districts was majority-Black, though Black people make up about one-third of the state’s population.

Depending on the scope and timing of the conservative court’s ruling, several safe Democratic seats in the South could be in jeopardy.

And in Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis called the state legislature into a special session, scheduled to begin next week, to consider a redistricting effort and other issues.

‘Dummymanders’?

Florida Republicans have not fully endorsed a redistricting push, which could ultimately make some incumbents’ districts less reliably red. Gerrymandering relies on spreading a party’s voters across more districts, making some individual races more difficult, especially in a potential wave election year.

“Republicans are pushing back, saying that it’s going to actually lessen the power that they have in some of these districts,” Mucarsel-Powell said. “Because if you have (a district favoring Republicans by five points), with all the overperformance that we’ve seen, including here in the state of Florida, it’s very likely going to favor the Democrats.”

Jeffries in a Wednesday morning news conference practically dared Florida Republicans to dilute their U.S. House districts, comparing the effort to the Texas map that he said was not as Republican as they thought and calling the entire GOP effort a “dummymander” that would backfire.

“F around and find out,” Jeffries said. “If they go down the road of a DeSantis dummymander, the Florida Republicans are going to find themselves in the same situation as Texas Republicans, who are on the run right now.” 

“The Republicans are dummymandering their way into the minority before a single vote is cast,” he added. “They started this war, and we’re going to finish it.”

This story was produced by Grist and co-published with States Newsroom. It is  part of the Grist series Vital Signs, exploring the ways climate change affects your health. This reporting initiative is made possible thanks to support from the Wellcome Trust.

Bailey Magers and Sunil Kumar cut strange figures on Pensacola Beach. Bags of disinfectant solution surrounded them on the white sand; their gloved hands juggled test tubes while layers of rubber and plastic shielded their skin from the elements. As the two organized their seawater samples on the popular Florida beach last August, an older woman wearing a swimsuit walked over to ask what they were doing.

“We’re just actively monitoring water quality,” they told her, but she pressed on.

“Are you looking for that flesh-eating bacteria?”

“We’re looking into it,” they replied, hoping not to frighten her. The woman turned back toward the ocean, her curiosity satisfied. As she walked away, Kumar noticed that she had scrapes and bruises on her body. A few minutes later, he watched her step into the waves. He shook off a chill and returned to the task at hand. 

Magers and Kumar study a bacteria called Vibrio, part of a lineage of ancient marine species that likely emerged sometime around the Paleozoic Era. Enormous, shallow seas flooded the massive, interconnected supercontinents that constituted the Earth’s landmass at the time, and complex marine ecosystems developed that thrived in these temperate, freshly-formed bodies of water. Researchers think there are more than 70 Vibrio species in the environment today, hundreds of millions of years later. The organisms float in warm, brackish water, attaching themselves to plankton and algae and accumulating in prolific water-filtering species like clams and oysters. 

A small number of Vibrio species can sicken and even kill. In worst-case scenarios, a person who has been exposed to the most dangerous of them — by swimming in brackish water with an open wound or ingesting a piece of raw shellfish that is contaminated with the tasteless and odorless toxin — may find themselves with only hours before the flesh on one or more extremities starts to bruise, swell, and decay. Without the quick aid of powerful antibiotics, septic shock can set in and lead to death. Anyone can get infected, though it is much more likely in people who have liver disease or are immunocompromised, elderly, or diabetic.

Climate change is making the world’s oceans, which have absorbed more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions, more hospitable to Vibrio. Research shows that temperature and salinity are the largest predictors of how widespread Vibrio bacteria are. As water temperatures rise, so does the concentration of Vibrio in seawater — boosting the risk of infection for beachgoers and shellfish consumers. The bacteria start getting active in water temperatures above 60 degrees Fahrenheit and multiply rapidly as coastal waters warm throughout the summer. In recent years, scientists have documented Vibrio expanding into places that were once too cold to support the bacteria, pushing as far north along the U.S. East Coast as Maine and appearing with more prevalence in temperate seas around the world. 

Vibriosis infections in general are the leading cause of shellfish-related illness in the U.S. They have increased “more than any other illness caused by a pathogen in the U.S. food supply” since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, started keeping tabs on such illnesses in 1996, according to a 2019 analysis by the International Association for Food Protection. The report attributed the precipitous rise to a “perfect storm” of factors that include climate change, food handling practices, expanding globalization, a patchwork of regulatory oversight, and improved diagnosis. 

On their conspicuous expeditions to Pensacola and other Sunshine State beaches, Magers and Kumar are trying to understand where, and when, harmful Vibrio species are present across the state. The research they’re doing is part of an ongoing effort by a laboratory at the University of Florida to create a Vibrio early warning system for the eastern United States — a program that can alert public health departments to high Vibrio concentrations in any given area a month in advance. How many limbs would be saved, Magers wonders, if doctors and nurses could be warned ahead of time that their emergency rooms would soon see an uptick in these chronically underdiagnosed infections? 

The work serves more than one purpose: As Vibrio bacteria spread north into cooler waters, they serve as a first warning signal of changing marine conditions — giving researchers a heads-up that the familiar composition of marine species in their local waters may be starting to shift. In Europe’s Baltic Sea, for example, a spike in Vibrio infections in July 2014 closely mirrored a heatwave that rapidly warmed the shallow sea. The incident showed researchers that Vibrio spikes herald unusually warm marine conditions — and they have since been utilized as barometers for ocean heatwaves and sea-surface warming patterns, not just food safety.

“We see Vibrio as the indicator for climate change,” said Kyle Brumfield, a microbiologist at the University of Maryland who has been studying the bacteria for a decade. “We can use the presence of Vibrio and Vibrio cases as a proxy for water health in general.”

The CDC estimates that about 80,000 cases of vibriosis occur in the U.S. every year, resulting in about 100 deaths. Of those 80,000 cases, most are caused by a Vibrio called parahaemolyticus, which most commonly results in gastroenteritis, or food poisoning. The vast majority of the deaths, however, are caused by a type of Vibrio called vulnificus — the Latin word for “wound-making.”

Vulnificus is so potent it can squeeze through a pinhole-sized cut in the skin and lead to death in just 24 hours. In the last five years, the CDC registered 429 such vulnificus cases, plus 136 foodborne cases. But even though foodborne cases are less numerous, the patients that contract vulnificus by eating contaminated shellfish are more likely to die than those infected via open wounds. Thirteen percent of those nonfoodborne cases died, compared to 32 percent of people who got the infection from eating seafood. Most cases occur in the Gulf and Atlantic coastal regions.

As far as infectious diseases go, vulnificus is exceedingly rare: The CDC reports between 150 and 200 cases a year. The sexually-transmitted disease chlamydia, by comparison, one of the most common bacterial infections in the U.S., infects northward of 1.5 million Americans annually. But vulnificus’ astonishing speed and high fatality rate — 15 to 50 percent, depending on the health of the person exposed and the route of infection — makes it a unique public health threat, particularly as climate change grows its pathways of exposure. 

Vulnificus is not the kind of pathogen you’d want behaving erratically, but that’s exactly what it’s been doing since the late 2010s. Across the Eastern Seaboard, local and federal health officials have been reporting “unusual increases” in vulnificus prevalence — jagged spikes in infections that appear to correspond to extreme weather events like hurricanes and marine heatwaves.

In 2022 and 2024, years when the brackish water that Vibrio bacteria thrive in was pushed inland by major hurricanes, Florida’s public health department reported 17 and 19 deaths, respectively, linked to vulnificus exposure via open wounds. North Carolina, New York, and Connecticut also saw small clusters of infections during a record-breaking heatwave in the summer of 2023. “As coastal water temperatures increase,” the CDC warned in its investigation of those outbreaks, “V. vulnificus infections are expected to become more common.”

A 2023 study that analyzed a 30-year database of confirmed vulnificus infections from outdoor recreation along the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coasts found the northern boundary of infections has moved north by a rate of 30 miles per year since 1998. The study noted that “V. vulnificus infections may expand their current range to encompass major population centers around New York,” and that annual case numbers may double as temperatures rise and America’s elderly population grows. 

“In the 1980s, Vibrio abundance would increase in the late spring and stay high through the summer and drop in the middle of October,” Brumfield, who conducts research on Vibrio in Maryland, said. “Now … we can pretty much find them almost year-round.”

Two ways to get infected

Just how worried we should be about the changing dynamics of Vibrio bacteria depends on who you ask and what you read. The gruesome and fast-acting nature of the vulnificus infection makes it enticing fodder for local and national news media, fueling a spree of terrifying reports every time a new severe infection or death surfaces. “Virginia dad wades in calf-high water, dies 2 weeks later of flesh-eating bacteria that ‘ravaged’ his legs,” read a recent headline in People magazine. “2 dead after eating oysters, contracting flesh-eating bacteria, officials say,” per a 2025 web story about two deaths linked to oyster consumption in Louisiana and Florida. Like many others in their mold, neither story mentions how rare the bacteria are. 

The press is bad news for some in the seafood industry, which does not welcome a national conversation about the rise in vibriosis cases, vulnificus in particular. Shellfish farmers and industry representatives that Grist spoke to in Florida and New York argued media attention on the safety of their products is unwarranted. “‘Flesh-eating bacteria,’” said Leslie Sturmer, a researcher who works for the University of Florida’s shellfish aquaculture extension program and consults with the shellfish industry on research and regulation — “the media loves it.”

Paul McCormick, an oyster farmer in Long Island who sells 750,000 oysters a year, thinks all press is bad press. “Even if the title of your article says ‘New York oysters are the safest oysters in the universe,’” he told me on the phone from his office in East Moriches in January, “you’ve already created a problem.”

In unrefrigerated oysters left out in warm conditions, Vibrio bacteria reproduce every 20 minutes. But in 2010, states began deploying strict protocols known as “Vibrio control plans,” which require harvesters to rapidly cool their catch onboard and then refrigerate it at a shellfish processing facility within a set number of hours. The measures have proven effective at stopping the growth of Vibrio in harvested shellfish and preventing disease.  

The fact that infections can happen in one of two ways — shellfish consumption and seawater exposure — makes it easy to shift blame and point fingers. Consumers have more control over how much exposure they have to Vibrio than they have with E. coli, for example. A person with a kidney condition can choose not to eat oysters on the half shell. E. Coli, often found in raw vegetables, is far tricker to avoid. Likewise, someone with an open wound can opt not to bathe in brackish waters if they are aware of the risks lurking in the surf.

For shellfish industry representatives, personal responsibility is the primary way to bring caseloads down. “The person is the risk,” said Sturmer. “Not the climate, not the water, not the bacteria.” Implicitly, this appears to be the government’s position as well: There is currently no numerical threshold at which state public health agencies will “shut down” a beach for outdoor recreation, though states will issue public advisories and, very rarely, close beaches if they happen to find high levels of Vibrio in the water.

But that perspective doesn’t account for the rapid marine changes brought on by climate change, the patchiness of vibriosis awareness, and the fact that Americans often make personal decisions that are at odds with their own health and safety.

The shellfishers Grist spoke to fully acknowledged the research underpinning Vibrio’s spread. McCormick studied environmental science in college, and Sturmer is running her own climate experiments in a laboratory in the fishing town of Cedar Key, Florida, putting different kinds of clams and oysters through heat stress tests to determine which species are best equipped to weather the decades ahead. Marine mollusks are uniquely threatened by rising ocean temperatures, ocean acidification, and sea level rise, issues that can lead to thin shells, low crop yields, and mass die-offs on farms. A detailed understanding of climate science, in other words, is good business for those who make their living fishing.

The problem, according to Sturmer, is that shellfishers have been unfairly singled out for a health issue that doesn’t affect most consumers and is more often contracted by ocean bathing rather than raw oyster consumption. While beaches stay open even when Vibrio bacteria are present in the water and lead to infections, a small number of foodborne vibriosis cases can trigger state closures of shellfish harvesting areas and product recalls. The National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science noted that these precautions “erode consumer confidence and likely decrease sales.” 

The panic that ensues after media reports of Vibrio infections has a similar effect: A 2024 study asked more than 350 shellfish consumers in Rhode Island — a state that relies heavily on its shellfish industry, particularly in summer months when people vacation along the coastline — to bid on entrees of raw oysters and clams. After showing study participants a real newspaper article about a 2015 Vibrio outbreak linked to an oyster farm in Massachusetts, the researchers reported that the news had a “significant negative impact” on participants’ willingness to bid on oysters. It had a depressive effect on clam sales, too.

“You should really be out there beating the drum on botulism or salmonella or E. Coli,” Sturmer told me on a recent visit to her lab in Cedar Key. “Why worry about [vulnificus] when the number of cases are so minimal?” Sturmer is quick to point out that even the term “flesh-eating bacteria” is a misnomer. She’s right, in a sense: The bacteria doesn’t “eat” tissue; it destroys it. But it’s hard to say whether someone who has survived a bout of necrotizing fasciitis, the medical term for what vulnificus does to the flesh, would care to dispute the difference.

Protecting consumers from being sickened by the deadly bacteria isn’t as simple as trusting people with underlying medical conditions not to eat shellfish. Americans consume 2.5 billion oysters every year, half of which are eaten raw. Vibrio infections, which most often resemble food poisoning, are still underreported and underrecognized, even among individuals who are most at risk of developing a severe infection. Vulnificus infections are also underreported, but much less so than other Vibrio-related infections because they often require a hospital or emergency room visit. 

“I’ve cared for many people with salmonella infections and water-borne infectious processes, but this is the one that is likely the most serious,” said Norman Beatty, an associate professor at the University of Florida College of Medicine who is also a practicing infectious disease doctor in Gainesville, and has seen limbs and lives lost to vulnificus. 

Identifying coastal areas most at risk

When it comes to preventing Vibrio infections, the work Magers and Kumar are doing could take some of the onus off of individual responsibility. The researchers are identifying which parts of the eastern U.S. coastline will be most risky for overall vibriosis infections, and vulnificus specifically, as waters warm. Alongside a group of microbiologists from the University of Maryland, including Brumfield, the scientists have developed a computer model that can predict how high the vibriosis risk will be in any given coastal county on the Gulf or East coasts a month in advance. The team trained their model by pairing the CDC’s count of Vibrio-related foodborne and waterborne illnesses from 1997 to 2019 with satellite data that measures the conditions that fuel Vibrio growth, such as water temperature and salinity. 

The system is far from perfect. When the model was first trained and evaluated, it was only 23 percent precise in pinpointing high-risk counties, meaning just one in four of the counties the program labeled as high-risk actually ended up seeing a vibriosis case in a given month. But it was very good at determining which counties were low-risk, capturing those regions with 99 percent precision. And it improved over time as the quality of the data they fed it got better. When they had the model do a test run on data collected by the Florida Department of Public Health from 2020 to 2024, 72 percent of total cases occurred in counties the tool flagged as high-risk for vibriosis. 

Perhaps most significantly, the model was especially adept at predicting high-risk counties ahead of Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024 — more than 80 percent of the vibriosis cases that occurred in Florida in the aftermath of those hurricanes were reported in counties the model had already flagged as high-risk. 

The tool is geared toward predicting water-borne infections, but it may also provide useful information to the shellfishing industry, though the system isn’t a replacement for the established protocols farmers already use — protocols that have proven to be effective, particularly in states that are aggressive about enforcing them. What the new tool could do, however, is supplement those Vibrio control plans, especially when an upcoming weather pattern deviates from the historical norm — something that has been happening a lot lately.

States currently use a rolling five-year average illness rate to calculate how many minutes or hours harvested shellfish can stay on a boat before moving into indoor refrigeration. In February, for example, Florida shellfishers have to get their oysters into refrigeration by 5 p.m. on the day of harvest. In July, they have no more than two hours, or they have to cool their catch in ice slurries on board. But these timetables don’t account for sudden temperature anomalies.

“It’s going to be 80 degrees this week in Alabama,” Andy DePaola, a Gulf Coast oyster farmer, told me in February. “Yet I can keep my oysters out for, like, 14 hours, because the rolling five-year average is 20 degrees less than that anomaly.” (DePaola is also a microbiologist who worked on Vibrio at the FDA for the better part of 40 years, and is the author of the 2019 analysis that diagnosed the “perfect storm” for Vibrio spread.)

But the shellfish industry doesn’t appear enthusiastic about the idea of assigning counties a risk category based on Vibrio prevalence. Vibrio researchers, by their own admission, haven’t done a good job of reaching out to shellfishers to find out how such a tool would work best for them. At an August meeting of the Delaware Bay Section of the ​​New Jersey Shellfisheries Council last year, the director of a shellfish research laboratory brought up the idea of using Vibrio predictive models to “determine optimal days to harvest to reduce the transfer of infection to humans.” A lengthy discussion ensued. The consensus, ultimately, was that the model was a bad idea, and could be “used against the industry.”

Not all shellfishers are dead set against the kind of work Magers and Kumar are doing. “If Vibrio is an indicator of global warming, then that’s just an unfortunate bad luck scene for us,” McCormick, the Long Island oysterman, said. But it’s hard for him to see what relevance that research has to an industry that already has its own methods of controlling Vibrio. “In my mind that exists in one realm and the safety of our oysters is a whole different thing.”

As we move deeper into the 21st century, however, those two realms will have more overlap. If countries keep up their current pace of greenhouse gas emissions, most coastal communities along the East Coast will be environmentally primed for vibriosis outbreaks during peak summer months by midcentury. It won’t be a question of if there will be more vibriosis cases — it will be a matter of how to manage them. That’s the scenario Magers and Kumar are preparing for.

“In 30, 40, 100 years, these models won’t even matter because the risk is so high,” said Magers, the lead author of the predictive modeling study. “When it gets to that point, it would probably be a different kind of modeling strategy where we’d be modeling case numbers instead of infection risk.” 

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Know the facts about Vibrio, a bacteria found in coastal waters and raw oysters

Stay informed about your risk level as you enjoy fresh shellfish and beach trips this summer. 

By Lyndsey Gilpin

This story was produced by Grist and co-published with States Newsroom.

What is Vibrio? 

Vibrio is a type of bacteria that has been around for hundreds of millions of years; researchers have identified more than 70 species. These species are mostly harmless, but some can cause infection. The bacteria thrive in warm, brackish (slightly salty) water such as estuaries and bays, attaching themselves to plankton and algae and accumulating in prolific water-filtering species like clams and oysters. Serious infections typically happen either through exposure to an open wound in saltwater or, more rarely, ingestion of raw shellfish that contain the bacteria. 

The concentration of Vibrio in coastal waterways is higher from May through October, when temperatures are warmer. Most U.S. cases are in the Gulf and Atlantic coastal regions. Vibrio is tasteless and odorless. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, estimates that about 80,000 cases of vibriosis (an infection caused by the Vibrio bacteria) occur in the U.S. every year, resulting in about 100 deaths. Florida has the highest number of cases, with about 20 percent reported from the Indian River Lagoon region, a popular recreation destination on the Atlantic Coast. 

What happens if you come into contact with Vibrio?

Most people are not at risk of developing illness, or they may have only mild symptoms. However, those with compromised immune systems can develop life-threatening infections. 

The majority of the 80,000 annual U.S. cases are caused by a Vibrio called parahaemolyticus, which most often infects people via the raw seafood they eat and usually leads to gastroenteritis, or food poisoning. The symptoms may include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach cramps, fever and chills, weakness, fatigue, and headache. 

A different type of Vibrio, vulnificus, is much less common, but can cause severe illness. The infected wound may be red, swollen, and painful, or you may develop mild gastrointestinal issues such as watery diarrhea, stomach cramps, or vomiting. Symptoms typically appear within 12 to 24 hours and can last up to seven days. Healthy people tend to fight off the infection on their own. But if flesh on one or more extremities to bruise, swell, and decay, or symptoms of sepsis occur, it is a medical emergency. Vulnificus can squeeze through a pinhole-sized cut in the skin and lead to death in just 24 hours. This severe infection is rare, but it has a 15 to 50 percent fatality rate; the vast majority of the 100 annual deaths are from this strain. A severe vulnificus infection is much more likely in people who have liver disease or are immunocompromised, elderly, or diabetic.

How concerned should I be — and how do I stay safe? 

You don’t necessarily need to avoid oyster bars or cancel your beach trip, but you should know how to stay informed and take precautions. Here are a few ways to do so:

• Be aware that there are many fearmongering headlines about flesh-eating bacteria, despite vulnificus being one of the rarest forms of Vibrio exposure. Vibrio doesn’t attack random healthy flesh — there must be exposure through an open wound (a break in the skin) or it must be ingested, most often through raw shellfish. People who get sick often have underlying health conditions. 
• If you don’t feel well after eating raw seafood or swimming in brackish water, don’t wait — go to the doctor. Some medical professionals, particularly those in areas where the bacteria hasn’t historically infected people, don’t know what vibriosis is. Advocate for yourself — ask for a test. 
• If you have liver disease, your risk is much higher than the general population’s. Keep an eye out for public health advisories from state and local health officials and avoid swimming in ocean water with an open wound or consuming raw shellfish in warm months. Note that ocean temperatures, especially along the lower Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, have been elevated outside the typical seasonal range in some recent years.
• Be aware when eating raw shellfish, particularly raw oysters. It’s best to be confident that the shellfish was refrigerated and stored in compliance with government standards. The vast majority of foodborne Vibrio cases lead to food poisoning. (Food poisoning from bacteria is always a risk when eating uncooked shellfish and many other foods like salads or deli meat.)

How is climate change affecting Vibrio?

Climate change is making the world’s oceans, which have absorbed more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions, more hospitable to Vibrio. The bacteria start getting active in temperatures above 60 degrees Fahrenheit and multiply rapidly as waters warm throughout the summer. Vibrio is expanding into places that were once too cold to support it, farther north on the U.S. East coast and in other temperate seas around the world. As it spreads, it serves as a first warning signal of changing marine conditions.

What’s being done to address Vibrio?

There’s a lot of research happening to better understand the risks these bacteria pose under changing environmental conditions: A group of microbiologists at the University of Maryland, alongside other scientists, have developed a computer model that can predict how high the risk of vibriosis will be in any given coastal county in the eastern U.S. a month in advance. The team trained its model, which is still under development, by pairing the CDC’s count of Vibrio-related foodborne and waterborne illnesses from 1997 to 2019 with satellite data that measures the conditions that fuel Vibrio growth, such as water temperature and salinity. It’s far from perfect, but it’s improving. And it was especially adept at predicting high-risk counties ahead of hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024 — more than 80 percent of the vibriosis cases that occurred in Florida in the aftermath of those hurricanes were reported in counties the model had already flagged as high-risk. 

This report was updated at 1:35 p.m. 4/23/2026.

Employees of two Wisconsin clinics operated by Rogers Behavioral Health voted by large majorities in favor of union representation Wednesday after more than two months in which the mental health nonprofit had campaigned heavily against the union.

In West Allis, employees voted 53-4 in favor of joining the National Union of Healthcare Workers. In Madison, the vote to join the union was 26-4. The votes were supervised by National Labor Relations Board officials at both clinics.

Employees at the two clinics “are ready to negotiate contracts that would provide better pay, protections to ensure safe staffing levels and more time to care for individual patients, as Rogers workers secured in California after joining NUHW,” the union stated in a press release Thursday.

The union represents Rogers employees at three facilities in California, where contracts have been negotiated, and one in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where contract negotiations are underway. “While contract negotiations are still ongoing in Philadelphia, the contracts Rogers agreed to for workers based in the Bay Area, Los Angeles and San Diego are among the best in the industry,”  the union statement said. “They include strong raises, limits on caseloads, and guarantees that no jobs will be lost to new technologies, including artificial intelligence.”

Rogers, based in Oconomowoc, said in a statement released Thursday, “We acknowledge the union election outcomes in Madison and West Allis Lincoln Center. We are evaluating our next steps in support of our system of care. We are committed to our patients, our people, and the integrated care that has made Rogers a trusted provider across Wisconsin since 1907.”

The union said in its press release that during the West Allis election Wednesday, Rogers management “prohibited NUHW’s representative from entering the facility and then suspended a worker who had agreed to serve as the union’s observer.”

Federal labor law procedures call for representatives from management as well as the union to observe the vote count. The absence of a union observer “could have resulted in the ballots being impounded and not immediately counted,” the union press release stated.

A second Rogers employee volunteered to serve as the union observer for the count “over the objections of Rogers’ representatives,” the NUHW stated, adding that Rogers did not attempt to stop ballots from being counted at the Madison clinic.

The workers involved were among three employees fired shortly after workers announced their petition for a union. The union has filed unfair labor practice charges over the terminations, claiming that the three were fired in retaliation for their support for unionization, which is illegal under federal law.

Rogers has declined to explain the firings, citing employment confidentiality, but said that it has not violated any laws.

Rogers Behavioral Health issued a follow-up statement Thursday about the voting conflict in West Allis. According to the statement, “individuals who are no longer employeed by Rogers had illegally entered the facility,” and Rogers contacted local police.

The next step will be for the National Labor Relations Board to certify the results. But a federal lawsuit challenging the agency is still pending. In addition, Rogers said in public statements as well as in communications to the workers before the vote that the company would not begin bargaining with the union until all its appeals have been exhausted. 

The nonprofit campaigned actively against unionization, telling employees that a union would not have been in the interests of the staff, the patients or the organization. In a final letter distributed on Monday, Rogers urged employees to vote no and made statements that the organization had made mistakes and wanted to be given another chance to improve relationships with the staff without a union.

Union supporters welcomed the outcome of Wednesday’s votes.

“We are thrilled with the overwhelming victory,” said Stephani Lohman, a nurse practitioner who was among those active in the union organizing campaign and was one of the three fired employees. “Over the last few weeks Rogers has shown us exactly why we need a union by running an aggressive anti-worker campaign, trying everything in their toolbox to intimidate and demoralize us, but it failed spectacularly because it was so cruel and wicked that it drove everyone to support the union.”

According to union supporters, the union campaign began late last year after changes at Rogers that included clinicians being reclassified from salaried to hourly, which resulted in schedule changes that increased patient volumes for staff members and reduced individual patient care. The organization increased caseload caps, “forcing caregivers to be responsible for far more patients than previously,” the NUHW said in its statement.

This report has been updated with additional information and comments Thursday from both the National Union of Healthcare Workers and from Rogers Behavioral Health. 

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WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans, and one Democrat, maintained their support for President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, after blocking for the fifth time a resolution that would force the president to seek congressional authorization for further action in the Middle East.

The vote failed 46-51, largely following the same split as previous failed measures. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., opposed the resolution to rein in Trump, and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., voted in favor, just as they have in the four times prior. 

Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, David McCormick, R-Pa., and Mark Warner, D-Va. were absent.

Thirteen U.S. service members and thousands of civilians across the Middle East have died in the war, which the Trump administration has claimed is about regime change and stopping Iran’s nuclear program.

As of Wednesday, the Pentagon updated the number of American troops injured in the conflict to 400.

Fetterman and all but one Senate Republican blocked the measure one day after Trump extended a ceasefire with Iran after the prospects of a second round of peace talks fell through. Trump did not specify an end date to the ceasefire extension but announced the United States would not back down on its blockade of ships traveling to and from Iranian ports.

Trump claimed late Tuesday night that Iran is “collapsing financially!” 

“They want the Strait of Hormuz opened immediately- Starving for cash! Losing 500 Million Dollars a day. Military and Police complaining that they are not getting paid. SOS!!!” he wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social.

U.S. military forces fired on and seized a sanctioned Iranian cargo ship Sunday.

Iran’s foreign minister, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, wrote Tuesday on X that the seizure was “an act of war and thus a violation of the ceasefire.” 

Early Wednesday, Iran claimed responsibility for attacking two commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, a key narrow maritime passage where a fifth of the world’s petroleum flowed prior to the war. Iranian parliament representative Ebrahim Rezaei declared on X, “an eye for an eye, an oil tanker for an oil tanker.” 

Baldwin leads opposition to war

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., lead sponsor of Wednesday’s War Powers Resolution, said on the floor ahead of the vote that Trump sold Americans “a bad bill of goods” when he campaigned on lowering costs and not starting any new foreign wars.

“This war has taken us backwards and created more problems for the people that I work for,” she said, citing increasing fuel and fertilizer costs as a result of a standstill in the Strait of Hormuz.

The latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation numbers reflected a 21% increase in the cost of fuel from February to March.

A gallon of regular gas remained on average just north of $4 across the country, according to AAA.

United Airlines announced Wednesday it plans to raise airfare as much as 20% to offset the cost of jet fuel, according to multiple media reports.

Brent crude oil, the global oil market’s standard, spiked above $100 a barrel Wednesday, as it has numerous times since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran.

“Less than two months ago, oil prices were normal, the Straits of Hormuz was open, commerce was happening,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., ahead of the vote. 

“And then President Trump made the decision without a rationale, without a plan, without consulting with allies, without consulting or seeking a vote of Congress to enter the nation into yet another war in the Middle East. And the entire world is suffering,” Kaine said.

Trump entered the joint war on Iran alongside Israel on Feb. 28.

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said passing the resolution would be “unwise.”

“We’ve been through these votes recently, and nothing has occurred in the makeup of this body or in the situation in Iran or the Middle East to materially change since the last time we voted on this matter,” the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee said on the floor ahead of the vote. 

Wicker was the only Republican to speak out against the resolution during Wednesday afternoon’s debate.

Earlier vote

Senate Democrats last forced a vote to stop Trump’s actions in Iran on April 15, just days after the president threatened on social media to wipe out Iran’s “whole civilization” and to bomb its power plants and bridges.

Senate Democrats say they have no plans to stop introducing War Powers Resolutions and speaking out against the war.

Several sent a letter Sunday to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth demanding answers about “troubling allegations of civilian harm incidents,” including a strike on an elementary school that killed more than 160 children on the war’s opening day.

“We are concerned that these were all preventable tragedies. The high human toll of this war reflects the administration’s broader disregard for the strategic, legal, and moral imperative to minimize civilian harm,” the senators wrote.

The letter, led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., was also signed by Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M; Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii; Tina Smith, D-Minn.; Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.; Raphael Warnock, D-Ga.; Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.; Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Peter Welch, D-Vt. and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats. 

The 11 senators who joined Baldwin in sponsoring Wednesday’s War Powers Resolution, a vestige of Congress’ efforts to rein in President Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War, included Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sens. Gillibrand, Kaine, Merkley and Van Hollen, as well as Adam Schiff, D-Calif.; Chris Murphy, D-Conn.; Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.; Andy Kim, D-N.J.; Cory Booker, D-N.J.; and Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday handed Michigan’s Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel a victory, offering a unanimous decision that laid to rest a yearslong debate over whether her case to shut down Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline should be heard in state or federal court. 

In an 14-page opinion penned by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court held that Enbridge had missed its 30-day window to have the case removed to federal court, with the Canadian energy company making its request 887 days after receiving Nessel’s initial complaint. 

The company’s Line 5 pipeline has been a long-running concern for tribal nations and environmentalists in the region, with Nessel calling it a “ticking time bomb” for the Great Lakes.

Running from northwestern Wisconsin into Sarnia, Ontario, the 645-mile long pipeline passes through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, with a four-mile segment of dual pipelines running through the Straits of Mackinac, where Lake Huron and Lake Michigan meet. The pipeline carries up to 23 million gallons of crude oil and natural gas liquids through the straits each day.

“Today’s decision honors the truth that the Straits of Mackinac are not a bargaining chip and reaffirms what Tribal Nations have always known – we have the right and the responsibility to protect the Great Lakes,” Bay Mills Indian Community President Whitney Gravelle said in a statement. “The Supreme Court saw through Enbridge’s delay tactics and upheld the rule of law. This is a victory for our waters, our treaty rights, and the next seven generations who depend on the Great Lakes for life itself.”

In an emailed statement, Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy noted that Nessel’s case has been stayed, awaiting the results of an appeal in another court case, which Enbridge filed against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the director of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources after they revoked the company’s easement to operate Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac.

The United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan in December ruled that the move was unenforceable, with the Pipeline Safety Act of 1992 preempting states from placing safety regulations on interstate pipelines. Whitmer has appealed the decision.

“Setting aside the procedural decision, the fact remains that the safety of Line 5 is regulated exclusively by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration,” Duffy said, noting that the agency has not identified any safety issues that would warrant its shutdown.

A grand jury indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center on charges of wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, which alleges payments the organization made to informants in extremist groups functioned as financial support for them.

Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday that a federal grand jury in the Middle District of Alabama returned an 11-count indictment against the SPLC, a civil rights nonprofit based in Montgomery, Alabama, that helped take down some of the most prominent white supremacist groups in the country.

“As the indictment describes, the SPLC was not dismantling these groups,” Blanche said. “It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.”

SPLC interim CEO Bryan Fair said in a statement Tuesday evening that the organization was “outraged by the false allegations levied against SPLC — an organization that for 55 years has stood as a beacon of hope fighting white supremacy and various forms of injustice to create a multi-racial democracy where we can all live and thrive.” 

“Taking on violent hate and extremist groups is among the most dangerous work there is, and we believe it is also among the most important work we do,” Fair said. “To be clear, this program saved lives.”

Fair said in a video released earlier on Tuesday that SPLC was the subject of a criminal probe and that he believed it was connected with a now-discontinued paid informant program, which Fair said provided information and intelligence on extremist groups that was passed to law enforcement.

The indictment characterizes those payments, dating back to the 1980s, as funding for leaders and organizers of racist groups including the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation and the National Alliance.

No individuals were named in the indictment, but Blanche at the news conference, referred to one individual who was paid $270,000 over eight years. In total, according to the indictment, between 2014 and 2023, SPLC paid at least $3 million to eight people.

The indictment also pointed to an imperial wizard of the United Klans of America, as well as an alleged member of the online leadership chat group that planned the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

Additionally, the indictment accuses the organization of funneling money to violent extremist groups by using the informants SPLC recruited.

FBI Director Kash Patel said at the news conference that SPLC tried to hide criminal activity from banks.

“They set up shell companies and entities around America so that the financial institutions that we rely on as everyday Americans were deceived in believing that the money was not coming from the Southern Poverty Law Center in perpetuation of this scheme and fraud, but rather fictitious entities they stood up to perpetuate this ongoing fraud,” Patel said.

The indictment includes  six counts of wire fraud, alleging SPLC defrauded donors; three counts of making false statements to a federally insured bank and one count of money laundering.

Fair said earlier on Tuesday that the paid informant program operated “in the shadow of the height of the Civil Rights Movement, which had seen bombings at churches, state-sponsored violence against demonstrators, and the murders of activists that went unanswered by the justice system.”

The interim CEO said that SPLC did not “share our use of informants broadly with anyone to protect the identity and safety of the informants and their families.”

“And while we no longer work with paid informants, we continue to take their safety seriously,” he said.  

A spokesperson for the organization said Tuesday that the program “predates me and a lot of people here. Most people who were involved are not even with the organization, because it has been a very long time since it has ended.”

Fair accused President Donald Trump and the DOJ of targeting SPLC for political purposes.

“Today, the federal government has been weaponized to dismantle the rights of our nation’s most vulnerable people, and any organization like ours that stands in the breach,” Fair said. “We stood in the vanguard then, and we stand in the vanguard today. We will not be intimidated into silence or contrition, and we will not abandon our mission or the communities we serve.”

The SPLC, founded in 1971, rose to prominence by bringing lawsuits against the Klan and other organizations that forced them to declare bankruptcy. Members of the Klan bombed the organization’s headquarters in Montgomery, Alabama, in July 1983. The group has also done work on voting rights, immigration and labor issues.

The group has often been outspoken and critical of Trump, and Republicans and conservatives have made it a target for years, saying it lumps right-wing groups in with extremist organizations. The Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the SPLC in December.

Updated at 6:37 p.m. with details of indictment, comments from DOJ press conference and reaction from SPLC.

WASHINGTON — Nearly all Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee failed to show up for a Wednesday hearing convened by Democrats to highlight President Donald Trump’s aggressive tactics in his mass deportation campaign that have ensnared U.S. citizens. 

It marked a rare full committee hearing that Democrats were allowed to conduct because of Minority Day in the House. 

Democrats used the opportunity to call witnesses who are U.S. citizens and were harmed, in some cases shot, by federal immigration officers. Lawmakers also focused on two U.S. citizens killed by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis, Renee Good and Alex Pretti. 

Following the deadly shootings in January, Democrats refused to approve any more funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, which has led to a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security since mid-February.  

“Under President Trump, ICE and CBP have killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in cold blood, and shot, beat, harassed, arrested, or locked up countless more innocent people,” the top Democrat on the committee, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said. “Congress cannot stand idly by while Americans are hurt and killed by their own government.”

Democrats also invited Trump officials tasked with crafting and carrying out the president’s immigration agenda: White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Homeland Security advisor Stephen Miller and Tom Homan, the border czar. 

Neither Miller nor Homan showed up. The White House did not answer questions from States Newsroom regarding Miller or Homan’s absence from the hearing. 

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson blamed Democrats for keeping “the Department of Homeland Security shuttered, not caring about vital services – like TSA, FEMA, and ICE – going unfunded.” 

“Instead of lying about President Trump’s extremely successful deportation operations of criminal illegal aliens, House Democrats should fully reopen the Department of Homeland Security and stop putting illegal aliens before American citizens,”Jackson said.

The chair of the committee, Andrew Garbarino, called Wednesday’s hearing “a distraction from the fact that DHS has been shut down for over 65 days and the security impacts of that (are) real.”

Garbarino, a New York Republican, and the other GOP lawmakers on the committee did not ask any of the witnesses any questions. 

Americans under fire

The Americans harmed by federal immigration officials include:

• Marimar Martinez, a Chicago preschool worker whom Border Patrol officers shot five times.
• Rev. David Black, whom ICE officials shot in the face with pepper-ball rounds while he protested outside an Illinois detention facility.
• George Retes Jr., an Army veteran in California whom immigration agents apprehended on his way to work, tear-gassed and kept detained for three days.
• Ryan Ecklund, a real estate agent in Minnesota whom federal agents detained after he filmed them while at a grocery store. 

Martinez has appeared in the past before Congress in unofficial Democratic events to share her story about how on Oct. 4, she was shot five times by Border Patrol agent Charles Exum. 

DHS shared her photo online, falsely claimed she rammed into Border Patrol with her car and labeled her a domestic terrorist. The Trump administration tried to indict her on federal charges, but eventually dismissed the case against her.

“On Friday I was teaching the young children at the Montessori school and we were singing and dancing and getting ready for spooky season preparing fall activities to do the following week and on Saturday my own government was calling me a ‘domestic terrorist’ and I was in a federal detention center with bullet holes all over my body,” she told the committee. “There were times where I did not believe this was all real and then I would touch my bullet wounds and knew it was certainly real.”

She said she was concerned other people would be shot and killed by federal immigration agents, as Pretti and Good were.

“It’s bound to happen sooner or later if we don’t hold these agents accountable for their actions,” she said.

No apologies

Following the two deadly shootings by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis, the leaders of ICE and CBP appeared before the Senate and House committees that have jurisdiction over DHS. 

While there, CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott and ICE acting head Todd Lyons refused to apologize to the families of Good and Pretti. Lyons has announced he will resign at the end of May, saying he wants to spend more time with his family. 

The aggressive immigration deportation campaign in Minneapolis, which has a high Somalian refugee population, also spurred calls from Republicans to push then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign. She stepped down last month after Senate Republicans grilled her over an ad campaign and slow response to providing disaster relief. 

The president tapped former Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin to steer the department. The Senate last month confirmed Mullin. 

One of the witnesses, Retes, said his goal is for Congress to pass legislation in order to hold federal immigration agents accountable.

“Federal officials are basically impossible to sue,” Retes said. “Federal agents basically have immunity.” 

He added that he wants Congress to do something, and expressed his frustration that “change doesn’t move fast enough.” 

Ecklund criticized federal agents within DHS, and pointed out the irony of the department’s unofficial slogan of going after “the worst of the worst” in conducting immigration enforcement. 

“‘Your best’ and the ‘best of DHS’ is the least that the American public deserve,” he said. “You have not given us your best.”

Martinez said agents are not held accountable. 

“I’ve been through hell and back,” she said. “These agents — Charles Exum — have not even been held accountable for their actions.” 

She added that she doesn’t even know if Exum is still working for CBP.

Texas Democratic Rep. Al Green asked Martinez if she would feel comfortable showing lawmakers where she was shot. She agreed and rolled up her sleeve, showing a dark scar on her upper arm, and pulled up her pants to show another wound across her upper thigh. 

“It’s hard to manage all this, to even process what happened,” she said. “Being shot for protecting your community. I want the world to see my pain, my trauma. This is not something to joke about. This is my life.”

Green thanked her and told her that “you deserve justice.” 

Minister shot with pepper balls

Black told the committee that he was “horrified by the radical evil being perpetrated by my government.”

He said he was outside a detention facility in Chicago and was in the middle of praying when he was shot by federal agents with pepper balls. 

“I am outraged by the blasphemy of those who support brutal ICE and CBP tactics yet call themselves Christians,” he said. “They make a mockery of the sacrifice of God’s love on behalf of the world. 

“Yet instead of living into Christ’s rich promise of a Kingdom of peace, freedom, and prosperity, many of those calling themselves Christian are blindly supporting institutions like ICE and CBP, even as they dominate, coerce, and terrorize American communities,” he continued. 

The only path forward, he argued to lawmakers, is to dismantle ICE and CBP, and redirect that funding to “support programs that feed the hungry, sate the thirsty, welcome strangers, clothe the naked, and care for the sick — for in the words of Jesus, ‘just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’”

WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats, advocates, students and leaders on Wednesday blasted attempts by President Donald Trump’s administration to do away with funding for minority-serving institutions in higher education.  

U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono led a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol that called on the administration to fully fund and protect the more than 800 minority-serving institutions, or MSIs, which enroll millions of students of color. Many are from low-income households or are the first in their families to attend college.

“Donald Trump is doing all he can basically to dismantle support for education in this country, and what is happening to minority-serving institutions is part of this all-out attack,” the Hawaii Democrat said. 

“Under the false pretense of addressing discrimination, this regime is limiting access to higher education for underserved and underrepresented groups, and there are millions of students who are being served by these programs,” she added. 

Along with advocates, leaders and students, Hirono was joined by fellow Democrats: Sen. Alex Padilla, chair of the Senate Hispanic-Serving Institutions Caucus; Rep. Mark Takano, first vice chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus; Rep. Juan Vargas of California, of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus; and Rep. Danny Davis of Illinois, of the Congressional Black Caucus. 

Padilla, of California, said MSIs are “better training the future leaders, entrepreneurs (and) servants” that communities need. 

“That’s what we’re standing up for. That’s what we’re fighting for, and that’s (why) we’re calling on Republican colleagues to join us, to push back on the threats of this administration and maintain our decades-long steadfast support of minority-serving institutions for the interest of these young people, their families, their communities and our country.” 

Takano, also of California, said “Congress funded these programs, and we will fight for them, and they cannot impound the funds.” 

He added that “Congress has the power of the purse, and we will make sure we hold this administration accountable.” 

Programs called ‘racially discriminatory’

Trump — who has sought to end diversity, equity and inclusion policies in schools — has proposed eliminating funding for minority-serving institutions, totaling $354 million, as part of his fiscal 2027 budget request.  

The U.S. Department of Education in September gutted and reprogrammed $350 million in discretionary funds that support MSIs, over claims that the programs for Black, Asian, Indigenous and Hispanic students and more are “racially discriminatory.”

The agency soon after moved to redirect $495 million in additional funding to historically Black colleges and universities, along with tribal colleges.

The Justice Department in December issued an opinion finding several grant programs for minority-serving institutions to be “unconstitutional.”

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon concurred with the opinion, and the agency said later that month it was “currently evaluating the full impact” of the opinion on affected programs.

The president signed into law in February a spending package that funds the Education Department at $79 billion this fiscal year and also “increases funding for all Title III and V programs that support HBCUs, Hispanic Serving Institutions, Tribal colleges, and other minority-serving institutions,” per Senate Appropriations Committee Democrats’ summary.