Dr. Margaret Baum (second from left), chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, stands with attorneys from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America on the steps of the Jackson County Courthouse in Kansas City, Missouri, on Jan. 12, 2026, the first day of a two-week trial over abortion restrictions. (Photo by Anna Spoerre/Missouri Independent)

The outcome of two trials in the coming weeks could shape what it will look like when voters overturn state abortion bans through future ballot initiatives.

Arizona and Missouri voters in November 2024 struck down their respective near-total abortion bans. Both states added abortion access up to fetal viability as a right in their constitutions, although Arizonans approved the amendment by a much wider margin than Missouri voters.

That was just the beginning of protracted legal battles.

Amy Myrick, senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said ballot measures are a powerful and important step in returning abortion access to a state, but success on Election Day doesn’t mean the fight is over.

“State constitutions don’t automatically repeal laws,” Myrick said. “Sometimes, even if the state isn’t doing it, other groups or legislators will jump in to try to retain these restrictions.” 

The trial over Arizona’s abortion restrictions wrapped up this week, Arizona Mirror reported. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Gregory Como seemed unconvinced of the argument that certain laws around how abortion medication can be prescribed, waiting periods and bans on abortions in cases of fetal abnormalities should remain enforceable.

A similar trial in Missouri will wrap up on Jan. 26 after hours of testimony about more than a dozen abortion restrictions state officials are seeking to preserve. The Republican supermajority state legislature is also putting a countermeasure to reinstate the abortion ban on the ballot in November, paired with a ban on gender-affirming care for minors. 

Arizona and Missouri have what are known by abortion-rights advocates as Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers, or TRAP, laws passed by legislatures before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2022. Even states without bans, like Connecticut, Maryland and Rhode Island, have statutes in place that the Guttmacher Institute considers TRAP laws. Abortion providers are subject to state licensing and other medical requirements, but as of December, 25 states still have laws that impose additional regulations for clinics, according to Guttmacher, such as facility size and transfer agreement requirements, or admitting privileges at local hospitals within 30 miles.

Officials and legislators usually argue in the statehouse and in court that the extra parameters increase the safety of abortion procedures, but the safety record is strong under existing medical requirements and is safer than childbirth, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Studies show the risk of maternal death associated with childbirth is about 14 times higher than the risk associated with abortion.

But there are also other laws that advocates say are meant to discourage or frustrate those seeking abortion care, such as mandatory vaginal exams, waiting periods, or a requirement that the same physician must see an abortion medication patient over two subsequent visits. Some of those laws were passed over decades and helped drive abortion providers away, including in Missouri.

As a result, even though Missourians overturned the ban, abortion care remains difficult to obtain, and many are still leaving the state to get it, according to Missouri Independent.

“Because constitutional amendments don’t overturn conflicting laws, people can still experience injuries under these laws,” said Prachi Dave, senior managing legal and policy director at If/When/How, a reproductive rights legal services and advocacy organization. “For example, if a waiting period is interfering with my ability to access the care I am guaranteed under the newly passed amendment, then I would ask a judge to affirm that the law is getting in the way of my right. In doing so, lawsuits give practical effect to constitutional amendments.”

In a Michigan lawsuit led by advocacy groups, a judge ruled in May that a mandatory waiting period was unconstitutional after voters approved an initiative codifying reproductive rights.  

Wendy Heipt, attorney for advocacy organization Legal Voice in Washington, said even if some laws were ruled unconstitutional, they may have to be litigated again because the basis for the unconstitutional argument relied on the Roe v. Wade case that the U.S. Supreme Court overturned almost four years ago.

Heipt frequently works on cases in Idaho, where many lawsuits over the state’s near-total abortion ban have taken place in the past three years. Though still in effect, there is an effort to overturn the ban via ballot in November. 

The initiative is different from those approved in Arizona and Missouri because people in Idaho cannot submit constitutional amendments — only proposed state laws — for ballot consideration directly.

Melanie Folwell, lead organizer of the reproductive rights initiative in Idaho, said even if successful, it’s only one leg of a long race in restoring access. The initiative group, Idahoans United for Women and Families, drafted a bill that would have repealed existing abortion laws, but it was too long and legally complicated for the ballot. Instead, what they’ve come up with for voters is meant to establish a right to reproductive health privacy without undue government interference and override existing laws. 

The outcome of Missouri’s trial could be instructive for Idaho abortion-rights advocates, because the political environments are similar. Idaho has a lengthy list of its own waiting periods for abortion care, mandatory counseling and ultrasound requirements, and elected officials in the Republican-led state have repeatedly signaled their opposition to abortion access, including the attorney general. The legislature also has a Republican supermajority.

And since it can’t be a constitutional amendment, any new law may be more vulnerable to legal challenges. 

“There are things to learn from every one of the states that have reproductive access on the ballot, which is 17 states at this point,” Folwell said. “It is always instructive for us to see what plays out in that state’s legislature, what plays out with their courts.”

Myrick said the legal battles can feel discouraging, but voters shouldn’t let it stop them from using their voices to make their policy preferences known.

“Ballot measures are not the silver bullet. We need a lot of follow-up to make these rights real. And the attempts to keep these restrictions after the voters have spoken are blatantly anti-democratic, but they’re still happening,” Myrick said.

Ryan Patraw processes ballots at the Marion County Clerk’s Office in Salem, Ore., on May 16. Judges in Oregon and California have ruled against the Trump administration’s requests to turn over voter data. (Photo by Ron Cooper/Oregon Capital Chronicle)

The Trump administration hit two major legal roadblocks this week in its effort to obtain sensitive personal voter data from states.

On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge David Carter dismissed a lawsuit by the Department of Justice against California seeking voter information. The Trump administration has demanded that at least 40 states provide unredacted voter data, which can include driver’s license and Social Security numbers. The department has sued 21 states and Washington, D.C., that have refused to provide the data.

Carter, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, called the government’s request “unprecedented and illegal” in a 33-page ruling.

Just a day earlier, U.S. District Court Judge Mustafa Kasubhai said he planned to dismiss a similar lawsuit against Oregon. Kasubhai, an appointee of President Joe Biden, said his final written decision may be different.

“The federal government tried to abuse their power to force me to break my oath of office and hand over your private data,” Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read said in a statement about the tentative ruling, according to the Oregon Capital Chronicle. “I stood up to them and said no. Now, the court sided with us. Tonight, we proved, once again, we have the power to push back and win.”

The Justice Department has framed its demands as necessary to ensure states are properly maintaining their voter rolls. It says it needs the information to ensure ineligible people are kept off rolls and that only citizens are voting. The department is sharing state voter roll information with the Department of Homeland Security in a search for noncitizens, the Trump administration confirmed in September.

While election officials say well-maintained voter rolls are important, President Donald Trump and some of his Republican allies have long promoted baseless claims of widespread voter fraud. 

Democratic election officials have criticized the data requests, calling them an unwarranted attempt by the Trump administration to exercise federal power over elections. Under the U.S. Constitution, states administer elections, though Congress can regulate them.

In arguing for the data, the federal government cited the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act and Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, all of which were intended to protect elections and the right to vote. 

In California, Carter ruled that the federal government — and the court — are not authorized to use civil rights legislation “as a tool to forsake the privacy rights of millions of Americans.”

“There cannot be unbridled consolidation of all elections power in the Executive without action from Congress and public debate,” Carter wrote. “This is antithetical to the promise of fair and free elections our country promises and the franchise that civil rights leaders fought and died for.” 

The Justice Department did not immediately say whether it planned to appeal the ruling.

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

A patient registers for care at a mobile dental and medical clinic in August 2025. Nationwide, the number of people buying health plans on Obamacare insurance marketplaces is down by about 833,000 compared with a year ago, according to state and federal data. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Nationwide, the number of people buying health plans on Obamacare insurance marketplaces is down by about 833,000 compared with a year ago, according to federal data released this week.

Many states are reporting fewer new enrollees, more people dropping their coverage, and more people choosing cheaper and less generous health insurance plans with higher deductibles.

Across most states, Thursday was the last day to enroll for plans that start in February. But nine states and Washington, D.C., have deadlines later this month, so the numbers could change.

There are 21 states with state-run health insurance marketplaces, and the rest use the federal website. The vast majority of states have seen declines in enrollment so far, compared with around this time last year.

Preliminary data released Monday by the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services shows 22.8 million enrollees, down from a record total of 24.3 million last year.

Premiums have surged as a result of the expiration of enhanced federal subsidies first made available by the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021 and later extended through the end of 2025 by the Inflation Reduction Act. The availability of the subsidies spurred a sharp increase in the number of people buying health plans on the marketplaces. In 2020, 11.4 million people were enrolled in marketplaces through Obamacare, formally known as the Affordable Care Act. More than double that amount enrolled last year.

Congress failed to reach an agreement on extending the subsidies before the end of last year and still hasn’t reached one. As a result, premiums were expected to increase this year by 114% on average — from $888 last year to about $1,904, according to estimates made in September by health policy research organization KFF.

The higher costs appear to be driving many people to forgo insurance or opt for cheaper, less generous plans this year, health officials and analysts say. Several states with state-based marketplaces — including Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, Virginia and Washington — are reporting fewer enrollments this year in comparison with enrollments through early January 2025, according to early data. Other states, such as California, are reporting fewer new enrollees.

“It’s important to consider that this is preliminary data, so this represents people who have signed up and selected the plan — but they probably haven’t received their first premium bill,” said Elizabeth Lukanen, executive director of the health policy research organization State Health Access Data Assistance Center at the University of Minnesota. “Once that happens, I think there’s concern — and it seems very possible — that people may decide to drop coverage. So, the decline could get bigger.

“On the other hand, open enrollment hasn’t closed, so you have two things sort of competing. It seems pretty likely that there will be a decline,” she said.

If the downward trend continues, the nation could see the first decline in enrollment since 2020, Lukanen said, adding that a full picture of income levels and demographics of people who have dropped coverage won’t be clear until the summer.

In Pennsylvania, data updated through Tuesday shows more than 15,000 previously enrolled adults between the ages of 55 and 64 have dropped coverage entirely — the most of any age bracket.

Pennsylvania’s state-based exchange, Pennie, has seen about 15% fewer new enrollments compared with last year. The state is also reporting 1,000 residents dropping coverage per day during open enrollment — with the most coverage losses among people with incomes 150% to 200% of the poverty level. These could include families of two adults and two children with an income between $48,225 and $64,300.

The state is seeing an “unprecedented” number of previously enrolled people dropping coverage, said Devon Trolley, executive director of the Pennsylvania Health Insurance Exchange Authority.

California is reporting 31% fewer new enrollees this year compared with last year, and more than a third of new enrollees are choosing bronze plans — the lowest, least generous coverage tier — up from less than a quarter at this time last year.

In Minnesota, data as of Dec. 3 shows more than half of active enrollees are opting to keep their coverage tier. But of those changing plans, more than a third — 37% — are going to cheaper plans. The state notes a full picture won’t be available until March.

Meanwhile, some states are seeing roughly the same number of enrollees or more. Texas, for example, is reporting about 4.1 million people enrolling this year compared with 4 million last year.

Charles Miller, health and economic mobility policy director at Texas 2036, a policy research nonprofit, said it’s unclear why enrollments are up, but pointed to some clues.

“Texas had a uniquely large population of uninsured individuals eligible for free and inexpensive plans that hadn’t enrolled previously … [and] has more affordable bronze and gold plans than many states,” he said.

He attributes that to a bipartisan state law, enacted in 2021, that had the effect of increasing subsidies for those plans, Miller said.

Nevada is seeing fewer enrollees overall. But compared with this time last year, the state is seeing 29% more people who are actively shopping the website to explore plans, said Katie Charleson, communications officer at the Nevada Health Authority Division of Consumer Health Services.

The state introduced a new public option, according to the Nevada Current, and health officials told lawmakers last week that about 1 in 5 active shoppers are opting for that plan.

In addition to the expiration of the subsidies, the cost of coverage has risen because of other factors, according to insurers. They say they’ve had to raise premiums because of rising prescription drug costs, inflation and workforce challenges, such as provider shortages.

But the enhanced premium tax credits were aimed at buffering those year-to-year changes for Americans with lower incomes, said Trolley, adding that the tax credit structure “helps make sure that [enrollees] don’t see those really larger drops that happen from time to time, sort of from those market forces.”

“When there are broader rate increases of … the total cost of the coverage, the tax credits are structured so that people who get a tax credit don’t feel a lot of that increase. They’re sort of sheltered from it on a year to year basis,” Trolley said. “The tax credit is tied to someone’s income and limits what they pay as part of their income, not necessarily tied to the cost of the coverage.”

She added that she’s also heard from some residents who say they are waiting to enroll in a plan to see if Congress takes action.

“People are leaving the ACA marketplace because the trade-offs have just become harder to justify,” Lukanen said. “What worries me is that when the coverage becomes unaffordable, it isn’t that people suddenly stop needing care. They just lose the protection that insurance offers, and those health care costs don’t go away.”

Lukanen added that if more people forgo coverage, health care services may end up costing the nation more overall.

“If people are going to the doctor and they don’t have insurance, these costs are then just shifted. They’re shifted to hospitals, ultimately to the community and the taxpayer.”

Trolley echoed that, saying she’s concerned about the overall burden on providers in rural counties, which are seeing the highest drops in Obamacare coverage in Pennsylvania.

“Any increase in the uninsured rate is going to further strain providers that are in rural areas, especially — further strain their financial situation,” she said. “We are very concerned about that in Pennsylvania.”

Stateline reporter Nada Hassanein can be reached at nhassanein@stateline.org.

President Donald Trump tours the assembly line at the Ford River Rouge Complex on Jan. 13, 2026 in Dearborn, Michigan. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump promised during his bid for another White House term that he would be a dictator only on “day one.”

Before a town hall audience in Iowa in December 2023, Fox News host Sean Hannity asked Trump, “Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody?”

“Except for day one,” Trump responded, seconds later adding, “I want to close the border and I want to drill, drill, drill.”

But a year since his inauguration, Trump has acted on some of his most extreme campaign hyperbole, and then some. 

A limited history of Trump’s expansion of presidential powers includes:

• The unilateral capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Máduro and deadly U.S. military strikes on suspected drug-running boats off that nation’s coast, as well as a threat to acquire Greenland.
• The targeting of Democratic-led cities with federal immigration agents — most recently Minneapolis — and National Guard troops.
• The threat to cut congressionally approved funding from institutions, including universities, that do not align with the administration’s ideology.
• The prosecution of political opponents and attacks on the free press.

Those actions and others, coupled with a cooperative GOP Congress, have created an unprecedented shift away from the United States’ democratic tradition and founding principles that establish a system of checks and balances, States Newsroom was told in extensive interviews over recent months.

Many congressional Democrats — and nearly half of Americans, in a recent poll — believe Trump has gone too far in his expansion of presidential power. Historians, political scientists and legal experts have sounded the alarm, with some saying the United States has reached authoritarianism, even as Trump has shown no signs of slowing down. 

Experts interviewed agreed that the United States finds itself in a “troubled moment,” as William Howell, dean of the School of Government and Policy at Johns Hopkins University, put it. 

“We’ve never seen a presidency that represents such an enduring threat to the health and well-being of our democracy as we do today,” said Howell, who recently co-authored the book “Trajectory of Power: The Rise of the Strongman Presidency.”

Experts wary 

Ilya Somin, professor of law at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School and constitutional studies expert with the libertarian Cato Institute, said “I don’t know that it is likely that we’re going to slide into authoritarianism, but the very fact that the issue has to be raised is itself already bad.”

“My hope, and to some extent my expectation, is that a combination of legal and political action will stop these abuses, or at least curb them, and to some extent, it has already. But, you know, how well the system withstands it remains to be seen,” Somin told States Newsroom.

Others painted a more dire picture by pointing to the lack of such checks from the other branches of government.

Retired Army Col. David Graham, a senior fellow at the Georgetown Law Center’s Center on National Security, said Congress’ inability to block Trump’s military action in Venezuela shows that the president is operating with “unbridled” power.

“This unbridled presidential authority represents what I consider to be a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States and to the global security of the international community,” Graham said.

The Cato Institute’s Patrick Eddington offered: “It is absolutely noteworthy the speed and systematic nature (with) which Trump has been successful in literally gutting and reshaping to his will the domestic instruments of coercive power.” 

“I speak here about the departments of Justice and Homeland Security, in particular, but also successful in reshaping the military, the military leadership and the entire institution, to make it essentially as subservient as possible,” Eddington, the think tank’s senior fellow in homeland security and civil liberties, and former senior policy adviser for Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., told States Newsroom.

Doubts growing among Americans

Pollsters also find voters are increasingly wary of Trump’s governing style.

A recent Quinnipiac University poll found 70% believed the president needed authorization from Congress to go to war. The same day the poll was released, Jan. 14, the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate rejected a measure to require Trump to obtain permission before further operations in Venezuela.

Bright Line Watch, a quarterly survey of the health of American democracy, has shown a decline in both expert and public opinion of how U.S. democracy has fared since Trump’s inauguration. The poll, conducted since 2017, surveys roughly 700 political science faculty at U.S. universities and 2,750 members of the general public.

A Pew Research Center survey of 3,455 adults released in late September found 7 in 10 Americans believe Trump is trying to exert more presidential power than previous administrations. And overall, 49% of those surveyed said that Trump’s use of power compared to presidents past is bad for the country — though responses notably split along partisan lines.

In response to an interview request for this story, White House spokesperson Liz Huston provided a one-sentence on-the-record written statement.

“President Trump is making America greater than ever before for all Americans,” she wrote.

Throughout its first year, the Trump White House has trumpeted its many policy victories, including conducting mass deportations, raising money through tariffs, extending tax cuts, cutting some federal spending and exerting influence over elite universities.

Deploying the National Guard 

Throughout 2025, until the Supreme Court disallowed the practice days before New Year’s, Trump sent National Guard troops to a handful of cities led by elected Democrats. 

Depending on the city — Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Chicago; Portland, Oregon; Memphis, Tennessee; and New Orleans  —  he rationalized the deployments as either to control crime or protect immigration operations and federal property.

His critics, though, say those were pretexts meant to get Americans used to seeing military forces in U.S. cities, potentially to be deployed during the next federal elections.

“It’s really designed to lay the groundwork to normalize a militarization, essentially, of American civic life, as a prelude to using federal troops and National Guard troops, probably specifically for so-called election integrity operations,” Eddington said.

 

The deployments themselves, especially in California, Illinois and Oregon, where Democratic governors who usually control the state national guards vociferously objected to federal troops patrolling their cities, seemed to violate a founding U.S. principle against the military acting as a police force. 

The Supreme Court eventually ruled that the Chicago deployment violated the Posse Comitatus Act, a 19th-century law forbidding military forces from civilian law enforcement.

Trump’s use of military forces domestically is out of step with precedent, at least of the last 50 years, Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, said.

“The last nine presidents, not counting Trump I, we saw exactly two deployments to quell civil unrest or enforce the law,” she said. “Nine presidencies. Under President Trump, it’s happened five times in the last four months. So this is not normal,” said Goitein, who previously worked as counsel to former Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis.

Oregon Democratic U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley told States Newsroom the deployments marked one of the criteria of authoritarianism.

“In order to anchor a strong-man state, you have to have the ability to put troops in the street,” he said.

All night on the Senate floor 

Congressional Democrats, and in a few cases Republicans, have also protested Trump’s reach.

Days after nationwide “No Kings” day protests filled the streets on Oct. 18, Merkley led fellow Senate Democrats in an all-nighter on the Senate floor, speaking against what they described as Trump’s slide into authoritarianism. 

In mid-December, Merkley introduced a resolution “denouncing the horrors of authoritarianism.”

Merkley has emerged as perhaps the leading Democrat focusing on Trump’s authoritarian tendencies. He’s made several closed-door presentations to his colleagues on the subject that includes urging them to look beyond the daily drumbeat of Trump news, he said.

“It’s one issue after another in this flood-the-zone undertaking, and it’s easy to see the issue of the day and miss the big picture,” Merkley said in a Jan. 8 interview with States Newsroom. “And the big picture is a systematic implementation of an authoritarian strategy to create a strong-man state.” 

Merkley has branded Trump’s actions as authoritarianism, but said that is actually “weaker” language to describe it.

“The stronger language is fascism,” he said. 

Speaking the day after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis, Merkley said the agency’s mode of operating under Trump, as well as the deportation of hundreds to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, were fascism in action.

“And when you see people with their faces covered, with no identifier of what military unit or police unit they belong to, it just says like, ‘Police.’ That’s fascism. Grabbing people off the street without due process, preventing them from talking to a lawyer, shipping them overseas. That’s fascism,” he said.

Congressional Republicans who control the Senate and the House have paved a smooth path for Trump’s agenda.

Despite a notable rebuke of Trump, in which a handful of Senate Republicans joined Democrats to advance legislation to curtail Trump’s unilateral military actions in Venezuela, the chamber eventually opted not to rein in the executive.

Republican Sens. Todd Young of Indiana, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska split with their party in the Jan. 8 procedural vote to act as a check on the administration’s use of military forces — as did Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, the measure’s co-sponsor with Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia. 

Trump swiftly responded on Truth Social that the five “should never be elected to office again.”

The pressure campaign worked. In a followup vote less than a week later, Young and Hawley flipped and voted to block the measure.

Five days prior to the procedural vote, U.S. special forces apprehended Maduro and his wife from their bedroom in the Venezuela capital of Caracas.

Extra-judicial Caribbean killings

In the months leading up to the operation, the Trump administration amassed roughly 15,000 troops and personnel, according to a figure cited in a U.S. Southern Command press article, and nearly a dozen warships in the region, including the largest U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, according to numerous media reports on the buildup. U.S. Southern Command declined to confirm specifics on “force posture.” 

Since September, U.S. warplanes have targeted numerous small boats off the coast of the South American country, killing more than 115 alleged “narco-terrorists” by the end of 2025, according to the U.S. Southern Command.

By using the military, instead of police, to kill, instead of capture, suspected drug traffickers, Trump was subverting the rule of law, critics across the political spectrum said.

Rep. Adam Smith, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, said, “Basically what the president has decided is that we are now going to have the death penalty for drug traffickers.” 

“But further, not only are we gonna have the death penalty, but Trump is going to be judge, jury and executioner. … That, again, is a massive expansion of presidential power,” Smith, a Washington state Democrat, told C-SPAN’s Washington Journal Dec. 19.

Graham, a former staff judge advocate for U.S. Southern Command, said the alleged drug-running boats should have been treated as suspected criminals, not as enemy combatants akin to terrorist groups like al-Qaida. The alleged drug organizations involved did not constitute an “armed attack on the U.S. government,” he said.

But the Trump administration wrongly expanded the definition of enemy combatants to include alleged drug organizations, rather than as alleged criminals, to circumvent laws governing police powers, he said. 

“If there exists no non-international armed conflict, and thus no applicable law of armed conflict, no unlawful combatants, no lawful targets, the U.S. personnel conducting these strikes. …  are simply engaged in extrajudicial killings,” he said. 

Perhaps most troubling, Graham said, Trump told New York Times reporters in a Jan. 7 interview he did not “need” international law, and that the only restraint on his use of the U.S. military was his “own morality.”

Venezuela is not the only country on Trump’s radar. The president told reporters as recently as Jan. 11 that the U.S. is going to take over Greenland “one way or the other.” 

Trump first mentioned buying Greenland, a territory of NATO ally Denmark, during his first term. Now, in his second, the president has not ruled out the idea of taking the massive Arctic island by force. 

Quashing dissent 

Soon after Trump took the oath of office for the second time, he trained his focus on any dissent. Universities, media outlets and law firms were quickly in his crosshairs. 

The president demanded that in return for federal funding, access to government buildings and contracts, the institutions adhere to principles in line with the administration’s vision for America. 

The administration froze billions of federal research and grant dollars for Harvard University unless it changed its admissions and hiring policies, among other demands. The university won a First Amendment lawsuit against the administration in Massachusetts federal district court Sept. 3. 

Much of the funding was restored, according to Harvard Magazine, but the Trump administration appealed the decision in mid-December, again putting the nearly $2.2 billion in jeopardy. 

Other higher education institutions settled with Trump’s White House, including Columbia, which agreed to pay $200 million over three years to get its federal funding reinstated. 

“Universities that Trump considers to be liberal in their views are being punished. Journalists and media companies that don’t toe the line (and) that are critical of Trump are being punished, directly or indirectly,” Goitein said. 

“Everywhere you look, you are seeing the targeting of people and institutions based on perceptions that they are politically opposed to the president,” Goitein said.

In late September, Trump signed a memo directing law enforcement to prepare a national strategy to investigate “domestic terrorists” who are animated by “anti-fascism” as well as “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity.”

Attacks on the free press

The president has also homed in on news and entertainment media that don’t align with his vision.

The Associated Press and the White House remain tangled up in court over press access after the wire service refused to use “Gulf of America” in its reports without noting that Trump had ordered a renaming of the Gulf of Mexico. The AP, a leader in editorial style, issued the same guidance for other news outlets. In response, the administration curtailed the AP’s access to press events in the Oval Office and on Air Force One. 

The Pentagon has also placed stipulations on press access. In October, dozens of reporters walked out of the building after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth gave journalists an ultimatum: either sign a pledge to only publish approved material or lose their press badges.

Trump also requested Congress yank previously appropriated funds for public broadcasting stations around the country, including affiliates of National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service, which the administration said “fueled partisanship and left-wing propaganda.” House and Senate lawmakers voted mostly along party lines to nix the funding in July.

Trump has also been exerting influence over network television, both news and entertainment operations.

In September, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr threatened to revoke Disney-owned ABC’s affiliate licenses unless they pulled “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” from the air after the late-night host made comments about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Disney and ABC adhered to Carr’s demand but reinstated Kimmel a week later following public outcry.

ABC News settled with the then president-elect in December 2024 for a $15 million charitable contribution to his future presidential library, and $1 million for legal fees. Trump had sued the network for defamation following a misstatement by “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos regarding a civil suit finding.

In July, CBS’ parent company, Paramount, paid Trump $16 million after he sued over an edit in a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

Trump and his enemies 

Trump’s latest target among his political foes is Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. The president has publicly pummeled Powell with threats to fire him if he did not rapidly lower interest rates.

Powell learned Jan. 9 upon receiving a federal grand jury summons that the Department of Justice is probing whether he lied to Congress in June about renovation costs to the agency’s District of Columbia headquarters. 

Trump’s investigation of the Fed chair drew swift criticism as an overreach into independent monetary policy decisions meant to stabilize the economy.

Numerous former Fed chairs and White House economic officials who served under both parties issued a statement calling the investigation  “an unprecedented attempt to use prosecutorial attacks to undermine that independence.”

The investigation revelation even roused Senate Republicans to question Trump’s actions. Retiring Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said in a statement he will oppose Trump’s forthcoming nominations to the Federal Reserve board of governors, including the Fed chair vacancy when Powell’s term expires.

“If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none,” wrote Tillis, who sits on the Senate Banking Committee. 

Murkowski chalked up the investigation as “nothing more than an attempt at coercion.” 

Even Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told numerous reporters on Capitol Hill Jan. 12 that the allegations against Powell “better be real and they better be serious.”

Trump had already exerted his influence over the central bank when he fired Board Governor Lisa Cook, appointed to the panel by President Joe Biden in 2023.  

Trump hit setbacks in lower federal courts after Cook sued and retained her position. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on Jan. 21 on the question of the president’s power to fire independent agency appointees without cause. 

The justices heard a similar argument Dec. 8 over Trump’s firing of Federal Trade Commission appointee Rebecca Slaughter. 

The president has so far hit roadblocks in his other attempts to prosecute political opponents, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

A federal judge in Virginia dismissed Trump’s cases against Comey and James after finding U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi illegally appointed former special assistant and personal lawyer to the president, Lindsey Halligan, as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Halligan secured a two-count indictment against the former FBI chief for allegedly lying to Congress over a leak to the press about the bureau’s investigation into whether Russia played a role in Trump’s first presidential campaign. Comey pleaded not guilty.

The indictment followed the departure of Halligan’s predecessor, Erik Seibert, the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, who declined to seek charges against Comey.

Halligan also secured an indictment against James, alleging bank fraud and that she lied to a financial institution to receive better loan terms. James also pleaded not guilty.

James successfully prosecuted a massive fraud case in 2024 against Trump, his family and the Trump Organization, for falsely inflating asset values.

In one particularly high-profile post on his own social media platform, Trump directly appealed to Bondi to prosecute Comey and James.

“Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, ‘same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

He continued further down in the post: “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

Eddington described Trump’s actions as a “revenge tour” and said the president is “utilizing the coercive power of government, and in this particular case the Department of Justice, to go after his political enemies.”

Then, the administration on Jan. 5  attempted to downgrade the military retirement rank and pay of Sen. Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat and retired Navy captain. 

Trump and Hegseth singled out Kelly after he and five fellow Democratic lawmakers, all veterans, published a video encouraging U.S. troops to refuse “illegal orders.” 

In a barrage of Truth Social posts on the morning of Nov. 20, Trump wrote, “Their words cannot be allowed to stand. SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR FROM TRAITORS!!! LOCK THEM UP??? President DJT” 

“SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!,” he added a couple of hours later.

The president reposted several messages from Truth Social users, including one with the handle @P78 who wrote, “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!” 

The lawmakers published the video as the U.S. was nearly three months into its campaign of striking small boats off the coast of Venezuela.

Alien Enemies Act

The president has also reached back as far as the late 18th century to invoke laws meant for extraordinary circumstances.

In March, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to bolster his mass deportation campaign and deport more than 100 Venezuelans, without due process, to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador. 

The wartime law, which had only been invoked during the War of 1812 and both world wars, gives the president power to deport people from nations with which the U.S. is at war.

Even when a federal judge issued an emergency order that the flights carrying men deported under the law turn back to the U.S., the Trump administration did not comply. As of Jan. 13, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it was unlikely the men could be retrieved due to the chaotic situation in Venezuela, which the Trump administration caused.

The Venezuelan nationals, ages 14 and up, many of whom the administration accused without evidence of being gang members, were incarcerated for months before being released to their home country in a prisoner exchange.   

A federal appeals court has blocked Trump, for now, from using the law to quickly expel Venezuelan nationals. A full hearing is pending.

Trump renaming

Trump is also facing headwinds from Democrats and advocates for affixing his name to federal buildings and his face to this year’s national parks annual pass.

Senate Democrats Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland joined independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont Jan. 13 to introduce what they’re calling the “SERVE Act,” short for “Stop Executive Renaming for Vanity and Ego Act.” 

The lawmakers unveiled the bill less than a month after Trump announced his name would now appear on the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. Trump was elected chair of the cultural center after he installed new board members early in his second term.

Sanders said in a statement that Trump aimed “to create the myth of the ‘Great Leader’ by naming public buildings after himself — something that dictators have done throughout history.”

Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, sued Trump in federal court on Dec. 22, alleging only Congress has the power to rename federal buildings.

A public lands group has also challenged Trump in federal court, alleging he broke the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act when he replaced a national contest-winning photo of Glacier National Park with his image next to George Washington on the U.S. residents’ annual National Parks and Federal Recreation Lands Pass.

‘The best job ever’

Nearly a year after he took office, Trump again sat down with Hannity. 

In the Jan. 8 interview — the same day the administration sent more federal agents to Minneapolis in the face of intense protests and a day after the president said his own morality was the only restraint on his power — the Fox News host asked whether Republicans will win the upcoming midterm elections.

“I think we’ve done a great job,” Trump said. “Maybe the best job ever in the first year.”

Timeline graphic by Ashley Murray.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivers a speech to a crowd of approximately 7,000 people on May 17, 1967, at UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza in Berkeley, California. (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s words from his “Beyond Vietnam” speech still ring true.

“When machines and computers, profit motives, and property rights are considered more important than people,” he warned, “the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

Those words, delivered in 1967, still summarize today’s political moment. Instead of putting the lives of workingAmericans first, our leaders in Congress and the WhiteHouse have prioritized advancing corporate profits and wealth concentration, slashing government programs meant to advance upward mobility, and deploying military forces across the country, increasing distrust and tension.

This historic regression corresponds with a recessionary environment for Black America in particular. That’s what my organization, the Joint Center, found in our report, “State of the Dream 2026: From Regression to Signs of a Black Recession.”

The economic landscape for Black Americans in 2026 is troubling, with unemployment rates signaling a potential recession. By December 2025, Black unemployment had reached 7.5 percent — a stark contrast to the national rate of 4.4 percent. This disparity highlights the persistent economic inequalities faced by Black communities, which have only been exacerbated by policy shifts that have weakened the labor market. The volatility in Black youth unemployment, which fluctuated dramatically in the latter months of 2025, underscores the precariousness of the situation.

The Trump administration’s executive orders have systematically dismantled structures aimed at promoting racial equality. By targeting programs such as Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 Equal Employment Opportunity executive order and defunding agencies like the Minority Business

Development Agency, the administration has shifted federal support away from disadvantaged businesses. As a result, Black-owned firms risk losing contracts and resources tied to federal programs, potentially resulting in job losses and reduced economic growth. These changes threaten billions in federal revenue for Black-owned firms and undermine efforts to move beyond racial inequality in the workforce.

The GOP’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” passed in 2025, further entrenches inequality by providing tax cuts that disproportionately benefit high-income households and corporations — while simultaneously slashing investments in programs like Medicaid and SNAP, limiting access to essential services for low-income households. The technology sector, a critical component of the American economy, is also affected by this disregard for civil rights. Executive orders like “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence” have stripped away protections that could advance inclusion in this rapidly growing field. As a result, the future of the American economy risks reinforcing past inequalities.

Dr. King’s call for strong, aggressive federal leadership in addressing racial inequality remains highly relevant. However, instead of eradicating structures of inequality, our current leadership is implementing policies that destroy government jobs and dismantle agencies responsible for preventing predatory economic practices. These choices undermine longstanding efforts to combat racial and economic disparities — and exemplify the regressive economic policies that coincide with rising Black unemployment.

As Dr. King stated, “we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.” But urgent action is required. Unless we act deliberately, economic and racial inequalities will become entrenched, resulting in generational loss. The core question is whether we will move beyond our nation’s history of racism, materialism, and militarism, and — as Dr. King urged — embrace “the fierce urgency now” to advance equity.

This article originally appeared in OtherWords.org

Kilmar Abrego Garcia speaks to a crowd of people who held a prayer vigil and rally on his behalf outside the ICE building in Baltimore on Aug. 25, 2025. Lydia Walther Rodriguez with CASA interprets for him. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)

WASHINGTON — The first year of President Donald Trump’s return to the White House was defined by clashes with the judiciary branch, as the president and his administration pushed forward with an aggressive immigration agenda.

In the past year, the Trump administration has aimed to drastically change immigration policy in the United States, including by stripping millions of immigrants of their legal status and attempting to redefine the constitutional right of birthright citizenship.  

The moves have often run directly against the judiciary branch. 

Federal judges briefly stalled the Trump administration’s plans to deploy the National Guard in Portland, Oregon, for immigration enforcement. They also blocked the invocation of an archaic wartime law to expel immigrants from the country — a move that raised concerns, all the way up to the Supreme Court, about skirting the due process rights of immigrants.

In response, the president for the last year frequently battled with federal judges, such as in June, when the Justice Department sued all judges in federal court in Maryland over a two-day pause in deportations to ensure due process rights for immigrants.

Trump also fixated on certain judges that put his policies on hold, such as the District of Columbia’s Chief Judge James Emanuel Boasberg.

Boasberg blocked the Trump administration from deporting certain immigrants under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and ordered the return of deportation flights that, despite his restraining order, still landed at a brutal prison in El Salvador. 

Trump’s singling out of Boasberg in late March, and calling for his impeachment, prompted a rare rebuke from conservative Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.

But the Supreme Court has often handed wins to the Trump administration on numerous emergency appeals. The high court allowed for deportations of immigrants to countries they have no ties to, referred to as third-country removals, and allowed the use of race in immigration enforcement in Los Angeles. 

The president has found himself at odds with a range of groups in response to his harsh immigration policy.

A group of Quakers sued the Department of Homeland Security after officials removed a so-called sensitive locations policy that limited immigration enforcement in places of worship. 

The Trump administration also faced backlash in its attempt to quickly deport Guatemalan children in the middle of the night, where a Trump nominated judge said the Department of Justice’s arguments for the move “crumbled like a house of cards.”

Out of the dozens of lawsuits against the Trump administration, here are the five most significant court cases related to the president’s immigration policies:

Alien Enemies Act

Last March, two deportation planes carrying immigrants removed under an 18th-century wartime law were ordered to return to the U.S. by Boasberg, chief judge for the District Court for the District of Columbia. 

But the planes still landed in El Salvador, and 137 Venezuelan men were sent to a brutal prison known as CECOT after Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. The wartime law would apply to any Venezuelan national 14 and older who was suspected of being a member of the Tren de Aragua gang. 

Boasberg then spent months probing whether Trump officials defied his order to turn the planes around. Last month, he concluded that the deportations were illegal and carried out in defiance of his order.

The 137 Venezuelan men were eventually released from CECOT last summer through a prisoner exchange. Boasberg determined that even though the men are no longer imprisoned, they still need to be afforded their due process rights and he ordered the Trump administration to propose a way to afford those due process rights. 

In the latest major development, last month he directed the administration to create a plan on how to do that, such as providing some form of video interview before an immigration judge. 

The Trump administration has argued because of the U.S. military operations to extract Venezuela’s president from the county, the situation is fluid, and they cannot provide a timeline for complying with Boasberg’s order from last month. 

The Justice Department’s most recent filing, from Jan. 12, objects to the court’s order to facilitate remote due process hearings, and “given the current political instability in Venezuela, there is a serious risk of intentional interference with remote proceedings.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio also submitted a Jan. 12 declaration to the court, saying that “introducing the matter of the disposition of the 137 class members into these discussions at this time would risk material damage to U.S. foreign policy interests in Venezuela.” 

He added that the U.S. does not know where the 137 Venezuelan men are. 

“Given the passage of time, the U.S. government does not know—nor does it have any way of knowing—the whereabouts of class members, including whether anyone has departed Venezuela or whether the regime subsequently took anyone back into custody,” Rubio said. 

Kilmar Abrego Garcia

The wrongful deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant and longtime Maryland man, cast a national spotlight on the president’s aggressive immigration crackdown. 

Abrego Garcia’s case has highlighted the Trump administration’s appetite for mass deportations. The case started last March in the District Court of the District of Maryland, after Trump officials mistakenly removed Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, despite removal protections placed by an immigration judge in 2019 because it was likely Abrego Garcia would face violence if returned to his home country. 

But in March, Abrego Garcia was placed on a plane, along with Venezuelans removed under the Alien Enemies Act, to the brutal El Salvador mega-prison known as CECOT.

Federal Judge Paula Xinis ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return, but the Trump administration took the issue all the way to the Supreme Court, arguing that it could not force another government to comply with the U.S.

The Supreme Court sided with Abrego Garcia, but stopped short of ordering his return.   

Abrego Garcia was brought back to the U.S. several months later to face a criminal indictment in Tennessee over allegations of human smuggling. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges, and another federal judge has found cause that the Justice Department brought the indictment in a vindictive move against Abrego Garcia.

Since his return, Abrego Garcia has detailed psychological and physical torture he experienced at CECOT. The Trump administration has also tried to remove him to a country to which he has no ties because of the 2019 removal protections.

Trump officials re-detained Abrego Garcia and have tried to remove him to the African nations of Eswatini, Ghana, Uganda and Liberia, despite Costa Rica’s willingness to accept Abrego Garcia as a refugee and his willingness to go. 

For that reason, Xinis ordered Abrego Garcia’s release from an ICE facility in Pennsylvania and barred the Trump administration from re-detaining him. 

She is currently overseeing Abrego Garcia’s challenge to his detention on the grounds that the Trump administration is using his imprisonment as punishment rather than for the purpose of removal. 

A Jan. 14 hearing was the most recent development in Abrego Garcia’s case. 

There, Xinis briefly conferred with his lawyers and Department of Justice attorneys regarding the timing of a final order of removal for Abrego Garcia was issued — the question was whether it was in 2019 or January 2025. 

The timing of the order of removal could determine whether the Trump administration can re-detain Abrego Garcia for removal. Xinis in December ordered Abrego Garcia’s release, because she determined the Trump administration was unlawfully detaining him and said ICE failed repeatedly to show a final order of removal existed.

Xinis said she plans to make a final decision in Abrego Garcia’s case by Feb. 12.

Birthright Citizenship

One of Trump’s first executive orders he signed on Inauguration Day was ending the constitutional right to birthright citizenship. 

Under birthright citizenship, all children born in the United States are considered citizens, regardless of their parents’ legal status. There is a small carve-out for the children born of diplomats. 

If birthright citizenship were to be eliminated, more than 250,000 children born each year would not be granted U.S. citizenship and it would effectively create a class of 2.7 million stateless people by 2045, according to a recent study by the think tank the Migration Policy Institute.

In response to Trump’s executive order, multiple lawsuits were filed and lower courts across the country have granted preliminary injunctions against the order. 

One of the challenges to birthright citizenship, brought by Democratic attorneys general, made its way to the Supreme Court, but the Trump administration asked the justices to weigh in on the issue of nationwide injunctions issued by lower courts, rather than the merits of birthright citizenship. 

The justices decided on an order that limited nationwide injunctions, such as class action suits. 

The merits of birthright citizenship are now before the Supreme Court, which is expected to hear oral arguments in February. 

That birthright citizenship case is Barbara v. Trump, which stems from a case in New Hampshire. A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction to bar the executive order from taking effect against a class of babies born on or after Feb. 20, 2025. Those children would have been denied citizenship under the president’s executive order.  

Lawmakers’ Access to ICE Facilities 

As the Trump administration continues with aggressive immigration enforcement and detention, one of the few tools Democrats have, as the minority party, is oversight of Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities. 

More than 60,000 immigrants are detained across various ICE facilities in the country, and Democrats argue they need access to conduct oversight at the facilities. Under a 2019 appropriations law, any lawmaker can carry out an unannounced visit at a federal facility that holds immigrants. 

But after several Democrats were denied access to ICE facilities in July, due to a policy instituted by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that required seven days notice, a dozen House Democrats sued. 

Last month, a federal judge granted the lawmakers’ request to stay the new policy by Noem. But after Minnesota lawmakers said they were denied an oversight visit to an ICE facility following a deadly shooting by an immigration officer in Minneapolis, Democrats were back in court Jan. 14.

Noem required a seven-day notice, nearly identical to the policy that initially prompted the suit from Democrats last year. 

The federal judge handling the case, Jia Cobb, is probing whether the Trump administration has violated her court order.

Democrats who sued include: Joe Neguse of Colorado, Adriano Espaillat of New York, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Robert Garcia of California, J. Luis Correa of California, Jason Crow of Colorado, Veronica Escobar of Texas, Dan Goldman of New York, Jimmy Gomez of California, Raul Ruiz of California, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Norma Torres of California.

Expanded Use of Expedited Removal 

A pillar of the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign is the expanded use of expedited removal. The Trump policy allows the removal of immigrants through the interior of the country without an appearance before an immigration judge.

In March, immigration advocacy groups sued the Trump administration over the policy, arguing it stripped due process rights of immigrants. 

In August, the District Court for the District of Columbia issued a stay in the policy, temporarily blocking the Trump administration from using it. The Department of Justice appealed, and in September a panel of appellate judges denied the Trump administration’s request to lift the lower courts’ stay. 

Most recently, in December, the Trump administration defended the merits of its fast-track deportation policy before a panel of judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The Department of Justice argued that immigrants who have been in the country for less than two years without legal authorization are not guaranteed due process.

U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon takes in a selection of grade school students’ patriotic artworks and high schoolers’ recent output in a special installation set up at Exeter-West Greenwich Regional Junior High and High School in Rhode Island on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (Photo by Alexander Castro/Rhode Island Current)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education, for now, is backtracking on plans to garnish wages and seize tax refunds of student loan borrowers in default, the department announced Friday.

Less than a month after the agency said it would begin garnishing wages by sending notices to roughly 1,000 borrowers in default the first full week of January, the department said that the temporary delay would allow it to implement “major student loan repayment reforms” under Republicans’ tax and spending cut bill that President Donald Trump signed into law in 2025.

The delay would “give borrowers more options to repay their loans,” the department said. 

It was not immediately clear from the announcement how long the pause would last. 

Education Secretary Linda McMahon signaled earlier this week during the Rhode Island portion of her Returning Education to the States Tour that wage garnishment has been “put on pause for a bit.”  

The agency resumed collections for defaulted federal student loans in May after a pause that began during the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A borrower can have their wages garnished as a consequence of defaulting on their loans, and a loanholder can order an employer to withhold up to 15% of their disposable pay to collect defaulted debt without being taken to court, according to Federal Student Aid, an office of the Education Department.

The delay also applies to the Treasury Offset Program, which “allows the federal government to collect income tax refunds and certain government benefits (for example, Social Security benefits) from individuals who owe debts to the federal government,” per FSA. 

Aissa Canchola Bañez, policy director for the advocacy group Protect Borrowers, said in a Friday statement that “after months of pressure and countless horror stories from borrowers, the Trump Administration says it has abandoned plans to snatch working people’s hard-earned money directly from their paychecks and tax refunds simply for falling behind on their student loans.” 

“Amidst the growing affordability crisis, the Administration’s plans would have been economically reckless and would have risked pushing nearly 9 million defaulted borrowers even further into debt,” she added, while pointing to a Jan. 7 letter from Protect Borrowers and other organizations calling on McMahon to “immediately halt its plan to resume garnishment of millions of struggling borrowers’ wages.”

Nearly $800 million in funding for Wisconsin hospitals is in question due to potential rule changes under consideration by the Trump administration. (Photo by Thomas Barwick/Getty Images)

Nearly $800 million in funding for Wisconsin hospitals is in question due to potential rule changes under consideration by the Trump administration. 

Wisconsin lawmakers and Gov. Tony Evers rushed to finish the state budget in July, ahead of federal legislation making it to President Donald Trump’s desk, to ensure the state draw down additional federal funds. Whether the state will be able to benefit from that funding is now uncertain. 

The 2025-27 state budget included a provision to increase its Medicaid hospital assessment from 1.8% to 6% as a way to supplement the state’s Medicaid resources with matching contributions from the federal government. The change was meant to increase payments to hospitals and to offset the state’s funding for the Medical Assistance program. It was estimated to result in over $1 billion in additional revenue for Wisconsin hospitals. 

A Legislative Fiscal Bureau analysis this week found that “preliminary federal guidance from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has created some uncertainty about the allowability of changes to Wisconsin’s hospital assessment.”

29 Marklein Born Revenue Estimates

The analysis said that if the increase is disallowed then it would lead to a general purpose revenue shortfall of $396 million annually — or $792 million in the 2025-27 biennium.

“CMS indicated that this matter will be addressed through formal rule making procedures, and thus will be subject to provisions of notice and public comment. Pending additional information from the federal government, the allowability of the Act 15 changes is not currently known,” the LFB analysis stated. 

A group of eight Democratic state lawmakers, including state Rep. Steve Doyle and Sen. Brad Pfaff, both from Onalaska, sent a letter to U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden urging him to take action to help ensure Wisconsin receives the funds. Following the state budget, Van Orden claimed credit for helping secure the extra funds for the state.

“Our hospitals, and especially our rural hospitals were counting on that funding to keep their
doors open… At a time when our medical institutions are facing unprecedented financial challenges, we must do everything we can to ensure their ability to continue to operate. Our state budget was counting on it, and our constituents’ lives literally depend on it. We implore you to do everything in your power to reverse these catastrophic decisions,” the lawmakers wrote.

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A young woman asks AI companion ChatGPT for help this month in New York City. States are pushing to prevent the use of artificially intelligent chatbots in mental health to try to protect vulnerable users. (Photo by Shalina Chatlani/Stateline)

Editor’s note: If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.

States are passing laws to prevent artificially intelligent chatbots, such as ChatGPT, from being able to offer mental health advice to young users, following a trend of people harming themselves after seeking therapy from the AI programs.

Chatbots might be able to offer resources, direct users to mental health practitioners or suggest coping strategies. But many mental health experts say that’s a fine line to walk, as vulnerable users in dire situations require care from a professional, someone who must adhere to laws and regulations around their practice.

“I have met some of the families who have really tragically lost their children following interactions that their kids had with chatbots that were designed, in some cases, to be extremely deceptive, if not manipulative, in encouraging kids to end their lives,” said Mitch Prinstein, senior science adviser at the American Psychological Association and an expert on technology and children’s mental health.

“So in such egregious situations, it’s clear that something’s not working right, and we need at least some guardrails to help in situations like that,” he said.

While chatbots have been around for decades, AI technology has become so sophisticated that users may feel like they’re talking to a human. The chatbots don’t have the capacity to offer true empathy or mental health advice like a licensed psychologist would, and they are by design agreeable — a potentially dangerous model for someone with suicidal ideations. Several young people have died by suicide following interactions with chatbots.

States have enacted a variety of laws to regulate the types of interactions chatbots can have with users. Illinois and Nevada have completely banned the use of AI for behavioral health. New York and Utah passed laws requiring chatbots to explicitly tell users that they are not human. New York’s law also directs chatbots to detect instances of potential self-harm and refer the user to crisis hotlines and other interventions.

More laws may be coming. California and Pennsylvania are among the states that might consider legislation to regulate AI therapy.

President Donald Trump has criticized state-by-state regulation of AI, saying it stymies innovation. In December, he signed an executive order that aims to support the United States’ “global AI dominance” by overriding state artificial intelligence laws and establishing a national framework.

Still, states are moving ahead. Before Trump’s executive order, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis last month proposed a “Citizen Bill of Rights For Artificial Intelligence” that, among many other things, would prohibit AI from being used for “licensed” therapy or mental health counseling and provide parental controls for minors who may be exposed to it.

“The rise of AI is the most significant economic and cultural shift occurring at the moment; denying the people the ability to channel these technologies in a productive way via self-government constitutes federal government overreach and lets technology companies run wild,” DeSantis wrote on social media platform X in November.

‘A false sense of intimacy’

At a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last September, some parents shared their stories about their children’s deaths after ongoing interactions with an artificially intelligent chatbot.

Sewell Setzer III was 14 years old when he died by suicide in 2024 after becoming obsessed with a chatbot.

“Instead of preparing for high school milestones, Sewell spent his last months being manipulated and sexually groomed by chatbots designed by an AI company to seem human, to gain trust, and to keep children like him endlessly engaged by supplanting the actual human relationships in his life,” his mother, Megan Garcia, said during the hearing.

Another parent, Matthew Raine, testified about his son Adam, who died by suicide at age16 after talking for months with ChatGPT, a program owned by the company OpenAI.

“We’re convinced that Adam’s death was avoidable, and because we believe thousands of other teens who are using OpenAI could be in similar danger right now,” Raine said.

Prinstein, of the American Psychological Association, said that kids are especially vulnerable when it comes to AI chatbots.

“By agreeing with everything that kids say, it develops a false sense of intimacy and trust. That’s really concerning, because kids in particular are developing their brains. That approach is going to be unfairly attractive to kids in a way that may make them unable to use reason, judgment and restraints in the way that adults would likely use when interacting with a chatbot.”

The Federal Trade Commission in September launched an inquiry into seven companies making these AI-powered chatbots, questioning what efforts are in place to protect children.

​​“AI chatbots can effectively mimic human characteristics, emotions, and intentions, and generally are designed to communicate like a friend or confidant, which may prompt some users, especially children and teens, to trust and form relationships with chatbots,” the FTC said in its order.

Companies such as OpenAI have responded by saying that they are working with mental health experts to make their products safer and to limit chances of self-harm among its users.

“Working with mental health experts who have real-world clinical experience, we’ve taught the model to better recognize distress, de-escalate conversations, and guide people toward professional care when appropriate,” the company wrote in a statement last October.

Legislative efforts

With action at the federal level in limbo, efforts to regulate AI chatbots at the state level have had limited success.

Dr. John “Nick” Shumate, a psychiatrist at the Harvard University Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and his colleagues reviewed legislation to regulate mental health-related artificial intelligence systems across all states between January 2022 and May 2025.

The review found 143 bills directly or indirectly related to AI and mental health regulation. As of May 2025, 11 states had enacted 20 laws that researchers found were meaningful, direct and explicit in the ways they attempted to regulate mental health interactions.

They concluded that legislative efforts tended to fall into four different buckets: professional oversight, harm prevention, patient autonomy and data governance.

“You saw safety laws for chatbots and companion AIs, especially around self-harm and suicide response,” Shumate said in an interview.

New York enacted one such law last year that requires AI chatbots to remind users every three hours that it is not a human. The law also requires the chatbot to detect the potential of self-harm.

“There’s no denying that in this country, we’re in a mental health crisis,” New York Democratic state Sen. Kristen Gonzalez, the law’s sponsor, said in an interview. “But the solution shouldn’t be to replace human support from licensed professionals with untrained AI chatbots that can leak sensitive information and can lead to broad outcomes.”

In Virginia, Democratic Del. Michelle Maldonado is preparing legislation for this year’s session that would put limits on what chatbots can communicate to users in a therapeutic setting.

“The federal level has been slow to pass things, slow to even create legislative language around things. So we have had no choice but to fill in that gap,” said Maldonado, a former technology lawyer.

She noted that states have passed privacy laws and restrictions on nonconsensual intimate images, licensing requirements and disclosure agreements.

New York Democratic state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, who sponsored a law regulating AI transparency, said he’s seen the growing influence of AI companies at the state level.

And that is concerning to him, he said, as states try to take on AI companies for issues ranging from mental health to misinformation and beyond.

“They are hiring former staffers to become public affairs officers. They are hiring lobbyists who know legislators to kind of get in with them. They’re hosting events, you know, by the Capitol, at political conferences, to try to build goodwill,” Gounardes said.​​

“These are the wealthiest, richest, biggest companies in the world,” he said. “And so we have to really not let up our guard for a moment against that type of concentrated power, money and influence.”

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.

A trial over Missouri’s abortion regulations began Monday at the Jackson County Courthouse in Kansas City, Mo. Experts are watching the case, which could impact abortion access across the Midwest and South. (Photo by Kevin Hardy/Stateline)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The outcome of a trial over Missouri’s abortion regulations could ripple far beyond the state, potentially creating new availability for women in the Midwest and South who can’t access abortion close to home.

As a judge weighs the constitutionality of a litany of state restrictions on abortion, the stakes are clear for Missouri women: The decision could hamper access for nearly everyone in the state — or greatly broaden it in ways not seen in decades. That would allow women in a dozen nearby states with abortion bans to travel a shorter distance to access the procedure.

“Opening and reestablishing rights in the state of Missouri would help to alleviate some of the pressure that other states have since so many Southern states have banned abortion,” said Julie Burkhart, the co-owner of Hope Clinic in Granite City, Illinois. “It just seems logical that we would see a shift in migration patterns of patients in the country.”

At her clinic, about a 15-minute drive from downtown St. Louis, Missourians account for about half of all patients, Burkhart said. Though Missouri voters in 2024 enshrined a right to abortion in the state constitution, access has remained highly limited because of restrictive state laws. Only procedural abortions are available on a limited basis across three Planned Parenthood clinics in the state.

Many of those state laws face legal scrutiny this week as a Missouri judge weighs the constitutionality of regulations targeting abortion providers. Those include a 72-hour waiting period between initial appointments and procedures, mandatory pelvic exams for medication abortions and a ban on telemedicine appointments for medication abortions.

Planned Parenthood affiliates in Missouri argue state restrictions are unconstitutional under 2024’s voter-approved constitutional amendment. Over decades, state restrictions have gutted Missouri’s provider networks, limited appointment availability and ultimately forced abortions to a halt in 2022, before a limited number resumed after the 2024 vote.

Experts and advocates are closely monitoring the Missouri case, which is expected to be appealed regardless of the outcome, because of its practical implications on access in the region. While many women now rely on abortion medication, procedural abortion is still crucial for those seeking later-term abortions or who prefer an in-clinic procedure.

But the two-week bench trial in downtown Kansas City also tests lawmakers’ ability to put in place rules so restrictive that they effectively ban abortion — a practice used by anti-abortion lawmakers in other states looking to limit access to the procedure.

“Judges do not operate in a vacuum,” Burkhart said, “ … and we know for a fact that judges look outside the borders of their state for information and for guidance. I do see this as having national importance.”

That’s especially true in other states also litigating abortion access, including Arizona, Michigan and Ohio, said Rebecca Reingold, an associate director at Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law.

While state judges are not bound by the decisions of judges in other states, their deliberations can be informed by court rulings, particularly involving novel legal questions or areas of the law that are evolving.

“There is little doubt that advocates and decision-makers in other states navigating similar legal challenges are closely monitoring the litigation over Missouri’s abortion regulations,” Reingold said.

Restrictions targeting abortion

In the first days of the trial, Planned Parenthood leaders argued that ever-changing state laws and agency regulations have drastically limited access, caused needless red tape and posed privacy risk for their patients.

Dr. Margaret Baum, chief medical officer with St. Louis-based Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, said the Missouri requirements specifically target abortion rather than all other kinds of medical care.

“I provide vasectomies routinely. … And I am not required to have a complication plan, contact a primary care physician, even ask the patient how many miles they live from the health center.”

Opening day of Missouri abortion-rights trial focuses on decades of state restrictions

Baum said state-mandated reporting rules unique to abortion require clinicians to ask the race, education level, marital status and specific location of each patient — none of which is relevant to their care.

Planned Parenthood Great Rivers would like to offer abortion services in Springfield, Baum testified. Access in that region would provide an option for rural Missourians, and also could help serve residents in nearby Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, where abortion is almost universally banned.

But the organization’s facilities there do not meet state abortion regulations for physical attributes, including hallway size, doorway size and the number of recliners in recovery rooms, Baum testified.

Lawyers for the state defended Missouri’s restrictions as commonsense safeguards aimed at protecting vulnerable women. The attorney general’s office argued that complication risks of abortion justify additional state regulation — despite professional medical associations saying it’s generally safe. The AG’s office also maintained that Planned Parenthood faced a conflict of interest because of its financial motivations.

“Abortion is a business,” Deputy Solicitor General Peter Donohue said during a procedural argument on Monday. “Your Honor, the plaintiffs are asking to deregulate their profession in order to make more money.”

The state was expected to call as witnesses anti-abortion doctors and activists later in the trial.

Patients traveling for care

Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that overturned federal constitutional protections for abortion in June 2022, the number of abortions has increased slightly across the country, according to the health research nonprofit KFF.

The group points to expanded telehealth, which can offer medication abortion more affordably through virtual appointments.

Since the 2022 ruling and subsequent state abortion bans, patients have experienced higher travel costs for abortions and delays in care, according to research published in the American Journal of Public Health in July.

Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco found that travel time to access abortion increased from 2.8 hours to 11.3 hours for residents in states with abortion bans. Travel costs increased from $179 to $372. And more than half of survey respondents said their abortion care required an overnight hotel stay, compared with 5% before an abortion ban.

In 2024, an estimated 7,880 Missourians traveled to Illinois and 3,960 traveled to Kansas to access abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization focused on advancing reproductive rights.

Those Missourians were among the approximate 155,000 people who crossed state lines to access abortion care that year, representing 15% of all abortions provided in states without total bans.

Ongoing uncertainty

Regardless of its outcome, the Missouri case is expected to be appealed. Even if the plaintiffs are ultimately successful, it may take a long time to restore care networks across the state, said Isaac Maddow-Zimet, a data scientist at the Guttmacher Institute.

“And that’s particularly the case when there are states that have a lot of legal uncertainty or restrictions coming into effect and then coming out of effect,” he said. “It’s not quick to open up a clinic. It’s not quick to even necessarily expand the kinds of services, or the kinds of the number of people that a clinic can see.”

Kimya Forouzan, the organization’s principal state policy adviser, said Missouri’s landscape is evidence that lawmakers can drastically curb abortion access without total bans. And despite an overwhelming vote to amend the constitution, legal battles can follow.

Even if the state’s laws are found unconstitutional, Forouzan said, lawmakers will likely still push anti-abortion measures. She noted that several bills have already been introduced in this year’s just-convened legislative session, and that Republican lawmakers are pushing a ballot measure to repeal 2024’s reproductive rights amendment.

“There’s very much a push to pass as many restrictions as possible and kind of see what happens later and how things shape up later. … Time will tell, but we do know that they’re still pushing forth restrictions,” she said.

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org. Missouri Independent reporter Anna Spoerre can be reached at aspoerre@missouriindependent.com.

There are about 11 months until the primary, which is scheduled for August 11. Gubernatorial candidates at a November forum. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

The first campaign finance reports of the year show that Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley is leading the Democratic primary field in fundraising, while U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany is ahead in  the Republican primary field. Tiffany has raised about $2 million, the most of any candidate. The reports cover the period from July 1 to Dec. 31, 2025.

There are about 11 months until the primary, which is scheduled for August 11. 

Crowley leads Democratic field

Crowley, who launched his campaign in September, has raised $800,949, including $789,281 in donations and $11,666 in in-kind contributions. About $138,000 was transferred to his governor’s campaign from his county executive campaign committee account. 

According to his campaign finance report, he spent $187,529 and finished the period with $602,181 cash on hand. Seven contributors gave the maximum $20,000 donation allowed in the governor’s race, including executive of the Milwaukee Bucks Alex Lasry. 

“People across Wisconsin are feeling the financial squeeze, and they want a governor who knows how to get things done,” Crowley said in a statement. He said the support is providing him “the resources to build a serious, statewide operation focused on delivering results for working families.”

Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, who launched her campaign in July becoming the first Democratic candidate in the race, raised $618,284 in donations and $2,034 in in-kind contributions. She spent $174,894 and ended the period with $603,075. 

The Democratic Lt. Governors Association pledged in October to invest $2 million in independent expenditures in 2026 to support Rodriguez’s campaign. She listed a $86,000 contribution from the PAC. 

Former Department of Administration Sec. Joel Brennan, the latest candidate to launch a campaign, reported raising $566,212 in donations and $1,610 in in-kind contributions. He spent $13,873 and reported having $552,339 on hand at the end of the period. 

Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes raised $555,647 since launching his campaign on Dec. 2 from 3,790 donations. He spent $88,265 and ended the period with $471,471. Shortly after launching his campaign, Barnes said his fundraising goal is $50 million over the course of his campaign.

According to his campaign finance report, he received donations of the maximum $20,000 from megadonors George and Alexander Soros. 

Former Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation CEO Missy Hughes reported raising $465,403 and $13,681 in in-kind donations. She spent $63,059 and ended the period with $402,344 on hand. 

State Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison), a Democratic socialist, raised $368,685 in donations and $1,188 from in-kind contributions, though she also spent a majority of the funds during the period. According to her report, Hong spent $234,782 during the period and ended it with $134,588 on hand.

Hong’s fundraising came from over 7,300 donors. According to her campaign, the average donation was $49.96 and about 75% of the total dollars raised came from donors in Wisconsin.

State Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) raised $355,455 in donations and $23,132 from in-kind contributions during the period. According to her report, she spent $84,930 and reported having $334,032 on hand.

Roys reported four donations of the maximum $20,000, including from her husband and Peter Gunder, a former executive at American Family Insurance, and his wife. 

In a statement, Roys’ campaign said that about 82% of the donations to her campaign came from Wisconsin residents and that she isn’t accepting corporate donations. 

“Kelda’s campaign is funded by grassroots donors from every corner of the state. With our disciplined financial management and a committed Wisconsin donor base that is growing every day, Kelda will have the resources necessary to win the primary on August 11,” Roys’ campaign manager Jasper Bernstein said in a statement. 

Tiffany leads Schoemann in fundraising

Tiffany, who launched his campaign in September, led the field of GOP candidates, reported over $2 million raised — raising the most of any candidate in the Democratic or Republican field. The Republican primary field is much smaller than the Democratic field with only two candidates.

According to his campaign finance report, Tiffany raised $2,122,489 in donations and also received $3,808 in in-kind contributions. He spent $438,160 and ended the period with $1,695,038 on-hand. 

Tiffany also received $20,000 each from Republican megadonors Diane Hendricks, Dick Uihlein and Liz Uihlein. 

The largest donation Tiffany reported was $86,000 from the Wisconsin Federation of College Republicans. Wisconsin state law allows for unlimited donations from political parties to candidates.The College Republicans, who boasted raising over $1 million, had received $500,000 from the Uihleins.

Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann, who launched his campaign in early May, reported raising nearly $1 million over the course of the year.

During the reporting period from July to December, he brought in $535,650 in donations and $3,649 in in-kind donations. He spent $381,394 during the period and ended it with $492,495 in-hand.

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Multi-colored traditional Greenlandic homes in Nuuk, Greenland, are seen from the water on March 29, 2025. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump threatened Friday to place tariffs on Greenland and any country that opposes his efforts to take over the Arctic island, as members of Congress from both political parties were in Europe to assure allied nations that lawmakers won’t go along with his plans. 

“I may do that for Greenland too. I may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland because we need Greenland for national security,” Trump said. “So I may do that.”

Trump has been increasingly focused on acquiring Greenland during his second term in the Oval Office and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said earlier this month that “utilizing the U.S. Military is always an option at the Commander in Chief’s disposal.”

Lawmakers not on board

Republicans and Democrats in Congress have been skeptical or outright opposed to Trump’s aspirations for Greenland, a territory of Denmark, which is a NATO ally.

Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Maine independent Sen. Angus King, co-chairs of the Senate Arctic Caucus, met with officials from Denmark this week to try to reassure the country’s leaders. 

King wrote in a statement after the meeting that “the Denmark and Greenland coalition reiterated to us that they are fully prepared to cooperate with the United States in any way to expand our national security presence in Greenland – an agreement which goes back 75 years.” 

“It was a very productive meeting and I’m hopeful that the administration will finally realize that taking Greenland over by a military force is almost unthinkable — to attack essentially a NATO ally,” King added. “That would be the greatest gift to (Russian President) Vladimir Putin that this country could possibly bestow.”

Murkowski wrote that the “United States, Denmark and Greenland should be able to count on each other as partners in diplomacy and national security.”

“Respect for the sovereignty of the people of Greenland should be non-negotiable, which is why I was grateful for the opportunity to engage in direct dialogue with Foreign Ministers from Denmark and Greenland,” Murkowski wrote. “Meetings like the one held today are integral to building stronger relationships with our allies that will continue to endure amid a shifting geopolitical landscape.”

House speaker derides ‘media narrative’

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said during a press conference this week that he hasn’t heard any plans for military action in Greenland at any briefings he’s attended and that he believes “this is a media narrative that’s been created.”

Johnson said he doesn’t “anticipate any boots on the ground anywhere anytime soon,” though he added the United States does have national security and critical mineral interests in Greenland. 

“Greenland is of strategic importance, its geography and everything else. So look, again, you have to wait for that to play out. I’m going to leave it to the administration to articulate it how they will,” Johnson said. “But I think what the president is articulating is something that everybody objectively has to acknowledge, that Greenland has strategic significance to us and also to other countries around the world, so we need to play that very seriously.”

A bipartisan congressional delegation was in Denmark on Friday to communicate to leaders of that country and Greenland that they don’t support Trump’s efforts. 

Lawmakers on the trip include Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons, Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, Murkowski, New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, as well as Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean, Maryland Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer, California Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs, Delaware Democratic Rep. Sarah McBride and New York Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks.

Craig Stingley listens during a Milwaukee County court hearing. Stingley spent years fighting for justice after the death of his son Corey. | Taylor Glascock for ProPublica

This story was originally published by ProPublica

A judge in Milwaukee brought a 13-year quest for justice by a grieving father to a close on Thursday, accepting a plea deal for two men charged criminally for their role in the killing of his teenaged son.

Robert W. Beringer and Jesse R. Cole pleaded guilty to felony murder under a deferred prosecution agreement that allows them to avoid jail time yet publicly stand accountable for their actions leading to the 2012 death of Corey Stingley. The men helped restrain the 16-year-old inside a convenience store after an attempted shoplifting incident involving $12 worth of alcohol.

“What happened to Corey Stingley should have never happened. His death was unnecessary, brutal and devastating,” Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne told the judge in a letter filed with the court.

Both of Stingley’s parents spoke directly to the judge in an hourlong hearing in a courtroom filled with family members, community activists, spiritual leaders and some of the teen’s former classmates.

“Corey was my baby. A mother is not supposed to bury her child,” Alicia Stingley told the judge. She spoke of the grace of forgiveness, and after the hearing she hugged Beringer. The Stingleys’ surviving son, Cameron, shook both men’s hands.

The agreement requires Cole and Beringer to make a one-time $500 donation each to a charitable organization of the Stingley family’s choosing in honor of Corey. After six months, if the two men comply with the terms and do not commit any crimes, the prosecution will dismiss the case, according to documents filed with the court.

ProPublica, in a 2023 story, reexamined the incident, the legal presumptions, the background of the men and Stingley’s father’s relentless legal campaign to bring the men into court. The three men previously had defended their actions as justified and necessary to deal with an emergency as they held Stingley while waiting for police to arrive.

Ozanne, who was appointed in 2022 to review the case, recommended the agreement after the two men and the Stingley family engaged in an extensive restorative justice process, in which they sat face to face, under the supervision of a retired judge, and shared their thoughts and feelings. Ozanne said in the letter that the process “appears to have been healing for all involved.”

From the bench, Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Laura Crivello said she found the agreement to be fair and just and commended the work of all the parties to come to a resolution.

“Maybe this is the spark that makes other people see similarities in each other and not differences,” she said. “Maybe this is the spark that makes them think about restorative justice and how do we come together. And maybe this is part of the spark that decreases the violence in our community and leads us to finding the paths to have those circles to sit down and have the dialogue and to have that conversation. So maybe there’s some good that comes out of it.”

Craig Stingley, Corey’s father, said during the hearing that his 13-year struggle “has turned into triumph.”

Earlier, the Stingley family filed a statement with the court affirming its support for the agreement and the restorative justice process.

“We sought not vengeance, but acknowledgement — of Corey’s life, his humanity, and the depth of our loss,” it states. “We believe this agreement honors Corey’s memory and offers a model of how people can come together, even after profound harm, to seek understanding and healing.”

The family remembered Stingley as a “vibrant, loving son, brother, and friend” and found that the restorative dialogues brought “truth, understanding, and a measure of healing that the traditional court process could not.”

Jonathan LaVoy, Cole’s attorney, told reporters after the hearing: “This has been a long 13 years. He’s been under investigation with multiple reviews over that time. I think everyone is just so happy that this day has come, that there’s been some finality to this whole situation.”

In a joint written statement provided to the court, Beringer and Cole said they came to recognize “the profound ripple effects” of the incident and their connection to Stingley’s death. They expressed sorrow that Stingley’s “time on this earth ended far too soon.”

The proceeding followed years of work by Craig Stingley to force the justice system to view his son as a crime victim whose life was unlawfully cut short by Beringer, Cole and another store patron, Mario Laumann, who died in 2022.

Prosecutors at the time declined to charge anyone, saying the men did not intend to kill Corey Stingley when they tackled him and pinned him to the floor of VJ’s Food Mart, in West Allis, Wisconsin. They were detaining him for police after the youth attempted to steal bottles of Smirnoff Ice. In surveillance video, Laumann can be seen holding Stingley in a chokehold while the other two men aided in restraining him. A witness told police Laumann was “squeezing the hell” out of the teenager.

The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office found that Stingley died of a brain injury due to asphyxiation after a “violent struggle with multiple individuals.” It ruled the death a homicide.

Under Wisconsin law, the charge of felony murder is brought in cases in which someone dies during the commission of another alleged crime — in this case false imprisonment.

Ozanne wrote to the court that his analysis found that “there is no doubt Cole, Beringer and Laumann caused Corey Stingley’s death.”

All three men, he wrote, restrained Stingley “intentionally and without his consent” and without legal authority to “arrest” him. “Simply put, Corey, a teenager, was tackled and restrained to the ground by three grown men because they suspected him of shoplifting,” Ozanne wrote. “They killed him while piled on top of his body awaiting the police.”

But he noted that there is no evidence that Beringer or Cole knew that Stingley was in medical distress during the incident. He described their hold on him as “rudimentary detention techniques.”

It was Laumann, Ozanne concluded, who “strangled Corey Stingley to death.” Ozanne wrote that surveillance video shows Laumann’s arm for several minutes across Stingley’s neck “as he fades out of consciousness.”

If Laumann were still alive, Ozanne said in court, prosecutors likely would have been seeking a lengthy prison term for him.

Stingley died the same year as Trayvon Martin, a Black Florida teen shot to death by a neighborhood volunteer watchman, who was acquitted in 2013. Martin’s case drew national attention and led to the formation of the Black Lives Matter movement. But Stingley’s death after being restrained by three white men did not garner widespread notice outside Wisconsin.

Over the years, Craig Stingley unsuccessfully advocated for the men to face charges. Two prosecutors reviewed the case, but nothing came of it.

He then discovered an obscure “John Doe” statute, dating back to Wisconsin’s territorial days, that allows a private citizen to ask a judge to consider whether a crime has been committed and, if so, by whom when a district attorney can’t or won’t do so.

Stingley filed such a petition in late 2020. That led to the appointment of Ozanne as a special prosecutor to review the matter yet again. In 2024, Ozanne informed the Stingley family that his office had found evidence of a crime but that a guilty verdict was not assured for the remaining two men.

That set in motion an effort to achieve healing and accountability through a restorative justice process. Restorative justice programs bring together survivors and offenders for conversations, led by trained facilitators, to work toward understanding and healing and how best to make amends. Last year, Stingley and members of his family met on separate occasions with both Cole and Beringer through the Andrew Center for Restorative Justice, part of the law school at Milwaukee’s Marquette University.

The discussions led to the deferred prosecution agreement.

In an interview, Anthony Neff, a longtime friend of Craig Stingley’s, recalled seeing Corey Stingley in a hospital bed, attached to tubes and a ventilator in his final days. Corey Stingley had been a running back on his high school football team. Everyone in the program showed up for the funeral, Neff said.

“Coaches. The ball boys. The cheerleaders. I mean, they’re all standing in solidarity with Craig and the family,” he said.

In the years since, he and other golfing buddies of Craig Stingley’s have provided emotional support in his quest. Neff called it “a lesson in civics, a master lesson in civics.”

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) told reporters ahead of the session that his caucus was seeking to address affordability with the legislation. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner).

The Wisconsin Assembly — seeking to align state policy with Trump administration initiatives — passed bills Thursday to exempt overtime pay and tips from income tax. Lawmakers also passed bills to make English the official language of the state as well as school related bills.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) told reporters ahead of the session that his caucus was seeking to address affordability with the legislation, though Democratic lawmakers argued the bills would not help address the issue in an effective way.

AB 38 would implement an income tax exemption for cash tips paid to an employee that would sunset in 2028. President Donald Trump signed a law in July to allow workers to deduct up to $25,000 in tips annually from their federal taxable income. Those earning more than $150,000 aren’t eligible for the deduction. 

The Wisconsin bill would apply the same policy when it comes to the state income tax. The deduction would apply to tips whether paid by cash or credit. 

Bill coauthor Rep. Ron Tusler (R-Harrison) said the tips tax cut is for the working and middle class. The bill passed 61-33 with a handful of Democrats joining Republicans. Rep. Lee Snodgrass (D-Appleton) and Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwatosa) abstained from the vote.

“Tips are primarily earned by the working class and the lower middle class and tips should never have been taxed. A tip is a gift, it’s not income,” Tusler said. “Tips are not mandatory; they are a way to say thank you to someone.”

Tusler told reporters that his legislation wasn’t permanent because legislators want to “watch and see how it works out.” 

“I think it would be a great idea for it to become permanent someday. I hope it does,” Tusler said.  

Tusler also called on the Department of Revenue (DOR) to “get to work right away” should the bill become law to ensure it has forms ready. 

“This bill is going to pass, and it’s going to get signed by the governor, but if the Department of Revenue doesn’t get ready for that, they will not have their forms ready for the tip earners come tax time. Those tip earners will wind up paying their taxes for 2025 and then they’ll have to refile their taxes to pay it to get their tip refund back. That’s not something we should be asking working-class and middle-class taxpayers to do.”

Evers told reporters Monday that he is open to looking at Republican proposals to eliminate taxes on overtime and tips but wants to consider more “universal” forms of tax relief. He has proposed property tax relief as well as exempting certain items from the sales tax including diapers and over-the-counter medications. 

Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) tried to introduce an amendment to bring tipped employees, who can make a minimum wage of $2.33, up to the minimum wage of $7.25. He said it would’ve helped raise the standard of living for workers across the state. 

“Restaurant workers, hotel cleaners, bartenders, and too many other Wisconsin workers still rely on the inconsistent generosity of their customers just to survive. This is a terrible system that primarily benefits bosses and corporations – it’s also rife for abuse, leading to frequent unethical and sometimes illegal behavior like forced pooling of tips, assigning of non-tipped work assignments to tipped employees, and outright tip theft by bosses and managers,” Clancy said in a statement. 

His amendment was rejected by Republican lawmakers.

The Assembly also passed AB 461 in a 61-35 vote. It would create an income tax subtraction for certain overtime compensation. Single filers could claim up to $12,500 per year under the subtraction, while joint filers could claim up to $25,000. Unlike the “no tax on tips” bill, this policy change would be permanent.

Bill coauthor Rep. Paul Melotik (R-Grafton) noted that overtime work can be essential to communities and also take a toll on family life. He said the bill would help support the “hard-working people of Wisconsin, who put out extra effort… whether it’s nurses working double shifts, deputies filling in on weekends, line workers staying late to meet production goals or service employees keeping the doors open.  

Bill to make English the official language.

AB 377 would make English Wisconsin’s official language and allow state agencies to use artificial intelligence translation tools instead of providing an interpreter to people during court proceedings.

The bill passed 51-43. Rep. Jessie Rodriguez (R-Oak Creek) voted with Democratic lawmakers against the bill.

Rep. Priscilla Prado (D-Milwaukee), who chairs the Wisconsin Hispanic Legislative Caucus, delivered her opposition to the bill in Spanish — telling lawmakers that after that they could “use Google to translate that.” Prado stood again later to deliver her remarks in English, saying she would help lawmakers out.

“You want to make it legal to use AI as a translator, which might be useful for ordering lunch, but certainly not sufficient for legal hearings, official forms and civil rights — not to mention that this implementation of AI would, quite literally, take jobs away from Wisconsinites who work as translators,” Prado said. “If efficiency were the goal, we would be talking about improving language access, not political symbolism. Wisconsin does not lose its identity because Spanish or another language is spoken. What it does lose is credibility when it ignores a substantial part of its population.” 

Rep. Nate Gustafson (R-Ormo) said he didn’t think the bill was stripping people of their identity, but would instead give people a “tool in the toolbox.” 

“It allows our legal system to move efficiently and forward instead of waiting on, let’s say, a limited pool of resources that aren’t there again,” Gustafson said. “We have declining birth rate. Our absolute workforce  is obviously diminished at this point, but we’re still reliant on people at the end of the day. There is a point where we need to give the people who are doing these jobs the tools to be more efficient.”

Bill coauthor Rep. Dave Murphy (R-Hortonville), speaking after Prado, said the speech represented a failure to communicate as most people in the Assembly did not understand what she said.

“One of the important things about having an official language for society is language draws people together, and I think it’s really important to give a society cohesiveness with people that speak the same language. Now, that doesn’t mean that this bill in some way makes it illegal, or you know, somehow, impeaches your ability to to speak another language, however  I think we are making a mistake here that if you speak English in the society — it’s a huge advantage to you.” 

School revenue and lunches

AB 457, coauthored by Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie) and Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield), would require Wisconsin school districts’ financial reports to the Department of Public Instruction on time before they are able to go to referendum. It passed 52-44 with Republicans for and Democrats against. 

The bill was introduced in response to Milwaukee Public Schools’ financial scandal where the district was months late in submitting financial documents to the state. The news was unveiled just weeks after voters had approved a historic referendum for the state’s largest school district.

Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) said that the bill was a “distraction” from other issues that school districts and property taxpayers are facing. 

Wisconsin taxpayers’ December bills included the highest increase since 2018. The increase followed  a controversial line item veto by Gov. Tony Evers , which extended a one-time increases to school revenue limits for the next 400 years. State  lawmakers did not provide additional state aid to schools, pushing many districts to use their additional taxing authority and others to go to referendum to ask local residents to raise their own taxes.

“The Department of Public Instruction is already working through any financial issues that they need to work through with the Milwaukee Public Schools,” Phelps said. “Educators and property taxpayers just are not buying the Republican spin. They can see the impact of what this building has done on the services in our public schools and their property tax bills, so it is frankly a waste of taxpayer-funded time for us to debate this silly bill that isn’t going anywhere.” 

Referencing the acronym for the school district, Nedweski called her bill the MPS bill — saying it  stood for “maximizing public scrutiny.” Nedweski said her bill is “straightforward” and would ensure that school districts are transparent before seeking to raise property taxes. 

“Public trust was shattered,” Nedweski said of the Milwaukee schools financial reporting failure. She also asked whether the outcome of the Milwaukee referendum would have been different if voters had known about the absent financial reports. 

“As property taxes continue to rise thanks to that 400-year Democrat property tax increase, it’s imperative that voters have complete information about the financial outlook of their school district before voting to further raise their own taxes,” Nedweski said. “This bill does not ask school districts to do anything new. It is not one new hoop they have to jump through… They are already supposed to be completing and submitting their financial information on time in accordance with state law.” 

AB 226 would prohibit Wisconsin public schools, independent charter schools, and private schools participating in a parental choice program serving meals that contain certain ingredients. Some of the food additives that would be prohibited include brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben, azodicarbonamide and red dye No. 3, which can be found in candy, fruit juices and cookies.

The bill is another instance of GOP lawmakers seeking to align state policies with Trump administration efforts. The exclusion of the additives is meant to target “ultra processed foods,” which were one of the top concerns outlined by Health Sec. Robert F. Kennedy and a report the Trump administration commissioned. 

It passed 53-43. A handful of Democrats, including Reps. Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay), Jill Billings (D-La Crosse), Brienne Brown (D-Whitewater) and Renuka Mayadev (D-Madison), voted for the bill, while a handful of Republicans voted against the bill including Reps. Lindee Brill (R-Sheboygan Falls), Joy Goeben (R-Hobart) and Chuck Wichgers (R-Muskego).

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The price of making phone calls from prisons and jails was set to drop under a 2024 FCC rule, but a 2025 rule revision is driving costs back up | Getty Images

For many, the recent holiday season was a time to connect with family. For some, family includes someone incarcerated in one of Wisconsin’s prisons or jails. 

Juli Bliefnick told the Wisconsin Examiner she was incarcerated in county jail and state prison from January 2012 to June 2016. She said that many people would save up precious telephone time to call their families for the holidays. 

“People that came from more disadvantaged backgrounds would not call their families as often,” Bliefnick said.

She remembers the cost of calls putting strain on her relationship with her parents while she was incarcerated. 

While incarcerated, Ventae Parrow said he had to choose whether to spend his money on additional food items and hygiene, or on talking with family on the phone. Parrow left prison in 2020 and is an organizer for the advocacy network WISDOM. He told the Examiner that how often he talked to his family depended on how much money he had.

Nationally, jail and prison phone call rates have declined over the years, according to a report covering 2008-2021 from the Prison Policy Initiative. And in 2024, the Federal Communications Commission voted for new rules to lower how much calls could cost.

The agency announced that for the overwhelming majority of people, the upper limit on the per-minute cost of calls would drop by over half. New per-minute caps ranged from 6 cents per minute for prisons to 12 cents per minute for very small jails.

However, the agency postponed aspects of the new rules in June, including the 2024 caps, until April 2027. Then the FCC voted in the fall of last year to partially roll back the 2024 change with new caps. The commission voted to increase the caps on the cost of a minute on the phone partway back to the caps that preceded the 2024 rules. The new caps range from 11 cents per minute for prisons to 19 cents per minute for extremely small jails. The FCC called them interim caps, and said it was seeking comment on how to establish permanent caps.

The FCC decision includes a ban on site commissions — payments from service providers to correctional facilities that the Prison Policy Initiative said had had the effect of inflating the final costs families paid. The ban will take effect on April 6. Wanda Bertram of the Prison Policy Initiative said that sheriffs’ desire for commissions “was an important factor in driving up phone rates in the past, but it’s hard to say how that is going to change the setting of rates going forward with the new rules,” and that companies may or may not choose to jack rates up to the maximum now allowed by the FCC.

Worth Rises, a group advocating for lower rates, said the 2025 revised caps will deliver substantially less financial relief to families affected by incarceration. They will take effect April 6 barring further action.

In northeastern Wisconsin, people incarcerated in the Brown County Jail currently pay a per-minute rate of 15 cents for phone calls, Captain Heidi Michel told the Examiner. They receive two free phone calls and two free messages per week.

Michel said the jail’s average daily population for 2025 was 661 people, which meets the FCC’s definition of a medium-sized jail. The 2025 caps will require jails of this size to have rates of 12 cents per minute or less. Under the 2024 rules, medium-sized jails would have to abide by a lower rate — 7 cents per minute or less — and therefore charge incarcerated people and their families less money.

The 2025 caps also allow for people to be charged higher rates for video calls than the 2024 rules. Michel said people incarcerated in the Brown County Jail can have video visitation for 18 cents per minute. A medium-sized jail can have this rate under the 2025 caps for video calls. However, the 2024 caps would have required a rate of 12 cents per minute or less.

Michel didn’t immediately respond to a question from the Examiner on Friday about whether the county currently receives a portion of the revenue from the phone calls that incarcerated people in their jail and their families make.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said rules the commission adopted in 2024 resulted in “serious, unintended consequences.” He said that limiting how facilities could recover safety and security costs through phone call charges caused some correctional facilities to scale back or even stop offering calling services.

The Baxter County Sheriff’s Office in Arkansas announced that the phone system used at the Baxter County Detention Counter would soon no longer be available due to the regulations. Two companies claimed to the FCC in April that its 2024 order was forcing correctional facilities to end or reduce access to services, and that the two companies were forced to end service to a few facilities.

Commissioner Anna Gomez, who dissented in the rollback of the 2024 rule change, said the commission took “narrow and speculative” concerns and granted a waiver of the entire 2024 decision. She also raised the idea that the commission could have considered an individual waiver of the 2024 caps for facilities that showed that having less revenue led to communication services being unavailable.

Gomez called the FCC’s order indefensible, saying it would implement “an egregious transfer of wealth from families in incredibly vulnerable situations to monopoly companies that seek to squeeze every penny out of them.”

Wanda Bertram of the Prison Policy Initiative told the Examiner that according to the FCC, the caps were calculated to offset the cost of companies offering certain features to jails and prisons, such as call monitoring. In an interview, Bertram argued that call monitoring technology should not be funded by fees charged to incarcerated people and their families. 

Call costs for Wisconsin jails and prisons

The cost of a phone call varies across facilities. In the Eau Claire County Jail in western Wisconsin, incarcerated people pay 9 cents per minute on the phone and receive two free phone calls a week, Security Services Captain Chad Dachel told the Examiner. For the Polk County Jail, the rate is $0.19 per minute, and incarcerated people are allowed two free calls per week, according to Sheriff Brent Waak.

As of late 2021, the average cost of a 15-minute call from a local jail in Wisconsin was $3.00, according to a Prison Policy Initiative report.

In a statement to the Examiner, Mark Rice of WISDOM called for making prison and jail phone calls free for all. The effects of this would include reducing the financial challenge for families and improving the mental wellbeing of affected people, he wrote. The Prison Policy Initiative has argued that family contact also reduces recidivism.

In November, lawmakers and organizers announced a package of bills aimed at improving conditions in prisons and jails, including the affordability of communication, the Examiner reported.

ICSolutions, telephone service provider for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC), charges 6 cents per minute for calls at the department’s adult facilities, DOC communications director Beth Hardtke told the Examiner, as of late December. ICSolutions charges 1 cent per minute for calls made at juvenile facilities and continues to charge $2.50 for a 25-minute video visit or $5 for a 50-minute visit, according to Hardtke.  According to reporting from the Examiner in 2024, a family member of a man incarcerated at Fox Lake Correctional Institution said people receive two free calls every Sunday. Three free weekly messages are provided, according to the department’s website.

People incarcerated in jails and their families have tended to experience higher phone rates than those in prison, according to the Prison Policy Initiative report covering 2008-2021. Under the caps the FCC passed in 2024, the DOC’s 6-cent rate would still have been allowed; that’s a 15-minute rate of 90 cents In 2021, the average 15-minute rate for a jail phone call was roughly $3.

However, ICSolutions is required to pay the department a commission of 4 cents per minute for all calls at adult institutions. The FCC decision includes a ban on site commissions, which critics say inflate call costs. The ban will take effect on April 6. 

Will the commission ban affect state prisons?

Under state law, two-thirds of the phone commission from the contract must go to the Department of Administration, according to Hardtke. One-third goes to DOC and must be spent on services that “directly benefit” incarcerated people.

In September 2024, Hardtke told the Examiner that ICSolutions paid nearly $6.3 million in commission in fiscal year 2024. The Department of Corrections’ share was nearly $2.1 million. 

Hardtke said that “the commissions received allow DOC to purchase the following in support of the persons in our care,” and provided a list of items ranging from mail processing services to re-entry portfolios to art supplies. 

It’s unclear whether the FCC’s commission ban will affect prisoners’ ability to access items and services currently funded by  the commission money, or if other funding will sustain those items and services. However, $2.1 million is a tiny fraction of the Department of Corrections budget, and the commission money may not account for all of the funding supporting each item or service Hardtke listed. Hardtke said the Department of Corrections is continuing to evaluate how to best continue services to the Wisconsin prison population.

Bertram of the Prison Policy Initiative said that charging people higher phone rates shouldn’t be the source of money for things like free video calls that benefit incarcerated people.

The decision leaves some room for authorities to receive money from phone calls. Within the new FCC caps, a portion of up to 2 cents per minute exists “to account for the costs correctional facilities incur in allowing access to (communication services).” 

Bertram told the Examiner that an example of this would be time spent by a correctional officer to escort people to a phone bay. The FCC said this was an interim measure while it sought comment for a permanent version. 

Hardtke’s full list of items that receive funding from the commission was: “mail processing services, driver education simulation equipment, recreation equipment, exercise equipment, library resources, TVs, cable TV, art supplies, re-entry portfolios, puzzles, yarn, activity books, CD/DVD players, movies, dayroom microwaves, incentive prizes, visiting room toys/activities, media credits, dayroom newspapers, magazine subscriptions, modern technology improvements and services, bus tickets for release, dayroom ice machines, personal laundry washing machines and repairs, barber services, religious and chapel supplies and services, legal loans, lanyards, burial/cremation for unclaimed bodies, dayroom game tables, dayroom board and card games, graduation ceremonies expenses, and more.”

Before the rollback in October, the FCC postponed its rate cap rules in June. In a November interview, Bertram said she’d already heard from families about the cost of connection going up in the wake of the loss of the 2024 caps. 

“This is going to come as a shock to a lot of families who had gotten a lot of relief from the 2024 rules,” Bertram said. 

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The LFB projection is about $1.53 billion above the projected balance when the 2025-27 biennial budget was enacted last year. Wisconsin State Capitol. (Examiner file photo)

According to a Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) analysis released on Thursday, Wisconsin’s general fund balance at the end of the biennium, June 30, 2027, is projected to be $2.37 billion. The projection is about $1.53 billion above the projected balance when the 2025-27 biennial budget was enacted last year.

According to the LFB, the majority of the growth, $1.367 billion, is due to an increase in estimated tax collections. Other contributions to the growth include $104 million in departmental revenues, an increase of $49.9 million in sum sufficient appropriations and an increase of $107.8 million in the amounts that are estimated to lapse to the general fund.

Both Republicans and Democrats sought to take credit for the news.

Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) and Sen. Howard Marklein (R- Spring Green) said in a statement that Republicans’ “long-standing commitment to responsible budgeting and fiscal discipline is working.” 

The lawmakers warned that the state should continue to exercise caution. 

“These increased revenue estimates are driven in part by strong stock market performance and resulting tax collections,” the lawmakers said. “We must be careful when committing to ongoing spending using one-time money. Our disciplined approach has delivered results and put Wisconsin in a strong fiscal position.”

Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) said that the numbers are “a tribute to Wisconsin Democrats, who have prioritized investments in the people of Wisconsin that have improved our state’s economy, provided middle class tax relief and helped make Wisconsin a state where businesses want to invest and families want to live.”

Gov. Tony Evers told reporters that the revenues were larger than expected on Monday and he wanted to use the funds for priorities including over $1 billion in property tax relief. Republican lawmakers have said that they want Evers’ 400-year veto, which gave school districts the ability to enact annual revenue limit increases, repealed in order to deal with rising tax cuts.

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Federal Bureau of Prisons officers on the scene where a federal immigration agent shot a man Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in north Minneapolis. (Photo by Max Nesterak/Minnesota Reformer)

A federal immigration agent shot a man Wednesday evening after a scuffle in north Minneapolis, drawing a crowd of protesters blowing whistles and engaging in minor skirmishes with law enforcement who deployed chemical irritants. 

The shooting comes one week after the killing of Renee Good by federal immigration officer Jonathan Ross in south Minneapolis touched off a wave of protests. 

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the man who was shot is an undocumented Venezuelan national who was pulled over in a “targeted traffic stop” but ran away. When the officer caught up to him, they got into a fight, after which two bystanders also attacked the officer, according to DHS. 

The weapons used on the federal officer: “a shovel or broom stick,” according to DHS.

“Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life. The initial subject was hit in the leg,” DHS said. 

Their account couldn’t be confirmed. 

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said in the briefing Wednesday night that at 6:51 p.m., MPD received 911 calls about the shooting. 

The incident began on I-94, O’Hara said, where federal agents were trying to apprehend a man. The man drove towards a house on the 600 block of 24th Avenue North in north Minneapolis, where he crashed the car, ran towards a house and got into a struggle with federal agents when a federal agent shot him. 

The man went into the house and refused to come out; eventually, federal agents entered the house. The man was transported to the hospital. His injuries are not life threatening, O’Hara said. He said he heard there was a snow shovel and a broom on the scene. 

Two videos add details to what happened before and after.

One video, a livestream of a 911 call, suggests that the agent shot at the man as he was trying to escape into the house, which would contradict the Department of Homeland Security account that the federal immigration agent fired a shot defensively. 

Another video, taken by a north Minneapolis resident from across the street and shared with the Reformer, shows federal agents firing numerous times into the house, breaking a second-floor window. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in an email to the Reformer that the agents had fired tear gas, not live rounds.

In the immediate aftermath of the killing of Renee Good, the Trump administration said she was attempting to run over the ICE officer and kill him. But bystander footage shows a chaotic scene with the officer to the side of her car when he shoots her as she seemingly tries to leave.

The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the state agency that investigates law enforcement shootings, was on the scene Wednesday along with FBI agents to process evidence.

It’s unclear if state authorities will be allowed to continue investigating the shooting. The U.S. Department of Justice blocked the BCA from participating in the investigation into the fatal shooting of Good, leading local prosecutors to open their own probe. 

 

Scores of demonstrators showed up to the scene, shouting expletives at federal agents and telling them to get out of Minneapolis. Federal agents deployed tear gas and flash bangs, while some protesters shot fireworks at law enforcement. At least two people were detained by federal agents after someone threw fireworks at the agents. At least two vehicles believed to be used by federal officers were vandalized. 

O’Hara said the crowd had crossed the line into an unlawful assembly and State Patrol and Hennepin County sheriff’s deputies responded to requests for help with crowd control. 

Mayor Jacob Frey renewed his call for residents to remain peaceful and not “take the bait.” 

“Go home,” Frey said. “We cannot counter Donald Trump’s chaos with our own brand of chaos.”

By 11:30, law enforcement and demonstrators had mostly left the scene, though some remained.

Frey also renewed his call for DHS to end its aggressive operation in the city, which the agency calls its largest operation ever. Minnesota along with the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul filed a lawsuit seeking to force DHS to end its operation, calling it a “federal invasion.” 

The roughly 3,000 federal agents in the state far outnumber Minneapolis’ roughly 600 police officers, who are struggling to respond to 911 calls and investigate crimes on top of near round-the-clock confrontations between federal agents and residents. 

“This is not sustainable. This is an impossible situation that our city is presently being put in,” Frey said. 

Shawn Jackson was parked nearby the scene with his kids in the car. A law enforcement agency — unclear which one — set off flash bangs that detonated the airbags in his car. Officers then sprayed tear gas. The Minneapolis Fire Department took the children — including a baby suffering breathing problems, Jackson’s mother said — to the hospital. 

“They out of control,” Jackson said. 

Patricia Abrams was driving past with her sister when they saw the commotion and stopped. 

She told the Reformer that the ICE incursion into Minnesota is illegal and should end.

“The public should know to get these motherf*cking ICE people outta here. They over here illegally trying to lock immigrants up. B*tch, y’all over here illegally — excuse my French — y’all here illegally trying to lock people up.” 

She added: “D’f*ck’s wrong with you?” 

Local and state politicians were also on the scene: Rep. Mohamud Noor, DFL-Minneapolis, and Minneapolis council members including Elliott Payne, Jason Chavez, Aisha Chughtai and Jamal Osman. 

The shooting happened just moments before Gov. Tim Walz made a statewide address encouraging Minnesotans to record federal immigration actions, promising that “accountability is coming” for abuses by federal officers.

Department of Homeland Security police clash with protesters at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility south of downtown Portland, Ore. President Donald Trump continues to threaten federal funding both to “sanctuary cities” such as Portland and the states where they’re located. (Photo by Alex Baumhardt/Oregon Capital Chronicle)

President Donald Trump’s threat this week to stop federal funding to both so-called “sanctuary” cities and the states where they’re located was greeted with disbelief by many states and cities since the administration has fared poorly on that issue in court. 

“We will go to court within seconds, and we will win if he does this. It’s already proven unlawful. We’ve already won multiple times,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta told ABC News7 in San Francisco on Wednesday. 

“Those are funds that belong to the people of Chicago, not the President,” Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson said in a statement. There were similar reactions in Massachusetts and New York City.

Trump, speaking Tuesday to the Detroit Economic Club, said he would cut off “any payments” starting Feb. 1 “to sanctuary cities or states having sanctuary cities, because they do everything possible to protect criminals at the expense of American citizens.” 

Trump was responding to those communities with policies against helping U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrest people suspected of living illegally in the United States. States and cities reacting thus far have said it would be illegal for the Trump administration to withhold all federal funding, noting that judges have made that clear in recent rulings. 

Cities and states with so-called sanctuary policies generally refuse to assist with immigration raids and refuse some requests for local jails to hold prisoners for deportation, depending on the crimes involved.

There’s no universal definition of a “sanctuary city,” but the U.S. Department of Justice published a list in August that includes 12 states, the District of Columbia, four counties and 18 cities. States either listed as sanctuary by themselves or as including one of the cities were: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. 

The Trump administration is attempting to force more cooperation with immigration arrests. But it suffered a serious court reversal last July, when a federal judge dismissed a federal sanctuary policies case against Illinois, Chicago and surrounding Cook County.

The state and local policies reflect a “decision to not participate in enforcing civil immigration law — a decision protected by the Tenth Amendment,” U.S. District Judge Lindsay Jenkins wrote. That order is now under appeal.

A California judge also issued a preliminary injunction in August stopping the Trump administration from cutting unrelated funding over sanctuary policies. The injunction covers 50 areas in 14 states. That case is also now on hold pending an appeal by the Trump administration. 

In that case, U.S. District Judge William Orrick ruled that the Trump orders to stop funding over immigration policy were “coercive” and “intended to commandeer local officials into enforcing federal immigration practices and law.”

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

President Donald Trump addresses the Detroit Economic Club at the MotorCity Casino on Jan. 13, 2025. (Photo by Ben Solis/Michigan Advance)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump outlined his health care proposals to Congress on Thursday, asking lawmakers to approve several broad policy changes “without delay” — but left out any mention of enhanced tax credits whose expiration has left some Americans with skyrocketing costs. 

Health care costs, especially the rising price of health insurance, have become a frequent talking point for politicians from both political parties following last year’s government shutdown, when Democrats repeatedly called on Republicans to extend the now-expired enhanced tax credits for Affordable Care Act marketplace plans. 

Trump reiterated in a five-minute video that he wants Congress to give Americans money directly so they can use it to offset the cost of health insurance or health care, a proposal that has so far been unable to get the traction needed to advance on Capitol Hill. 

Trump didn’t detail any income caps on the direct payments, which would likely be sent to Health Savings Accounts as opposed to a simple check. He also didn’t say how much per month or annually he wants lawmakers to provide Americans, leaving it for members of Congress to hash out. 

“The government is going to pay the money directly to you. It goes to you, and then you take the money and buy your own health care,” Trump said. “Nobody has ever heard of that before, and that’s the way it is. The big insurance companies lose and the people of our country win.”

The enhanced ACA marketplace tax credits, first implemented by Democrats during the coronavirus pandemic, expired at the end of 2025. The subsidies helped to keep premiums lower than they would have otherwise been for about 22 million Americans on those health insurance plans. 

The House voted earlier this month to keep the enhanced tax credits going for another three years, but the bill has stalled in the Senate as a bipartisan group of lawmakers tries to reach consensus on two more years of the subsidies with significant changes. 

Lower drug prices

Trump said in the video that Congress should approve legislation that requires prescription drug companies to ensure Americans pay the lowest price in the world for pharmaceuticals, a policy known as “most favored nation” that he has pursued during his second term. 

“So instead of Americans paying the highest drug prices in the world, which we have for decades, we will now be paying the lowest cost paid by any other nation,” he said. “So any other nation that’s paying the lowest cost, that’s what we’re going to pay. And the American people will get the savings.”

Trump said the legislative request, which he dubbed “The Great Health Care Plan,” would require health insurance companies and health care providers to publicly share easy-to-understand information about what they charge and how much they make in profit.  

“As the saying goes, sunlight is the best disinfectant. That is why my plan orders all insurance companies to publish rate and coverage comparisons in very plain English,” Trump said. “It requires insurers to publish detailed information about how much of your money they’re going to be paying out in claims versus how much they’re taking in in profits.” 

Health insurance companies, he said, would be required to detail how many claims they deny and whether those refusals to pay for health care were overturned on appeal. 

“And most importantly, it will require any hospital or insurer who accepts Medicare or Medicaid to prominently post all prices at their place of business so that you are never surprised and you can easily shop for a better deal or better care,” Trump said, though a 2019 rule created a similar requirement. “We will have maximum price transparency and costs will come down incredibly.”

Path through Congress

A one-page outline of the proposal posted to the White House website doesn’t detail whether Trump wants Congress to approve the policy requests through the complex budget reconciliation process that Republicans used to approve the “big, beautiful” law this summer or to negotiate a bipartisan bill with Democrats. 

A White House official, speaking on background on a call with reporters to detail the plan and the next steps, said the administration believes the “proposals all have broad support from the American people.”

“We expect both Republicans and Democrats to be able to embrace them, so reconciliation would not be necessary,” the official said.

The framework is intended to provide “broad direction” to lawmakers, leaving negotiators the ability to take any bill they may write in different directions, the official said, adding the administration is “open to working” with Congress on the details. 

“We want to make progress,” the official said. “We’re not laying out a specific path.”

The official said the president leaving out any mention of the expired enhanced tax credits for people who purchase their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act marketplace was not intended to cut off ongoing bipartisan talks in the Senate. 

“This does not specifically address those bipartisan congressional negotiations that are going on,” the official said. “It does say that we have a preference that money goes to people, as opposed to insurance companies.”

Engaging drugmakers

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said on the same call with reporters that the framework focused on “four pillars” the administration believes must be codified into law — solidifying most favored nation drug pricing, lowering health insurance costs, transparency from health insurance companies and more pricing information from health care providers. 

“Although we’re taking major action at CMS, including fines and the like, having Congress say, ‘This is how it’s going to be, this is a law of the land’ is important,” Oz said, adding that he really does believe there can be bipartisan support for at least some of the proposals. 

Oz said the administration’s approach to bring down the cost of prescription drugs to the lowest level offered anywhere in the world is not intended to impede innovation and reiterated that lawmaking is crucial for longer-term stability. 

“We believe by codifying it, we’ll make sure that the drug companies stay engaged for future administrations,” Oz said. “We also believe that by doing it correctly, we’ll not overreach and create challenges to life-saving drugs being continually evolved and developed in the United States.”

The Trump administration, he said, wants Congress to give the Food and Drug Administration more leeway to convert prescription medications to over-the-counter availability, possibly increasing competition and decreasing prices. 

Oz said the price transparency portion of the request would help Americans to have more information about how long it takes to get routine appointments and whether health insurance companies are able to keep their rates down by frequently denying claims.

An aerial view of residential housing under construction at a planned community in Fontana, California, on Sept. 17, 2025. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats began detailing their affordability agenda Thursday ahead of the November midterm elections, starting with a focus on housing. 

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said during an event at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, that if Democrats regain control of the House and Senate they would pass legislation to expand rental assistance, reduce barriers to home ownership, build more housing and address predatory practices. 

Schumer listed several statistics he finds concerning, including that the median price of a home has gone up by 55% since the coronavirus pandemic, that rent has risen by one-third and that the average age for a first-time home buyer is 40. 

“That’s a record high,” he said. “That’s a devastating statistic that should shake up everyone in a position of power at the federal, state or local levels.”

Schumer said the outline for housing is just the first of several cost-of-living policy proposals Democrats will detail this year as they seek to sway voters in key districts and states to vote for their candidates over Republicans.

Democrats, he said, will also focus on how to curb the rising cost of groceries, electricity, child care and health care as part of the midterms messaging. 

On housing, Schumer said Democrats will focus on legislation that would 

• incentivize construction companies to build more housing to address shortages throughout the country;
• expand rental assistance, including Section 8 vouchers for low-income families;
• reduce barriers to home ownership;
• expand the low-income housing tax credit;
• allow the Department of Housing and Urban Development to use the Defense Production Act to purchase “housing materials in short supply”;
• create an agency focused on advanced research into housing issues, similar to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; and
• block “predatory companies” from being “allowed to gobble up entire neighborhoods so easily and turn them into profit machines.”

Democratic bills would provide down payment assistance, lower the cost of mortgage insurance, expand access to portable mortgages and “reform homeowners insurance which is now at a crisis level and so important for people who can’t afford that down payment,” Schumer said.  

Democrats have relatively good odds of winning back control of the House during the November midterm elections, especially since the president’s party tends to lose that chamber two years after taking power. 

Campaigns to regain control of the Senate will be much more difficult for Democrats, who face challenges keeping seats in Georgia and Michigan, while trying to flip Republican seats in Alaska, Maine, North Carolina and Ohio. 

Even if voters were to give Democrats control of Congress, leaders in the party would still need some Republican buy-in to move legislation past the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster and need President Donald Trump to sign legislation into law, unless they had the two-thirds needed in each chamber to override a veto. 

A ‘family conversation’

Hawaii Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz said during a panel discussion with Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth that was moderated by CAP President and CEO Neera Tanden that he’s been “radicalized on housing” and pressed for members of the party to talk realistically about issues with supply and affordability. 

“And the reason is that our shortage nationwide, but especially in Hawaii, is so acute that people can’t make the math work anymore,” Schatz said. “In Hawaii, people are paying more than 50%, all-in, of their income for housing, either rental housing or paying a mortgage. And what I have come to realize is that we are the problem.”

Schatz argued that the government “is the primary impediment to alleviating the shortage” and said that realization has led him to have some “very difficult conversations.” 

In Hawaii, he said, there are environmental and cultural protections intended to safeguard “special places” but that have ended up applied more broadly, impeding housing development. 

“They were not originally conceived to prevent a walk-up apartment building on the corner of Eisenberg and King to house Native Hawaiian families,” Schatz said. “And yet those same laws are being weaponized against people in Hawaii even being able to live in the state of Hawaii.”

Schatz said Democrats must be honest with voters about what their housing policies would mean for communities throughout the country, contending the party needs to “solve the politics” around expanded housing before it can tackle the policy debate. 

“I actually think we have to have this family conversation around the politics of housing and realize that some of our base voters in the suburbs, who are otherwise good all the way down the line on all the progressive issues, also want to prevent a nurse or a firefighter or the disabled or the elderly or the student from living anywhere near them,” Schatz said. “And we have to have that conversation in the progressive coalition.”

Rethinking inspections, other processes

Duckworth said some solutions to housing could come through rethinking the processes in place now, similar to how the Department of Veterans Affairs changed its approach to homeless veterans. 

“VA used to say, ‘You have to get clean and sober, and then we’ll give you a voucher to get into an apartment.’ And so it made no sense, right?” Duckworth said. 

“So we had to change the thinking to what the homelessness community had been working on, which is reduction of harm — get them into the housing and then work on getting them clean and sober,” she continued. “And by changing that thought, we were able to immediately start pulling veterans off the streets, put them into housing units where they immediately were also getting counseling, getting treatment.”

Duckworth compared the sometimes slow process of housing inspections that can stop construction with the way the government approaches vehicle safety as one possible way to get things moving faster. 

“With automobiles, we say, ‘This car that you’re manufacturing must be able to withstand a crash at 35 miles an hour into a brick wall.’ And then when they meet and get that car approved, when we go buy that car, we don’t have to take that car to get it inspected from top to bottom, like we do with homes,” Duckworth said. 

She added: “So why would we not say to homebuilders, especially (prefabricated) homes, if you come to VA and you are willing to get two models of your home, pre-inspected, pre-approved, then when a veteran builds a new home and they say, ‘Hey, I’m going to choose one of these models that already has a VA good housekeeping seal of approval,’ they can shortcut that inspection process.”