The object was likely either a meteor or space junk, with most sightings of the streak of light and fireball coming from Georgia and South Carolina, the National Weather Service said.
The liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to hear challenges brought by Democrats seeking to throw out the battleground state’s current congressional district boundaries before the 2026 midterms.
The decisions, made without explanation from the court, is a setback for Democrats who had hoped for new, friendlier district boundary lines in Wisconsin as they attempt to win back control of the House next year.
Democrats asked the court to redraw the maps, which would have put two of the state’s six congressional seats currently held by Republicans into play. It was the second time in as many years that the court had refused to hear the challenges.
Democrats hoped the court would revisit the congressional lines after it ordered state legislative boundaries redrawn. Democrats then picked up seats in the November election.
“It’s good that Wisconsin has fair maps at the state level, but we deserve them at the federal level as well,” Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan said. “Unfortunately, gerrymandered maps for members of Congress will remain in Wisconsin.”
Attorneys who brought the lawsuits did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
Republicans hold six of the state’s eight U.S. House seats, but only two of those districts are considered competitive.
Two requests to reconsider the congressional boundaries were filed with the court, which is controlled 4-3 by liberal justices. One came from the Elias Law Group, which represents Democratic groups and candidates, and the other came on behalf of voters by Campaign Legal Center.
Democrats argued that the court’s decision to redraw maps for state legislative districts a couple years ago opened the door to revisiting maps for U.S. House districts. They also argued that the current map violates the state constitution’s requirement that all Wisconsin residents be treated equally.
In 2010, the year before Republicans redrew the congressional maps, Democrats held five seats compared with three for Republicans.
The current congressional maps, drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, were approved by the state Supreme Court when it was controlled by conservative judges. The U.S. Supreme Court in March 2022 declined to block them from taking effect. And last year the state Supreme Court rejected a request to reconsider the maps without giving a reason as to why.
One of the seats that Democrats hope to flip is in western Wisconsin. Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden won an open seat in 2022 after longtime Democratic Rep. Ron Kind retired. Von Orden won reelection in the 3rd District in 2024.
The other seat they are eyeing is southeastern Wisconsin’s 1st District. Republican Rep. Bryan Steil has held it since 2019. The latest maps made that district more competitive but still favor Republicans.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
A unanimous Wisconsin Supreme Court handed a victory to the Republican-controlled Legislature on Wednesday in a power struggle with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, reining in the governor’s expansive veto powers.
The court, in a ruling where the four liberal justices joined with three conservatives, struck down Evers’ partial veto of a Republican bill in a case that tested both the limits of his veto powers and the Legislature’s ability to exert influence by controlling funding.
The court also ruled that the Legislature can put money for certain state programs into an emergency fund under the control of its budget committee. Evers had argued such a move was unconstitutional.
The ruling will likely result in the Legislature crafting the budget and other spending bills in similar ways to get around Evers’ partial vetoes and to have even greater control over spending.
The ruling against Evers comes after the court earlier this year upheld Evers’ partial veto that locked in a school funding increase for 400 years. The court last year issued a ruling that reined in some powers of the Legislature’s budget committee, while this ruling went the other way.
Evers clashes with Legislature
Evers, in his seventh year as governor, has frequently clashed with the Legislature and often used his broad veto powers to kill their proposals. Republican lawmakers have tried to take control away from the governor’s office by placing money to fund certain programs and state agencies in an emergency fund controlled by the Legislature’s budget committee. That gives the Legislature significant influence over that funding and the implementation of certain programs within the executive branch.
Evers argued that the Legislature is trying to limit his partial veto power and illegally control how the executive branch spends money.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with the Legislature.
It ruled that Evers improperly used his partial veto on a bill that detailed the plan for spending on new literacy programs designed to improve K-12 students’ reading performance. The court also sided with the Legislature and said the budget committee can legally put money into an emergency fund to be distributed later. That is what it has done with the $50 million for the literacy program.
Fight over literacy funding
In 2023, Evers signed into law a bill that created an early literacy coaching program within the state Department of Public Instruction. The bill also created grants for schools that adopt approved reading curricula to pay for changing their programs and to train teachers on the new practices.
However, Republicans put the $50 million to pay for the new initiative in a separate emergency fund controlled by the Legislature’s budget committee. That money remains in limbo amid disagreements about how the money would be used and who would decide how to spend it.
Evers argued that the Legislature didn’t have the power to withhold the money and the court should order it to be released to the education department.
The Supreme Court declined to do that, saying the money was appropriated to the Legislature and the court has no authority to order it to be released to the education department to fund the literacy program.
Evers urged the Legislature’s budget committee to release the money.
Republican co-chairs of the committee said Wednesday they looked forward to releasing the money, and they blamed the governor’s veto with delaying it going to schools.
If no action is taken by Monday, the $50 million will go back into the state’s general fund.
The Legislature has been increasing the amount of money it puts in the emergency fund that it can release at its discretion, but it remains a small percentage of the total state budget. In the last budget, about $230 million was in the fund, or about half of a percentage point of the entire budget.
Evers used his partial veto power on another bill that created the mechanism for spending the $50 million for the new program. He argued that his changes would simplify the process and give DPI more flexibility. Evers also eliminated grants for private voucher and charter schools.
Republican legislators sued, contending that the governor illegally used his partial veto power.
State law allows only for a partial veto of bills that spend money. For all other bills, the governor must either sign or veto them in their entirety.
Because the bill Evers partially vetoed was a framework for spending, but didn’t actually allocate any money, his partial vetoes were unconstitutional, the Supreme Court said, agreeing with Republican lawmakers.
“The constitution gives the governor authority to veto in part only appropriation bills — not bills that are closely related to appropriation bills,” Justice Rebecca Bradley wrote.
Republican legislative leaders called the ruling a “rebuke” of Evers.
“While the Governor wanted to play politics with money earmarked for kids’ reading programs, it is encouraging to see the Court put an end to this game,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu said in a joint statement.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
The decision, made without explanation from the court, is a setback for Democrats who had hoped for new, friendlier district boundary lines in Wisconsin as they attempt to win back control of the House next year.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court delivered a victory for environmentalists on Tuesday in the fight over “forever chemicals” known as PFAS, issuing a ruling that advocates said will hold polluters accountable.
The liberal-controlled court ruled that state regulators can force landowners to clean up emerging pollutants such as PFAS before they are officially designated as hazardous substances.
The 5-2 ruling is a defeat for the state’s powerful group representing businesses and manufacturers, which had argued the state couldn’t enforce regulations on substances before they were officially designated as hazardous.
It is the latest development in a yearslong battle in Wisconsin and nationally involving regulators, environmentalists, politicians and businesses over how to deal with PFAS contamination.
PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of chemicals that have been around for decades and have now spread into the nation’s air, water and soil.
They were manufactured by companies such as 3M, Chemours and others because they were incredibly useful. They helped eggs slide across nonstick frying pans, ensured that firefighting foam suffocates flames and helped clothes withstand the rain and keep people dry.
The chemicals resist breaking down, however, which means they stay around in the environment and have a hard time breaking down in the body. There is a wide range of health harms now associated with exposure to certain PFAS, including low birth weight, cancer and liver disease.
The Wisconsin case
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in a case brought by the state’s largest business group, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, which sued the DNR in 2021 on behalf of Leather Rich, a dry cleaning business in Oconomowoc.
Leather Rich became aware of PFAS contamination in 2018 and was working on cleaning it up when the DNR posted a message online in 2019 saying it now considered PFAS chemicals a hazardous substance. The agency ordered the dry cleaner to test its groundwater for PFAS but didn’t tell the business which compounds it needed to test for or what levels would be considered dangerous.
WMC and Leather Rich argued the DNR can’t force businesses to test and clean up contamination from emerging pollutants like PFAS without first designating them as hazardous substances. That process can take years and requires approval from the Legislature. All that time, polluters could harm the environment and put people’s health and safety at risk with no obligation to begin cleanup, the DNR argued.
But Leather Rich argued that businesses have a right to know which substances are subject to regulation before spending time and money on cleanup.
The DNR appealed, saying the lower court’s ruling would neuter the state’s “spills law,” which was designed to confront pollution.
That law, enacted about 50 years ago, requires anyone who causes, possesses or controls a hazardous substance that’s been released into the environment to clean it up.
“Wisconsin’s Spills Law safeguards human health and the environment in real time by directly regulating parties responsible for a hazardous substance discharge,” Justice Janet Protasiewicz wrote for the majority.
No state law required the DNR to implement a rule before requiring Leather Rich to begin cleaning up the site, she wrote.
“The DNR has explicit authority to enforce a threshold for reporting the discharge of hazardous substances,” Protasiewicz wrote.
The court’s four liberal justices were joined by conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn in the majority. Conservative justices Annette Ziegler and Rebecca Bradley dissented.
In the dissent, they said the ruling allows bureaucrats to “impose rules and penalties on the governed without advance notice, oversight, or deliberation. In doing so, the majority violates three first principles fundamental to preserving the rule of law — and liberty.”
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and environmental advocates hailed the decision.
“This is a historic victory for the people of Wisconsin and my administration’s fight against PFAS and other harmful contaminants that are affecting families and communities across our state,” Evers said in a statement.
Rob Lee, attorney for Midwest Environmental Advocates, called the ruling “a victory for the health and wellbeing of the people of Wisconsin” that reinforces “a bedrock environmental and public health protection that has kept Wisconsinites safe from toxic contamination for almost 50 years.”
But Scott Manley, a vice president at WMC, said the ruling leaves it up to businesses and homeowners to guess about what is hazardous, leaving them subject to “crushing fines and endless, costly litigation.”
“This ruling blesses a regulatory approach that is fundamentally unfair, unworkable, and impossible to comply with,” Manley said.
Fight over PFAS regulation
Since the lawsuit was filed, additional state and federal regulations of PFAS have been put in place.
The state has imposed less restrictive limits on PFAS in surface and drinking water, defined as piped water delivered through public systems and noncommunity systems that serve places such as factories, schools and hotels.
But it has not implemented PFAS standards for groundwater, the source of drinking water for about two-thirds of Wisconsin residents. The agency stopped efforts to draft them in 2023 after determining that compliance would be too expensive.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
President Donald Trump said Saturday that the U.S. military struck three sites in Iran, directly joining Israel ’s effort to decapitate the country's nuclear program.
A unanimous Wisconsin Supreme Court sided with the Democratic state attorney general Tuesday in a long-running battle over a law passed by Republicans who wanted to weaken the office in a lame duck legislative session more than six years ago.
The court ruled 7-0 that requiring the attorney general to get permission from a Republican-controlled legislative committee to settle certain civil lawsuits was unconstitutional. The law is a separation of powers violation, the court said.
The Republican-controlled Legislature convened a session in December 2018 after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul defeated Republican incumbents. The laws signed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker on his way out the door weakened powers of both offices.
At issue in the case decided Tuesday was the attorney general’s power to settle civil lawsuits involving environmental and consumer protection cases as well as cases involving the governor’s office and executive branch. The new law required the Legislature’s budget committee, which is controlled by Republicans, to sign off on those settlements.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2020, when controlled by conservatives, upheld all of the lame duck laws and ruled they did not violate the separation of powers principle. But the ruling left the door open to future challenges on how the laws are applied.
Kaul sued that year, arguing that having to seek approval for those lawsuit settlements violates the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches. The Legislature argued that lawmakers have an interest in overseeing the settlement of lawsuits and that the court’s earlier ruling saying there was no separation of powers violation should stand.
Dane County Circuit Judge Susan Crawford, who won election to the state Supreme Court in April and will be joining the court in August, ruled in favor of Kaul in 2022, saying the law was unconstitutional. A state appeals court overturned her ruling December, saying there was no separation of powers violation because both the executive and legislative branches of government share the powers in question.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday said the Legislature cannot “assume for itself the power to execute a law it wrote.”
There is no constitutional justification for requiring the Legislature’s budget committee to sign off on court settlements at issue in the case, Justice Brian Hagedorn wrote for the court.
Kaul praised the ruling, saying in a statement that the decision “finally puts an end to the legislature’s unconstitutional involvement in the resolution of key categories of cases.”
Republican legislative leaders who defended the law had no immediate comment Tuesday.
The win for Kaul comes as Evers has been unsuccessful in overturning numerous law changes affecting the power of the governor. He’s proposed undoing the laws in all four state budgets he’s proposed, and courts have upheld the laws when challenged.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
A Wisconsin dairy farmer alleged in a federal lawsuit filed Monday that the Trump administration is illegally denying financial assistance to white farmers by continuing programs that favor minorities.
The conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed the lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture in federal court in Wisconsin on behalf of a white dairy farmer, Adam Faust.
Faust was among several farmers who successfully sued the Biden administration in 2021 for race discrimination in the USDA’s Farmer Loan Forgiveness Plan.
The new lawsuit alleges the government has continued to implement diversity, equity and inclusion programs that were instituted under former President Joe Biden. The Wisconsin Institute wrote to the USDA in April warning of legal action, and six Republican Wisconsin congressmen called on the USDA to investigate and end the programs.
“The USDA should honor the President’s promise to the American people to end racial discrimination in the federal government,” Faust said in a written statement. “After being ignored by a federal agency that’s meant to support agriculture, I hope my lawsuit brings answers, accountability, and results from USDA.”
A spokesperson for the USDA declined to comment, saying the agency does not comment on pending lawsuits.
John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association, said the lawsuit is “frustrating for me personally and as the leader of this movement.”
“The farmers that are hurting now are clearly the Black farmers out here,” he said. “You can couch it any way you want.”
The lawsuit contends that Faust is one of 2 million white male American farmers who are subject to discriminatory race-based policies at the USDA.
The lawsuit names three USDA programs and policies it says put white men at a disadvantage and violate the Constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment by discriminating based on race and sex.
Faust participates in one program designed to offset the gap between milk prices and the cost of feed, but the lawsuit alleges he is charged a $100 administrative fee that minority and female farmers do not have to pay.
Faust also participates in a USDA program that guarantees 90% of the value of loans to white farmers, but 95% to women and racial minorities. That puts Faust at a disadvantage, the lawsuit alleges.
Faust has also begun work on a new manure storage system that could qualify for reimbursement under a USDA environmental conservation program, but 75% of his costs are eligible while 90% of the costs of minority farmers qualify, the lawsuit contends.
A federal court judge ruled in a similar 2021 case that granting loan forgiveness only to “socially disadvantaged farmers” amounts to unconstitutional race discrimination. The Biden administration suspended the program, and Congress repealed it in 2022.
The Wisconsin Institute has filed dozens of such lawsuits in 25 states attacking DEI programs in government. In its April letter to the USDA, the law firm that has a long history of representing Republicans said it didn’t want to sue “but there is no excuse for this continued discrimination.”
Trump has been aggressive in trying to end the government’s DEI efforts to fulfill a campaign promise and bring about a profound cultural shift across the U.S. from promoting diversity to an exclusive focus on merit.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
The Wisconsin State Capitol has enhanced security after the man accused of killing a Minnesota lawmaker and wounding another had a hitlist that included Wisconsin lawmakers.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz says former state House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed in a politically motivated assassination. A second lawmaker and his wife were shot and wounded.
A government watchdog group in Wisconsin filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to prohibit billionaire Elon Musk from ever again offering cash payments to voters in the battleground state like he did in this spring’s hotly contested Supreme Court race.
Musk handed out $1 million checks to three Wisconsin voters, including two in person just days before the state’s April 1 Supreme Court election, in an effort to help elect conservative candidate Brad Schimel. Two weeks before the election, Musk’s political action committee, America PAC, offered $100 to voters who signed a petition in opposition to “activist judges,” or referred someone to sign it.
It was all part of more than $20 million that Musk and groups he supports spent on the race in an effort to flip majority control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. More than $100 million was spent by both sides, making it the most expensive court race in U.S. history.
Musk’s preferred candidate lost to Democratic-backed Susan Crawford by 10 percentage points. Her victory cemented the 4-3 liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court until at least 2028.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday in state court by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign says that Musk’s actions create “the risk that Wisconsin elections will become an open auction, where votes go to the preferred candidates of the highest bidders and the election outcome is determined by which candidate has a patron willing and able to pay the highest sum to Wisconsin voters.”
The lawsuit says that Musk and two groups he funds violated prohibitions on vote bribery and unauthorized lotteries and says his actions were an unlawful conspiracy and public nuisance. The lawsuit asks the court to order that Musk never offer similar payments to voters again.
A spokesperson for Musk’s America PAC did not immediately return a text message Wednesday seeking comment.
There is another Wisconsin Supreme Court election in April. In November 2026, control of the Legislature and the governor’s office, as well as the state’s eight congressional districts, will be decided.
The latest lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and a pair of voters by the liberal Wisconsin-based Law Forward and the Washington-based Democracy Defenders Fund. It was filed against Musk, his group America PAC that announced the petition and the Musk-funded group United States of America Inc. that made the payments.
The court that Crawford joins in August could ultimately hear the new lawsuit. Crawford would almost certainly be asked to recuse from the case, and if she did, the court would be left with a 3-3 split between conservative and liberal justices.
The current court, also controlled 4-3 by liberals, declined to hear a similar hastily filed lawsuit brought by Wisconsin’s Democratic attorney general seeking to block Musk’s handing out of two $1 million checks to voters two days before the election.
Two lower courts rejected that lawsuit before the Supreme Court declined to hear it on procedural grounds.
Musk’s attorneys argued in that case that Musk was exercising his free speech rights with the giveaways and any attempt to restrict that would violate both the Wisconsin and U.S. constitutions.
Musk’s political action committee used a nearly identical tactic before the presidential election last year, offering to pay $1 million a day to voters in Wisconsin and six other battleground states who signed a petition supporting the First and Second amendments. A judge in Pennsylvania said prosecutors failed to show the effort was an illegal lottery and allowed it to continue through Election Day.
A federal lawsuit filed in Pennsylvania in April alleges that Musk and his political action committee failed to pay more than $20,000 for getting people to sign that petition in 2024. America PAC on Monday filed a motion to dismiss. That case is pending.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Ramón Morales Reyes was thrust into the national spotlight last week when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused him of writing letters threatening Trump.
The Trump administration must restore hundreds of millions of dollars in AmeriCorps grant funding and thousands of service workers in about two dozen states, including Wisconsin, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman granted a temporary block on the agency’s cancellation of grants and early discharge of corps members, but only for the states that sued the administration in April.
The federal lawsuit, filed by Democratic state officials across the country, accused President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting efforts through the Department of Government Efficiency of reneging on grants funded through the AmeriCorps State and National program, which was budgeted $557 million in congressionally approved funding this year.
Boardman also said all AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps members that were discharged from their service terms early should be reinstated, if they are willing and able to return.
But Boardman allowed the 30-year-old federal agency for volunteer service to proceed with its reduction in force, denying the states’ request to restore the majority of staff that were put on administrative leave in April. The agency employs more than 500 full-time federal workers and has an operating budget of roughly $1 billion.
AmeriCorps did not immediately respond to request for comment. The Department of Justice declined to comment.
The 30-year-old agency created to facilitate volunteer service across the country oversees several programs that dispatch hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of people to serve in communities.
It sends roughly 200,000 corps members across the country as part of its service programs. Most corps members get a living stipend during their service and become eligible for funding for future education expenses or to apply for certain student loans.
As part of the AmeriCorps State and National grant program, state volunteer commissions distributed more than $177 million in formula-based distributions, as well as $370 million in competitive grants that supported nearly 35,000 corps members serving at 300 organizations, according to announcements last year.
Notices of grants being terminated were sent late on a Friday in April, explaining “the award no longer effectuates agency priorities” and directing grantees to immediately shut down the projects, according to a copy reviewed by The Associated Press.
The states that sued the administration said those extensive and immediate cancellations did not provide the legally required notice and comment period. They said the result would be severely curtailed services and programs for vulnerable populations since states and organizations could not fill the funding void.
AmeriCorps argued in court filings that a temporary block on the agency’s actions as the lawsuit proceeds would disrupt efforts to comply with Trump’s executive order creating DOGE and to “act as responsible stewards of public funds,” according to court filings.
Despite bipartisan support, AmeriCorps has long been a target of critics who decry bloat, inefficiencies and misuse of funds.
“President Trump has the legal right to restore accountability to the entire Executive Branch,” Anna Kelly, White House deputy press secretary, previously said in a statement after the lawsuit was filed.
The lawsuit was filed by officials in Maryland, Delaware, California, Colorado, Arizona, Connecticut, Washington, DC, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
Smoke from Canadian wildfires started making air quality worse in the eastern U.S. on Wednesday as several Midwestern states battled conditions deemed unhealthy by the federal government.
The fires have forced thousands of Canadians to flee their homes and sent smoke as far as Europe.
In the U.S., smoke lingered on the skylines of cities from Kansas City to Minneapolis, and a swath of the region had unhealthy air quality Wednesday, according to an Environmental Protection Agency map.
In Stoughton, Wisconsin, Nature’s Garden Preschool was keeping its kids indoors Wednesday due to the bad air quality, which interferes with the daily routine, said assistant teacher Bailey Pollard. The smoke looked like a coming storm, he said.
The 16 or 17 kids ages 12 weeks to 5 years old would typically be outdoors running or playing with water, balls and slides, but were instead inside doing crafts with Play-Doh or coloring. The situation was unfortunate because kids need to be outside and have fresh air and free play, Pollard said.
“It’s something where we’ve got to take precaution for the kids,” he said. “Nobody wants to stay inside all day.”
Iowa issued a statewide air quality alert through early Thursday, urging residents to limit certain outdoor activities and warning of possible health effects due to the thick smoke. Wisconsin officials made similar suggestions as the smoke drifted southeast across the state.
In Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, authorities advised people to shut windows at night, avoid strenuous activity outside and watch for breathing issues.
Parts of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and New York had areas of moderate air quality concern, and officials advised sensitive people to consider reducing outdoor activity.
Unhealthy conditions persist in Midwest
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency issued an alert for almost the entire state into Wednesday, but the Twin Cities area got the region’s worst of it Tuesday.
Children’s Minnesota, a network of pediatric clinics and hospitals in the Twin Cities area, has seen a “modest increase” increase this week in patients with symptoms that doctors attributee to polluted air, Dr. Chase Shutak said.
Their symptoms have included breathing problems, including asthma and other upper respiratory issues, said Shutak, who stays in close touch with other pediatricians in his role as medical director of the Minneapolis primary care clinic at Children’s.
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources warned that air quality in a band from the state’s southwest corner to the northeast could fall into the unhealthy category through Thursday morning. The agency recommended that people — especially those with heart and lung disease — avoid long or intense activities and to take extra breaks during strenuous activity outdoors.
Conditions at ground level are in the red
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s AirNow map showed a swath of red for “unhealthy” conditions across Wisconsin and northern Iowa. Northern Michigan was also the site of many unhealthy zones, the agency said. The Air Quality Index was around 160 in many parts of the upper Midwest, indicating unhealthy conditions.
The Air Quality Index — AQI — measures how clean or polluted the air is, focusing on health effects that might be experienced within a few hours or days after breathing polluted air. It is based on ground-level ozone, particle pollution, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide. Particulates are the main issue from the fires.
The index ranges from green, where the air quality is satisfactory and air pollution poses little or no risk, to maroon, which is considered hazardous. That level comes with health warnings of emergency conditions where everyone is more likely to be affected, according to AirNow.
There were areas of reduced air quality all over the U.S. on Wednesday, with numerous advisories about moderate air quality concerns as far away as Kansas and Georgia.
The air quality was considerably better Wednesday in Minnesota, where only the barest hint of haze obscured the downtown Minneapolis skyline. The city experienced some of the worst air in the country on Tuesday. But the air quality index, which had reached the mid-200 range, or “very unhealthy” on Tuesday, was down to 60, or “moderate,” by Wednesday afternoon.
The Canadian fire situation
Canada is having another bad wildfire season. Most of the smoke reaching the American Midwest has been coming from fires northwest of the provincial capital of Winnipeg in Manitoba.
Canada’s wildfires are so large and intense that the smoke is even reaching Europe, where it is causing hazy skies but isn’t expected to affect surface-air quality, according the European climate service Copernicus.
This story was written by the Associated Press’ Patrick Whittle, in Portland, Maine, and Steve Karnowski, who reported from Minneapolis. Associated Press writers Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; Tammy Webber in Fenton, Michigan; and Scott McFetridge in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
The Trump administration must restore hundreds of millions of dollars in AmeriCorps grant funding and thousands of service workers in about two dozen states, a federal judge ruled Thursday. Wisconsin is among those states.
A widely anticipated list of “ sanctuary jurisdictions” no longer appears on the Department of Homeland Security’s website after receiving widespread criticism for including localities that have actively supported the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration policies.
The department last week published the list of the jurisdictions. It said each one would receive formal notification the government deemed them uncooperative with federal immigration enforcement and whether they’re believed to be in violation of any federal criminal statutes.
The list was published Thursday on the department’s website, but on Sunday there was a “Page Not Found” error message in its place.
The list was part of the Trump administration’s efforts to target communities, states and jurisdictions that it says aren’t doing enough to help its immigration enforcement agenda and the promises the president made to deport more than 11 million people living in the U.S. without legal authorization.
The list is being constantly reviewed and can be changed at any time and will be updated regularly, a DHS senior official said.
“Designation of a sanctuary jurisdiction is based on the evaluation of numerous factors, including self-identification as a Sanctuary Jurisdiction, noncompliance with Federal law enforcement in enforcing immigration laws, restrictions on information sharing, and legal protections for illegal aliens,” the official said in a statement.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that there had been anger from some officials about the list. However, she didn’t address why it was removed.
“Some of the cities have pushed back,” Noem said. “They think because they don’t have one law or another on the books that they don’t qualify, but they do qualify. They are giving sanctuary to criminals.”
The list, which was riddled with misspellings, received pushback from officials in communities spanning from urban to rural and blue to red who said the list doesn’t appear to make sense.
In California, the city of Huntington Beach made the list even though it had filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s immigration sanctuary law and passed a resolution this year declaring the community a “non-sanctuary city.”
Jim Davel, administrator for Shawano County, Wisconsin, said the inclusion of his community must have been a clerical error. Davel voted for President Donald Trump as did 67% of Shawano County.
Davel thinks the administration may have confused the county’s vote in 2021 to become a “Second Amendment Sanctuary County” that prohibits gun control measures with it being a safe haven for immigrants. He said the county has approved no immigration sanctuary policies.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Building an underground tunnel for an aging Enbridge oil pipeline that stretches across a Great Lakes channel could destroy wetlands and harm bat habitats but would eliminate the chances of a boat anchor rupturing the line and causing a catastrophic spill, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Friday in a long-awaited draft analysis of the proposed project’s environmental impacts.
The analysis moves the corps a step closer to approving the tunnel for Line 5 in the Straits of Mackinac. The tunnel was proposed in 2018 at a cost of $500 million but has been bogged down by legal challenges. The corps fast-tracked the project in April after President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies in January to identify energy projects for expedited emergency permitting.
A final environmental assessment is expected by autumn, with a permitting decision to follow later this year. The agency initially planned to issue a permitting decision in early 2026.
With that permit in hand, Enbridge would only need permission from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy before it could begin constructing the tunnel. That’s far from a given, though.
Environmentalists have been pressuring the state to deny the permit. Meanwhile, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer are trying to win court rulings that would force Enbridge to remove the existing pipeline from the straits for good.
Construction could have major short-term, long-term impacts
The analysis notes that the tunnel would eliminate the risk of a boat anchor rupturing the pipeline and causing a spill in the straits, a key concern for environmentalists. But the construction would have sweeping effects on everything from recreation to wildlife.
Many of the impacts, such as noise, vistas marred by 400-foot (121-meter) cranes, construction lights degrading stargazing opportunities at Headlands International Dark Sky Park and vibrations that would disturb aquatic wildlife would end when the work is completed, the report found.
Other impacts would last longer, including the loss of wetlands and vegetation on both sides of the strait that connects Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, and the loss of nearly 300 trees that the northern long-eared bat and tricolored bat use to roost. Grading and excavation also could disturb or destroy archaeological sites.
The tunnel-boring machine could cause vibrations that could shift the area’s geology. Soil in the construction area could become contaminated and nearly 200 truck trips daily during the six-year construction period would degrade area roads, the analysis found. Gas mixing with water seeping into the tunnel could result in an explosion, but the analysis notes that Enbridge plans to install fans to properly ventilate the tunnel during excavation.
Enbridge has pledged to comply with all safety standards, replant vegetation where possible and contain erosion, the analysis noted. The company also has said it would try to limit the loudest work to daytime hours as much as possible, and offset harm to wetlands and protected species by buying credits through mitigation banks. That money can then be used to fund restoration in other areas.
“Our goal is to have the smallest possible environmental footprint,” Enbridge officials said in a statement.
The Sierra Club issued a statement Friday saying the tunnel remains “an existential threat.”
“Chances of an oil spill in the Great Lakes — our most valuable freshwater resource — skyrockets if this tunnel is built in the Straits,” the group said. “We can’t drink oil. We can’t fish or swim in oil.”
Julie Goodwin, a senior attorney with Earthjustice, an environmental law group that opposes the project, said the corps failed to consider the impacts of a spill that could still happen on either side of the straits or stopping the flow of oil through the Great Lakes.
“My key takeaways are the Army corps has put blinders are in service to Enbridge and President Trump’s fossil fuel agenda,” she said.
Tunnel would protect portion of Line 5 running through straits
Enbridge has been using the Line 5 pipeline to transport crude oil and natural gas liquids between Superior, Wisconsin, and Sarnia, Ontario, since 1953. Roughly 4 miles of the pipeline runs along the bottom of the Straits of Mackinac.
Concerns about the aging pipeline rupturing and causing a potentially disastrous spill in the straits have been building over the last decade. Those fears intensified in 2018 when an anchor damaged the line.
Enbridge contends that the line remains structurally sound, but it struck a deal with then-Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration in 2018 that calls for the company to replace the straits portion of the line with a new section that would be encased in a protective underground tunnel.
Enbridge and environmentalists spar in court battles
Environmentalists, Native American tribes and Democrats have been fighting in court for years to stop the tunnel and force Enbridge to remove the existing pipeline from the straits. They’ve had little success so far.
A Michigan appellate court in February validated the state Public Service Commission’s permits for the tunnel. Nessel sued in 2019 seeking to void the easement that allows Line 5 to run through the straits. That case is still pending. Whitmer revoked the easement in 2020, but Enbridge challenged that decision and a federal appellate court in April ruled that the case can proceed.
Another legal fight over Line 5 in Wisconsin
About 12 miles (19 kilometers) of Line 5 runs across the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa’s reservation in northern Wisconsin. That tribe sued in 2019 to force Enbridge to remove the line from the reservation, arguing it’s prone to spilling and that easements allowing it to operate on the reservation expired in 2013.
Enbridge has proposed a 41-mile (66-kilometer) reroute around the reservation. The tribe has filed a lawsuit seeking to void state construction permits for the project and has joined several other groups in challenging the permits through the state’s contested case process.
Noem announced an arrest of a 54-year-old man who was living in the U.S. illegally, saying he had written a letter threatening to kill Trump and would then return to Mexico. The story received a flood of media attention and was highlighted by the White House and Trump’s allies.
But investigators actually believe the man may have been framed so that he would get arrested and be deported from the U.S. before he got a chance to testify in a trial as a victim of assault, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. The person could not publicly discuss details of the investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Law enforcement officials believe the man, Ramon Morales Reyes, never wrote a letter that Noem and her department shared with a message written in light blue ink expressing anger over Trump’s deportations and threatening to shoot him in the head with a rifle at a rally. Noem also shared the letter on X along with a photo of Morales Reyes, and the White House also shared it on its social media accounts. The letter was mailed to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office along with the FBI and other agencies, the person said.
As part of the investigation, officials had contacted Morales Reyes and asked for a handwriting sample and concluded his handwriting and the threatening letter didn’t match and that the threat was not credible, the person said. It’s not clear why Homeland Security officials still decided to send a release making that claim.
In an emailed statement asking for information about the letter and the new information about Morales Reyes, the Department of Homeland Security said “the investigation into the threat is ongoing. Over the course of the investigation, this individual was determined to be in the country illegally and that he had a criminal record. He will remain in custody.”
His attorneys said he was not facing current charges and they did not have any information about convictions in his record.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s records show Morales Reyes is being held at a county jail in Juneau, Wisconsin, northwest of Milwaukee. The Milwaukee-based immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera, which is advocating for his release, said he was arrested May 21. Attorney Cain Oulahan, who was hired to fight against his deportation, said he has a hearing in a Chicago immigration court next week and is hoping he is released on bond.
Morales Reyes had been a victim in a case of another man who is awaiting trial on assault charges in Wisconsin, the person familiar with the matter said. The trial is scheduled for July.
Morales Reyes works as a dishwasher in Milwaukee, where he lives with his wife and three children. He had recently applied for a U visa, which is carved out for people in the country illegally who become victims of serious crimes, said attorney Kime Abduli, who filed that application.
The Milwaukee Police Department said it is investigating an identity theft and victim intimidation incident related to this matter, and the county district attorney’s office said the investigation was ongoing. Milwaukee police said no one has been criminally charged at this time.
Abduli, Morales Reyes’ attorney, says he could not have written the letter, saying he did not receive formal education and can’t write in Spanish and doesn’t know how to speak English. She said it was not clear whether he was arrested because of the letters.
“There is really no way that it could be even remotely true,” Abduli said. “We’re asking for a clarification and a correction from DHS to clear Ramon’s name of anything having to do with this.”
The Associated Press’ Mike Balsamo, Scott Bauer and Adriana Gomez contributed to this report.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended a Dane County judge for a week Tuesday for leaving court to try to arrest a hospitalized defendant herself and getting into a sarcastic exchange with another defendant seeking a trial delay.
The court agreed with a judicial conduct review panel’s suspension recommendation for Ellen Berz, finding that she deserved more than a reprimand because she behaved impulsively and showed a lack of restraint. The suspension will begin June 26, the court ordered.
“We believe that the recommended seven-day suspension is of sufficient length to impress upon Judge Berz the necessity of patience, impartiality, and restraint in her work, and to demonstrate to the public the judiciary’s dedication to promoting professionalism among its members,” the justices wrote in the suspension order. Justice Jill Karofsky, herself a former Dane County judge, did not participate in the case.
The suspension order noted that Berz has acknowledged the facts of the case and has accepted full responsibility. Andrew Rima, one of two attorneys listed for Berz in online court records, declined to comment. Her other attorney, Steven Caya, didn’t immediately respond to an email.
Berz is the second Wisconsin judge that the state Supreme Court has suspended in the last five weeks. The justices suspended Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan indefinitely on April 29 after federal prosecutors accused her of helping a man evade U.S. immigration agents by showing him out a back door in her courtroom.
A federal grand jury has indicted Dugan on one count of obstruction and one count of concealing a person to prevent arrest. She has pleaded not guilty and is set to stand trial in July.
The Wisconsin Judicial Commission filed a misconduct complaint against Berz, the Dane County judge, in October accusing her of failing to promote public confidence in judicial impartiality, failing to treat people professionally and failing to performing her duties without bias.
According to the complaint, Berz was presiding over an operating-while-intoxicated case in December 2021. The defendant didn’t show up in court on the day the trial was set to begin. His attorney told Berz that the defendant had been admitted to a hospital.
Berz had a staff member investigate and learned that he was in a Sun Prairie emergency room. The judge ordered her bailiff to go arrest him, but was told the bailiff couldn’t leave the courthouse. She declared that she would retrieve the defendant herself, and if something happened to her, people would hear about it on the news, according to the complaint. She then left court and began driving to the emergency room with the defendant’s attorney in the passenger seat, the complaint says. No prosecutor was present in the vehicle.
She eventually turned around after the defense attorney warned her that traveling to the hospital was a bad idea because she was supposed to be the neutral decision-maker in the case, according to the complaint. She went back into court and issued a warrant for the defendant’s arrest.
The complaint also alleges she told a defendant in a child sexual assault case who had asked to delay his trial for a second time that he was playing games and should “go to the prison and talk to them about all the games you can play.”
When the defendant said her sarcasm was clear, she told him: “Good. I thought it would be. That’s why I’m saying it to you that way, because I thought you would relate with that.”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune can afford to lose three Republican senators and still pass the bill, and there are more than that, right now, who have problems with it. Like the House, he will have to balance the concerns from moderate and conservative members of his conference.
Republicans’ aspirational deadline is July 4, ahead of a potential debt default. Thune said groups of senators had already been meeting to discuss the legislation and that they would want to take some time to review it. “And then we’ll put our stamp on it,” he said.
“We’ll see how it goes,” Thune said. “What does it take to get to 51?”
A look at a few of the potential sticking points in the Senate:
Spending
Several Republican senators have said the House’s multi-trillion-dollar tax package doesn’t have enough savings. Thune said many in his GOP conference favor the tax breaks in the bill but “when it comes to the spending side of the equation, this is a unique moment in time, in history, where we have the House and the Senate and the White House, and an opportunity to do something meaningful about how to control government spending.”
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., a sharp critic of the House bill, wants the United States to go back to pre-pandemic spending levels. He has indicated he would be a no on the bill as it stands now, and he says he has at least three other senators aligned with him.
Medicaid and food stamp cuts
Senate Republicans are generally on board with stricter work requirements for older Medicaid recipients that make up much of the bill’s $700 billion savings from the program. But Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri, Jerry Moran of Kansas and Susan Collins of Maine, among others, have voiced concerns about other changes in the bill that could potentially cut funding to rural hospitals or increase copays and other health care costs for recipients.
The senators could have a powerful ally in Trump, who has frequently said he doesn’t want cuts to Medicaid, even as he’s endorsed the House bill. Hawley said he talked to Trump this week on the phone and “his exact words were, ‘Don’t touch it, Josh.’”
Others have been wary of the House bill’s effort to shift some costs of the food stamp program to states, potentially a major issue for some red states that have high numbers of food aid recipients. The House bill saves $290 billion from the food aid, and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman said the Senate savings will be “probably be a little bit lower.”
Permanent tax cuts
Thune said this week that “one of the principal differences” between the House and Senate is that Republican senators want to make many of the tax cuts permanent while the House bill has shorter time frames for many of its cuts — including no taxes on tips, overtime pay, car-loan interest and others.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo said Thursday that trying to make some of the cuts permanent is “an objective right now.”
How to pay for it all
One of the biggest questions for the Senate: whether the tax breaks really need to be offset by cuts elsewhere.
To offset the costs of lost tax revenue, House Republicans have proposed more than $1 trillion in spending reductions across Medicaid, food stamps and green energy program rollbacks. However, Republicans in the Senate do not believe there is a cost associated with permanently extending the existing taxes, setting up a political and procedural showdown ahead.
Debt limit
The House bill includes a $4 trillion increase in the debt limit. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned that the United States is on track to run out of money to pay its bills as early as August without congressional action.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said he won’t support the bill if the debt ceiling increase is included. He said he’s willing to consider it if it’s taken out.
But most Republican senators want it to avoid a separate fight that would require 60 votes in the Senate. Texas Sen. John Cornyn said that if they deal with the debt ceiling outside of the legislation then they would have to “pay a king’s ransom” to Democrats to get enough votes.
Energy tax credits
Several Republican senators have said they are concerned about House provisions that repeal or phase out clean energy tax credits passed in 2022 that have spurred investment in many states.
Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, John Curtis of Utah and Moran wrote Thune a letter last month arguing that removing the credits could “create uncertainty, jeopardizing capital allocation, long-term project planning, and job creation in the energy sector and across our broader economy.”
Artificial intelligence
The House bill would ban states and localities from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade, giving the federal government more control over the policy. It’s an approach that has been favored by the AI industry but has drawn concern from members on both sides of the aisle.
And even if it has enough support, the provision may not pass muster from the Senate parliamentarian because it’s unlikely to have impact on the federal budget.
Other issues
With a narrow margin for victory and only 53 Republicans in the Senate, every senator’s top priority takes on outsize importance. South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds said he supports the House bill but that the way that it deals with spectrum auctions — selling off telecommunications signal rights — is a “dealbreaker” for him. He said he’s in talks with other senators on the issue.
Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said one of his main goals is that they include money for certain farm safety net programs and set up passage for a broader farm bill later this year.
“In the end, we have to have 50 plus one supporting it,” Hoeven said. “So we’ve got some work to do.”