Snow and ice boulders at the Forest Glen Metro stop in Silver Spring, Maryland, on Jan. 29, 2026, days after Winter Storm Fern hit the region. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
A focus on addressing climate change, including by producing wind and solar energy, has not helped Americans keep their electricity and heat on during winter storms, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Friday.
Ahead of another major cold snap on the East Coast, Wright briefed reporters at the agency headquarters in Washington, D.C., on the importance of maintaining electricity and heat supply during winter storms and advocated for a national energy strategy that focuses more on grid resilience and less on reducing carbon emissions.
His statements continued a Trump administration stress on fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas that contribute to global climate change.
Americans elected President Donald Trump to move away from a focus on climate, Wright said.
“Today, the policies that get in the way of reasonable energy development and mess up the math are things focused around climate change,” he said. “We’ve done almost nothing to change global greenhouse gas emissions — as close to nothing as you can get — from endless regulations on electricity that have just driven up prices and driven down reliability in the name of climate change.”
Electricity grids and peak demand
Electricity grids must be designed for peak demand, such as during winter storms or summer heat waves, Wright said. Efforts to increase generation capacity with renewable sources are misguided, as the United States electricity grid produces hundreds of excess gigawatts of power during normal conditions, he said.
During President Joe Biden’s administration, Democrats enacted a law providing massive tax credits for wind and solar production. Without naming that law or specific officials, Wright said those efforts were not useful.
“When I hear politicians say, ‘We just need more electrons on the grid,’ no, we don’t,” he said. “When the sun shines or the wind blows, (it) doesn’t add anything to the capacity of our electricity grid. It just means we send subsidy checks to those generators, and we tell the other generators, turn down.”
During the winter storm that gripped much of the country last month, wind energy provided 40% less electricity than it had on the same days in 2025, Wright said. Solar provided only 2% of energy to affected areas, according to a pie chart shown at the briefing.
By contrast, coal provided 25% more power than usual and natural gas produced 47% more, he said. Nuclear energy was about the same.
Renewables strengthen grid, climate group says
The clean energy group Climate Power said in a Tuesday statement that renewable sources helped fortify energy supply during peak demand times. Solar energy produced 300% more in a 2024 Texas storm than it had in a storm three years earlier. And during last month’s cold streak, areas that relied on wind saw lower prices, according to the group.
Climate Power also said natural gas infrastructure was “prone to freezes and mechanical failure.”
“As back-to-back winter storms pummeled communities across the country in January, the facts about Donald Trump’s reckless energy policies have come into focus: fossil fuels have proved less reliable and more expensive as families struggle to keep the power on,” the statement read.
Wright favors natural gas
But while Democrats and climate activists have said the U.S. should move away from oil, coal and gas because of the climate-warming emissions they release and toward renewables, Wright suggested natural gas should be emphasized instead to substitute for oil, which is more expensive and produces more air pollution.
The proposed Constitution Pipeline, which would carry natural gas from New York state to Pennsylvania, should have been approved years ago, Wright said, but was held up by a “bad political decision.”
Planners abandoned the controversial project in 2020 in the face of regulatory difficulties in New York, but revived it last year. Its federal reviews are pending.
Wright said producing more energy would also be needed for another Trump administration priority: leading in artificial intelligence development. The industry needs massive energy sources to run the data centers AI relies on.
Chair of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., on Feb. 5, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Scott criticized President Donald Trump's use of a racist meme on social media. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The White House on Friday pulled down a social media post depicting former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama as monkeys after members of Congress from both political parties expressed dismay and called it racist.
A White House spokesperson told States Newsroom around noon that a “staffer erroneously made the post” that was shared on President Donald Trump’s social media platform late Thursday night.
But White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a statement earlier in the day the video wasn’t a real issue.
“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,” she wrote. “Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”
The White House press office also shared via email the full video, which was published in October. Trump shared a clip of the video on his social media account on Thursday at 11:44 p.m. Eastern within another video about allegations of 2020 election fraud in Michigan.
The decision to delete Trump’s social media post followed hours of pushback from lawmakers.
“Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House,” wrote South Carolina Republican Sen. Tim Scott. “The President should remove it.”
Scott is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is tasked with ensuring the GOP maintains its majority in that chamber following November’s midterm elections.
Nebraska Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts posted that, “Even if this was a Lion King meme, a reasonable person sees the racist context to this. The White House should do what anyone does when they make a mistake: remove this and apologize.”
New York Republican Rep. Mike Lawler wrote the “post is wrong and incredibly offensive — whether intentional or a mistake — and should be deleted immediately with an apology offered.”
Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker called the post “totally unacceptable.
“The president should take it down and apologize.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., described the video as something that “is dangerous and degrades our country” as well as “Racist. Vile. Abhorrent.”
“The President must immediately delete the post and apologize to Barack and Michelle Obama, two great Americans who make Donald Trump look like a small, envious man,” Schumer wrote.
Michigan Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin posted, “This is racist garbage from President Trump. If you’re finding yourself defending it, you’re on the wrong side of history.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., wrote that “President Obama and Michelle Obama are brilliant, compassionate and patriotic Americans. They represent the best of this country.”
“Donald Trump is a vile, unhinged and malignant bottom feeder,” Jeffries added. “Why are GOP leaders like John Thune continuing to stand by this sick individual? Every single Republican must immediately denounce Donald Trump’s disgusting bigotry.”
New York Democratic Rep. Yvette Clarke, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, wrote that while some people “still find Donald Trump’s behavior shocking. I do not.”
“This is the man who built his political fortune by way of a vile campaign of birther lies and harassment against President Obama,” Clarke wrote. “Bigotry has been his brand since Day 1, and the wretched ‘yes’ men who surround him enabling or endorsing this conduct aren’t going to change that.
“As his scandals continue to escalate, and as he continues to lose the little lucidity that remains with him, I expect Donald to only retreat deeper into the sewers of racism and ignorance. That’s where he’s most at home. That’s where he’s most comfortable.”
Virginia Democratic Rep. Don Beyer wrote, “Donald Trump greets the first week of Black History Month with one of the most racist things he’s ever posted. This man is unwell.”
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during a policy announcement event at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Jan. 8, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Congress has approved the first public health funding bill since President Donald Trump began his second term, with lawmakers largely rejecting his proposed spending cuts and the elimination of dozens of programs.
A bipartisan group of negotiators instead struck a deal to increase funding on several line items within the Department of Health and Human Services’ annual appropriations bill, including for major initiatives at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“When you look at the differences between what was proposed and what was agreed to, it is astonishing,” House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said during a hearing on the bill in late January.
The Trump administration’s budget request, released in May, called on Congress to cut funding for the Department of Health and Human Services by $33 billion, or 26.2%.
The president asked lawmakers to implement an $18 billion funding cut to the NIH, which he argued would bring the agency in line with the Make America Healthy Again agenda.
The Trump administration proposed a $3.6 billion cut for CDC programs, including the elimination of the National Center for Chronic Diseases Prevention and Health Promotion, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, and Public Health Preparedness and Response, all of which it said could “be conducted more effectively by States.”
The James H. Shannon Building, or Building One, on the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Maryland. (Photo by Lydia Polimeni/National Institutes of Health)
The budget request said more than $1 billion should be cut from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, though it said the administration was “committed to combatting the scourge of deadly drugs that have ravaged American communities.”
Trump also requested lawmakers zero out any funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, which he deemed “unnecessary.” The federal program helps millions of low-income households meet their home energy needs, via states and tribes.
The final spending bill Congress approved rejected nearly all of the major cuts.
Collins, Murray both praise final product
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the bills “reflect months of hard work and deliberation and contributions from members of both parties and on both sides of the Capitol.”
“Funding for NIH is not decreased, as was proposed in the administration’s budget,” she said. “Rather, it is increased by $415 million, including increases of $100 million for Alzheimer’s research and $10 million more for diabetes research, with a focus on type 1 diabetes.”
U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, speaks with reporters inside the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 29, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
Collins also touted an increase in “funding for low-income heating assistance, which is absolutely crucial for states like Maine and is an issue that I have worked for years on with my Democratic colleague Jack Reed of Rhode Island.”
Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., said the difference between Trump’s budget request and the final bills was like the difference between “night and day.”
“Our bill rejects President Trump’s asks to rubber stamp his public health sabotage,” she said. “Instead, it doubles down on lifesaving public health investments. It rejects Trump’s efforts to slash opioid response funds. It rejects his proposal to chop the CDC in half. It rejects his call to end programs like title X, the teen pregnancy program, essential HIV initiatives, and more.”
Rare bipartisan agreement in Trump’s second term
Senators from both political parties indicated last summer they weren’t fully on board with Trump’s budget proposal and used a hearing with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in May and a separate hearing with NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya in June to highlight their concerns.
The Senate Appropriations Committee approved its HHS spending bill on a broadly bipartisan vote in July, while the House Appropriations Committee approved its funding bill in September without any Democratic support.
Neither of the original bills went to the floor for debate and amendment votes, though negotiations to find compromise on a final bill began late last year after the record-breaking government shutdown ended in November.
Washington state Democratic U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, speaks with reporters inside the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on Friday, Sept. 19, 2025. Also pictured, from left to right, are Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.; New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker and Hawaii Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
Republicans and Democrats brokered a final agreement on the HHS funding bill in late January, the first time bipartisan agreement was reached during Trump’s second term.
Congress previously approved a series of stopgap spending bills to keep HHS up and running, mostly on funding levels and policies last set during the Biden administration.
The House originally voted on Jan. 22 to send the package that included funding for HHS to the Senate. But it stalled after federal immigration agents shot and killed a second U.S. citizen in Minnesota and Democrats demanded changes to the spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security.
The Senate voted 71-29 on Jan. 30 to send the package back to the House after removing the full-year DHS spending bill and replacing it with a two-week stopgap. The House then voted 217-214 on Tuesday to clear the package for Trump, who signed it later in the day, ending a four-day partial government shutdown.
The package also holds funding for the departments of Defense, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, State, Transportation and Treasury.
‘Months of hard work turned into results’
House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., said during floor debate last month the process that led to the final bills proved lawmakers “can make tough decisions.”
“This is where months of hard work turned into results,” Cole said. “You see, we aren’t here for just another stopgap temporary fix. We’re here to finish the job by providing full-year funding and specifically this package addresses core areas of national consequence — defense; labor, health and education; and transportation and housing development.”
Congress is supposed to pass the dozen full-year appropriations bills by the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1, though it hasn’t completed all of its work on time in decades.
Oklahoma Republican Rep. Tom Cole speaks with reporters following a closed-door meeting of the House Republican Conference inside the Capitol on Jan. 10, 2024. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
Cole said during debate the programs funded “aren’t abstract concepts on a page, they affect how Americans live, work, learn and travel every day.”
DeLauro said the package of bills represents “a strong bipartisan, bicameral agreement that rejects the Trump administration’s efforts to eviscerate public services and reasserts Congress’ power of the purse.”
“It provides funding levels, removing ambiguity that the White House sought to exploit in the past,” DeLauro said. “It establishes deadlines for required spending, provides minimum staffing thresholds to prevent agencies from being hollowed out and increases notification requirements to ensure the administration is complying with the laws that Congress makes.”
HHS ends up with $210 million bump
The bill provides HHS with more than $116 billion, $210 million more in discretionary funding than the previous level and a rejection of Trump’s request to cut $33 billion, according to a summary from Murray’s office.
NIH will receive $48.7 billion in funding, $415 million more than its current spending level, showing that lawmakers were unwilling to slice its budget by $18 billion as requested.
Congress bolstered funding for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration by $65 million to a total of $7.4 billion, according to Murray’s summary. Trump asked lawmakers to reduce its allocation by more than $1 billion.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 23, 2023. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
A $3.6 billion funding cut for the CDC was also rejected, with appropriators agreeing to provide the Atlanta-based agency with $9.2 billion.
A summary of the bill from DeLauro’s office says negotiators were able to keep funding for domestic and global HIV/AIDS activities, Firearm Injury and Mortality Prevention Research and Tobacco Prevention and Control, among other programs that House Republicans originally proposed to zero out.
The legislation bolstered, instead of eliminated, funding for the Low Income Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, according to a summary from Cole’s office.
The bill, it said, “reprioritizes taxpayer dollars where they matter most: into lifesaving biomedical research and resilient medical supply chains, classrooms and technical programs that set Americans up for success, and rural hospitals and primary health care to support strong and healthy families.”
CDC program axed
The legislation does eliminate the CDC’s Social Determinants of Health program, which the agency’s website states are “nonmedical factors that influence health outcomes.” Those can include whether a person has access to clean air and water, a well-balanced diet, exercise, a good education, career opportunities, economic stability and a safe place to live.
HHS’ Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion writes that “people who don’t have access to grocery stores with healthy foods are less likely to have good nutrition. That raises their risk of health conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and obesity — and even lowers life expectancy relative to people who do have access to healthy foods.”
Cole’s summary of the HHS spending bill says that program “promoted social engineering while distracting grant recipients from combating infectious and chronic diseases.”
The American Public Health Association urged Congress to approve the bill, writing in a statement the compromise “rightly maintains funding for most public health agencies and programs.”
“While the bill is not perfect and we disagree with cuts to several HHS agency programs included, overall, the agreement rejects the devastating cuts and nonsensical agency reorganizations proposed by the Trump administration and is a positive outcome,” APHA wrote. “Importantly, the bill also includes language to ensure that CDC and other health agencies maintain an adequate level of staffing to carry out their statutory responsibilities.
“The bill will also ensure that Congress exercises its oversight over any future proposed agency reorganizations.”
The starting line at the 2024 American Birkebeiner ski race in Cable, Wisconsin | Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner
The 52ndAmerican Birkebeiner, “Birkie,” cross-country ski race between Cable and Hayward, Wisconsin, is scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 21, featuring thousands of skiers from across the United States and several hundred from 16 foreign countries, including Norway, France, Finland and Germany.
However, according to American Birkebeiner Ski Foundation Executive Director Ben Popp several international participants have called the Birkebeiner office in Hayward to express concerns after the federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota and the death of Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were both shot by federal immigration agents.
The Birkebeiner course in northwestern Wisconsin is close to the Minneapolis-St. Paul international airport. So far, Popp said, the Birkie doesn’t know if any foreign skiers have canceled their plans to attend the upcoming race, the largest cross-country/Nordic ski race in North America.
“We had people say, ‘Is it safe to fly into Minneapolis?’” said Popp. “I mean it’s no secret, globally speaking, people are looking at the United States in a very different light these days, especially if you’re a foreigner.”
He added, “it’s predominantly people asking questions like, ‘Is it safe to fly to Minneapolis? What’s it like? Should I still come?’ You know, those are kind of the questions I think we’re getting from the foreigners. And, you know, a lot of those are pretty savvy travelers. Typically, it’s like this is not their first international trip.”
Popp said a skier from Slovenia wanted a contract number with the Birkie in case the skier was stopped by immigration officers and questioned why he was in the U.S..
“So those are legitimate questions we’re getting and encouraging them to come,” Popp said. “And certainly there are some crazy things going on, but we think it’s safe to fly into Minneapolis and get to the Northwoods.”
The Birkie will be able to assess how many skiers canceled their trips after organizers see who doesn’t participate in the 50K ski or the 53K classic events.
“I think there’s certainly an economic impact that can happen if they don’t come,” said Popp. “But, you know, we’re trying to reassure them that we think it is safe to travel, you know, through Minneapolis.”
International tourism to the United States reportedly dropped dramatically after President Donald Trump took office on January 21, 2025, and voiced an “American First” policy emphasizing a crackdown on immigrants, suspension of foreign visa programs and a tougher foreign-policy and trade stance toward other nations.
Images and videos of ICE officers breaking car windows and dragging people out of their homes, some of whom were immigrants who legally reside in the U.S., as well as the shooting deaths of U.S. citizens Good and Pretti, haven’t played well for international travelers considering visiting the U.S.
A cheesehead placed at the Minneapolis memorial of Green Bay native Alex Pretti, who was killed by federal agents Jan. 24. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
BALDWIN — Hours after White House border czar Tom Homan announced Wednesday morning that the Trump administration would be pulling 700 immigration agents out of Minnesota, agents crossed the St. Croix River to conduct a number of raids in the Twin Cities exurban communities of Hudson and Baldwin, Wisconsin.
Those operations included the arrest of immigrants at the St. Croix County Courthouse in Hudson and a Mexican restaurant in Baldwin. In prior weeks federal immigration agents have regularly crossed the river, arresting people working at small manufacturing operations and gas stations, ranging as far east as Eau Claire.
While Wisconsin has seen an increase in immigration enforcement since President Donald Trump took office last year — as well some high profile cases such as the arrest of a migrant at the Milwaukee County Courthouse that sparked the federal felony charges against former Judge Hannah Dugan — the level of ICE action in the state has been lower than in the neighboring states of Illinois and Minnesota, where the Department of Homeland Security launched massive operations targeting migrants in Chicago and Minneapolis/St. Paul.
Ben Nelson, a St. Paul resident who serves as the pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Woodville and works as a coach on the track team at Baldwin-Woodville High School, said that when students returned to classes after winter break, as many as 50 households in the school district had seen at least one parent taken by federal agents.
On Wednesday, several ICE agents arrived at the St. Croix County Courthouse and went inside to arrest immigrants who were in the building for court hearings.
Agents also raided Rancho Loco Mexican restaurant in Baldwin, where four members of the staff were arrested.
“Within the last 48 hours, we probably had another 10 people taken from Baldwin,” Kimberly Solberg, a Baldwin resident who has been involved in local support networks, said Wednesday evening. “We are a small town, but they’re still doing the raids here, taking two, three, five, eight people at a time.”
In the shadow of the Minnesota crackdown
Since ICE increased its Minnesota presence in December, these Wisconsin communities have been living in the shadow of the chaos caused by the immigration enforcement surge across the border. Residents work, shop and get their health care in Minnesota — including at the Veterans Affairs hospital where Green Bay native Alex Pretti worked before he was killed by federal agents Jan. 24.
While the presence of ICE in the Twin Cities has galvanized resistance in the largely blue urban area, the operations in western Wisconsin are deeply dividing residents in a solidly Republican county.
“The vitriol is so so thick, and the divide is so deep that people on one side, in the local minority, who are trying to do what they can to protect their neighbors, to support their neighbors, or just call for calmness and peace — which even calling for empathy, calmness and peace is radical leftist nonsense at this point,” Solberg said. “They’re terrified. People speak in code, there’s like signals, winks and nods. Everybody tiptoes around to suss out whether or not the person they’re talking to is safe because they’re so scared of how people react.”
Main Street in Baldwin, Wisconsin. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
Nelson, the Woodville track coach and pastor, said the lack of trust in the community is affecting how people are responding.
“There’s some really just strong opinions … it’s sort of difficult to know who you can trust, because there is a significant amount of people who believe that ICE is operating lawfully and doing the right thing, and will support them in those efforts,” Nelson said. “So honestly, I think we’re just still figuring it out as we go, figuring out how to speak and what we can do.”
Some networks that are helping western Wisconsin’s current immigrant communities were established when Hmong and Vietnamese refugees first arrived in the region after the Vietnam War, according to River Falls resident Ellie Richards.
“There is a caring community here who is trying to provide the support we feel like these wonderful souls need,” Richards said. “We view them as an asset to our community. None of us feel the least bit threatened by their presence, despite what the federal government may try to tell us.”
But the best way to respond has been unclear because of the political divide in the rural communities and the fact that there are fewer people nearby to rush to the scene when immigration agents are conducting an arrest.
About 50 people braved sub-zero temperatures Jan. 28 to hold a candlelight vigil at Windmill Park in Baldwin for Alex Pretti and Renee Good. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)
On the evening of Jan. 28, about 50 residents of Baldwin met in sub-zero temperatures at a park to hold a candlelight vigil for Pretti and Renee Good. Residents of the small rural community lamented that ICE’s presence in St. Croix County has caused immigrant-owned businesses to close — including the local Mexican grocery store, Thai and Indian restaurants.
Other area residents have been driving across the border to join Minnesota’s protests against the federal immigration enforcement crackdown.
‘We don’t have the numbers and support’
In the Twin Cities, the presence of ICE agents often sparks an immediate response from neighbors who come outside to observe and make noise in an effort to deter an arrest. In rural Wisconsin communities, there are often fewer people in the immediate area who can respond in the same way.
Even when responders arrive on the scene, they often don’t have enough people to feel comfortable standing up to the federal agents.
“We don’t have the numbers and support, at least not in any way organized like they do in the Cities,” Solberg said. “None of the whistles, none of the honking or shouting. It’s intimidating, because if you don’t have a big group, we’ve all seen the videos of the attitude of some of these ICE agents, specifically that video where the agent tells the protester, ‘You raise your voice, I’ll erase your voice.’ It’s very clear that there’s an attitude that if you resist us in any way, we will come after you, whether we legally can or not.”
St. Croix residents have joined group chats on encryption apps such as Signal and taken observer training offered by Twin Cities-based immigrant advocacy groups in Hudson and River Falls. But often, immigrants are arrested and swept away by federal agents before help can arrive, meaning that the support networks are largely left to help families handle the effects afterwards.
Neighbors are bringing groceries to families staying home out of fear of arrest and providing rides to undocumented immigrants, who are legally barred from obtaining Wisconsin driver’s licenses. Residents say they are providing this type of help to immigrants whether they have legal status to be in this country or not, because of ICE’s history of arresting people based on their appearance.
Strained relationship with local police
The presence of ICE in the community is straining the relationship between residents and local law enforcement. Several residents have complained that the Baldwin Police Department is at the scene when ICE conducts operations in the community. The St. Croix County Sheriff’s Department is not a participant in ICE’s 287(g) program granting deputies some civil immigration authority and the department policy states that victims and witnesses of crimes will not be turned in to federal authorities. But the policy states that the department can notify ICE about undocumented immigrants who are held in the county jail for other crimes.
Solberg, who said she comes from a law enforcement family, said the perceived assistance local cops are giving ICE is harming their relationship with the community.
“I have personally seen, with my own eyes, I have seen Baldwin P.D. conferencing, standing with ICE immediately prior to ICE raiding an apartment complex,” she said. “I want to give police every benefit of the doubt, because I’ve lived in places that have bad police, and Baldwin police is very community oriented, but also I’m not going to be willfully blind when so many people are saying that they have personally seen Baldwin P.D. working with ICE, assisting in detention, assisting in action, actively assisting in actions.”
“The worst is it’s the perception, the perception in the community, for sure, across the board, among the ICE supporters and the ICE detractors, the perception in the community is that all the P.D. is working with ICE,” she continued. “Which, for people who are scared, who are legal migrants or possibly illegal immigrants, the police are supposed to be there to protect the community, and those entire groups of people do not feel safe with the law enforcement.”
But Baldwin Police Chief Kevin Moore denied that his officers were cooperating with federal agents.
“I am concerned that members of the immigrant community may feel hesitant to report crimes or contact law enforcement due to perceptions about immigration enforcement,” he said in an email. “That concern is taken seriously. The Baldwin Police Department is committed to serving everyone in our community, and we want residents to know that contacting our department for help does not place them at risk of immigration enforcement. As a small, community-focused department, our officers live and work in and around Baldwin and care deeply about the trust of the people we serve. While we occasionally encounter federal agents in the course of routine patrol or unrelated law enforcement activity, as we do with many agencies, these encounters are unplanned and do not reflect coordinated operations or cooperation related to immigration enforcement. Our intent is to maintain open communication with community members, address concerns directly, and ensure that Baldwin remains a safe place for everyone who lives, works, or visits here.”
Washington, D.C., and 38 states have enacted some form of statewide restriction or requirement for districts to limit student phone use. Of those, 18 have bans for the entire day. (Photo by SDI Productions via Getty Images)
Wisconsin lawmakers are calling for the state to ban cell phones throughout the school day and to implement regulations on social media and other platforms in an effort to protect children from the negative consequences of internet and social media use.
The bills regulating cellphone and internet use are the result of a task force organized by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) last year. The group of lawmakers, which met four times, was tasked with examining the effects of social media on youth development, evaluating the benefits and drawbacks to children having unlimited, unsupervised access to the internet and assessing the risks and dangers of children being online.
Bell-to-bell cell phone ban
Following the lead of several other states, Wisconsin lawmakers are pushing for a “bell-to-bell” cell phone ban in schools, about six months before school districts in Wisconsin are required to implement the instructional cell phone ban in schools recently required by state law.
Washington, D.C., and 38 states have enacted some form of statewide restriction or requirement for districts to limit student phone use. Of those, 18 have bans for the entire day.
AB 948 would require policies banning cell phone use in school to prohibit them throughout the entire school day including during instructional time, recess, the time students travel between classes and the lunch period. This would need to be implemented by July 1, 2027, under the bill.
Rep. Lindee Brill (R-Sheboygan Falls) told lawmakers on the Assembly Education committee that the bill is just one part of a “multifaceted approach” to addressing the question of protecting children online.
“If schools can be a safe zone that this bill helps implement, that is a huge piece,” she said.
Brill said that a student during one of the task force meetings said that he had many experiences on social media and “most of them were bad” and that social media “brings you down.”
Wisconsin recently enacted a statewide cell phone ban, signed into law by Gov. Tony Evers in October. But 2025 Wisconsin Act 42 only requires school districts to implement policies that ban cellphones during instructional times. These policies need to include exceptions for emergencies, for educational purposes and cases involving student health care, individualized education plans (IEPs) or 504 plans (learning environment accommodations).
Even prior to the recent state law, according to a Wisconsin Policy Forum report, most Wisconsin school districts already restricted student cellphone use, though policies and enforcement varied widely across the state.
However, Brill said the state should go further.
“School districts are right now considering adopting these policies independently and there’s a groundswell of parents calling for it,” Brill said.
Rep. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay), who led the first cellphone ban law, noted that he got a lot of pushback when he first proposed the idea because it was a “fairly new concept.” He said he would have liked to pass a bell-to-bell ban to begin with, but he didn’t think there was the political support necessary.
“Since that time, though, this issue has exploded across the country and Wisconsin is now on the weaker end of it,” Kitchens said, adding that New York, a Democratic-led state, and Louisiana, a Republican-led state, have the strictest bans in the country.
AB 948 would also explicitly allow school districts to use pouches or other storage devices for cellphones or ban having cellphones on school premises.
Democratic lawmakers on the education committee questioned the approach as a “one-size-fits-all” solution to the issue of cellphones, as well as the exclusion of the state’s private choice and independent charter schools, which receive taxpayers dollars, from the requirement.
“Why the one-size-fits-all nature of this?” Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) asked. He noted that there may be students who have a part-time job and need to stay in-touch with their employers during the school day and asked whether lawmakers would be open to allowing exceptions for phones during lunch if a school chooses.
“We did it for 200 years without cellphones before and I think we can do it again,” Kitchens said. “The more you understand the issue the more clear it becomes. You have to have a strict policy.”
Rep. Joe Sheehan (D-Sheboygan) said that the superintendent of the school district in the area he represents in the Assembly did not want the broader ban on cellphones. He also asked about the exclusion of the state’s voucher schools. He said if the schools don’t want to follow the regulations placed on schools getting taxpayer funding then “don’t take the money.”
Brill said that parents are sending their children to voucher schools so they can get the education that fits their children best and that she doesn’t want there to be “punitive damages on private schools because they’re getting tax dollars when, in reality, it’s that child who’s getting the education.”
Kitchens said a bill that only includes public schools is all they can get done “politically” right now.
No one else testified on the bill.
Regulations on content, social media access
The Assembly Children and Families committee took up a set of bills that would regulate social media companies and platforms.
AB 961 would require distributors of media, including print publications and digital platforms, to use prominent “explicit content” warning labels.
Rep. Joy Goeben (R-Hobart) said the bill would establish a “common-sense framework ensuring that material intended strictly for adults … is clearly identified before it is accessed.”
The bill defines “explicit content” as material “intended for an adult audience” that “lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” and that “depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way.”
Under the bill, the warning label would need to be on the front cover or first page or on the packaging for print publications and for digital platforms, the label would need to appear for at least 10 seconds or until a user acknowledges the warning.
The warning label would need to be similar to: “WARNING: This material contains explicit content that may be harmful or offensive. Viewer discretion is advised. Not intended for minors.”
“Ultimately, this bill is about consumer transparency, helps protect minors by ensuring explicit material clearly is labeled and responsibly presented,” Goeben said.
Rep. Jill Billings (D-La Crosse) asked Goeben whether she would be open to an amendment to remove printed materials from the bill, citing concerns from book sellers.
“If this got this signed, you betcha I would, but realistically most things that are sold, aren’t they sold, like, in a wrapper?” Goeben asked, adding that she didn’t think it would be fair to social media or internet stakeholders to exclude printed materials.
“I think we really need to think about applying equally to all the people who create disturbing content,” Goeben said.
“Maybe take print media out of it because again… this isn’t like the emerging technology where parents are struggling with trying to address what their kids are seeing and how they’re putting parental controls on it. Print media is a bit of a different animal,” Billings said.
AB 962 would require app developers and app stores to verify the age of users and, if they identified a minor’s account, to get parental consent before child users are able to download or purchase apps or make in-store purchases. Accounts belonging to a minor would have to be affiliated with an account owned by a parent.
Goeben said the bill would give parents tools they have been asking for.
“Parents should never discover after the fact that an app that their child has used daily has become more invasive or more dangerous,” Goeben said. “This proposal is narrowly and carefully tailored… it does not ban apps or censor content or interfere with innovation… What it does do is establish clear and uniform rules so families are no longer forced to navigate a confusing patchwork of opaque policies… written by corporations.”
The bill would also prohibit apps and app stores from enforcing a contract or terms of service against a minor unless there is parental consent. And it bars knowingly misrepresenting any information in a parental consent disclosure and sharing or disclosing any personal information collected when conducting age verification.
The bill includes a provision to allow a minor or parent of a minor harmed by a violation to bring civil action against an app store provider or developer. They could be awarded actual damages or $1,000 for each violation, whichever amount is greater, and punitive damages if the violation was egregious, as well as court costs and reasonable attorney fees.
AB 963 would impose a number of requirements related to underage users on social media platforms that bring in more than $1 billion in revenue per year. Social media platforms would need to estimate the age of users and whether they are minors.
The requirements include setting the default privacy settings at the most private; not allowing for “addictive features” including infinite scrolling, a profile-based feed, push notifications, autoplay and displaying likes; and preventing profile-based, paid commercial advertising in a minor’s feed.
Platforms would also need to terminate an account if they have reason to believe the user is a minor without parental consent. If a parent requests the termination of a child’s account, it must be done within 14 days, and the means to terminate an account must be clear, simple, and easy to locate.
The bill includes a provision to allow a private civil action by a parent or child aggrieved by a negligent, reckless or knowing violation for declaratory or injunctive relief and damages. If the violation was reckless or knowing, the parent or minor would be entitled to $10,000 or actual damages per violation.
Brittney and Luke Bird, the parents of Bradyn Bohn, the 15-year-old who killed himself after falling victim to sextortion, testified in favor of the bill. They have become prominent advocates for online safety and child protection in the wake of the death of their son.
Luke Bird told lawmakers on the committee that the bills are “meaningful steps towards preventing further tragedies.”
“Over the last 11 months, we’ve learned firsthand how inadequate current safeguards are when it comes to internet use. The dangers are real, they’re immediate, and they’re widespread and growing,” he said. “There’s an active case against Meta involving sextortion scams. Snapchat is facing cases tied to drug distribution. TikTok has been tied to dangerous online challenges…. As parents and as citizens we’re expected to trust that our children can safely navigate these digital spaces. We believe safeguards, accountability and stronger protections must be put in place. That begins with you, in here.”
(The Center Square) – The Republican running in one of the WOW counties’ senate districts says his race is almost as important as the race for governor.
(The Center Square) – Wisconsin utility rates have continued to increase - with $300 million in rate increases over two years approved in November - and one Wisconsin lawmakers wants to ensure that Public Service Commission board commissioners are not…
As children continue to enter foster care across Milwaukee, agencies working the front lines say the greatest need isn’t funding or policy promises, it’s people willing to open their homes. Especially to teenagers.
We spoke with Jakob Eisen, director of social services, and Karen Steinbach, treatment foster care supervisor, with La Causa’s Treatment Foster Care program, to understand what becoming and supporting foster parents can look like.
Shortage of foster families
Children placed in foster care range from newborns to young adults, sometimes remaining in care until age 21 or older if they are still in school.
Steinbach said what youths share is trauma because being removed from home, even for safety reasons, is itself traumatic.
“These kids come to us during the worst moments of their lives,” she said. “They need adults who are patient, empathetic and willing to stay even when things get hard.”
Data shows a desperate shortage in Milwaukee of people willing to take in adolescents.
In 2024, there was an average of 515 children aged 12 years or older in out-of-home care. Of these older children, 275 (53%) were placed in a family-like setting, 146 (28%) were placed in congregate care, and 94 (18%) were in other care.
Ninety percent of children aged 12 and under were placed in family-like care.
Steinbach said teenagers often cycle through dozens of placements, a history that can fuel mistrust, anger and difficult behaviors.
“There’s a myth that teens are harder or more dangerous,” she said. “But if you’ve been in 30 or 40 homes and every one of them asked you to leave, why would you believe the next one will be different?”
She said behaviors like running away, breaking property, withdrawing emotionally or acting out are often trauma responses, not defiance. And younger children show it, too.
Foster parents are asked to look past those behaviors.
“That’s the hardest part of the job,” Steinbach said. “And also the most important.”
What does it take to become a foster parent?
Becoming a foster parent is a serious commitment, and the licensing process reflects that.
Prospective families must pass background checks, provide references, complete home safety inspections, participate in interviews that explore everything from parenting experience to mental health history, and meet other state requirements.
“It’s personal,” Steinbach said. “We ask hard questions because we’re asking you to care for children who have experienced significant trauma.”
There are different levels of foster care. Treatment foster parents, who care for children with higher behavioral or emotional needs, receive additional training and support.
Eisen said most foster parents work full-time jobs. What helps them succeed as a foster parent is preparation and support from employers, family, friends and agencies themselves.
“We ask people upfront: Who’s your village?” Steinbach said. “Because no one does this alone.”
Removing stigmas of fostering
Some community members hesitate to engage with foster care because they believe the system “takes” children from families. Eisen said that perception misses critical context.
“No child is removed without legal authority,” he said. “Every case goes before a judge. There are statutory thresholds, multiple layers of review and ongoing court oversight.”
In most cases, he said, parents retain legal rights and decision-making authority. Foster care is intended to be temporary, with reunification as the primary goal whenever it can be done safely.
“We don’t want to keep kids,” Steinbach said. “The best outcome is getting them home.”
Their goal is to help foster parents work alongside birth families to support them as they complete court-ordered steps.
“When foster parents and birth parents can work together, kids do better,” she said. “And reunification happens faster.”
How you can help, without becoming a foster parent
Not everyone can foster, but Steinbach and Eisen stress that everyone can help.
Support can be as simple as providing respite care or babysitting, helping with school pickups or transportation, bringing meals or offering child care so foster parents can attend training.
“These small things are huge,” Steinbach said. “Sometimes a foster parent just needs an hour to grocery shop or take a shower.”
Community members can also help by challenging stigmas when they hear them, sharing accurate information and encouraging others to consider fostering.
“Even planting the seed matters. Most people think about fostering for years before they ever make the call,” Eisen said.
Prevention and support
While foster care agencies work daily to recruit and support families, leaders say long-term solutions lie in prevention. Investing in mental health care, addiction services, transportation, supervised visitation and family support can help keep children safely at home.
“If we could work ourselves out of a job, we would,” Eisen said. “But until then, we need people, not perfect people, just people willing to show up.”
For children in foster care, that willingness to “show up” can mean the difference between another disrupted placement and the first adult who truly stays in their lives. For more information on becoming a foster parent, you can look here and here.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.
When President Donald Trump pressured state and local officials to intervene in his behalf in the 2020 election, it wasn’t a matter of abstract constitutional theory for the people running elections. It was armed protests outside offices, threats against their families, subpoenas for voter data, and months of uncertainty about whether doing their jobs would land them in legal jeopardy.
Now, Trump says he wants Republicans to “nationalize the voting” and “take over the voting in at least 15 places,” language that evokes the pressure campaigns he and allies mounted during that contentious 2020 period.
Trump’s 2020 effort ultimately stalled when even some Republicans refused to take steps they believed were unlawful. And his call to nationalize voting this week prompted pushback from some GOP members of Congress and other Republican figures.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Trump’s proposal raised constitutional concerns, and he warned that nationalizing elections could make them more susceptible to cybersecurity attacks. Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska was more blunt, saying he has long opposed federal control of elections. “I’ll oppose this now as well,” he wrote on X.
On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump’s comments referred to his support for federal legislation commonly called the SAVE Act.
Election officials say the lesson of 2020 was not that the system is invulnerable, but that it can be strained in ways that cause lasting damage long before courts step in. While it’s unclear whether Trump’s latest demands — and possible future actions— would lead to the same level of disruption, legal experts say some of the backstops that ultimately stopped him last time are now weaker, leaving election officials to absorb even more pressure.
Memories of 2020 shape the response
Kathy Bernier, a Republican former Wisconsin lawmaker and Chippewa County clerk, was the chair of the state Senate’s election committee following the 2020 election and repeatedly pushed back on Trump’s claims of widespread fraud. As Republicans launched a prolonged review of the results, Bernier criticized the effort publicly, saying Wisconsin’s elections were secure and that “no one should falsely accuse election officials of cheating.”
She faced extensive backlash, including calls for her resignation, and Bernier said the dispute escalated to the point that she carried a gun for protection. She ultimately left the Legislature, a decision that she said wasn’t politically motivated.
Then-state Sen. Kathy Bernier, R-Chippewa Falls, speaks during a media briefing on growing threats to election professionals in Wisconsin, held at the Wisconsin State Capitol on Dec. 13, 2021. (Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)
A key takeaway from the 2020 election for election officials, Bernier told Votebeat, was the importance of radical transparency — not just following the rules, but showing people, in real time, that the rules are being followed “to a T.”
“When there’s a paper jam,” she said, “announce it.”
Still, she said, officials also learned the limits of that approach. After she tried to boost election confidence across Wisconsin, she came to a blunt conclusion: “There’s nothing you can do with ‘I don’t believe you.’”
In the years that followed, Bernier said, a bigger danger than Trump himself were the “charlatans” who took his words and turned them into a business model, spreading conspiracy theories for profit. The misinformation and disinformation those people spread, Bernier said, continue to resonate among the conspiratorial segments of the GOP.
Stephen Richer, a Republican who became recorder in Maricopa County, Arizona, shortly after the 2020 election, had similar advice: Follow the law, tell the truth and consult attorneys, national associations and state associations before making key decisions because “the likelihood that they are dealing with your jurisdiction alone is limited.”
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is among the Republicans who prominently resisted Trump’s calls to overturn the 2020 election. He and his wife received death threats and were assigned a protective team by the state. He declined an interview with Votebeat, but in a statement this week, he urged lawmakers to improve state election administration “rather than rehashing the same outdated claims or worse — moving to federalize a core function of state government.”
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt, another Republican who pushed back on Trump’s baseless allegations of widespread fraud following the 2020 election and faced similar retaliation, told Votebeat that the state’s elections are freer and fairer than ever before and that the Constitution stops Trump from unilaterally nationalizing elections.
The Michigan Department of State, similarly, said this was a settled constitutional matter.
On the other hand, Michigan Republicans have asked the U.S. Justice Department for increased federal involvement in elections in the state, calling for monitors — not atypical in American elections — as well as “oversight,” although GOP leaders didn’t elaborate on what that would mean.
Richer, who lost his reelection bid for recorder in 2024 to another Republican, said Trump’s comments, combined with similar calls for federal involvement, suggest the Republican Party is drifting from its traditional commitment to federalism and local control. He also pointed to increased legislation at the federal level seeking to standardize elections, which has received little pushback from the Republican Party. That’s despite Republicans criticizing an earlier Democratic legislative effort as federal overreach.
“Clearly the federal government is going to do things that it’s never done before,” he said. “The FBI going in and taking materials from an election that happened over five years ago is unprecedented, so maybe we’re destined for additional unprecedented actions.”
Election officials and courts the most significant ‘line of defense’
One of the key reasons that Trump failed in his efforts to delay and then overturn the 2020 election was the “men and women of principle” in his administration, said David Becker, an election lawyer who leads the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research. Becker, a former Justice Department official, said the experience offered an uncomfortable lesson: Those internal guardrails existed because individuals chose to enforce them — and there is less reason to assume they would be there again.
“That line of defense is largely gone,” Becker said, because “the primary and perhaps only qualification for being hired by this administration — particularly in those key roles in the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security — is loyalty to this man.”
With fewer internal checks, Becker said, the second and most important line of defense this election cycle is courts and state and local election officials. Courts have already stymied many of the election policies Trump has tried to carry out via executive order, and “election officials are holding firm.” But he cautioned that court challenges take time — time in which “untold damage” can be done to erode public trust and to the officials caught in the middle.
That gap between what Trump can say and what he can actually do is where the risk now lies, said Justin Levitt, an election law professor at Loyola Marymount University who advised President Joe Biden’s administration on democracy and voting rights. Levitt said Trump does not have the legal or operational authority to unilaterally nationalize elections, even if he were inclined to cross legal boundaries.
He contrasted the president’s ability to control elections with ICE’s use of force in Democratic-run cities. In immigration enforcement, Levitt said, Congress has given the executive branch authority that can be exercised aggressively or improperly, even when courts later find those actions unlawful. In those cases, Levitt said, the president has “his finger on a switch” — the practical ability to act first and answer questions later. “No such switch exists” in elections, said Levitt.
But with fewer administration officials pushing back on Trump’s claims compared with his first term, Levitt said election officials can expect Trump’s messaging to get “much, much, much worse this year,” and for those claims to be given more oxygen by the rest of the federal government.
“It’s up to us to choose to believe him or not,” he added. Obedience in advance isn’t required, and treating Trump’s claims as commands would grant him authority he does not have, Levitt said, adding, “We have agency in this.”
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Votebeat staff contributed to this story. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.
Many Wisconsin tribes are monitoring ICE and CBP actions closely, and issuing guidance to members to carry their tribal ID card and other documentation with them while immigration enforcement continues to ramp up.
The state's Department of Workforce Development is ordering the operator of more than 100 Wisconsin-based Burger King restaurants to pay back $237,437 in wages owed to teen employees.
A Madison Burger King owned by Cave Enterprises of Chicago. The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development has found more than 1,600 violations of state child labor laws by Cave, which owns 100 Burger King outlets in Wisconsin. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
This report has been updated.
The owner of more than 100 Wisconsin Burger King franchises will be required to pay more than $1 million after Wisconsin’s labor department found more than 1,600 violations of state child labor and wage laws, officials said Friday.
The violations took place during a two-year period ending in January 2025, the state Department of Workforce Development reported. The case involves the largest number of child labor and wage payment violations identified by the department “in modern Wisconsin history,” according to the office of Gov. Tony Evers.
“We have a responsibility to make sure kids who are working are protected from exploitation, predatory employer practices, and being subjected to hazardous or illegal working conditions, and that’s a responsibility we must take seriously,” Evers said in a statement released Friday.
The franchise owner, Chicago-based Cave Enterprises, operates Burger King locations in eight states, according to the Cave Enterprises website. Wisconsin has 100 of those restaurants currently — more than any of the other states.
On Thursday, DWD informed Cave that investigators reviewed records from the company from January 2023 to January 2025.
A letter from DWD to Cave states that the company:
Employed 593 14- and 15-year-olds who started work without required work permits;
Failed to provide a required 30-minute meal break for 627 minors who worked at least one shift of six hours or longer without a break;
Failed to pay required overtime to 67 workers who were 16 or 17 and who worked at least one shift longer than 10 hours — after which state law requires payment at time and a half;
Violated state requirements on permitted work hours for 369 minors.
DWD “counted violations of Wisconsin’s Employment of Minors laws by counting only one violation per child per type of violation found,” the department stated in a cover letter accompanying the notification of violations. By that count, “Employer violated Wisconsin’s Employment of Minors laws and related regulations at least 1,656 times during the investigative period.”
DWD told Cave the company owes the employees a total of $3,498 in back wages, $1,994 in unpaid overtime wages, and $231,944 in wage penalties — liquidated damages amounting to 200% of the wage shortfall.
Cave also must “immediately change its business practices to ensure that it is no longer in violation of Wisconsin’s Employment of Minors laws and related regulations which were found to be violated,” the investigation report states.
The cover letter states Cave also must pay DWD a direct penalty of $828,000 — $500 for each of the 1,656 violations, according to the department. The company must make the payments within 20 days to resolve the case.
Cave has not replied to an email message from the Wisconsin Examiner sent Friday to the company’s human resources manager seeking comment on the DWD’s findings.
DWD launched the investigation after receiving several complaints in 2024 and subsequently reviewing department records, which produced 33 previous complaints against the business for wage payment and child labor violations from 2020 through 2023.
Those complaints were resolved individually, DWD Secretary-designee Amy Pechacek told the Wisconsin Examiner in an interview Friday.
But they also pointed to a larger pattern in “how this employer interacts with its minor-aged workforce,” Pechacek said. Investigators decided that “this warrants a very deep-dive, intensive audit about their practices as it relates to employing minors here in the state of Wisconsin.”
On Jan. 23, 2025, DWD requested records from Cave on the company’s employment of minors younger than 18 going back to Jan. 1, 2023. The records started coming in on March 4, 2025, with the last batch received Nov. 11, 2025, according to DWD.
DWD’s auditors “literally reviewed thousands and thousands and thousands of records for months,” Pechaeck said.
The DWD letters to the company state that both the payments for the employees, which must be made with individual checks for each worker, and the penalty that is owed to the state must be sent to DWD’s Equal Rights Division, which investigates child labor and other workplace violations.
In 2024, Eversvetoed a bill passed by Republicans in the Legislature that would haveeliminated a requirement that 14- and 15-year-olds in Wisconsin have a work permit approved by their parents in order to take a job.
The legislation was supported by Wisconsin Independent Business and the National Federation of Independent Businesses, according tolobbying records posted by the Wisconsin Ethics Commission.
It was also promoted by the Opportunity Solutions Project, the lobbying arm of the Florida-based Foundation for Government Accountability, which Wisconsin Watchreported had gotten “attention for its successful drive to relax child labor restrictions in Iowa and Arkansas.”
“After years of Republican lawmakers working to get rid of Wisconsin’s basic child labor law protections, I’m proud my administration is working to do the opposite by making sure bad actors are held accountable for taking advantage of kids in the workplace,” Evers said Friday.
When DWD issues work permits, it also sends employers letters informing them about the details of Wisconsin’s child labor regulations, including the limits on hours of work and requirements such as the one for paid meal breaks after six hours of work.
“It’s just not in the best interest of the youth, our families, or even the business to be using workers and youth workers in a way that again is really going to potentially impact their success in other areas that we want them to be protected in,” Pechacek said.
“We have to put some guard rails around utilizing youth workforce so that we can protect them,” she added. “That also protects the businesses. These kids are going to school all day. They need breaks. They need to be able to focus on also being a kid.”
Cave was founded in 1999 by Adam Velarde with a Burger King outlet in Lemont, Illinois, and grew to be the largest group of Burger King franchises with a single owner, according to the company website.
“The majority of Cave’s growth has been through purchasing distressed restaurants and improving the value of the location and brand through hard work, smart decisions and dedication to the guests,” the company states. “We pride ourselves on being leaders in the Burger King Brand in traffic and profit growth.”
While the investigation found minors employed at 104 Wisconsin locations that Cave owned, the company’s current list of 100 locations would appear to suggest that Cave closed or divested at least four restaurants sometime in the last three years.
Cave also operates four locations in Iowa, 28 in Illinois, one in Indiana, eight in Michigan, 13 in Minnesota, one in Nebraska and 22 in South Dakota.
This report was updated Friday following an interview with DWD Secretary-designee Amy Pechacek.
In Port Washington, Wisconsin, many residents oppose a $15 billion data center campus that’s currently under construction for end-users Oracle and OpenAI. (No Data Centers in Ozaukee County Facebook group)
Big Tech is here in Wisconsin, looking to make Wisconsin families and small businesses pay for data centers. The Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC) is about to make a decision that will affect all of us: We Energies has proposed a new rate structure on data centers that, as drafted, favors profits and protections for Big Tech companies and We Energies executives themselves, but putting Wisconsinites at risk to subsidize the costs. Here’s what’s going on and how you can do something about it.
What’s at stake?
We Energies, the largest and most profitable utility in the state, is preparing to spend $19.3 billion on electric generation due to data center proposals from Microsoft, Oracle, Vantage, and OpenAI.4. This is largely to build new gas plants in order to power the massive energy needs of Big Tech’s data centers. Here’s the problem: If sufficient protections aren’t in place now, the costs of these expensive gas plants may be forced onto families and small businesses, driving up people’s bills to keep the lights on and heat their homes in the winter.
We Energies’ proposals put us at risk for higher utility bills without fully ensuring that Big Tech is paying their fair share. As it currently stands, more expensive data centers likely means higher costs for all of us. Tech companies should be responsible for covering the cost of service needed to power their data centers, including the cost of building out power to service these high energy demands.
In addition to their problematic proposal, We Energies is proposing to add huge volumes of natural gas plants to feed these power-hungry data centers, which are expensive to build and take decades to pay off. These so-called “stranded assets” end up costing us more money for many years down the line, at times even when they are no longer in service. With rapidly changing AI technology, there is a very real risk that Big Tech does not move forward with planned data centers because they’re no longer profitable or needed. In short, data centers create short-term gains for Big Tech and We Energies with long-term consequences for Wisconsinites.
What’s going on behind Big Tech’s closed doors?
We Energies’ proposal encourages Big Tech to make decisions behind closed doors, without considering Wisconsinites or how their decisions will impact Wisconsin lands, waters and natural resources. We should all be suspicious of this. What’s happening in these meetings that We Energies and Big Tech don’t want us to know about? If Big Tech builds data centers in Wisconsin communities, Wisconsin communities deserve to know what deals are being made with the utilities.
Transparency and accountability are crucial. Big Tech and utilities like We Energies must make their data center reporting, planning and financials publicly available, so that regulators like the PSC can implement protections and ensure Wisconsinites aren’t being taken advantage of. We deserve to always know how and why our electric and gas bills are being affected.
The time to take action is now.
If We Energies builds new gas plants to power Big Tech’s data centers, all of us will live with greater risks of rising gas and electricity prices as well as environmental impacts to our communities. If Big Tech wants to come into our state and use our state resources, they shouldn’t be putting us in jeopardy, they should be the ones taking on the risks.
As we prepare for the PSC to make a decision on data centers, we need to make our voices heard to decision makers: Big Tech and We Energies don’t get to decide what’s best for Wisconsin. You have a role to play in shaping the policies that affect you. Attend the virtual public hearing on Feb. 10 or by submitting a comment by Feb. 17.
Rep. Lisa Subeck (D-Madison) is proposing that Wisconsin require crisis pregnancy centers to get express written permission before releasing a person’s private health information. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Rep. Lisa Subeck (D-Madison) is proposing that Wisconsin require crisis pregnancy centers to get express written permission before releasing a person’s private health information. Those who have given permission would also be able to withdraw their permission at any time under the bill.
“Many people assume that when they seek care for pregnancy or other reproductive health services that that information is protected, just like any other medical records under HIPAA, and while that is true at your doctor’s office or at the hospital, it’s not always true when you visit other providers,” Subeck said at a press conference Thursday.
Concerns about information being gathered about women’s reproductive health, including by crisis pregnancy centers, have surged in the years since Roe v. Wade was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, especially in states where abortion has been criminalized.
A 2022 TIME Magazine report found that crisis pregnancy centers have been collecting information including sexual and reproductive histories, test results, ultrasound photos, and information shared during consultations, parenting classes, or counseling sessions, from women they interact with through telephone and online chats. They are not required to follow federal health data privacy laws. The report led to U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren requesting an examination of the practices by crisis pregnancy centers.
The bill, coauthored by Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee), would also require centers to disclose in “plain language” that they are not a HIPAA-covered entity for the purpose of federal privacy regulations as well as disclosing any data breach that exposes individual digital health information.
Subeck said the centers can “look and feel an awful lot like a traditional medical clinic,” noting that they might offer ultrasounds, pregnancy tests and claim to have counselors on staff. However, she said “many of these centers are not licensed medical providers, and therefore they are not covered by HIPAA privacy protections.”
Subeck said that changes in reproductive health laws have raised concerns about the misuse of health related information and data. She said the bill would not close unregulated pregnancy centers, limit the services they can provide or limit speech. Rather, she said, it “simply sets some basic privacy expectations and protections for unsuspecting individuals.”
Subeck noted that lawmakers in other states, including Pennsylvania, have introduced similar measures, though none have become law.
Subeck said the violations of the provisions in the bill would be treated as “unfair and deceptive practices” under existing state law.
Laura Hanks, an OB-GYN and legislative chair for American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said at the press conference that the bill shouldn’t be political.
“It’s about privacy, honesty and safe, medically accurate care. Unregulated pregnancy centers often look like clinics, but they aren’t held to the basic medical privacy rules,” Hanks said. “This means they lack regulation, medical oversight or standard confidentiality rules. Too many people are walking in and assuming their health care information is protected when it isn’t. This bill sets commonsense guardrails.”
The headline on this report has been revised for clarity.
A demonstrator waves a red cloth as hundreds gather after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good through her car window Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026 near Portland Avenue and 34th Street. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)
Despite the high-profile U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions in Minnesota, ICE arrests were down slightly in January compared to December, according to new data.
Immigrant detention nationwide also reached a new high in January, and a growing percentage — nearly three-quarters — of people in detention have no criminal convictions.
ICE arrested 36,579 people in January compared with December (37,842); the numbers haven’t changed much since October (36,621), according to new estimates from a Syracuse University professor.
The number of people in immigration detention reached 70,766 as of Jan. 24, a new high, according to adifferent report by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, also at Syracuse University.
The number in detention has gone up steadily from about 40,000 at the start of the second Trump administration, and the latest number is the largest since the organization, known as TRAC, began tracking immigrant detention in 2019.
Of those detainees 74.2%, or 52,504, had no criminal convictions, up from 70.4% in June.
“Since the summer, nearly all of the growth in ICE detention has come from people without criminal convictions or charges — an area of tremendous sustained growth that contradicts the Trump administration’s narrative that they are focused on the worst of the worst,” Austin Kocher, a research assistant professor at Syracuse University who researches immigration enforcement, wrote in a substack posting.
Kocher is a former researcher for TRAC but is no longer associated with the organization and created estimates of monthly arrests based on detention check-ins.
Detention facilities in Texas had the largest number of detainees, 18,684, followed by Louisiana (8,207), California (6,422), Florida (5,187) and Georgia (4,178) as of Jan. 24.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
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