Nine of Wisconsin’s 72 counties are “maternity care deserts”: no hospitals and birth centers offering obstetric care and no obstetric providers such as obstetricians.
The nine, according to the latest March of Dimes report (2024), are largely rural:
Adams, Douglas, Forest, Kewaunee, Lafayette, Marquette, Oconto, Pepin and Rusk.
Maternal care deserts drive maternal mortality rates, which generally are higher for Black women and women in rural areas, according to a 2025 study by Brown University researchers.
Individuals in states with a high prevalence of maternity care deserts had 34.2% greater risk of maternal mortality and 18.3% greater risk of infant mortality, Yale University researchers found in 2025.
The Wisconsin Office of Rural Health at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recommended extending pregnant women’s Medicaid coverage to 12 months postpartum, from two months, to improve care and hospital finances.
Gov. Tony Evers recently signed legislation for that extension.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Wisconsin Watch was founded 17 years ago to fill a gap in statewide investigative reporting as newsrooms cut back on that work. Since then, those gaps have only widened — especially in local communities. That’s led us to expand: joining forces with Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and now launching our northeast Wisconsin bureau, because the region deserves strong, independent journalism and a newsroom that listens as much as it reports.
This is home.
I started as Wisconsin Watch’s northeast Wisconsin editor in August, joining Jessica Adams, director of partnerships for northeast Wisconsin, and Miranda Dunlap, our northeast Wisconsin pathways to success reporter. Since then, I’ve had the chance to reacquaint myself with my native Door County and the surrounding region.
From big cities like Appleton and Green Bay to small rural communities, people are asking for clearer information about the systems that affect daily life, along with coverage that connects problems to action. We know that because northeast Wisconsin residents have said so in listening sessions and conversations across the region.
Mental health access, housing and homelessness continue to rise to the top, alongside confusion about how local government works and how residents can get involved. Many residents have asked for reporting that explains budgets, decision-making and available programs in plain terms, while also reflecting the experiences of communities that are often overlooked.
There is also strong interest in news that builds connection, corrects misinformation and highlights both accountability and everyday efforts that make a difference.
That’s what we aim to deliver through Northeast News — a newsletter shaped by and for the people who live here. Launched this week, it’s the first product of our regional bureau, built around community connection, accountability and public participation.
Delivered every other week to start, subscribers will get more than headlines. They will receive reporting that explains how local decisions affect daily life, investigates powerful institutions, and highlights the people and ideas moving this region forward. Subscribers also get a direct line to the newsroom — to share questions, tips and story ideas that help guide the work.
More than 110 northeast Wisconsin residents helped name the newsletter. Northeast News prevailed over options that included The NEWsletter, NEWsflash, Northeast Dispatch and NEW Notes.
Residents submitted creative write-ins, too — from The Weekly Cheddar to Northeastern Exposure.
A donation jar sits alongside a coffee maker at Merrimac and Main, a nonprofit community center, during a weekly drop-in event for older adults and retirees, Jan. 13, 2026, in Dodgeville, Wis.
Aside from about 15 people who faithfully attend each Sunday morning service, Dodgeville’s Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ used to sit empty most of the week.
No one filled the rows of wooden pews, gazed at the ornate stained glass windows or found community in the basement fellowship hall and kitchen.
All that empty space reflected a common set of challenges facing communities across America, particularly in rural areas: shrinking church membership, growing loneliness and isolation, and a lack of third spaces to gather.
But in summer 2023, the congregation joined local residents to open Merrimac and Main, a nonprofit community center aiming to directly address those issues.
How Merrimac and Main began
Rachel Peller and her wife Rebecca Krausert Sykalski had just moved into a housing cooperative east of Dodgeville and were looking for a place with internet access to work remotely. Peller is the director of Wisconsin Partners, a coalition of local and statewide groups collaborating across sectors, perspectives and communities.
She soon met Shirley Barnes, a longtime Dodgeville resident who chaired Plymouth Congregational’s board of trustees. Barnes had been racking her brain on what to do with her church’s history-rich but mostly vacant building, built in 1907, as its congregation aged and dwindled.
Within a month, Peller and Barnes joined about two dozen people in the church basement to brainstorm ways to use the space to serve the community.
“The timing was incredible,” Peller said.
One person suggested a makerspace to foster innovation. Another suggested a program for older adults. After a few more conversations that summer, the group decided on a catchall that enveloped many ideas for the space: a community center.
“There isn’t one in Dodgeville or anywhere nearby where people can come and just be, come and just exist,” Peller said.
Jill Roethe, third from right, laughs while holding Leo, a kitten from the Iowa County Humane Society, during a weekly drop-in event at Merrimac and Main, a nonprofit community center, Jan. 13, 2026, in Dodgeville, Wis.
Program coordinator Rachel Peller sits in the Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ sanctuary where Merrimac and Main hosts its programming, Jan. 13, 2026, in Dodgeville, Wis.
Henry Wepking, 10, ties a knot in a blanket he’s making for the Iowa County Humane Society during an after-school youth program at Merrimac and Main, a nonprofit community center, Feb. 24, 2026, in Dodgeville, Wis.
By fall 2023, Merrimac and Main’s organizers held an open house to publicly seek feedback and share their vision — maybe a yoga room, a gallery space with art classes, a lecture hall and live music.
Aided by a grant in 2024, Merrimac and Main, an independent nonprofit that rents the church’s space, launched a four-lecture series and pop-up youth classes.
A space for just about everything
Merrimac and Main has since tried a bit of everything: sewing classes, cooking classes, a workshop on starting your own cottage food business.
“Since then, it’s just grown,” Peller said. “It’s been such an amazing project. So many people just show up and they have an idea and they make it happen.”
One of the center’s most successful recurring events, an international potluck, drew a crowd of 75 people who brought dishes representing about 20 countries.
In addition to one-off events open to anyone, the community center hosts a weekly senior program, a youth program and a recovery meeting, alongside a monthly Spanish conversation group.
Jan Helmich, a Dodgeville resident of 21 years, attends the weekly drop-in event for older adults and retirees at Merrimac and Main, Jan. 13, 2026, in Dodgeville, Wis. Helmich was part of the original group that came together to discuss the potential of opening Merrimac and Main.
Craft supplies are organized along the wall at Merrimac and Main, Feb. 24, 2026, in Dodgeville, Wis.
The 2026 event schedule is posted above a bookshelf at Merrimac and Main, Feb. 24, 2026, in Dodgeville, Wis.
Jill Roethe holds Leo, a kitten from the Iowa County Humane Society, during a weekly drop-in event at Merrimac and Main, a nonprofit community center, Jan. 13, 2026, in Dodgeville, Wis.
Independent of the community center, Plymouth Congregational still holds service every Sunday, but the community center is more frequently in the building, Peller said.
“Basically our church was empty except on Sundays,” said Jan Helmich, a longtime congregation member and active participant in Merrimac and Main’s senior program. “There weren’t many places in town where people could rent space for a party or something, so we decided to see what we could do about it.”
Retirees find connection
While the church’s doors have always remained open to anyone on Sundays, Merrimac and Main’s programming has kept people coming through the building throughout the week.
On a Tuesday morning in January, Helmich sat at a table in the church’s basement rec room joined by nearly a dozen fellow retirees.
The day’s event featured a visit from the Iowa County Humane Society, whose volunteers brought in two kittens.
A cross hangs on the wall at Merrimac and Main, a nonprofit community center that shares space with the Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ, Feb. 24, 2026, in Dodgeville, Wis.
Blue hour falls on Merrimac and Main after the end of an after-school youth program, Feb. 24, 2026, in Dodgeville, Wis.
Tom DeVoss, who previously served as Iowa County sheriff, was on a walk around the neighborhood when he dropped in and found his wife, Kathy, conversing with the group. It’s good to see what’s going on in the community, to stop in and chitchat, Tom DeVoss said. “It’s kind of a come and go place.”
Kathy DeVoss, who has lived in Dodgeville for 21 years but still considers herself a newcomer, mentioned a Merrimac and Main event she attended last April where she learned to graft fruit trees. “It was so much fun,” she said.
Many of the attendees said they enjoyed the new opportunities for socialization.
“I’m not one to sit home,” said Lenore White, a first-time visitor who learned about Merrimac and Main at a local morning exercise class. “I want to get out and meet people.”
After school, a different kind of space
Rebecca Krausert Sykalski, building coordinator, from left, Arlo Lockard, 10, and Henry Wepking, 10, work on making blankets for the Iowa County Humane Society during an after-school youth program at Merrimac and Main, a nonprofit community center, Feb. 24, 2026, in Dodgeville, Wis.
On a Tuesday afternoon in February, excited screams from children in an after-school program filled a room that on other days hosts the more reserved senior program.
Fifth graders Arlo Lockard and Henry Wepking shared a chair in a connecting room playing games on a smartphone. Arlo’s sister and another middle school girl sat at a table in the main room talking to one another.
Krausert Sykalski, Merrimac and Main’s building coordinator and Peller’s wife, rallied the day’s four children to make blankets for the humane society out of donated materials. Eight children usually attend each week, but half that day were instead participating in a school play, Krausert Sykalski said.
Sitting on the checkered floor, Arlo and Henry got to work. They took turns wielding a measuring tape and scissors, deftly cutting a blanket down to size. The friends began attending Merrimac and Main last September as soon as they were old enough for the program. They learned about it at Dodgeville Middle School from a cafeteria television that displays announcements.
Arlo Lockard, left, and Henry Wepking play games on a phone before an after-school youth program at Merrimac and Main, Feb. 24, 2026, in Dodgeville, Wis.
On a typical day after school, the boys would play video games, participate in seasonal team sports, go fishing, ride their bikes or do chores. Now, they can walk a few blocks from the school to the church for the Tuesday programs.
“We’re not from here and we don’t have the social network that people who grew up here and went to school here, and either left or never did,” Halee Wepking, Henry’s mother, said while picking him up at the end of the program. “It’s really nice to have things like this for our kids.”
Originally from Arizona, Wepking and her husband, who is from southwest Wisconsin, moved to Ridgeway in 2016. There, they founded Meadowlark Organics, a farm and flour mill. Wepking said she learned about Merrimac and Main through her friendship with Peller and Sykalski.
Wepking said while there are traditional channels for socialization like sports that her kids participate in, “to have things that are community-oriented and creative and stuff is a real gift, especially for middle school aged kids.” The Wepkings noticed a gap in activities for middle schoolers in Dodgeville, making Merrimac and Main all the more meaningful.
“I’ve been trying to convince my friends to come, because it would be more fun, and I bet they would enjoy it,” Henry said.
‘It wasn’t just our church’
Helmich, who was working on another volunteer-based project at the nonprofit while the middle schoolers made blankets, reflected on conversations predating Merrimac and Main about selling the church. After some hesitation initially, Helmich said, the congregation acknowledged the community center as good for everybody.
“We got the community involved, it wasn’t just our church,” Helmich said.
Merrimac and Main has only grown since opening its doors. The same Tuesday Wisconsin Watch visited its youth program the nonprofit received a United Fund of Iowa County grant to support the free fruits and vegetables it offers during programs.
Peller and Krausert Sykalski continue to handle center operations, but they attribute much of Merrimac and Main’s success to engaging so many people to contribute in their own way.
How to get involved
Find Merrimac and Main’s calendar of events on its website, and learn more about how to volunteer to lead an activity, host a pop-up event, get the word out or donate.
Eighth graders work on making blankets for the Iowa County Humane Society during an after-school youth program at Merrimac and Main, a nonprofit community center, Feb. 24, 2026, in Dodgeville, Wis.
Merrimac and Main organizers shared this advice for others looking to start community centers:
Don’t just send an open invitation; personalize your message by directly asking people for what you need.
Don’t get stuck trying to make everything perfect; treat early, low-risk events as opportunities to gather information and feedback.
Engage people by helping bring their ideas to life.
Lean on partnerships with other community organizations.
This story is part of Public Square, an occasional photography series highlighting how Wisconsin residents connect with their communities. To suggest someone in your community for us to feature, email Joe Timmerman at jtimmerman@wisconsinwatch.org.
Air pollution from two proposed natural gas plants in southeast Wisconsin could contribute to more than 100 premature deaths over the projects’ estimated 30-year lifespan and lead to higher air pollution exposure across the Upper Midwest.
Although such restrictions are no longer enforceable, racist language remains on the books in housing deeds throughout Wisconsin. A Dane County project is helping residents to formally repudiate those racial restrictions.
Ship captains of the time surely avoided the famed pirate “Roaring” Dan Seavey. At nightfall, Seavey and his small team of men would loot ports and sail the stolen goods to Chicago. Today, Seavey’s complex character and storied life are the subject of a one-man show titled “Dan Seavey: Confessions of a Great Lakes Pirate.” The show will be at the Overture Center for the Arts in Madison on Saturday, March 28.
Housing advocates say Newcap’s closure could lead to northeast Wisconsin losing more than $2.7 million in federal funding and leave more than 100 households at risk of losing housing.
Since making his debut on the Deutsche Grammophon label in 2017 with a disc of Philip Glass’s piano etudes, Víkingur Ólafsson has released a series of probing and conscientious albums that approach familiar works from new directions, highlighting unexpected connections along the way.
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation.
A bill that would have offered sentence adjustments for crimes committed when the offender was younger than 18 died in the Wisconsin Senate last week. The measure would have applied to people who received sentences of at least 15 years for offenses that didn’t involve a death and to those sentenced to at least 20 years for crimes that did include a death. It also would have prohibited a life sentence without parole or extended supervision for youth offenders, and required the consideration of mitigating factors, such as age and maturity, at sentencing. The bill failed to gain traction or a public hearing in the Senate because, according to the lead sponsor, Sen. Jesse James (R-Altoona), there was a lack of clarity about the number of residents in prisons who would be affected.
At a Feb. 12 event held by the criminal justice reform advocacy group WISDOM near Eau Claire, James told the gathering that information he had originally distributed concerning the number of residents who would be eligible for a sentence adjustment was not accurate, and because of that, he would not call for a public hearing on the bill.
In response to a Wisconsin Examiner request for clarification, a staff person in James’ office said in an email message: “After talking to the Senator to help with more context, I think there was a misinterpretation of what he meant. We received data from DOC (Department of Corrections) that does not necessarily match with data that advocacy groups have been circulating to other members of the Legislature. While we do work with advocacy groups on the bill, we did not provide them their data, so we are not 100% sure where they got it from. The discrepancies between the data our office was giving out versus these advocacy groups caused some confusion about how many individuals this bill would actually help. Given the time frame left in the session with the Assembly being done sooner than the Senate, clearing up the confusion and getting a public hearing in either chamber just did not come to fruition in time.”
Nikki Olson, founder and executive director of the Wisconsin Alliance for Youth Justice (WayJ), represents one of those advocacy groups.
“Sen. James was essentially given a range while WayJ has a specific number,” she said. “Our specific number fits into the range, so I consider his data and ours to be accurate.”
She added, “Sen. James was given two numbers. The number of people who will be impacted. A separate number was given of people that may or may not be impacted. There was data overlap between the two numbers. These two numbers combined means 130ish-300ish people would be impacted. Our number of 253, as of the end of 2024, fits within that range. The range represents a snapshot in time during 2025. Our specific number is a snapshot as of the end of 2024. I would anticipate the change between the two snapshot dates to be minimal and still within the range.”
The Examiner reported in December 2025 on a bill that had been in the works since the 2022-23 session addressing the same focus of youth sentencing. One of the advocacy groups that supported that effort, Kids Forward, estimated the number of residents who could be affected was more than100.
A 2022 bocce game at Latitude Margaritaville, a growing 55+ community in Jasper County, S.C. The county was the fastest growing, percentagewise, in the nation between 2024 and 2025, according to new U.S. Census Bureau estimate. (Photo courtesy of Minto Communities USA)
Small counties in the coastal Southeast had some of the largest population gains between mid-2024 and mid-2025 in estimates being released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau, mostly because of people moving from larger areas.
Jasper County, South Carolina, where there’s a building boom taking advantage of the popularity of nearby Hilton Head, was the fastest-growing county in the nation percentagewise, growing 6% in the year to 38,533 people. It grew even faster the previous year, 6.9%, but another county elsewhere grew slightly faster that year — Mellette County in South Dakota.
Jasper County has seen movers from New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states, with some new building aimed at retirees and some for workers at expanding factories like TICO, which makes trucks designed for nearby ports, said Eric Larson, the county’s director of development services. One new housing development, Latitude Margaritaville in Hardeeville, is for people 55 and older.
“It’s a real magnet. They’re coming from all over the place and I think they come for the recreation, the low cost of living,” said Larson. “We’re excited to be that hot spot, but it has its challenges.
“We’re rising to the occasion,” he added, noting that the growth requires more transportation, water and sewer capacity.
All the 12 counties that grew 4% or more between 2024 and 2025 benefited predominantly from people moving in from other counties. Brunswick County, North Carolina, at the state’s southeastern tip below Wilmington, would have lost population instead of gaining almost 5% if it weren’t for new residents moving in. The influx erased the effects of more deaths than births during the year.
Most of those fastest-growing counties are at the outer edges of popular metro areas in the Southeast, including Kaufman County, Texas, near Dallas; Jackson County, Georgia, near Athens; and Elbert County, Colorado, near Denver and Colorado Springs.
However, four of the seven counties with the largest numeric increases had population growth that was largely driven by immigration — including Harris County, Texas, with the highest numeric growth in the nation at 48,695 in one year. Harris County includes Houston.
The other counties with the largest increases driven primarily by immigration include Maricopa County, Arizona (which includes Phoenix, up 35,411); King County, Washington (including Seattle, up 26,980); and Mecklenburg County, North Carolina (Charlotte, up 26,554).
Three other counties in the top seven had increases mostly based on people moving in from elsewhere in the United States: Collin County, Texas (north of Dallas, up 42,966); Montgomery County, Texas (north of Houston, up 30,011); and Wake County, North Carolina (including Raleigh, up 27,760).
Even in counties where immigration was the key driver of population growth, immigration was down from previous years, when immigration streams were swelled by millions of asylum-seekers paroled from the border with Mexico. That flow has largely stopped as the Trump administration stopped accepting asylum-seekers into the country starting last year.
Despite overall population growth, several counties saw a net immigration drop from the previous year. Net immigration dropped 41% in Harris County, Texas, and it was down 48% in Maricopa County, Arizona. It was down 29% in King County, Washington, and down 41% In Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. No counties of any size saw increased immigration compared with the previous year.
Most counties that grew between 2023 and 2024 saw growth diminish or even turn to a loss between 2024 and 2025, the Census Bureau said in a statement, especially large counties that would normally receive lots of new immigrants.
The largest numeric declines were in Los Angeles County, California, which dropped by 53,934 after gaining 16,300 the previous year; Pinellas County, Florida, which dropped by 11,834, accelerating a smaller decline of 5,346 the previous year and gains earlier in the decade; and Florida’s Miami-Dade County, which lost 10,115 residents after gaining 18,633 the previous year.
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.
Travelers wait in long lines early in the morning at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on March 26, 2026 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will sign an order allowing the Department of Homeland Security to pay airport security workers who have gone without a full paycheck since the shutdown began in mid-February.
The order for Transportation Security Administration workers does not appear to include pay for other federal employees working for DHS, including those at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Secret Service.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Customs and Border Protection have largely been insulated from the DHS shutdown since Republicans approved tens of billions in additional funding for those two agencies in last year’s “big, beautiful” law.
“It is not an easy thing to do, but I am going to do it! I want to thank our hardworking TSA Agents and also, ICE, for the incredible help they have given us at the Airports,” Trump wrote on social media. “I will not allow the Radical Left Democrats to hold our Country hostage any longer.”
Trump’s decision will give both chambers of Congress, which are controlled by Republicans, a bit of cover to leave for their two-week spring break without actually reaching bipartisan compromise to fund DHS.
Democrats have held up the department’s funding bill in the Senate to demand new constraints on federal immigration actions after officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minnesota in January.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said shortly after Trump’s announcement that his decision “takes the immediate pressure off” lawmakers to make a deal, but that it’s a “short-term solution.”
Thune said “we’ll see” when asked if negotiations over the DHS funding bill would continue.
“I’ll have more to say about that here soon,” he said. “But we obviously are going to try and fund as much of the DHS budget as we possibly can.”
Thune hadn’t provided an update as of 10 p.m. Eastern as senators struggled to find a path forward.
Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said earlier in the evening that talks over funding the department continued with Republicans.
“There’s an active negotiation going on. I hope they don’t unilaterally decide to walk away. But that’s their decision,” he said. “They ultimately take orders from a higher power.”
Hawaii Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz said around the same time “it’s just not true that we’re not in a negotiation.”
“It may be that one person or the other has lost patience and that would be too bad,” he said. “But we’re still talking.”
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said Trump made the right decision to choose to pay TSA agents as the shutdown drags on.
“I just got off the phone with the president,” he said. “The president is doing absolutely the right thing. He’s showing leadership.”
House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., released a statement saying the administration needs to explain to Congress what funding it plans to divert to pay TSA workers and why it didn’t take the step sooner.
“If the White House believes they have the authority to pay these workers, then every day for the past 41 days, they have been making a conscious decision not to pay them,” she said. “As the lines got longer, as workers called out, as agents quit or got second jobs, they chose again and again not to pay these workers.”
A senior administration official said the administration plans to use money from Republicans’ signature tax and spending package that was enacted last summer.
Union reaction
American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley said in a statement that while the union is “grateful” that TSA employees will be paid, lawmakers need to find a deal to fully fund the entire department.
“These workers and their families cannot wait,” she said. “All DHS workers must be paid immediately.
“Congress needs to continue working to pass a real, bipartisan appropriations deal that funds DHS, pays all DHS workers, and keeps these vital agencies running — even if that means canceling their upcoming vacation.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune speaks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 28, 2026. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Senate Democratic leaders on Thursday were reading through a new Republican offer to fund the Department of Homeland Security that could end the shutdown that began nearly six weeks ago, with a congressional recess set to begin.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in the afternoon that Democrats hadn’t “responded officially” to a proposal GOP negotiators sent over in the morning but that discussions were ongoing. He described it as the “last and final” offer.
“There are some language requests that they made that we did everything we could to accommodate,” he said.
Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons said “it’s a good sign that there is paper going back and forth,” though he said the two political parties are still somewhat far apart.
“I think there’s a lot of sense of urgency around getting TSA funded,” he said, referring to the Transportation Security Administration and long wait times at some of the nation’s airports. Some unpaid TSA officers are calling out sick, causing jams in security lines.
“But frankly, we’re not that far from where we’ve been for weeks, which is, Democrats want real reforms to ICE and CBP and are resistant to funding them without reforms, and Republicans would like us to fund them without reforms beyond what Secretary Noem committed to,” Coons said, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agencies.
Some Republican senators, he said, view the confirmation of former Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin earlier this week as a form of compromise on DHS’ immigration enforcement activities. Mullin replaced the former secretary, Kristi Noem.
That, however, isn’t enough for Democrats.
“My Republican friends on this topic have said, ‘Hey, Secretary Mullin in his confirmation committed to A, B, C, D,’” Coons said. “And that’s a far cry from, ‘We’ll put it in statute or we have promulgated this in regulation.’ So that’s some of the problems. I think they feel like they’ve already offered key reforms in Secretary Mullin’s confirmation. And at least the senators that I’ve talked to don’t think that’s enough.”
Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner said there is “a conundrum” over how to provide more funding for Customs and Border Protection “without some agreement that they need to go back to their statutory role, not doing interior enforcement.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., had not commented publicly on the latest Republican offer as of late afternoon.
Trump vows ‘very drastic measures’
President Donald Trump said during a morning Cabinet meeting at the White House that he wants to see a deal to fund DHS soon, but didn’t disclose any details of the latest offer.
“They need to end the shutdown immediately, or we’ll have to take some very drastic measures,” he said, opting not to elaborate on what he meant.
Thune said he’d leave the White House to speak for Trump on whether he supports the latest Republican DHS funding offer but added that administration staff have “been involved in the back-and-forth that has occurred overnight and all morning.”
“It’s never done until it’s done,” he said.
Timing on a deal to fund DHS is somewhat important, with the House scheduled to depart Friday for a two-week spring break that their Senate colleagues are supposed to leave for as well.
Thune said the chamber will likely head off for the recess if they fund DHS, but suspects “we’ll probably be around here” if they don’t.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., didn’t commit to put a reworked DHS appropriations bill on the House floor, especially if it doesn’t include funding for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations.
“We have never been in favor of breaking the bill up,” he said.
But Johnson said it may be possible for Republicans to move funding for that specific program through the complex budget reconciliation process, which the party used last year to approve tens of billions in additional funding for immigration enforcement and deportation in its “big, beautiful” law.
“If they break away that subset, I suppose we’d have to fund it through reconciliation and find some other means,” he said.
Working without pay
Workers at the several agencies within DHS, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Secret Service, will continue to work without pay until Congress brokers some sort of funding deal for the department.
Any federal employee who handles national security issues or the protection of life or property keeps working during a shutdown. All others are supposed to be sent home. Everyone is supposed to get back pay once the shutdown ends.
TSA airport security screeners this weekend will miss their second full paycheck since the funding lapse began, after seeing only a partial paycheck early in the shutdown.
While TSA workers are required to work without pay during a shutdown, thousands have called in sick over the last six weeks as they seek gig work and other ways to pay bills. Call-out rates nationwide reached double digits this week, with some airports seeing more than 40% of employees miss shifts.
Some TSA workers have turned to selling plasma to make ends meet, officials from the union representing the agency’s employees told reporters Tuesday.
The staffing shortages have led to hours-long waits at security lines in some highly trafficked airports, causing passengers to miss flights and generally adding to the anxiety of air travel.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the administration “is having discussions about a number of ideas to blunt the impact of the Democrat shutdown crisis, but no preparations or plans are currently underway. The best and easiest way to pay TSA Agents is to fund DHS.”
Louisiana GOP U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, speaks during a panel hearing March 26, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Screenshot from committee webcast)
WASHINGTON — Mikayla Pivec said she worked more than 50 hours per week as a women’s college basketball player, but earned less than $8 an hour from a $1,600 monthly stipend.
The professional basketball player and former star at Oregon State University said she was testifying at Thursday’s U.S. Senate panel hearing on reshaping college athletics because “the NCAA has failed and continues to fail to protect and respect college athletes.”
Pivec, who worked for a food delivery service and “collected cans” to make ends meet in college, played for Oregon State prior to the NCAA’s 2021 guidelines that allowed student-athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness, or NIL.
Former Oregon State basketball star Mikayla Pivec testifies at a U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing. (Screenshot from committee livestream)
“NIL has helped some players, but most still earn less than $10 an hour and struggle to pay for basic necessities,” she told the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
Pivec said “the lack of protections goes way beyond money,” noting that she had a foot injury that needed surgery and was denied an MRI “every single time” she requested one.
She is the co-founder and organizing director of the United College Athletes Association, a players’ association that aims to ensure college athletes are protected, educated and fairly compensated.
Another ‘unfair system’
The college sports landscape continues to grapple with gender inequity in NIL deals, a patchwork of state NIL laws, booster collectives and the NCAA’s controversial transfer portal, among other issues.
Just last year, a federal judge approved the terms of a nearly $2.8 billion antitrust settlement that paved the way for schools to directly pay athletes.
“The current landscape is just replacing one unfair system for another,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy, chair of the Senate HELP Committee.
“Short-term financial gain with NIL deals is overshadowing the value of an education and the value of Olympic and women’s sports,” the Louisiana Republican said.
Employees?
The fierce debate over whether college athletes should be considered employees took center stage Thursday, drawing mixed attitudes from senators, experts, leaders and athletes.
“I think the political dynamic is that Republicans and Democrats aren’t that far off from what we agree on — it’s just this one small issue that gets in the way from us passing something related to unionization and how we treat students-athletes, whether we treat them as employees or not,” said Sen. Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican.
A bipartisan bill on pause in the U.S. House looks to create a national framework for college athletes’ compensation and would prohibit college athletes from being classified as employees.
The measure would also give broad antitrust immunity to the NCAA and college sports conferences.
Sen. Chris Murphy, who has advocated for collective bargaining, said he does not want Congress “in the business of micromanaging college athletics and how compensation works.”
“That just doesn’t feel like our role,” the Connecticut Democrat said, while blasting the bipartisan bill as an “effort to put the big schools back in a position where they can collude and wage-suppress.”
Trayvean Scott, vice president of Intercollegiate Athletics at Grambling State University in Louisiana, pointed to a “strain” that athletic departments, and under-resourced institutions in particular, would begin to face as a consequence of student-athletes becoming employees.
“When you look at that, my belief is that roster spots will start to be reduced, specifically to those non-revenue sports, specifically on the men’s side,” he said. “For an institution at Grambling State University, where we have 15 Division I sports, that means baseball is probably going to go first.”
The Wisconsin Supreme Court chambers. (Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
In a unanimous decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that police officers must read K-12 students their Miranda rights before interrogating them in a school setting.
The case stems from an incident at a Two Rivers middle school in which a 12-year-old seventh grade student, referred to in the case under the pseudonym Kevin, touched the groin of a classmate. Kevin was pulled out of class to be interviewed in a small room dedicated for use by school resource officers. After an initial interview around 10 minutes, Kevin was allowed to leave before being interviewed again about an hour later by the officers and a vice principal. The boy was not able to call his parents and was not informed he was allowed to leave the room.
While he was in the room, a uniformed officer stood in front of the door and the school resource officer doing the interview lied by saying there were witnesses to the incident. Police officers are allowed to lie during interviews to elicit a confession.
Kevin said during both interviews that he had touched the boy’s groin but that it was an accident.
Kevin was later charged with fourth-degree sexual assault and in a bench trial was found delinquent by a Manitowoc County Circuit Court judge.
The boy appealed the ruling, arguing that the statements he made during the interview were inadmissible because he had not been read his Miranda rights.
In the majority decision, authored by Justice Janet Protasiewicz and joined by the Court’s three other liberal-leaning justices, the Court found that taking Kevin to the room for questioning amounted to being in police custody and he should have been read his rights.
The ruling found that the interview statements weren’t admissible. However it also found that the evidence for the delinquency finding did not rely on the statements so the circuit judge’s decision was upheld.
“While Kevin sat across from one officer who questioned him, another fully uniformed and armed officer stood positioned in front of the door. The questioning officer asked him about an alleged sexual assault. She told him — untruthfully — that there were witnesses,” Protasiewicz wrote. “She also accusingly told him ‘it happened.’ No one told him he could reach out to his parents or any other adult. No one told him he was free to leave. No one told him he did not need to answer questions.”
“But in the end, a 12-year-old boy was questioned in a closet-like law-enforcement office with two police officers, one who was fully uniformed and standing in front of the door,” she continued.
Ryan Cox, the legal director of the ACLU of Wisconsin, which filed an amicus brief in the case, said the ruling would protect the constitutional rights of children.
“The Supreme Court’s decision is a major victory for the due process rights of Wisconsin students,” Cox said in a statement to the Wisconsin Examiner. “The ruling means that, in deciding whether a student must be read their Miranda rights during a police interrogation in a school setting, Wisconsin courts must consider the reasons why a child in the student’s position would feel coerced and not free to leave. This decision upholds students’ Fifth Amendment right to protect themselves against self-incrimination during encounters with law enforcement. Students retain their constitutional rights, including the right to remain silent and seek counsel when interacting with law enforcement, even in the school environment. Police are not exempt from their responsibilities to uphold the rights of a person simply because the student is a minor in a school environment. The Court affirmed this fundamental principle and protected Wisconsin students across the state from coercive and unconstitutional police conduct.”
In a concurring opinion joined by the other two conservative leaning justices, Justice Brian Hagedorn said the issue was made larger than it should have been, writing that the majority transformed “a rather ordinary schoolhouse questioning” into a matter of constitutional import.
Hagedorn wrote that a seventh grader would likely see being questioned by police as intimidating but recognize that school resource officers are trusted parts of the school community.
“Would a reasonable 12-year-old in this situation feel some pressure? Absolutely. But was this the kind of hostile, inherently coercive questioning that animated the court in Miranda? It was not,” Hagedorn wrote. “A reasonable person in Kevin’s position would not see SROs as unfamiliar and antagonistic adults. The reasonable person would see them as dedicated and familiar faces — intimidating to be sure — but nonetheless present to keep everyone safe.”
Communities across Wisconsin have had fights over the presence of school resource officers for years. Officers were removed from Milwaukee Public Schools in 2016 at the request of community members, but returned last year by state legislators under a provision of a law providing local governments with increased state financial support. Opponents of SROs have argued the presence of cops in schools makes Black students in particular targets of inappropriate monitoring at school, which is supposed to be a safe place for them to learn.
In his opinion, Hagedorn wrote that the ruling was a close call but that he wanted to distinguish between a true police interrogation and the normal functions of school discipline.
“These facts give some support to the idea that a reasonable person in Kevin’s situation would have felt pressured to confess,” Hagedorn wrote. “Under my read of the cases, however, more is required to approximate the coercive environment at issue in Miranda. Someone in Kevin’s shoes would certainly feel the weight of adult condemnation. His conscience might even call him to come clean in the face of a serious infraction. But this normal human experience should not so quickly be placed on par with the uniquely coercive station house questioning to which Miranda applies.”
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on March 26, 2026. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump, who wants to ban mail-in voting, said he had the right to vote by mail-in ballot in Florida’s special election Tuesday “because I’m president of the United States.”
The president’s statement at his Cabinet meeting Thursday comes as he aggressively pushes U.S. Senate Republicans to break the long-standing filibuster to pass a restrictive voting bill ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
The legislation, which would require a birth certificate and other documentation for voter registration, also would federally prohibit universal voting by mail without special approval, according to the Brennan Center and other sources.
“Because I’m president of the United States, and because of the fact that I’m president of the United States, I did a mail-in ballot for elections that took place in Florida because I felt I should be here instead of being in the beautiful sunshine,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
“We have exceptions for mail in ballots. You do know that, right?” he said to the reporter who asked about his mail-in ballot. “So if you’re away, we have an exception. If you’re in the military, we have an exception. If you’re on a business trip, we have an exception. If you’re disabled, we have an exception. And if you’re ill, if you’re not feeling good. So I was away mostly in Washington, D.C., so I used a mail-in ballot.”
The president regularly travels on Air Force One between the nation’s capital and Florida, including taking a trip to his Palm Beach home this past weekend.
The White House declined to comment on whether someone other than the president requested, picked up and dropped off or mailed the president’s mail-in ballot.
Florida election law states that only a person’s immediate family member or legal guardian can do so.
“As President Trump has said, the SAVE America Act has commonsense exceptions for Americans to use mail-in ballots for illness, disability, military, or travel — but universal mail-in voting should not be allowed because it’s highly susceptible to fraud. As everyone knows, the President is a resident of Palm Beach and participates in Florida elections, but he obviously primarily lives at the White House in Washington, D.C. This is a non-story,” White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said in a written statement.
Trump’s statement also was made three days after conservative Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical that federal law allows states to accept mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day but not received until after polls close, during a five-day grace period. While the case was out of Mississippi, 14 states — both red and blue — have similar laws.
2020 election refrain
Discrediting mail-in voting has been a common refrain of Trump’s since the 2020 presidential election, which he lost but still falsely claims he won.
Roughly 30% of voters cast mail-in ballots in the 2024 election, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
Eight states and Washington, D.C., allow all elections to be conducted entirely by mail, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. They are: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington state.
Nebraska and North Dakota permit counties to opt into conducting elections via mail.
Idaho, Minnesota, New Jersey and New Mexico allow mostly mail elections for certain small jurisdictions. A handful of other states permit mail voting for local elections.
SAVE America Act and filibuster
Writing on his social media platform Thursday morning, Trump said: “When is ‘enough, enough’ for our Republican Senators. There comes a time when you must do what should have been done a long time ago, and something which the Lunatic Democrats will do on day one, if they ever get the chance. TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER, and get our airports, and everything else, moving again. Also, add the complete, all five items, SAVE AMERICA ACT items. Go for the Gold!!! President DJT”
Trump complicated negotiations Monday when he said at an event in Memphis, Tennessee, that he would not approve a deal to end the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, ongoing since mid-February, unless senators could find a way to also pass his voting bill, dubbed the SAVE America Act.
The filibuster requires nearly all legislation to receive 60 votes to advance to passage in the Senate. With all Democrats against the legislation, the bill would not garner enough support in the upper chamber, which is split 53-47.
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