Illinois tracks cannabis sales by in-state versus out-of-state purchasers. A 2023 analysis from Wisconsin’s nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau found Illinois collected $36.1 million in tax revenue in 2022 from out-of-state residents who purchased cannabis in counties bordering Wisconsin.
About half of cannabis sales in 2022 at dispensaries in Illinois counties that border Wisconsin were to out-of-state residents, the analysis found.
This story was originally published by ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive its biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
The $16 billion Hudson Tunnel Project, under construction between Manhattan and New Jersey, will improve passenger rail service, an important issue for New York City commuters. It would seem to have nothing to do with what’s happening in northern Wisconsin.
But after the White House froze federal grant funding for the project in the fall, citing concerns about diversity and equity measures, lobbyists with an interest in the tunnel donated $2,500 to a political novice running in the Republican primary in Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District.
The young candidate, Michael Alfonso, has no sway over the matter. However, his father-in-law does: Sean Duffy is secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The contributions are among dozens to Alfonso’s campaign from lobbyists, business executives and political action committees tied to industries — from rails and highways to shipping and air travel — that Duffy’s department funds and regulates. His department also oversees the Federal Aviation Administration.
Duffy held the 7th Congressional District seat for nearly a decade before resigning in 2019. He was succeeded by Tom Tiffany, who is now running for Wisconsin governor, leaving the seat open again. Alfonso, 26, who has worked in construction and podcasting, has been endorsed by President Donald Trump.
A ProPublica analysis found that many of the Alfonso donors with transportation interests had never given to Duffy or Tiffany. While legal, such donations set up the appearance that helping Alfonso might assist the donors with issues influenced by Duffy. (Politico has reported on some of these contributions.)
“The law, as it stands, provides very little constraint,” said Daniel Weiner, director of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a law and policy institute based in New York. “There’s a very large gulf between what is legal and what is ethical. Obviously, this raises numerous ethical questions.”
This is not the first time a Cabinet secretary’s relative has created thorny ethical issues. During the first Trump administration, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao made headlines for appearing to give preferential treatment to Kentucky officials for millions of dollars in infrastructure grants. Kentucky is the home state of her husband, Mitch McConnell, then Senate majority leader. At the time, Chao’s office denied showing any favoritism, saying that Kentucky’s share was not out of the ordinary.
And in 2012, under President Barack Obama, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, an Iowa Democrat, fielded questions about the separation between U.S. Department of Agriculture business and the campaign of his wife, Christie, who was running for Congress. Christie Vilsack told ProPublica in an interview that the couple was careful about making sure her husband was not involved in the campaign, other than to support her at some debates and on election night. He “never did any fundraising at all,” she said.
An influential member of Trump’s Cabinet, Duffy has been openly assisting his son-in-law’s campaign. The notice for a November “meet and greet” with Alfonso in Wausau, Wisconsin, mentioned that Duffy would be a special guest, as did an invitation for another December fundraiser.
Among the sponsors for the December event was the political action committee for Delta Air Lines. The invitation included a caveat: “Sean Duffy is not soliciting funds in connection with this event.”
Alfonso’s campaign did not respond to requests from ProPublica for an interview or for comment. A spokesperson for Duffy, Nathaniel Sizemore, provided a written statement saying: “The Secretary attends fundraising events in his personal capacity. Regulatory decisions are guided by career safety professionals, the law, and the facts.”
Nothing in law bars Duffy from campaigning for his son-in-law, so long as he goes about it on his personal time, does not use government resources and does not promise to take some official action in exchange for a contribution.
Alfonso is using the same fundraising consultant, Kirstin Hopkins, that Duffy employed, Federal Election Commission records show. In addition, Alfonso has received help with ads and mailers from a super PAC, the Northwoods Future PAC, that is funded with $1 million from Duffy’s former campaign committee. Alfonso’s familial advantage has irked some Wisconsin Republicans who don’t want the newcomer to glide into such an important position.
Through his own campaign committee, Alfonso had raised a little over $305,000 as of the end of 2025, the latest filing available. By law, contributions for each election are limited to $3,500 from individuals and $5,000 from political action committees. Donors can contribute to more than one election at the same time, such as a primary race and a general.
Alfonso’s donors include lobbyist Jeffrey Miller, a finance chair of Trump’s most recent inaugural committee. In December, Miller and his company’s chief operating officer donated separately to Alfonso, for a combined $8,500. No one listing their firm, Miller Strategies, as an employer had donated to either Duffy or Tiffany in the past, according to FEC records.
Lobbyist disclosure reports show that Miller lobbied the Transportation Department in 2025 on behalf of at least nine companies, one New York county and one Native American tribe. The issues included airport signage regulation, aviation permitting for the developer of a supersonic airliner and advancements in GPS technology. Miller reported advocating for Archer Aviation regarding electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft technology, known as eVTOL — the basis for future flying cars.
Earlier this month, Duffy announced a first-of-its-kind FAA pilot program to test eVTOL technology in eight demonstration projects across 26 states. Archer was among the companies selected to participate, according to the Transportation Department. In a video accompanying the announcement, Duffy spoke enthusiastically about the technology, envisioning “Ubers in the air” taking people from one airport to the next and beyond. He said, “eVTOLs are going to make the airspace far more interesting and far more fun, and we have to be prepared for that.”
Miller did not return calls or emails seeking comment.
Alfonso graduated in 2022 from the University of Wisconsin with a math degree. He moved to Florida for a time to help produce a popular podcast hosted by Dan Bongino, a Trump supporter who later served a brief stint as deputy director of the FBI. (Bongino is back podcasting again.)
By Alfonso’s account, he and Trump first met in 2022 at Alfonso’s wedding to Duffy’s daughter, Evita. The reception took place at one of Trump’s New Jersey golf courses.
In a post on X, Alfonso thanked his father-in-law for joining him on the campaign trail in Wisconsin last November.
Alfonso has said that in an Oval Office meeting after he decided to run for Congress, he pledged loyalty to the president. “I promised him that I would always be America first, I would always fight for his agenda and that nobody would ever outwork me,” Alfonso told Mark Halperin, another podcaster.
On social media in November, Alfonso thanked Duffy for coming to his first campaign event in Wausau, the city where the candidate met his future wife while they were in middle school.
The following month, the transportation secretary appeared at a campaign fundraiser for Alfonso at a hotel in Green Bay, near the storied Lambeau Field. The donors in attendance included Sharad Tak of Bethesda, Maryland, the CEO of ST LNG, a company seeking a DOT-issued license to construct and operate a deep-water port offshore of Matagorda, Texas, to load liquefied natural gas onto carriers.
Tak gave $500 to the campaign, and his wife, Mahinder, who did not attend the function, gave $7,000. Neither had donated to Duffy or Tiffany.
Tak did not reply to ProPublica’s request for an interview but asked a longtime friend of his, Ann Murphy of Green Bay, who works as a consultant for him, to respond. Tak owns a paper mill in Oconto Falls, north of Green Bay. It is not in the 7th Congressional District. But Murphy said Tak was visiting the state and agreed, at her request, to attend the fundraiser for Alfonso.
She said in an interview that the Texas liquefied natural gas project had no bearing on Tak’s campaign contribution. “Absolutely not.”
It’s typical, she said, for Tak and his wife to support causes, both political and philanthropic, that Murphy and her husband find worthwhile — and vice versa.
“We were very excited about Michael,” Murphy said of Alfonso, likening him to Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA who inspired many young people before being killed last year. “And he does have the endorsement of President Trump.”
Others donating to Alfonso’s candidacy include political action committees for employees of the military jetmaker Lockheed Martin, which is subject to FAA safety regulations and has lucrative government contracts, and for T-Mobile, which is working on a DOT project to enhance the resilience of critical 5G infrastructure. PACs for unions and trade associations for heavy equipment operators, engineers, aeronautical services and the travel industry have also pitched in.
The PAC for Brightline, a high-speed train service in Florida, also donated, giving $2,500 in December. Brightline trains have struck and killed more than 180 pedestrians or drivers at crossings since 2017, according to an investigation by the Miami Herald and WLRN. Duffy promised at a congressional committee hearing in July to work to “drive down the number of deaths.” In September, he announced that his department would distribute $42 million to improve safety along the line. In a statement to the Florida news organizations, Brightline officials blamed the deaths on suicides and the “reckless” behavior of people who put themselves in harm’s way.
Brightline, T-Mobile and Lockheed Martin did not respond to ProPublica’s requests for comment. On its website, Lockheed notes that it complies with all applicable laws and regulations with regard to its political and public policy activities.
Alfonso’s campaign has drawn donations from others in the heavily regulated railroad sector. They include Peter Bartek, founder of FTS Rail, which manufactures battery-powered railroad repair tools and sensors that detect rail breaks caused by extreme heat or cold. He gave $3,644 in November. Duffy appointed Bartek last July to serve on a DOT advisory committee.
Bartek had never given to a candidate in the district before. In an interview, he said he read a news article about Alfonso’s campaign and decided to donate. “I like Secretary Duffy very much,” he said, “and I thought very simply, boy, if he’s anything like his father-in-law, it would be nice to support him as well.”
He said in a text that he didn’t know Duffy personally and was not involved in Alfonso’s campaign or fundraising.
In New York, construction on the Hudson Tunnel Project to improve commuter rail service came to a screeching halt in early February after the federal government cut off funds. A court intervened, ordering the money released, and work resumed. A bistate commission overseeing the project warned this month that it could face disruptions again in upcoming months if federal disbursements do not continue.
In response to outreach from ProPublica, an executive at Venture Government Strategies, whose lobbyists for the tunnel project gave a combined $2,500 to Alfonso, said in an email the company had no comment.
On his campaign website, Alfonso lists a dozen issues “that matter to us” — ranging from education and health care to immigration. He wants to “make farms and families strong,” “give Gen Z a voice” and work against access to abortion.
Transportation issues are not among those priorities, but he still is getting support from General Motors, which regularly lobbies DOT on various issues, including fuel economy, vehicle safety and emissions standards, and other mandates. The giant car manufacturer also gave to Duffy when he was running for the congressional seat, and the transportation secretary has become a booster. (GM did not respond to ProPublica’s request for comment.)
In mid-December, viewers of social media saw Duffy slide behind the wheel of a sleek, black, limited-edition Corvette, imbued with patriotic insignia to celebrate the nation’s upcoming 250th birthday.
“Over 1,000 horsepower,” Duffy said in a promotional video, emphasizing the dynamic features of the $200,000 supercar. “We’re going to take this bad boy on a little test drive to the Army-Navy game.” Off he went.
The video, uploaded to the social media platform X, highlighted a travel app the carmaker made in partnership with the Department of Transportation, while also showcasing Chevrolet’s automotive series dubbed Stars and Steel.
The post received over 130,000 views: valuable advertisement for the storied carmaker, General Motors. A couple of weeks later, GM’s political action committee donated $1,000 to Alfonso.
Conservation groups say Wisconsin will lose out on opportunities to set aside public lands and struggle to find funds to pursue that work as the state’s land purchase program is likely to expire in June.
Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Chris Taylor was a lobbyist for Planned Parenthood and a Democratic legislator before she became a judge. Her path reflects the changing nature of judicial races in Wisconsin.
Spending by the New York-based 1776 Project PAC is up 240 percent on Wisconsin races this year compared to 2025, according to records from the Wisconsin Ethics Commission.
Conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Maria Lazar has described herself as an underdog in an era that's seen liberals run the tables in elections for the state's highest court, but says she's beaten the odds before. Supreme Court races have become highly partisan, but she says what people really need is someone "geeky and law nerdy enough" like her to "live and breathe the law" during their 10 year term on the state's highest bench.
The U.S. Department of Education on Feb. 20, 2026. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Treasury Department will take over the Department of Education’s responsibility for collecting on defaulted federal student loan debt, President Donald Trump’s administration announced Thursday.
It’s the first step in a multi-phase process that will end with Treasury taking on the entire federal student loan portfolio. It’s also the latest interagency agreement announced by the Education Department.
A senior Department of Education official cited the agency’s “longstanding partnership” with Treasury in administering federal student aid programs and expressed confidence that the department was in a good position to increase its role.
The administration continues to take sweeping steps to do away with the 46-year-old Education Department, as Trump seeks to return education “back to the states.” That effort comes despite much of the oversight and funding of schools already occurring at the state and local levels.
In the first phase, Treasury will also “provide operational support” to the Education Department’s efforts to return borrowers to repayment, per the announcement.
The Education Department’s student loan portfolio stands at roughly $1.7 trillion. The agency says fewer than 40% of borrowers are in repayment and nearly a quarter are in default.
In later phases, Treasury is set to “work to provide operational support over non-defaulted Federal student loan debt, to the extent practicable and permitted by law, while also seeking opportunities to provide operational support to FSA’s other functions.”
The senior Education Department official said that borrowers currently making payments “should see no change” and can expect to see “better customer service.”
Department forges multiple agreements
U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said that “by leveraging Treasury’s world-renowned expertise in finance and economic policy, we are confident that American students, borrowers, and taxpayers will finally have functioning programs after decades of mismanagement,” in a statement Thursday.
The Education Department has announced nine other agreements with the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Interior and State that transfer several of its responsibilities to those agencies.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court in July 2025 temporarily greenlit mass layoffs and a plan to dramatically downsize the Education Department ordered earlier that year. Those layoffs inflicted a heavy hit on Federal Student Aid, among other units at the agency.
That plan was outlined in a March 2025 executive order that called on McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of her own department.
‘Irresponsible, reckless’
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said that “instead of helping student borrowers get the support they need, Secretary McMahon is focused on illegally hollowing out the department she leads and creating new, harmful bureaucracy while she’s at it,” in a statement Thursday.
“Despite all this administration’s talk about creating efficiency, the fact is these agreements simply create pointless new red tape — while threatening basic services and support that students depend on every day,” Murray added.
Rachel Gittleman, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents Education Department workers, lambasted the announcement Thursday.
Gittleman described it as “an insult to the nearly 43 million Americans with federal student loan debt and to the taxpayers who depend on federal oversight to prevent waste, fraud and abuse.”
Gittleman noted that since McMahon took over, “the agency has fired or pushed out nearly half of Federal Student Aid’s workforce, leading to the Government Accountability Office warning that the majority of federal student loan servicers running the government’s $1.7 trillion student loan portfolio have been repeatedly breaking the law without staff oversight.”
The GAO report found that the staffing reductions affected the government’s ability to determine how well student loan servicers are doing their jobs.
Aissa Canchola Bañez, policy director for the advocacy group Protect Borrowers, blasted the administration’s move as “irresponsible, reckless, and bad news for our most vulnerable student loan borrowers.”
She added that “in the midst of a growing affordability crisis where American families are already struggling to make ends meet, this risks driving millions of borrowers further into financial hardship.”
U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin speaks to reporters after a vote at the on March 12, 2026. The Senate advanced Mullin's nomination to lead the Department of Homeland Security in a vote Sunday. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate voted Sunday to advance Oklahoma GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s nomination to lead the Department of Homeland Security.
The 54-37 procedural vote sets up a final vote on Mullin’s confirmation as early as Monday. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania voted to advance Mullin, after backing him in committee as well. Also voting with Republicans was Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico.
If confirmed, Mullin will take over a department that has been shut down since Feb. 14 amid a stalemate over changes to immigration enforcement policy.
Senate Democrats have declined to approve a funding bill for the department following the deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis during a months-long immigrant enforcement operation.
The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs voted, 8-7, to move Mullin’s nomination forward Thursday. Mullin did not gain the support of the fellow Republican who chairs the committee, Rand Paul of Kentucky, but still received a favorable vote from the committee because Fetterman joined all other Republicans in voting in Mullin’s favor.
Paul did not vote on Sunday.
During Mullin’s confirmation hearing, Paul questioned whether Mullin could lead the DHS given his “anger issues.” He also confronted Mullin about his comments calling Paul a “freaking snake” and expressing sympathy for a neighbor who assaulted Paul in a 2017 attack that broke six of his ribs and damaged a lung.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testifies during a U.S, House Judiciary Committee hearing on March 4, 2026. Photo by Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
Outgoing DHS Secretary Kristi Noem leaves the department, which has the primary responsibility of enforcing President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration policy, with myriad problems, including a bottleneck in approving Federal Emergency Management Agency grants.
Noem, the former governor of South Dakota, also came under bipartisan criticism for describing the victims of the fatal Minneapolis shootings, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, as domestic terrorists without any evidence.
Mullin made a similar comment the day of Pretti’s shooting, but said during his confirmation hearing that he regretted the statement, though he stopped short of apologizing to Pretti’s family.
Sarah Beckman, left, stands with other staff members of Ohio's Hamilton County Quick Response Team in an undated photo. The team helps people who use fentanyl get treatment. Ohio had the largest drop in opioid overdose deaths of any state as of October 2025 since the national peak in June 2023. (Photo courtesy of Hamilton County Quick Response Team)
Since their peak less than three years ago, opioid overdose deaths dropped nearly by half as of October, according to a Stateline analysis. The drop comes as a shrinking fentanyl supply has made the drug weaker and less deadly and volunteer efforts get more people into treatment.
The weaker fentanyl tracks to a crackdown on materials used to make fentanyl in China around the time U.S. deaths started dropping in 2023. Some experts see it as a welcome, but possibly temporary, break for states in a scourge that boosted crime as people who are using the drugs sometimes fall into homelessness and steal to support fentanyl habits.
The numbers and rates of opioid overdose deaths fell for all races between 2023 and 2026, according to more detailed data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by Stateline. That’s in contrast to an earlier trend from 2019 to 2023, when rates dropped only among white people and rose sharply among Black and Indigenous Americans.
Ohio had the nation’s largest decrease since mid-2023, when the nation’s opioid overdose deaths peaked. Ohio has seen fewer deaths but more risky behavior lately as fentanyl supplies dry up and people turn to substitutes tainted by animal tranquilizers.
Ohio is seeing a difference in the bottom line, said Erin Reed, director of RecoveryOhio, the state agency charged with reducing overdose deaths.
“We’re seeing things you would expect — like reductions in emergency department visits and reductions in Medicaid costs,” Reed said. “But we’re also seeing a positive impact on violent crime and recidivism, and I think this is really, really encouraging. At the end of the day, people want to be safe.”
Sarah Beckman, 36, stopped using illicit drugs 11 years ago when she learned she was pregnant with her first child. Now she works through Hamilton County’s Quick Response Team to help Ohio residents who use fentanyl.
When overdoses peaked a few years ago, the team started spending more time talking to people after overdoses.
“We saw overdoses were going up and up, and going out two days a week was not enough. We expanded it to full time,” Beckman said. “That window is so small. It has to be kind of a perfect storm for an individual to be, like, ‘OK, I’m ready.’”
Even if people aren’t ready for treatment, kindness can help build trust and prevent some of the thefts and arrests that lead to police involvement, as it did for her when she stole to get money for drugs and was charged with resisting arrest, she said.
“When you’re in the midst of addiction you need help with everything. For us it’s just meeting people where they are and saying, ‘Hey, are you hungry? Do you have enough clothes?’” Beckman said. “You’re showing consistency and empathy, and by doing that you can slowly move someone closer toward accepting overdose prevention materials or hopefully, eventually, treatment.”
Nationally there were 46,066 opioid overdose deaths in the year ending with October, barely more than half the peak of 86,075 in June 2023 and the lowest since April 2017. The numbers, often delayed because of the process of determining overdose deaths, were released this month based on information available March 1 by the federal National Vital Statistics System.
Deaths fell the most in Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia and Florida since June 2023, but increased in Alaska, Arizona and Nevada.
In Ohio, annual deaths fell 63% from about 4,300 in June 2023 to about 1,600 as of October 2025.
As in many other states, deaths in Ohio started falling before 2023, but then dropped more sharply — 34% in that year alone, said Reed.
Arizona and Nevada, however, saw deaths increase since the national peak in 2023. Arizona’s border crossings with Mexico are among the largest fentanyl smuggling points in the country, with fentanyl traffic dominated by the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico. One Arizona crossing, the Port of Lukeville, was the site of the largest fentanyl seizure in U.S. Customs and Border Protection history: 4 million fentanyl pills hidden in a trailer brought to the border by a 20-year-old U.S. citizen in July 2024.
The state’s notorious summer heat exacerbates overdose deaths, according to recent research.
An Arizona Army National Guard member inspects a vehicle within a railcar entering the U.S. in Nogales, Ariz., in April 2025 as part of Task Force Stopping Arizona’s Fentanyl Epidemic. Arizona is one of three states with more opioid overdose deaths as of October 2025 than at their national peak in 2023, according to a Stateline analysis. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Amber Peck/U.S. Army National Guard)
Plentiful supply from the border may help explain continued increases in Arizona, said Will Humble, executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association, a public health workers organization.
Political infighting over how to spend the state government’s share of $1.2 billion in opioid settlement money hasn’t helped, he said. The state attorney general, governor and legislature have gone to court over plans to use some of the money to balance the state budget.
“Many other states are way ahead of Arizona when it comes to distributing the state portion of the opioid settlement dollars,” Humble said. “It could be there are fewer interventions because the state dollars are locked up. There’s this dispute in Arizona over who gets to decide. Many other states are not having this jurisdictional issue.”
On the national stage, opioid overdose deaths fell across demographic groups. Even older Americans, whose overdose death numbers had surged earlier even as they fell for other groups, saw a 25% decline from 2023 to 2025, about half the national decrease, according to the Stateline analysis.
In a sign of a weaker fentanyl supply, the Drug Enforcement Administration said in December that 29% of the pills it seized in fiscal 2025 contained a lethal dose of fentanyl, down from 76% in fiscal 2023.
“These reductions in potency and purity correlate with a decline in synthetic opioid deaths,” the DEA said.
Keith Humphreys, a health policy professor at Stanford University who testified to the U.S. Senate in 2023 about increases in accidental overdose deaths among older adults, told Stateline that a “fentanyl supply shock” originating in China made fentanyl supplies weaker. That would include fentanyl-tainted cocaine, which had caused many deaths among older Black men, Humphreys said.
“This likely includes some long-term cocaine users who had the bad luck to get cocaine that had fentanyl in it,” Humphreys said in an interview. White women are more likely to overdose on prescription drugs in order to commit suicide, a trend that would be less likely to be affected by fentanyl supply, he added.
Humphreys and a team of other researchers, in a Science magazine report published in January, found a “drought” of fentanyl that could be traced on the social media platform Reddit.
Elevated mentions of a “drought” started in May 2023, nearly the same time as overdoses began to drop, their research found. Also, the Drug Enforcement Administration reported decreasing potency in seized fentanyl and fewer seizures, both indicating a shortage of supply.
“Drug dealers often adapt to supply shortages by lowering purity more than raising prices,” the report stated. The likely reason: China cracked down on source chemicals for making illicit fentanyl. Such “precursor” chemicals typically arrive from China and are processed in Mexico before being smuggled into the U.S. as illicit fentanyl.
“Actions by the government of China that resulted in greater scrutiny of production and export of precursor chemicals, including the removal of online advertisements and several marketplaces,” may have been what caused the drought in fentanyl and thus saved lives, the report concluded.
The DEA concluded that Mexican fentanyl producers were cutting potency because they were having a hard time finding source chemicals from China, the report noted. That makes it likely supply is the biggest reason for the drop in deaths, not enhanced U.S. border searches or other actions such as the Trump administration’s attacks on drug boats off the South American coast. Those boats are typically used to transport cocaine rather than fentanyl.
Data shows a similar drop in overdose deaths in Canada, where fentanyl supplies are usually produced from Chinese chemicals inside the country rather than smuggled in. That’s another reason to suspect that China’s crackdown affected both countries, despite differing policies and law enforcement strategies.
In their Science article, Humphreys and the other researchers noted that the recent decline in deaths offers the chance to prepare for future opioid-related problems.
“The incentive to restore the fentanyl trade will persist as long as there is demand for the drug,” the authors wrote. “It may be wise to use the current drought as an opportunity to ramp up the prevention and treatment programs that have evidence of decreasing demand.”
There have been some more recent upticks in death numbers.
Colorado saw an increase in synthetic opioid overdose deaths starting in late 2024, according to a Common Sense Institute report released this month. The institute is nonpartisan but has ties to the Republican Party, and concluded the state needs stiffer penalties for fentanyl possession and distribution, similar to Texas law. Opioid overdose deaths in Colorado are down 9% since the national peak in 2023, according to the Stateline analysis.
In Ohio, the recent trend among people who use fentanyl is to find pills spiked with an animal tranquilizer that causes severe addiction, said Beckman, of the Hamilton County Quick Response Team. Three recent clients survived overdoses but required emergency treatment, she said.
“We can educate people in the community: ‘Hey, your drugs are not what you thought they were, that’s why you’re experiencing all these weird side effects,’” Beckman said. “These substances are so severe that a traditional detox hasn’t been able to handle them.”
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.
Right now there are three AI data centers under construction in Wisconsin. So how do you minimize the toll they will take on our environment and our energy bills?
On this episode, a deep dive into data center tariffs at the PSC and what they means for you.
Anti-abortion organizer Abby Johnson spoke at Students for Life of America’s annual National Pro-Life Summit on Jan. 24, 2026, behind former abortion clinic workers wearing “Make Abortion Murder Again” T-shirts. “I don’t think we’re going to hug and kiss our way out of this baby murder,” she told the student activists. (Photo by Sofia Resnick/States Newsroom)
Republican lawmakers inseveral states so far this year introduced bills that would legally treat abortion as homicide.
The proposed laws could have implications not just for pregnancy termination but for certain fertility treatments or even some forms of contraception. Despite broad unpopularity, even within the mainstream anti-abortion movement, the measures continue to be introduced and debated in statehouses, concerning abortion-rights advocates. They fear the U.S. Supreme Court might someday consider the constitutionality of such a law, premised on giving legal personhood status to developing embryos.
“Whether or not one of the laws, should it be enacted, makes it in front of the court, what it does is create an environment in which the court can seem as if it’s not being so extreme or stepping so far out of the mainstream,” said Madeline Gomez, managing senior policy counsel at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. “The court often likes to look to how many states have laws like this.”
While abortion-rights advocates are sounding the alarm on these abortion-homicide bills they say would exacerbate the consequences of state bans, supporters have grown more frustrated with anti-abortion groups and Republicans for not being fully committed to abolishing abortion. They belong to the movement’s steadily growing pro-prosecution wing and continue to develop policy and messaging strategies to promote abortion-homicide legislation.
Outside the March for Life rally in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 23, 2026, Virginia pastor Jason Garwood criticized mainstream anti-abortion groups and Republicans for not supporting laws that would give legal personhood to developing embryos and fetuses. (Photo by Sofia Resnick/States Newsroom)
“We obviously disagree with the pro-life movement in large part — some of their organizations have stopped bills of abolishing abortion in places,” said Virginia pastor Jason Garwood protesting outside this year’s March for Life, holding a poster calling for a ban on in vitro fertilization. “We’re obviously opposed to Democrats, but we’re also opposed to Republicans who are compromised on the issue, who say one thing and do another, Donald Trump being one of the foremost. … I mean, Republicans have Congress, and we don’t have a bill to abolish abortion yet.”
Like Garwood, anti-abortion leader Abby Johnson believes a cultural change in the U.S. on abortion will not happen without the fear of murder charges. She is planning to launch a “Make Abortion Murder Again” college tour at major state schools this spring to help convince the next generation of adults to accept a reality where embryos and fetuses will have the same legal rights as the women and girls carrying them.
“Do I want to see women in jail? No, I don’t,” Johnson said. “Because I don’t want women to have abortions. It’s like, do I want to see people in jail for drinking and driving? I don’t, but I don’t want people to drink and drive.”
Most people don’t want to see women jailed for abortion. A recent Pew Research Center poll shows 60% public support for abortion in most or all cases, with surveyed conservatives and Republicans much more likely to support making abortion illegal in most or all cases.
But University of Maryland School of Public Policy researcher Steven Kull found that when voters are confronted with the reality of criminalizing abortions in all cases, the political divide can shrink. Kull led a study of swing state voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Large bipartisan majorities in these states said they did not want abortion to be criminalized before fetal viability, including Republicans (between 57% and 70%, depending on the state).
Nationally, among those who favored making abortion a crime, 5% said the doctor should be punished, 5% said the woman, and 10% said both.
A 2025 survey published by reproductive rights legal nonprofits Pregnancy Justice and the National Women’s Law Center found that 59% of likely voters said they opposed granting legal rights to embryos and fetuses after learning about the criminal implications of these policies.
Some states already have some kind of personhood language on the books, while others, such as Arizona and Missouri, continue to consider it. And women have already been arrested and charged for crimes related to miscarriages and stillbirths, and for taking abortion pills.
In January a woman from Campton, Kentucky, where abortion is banned throughout pregnancy, was arrested and charged with fetal homicide after taking abortion pills and burying the remains near her home. Prosecutors dropped the homicide charges after a state attorney submitted a court filing saying the state’s fetal homicide laws cannot apply to pregnant women. She is still being charged with a misdemeanor related to concealing a birth.
Earlier this month in Georgia, where abortion is banned at around six weeks gestation, police charged a woman with attempted murder after she delivered a severely premature baby who died shortly after birth. As the Current has reported, one friend told a police officer the woman had taken the abortion-inducing drug misoprostol and a pain medication, but another friend contradicted that account to the news outlet and said she had only taken the pain medicine.
The woman, a mother of two young boys, also faces a drug possession charge because the Georgia Legislature, like Louisiana’s and Texas’, has placed misoprostol on a list of “dangerous” medications, along with another abortion medication, mifepristone. Unlike other states, Georgia’s abortion ban does not explicitly exempt pregnant people from criminal charges.
As States Newsroom has reported, the most serious charges are often dropped in these types of cases, but the harms related to reputational damage and incarceration can be long-lasting.
“Postpartum people are being investigated and jailed while their mugshots are plastered across the news as they endure a deeply private and personal experience,” said Pregnancy Justice Senior Policy Counsel Kulsoom Ijaz in a statement.
Ijaz co-authored a report earlier this year finding that between 2006 and 2024, states prosecuted at least 58 women after they lost pregnancies, including the handling of remains resulting from a miscarriage or stillbirth.
“Although many of these cases are eventually dropped, the damage can’t be undone,” Ijaz said.
Reproductive rights advocates say abortion-homicide bills would likely exacerbate issues created by existing state abortion bans, even for wanted pregnancies: When patients and providers fear legal prosecution, they might avoid necessary health care, including prenatal care and emergency procedures.
“By making abortion equivalent to murder or homicide, these bills are also trying to make it impossible for people to ask for help, impossible for people to offer that help,” Gomez said. “They’re meant to be isolating and stigmatizing and really saying this is the worst crime that we imagine in our code, and you should be scared to even talk about it or think about it or offer that help.”
Abortion opponents protested in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 23, 2026. There is a growing divide between the mainstream movement, which pushes policy and regulations that curb access to abortion, and so-called “abortion abolitionists,” who seek harsh, criminal penalties for women who have abortions. (Photo by Sofia Resnick/States Newsroom)
The promise of penalty
The mainstream anti-abortion movement spent the last half-century helping to pass incremental, strategic federal and state laws that made abortion harder to access and more expensive, eventually ending federal abortion rights. But groups like Abolitionists Rising, End Abortion Now and the Foundation to Abolish Abortion are pushing for near-total bans, with only exceptions for spontaneous miscarriages and life-saving medical procedures.
More mainstream leaders like Students for Life of America’s Kristan Hawkins say abortion-homicide laws would set the movement back in terms of cultural acceptance and are not the silver bullet their supporters believe they are.
“Abortion won’t end overnight,” Hawkins wrote in a recent Substack article. “Abortions will tragically continue … just like murder and theft continue. But, at some point, there will be an investigation, arrest, and prosecution. … The story won’t be: ‘The Pro-Life Movement Wants Justice for the Preborn Baby.’ It will be: “The Pro-Life Movement Wants to Jail & Execute Women.’”
Advocates more in the middle of this growing divide include Abby Johnson, who once worked as a Planned Parenthood clinic director but has spent the past two decades encouraging abortion-clinic staff members around the country to quit their jobs with the help of her organization And Then There Were None. Her profile grew in 2019 with the release of the movie “Unplanned,” based on her autobiography about her experience working for Planned Parenthood.
Its veracity was challenged by an investigative reporter, and Planned Parenthood says Johnson has a track record of spreading false information about the organization’s mission, and sexual and reproductive health care.
Johnson has advocated in legislatures and courts, trying to eliminate abortion rights in her home state of Texas and throughout the U.S. Last month, she testified in an amicus brief arguing medication abortion is gruesome in the abortion pill case Louisiana v. FDA.
She is the rare female leader among the male-dominated groups that advocate for harsh penalties for women who have abortions. Johnson said she values her friendship with Hawkins, especially after having lost other friends and partnerships in the movement as her anti-abortion stance has become more radical. But while she criticizes the so-called abortion abolitionists for lacking grace, she criticizes the mainstream movement for focusing on regulation and treating women like victims instead of trying to deter them with harsh penalties.
“I don’t think we’re going to hug and kiss our way out of this baby murder,” Johnson told the audience of about 2,000 predominantly university and high school students at Students for Life of America’s annual National Pro-Life Summit in late January.
She said the March for Life declined to partner with her on her next movie after having sponsored “Unplanned.” She said they told her the new one was too graphic.
A spokesperson for March for Life did not confirm but shared a written statement: “March for Life deeply values our fellow movement leaders and the dedication they bring towards building a future where every life is welcomed and protected.”
Johnson said she hopes the movie and the college tour, which is still being planned, could make harsher abortion penalties more palatable across the country. Harsher penalties would have saved her from choices she regrets, she said.
“If there would have been some sort of consequence for my action at the time, I wouldn’t have had an abortion,” Johnson said. “That would have changed the trajectory of my life.”
This story was originally produced by News From The States, 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.
A child care provider and toddler look out the window at Rise for Baby and Family in Keene, N.H. A new analysis of federal data found the gender pay gap between women and men widened last year. (Photo by Maya Mitchell/New Hampshire Bulletin)
The earnings gap between men and women slightly widened last year, according to a new analysis published Thursday.
The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute calculated women last year earned 18.6% less than men per hour on average. That’s up slightly from 2024, when the wage gap narrowed slightly to 18%.
The wage analysis, which examines several federal data sets and independent research papers, controls for race, ethnicity, education, age, marital status and geography.
The findings were published ahead of Equal Pay Day on March 26, a symbolic date marking how far into 2026 women would have to work on top of their 2025 hours to match what men earned in 2025.
The new analysis found the wage gap is smallest among lower-wage workers, in part because minimum wages create a uniform wage floor. But women are paid less than men across all education levels — women with a graduate degree on average earn less than men with only a college degree, it said.
The analysis found the widest wage gap among Black and Hispanic women: Black women are paid only 68.3% of white men’s median wages. That’s a gap of $9.87 per hour — translating to roughly $20,500 lower annual earnings for a full-time worker.
The institute says women earn less because of occupational differences, societal norms and the devaluation of women’s work.
The organization suggests states enact pay transparency laws, mandate employers provide paid family and medical leave, raise the minimum wage, fund universal child care and remove laws that make it harder to join labor unions. But conservative lawmakers and private employers argue that many of those policies would lead to reduced workforces or higher prices.
“Closing pay gaps by gender and by race and ethnicity will require policy solutions on multiple fronts,” the report said. “Although attacks on gender and racial equity continue at the federal level, state lawmakers can and must take steps to address the gender wage gap.”
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.
Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a slate of GOP bills Friday. Evers speaks during final State of the State address in February 2026. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Gov. Tony Evers vetoed Republican bills Friday that would have limited state agencies’ rulemaking abilities, prohibited “rights of nature ordinances,” eliminated “race-based” programs within the University of Wisconsin system and allowed for telehealth care providers with licenses from out of state to practice in Wisconsin.
Bills to limit rulemaking rejected
A set of bills that sought to limit agencies’ rulemaking abilities were also vetoed. Republican lawmakers introduced the legislation, called the “Red Tape Reset,” alongside the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a conservative legal advocacy group.
SB 275 would have required agency scope statements, which are necessary to start the rulemaking process, from being used for one proposed rule and would have set a six-month expiration period for the use of a scope statement for an emergency rule.
SB 276 would have allowed those who have challenged the validity of an administrative rule to receive attorney fees and costs if a court declares a rule invalid.
SB 277 would have implemented a seven years expiration date on all administrative rules unless a rule is adopted again through an agency process.
SB 289 would have required agencies to make cuts to offset the cost associated with new regulations.
The bills were introduced in light of recent decisions by the Wisconsin Supreme Court that have limited lawmakers’ ability to oversee the rulemaking process, including by blocking rules indefinitely.
“The Legislature asks me, in effect, to undo this decision, enabling the Legislature to go right back to indefinitely obstructing the People’s Work and returning state government to inaction, delays and gridlock,” Evers said in his veto message for SB276. “I decline to do so.”
Rights of Nature prohibition
Evers also vetoed SB 420, which would have prohibited local governments from passing ordinances protecting the rights of nature. GOP lawmakers introduced the measure after Green Bay and Milwaukee pursued symbolic ordinances meant to protect the rights of bodies of water to be kept clean. It is a concept that originates from provisions in constitutions of some South American countries and Native American tribes such as Wisconsin’s Ho-Chunk Nation.
Evers said that he objected to lawmakers “continued efforts to restrict and preempt local control across our state” and GOP lawmakers’ failure to acknowledge that “climate change is affecting our Wisconsin way of life…” and efforts to “make it even harder for Wisconsin to respond to and mitigate the effects of our changing climate.”
“I have always believed the state should be a partner in — and not an obstacle to — the important work our local partners do every day,” Evers said. “ I trust our local governments and the Tribal Nations of Wisconsin to know best how to address environmental concerns within their communities and how to protect the natural resources that are vital to local health, economies and quality of life.”
UW free speech penalties
SB 498 would have barred UW campuses from being able to prohibit speakers from campus and prohibited the establishment of “free speech zones” among other actions. Republican lawmakers supportive of the bill said the goal was to protect free speech and academic expression.
Violations of the provisions in the bill could have resulted in financial penalties including a two-year tuition freeze for more than one penalty on a campus within a five-year period.
The UW system already implements a policy that establishes its commitment to freedom of speech and expression along with some accountability measures including conduct and due process mechanisms to address violations.
This was the second iteration of the bill. The idea was first developed by Republicans after a controversial survey of UW campuses, which had an average response rate of 12.5%, found that a majority of students who responded said they were afraid to express views on certain issues in class.
Lawmakers introduced the proposal this legislative session just six days after the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, saying it was just one example of conservatives having their voices silenced on college campuses.
Evers said in his veto message that he disagrees with lawmakers’ attempts to interfere in the day-to-day operation of the state’s higher education system.
“Students, faculty and staff across university and technical college campuses in Wisconsin continue to discuss diverse ideas and perspectives, engage in thoughtful and difficult discussions with each other, grapple with complex issues and challenges, navigate conversations with people who have different experiences and backgrounds, and hear from other students, as well as faculty and staff, who have viewpoints from across the political spectrum,” Evers said. “I have no doubt this will continue to be the case on our campuses — as it should — so long as Republican lawmakers remain unable to inflict their radical and purely ideological agenda on higher education institutions across Wisconsin through legislative efforts like this.”
Evers also vetoed SB 652, which sought to eliminate “race-based” programs offered through the state’s higher education system, including the minority teacher loan program and minority undergraduate grants, by refocusing the programs to focus on “disadvantaged” students. The bill defined the term “disadvantaged” as applying to people who have “experienced any unfavorable economic, familial, geographic, physical or other personal hardship.”
Evers said he objected to lawmakers trying to create “new censorship rules that are designed to police language on our higher education campuses and ultimately prevent our state’s higher education institutions from acknowledging students come to our college campuses with unique and diverse backgrounds, experiences, and needs.”
The bill is part of GOP lawmakers’ attempts to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion efforts throughout the state.
Another bill related to the UW system, SB 532, was also vetoed. It would have prohibited UW institutions from charging students additional fees for exclusively online courses.
“If lawmakers sincerely cared about the soaring costs of higher education for students on Wisconsin campuses, they would have approved any number of the countless measures and investments I have proposed over my tenure to ensure the University of Wisconsin System can survive and thrive without having to frequently rely on raising tuition or increasing various fees for students and families,” Evers said.
GOP health care bill vetoed
SB 214 would have allowed out-of-state health care providers to provide telehealth care services in Wisconsin if they possess a credential as a health care provider issued by another state.
Lawmakers who supported the bill said it would help Wisconsin by increasing the number of health care providers able to help Wisconsinites. Evers said in his veto message, however, that he was concerned about allowing providers to practice in Wisconsin if they are licensed in another state that has lower standards.
“[The bill] fails to address the fundamental concern I have that out-of-state licensing requirements may not be as rigorous and thorough as the standards we have in Wisconsin,” Evers said. “I object to having out-of-state health care providers potentially bypass the high standards we have for instate licensed health care providers to protect patients and families.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is arguing that 13 states requiring insurers to cover abortion are in violation of federal law. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday announced an investigation into 13 states that require health insurance plans to cover abortion care.
In a news release, the agency said the investigation is based on allegations that the states are coercing health care entities to provide coverage of abortion “contrary to conscience” and in violation of a federal law known as the Weldon Amendment.
“OCR launches these investigations to address certain states’ alleged disregard of, or confusion about, compliance with the Weldon Amendment,” said Paula Stannard, director of the HHS Office for Civil Rights in a statement. “Under the Weldon Amendment, health care entities, such as health insurance issuers and health plans, are protected from state discrimination for not paying for, or providing coverage of, abortion contrary to conscience. Period.”
But reproductive rights advocates say it is a tactic to make abortion harder to access in states that have fortified protections.
“At a time when abortion care is getting harder and harder to access, we are deeply concerned that the few states that have taken steps to protect access are now under attack,” said Katie O’Connor, senior director of federal abortion policy at the National Women’s Law Center, in a written statement. “These investigations also follow a familiar pattern from the administration: attacking states that the president views as political threats.”
Earlier this year, HHS’ Office for Civil Rights clarified the Trump administration would interpret the Weldon Amendment to allow employers and insurance plan sponsors to opt out of covering or paying for abortions because of their personal beliefs, contradicting the Biden administration’s interpretation. The agency sent a letter to top officials in Illinois in January, alleging violations of the Weldon Amendment and the Coats-Snowe Amendment. The latter prohibits governments from discriminating against health care entities as it relates to abortion training or participation.
The agency did not specify the states being investigated, but the Washington Post reports that states with abortion-related coverage requirements are: California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont and Washington, which all have Democratic governors except for Vermont.
States defended their laws and criticized the probe as political, following the announcement.
“Donald Trump’s latest ‘investigation’ is nothing but a fishing expedition wasting taxpayers’ money,” said New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill, the New Jersey Monitor reported.
The Vermont Department of Financial Regulation said it is reviewing the federal government’s notice and working with other state agencies to prepare a response.
“DFR does not believe that it has unlawfully coerced or discriminated against any insurer related to the coverage of abortions as outlined in the (federal government’s) request,” Commissioner Kaj Samsom told the VT Digger. “We stand firmly behind the law in question and the protections and choice it provides Vermonters.”
The Heritage Foundation floated the proposal to withhold Medicaid funding for states in violation of the Weldon Amendment in its controversial presidential administration blueprint Project 2025, which President Donald Trump disavowed during his campaign.
This story was originally produced by News From The States, 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.
A clinic in Salem, Oregon, where lawmakers approved $7.5 million for 12 Planned Parenthood health centers in the state after a tax break and spending cut bill signed by President Donald Trump in July cut off federal reimbursements for one year. (Photo by Mia Maldonado/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
Visits for contraception and cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood clinics have dropped by double-digits after Congress passed a bill cutting off Medicaid funding to certain reproductive health care providers last year, according to a new Democratic congressional report.
Between July 1 and the end of December, the report said emergency contraception distribution fell 10%, oral contraception distribution fell 27%, and IUD insertions fell 10%.
Republican members of the House and Senate passed a sweeping budget reconciliation bill in July that included a one-year provision barring clinics from receiving federal Medicaid reimbursement if they offered abortion services and billed Medicaid more than $800,000 in fiscal year 2023. The rule largely affected Planned Parenthood because of the high dollar amount, but some large independent clinics were also affected, such as Maine Family Planning and Health Imperatives in Massachusetts.
Since July, Planned Parenthood reported 20 clinics were forced to close because of the cuts. That was in addition to numerous clinics that had to close after the loss of Title X funds and other factors, bringing the total to 51 last year. The report said nearly 75% of those closures were in rural, medically underserved areas. About half were in the Midwest, including Indiana, Michigan and Ohio, affecting about 25,000 patients.
“Almost all, 48 of 51, that closed between January and December offered primary care, and nearly half were in primary care shortage areas,” the report said.
In recent months, the decline in services grew. The report also notes there were 20% fewer visits for birth control pills in November, and a drop of 36% for intrauterine devices in December, the steepest decline out of all services measured. Some clinics have reported dropping their IUD offerings because it is a costly birth control device to obtain that was normally covered by Medicaid, but it is also the most popular and preferred form of birth control.
The number of visits for breast cancer screening exams fell by 25% in December, according to the report, and testing for sexually transmitted infections fell 11% in November, both of which could result in delayed treatment that increases overall health care costs.
Twelve states have committed their own funding to help address the gap from federal Medicaid cuts, amounting to about $300 million, according to the report. That includes California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington. But advocates for Planned Parenthood say it still leaves a significant shortfall, because health centers nationwide provided an estimated $700 million in care annually to Medicaid patients before the law went into effect.
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat who represents Oregon and a ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said at Thursday’s press conference that he will vigorously oppose any reconciliation efforts to make the cuts permanent.
“We’re here to tell people who are opposing access to health care for women, no way. It’s not going to happen on my watch at the Finance Committee, period. Not going to happen,” Wyden said.
Federal law already prohibits providers from using federal dollars to pay for abortion care, with limited exceptions. Medicaid dollars paid for all of the other types of care that clinics provide, including contraception, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, and screenings for breast and cervical cancer. Maine Family Planning also provided primary care services to about 1,000 patients statewide, but had to halt that program in October because of the cuts.
“The report makes clear that it actually costs money to see all these Planned Parenthood offices or providers close, and once they’re closed, it’s not as though you can just bring them back up,” said U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Democrat who represents Hawaii, at a news conference Thursday morning. “But once they’re closed, people still need this kind of care, and so they’re going to go to other providers, or they will go without — which results in undiagnosed illnesses and health care needs.”
Planned Parenthood Federation of America and two of its affiliates sued to block the law, but the effort was unsuccessful. Republicans in Congress have signaled a goal of extending the cuts and making them permanent, as outlined in the Republican Study Committee’s framework for the next budget reconciliation bill, released in January.
A coalition of major anti-abortion advocacy organizations, including Live Action, Heritage Action, National Right to Life and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, signed a letter sent to House Republican leadership urging them to immediately begin the reconciliation process and make the cuts permanent.
“Since the enactment of the 2025 reconciliation law, multiple abortion businesses have already closed facilities or scaled back operations, demonstrating the measurable impact of the defunding provision,” the letter said.
This story was originally produced by News From The States, 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.
TransAlta’s coal-fired power plant in Centralia, Wash., is among the facilities that received emergency orders from the U.S. Department of Energy blocking them from being retired. (Photo by the Washington Department of Ecology via Washington State Standard)
In an unprecedented use of federal authority, President Donald Trump’s administration has invoked emergency powers to force a series of retiring coal plants to stay open.
Utilities, states and grid operators have said the aging plants are expensive, in bad repair and no longer needed to meet regional energy needs. But Trump’s efforts to save the dwindling coal industry have forced plant operators to continue investing in the facilities — a move that some consumer advocates fear could mean billions of dollars in added costs for customers in dozens of states.
Trump has long positioned himself as a champion of coal, making it a centerpiece of his “energy dominance” agenda. The emergency orders issued by his administration claim that the grid is at risk of energy shortfalls, and the coal plants are needed to ensure a reliable power supply.
But state officials in many places affected by the orders say that’s not true.
“Rather than allowing the realities on the ground, the regulators and the utilities to make rational decisions about how to meet energy needs, we have the Trump administration trying to do Soviet-style central planning to push an ideological agenda that will drive costs to customers,” said Will Toor, executive director of the Colorado Energy Office.
Under Trump, the U.S. Department of Energy has issued emergency orders to block the retirements of coal plants in Colorado, Indiana, Michigan and Washington state. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright has claimed that the power demands in various regions require the plants to stay operational.
Observers expect similar orders to be issued for most, if not all, of the dozens of coal-fired units slated for retirement during the remainder of Trump’s term. Utilities subject to the orders have said they will increase costs for ratepayers, and argue those costs should be borne by the multistate region to which they provide power, rather than just their local customers.
Despite their costs, three of the five plants being blocked from retirement haven’t produced electricity since the emergency orders went into effect, either because they need extensive repairs or because power demands have been met without them.
Section 202(c) of the Federal Power Act gives the secretary broad authority to take temporary control of the U.S. electricity system during emergency situations. Until now, that authority had only been invoked during wartime or natural disasters. All of the Trump administration’s orders were issued before the war with Iran. Consumer advocates say Trump’s use of the act to overturn long-planned facility retirements is unprecedented, and likely illegal.
State officials, utilities and environmental groups have challenged all of the orders.
While such emergency orders can be issued only for 90-day periods, Wright has repeatedly renewed the orders before they expire.
The Department of Energy did not respond to a Stateline interview request.
Keeping coal online
Last May, Wright issued the first emergency order to prevent the shutdown of the J.H. Campbell Generating Plant in Michigan, just days before it was scheduled to retire. The plant has remained open since then, accruing $135 million in net costs through December. Consumers Energy, the utility operating the plant, is seeking to charge ratepayers in 11 states to recoup those costs.
Michigan Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel has appealed the order, while a coalition of environmental groups has filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn it, arguing that the feds have failed to demonstrate a true emergency. That case is currently in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals awaiting oral arguments, which may take place in May.
State leaders in Colorado have appealed an order to keep a plant there open, while Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown, a Democrat, has sued the federal agency. Environmental groups have filed a lawsuit challenging the order in Indiana. Energy analysts say the Michigan case will likely be resolved first, and is expected to have major implications for the emergency orders elsewhere.
Douglas Jester, a former state energy official in Michigan, noted that Consumers Energy has had to pay extra to bring back staff, establish new delivery contracts for coal and catch up on maintenance. Jester now serves as managing partner at 5 Lakes Energy, a clean energy consulting group.
In his emergency order, Wright said the plant was needed to ensure energy reliability and reduce the risk of blackouts. His agency, in a statement issued last month, said the coal plants kept open by the emergency orders helped keep the power system online during Winter Storm Fern.
Coal industry leaders have made a similar argument, saying that growing energy demands require more baseload power, as opposed to intermittent renewables such as wind and solar.
The emergency orders are “very much needed,” said Emily Arthun, CEO of the American Coal Council, an industry trade group, “so that we can continue to have the energy just for our day-to-day lives,” said Emily Arthun, CEO of the American Coal Council, an industry trade group. “Coal plants, baseload plants, are critical to the well-being of our grid. Coal is needed at critical moments for energy.”
Some labor unions have also praised the orders as beneficial to their workforce.
But state leaders and consumer advocates argue that utilities and regulators have already completed detailed plans to replace the power the aging coal plants provided, through a mix of renewables, natural gas plants and battery storage.
It costs a lot of money to make sure that an old, decrepit coal plant is available to operate.
– Michael Lenoff, senior attorney at Earthjustice
“If you were to believe the Department of Energy, you would believe that more than half the country is experiencing an emergency around the clock,” said Michael Lenoff, senior attorney at Earthjustice, an environmental group that is suing the Trump administration to overturn the orders. “It costs a lot of money to make sure that an old, decrepit coal plant is available to operate.”
Lenoff and other environmental advocates have said the coal plants ran during the winter storm because the government forced them to, not because the grid needed them to meet power demands.
Even as his administration has declared an energy shortage emergency, Trump has tried to block new renewable projects from being built, including several offshore wind farms that East Coast states are relying on to meet their power demands.
Meanwhile, the administration has also authorized power generators to export electricity to Mexico and Canada, which may happen only when regulators have determined the U.S. has sufficient energy supply to meet its own needs.
“How can you authorize the export of energy to Canada from a Western market that you just declared is in an emergency status with shortages?” said Tyson Slocum, energy program director at Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy nonprofit. “It’s complete incoherence.”
Aging plants
Three of the five plants being blocked from retirement have yet to even produce electricity since the emergency orders went into effect.
The plant in Colorado suffered a failure in a steam valve that was not repaired because it was on the verge of retiring. The federal order has forced the Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association to invest in repairing the plant, and the costs to keep the plant operational could reach $80 million a year even if it never produces power, said Toor, with the Colorado Energy Office.
“It’s very unlikely to actually operate even with this order,” he said.
Tri-State and the other utilities that own the plant have requested a rehearing of the emergency order, saying that keeping the plant open will be costly for their ratepayers.
In Indiana, one of the two plants targeted by the feds has suffered mechanical failures that would require extensive repairs.
“(The order) doesn’t even make sense because it’s not even really open,” said Ben Inskeep, program director at the Citizens Action Coalition, an Indiana-based consumer advocacy group. “You don’t want to throw good money after a plant you’re about to retire.”
Unlike the Democratic-led states subject to the other orders, Indiana’s leaders have welcomed the federal intervention. Republican Gov. Mike Braun issued his own executive order soon after the Department of Energy announcement directing state officials to evaluate ways to extend the life of the state’s remaining coal plants.
Meanwhile, the TransAlta Centralia coal plant in Washington state, while remaining in operational mode, has not supplied power to the grid since January, as the state’s energy needs have been met by more affordable sources elsewhere.
Democratic state Sen. Marko Liias sponsored a bill, signed into law earlier this month, that rolls back tax and regulatory exemptions that were granted to TransAlta under a 2011 agreement to gradually phase out the plant. The compliance burden will make it economically infeasible for the plant to operate again, he said.
“It’s crystal clear to the market that we’re not going backwards, we’re slamming the door and nailing it shut,” Liias said.
Consumer costs
While some states have pushed to close coal plants due to climate goals and pollution concerns, market forces have largely driven the coal industry’s decline. According to a 2025 analysis by the financial advisory firm Lazard, electricity from coal-fired power plants costs an average of $122 per megawatt-hour. That same amount of power can be produced for $78 from natural gas plants, $61 from onshore wind and $58 from utility-scale solar.
Some energy analysts say Trump’s efforts to keep fossil fuel-powered plants open could become very costly to ratepayers. A report published by Grid Strategies LLC, a consulting firm, found that as many as 90 aging plants could be subject to similar emergency orders during the remainder of Trump’s term. The analysis found that keeping those plants open could cost ratepayers anywhere from $3 billion to $6 billion a year.
“What the Department of Energy is doing is picking losers, the uneconomical plants that the utilities, the regulators, everybody involved agreed need to retire and be replaced with something cheaper and more efficient,” said Michael Goggin, who authored the report, which was commissioned on behalf of Earthjustice and other environmental groups.
Meanwhile, some consumer advocates say the orders have created chaos for utilities and energy planners. The operators of plants scheduled for retirement in the coming years no longer know if it’s safe to cancel their coal contracts, transition their workforce or defer maintenance on their facilities. And financiers may be wary of investing in new, cheaper energy projects that could be sidelined by orders to keep coal online.
“The administration has made clear that they’re not going to allow a coal-fired power plant to retire, regardless of whether or not it’s absurdly expensive to operate, whether it’s contaminating soil, air and water in that community, they literally don’t care,” said Slocum, of Public Citizen.
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.
The Adams County Correctional Center houses more than 2,000 detainees. (Google Earth photo)
ICE raids have been taking place at an unprecedented scale in big cities all over, including in the South. Texas and Louisiana house more ICE detainees than any other state.
Mississippi also plays a special part in immigration enforcement.
Over the next few months, States Newsroom will partner with Mississippi Today and The New York Times to report on and publish stories about one of the largest ICE detention centers in the nation – the Adams County Correctional Center in Natchez, Miss.
Although Mississippi has one of the smallest immigrant populations, Adams Correctional Center is the second largest ICE detention facility in the country, housing more than 2,000 detainees.
Little is known about the facility, which is located in a remote county of about 30,000 people in southwestern Mississippi.
The federal government limits access to ICE detention centers. They aren’t inspected as often as state prisons. Only immediate family members and attorneys are allowed to visit detainees. And because the Adams County facilityis owned and run by a private, for-profit company, CoreCivic, it isn’t covered by public records laws, and taxpayers don’t get to see what happens inside.
Reporting from Mississippi Today and The New York Times will inform you about the facility – from what it’s like inside, to how it impacts the local economy.
If you know something about the detention center, if you know someone who works there or is detained there, or want us to find out something about it for readers, please contact Mukta Joshi, who is reporting on the facility for Mississippi Today and The New York Times.
Your name or any part of your submission will not be used without contacting you first. Contact Mukta through this form, or at mukta.joshi@nytimes.com, or anonymously through Signal @mmj.2178.
This story was originally produced by News From The States, 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.
A courtroom and a judge's gavel. (Getty Images creative)
The Wisconsin State Senate did not vote on the “Justice for All Act” before it concluded regular work this week, likely punting the court staffing concerns addressed in the bill to the next legislative session.
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.
In an interview with the Wisconsin Examiner on Wednesday, Rep. David Steffen (R-Howard) said that this issue didn’t get enough attention in the latest state budget process.
“We have criminals who will not be prosecuted, we have innocent individuals who will remain in jails and property taxpayers will be picking up a massive tab associated with this inaction,” said Steffen, one of the bill’s authors.
Steffen said that the issue will have to be addressed in the next budget process, in 2027, though the work done and awareness raised on this issue will make those discussions easier.
The “Justice for All Act,” or Assembly Bill 514, was introduced in October and passed the Assembly last month. It involves additional criminal justice system positions that would help address backlogs of court cases in Wisconsin. These include additional judges, assistant prosecutors and public defenders, court reporters and public defender support staff for the 2027-2029 and 2029-2031 bienniums.
Steffen said he thinks that if the bill had gone before the Senate, it would have passed. However, it didn’t reach the needed threshold of support from Republicans, he said. That threshold of GOP support is also known as the unwritten “rule of 17” which means obtaining the votes of 17 Republicans or an all-GOP majority to pass any bill through the Senate. (Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, who announced Thursday he is stepping down, drew criticism for allowing bills on sports betting and funding for the University of Wisconsin athletic department to come to the floor and pass on a bipartisan basis without garnering 17 Republican votes.)
Steffen said he’d heard that, as he understood it, some senators were concerned about handling this large of an expenditure outside of the budget process. However, Steffen called this “unfortunate, and likely more of a punt than a real reason.” He said exceptions are routinely made for important matters facing the state.
In an interview with the Examiner on Wednesday, Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee) said that at some point, Milwaukee County “is going to have to file a lawsuit to recoup some of the money that they’re spending on our criminal justice system.”
“We’re forced to come to the state to beg for resources that they should be voluntarily giving us, and they have the nerve to tell us no,” Johnson said.
Will the new positions be delayed?
The bill would provide authority for some of the new positions beginning in July 2027, while for others, it would be the summer of 2028 or 2029.
A staff member from Steffen’s office told the Examiner that if the proposal is taken up next session, Steffen would not expect the timing of the positions related to the judges and court reporters to be affected. However, Steffen would anticipate that the other positions in the bill — positions related to assistant district attorneys, assistant public defenders and public defender support staff — would be pushed back by a year.
Steffen expects the same timing would apply if the measure is introduced as a standalone bill, like the Justice for All Act, or through the state budget.
Next time, how will Milwaukee fare?
An amendment to the Justice for All bill stripped additional public defender and public defender support staff positions for Milwaukee from the bill, the Examiner reported last month. The bill still held additional prosecutor positions for Milwaukee.
“In order for me to get the support I needed in the Assembly, it was necessary for me to hold back those public defender positions in Milwaukee County,” Steffen said.
Steffen said that next year, he hopes to include the public defender positions for Milwaukee that were in the original version of the bill he crafted.
Sen. LaTonya Johnson said that the motivation to cut those Milwaukee positions out stemmed from a conflict involving the district attorney’s office, public defender’s office and Enough is Enough, a court watch group, the Examiner reported last month. Rep. Bob Donovan (R-Greenfield) criticized the public defenders, who said the court watchdog group was operating as an extension of the district attorney’s office.
Steffen said that some in the Assembly had concerns that were particularly about Milwaukee public defenders “displaying a lack of attention on the core responsibilities of defending the indigent versus some of their comments and actions against community watchdog groups who were in Milwaukee County.” Asked if this was about what the public defender’s office put out regarding Enough is Enough and that controversy, Steffen said that was correct.
Steffen said some lawmakers took issue with what the defenders’ letter represented, that more time was being spent “worried about some retirees sitting there in the courtroom than they were focusing on defending the rights of the accused.”
Steffen said he was very interested in working with the state public defender’s office to address the issue, but “we were unable to do so” before the end of the session. He said that the removal of the Milwaukee positions wasn’t a barrier to the bill going up for a vote on Tuesday.
Johnson opposes the idea that the Milwaukee positions shouldn’t have been included due to the controversy involving public defenders and Enough is Enough and said it speaks of overreach. She also argued that if the public defenders were honest about how they felt in the letter, they did their job.
Johnson said she and her Milwaukee colleagues weren’t supportive of the Justice for All Act because of the removal of the Milwaukee public defense positions.
Johnson said she spoke with one of the bill authors about why the bill wasn’t on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday. She said that he highly doubted “that Milwaukee would be a part of that process even next year, because if it was, then they would have people who would be unwilling to support it in the Senate.” Johnson hopes that when legislators return, Republicans will no longer hold the Senate majority.
In Milwaukee County, the backlog of unresolved felony-related matters is more than 10,000, as of Oct. 13, Wisconsin Watch reported.
“How do you remove public defender support and staff support from the largest county in the entire state?” Johnson said.
What was the conflict involving the court watch group?
Regional manager Angel Johnson and deputy regional manager Paige Styler of the public defenders’ office signed a letter sent to judges in Milwaukee County Circuit Court’s criminal division, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
The letter alleged that Enough is Enough “functions more as an extension of the DA’s office” and that the group’s activities and formation have been closely coordinated with the DA’s office, the Journal Sentinel reported. It argued that “Enough is Enough” shouldn’t be seen as an independent, grassroots organization.
Johnson and Styler asked judges to consider that context when evaluating impact statements or the presence of the group in court, the Journal Sentinel reported. The group’s president called the public defenders’ allegations “false, exaggerated and without merit.”
The letter highlighted Assistant District Attorney Joy Hammond and retired Assistant District Attorney Thomas Potter, who public defenders said “reviewed, drafted, and edited letters for Enough is Enough addressed to the judiciary,” according to the Journal Sentinel.
Public defenders claimed that emails obtained from a public records request outline extensive meetings between the DA’s office and Enough is Enough, the Journal Sentinel reported. In a memo to a judge, Lovern described the emails public defenders received as “mostly logistical in nature” and nothing “nefarious,” according to the Journal Sentinel.
Public defenders call for more positions
The lack of a vote on the bill creates uncertainty for the Wisconsin State Public Defender’s Office, according to a spokesperson for the office.
“We’re still hopeful that we can obtain the resources we need in the next state budget, but without the Justice for All Act in place as a bipartisan consensus to build from, the path forward is significantly less clear,” the spokesperson told the Examiner in an email.
In a press release on Tuesday, the Wisconsin State Public Defender’s Office argued that “lawmakers cut short a lifeline for Wisconsin’s overburdened public defense system” by not putting the bill on the calendar.
“Our attorneys are drowning, and it’s Wisconsinites who pay the price when constitutional rights are treated as an optional expense,” State Public Defender Jennifer Bias said.
The public defenders said that public defenders and Wisconsinites who rely on them will have to wait almost a year and a half for the next budget cycle to offer another chance at relief.
The Justice for All Act would have given public defenders an additional 18 attorney positions and 35 support staff positions in the next budget biennium, the agency’s largest staffing increase since 2009, the public defenders said.
The public defenders argued that these resources would have allowed the agency to confront growing case delays brought on by prosecutors charging more crimes and by “an explosion of digital evidence in criminal cases.”
In a press release in January, the public defender’s office said that criminal cases in Wisconsin have become increasingly complex over the past two decades — that cases once involving a few police reports now regularly involve hundreds of hours of body camera footage and thousands of pages of digital records.
A lack of sufficient support staff forces public defenders to take on “vast amounts of extra work outside the courtroom,” the agency said in January, adding that in its Stevens Point region, 30 attorneys covering 13 counties share only one paralegal.
According to Bias’s testimony in January, the lack of support staff positions is a consistent reason attorneys give for leaving the public defender’s office. While an attorney shortage makes it difficult to fill attorney roles quickly, the agency has very little trouble finding qualified support staff, she testified.
In testimony on the bill, Bias said the agency recently had a case in which police misidentified a suspect. The client had been sitting in jail for six months by the time the attorney was able to review the bodycam footage and see that the video didn’t show the client. She said the client was released but had already lost a job and housing.
There is an old story from the Mediterranean about an elderly man planting an olive tree. A passerby asks why he would plant something that takes decades to bear fruit. The man replies: “Because my children will need the olives.”
Transmission lines are much the same.
Across southwest Wisconsin, communities are hearing about the MariBell Transmission Project, a proposed high-voltage transmission line that would connect Marion, Minnesota, to Bell Center, Wisconsin. The project is part of an effort to strengthen the electric grid across the Upper Midwest.
When people first hear about a transmission project, the natural questions are: Why do we need it? And is it safe?
We can answer both.
Transmission Is Planned Generations Ahead
Transmission lines are not built for today’s electricity needs. They are planned decades ahead for our children’s future.
Much of the infrastructure we rely on today was planned decades ago. Engineers studied population growth and future electricity demand long before many of the businesses and technologies we rely on today even existed.
Regional grid operators like MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator) are responsible for conducting these long-range studies. From that work comes the Long Range Transmission Plan, which identifies major grid upgrades needed to maintain reliability across the region. The MariBell project is part of that effort.
Once a project appears on a planning map, it often takes 10 to 15 years before construction begins. Environmental studies, landowner discussions, engineering design, and regulatory approvals are all requirements for this long-term investment.
In other words, transmission is built for the future long before it arrives.
The Backbone of a Reliable Economy
Electricity demand across the Midwest is growing again.
Manufacturing is expanding. We’re electrifying our homes and transportation. At the same time, older power plants are retiring, and new energy sources are coming online across the region.
Transmission connects it all, allowing electricity to travel long distances, balancing supply and demand across states, and ensuring reliability during extreme weather or periods of high demand. It also allows new power generation, from solar to nuclear, to connect to the grid and reach the communities that need it.
Addressing the EMF Question
Another common concern raised during transmission discussions is electromagnetic fields, or EMF.
EMFs are produced whenever electricity flows through a wire, not just transmission lines. Household wiring, appliances, power tools, and TVs also create EMFs.
Because this issue has raised questions for decades, it has been studied extensively. Research conducted by the National Institutes of Health, the World Health Organization, and the National Cancer Institute has examined EMF exposure for more than 40 years.
The consistent scientific finding is that EMF from power lines has not been shown to cause adverse health effects from the levels of exposure typically experienced by the public.
Transmission lines are also designed to naturally reduce exposure. The height of structures and the distance they are placed from homes are both meant to take advantage of the fact that EMF levels drop rapidly the farther you move away from a line. In many cases, household appliances can expose people to stronger EMF levels at a very close range.
That doesn’t mean concerns should be dismissed. But decades of research provide strong reassurance that transmission infrastructure operates safely within established guidelines.
Thinking Like the Man With the Olive Tree
The conversation around the MariBell project is in its early stages. Maps show both proposed and optional corridors, and the final route will be determined through regulatory review and public input.
Those conversations matter. Communities deserve transparency, and landowners deserve to be heard.
The grid we rely on today exists because previous generations believed in planning for the future. They built the infrastructure that powers today’s homes, hospitals, farms, and businesses.
They planted the olive trees.
Now it’s our turn.
Transmission projects like MariBell are not just about meeting today’s electricity needs. They are about ensuring that our children inherit an infrastructure strong enough to support their future.
If we want them to enjoy the harvest, we have to start planting now.
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