Dr. Becky Uranga, an OB-GYN in the Boise area of Idaho, holds one of many babies she has delivered over her 14 years of practice. As OB-GYNs and specialists have left Idaho after the implementation of a near-total abortion ban, Uranga said she is shouldering more work and feeling unable to give as much of her attention to some patients as she used to. (Courtesy of Dr. Becky Uranga)

Before Dr. Harmony Schroeder left her OB-GYN practice in Idaho last year for Washington, she’d had many conversations with legislators and others about how to feel safe practicing in a state with a near-total abortion ban that includes criminal and civil liabilities for violating the law.

Schroeder wanted to stay. She’d practiced in Idaho for nearly 30 years, with a patient list of about 3,000 and a group of doctors she loved. She thought once elected officials understood that a ban would mean poorer medical care and more negative outcomes, things would improve.

Instead, they got even worse, as women were airlifted out of state during a period without protection for emergency abortion care under federal law.

Schroeder felt like she was either compromising care for women or compromising herself by risking jail time.

Providers convicted of breaking the law face up to five years in prison, revocation of their medical license and at least $20,000 in civil penalties.

“People said, ‘Oh, we would never really put you in jail,’” she said. “Sometimes it felt like the legislature was giving us a pinky swear.”

Schroeder is one of 114 OB-GYNs who left Idaho or stopped practicing obstetrics between August 2022 and December 2024, according to data from a peer-reviewed study published in JAMA Open Network, a division of the Journal of the American Medical Association. That number represents 43% of the 268 physicians practicing obstetrics statewide, a higher figure than previous reports indicated.

The study showed 20 new OB-GYNs moved to Idaho during that same period, for a net loss of 94 physicians.

It’s not the only state with a ban experiencing shifts in numbers of obstetrics providers, but it is one of the most acute. Physicians in Texas, Tennessee, Oklahoma and other ban states have spoken to the media and researchers to say they are leaving the state or retiring from the practice because of bans, and while the numbers may not always be statistically significant, the departures are often in states that already have maternal health care shortages. 

The states with the highest percentage of maternity care deserts as of 2024 were North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska and Arkansas, according to March of Dimes. With the exceptions of North Dakota and Nebraska, every state in that list has a near-total abortion ban in place.

Out of the 55 OB-GYN physicians Idaho lost just in 2024, 23 moved out of the state, 12 retired, and 16 either shifted their practice to gynecology only or moved from a rural to urban practice site. The remaining moved elsewhere in state. All of those who moved away moved to a state that did not have abortion restrictions similar to Idaho’s.

As of 2018, four years before the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that ended federally protected access to abortion, Idaho needed 20 more OB-GYNs to meet demand, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Schroeder likes her new practice in Washington, but she is still sad about the realities that forced her to leave.

“I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” she said. 

Study proves ‘what we feared was happening’

Susie Keller, CEO of the Idaho Medical Association, said the losses feel worse because Idaho already consistently ranked at the bottom of nationwide rankings for physician-to-patient ratios even while the population has exploded in recent years.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ranked Idaho lowest in 2019 for overall patient-to-doctor ratios, and the conservative Cicero Institute ranked it 50th in 2024. According to a report from the Idaho Coalition for Safe Healthcare, the ratio of patients to obstetricians increased from 1 per 6,668 Idahoans to 1 for every 8,510 Idahoans between August 2022 and November 2023.

Keller said the medical association has tried hard to find solutions that would help retain physicians, including failed efforts over the past two years to add a health exception in the abortion law.

“Every time there’s been some sort of event that sustained this difficult environment or made it worse, we heard about folks leaving,” Keller said.

The study, which was led by Dr. J. Edward McEachern, is a clear demonstration of what Keller said the medical association already knew anecdotally. It’s also proof, she said, for the elected officials who have accused them of fabricating stories or data and exaggerating the situation. Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador said in June 2024 that Idaho doctors who left were doing so because they made “the vast majority of their money” from performing abortions, but he did not provide evidence for that claim. Republican Rep. Brent Crane, who is chairman of the committee where abortion-related legislation would be considered, said in April 2024 that hospital legal counsel was being disingenuous with providers about the vagueness of the law because they want to undermine and ultimately repeal it.

“This kind of dialed-in study really gives us a very clear picture of what we had feared was happening,” Keller said.

Among clinics, not everyone is in agreement about the problems. Scott Tucker, practice administrator for Women’s Health Associates in Boise, said the providers they have lost over the past three years were mostly due to other factors. Increases in clinic wait times are up across the valley because of population growth, he said, and there is a national shortage of OB-GYNs and primary care providers.

“(Idaho’s abortion ban) really hasn’t impacted us much, other than we get a lot of questions and a lot of requests for contraception counseling,” Tucker said.

He added that while it’s never easy to recruit new physicians, and the ban has created extra challenges, they’ve onboarded a new physician once every nine months for the past four years and have two candidates slated to start in 2026. Much of the interest comes from candidates in the Midwest and the East, he said, and “much of what they’re hearing is hyperbole.”

‘I don’t know if it’s fair to the public for them to never feel like this is a problem’

Dr. Becky Uranga practiced with Schroeder for 14 years at OGA, a physician-owned OB-GYN clinic in the Boise area. She watched Schroeder leave, along with another doctor at OGA who went into a different medical field and one who retired.

In June, another longtime OB-GYN announced his departure. Dr. Scott Armstrong, who had practiced in the area for 26 years, sent a letter to patients saying his last day at OGA will be on Oct. 17, when he will move back to the Midwest “to help care for my aging parents and embark on a new chapter in my life.”

Uranga said the practice will have eight practicing OB-GYNs by October — down from 12 a few years ago. And the closure of other labor and delivery units in the area, which is the most populous in the state, has increased workloads for clinics like OGA as well. Uranga’s practice provides the full spectrum of obstetrics and gynecological care for women of all ages, including surgeries and labor and delivery.

“All those people (from the closed clinics) then came to us,” Uranga said.

What used to be two or four deliveries on average in a 24-hour shift is now five to six.

“That’s a lot, and it’s a really special moment that you want to be all in, present and available for whatever could happen … and it doesn’t feel like that anymore,” she said.

When a physician leaves, especially ones that have been practicing for a long time, Uranga said it leaves a hole. Schroeder had 3,000 patients, and many of them were receiving care for menopause, which she specialized in. Uranga sought out extra training to become board certified in menopause care to fill that gap.

While they juggled the transition with fewer physicians, OGA temporarily limited new patients for certain services, including some Medicaid patients. Uranga also isn’t traveling to a rural area of Idaho anymore to provide surgeries, something she and Schroeder used to do together.

When she’s not doing clinic visits, patient calls, surgeries or deliveries, she’s helping with organizing and fundraising efforts for the reproductive rights ballot initiative that would restore abortion access in Idaho. And in between all that, she’s scheduling recruiting calls with potential physicians.

She recently had to tell a recruitment coordinator that they need to be transparent up front about Idaho’s abortion laws, because she wasted too much time talking to candidates who responded with a hard no after learning about the medical environment.

“My nurse will tell you that I am fitting people in before, during, and after (hours) all the time, which isn’t fair to my family, it’s not fair to my nurse, and I don’t know if it’s fair to the public for them to never feel like this is a problem,” Uranga said.

This story has been updated.

The spread of artificial intelligence worries biosecurity experts, who say the technology could lead to accidental or deliberate creation and release of dangerous diseases and toxic substances. (Photo by LuShaoJi/Getty Images)

Artificial intelligence is helping accelerate the pace of scientific discovery, but the technology also makes it easier than ever to create biosecurity threats and weapons, cybersecurity experts say. 

It’s an issue that currently flies under the radar for most Americans, said Lucas Hansen, cofounder of AI education nonprofit CivAI.

The COVID-19 pandemic increased awareness of biosecurity measures globally, and some instances of bioterrorism, like the 2001 anthrax attacks, are well known. But advancements in AI have made information about how to create biosecurity threats, like viruses, bacteria and toxins, so much more accessible in just the last year, Hansen said.  

“Many people on the face of the planet already could create a bio weapon,” Hansen said. “But it’s just pretty technical and hard to find. Imagine AI being used to [multiply] the number of people that are capable of doing that.”

It’s an issue that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman spoke about at a Federal Reserve conference in July. 

“We continue to like, flash the warning lights on this,” Altman said. “I think the world is not taking us seriously. I don’t know what else we can do there, but it’s like, this is a very big thing coming.”

AI increasing biosecurity threats

Hansen said there’s primarily two ways he believes AI could be used to create biosecurity threats. Much less common, he believes, would be using AI to make more dangerous bioweapons than have ever existed before using technologies that enable the engineering of biological systems, such as creating new viruses or toxic substances. 

Second, and more commonly, Hansen said, AI is making information about existing harmful viruses or toxins much more readily accessible. 

Consider the polio virus, Hansen said. There are plenty of scientific journals that share information on the origins and growth of polio and other viruses that have been mostly eradicated, but the average person would have to do much research and data collection to piece together how to recreate it. 

A few years ago, AI models didn’t have great metacognition, or ability to give instructions, Hansen said. But in the last year, updates to models like Claude and ChatGPT have been able to interpret more information and fill in the gaps. 

Paromita Pain, an associate professor of global media at the University of Nevada, Reno and an affiliated faculty member of the university’s cybersecurity center, said she believes there’s a third circumstance that could be contributing to biosecurity threats: accidents. The increased access to information by people not properly trained to have it could have unintended consequences. 

“It’s essentially like letting loose teenagers in the lab,” Pain said. “It’s not as if people are out there to willingly do bad, like, ‘I want to create this pathogen that will wipe out mankind.’ Not necessarily. It’s just that they don’t know that if you are developing pathogens, you need to be careful.”

For those that are looking to do harm, though, it’s not hard, Hansen said. CivAI offers demos to show how AI can be used in various scenarios, with a goal of highlighting the potential harms the technology can cause if not used responsibly. 

In a demo not available to the public, Hansen showed States Newsroom how someone may use a current AI model to assist them in creating a biothreat. CivAI keeps the example private, so as to not inspire any nefarious actions, Hansen said. 

Though many AI models are trained to flag and not to respond to dangerous requests, like how to build a gun or how to recreate a virus, many can be “jailbroken” easily, with a few prompts or lines of code, essentially tricking the AI into answering questions it was instructed to ignore.

Hansen walked through the polio virus example, prompting a jailbroken version of Claude 4.0 Sonnet to give him instructions for recreating the virus. Within a few seconds, the model provided 13 detailed steps, including directions like “order the custom plasmid online,” with links to manufacturers. 

The models are scraping information from a few public research papers about the polio virus, but without the step by step instructions, it would be very hard to find what you’re looking for, make a plan and find the materials you’d need. The models sometimes add information to supplement the scientific papers, helping non-expert users understand complex language, Hansen said. 

It would still take many challenging steps, including accessing lab equipment and rare materials, to recreate the virus, Hansen said, but AI has made access to the core information behind these feats so much more available. 

“AI has turned bioengineering from a Ph.D. level skill set to something that an ambitious high school student could do with some of the right tools,” said Neil Sahota, an AI advisor to the United Nations, and a cofounder of its AI for Good initiative.

CivAI estimates that since 2022, the number of people who would be capable of recreating a virus like polio with the tools and resources publicly available has gone from 30,000 globally to 200,000 today because of AI. They project 1.5 million people could be capable in 2028. An increase in the number of languages that AI models are fluent in also increases the chances of a global issue, Hansen said. 

“I think the language thing is really, really important, because part of what we’re considering here is the number of people that are capable of doing these things and removing a language barrier is a pretty big deal,” he said.

How is the government addressing it? 

The current Trump administration and the previous Biden administration introduced similar strategies to addressing the threats. In Biden’s October 2023 Executive Order “Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of AI,” Biden sought to create guidelines to evaluate and audit AI capabilities “through which AI could cause harm, such as in the areas of cybersecurity and biosecurity.”

Trump’s AI Action Plan, which rolled out in July, said AI could “unlock nearly limitless potential in biology,” but could also “create new pathways for malicious actors to synthesize harmful pathogens and other biomolecules.” 

In his action plan, he said he wishes to require scientific institutions that receive federal funding to verify customers, and create enforcement guidelines. The plan also says the Office of Science and Technology Policy should develop a way for nucleic acid synthesis — the process of creating DNA and RNA — providers to share data and screen for malicious customers.

Sahota said the potential benefits of bioengineering AI make regulating it complicated. The models can help accelerate vaccine development and research into genetic disorders, but can also be used nefariously.

“AI in itself is not good or evil, it’s just a tool,” Sahota said. “And it really depends on how people use it. I don’t think like a bad actor, and many people don’t, so we’re not thinking about how they may weaponize these tools, but someone probably is.”

California aimed to address biosecurity in SB 1047 last year, the “Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act,” which sought to regulate foundational AI models and impose obligations on companies that develop them to ensure safety and security measures. 

The act outlines many potential harms, but among them was AI’s potential to help “create novel threats to public safety and security, including by enabling the creation and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, such as biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons.”

After passing in both chambers, the Act was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September, for potentially “curtailing the very innovation that fuels advancement in favor of the public good.”  

Pain said few international frameworks exist for how to share biological data and train AI systems around biosecurity, and it’s unclear whether AI developers, biologists, publishers or governments could be held accountable for its misuse. 

“Everything that we are talking about when it comes to biosecurity and AI has already happened without the existence of AI,” she said of previous biothreats.

Sahota said he worries we may need to see a real-life example of AI being weaponized for a biological threat, “where we feel the pain on a massive scale,” before governments get serious about regulating the technology.

Hansen agrees, and he predicts those moments may be coming. While some biological attacks could come from coordinated groups aiming to pull off a terroristic incident, Hansen said he worries about the “watch the world burn” types — nihilistic individuals that have historically turned to mass shootings. 

“Right now, they look for historical precedent on how to cause collateral damage, and the historical precedent that they see is public shootings,” Hansen said. “I think very easily it could start to be the case that deploying bio weapons becomes pretty normal. I think after the first time that that happens in real life, we’ll start seeing a lot of copycats. And that makes me pretty, pretty nervous.”

Tourists pass by members of the National Guard stationed outside Union Station in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 18, 2025. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has authorized the thousands of National Guard troops deployed to the District of Columbia to carry their weapons as they patrol the city, the Pentagon said Friday.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump said he is considering declaring a “national emergency” to keep troops in the nation’s capital for longer than the 30 days allowed under the law, and also said he’s eyeing the Democratic-led cities of Chicago, New York and San Francisco for additional military deployments.

Carrying weapons would be a significant escalation in the show of force for the troops in the district.

“At the direction of the Secretary of Defense, (Guard) members supporting the mission to lower the crime rate in our Nation’s capital will soon be on mission with their service-issued weapons, consistent with their mission and training,” a Defense Department official said in a statement to States Newsroom.

The final decision will be made by Brig. Gen. Leland Blanchard II, who is the interim commanding general of the D.C. National Guard, and any coordination will occur with D.C. Metropolitan Police and federal law enforcement, the Defense Department official said.

There are 800 D.C. National Guard members now in the district, joined by more than 1,260 members from six GOP states called to assist Trump’s federal takeover of the 62 square miles of the district that is home to 700,000 residents.

National Guard members from the Republican-led states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia began arriving in the district this week.

It’s unclear if the 2,060 National Guard members will carry their “service-issued weapons” while on duty.

The change comes days before students in the district return to school.

The Pentagon did not respond to States Newsroom’s question on what type of weapons the National Guard members would be carrying, such as rifles or hand guns.

Typically a standard-issue weapon for most of the U.S. military is a M4 assault rifle, which is a variant of the AR-15.

More cities for military force

The president told reporters Friday in the Oval Office that Chicago, New York and San Francisco could be next for military deployment, similar to the federal takeover of the district.

“After we do this, we’ll go to another location and we’ll make it safe also,” Trump said. “Chicago is a mess…And we’ll straighten that one out probably next. That’ll be our next one after this.”

Because the district is not a state, the president has the sole authority over its National Guard members.

State governors have control over their National Guard members, but the president earlier this summer federalized California’s National Guard to respond to immigration protests — a test case for use of the state-based military forces. The Guard has since left Los Angeles.

Trump declared a “crime emergency” in the district on Aug. 11, even though violent crime in the district is at a 30-year low.

The president also invoked the district’s Home Rule Act in order to use the Metropolitan Police Department’s 3,400-member police force for immigration enforcement.

National Guard troops have been sent to patrol Metro stations, the tourist-heavy National Mall and near federal buildings across the district.

“The D.C. National Guard remains committed to safeguarding the District of Columbia and serving those who live, work, and visit the District,” the Department of Defense official said.

Potential Trump declaration of ‘national emergency’

It’s unclear how long the National Guard will remain in the district and the president Friday said he is considering declaring a “national emergency” to keep troops in the nation’s capital.

Troops are currently staying in local hotels around the district, according to a Joint Task Force-District of Columbia spokesperson.

“If I have a national emergency, I can keep the troops there as long as I want,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Earlier Friday, Trump had said he was unsure of how long he would keep National Guard members in the district.

“The big question is how long do we stay? Because we want to make sure it doesn’t come back,” Trump said at another back-and-forth with reporters. “So we have to take care of these criminals and get them out.”

On Thursday, Trump visited a U.S. Park Police facility in a district neighborhood known as Anacostia, where he addressed local and federal law enforcement officials as well as National Guard members.

“You’re incredible people,” Trump said. “You make the country run.”

He thanked them for their service and had White House officials hand out hamburgers he said were cooked at the White House and pizza from a local restaurant.

Louisiana Illuminator Reporter Wes Muller contributed to this story. 

Republican lawmakers on the committee proposed a vote on the motion Thursday after Gov. Tony Evers told agencies to skip lawmakers in the final steps of the rulemaking process. Evers delivers his 2025 state budget address. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

The Joint Committee on Legislative Organization voted by paper ballot along party lines Friday afternoon to direct the Legislative Reference Bureau not to publish any rule that hasn’t gone through a review by the Legislature in accordance with Wisconsin law.

Republican lawmakers on the committee proposed a vote on the motion Thursday after Gov. Tony Evers told agencies to skip lawmakers in the final steps of the rulemaking process. There are 27 administrative rules, including one to address the state’s policy on gray wolf management, that Evers submitted to the LRB for publication. Of those, 13 have not been reviewed by a standing legislative committee and are yet to be published. 

It’s the latest step the administration has taken in testing the bounds of the recent Evers v. Marklein II ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The majority found in the case that the state laws giving the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules broad powers to block administrative rules indefinitely were unconstitutional.

The statutes cited in the Republicans’ motion Thursday were not included in the Court’s ruling.

“We are following the law and maintaining the fundamental checks and balances of lawmaking,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate President Mary Felzkowski (R-Irma) said in a joint statement about the motion on Thursday. “The governor is flagrantly disregarding the rule of law and egregiously abusing the power of his office.”

Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback said Republicans were defying the law in an email Thursday. 

“Republicans are reaching new levels of lawlessness, whether it’s President Trump trying to take over Washington DC, Republicans in Texas trying to rig maps and elections in their favor, or Republicans in Wisconsin who appear poised to disobey decisions made by our state’s highest court,” Cudaback wrote in an email message. “Republicans are not above the law — they should follow the law like everyone else is expected to.”

The measure passed 6-4. Republicans on the committee, including Vos, Felzkowski, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg), Sen. Dan Feyen (R-Fond du Lac), Rep. Tyler August (R-Walworth) and Rep. Scott Krug (R-Rome), voted for the motion. Democrats on the committee, including Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) and Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton), voted against it.

Then-White House National Security Advisor John Bolton (R) listens to President Donald Trump as he and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte talk to reporters in the Oval Office at the White House July 18, 2019. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — FBI agents raided the home and office of former Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, a one-time adviser to President Donald Trump who has become a frequent critic of the president, to investigate Bolton’s handling of classified documents, according to multiple media reports.

The raid on a former Trump adviser’s house represents an escalation from the Justice Department in targeting critics of Trump, whom he vowed to go after should he return to the White House for a second term.

Speaking to reporters Friday, Trump said he was not briefed on the raid of Bolton’s house in the wealthy suburb of Bethesda, Maryland, and office in Washington, D.C., according to White House pool reports.

But the president noted his longstanding feud with his former adviser.

“I’m not a fan of John Bolton,” Trump said. “He’s a real sort of a low life. He could be a very unpatriotic guy. We’re going to find out.”

Earlier this year, the president revoked the security detail for Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security advisor from 2018 to 2019 and as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the George W. Bush administration in 2005 and 2006.

Following his time in the Trump administration, Bolton, who was an important member of the Bush administration’s national security team that favored active military involvement in the Middle East, emerged as a chief Republican foreign policy critic of Trump, authoring a 2020 book that blasted the president and widened the public rift between the two men.

Bolton has not been charged with a crime and is not in custody, according to The Associated Press, which cited a person familiar with the matter.

The first Trump administration launched an investigation into Bolton to probe if he improperly used sensitive information in his book. The current search involves federal officials investigating Bolton’s actions over the last four years, according to the New York Times, which cited a federal law enforcement official.

Trump documents case

Trump himself was prosecuted for mishandling classified documents after the FBI raided his Florida golf course and main residence of Mar-a-Lago in 2022. A federal judge dismissed the resulting criminal charges against Trump.

FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on social media that “NO ONE is above the law,” and that FBI agents were “on mission.”

The FBI declined to comment.

In 2020, the Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into Bolton’s book and tried to block its publication, but were stymied in court.

Patel also wrote a 2023 book where he lists Bolton, along with a dozen other people, as members of the “deep state” who are working against Trump, according to the Times. 

Wisconsin lawmakers heard testimony Thursday on a bill to make tips for restaurant servers and other workers exempt from Wisconsin's state income tax. (Getty Images)

Wisconsin policymakers approved more than $1.3 billion in tax cuts in the latest state budget but the exclusion of a “no tax on tips” proposal has lawmakers pushing ahead with a bill that would line up state law with a new federal law. 

Bill coauthor Rep. Ron Tusler (R-Harrison) said during a hearing in the Assembly Ways and Means committee that lawmakers should help working class people who are “trying to get themselves to that middle class” with Assembly Bill 38. A hearing on the bill was held in the Senate in May, though it has yet to come up for vote in either chamber. 

“When I was a younger man, I was a waiter at Perkins, and I received tips. I also received tips for a couple years as a valet, and folks that receive tips aren’t just waiters and valets, but also housekeepers, bartenders, delivery drivers, massage therapists, hairdressers, taxi drivers, tour guides,” Tusler said. “Those are the type of people we’re talking about, trying to help with this bill, trying to not tax and as representatives, these are great folks for us to target, and as Christians, we should always be trying to help the poor.”

President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” signed into law on July 4 includes a federal provision that will allow workers to deduct up to $25,000 in tips annually from their taxable income. Those earning more than $150,000 aren’t eligible for the deduction. 

The Wisconsin bill and a recent amendment to it seeks to implement the same policy when it comes to the state income tax, which currently considers tips as taxable income. The deduction would apply to tips whether paid by cash or credit. Similar to the federal law, the provision will go into effect starting tax year 2025 and sunsets after tax year 2028 — around the end of Trump’s second term in office. 

“Any time that we can allow people to keep more of their hard-earned money — that’s going to be something that I’m supporting,” Sen. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken) told the committee.

Erin Vranas, co-owner of Parthenon Gyros located in downtown Madison and chair of the Wisconsin Restaurant Association’s Board, said many restaurant employees are struggling with semi-unpredictable income. 

“Every dollar matters, so this bill really could help provide meaningful relief,” Vranas said, adding that it would also help restaurants trying to recruit and retain employees. “Wisconsin restaurants face ongoing workforce shortages, and I understand this isn’t just a restaurant thing, but we definitely feel it in this industry. AB38 will help us recruit and retain staff, making restaurant jobs more competitive and sustainable. When employees keep more of their hard-earned tips, then they’re more likely to stay and grow and see hospitality as a sustainable career, which strengthens both our businesses and Wisconsin as a state.” 

The minimum wage for tipped employees in Wisconsin is currently $2.33 per hour. Employers are required to make up the difference if an employee’s combined wages and tips do not equal the regular minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

Susan Quam, executive vice president of the Wisconsin Restaurant Association, said she only knows of two restaurants that  pay the minimum wage. Those restaurants have a $100 per person check average and employees typically make $20 per customer “every single time they work, so we’re talking about folks who are making $100 to $150 dollars an hour in tips.” WRA, a nonprofit trade association that represents thousands of food, beverage and hospitality businesses, supports the bill.

“The vast majority of our members tell us that they’re paying well above that $2.33 to their tipped employees, some of them higher than the $7.25 minimum wage,” Quam said. “The marketplace is dictating what that base wage is, not necessarily the fact that they are getting tips.”

Tusler explained that employees would still need to report tips, both because there is a limit on the tax deduction and because tipped employees need a record of their full income when applying for loans. 

“It would make it more difficult for those tip earners to borrow money for their houses or their cars,” Tusler said.

He told the committee the bill would also cut down on confusion between the federal and state policies when people are filing taxes. 

The tax break also wouldn’t cost the state much, Tusler said. The Department of Revenue estimates that the state brings in about $33.7 million a year from tips and would lose about that much in each year of the biennium under the proposal. 

“That’s it,” Tusler said. “We have a $111 billion budget.”

The recent bipartisan state budget cut taxes by about over $1 billion, but the tips proposal was not included in the budget passed by the Republican-led Legislature and signed by Gov. Tony Evers last month. Evers had included a similar proposal in his budget proposal, but Republican lawmakers threw it out when they started working on the budget. 

A bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Jacque, previously introduced the idea of exempting cash tips from taxes in 2019, though it never became law. 

The idea picked up steam nationally when President Donald Trump started campaigning on the idea, which led Republican lawmakers to reintroduce the proposal in Wisconsin this year.  

The coauthors of the bill expressed frustration that no Democrats have signed onto the bill yet, noting that Evers has supported something similar before. 

“This was something where Gov. Evers basically took that previous proposal… cut and pasted that into his budget proposal, so it’s not like there was ever any indication that this wasn’t something that shouldn’t have bipartisan support,” Jacque said. “And I certainly hope that it will going forward.”

Rep. Joan Fitzgerald (D-Fort Atkinson) said during the hearing that she and her husband, who is a bartender, have discussed the issue extensively since it started gaining popularity around the 2024 election and questioned whether a bigger conversation about helping lower-income workers needs to be had. 

“I would say encouraging employers to have better benefits, higher pay, better working conditions are also ways we get people to realize the American dream,” Fitzgerald said. “Cutting taxes might be one small part of that, but there’s a broader array of things that we can do, and if, and if that’s your goal, and it’s my goal, then I say we attack some of those other issues.” 

Jacque said he understands that tax relief needs to be multifaceted, but said that if the state starts “mandating things on employers that potentially raise costs…, you aren’t going to have customers and those jobs aren’t going to be supported.”

Vaccine misinformation pushed by Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could put American lives at risk. (Eric Harkleroad/KFF Health News)

President Donald Trump’s administrations have been notorious for an array of “alternative facts” — ranging from the relatively minor (the size of inaugural crowds) to threats to U.S. democracy, such as who really won the 2020 election.

And over the past six months, the stakes have been life or death: Trump’s health officials have been endorsing alternative facts in science to impose policies that contradict modern medical knowledge.

It is an undeniable fact — true science — that vaccines have been miraculous in preventing terrible diseases from polio to tetanus to measles. Numerous studies have shown they do not cause autism. That is accepted by the scientific community.

Yet Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has no medical background or scientific training, doesn’t believe all that. The consequences of such misinformation have already been deadly.

For decades, the vast majority Americans willingly got their shots — even if a significant slice of parents had misgivings. A 2015 survey found that 25% of parents believed that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine could cause autism. (A 1998 study that suggested the connection has been thoroughly discredited.) Despite that concern, just 2% of children entering kindergarten were exempted from vaccinations for religious or philosophical objections. Kids got their shots.

But more recently, poor government science communication and online purveyors of misinformation have tilled the soil for alternative facts to grow like weeds. In the 2024-25 school year, rates of full vaccination for those entering kindergarten dropped to just over 92%. In more than a dozen states, the rate was under 90%, and in Idaho it was under 80%. And now we have a stream of measles cases, more than 1,300 from a disease declared extinct in the U.S. a quarter-century ago.

It’s easy to see how both push and pull factors led to the acceptance of bad science on vaccines.

The number of recommended vaccines has ballooned this century, overwhelming patients and parents. That is, in large part, because the clinical science of vaccinology has boomed (that’s good). And in part because vaccines, which historically sold for pennies, now often sell for hundreds of dollars, becoming a source of big profits for drugmakers.

In 1986, a typical child was recommended to receive 11 vaccine doses — seven injections and four oral. Today, that number has risen to between 50 and 54 doses by age 18.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which renders judgments on vaccines, makes a scientific risk-benefit assessment: that the harm of getting the disease is greater than the risk of side effects. That does not mean that all vaccines are equally effective, and health officials have done a lackluster job of fostering public understanding of that fact.

Older vaccines — think polio and measles — are essentially 100% effective; diseases that parents dreaded were wiped off the map. Many newer vaccines, though recommended and useful (and often heavily advertised), don’t carry the same emotional or medical punch.

Parents of the current generation haven’t experienced how sick a child could be with measles or whooping cough, also called pertussis. Mothers didn’t really worry about hepatitis B, a virus generally transmitted through sex or intravenous drug use, infecting their child.

That lack of understanding spawned skeptics. For example, since 2010, the vaccine for influenza, which had been around for decades, has been recommended annually for all Americans at least 6 months old. In the 2024-25 season, the rate of flu vaccination was only between 36% and 54% in adults; in other years, it has been lower than that. “I got the flu vaccine, and I still got the flu” has been a common refrain of skeptics.

“Pre-covid, there were people who took everything but flu,” said Rupali Limaye, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, who studies vaccine demand and acceptance. “Then it became everything but covid. Now it’s everything — including MMR and polio.”

Even as the first Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed helped develop covid vaccines, conservative media outlets created doubts that the shots were needed: doubts that mRNA technology had been sufficiently tested; doubts that covid-19 was bad enough to merit a shot; concerns that the vaccines could cause infertility or autism.

Trump did little to correct these dangerous misperceptions and got booed by supporters when he said that he’d been vaccinated. Once vaccine mandates came into play, Trump strongly opposed them, reframing belief in the vaccine as a question of personal liberty. And if the government couldn’t mandate the covid shot for school, it followed that officials shouldn’t — couldn’t — mandate others.

Thus 100 years of research proving the virtues of vaccination got dropped into a stew of alternative facts. You were either pro- or anti-vaccine, and that signaled your politics. Suddenly, the anti-vax crowd was not a small fringe of liberal parents, but a much larger group of conservative stalwarts who believed that being forced to vaccinate their kids to enter school violated their individual rights.

Even within the Trump administration, there have been some who (at least partly) decried the trend. While Marty Makary, the Food and Drug Administration commissioner, defended Kennedy’s decision to roll back the recommendation that all Americans get annual covid boosters — saying the benefits were unproven — he noted it should not be a signal to stop taking other shots.

As “public trust in vaccination in general has declined,” he wrote, the reluctance to vaccinate had harmed “vital immunization programs such as that for measles–mumps–rubella (MMR) vaccination, which has been clearly established as safe and highly effective.”

Nonetheless, Makary’s boss, Kennedy, continued to promote bad science about vaccines broadly, even as he sometimes grudgingly acknowledged their utility in cases like a measles outbreak. He has funded new research on the already disproven link between MMR shots and autism. He has halted $500 million in grants for developing vaccines using mRNA technology, the novel production method used for the first covid vaccines and a technique scientists believe holds great promise for preventing deaths from other infectious diseases.

In my 10 years practicing as a physician, I never saw a case of measles. Now there are cases in 40 states. More than 150 people have been hospitalized, and three, all unvaccinated, have died.

Alternative facts have formed what David Scales, a physician and sociologist at Weill Cornell Medical College who studies misinformation, calls “an unhealthy information system.” It is an alternative scientific universe in which too many Americans live. And some die.

This story can be republished for free (details).

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 29, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday set aside a lower court’s ruling, allowing the Trump administration to cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in National Institutes of Health grants that addressed diversity, equity and inclusion issues.

The 5-4 ruling narrowly divided the court, with Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting from their colleagues.

The Trump administration originally requested the Supreme Court to intervene in the case in July, when Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed an application arguing “the district court lacked jurisdiction to order the government to pay out some $783 million in terminated grants.”

Sauer wrote the case was similar to one the Supreme Court had ruled on earlier this year, determining that a district court erred when it blocked “the Department of Education from terminating DEI-related grants.”

In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that “such claims likely belonged in the Court of Federal Claims, that the district court accordingly lacked jurisdiction.”

Sauer wrote in his application to the Supreme Court that the lower courts in the NIH grants case chose to ignore the justices’ prior ruling.

“The district court’s order directs the NIH to continue paying $783 million in federal grants that are undisputedly counter to the Administration’s priorities,” Sauer wrote. “This Court has already intervened to stay a materially identical order … and the same course is even more warranted here given the district court’s brazen refusal to follow controlling Supreme Court precedent.”

Democratic AGs weigh in

Democratic attorneys general for Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin opposed the Trump administration’s request in a 49-page filing.

“The federal government’s application spins a tale of lower courts disregarding established legal guardrails to block routine agency decisions,” they wrote. “That narrative bears little resemblance to reality; indeed, it gets things exactly backward.”

The Trump administration’s decision to cancel the NIH grants, they wrote, came “without providing any meaningful explanation of their decisions.

“Defendants then executed the directives by, among other things, canceling hundreds of research grants to the plaintiff states’ public universities for projects investigating heart disease, HIV/AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease, alcohol and substance abuse, mental-health issues, and countless other health conditions.”

The American Public Health Association also opposed the Trump administration’s efforts to get the Supreme Court to throw out the lower court’s rulings.

The APHA wrote in its own filing that the Trump administration “failed to consider the reliance interests at stake—namely, the impact to researchers’ career progression, the risk to human life, and the damage to the overall scientific endeavor and the body of public health.”

Siding with Trump administration

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh disagreed, siding with the Trump administration and setting aside the lower court’s rulings in the case. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote a concurring opinion.

Gorsuch sharply rebuked the district and appeals courts in his opinion, in which Kavanaugh joined in part and dissented in part.

“Lower court judges may sometimes disagree with this Court’s decisions, but they are never free to defy them,” Gorsuch wrote. “In Department of Ed. v. California … this Court granted a stay because it found the government likely to prevail in showing that the district court lacked jurisdiction to order the government to pay grant obligations.”

Barrett appeared to agree, writing in her concurring opinion that “the District Court likely lacked jurisdiction to hear challenges to the grant terminations, which belong in the Court of Federal Claims.”

In a dissenting opinion, Jackson wrote that the justices did not take enough time to seriously consider the ramifications of their decision in the Education Department case when they spent “a mere nine days” deciding whether a federal district court or the Court of Federal Claims holds jurisdiction when the government terminates “federal grants en masse.”

“I viewed the Court’s intervention then—in an emergency stay posture, while racing against a fast-expiring temporary restraining order—as ‘equal parts unprincipled and unfortunate,’” Jackson wrote. “As it turns out, the Court’s decision was an even bigger mistake than I realized.”

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump speaks to the media as, left to right, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon look on after signing executive orders in the Oval Office at the White House on April 23, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

A New York state appeals court on Thursday overturned as overly punitive a nearly $500 million civil penalty against President Donald Trump, but left in place a finding of fraud based on records that inflated the value of Trump’s business holdings.

A five-judge panel of the New York Appellate Division for the First Department disagreed over aspects of the case and the trial court’s ruling that awarded $465 million to the state after finding Trump liable for fraud, issuing three opinions that spanned more than 300 pages.

Two judges concluded that the finding of liability against Trump was correct, two said errors in the trial court meant a new trial should be held, and one judge said the case was wrongly decided.

Still, all five judges agreed the penalty was excessive, and the two judges who’d called for a retrial joined the two upholding the decision “for the sole purpose of ensuring finality, thereby affording the parties a path for appeal” to the state’s highest court, according to the decision.

Loan applications

A New York state court found last year that Trump committed financial fraud by submitting loan applications that exaggerated the value of some of his real estate assets, which resulted in more favorable loan terms from banks.

Writing the determinative opinion Thursday, Appeals Justice Peter Moulton said New York Attorney General Letitia James was within her power to sue over the statements, even though they were between private parties and did not involve the state.

The state has an interest in upholding “market hygiene” and discouraging fraudulent behavior, he wrote. But the fine went too far, he said.

“While the injunctive relief ordered by the court is well crafted to curb defendants’ business culture, the court’s disgorgement order, which directs that defendants pay nearly half a billion dollars to the State of New York, is an excessive fine that violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution,” Moulton wrote.

The amendment says that “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

Trump celebrates

One judge, Justice David Friedman, said he would have thrown out the case entirely, arguing that James overstepped her authority by bringing the civil case because no one was actually harmed. Most of the valuations were not fraudulently high and even if they were, would have resulted in the same favorable terms Trump received, Friedman wrote.

“All parties to these private transactions profited handsomely from the deals, from which there was no discernable negative effect on the public interest,” he wrote. “This action does not serve to protect the consuming public… This action does not protect the integrity or operation of the public securities market…, given that defendants do not issue publicly traded securities.”

In a post to his social media site, Truth Social, Trump exaggerated the court’s finding, saying it cleared him of wrongdoing.

“TOTAL VICTORY in the FAKE New York State Attorney General Letitia James Case!” Trump posted. “I greatly respect the fact that the Court had the Courage to throw out this unlawful and disgraceful Decision that was hurting Business all throughout New York State… The amount, including Interest and Penalties, was over $550 Million Dollars. It was a Political Witch Hunt, in a business sense, the likes of which no one has ever seen before.”

In a statement, James pledged to appeal the opinion, while highlighting that the appeals court had affirmed the finding of fraud.

“The First Department today affirmed the well-supported finding of the trial court: Donald Trump, his company and two of his children are liable for fraud,” she wrote. “It should not be lost to history: yet another court has ruled that the president violated the law, and that our case has merit.”

Thursday’s order does not affect Trump’s May 2024 criminal conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.

A state Supreme Court ruling hasn't ended the friction between Republican lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers over administrative rulemaking. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

Republican leaders of the Legislature moved Thursday to block the Evers administration from bypassing legislative committees in implementing administrative rules.

Republican leaders of the Joint Committee on Legislative Organization (JCLO), with members from both the Assembly and the Senate, sent committee members a motion Thursday instructing the Legislative Reference Bureau not to finalize or publish any rules unless they have gone through a review by the Legislature in accordance with Wisconsin law.

The motion came two days after a published report that Gov. Tony Evers  instructed cabinet heads to skip the Legislature in the final steps of the rulemaking process.

It is the latest development in an ongoing feud between the Democratic governor and Republican leaders in the Legislature over the power of the executive branch to write rules in order to carry out state laws.

In a memo Aug. 12, Evers told department secretaries, “There no longer remains any statutory requirement to wait for legislative committee review before promulgating a rule once I have approved it.”

The governor’s memo cited the July 8 Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling in the case Evers v. Marklein that curtailed the power of the Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules (JCRAR) to block executive branch rulemaking.

In the 4-3 decision, which has become known as Evers v. Marklein II, the Court majority ruled that state laws giving JCRAR broad powers to block administrative rules indefinitely were unconstitutional.

“This is good and important news as it means we can — and must — continue the people’s work in earnest,” Evers wrote in the memo, first reported by WisPolitics.com. “Accordingly, I am directing agencies to submit rules that have made it through that relevant part of the process to the Legislative Reference Bureau for finalization and publication.”

The motion distributed to JCLO members Thursday takes direct aim at the assertion in Evers’ memo.

The motion states that “the Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB) shall neither finalize nor publish any rules or proposed rules that failed to comply with the standing committee statutory requirements of s. 227.19 (2) to (4), Stats., including rules or proposed rules that have already been submitted to the LRB.”

Those statutes require that when administrative rules are in final draft form, the Legislature must be notified, a detailed report on the rule must be submitted, and the rule must be reviewed by a standing committee of the Legislature.

There are 27 administrative rules submitted to the Legislative Reference Bureau currently awaiting publication in the Administrative Register.

The bureau director, Rick Champagne, told the Wisconsin Examiner on Thursday that 13 of those rules have not yet completed standing committee review. Those have been classified as not to be published.

“Evers v. Marklein II did not address the constitutionality of standing committee review of proposed administrative rules,” Champagne wrote in an email message.

Among the rules held up pending review are one addressing the state’s policy on gray wolf management and one on surface water degradation. 

The remaining 14 rules have completed the standing committee review and are before the Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules or have completed that process, according to Champagne.  

“I believe these are ready for publication under Evers v. Marklein II,” Champagne told the Examiner.

“JCLO has the authority to direct the manner in which the LRB will carry out its statutory duties,” Champagne added.  “The Wisconsin Supreme Court, in Evers v. Marklein II, did not eliminate standing committee review of proposed administrative rules.  If JCLO so directs, the LRB will not finalize or publish any proposed administrative rules that have not completed standing committee review.”

The paper ballot votes on the motion are due Friday and results are expected to be posted by the end of the day. The motion is expected to pass given the committee’s GOP majority.

The committee’s Republican co-chairs, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate President Mary Felzkowski, issued a press release Thursday calling Evers’ action to sidestep submitting rules to the Legislature for committee review a “direct contradiction” of the Court’s ruling.

“In Evers v. Marklein, the Wisconsin Supreme Court clearly stated that the Legislature ‘alone maintains the ability to amend, expand, or limit the breadth of administrative rulemaking in other branches” of government, the press release said. “Governor Tony Evers is attempting to circumvent statutory requirements that are part of the rule-making process and that no court has held to be invalid in any respect.”

“We are following the law and maintaining the fundamental checks and balances of lawmaking,” Vos and Felzkowski said in a joint statement. “The governor is flagrantly disregarding the rule of law and egregiously abusing the power of his office.”

Evers’ communications director, Britt Cudaback, countered with a charge that the Republican lawmakers were defying the law. 

“Republicans are reaching new levels of lawlessness, whether it’s President Trump trying to take over Washington DC, Republicans in Texas trying to rig maps and elections in their favor, or Republicans in Wisconsin who appear poised to disobey decisions made by our state’s highest court,” Cudaback wrote in an email message. “Republicans are not above the law — they should follow the law like everyone else is expected to.”

A homeless encampment near the Lincoln Memorial is cleared by employees of the Washington, D.C., government on Aug. 14, 2025. City officials put notices at the camp that they would be breaking it down after President Donald Trump issued his "crime emergency" order. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Officials have already cleared dozens of homeless encampments in the District of Columbia in recent days as President Donald Trump’s federal takeover of the nation’s capital for a “crime emergency” at the same time takes aim at people without housing.

Advocates working to end homelessness within the district and across the country raised alarm to States Newsroom over these removals and their impact on people without housing and the providers trying to serve them. The drive to push out homeless people came after Trump in July signed an executive order that attempts to overhaul federal policy on homelessness, declaring: “Endemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks have made our cities unsafe.”

Multi-agency teams had eliminated 48 encampments in the District of Columbia as of Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a briefing. 

Metropolitan Police Department patrol units “are actively working with city officials to locate and clear additional encampments and remove homeless residents off of Washington’s streets,” she said.

Leavitt told reporters days prior that homeless people in the city would be “given the option to leave their encampment, to be taken to a homeless shelter, to be offered addiction or mental health services,” and would be “susceptible” to fines or jail time if they refused.

A day before Trump declared his “crime emergency” in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 11, the president wrote on social media that homeless people must move out “IMMEDIATELY.”

“We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital,” he wrote. 

Days later, bulldozers and garbage trucks were at work dismantling campsites.

According to WTOP News last week, leaders in the surrounding area of Montgomery County, Maryland, were preparing for a potential rise of homeless people in the county as a result of the president’s crackdown.

An annual point-in-time count released in May from the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments saw 5,138 people experiencing homelessness in the district on one night in 2025 — a 9% decrease compared to 2024.

Homeless people’s belongings tossed

Jesse Rabinowitz, campaign and communications director at the National Homelessness Law Center, said “things seem so fluid and so chaotic that it’s hard to get an accurate representation” of where Trump’s campaign to get homeless people out of sight stands.

Rabinowitz said last week he witnessed the tossing of people’s belongings and the evictions of people experiencing homelessness, noting that “it was fast, it was chaotic, it was expensive, and it didn’t help anybody.”

“We know that clearing encampments makes it harder for people to get into housing,” he added. “People’s IDs that they need to get into housing are destroyed, people’s medications that they need to stay healthy are thrown away, people’s bikes that they need to get to work are often trashed.”

Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said the practice and policy of fining, ticketing and arresting people rather than creating housing and services for them is “devastating” — both to people experiencing homelessness and the providers who serve them.

Oliva said outreach workers can lose track of people that they’ve been working with for a long time, destroying trust between the two.

“That’s some of what I’ve seen over the last week here — as providers are trying to keep people as safe as possible, it’s getting harder to track them down to make sure that they can provide the services that are necessary for folks.”

Street outreach teams at work

Lara Pukatch, chief advocacy officer at Miriam’s Kitchen, said the organization, which works to end chronic homelessness in Washington, D.C., is “deeply concerned about what’s happening.”

Pukatch said the group’s street outreach teams “have really been working almost around the clock to address what’s going on,” including sharing information with people living outside when they hear about threats of encampment evictions to make sure they know what’s happening and the options they have.

“This also involves working nights, working weekends, connecting people to the life-saving supplies and supports that they’ve always needed, but in addition, really working hard with people to make sure that they’re safe and that they are not going to be further harmed or traumatized by what’s happening in the city.”

July executive order

Trump’s federal takeover in Washington, D.C., and the encampment clearings build off of the sweeping July executive order he signed.

The order says it aims to end federal support for “Housing First” policies that “deprioritize accountability and fail to promote treatment, recovery, and self-sufficiency.” The “Housing First” model focuses on providing immediate housing, with services offered afterward.

The order also calls on Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner to ensure that programs receiving federal housing and homelessness assistance require people with “substance use disorder or serious mental illness” obtain treatment or mental health services in order to participate.

Part of the order also encourages involuntary civil commitment expansion, where individuals with mental health conditions are placed into treatment facilities against their wishes.

Administration officials who say they are fighting crime in the district have also emphasized actions of homeless people. Vice President JD Vance, talking to National Guard troops at Union Station on Wednesday with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, said when he visited the transit center with his children two years ago, they were “screamed at by violent vagrants and it was scaring the hell out of my kids.” 

Now, he said, “DC is already safer than it was nine days ago. We’re going to make it safer still to come. This is your city. You should feel free to come and visit here, have a meal, see all these incredible monuments, and actually enjoy yourself.”

Supreme Court decision

Oliva, of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, noted that while the events of the past week are “certainly alarming,” they mark a broader trend that has gained steam, beginning with the 2024 Supreme Court decision that allowed cities to punish homeless people for sleeping outdoors, even where there is no shelter available to them.

“What we’ve seen since President Trump came into office is a series of policies put in place — or attempted to put in place — through executive orders that really don’t do anything to address the root causes of homelessness because we know that homelessness itself is not actually a criminal issue, it’s an economic issue,” she said.

Though the president’s federal takeover has a 30-day limit, Trump wants an extension, leading to questions about how long these actions will continue. 

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a Nashville press conference on July 18, 2025.  An appeals court on Aug. 21, 2025, said it will allow Noem and the Trump administration, for now, to move forward with ending temporary protections for 60,000 immigrants from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua. (Photo by John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)

WASHINGTON — An appeals court late Wednesday said it will allow the Trump administration, for now, to move forward with ending temporary protections for 60,000 immigrants from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua.

It means that Nepali immigrants with Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, will lose their legal status – including work permits and deportation protections – immediately. Honduran and Nicaraguan holders will lose their status by Sept. 8.

The judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals — Michael Daly Hawkins, Consuelo M. Callahan and Eric D. Miller — did not give a reason for their decision. Former President Bill Clinton nominated Hawkins, former President George W. Bush nominated Callahan and President Donald Trump nominated Miller in his first term.

Wednesday’s decision pauses a late July ruling from California District Judge Trina Thompson that found Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to end deportation protections for those nationals to be rooted in racism.

Instead, Thompson extended TPS for nationals from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua until Nov. 18 while the case proceeded through the courts.

“The freedom to live fearlessly, the opportunity of liberty, and the American dream. That is all Plaintiffs seek,” Thompson wrote in her 37-page ruling. “Instead, they are told to atone for their race, leave because of their names, and purify their blood. The Court disagrees.”

As the Trump administration aims to carry out its plans of mass deportation of immigrants in the country without legal authorization, DHS has also moved to end the temporary legal status many immigrants have held.

Noem has acted to halt TPS for nationals from Haiti and Venezuela and end humanitarian protections for those from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The Supreme Court has allowed, for now, many of those moves by the Trump administration.

DHS praises decision

DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin in a statement called the decision from the appeals court a victory for the Trump administration.

“TPS was never meant to be a de facto asylum system, yet that is how previous administrations have used it for decades while allowing hundreds of thousands of foreigners into the country without proper vetting,” McLaughlin said. “This unanimous decision will help restore integrity to our immigration system to keep our homeland and its people safe.”

Certain nationals are granted TPS because their home country is deemed too dangerous to return to due to war, disaster or other unstable conditions.

Immigrants who are granted TPS go through vetting by DHS, including a background check, and have to re-apply roughly every 18 months to keep work permits and have deportation protections. A misdemeanor could result in the loss of TPS status for an immigrant. 

‘Fear and uncertainty’

“I am heartbroken by the court’s decision,” Sandhya Lama, a TPS holder from Nepal who is a plaintiff in the case, said in a statement.

“I’ve lived in the U.S. for years, and my kids are U.S. citizens and have never even been to Nepal. This ruling leaves us and thousands of other TPS families in fear and uncertainty,” Lama continued.

Many immigrants are on TPS for lengthy periods due to their home country’s condition. Those from Nepal had TPS for more than 10 years and those nationals from Honduras and Nicaragua were on TPS for more than 26 years, attorneys at the American Civil Liberties Union, which is one of the groups that filed the suit, said.

“This administration’s attack on TPS is part of a concerted campaign to deprive noncitizens of any legal status,” Emi MacLean, an attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Northern California said in a statement. “(Wednesday’s) ruling is a devastating setback, but it is not the end of this fight. Humanitarian protection–TPS–means something and cannot be decimated so easily.”

Organizations that filed the suit include the ACLU Foundations of Northern California and Southern California, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law and the Haitian Bridge Alliance. 

A mother holds her daughter while she gets a vaccine at a clinic in Texas in March. Children and adults who receive health insurance through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program will now be subject to immigration or citizenship status checks, according to a new initiative announced this week by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees Medicaid as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (Photo by Jan Sonnenmair/Getty Images)

This week, the Trump administration’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced an effort to check the immigration status of people who get their health insurance through Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

Medicaid is the public health insurance program for people with low incomes that’s jointly funded by states and the federal government. For families that earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford private insurance, CHIP is a public program that provides low-cost health coverage for their children.

The feds will begin sending states monthly enrollment reports that identify people with Medicaid or CHIP whose immigration or citizenship status can’t be confirmed through federal databases. States are then responsible for verifying the citizenship or immigration status of individuals in those reports. States are expected to take “appropriate actions when necessary, including adjusting coverage or enforcing non-citizen eligibility rules,” according to a CMS press release.

“We are tightening oversight of enrollment to safeguard taxpayer dollars and guarantee that these vital programs serve only those who are truly eligible under the law,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees CMS as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said in a press release announcing the new program.

As of April, roughly 71 million adults and children nationwide have Medicaid coverage, while another 7 million children have insurance through CHIP. Immigrants under age 65 are less likely to be covered by Medicaid than U.S.-born citizens, according to an analysis from health research organization KFF.

Immigrants who are in the country illegally aren’t eligible for federally funded Medicaid and CHIP. Only citizens and certain lawfully present immigrants — green card holders and refugees, for example — can qualify.

But some states have chosen to expand Medicaid coverage for immigrants with their own funds. Twenty-three states offer pregnancy-related care regardless of citizenship or immigration status, according to KFF. Fourteen states provide coverage for children in low-income families regardless of immigration status, while seven states offer coverage to some adults regardless of status.

The tax and spending package President Donald Trump last month cuts federal spending on Medicaid by more than $1 trillion, leaving states to either make up the difference with their own funds or reduce coverage. But the new law also includes restrictions on coverage for certain immigrants, including stripping eligibility from refugees and asylum-seekers.

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

The Fox River empties into Lake Michigan in Green Bay, where city officials have proposed a resolution acknowledging that local bodies of water have a right to be protected. (Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources)

Two Republican legislators have proposed legislation that would prevent local governments from enacting “rights of nature” ordinances — laws that grant natural entities legal rights — claiming that such ordinances are “incompatible with America’s founding principles.” 

The proposal from Rep. Joy Goeben (R-Hobart) and Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater) was released after the Green Bay City Council voted 9-1 last month to direct the city’s sustainability council to begin drafting a “rights of nature” resolution. 

The concept of granting natural entities legal rights is relatively new in American government, but countries around the world have enshrined legal rights for nature into their constitutions. In Wisconsin, the Menominee and Ho-Chunk Nations have written rights of nature provisions into their tribal constitutions. Two years ago, the Milwaukee County Board enacted its own rights of nature resolution that promises to protect the health of the Menominee, Milwaukee and Fox rivers and Lake Michigan. 

The Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights has been working for years to track and support the passage of rights of nature laws around the world. The organization’s executive director Mari Margil says these laws are meant to help protect the environment.

“As environmental crises deepen, supporters of the bill are trying to make it harder to protect the environment,” Margil says of the Goeben and Nass proposal. 

While the Republican legislation, if it manages to pass the Legislature, is unlikely to be signed into law by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, critics say the proposal is an example of kneejerk Republican opposition to pro-environment ideas and another instance of Republicans from northeast Wisconsin attempting to meddle in Green Bay city politics. 

A co-sponsorship memo supporting the legislation states that these types of ordinances threaten the integrity of the legal system and property rights. 

“Allowing and promoting this ideology represents a dangerous shift in legal precedent,” the memo states. “It would allow nonhuman entities to sue in court, threatening property rights, stalling development, and burdening the judicial system.” 

Goeben did not respond to a request for comment. 

Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee), who helped write Milwaukee County’s resolution as a member of the county board in 2023, tells the Wisconsin Examiner the idea of granting bodies of water legal rights isn’t so different from corporations having legal “personhood.” In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in its Citizens United decision that corporations have the right to free speech. 

“It is wholly disingenuous to say only real tangible people have rights and then fight explicitly for those rights for corporations,” Clancy says. “It’s frankly frustrating to see Republicans take these really popular measures, these are broadly popular things, and rather than engaging with us in dialog, just trying to block these things through process. It’s a disingenuous way to go about it. Let’s talk about the things that necessitate these pieces of legislation.” 

He adds that legislators have the power to do more than just write legislation. Goeben’s district is in the Green Bay suburbs but doesn’t include any of the city, but, Clancy argues that she could go to city council meetings and speak with people about these ideas instead of trying to blanket ban them without any dialog. 

“It would be a much more earnest process to show up in Green Bay and go to those meetings and voice your concerns there,” he says. “We have bully pulpits, I show up at the city council, county board, school board meetings, both in my capacity as a legislator and as a parent and community member. Make your case there rather than trying to ban it.” 

A number of Green Bay area officials expressed frustration at Republicans again involving themselves in Green Bay city politics. Earlier this year, Green Bay-area Republicans Rep. David Steffen (R-Howard) and Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Oconto) proposed a bill that would limit the types of flags allowed to be flown at government buildings. Many Green Bay residents saw the bill as an effort to weigh in on a local debate over the flying of LGBTQ Pride flags. 

“Given the challenges our communities are facing, from our housing crisis to fully funding our public schools, I am always surprised by elected officials who don’t represent this city wasting time on policies that don’t solve real problems or fund actual solutions,” Rep. Amaad Rivera-Wagner (D-Green Bay) says.

Joey Prestley, the Green Bay city council member who has led the local rights of nature effort, says the resolution — which hasn’t been drafted yet — is meant to serve as a non-binding advisory statement that city government will consider the environmental effects of its decisions throughout the development process. 

“Historically, the human actors have been the ones who have had the rights and the natural features have not been able to have people speaking for them,” he says. 

Prestley says the idea for the resolution started after a group of residents objected late in the process to a new housing development. The development would be near the Niagara escarpment, a geological feature residents want to protect, but didn’t hit the thresholds that would instigate involvement from the federal Environmental Protection Agency or state Department of Natural Resources. 

“My hope with a resolution would be maybe we consider these — all environmental features — but especially these ones that are important to our region, earlier in the process, and more thoroughly in the process, so we don’t have people coming up in the 11th Hour and saying, ‘wait a second, you can’t build this housing development,’” Prestley says. 

He adds that if that consideration and discussion of the environmental effects came earlier, it could have been a more constructive discussion rather than turning into a heated local debate that had the potential to kill a housing project in a city that, like much of Wisconsin, is in dire need of more housing. The Green Bay city council approved the 160-unit project in April 

“If it had been earlier in our process, it could have been more collaborative, and it could have been neighbors and environmental advocates working together with the developer and the city to make sure it’s a plan that benefits everybody, everybody who engages with the environment, everybody who relies on the environment, everybody who appreciates the environment,” he says.

In proposing a resolution, he adds, the objective is  “not trying to compel anyone, but really trying to adapt as a philosophy for the city that we want to consider nature as the original inhabitants of the land did before we were here.”

Prestley says it’s easy to spin the rights of nature discussion as “the work of a crazy person” who wants “to get trees to sue the city,” but actually he says he’s trying to make sure the city considers the potentially damaging environmental effects of its actions after decades of managing the harmful contamination of the Fox River. 

“There was not enough people speaking up for the damage that was happening to the river back then, and it created something that affected the whole community,” Prestley says. “People used to swim in the river. Nobody touches the river now. Maybe we should consider the environment. That’s not a radical idea, that is a sensible idea, considering what we’ve done in the past in this community, and thinking about how we want to move forward.” 

Prestley says the proposed legislation seems “silly” and notes a number of city actions, such as wetland reconstruction, that have benefited the environment. He says that if the Legislature isn’t going to help, it should get out of the way. 

“I think we’re trying to do good things in Green Bay for the environment,” he says. “And I think the state’s responsibility should be to help with the good things, or to do their own thing.”

The lawmakers proposing the bill, “they’re not helping us,” Prestley says. “They’re not helping the people, they’re just opposing things, and I don’t know why.”

Correction: This report has been updated to correct the vote count when the Green Bay City Council passed a measure to draft a proposed resolution on the rights of nature. 

Protesters show support for immigrant workers in Monroe, Wisconsin, who walked off the job at a cheese-making plant to protest changes in policy made by the operation's new owners. (Photo by Bryan Pfeifer/Wisconsin Bailout the People Movement)

Known as the “Gateway to Cheese Country” and the “Cheese Capital of the USA,” the community of Monroe is a central part of Wisconsin’s dairy history. Besides this fame, the town of 10,000 or so also shares a lot with other small towns in the Midwest. Drive around the city’s courthouse square and you’ll see the offices of local lawyers, some banks and a few bars.

One thing that sets Monroe apart is the area’s relatively recent influx of immigrants.

According to the Applied Population Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Green County, where Monroe is located, has experienced a 229% increase in Latinos from 2000 to 2019. That growth has not been accompanied by a surge in murders, robberies, pet-eatings or any other crimes that the current administration has leveled against migrants. Instead Monroe has seen a rise in the number of Mexican restaurants and bilingual masses at the local Catholic church, as well as hardworking community members hoping to make a better life for themselves. 

Which makes the recent events at Monroe’s W&W milk processing plant especially infuriating. Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) acquired W&W earlier this month , and workers describe an  ownership philosophy vastly different from the positive work environment and commitment to employees they experienced under  the previous owners. Short of formally firing the workers employed there, DFA instituted the E-Verify system as part of their management plan, possibly to avoid the Trump administration’s destructive crackdowns. While this system allows employers to confirm the employment authorization of new hires, employees taking part in the walkout say that in contrast to the previous owners, DFA is requiring verification of all employees, even those who have been there 10-plus years. Not surprisingly, DFA’s decision has triggered a strike and the formation of a legal assistance fund for workers who most likely will lose their jobs after years at the plant.

Across rural America

It’s not an isolated instance; immigrants are being unjustly targeted in similar ways elsewhere in rural America. In Long Prairie, Minnesota, a town much like Monroe, meat processing workers, many of whom received legal status to work with the humanitarian parole program that the Biden administration created for people experiencing potential violence or harm in Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, or Haiti, had their permits revoked by Trump. Hundreds of workers also lost the legal right to work in the United States at a JBS pork production facility in Ottumwa, Iowa, as the current government ended their Temporary Protection Status (TPS). Like humanitarian parole, TPS, which began in 1990, grants people from certain countries work permits who flee disasters like hurricanes or wars.

Throughout the Midwest, milk processing and meat packing firms in rural areas constitute an agro-industrial archipelago where workers, many of whom are immigrants, play a key role in making our food system operate. But instead of being rewarded for years of hard work, immigrants face persecution. Insisting on programs like E-Verify — a voluntary system with documented shortcomings — and removing legal protections terrorize hardworking people. Immigrants and their families deserve better, including legal pathways to remain and work in the country.

In a nutshell, revoking legal protections unfairly turns workers into criminals by making them ineligible to work here. More to the point, these tactics are par for the course when it comes to the current administration’s cruel, underhanded and racist approach to enforcing our country’s outdated immigration system.

This toxic mix of cruelty and racial profiling is on display when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrest immigrants at courthouses after their asylum cases are dismissed, making them vulnerable for deportation. The racial profiling is even more blatant when migrants are stopped outside schools or at Home Depot parking lots because of how they look and where they are. Some get thrown to the ground and handcuffed just because they question the reason they are being detained.

An endless vicious cycle

The problem with such tactics — aside from the ethical and legal problems of encouraging government agents to trample on people’s constitutional rights — is efficiency. Immigration hardliners and Trump loyalists like White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller made it a goal for ICE to fill the for-profit deportation complex with 3,000 arrests per day, having no qualms separating families, arresting children or people who have been model citizens for decades.

ICE has a sordid history of workplace enforcement actions in the past that have proven widely unpopular and non-productive.

We can go back to the Bush administration’s mass raids in places like Worthington, Minnesota, and Postville, Iowa, to show how ICE agents’ large-scale enforcement actions in rural communities tear families apart and leave communities with a long process to heal culturally and economically. What we know over a decade later is that arresting and deporting hundreds of people in such ways does not lead to U.S. citizen workers taking the positions formerly  held by immigrants, but the deported people being replaced by, well, another round of immigrants.

But for Trump 2.0, plans for the agro-industrial archipelago are different. Instead of staging mass actions to arrest workers, the government is doing this work digitally. Put otherwise, a faceless bureaucracy revokes programs and permits, giving a contrived legal pretext for ICE to enter communities and arrest people.

Let’s be clear — immigrant workers at these places were trying to “do it the right way.” But this government effectively took the legal carpet from under them as they were trying to scrape a living together for themselves and their families. To threaten these people with deportation is the ultimate in punching down, terrorizing hardworking and community-building people we should be welcoming instead of demonizing.

Real immigration policy reform does not underhandedly manufacture undocumented people, or target people who contribute to the economy, but involves doing the hard work of creating fair, workable policy in Congress. Nor should immigrants be welcomed on a whim of the administration as was the case when white South Africans were given refugee status while suspending protections for thousands of others. Why this special treatment? Most people seeking refugee status are people of color — the South Africans are white.

There are various serious initiatives currently in Congress that could actually improve the lives of immigrants. The bipartisan Dignity Act provides a pathway for citizenship for DREAMers (youth who came to the U.S. without authorization and either attend college or plan to do so) and a work permit system for all other undocumented people. The Farm Workforce Modernization Act puts farm workers and their families on a pathway to legalization. California U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla’s more sweeping Renewing Immigration Provisions of the Immigration Act of 1929 grants lawful permanent resident status —  green cards — to people who have lived in the U.S. continuously for at least seven years and  do not have a criminal record.

Immigrants come to this country for a variety of reasons, including suffering the effects of flawed trade deals, as well as experiencing war and famine. Many continue to suffer here, working jobs that are ill-paid and dangerous in places like Monroe and Long Prairie. Our current government oppresses them further with draconian and dishonest tactics, scoring cheap political points instead of engaging in actual law enforcement. 

Those among us who really care about public security should think long and hard on how this government is entrapping immigrants instead of reforming and enforcing the law.

Clinicians are providing medication abortion through telehealth services even to people in states where abortion is banned, thanks in part to shield laws in states where abortion is still legal. (Natalie Behring/Getty Images)

As conservative lawmakers work to restrict online access to abortion medication, a new report shows how popular it has become for women who live in states that have outlawed abortion.

Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin led a team that analyzed 15 months of prescription data from Aid Access, one of the largest online abortion telemedicine providers.

They found 84% of Aid Access’s more than 118,000 online prescriptions went to patients living in abortion-ban states.

The South and Midwest had the highest rates of patients accessing telemedicine abortion. Rates were also greater in high-poverty areas or where people would have to travel more than 100 miles to reach an abortion clinic, according to the report, which published this month.

Aid Access is able to mail abortion medications to residents in all 50 states — even those in states with abortion bans — thanks to shield laws in Democratic-led states. Shield laws are designed to minimize the legal risks for people who provide or access abortions across state lines.

Currently, 22 states and Washington, D.C., have reproductive care shield laws, either through legislation or by executive order, according to a report from University of California, Los Angeles School of Law.

Eight of those states — California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington — specifically protect telehealth abortion providers regardless of where their patient is located.

Shield laws, along with difficulty accessing in-person abortion services in abortion-ban states, have contributed to a rise in medication and telehealth abortions since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion in 2022, clearing the way for state bans. With telehealth abortion, patients have a virtual appointment with a clinician who can prescribe abortion medication, which is then filled by a licensed pharmacy and mailed to the patient.

Research has shown telehealth medication abortion is effective and safe, and comparable to in-person medication abortion.

Medication abortion accounted for nearly two-thirds of all clinician-provided abortions in states without bans in 2023, the most recent data available from the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization focused on advancing reproductive rights.

But as abortion medication use rises, so have conservative efforts to ban it.

This year, more than a dozen states introduced bills to bar access to medication abortion by criminalizing its sale, purchase or distribution, according to Guttmacher.

One such bill in Texas, which could have been a blueprint for medication abortion restriction in other states, was specifically aimed at groups like Aid Access. It would have allowed private citizens to sue for at least $100,000 anyone who provided abortion pills in Texas. The bill passed the Texas Senate but died in the House in May.

Earlier this year, the state of Louisiana criminally charged a New York physician under its abortion ban law for allegedly providing abortion pills to a Louisiana teen via telehealth. New York, which passed a shield law in 2023, refused Louisiana’s request to extradite the doctor.

Last month marked the first federal test of shield laws, when a Texas man sued a California doctor for allegedly mailing abortion pills to his partner.

This week, a Texas woman filed a federal lawsuit against Aid Access and against a man who she said impregnated her, then spiked her drink with abortion pills. She is also suing the Dutch doctor who founded Aid Access, alleging Aid Access and its founder mailed abortion-inducing drugs in violation of Texas and federal law.

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

In an aerial view from a helicopter, the migrant detention center dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz" is seen located at the site of the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport on July 4, 2025 in Ochopee, Florida. (Photo by Alon Skuy/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — As the Trump administration moves to expand immigrant detention centers across the country through state partnerships, more than 60 Democratic lawmakers Wednesday pressed top immigration officials for details regarding a quickly constructed facility in the Florida Everglades, dubbed by Republicans as “Alligator Alcatraz.”

“Brushing aside concerns from human rights watchdogs, environmentalist groups, and Tribal nations, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has greenlit the construction of this expansive detention facility that may violate detained individuals’ human rights, jeopardize public and environmental health, and violate federal law,” according to the letter signed by 65 Democratic members of Congress.

The letter comes after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Tuesday announced a partnership with the state of Nebraska to open a 300-bed federal immigration detention center for its version of “Alligator Alcatraz,” dubbed the “Cornhusker Clink.”

Another facility in Bunker Hill, Indiana, nicknamed the “Speedway Slammer,” is being constructed to hold 1,000 immigrants.

Democrats addressed the letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, DHS Office of Inspector General Joseph V. Cuffari, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Todd Lyons and Acting Head of FEMA David Richardson.

DHS did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment regarding the letter from Democrats.

Lawsuits in Florida

As the Trump administration aims to carry out its plans of mass deportations, partnerships with states to detain immigrants for removal are key but are also provoking opposition.

The facility in the Everglades, where state and federal officials aim to detain up to 5,000 immigrants, is currently facing a legal challenge in federal court from immigration advocates over allegations of limited access to attorneys for detainees.

There is also a second lawsuit from environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe to pause construction of the site, arguing it violates federal environmental laws.

“Experts worry this novel state-run immigration detention model will allow Florida to create an ‘independent, unaccountable detention system’ that runs parallel to the federal detention system,” according to the letter.

Other states following Florida’s lead? 

Democrats also expressed concern that the facility in the Everglades would serve as a model for other states.

“Beyond human rights and due process issues, this plan raises serious environmental concerns,” according to the letter.

In the letter, Democrats are asking for information about the legal authority for the state of Florida to construct and operate a migrant detention facility; the agreement between the state and DHS related to the operation of the facility; and measures that are being taken to ensure clean water, food, temperature regulation and medical care are provided for detainees, among other things.

“Human rights experts have condemned the plan as ‘cruel and inhumane’ by design,” according to the letter. “Construction progressed at ‘turbo speed,’ and it remains unclear whether the facility has plans to ensure medical care, rapid hurricane evacuation, access to counsel, and sufficient infrastructure for sewage, running water, and temperature controls, despite being located in one of the ‘hottest parts of the state.’”

Democrats are also seeking inspection reports, environmental review documents and contracts of private vendors that are operating the facility.

The letter asks for a response by Sept. 3.

Democratic senators who signed the letter include: Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden of Oregon, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Jon Ossoff of Georgia, Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Tina Smith of Minnesota.

Democratic representatives who signed the letter include: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Kathy Castor, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, Frederica S. Wilson, Lois Frankel and Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida; Hank Johnson and Nikema Williams of Georgia; Betty McCollum of Minnesota; Rashida Tlaib and Shri Thanedar of Michigan; Valerie P. Foushee of North Carolina; Chuy García, Bradley Scott Schneider, Delia C. Ramirez, Danny K. Davis, Sean Casten, Mike Quigley and Jonathan L. Jackson of Illinois; Pramila Jayapal, Suzan K. DelBene and Adam Smith of Washington; Eleanor Holmes Norton of the District of Columbia; Dina Titus of Nevada; Glenn Ivey and Sarah Elfreth of Maryland; Gwen S. Moore of Wisconsin; Luis Correa, Juan Vargas, Mark Takano, Zoe Lofgren, Mike Thompson, Sydney Kamlager-Dove, John Garamendi and Jim Costa of California; Janelle S. Bynum, Suzanne Bonamici, Maxine Dexter and Andrea Salinas of Oregon; Yvette D. Clarke, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Paul Tonko and Dan Goldman of New York; Sylvia R. Garcia, Jasmine Crockett and Veronica Escobar of Texas; Wesley Bell and Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri; Summer L. Lee and Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania; Jahana Hayes of Connecticut; Brittany Pettersen of Colorado; Yassamin Ansari of Arizona; Seth Moulton and James P. McGovern of Massachusetts; Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island; and Sarah McBride of Delaware.

Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski with her 5-year-old son in her arms officially launched her bid for lieutenant governor on Wednesday. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski launched her bid for lieutenant governor on Wednesday — passing on running for governor and becoming the first to enter the field for the position.   

At the Madison Labor Temple, Godlewski was joined by her 5-year-old son, Hartley, who from the podium shyly told people to vote for his mom, and her parents, who she said gave her advice that has led to her decision to run. 

“When you see something wrong, you’ve got to stand up and you’ve got to do something is what has guided me my entire life,” Godlewski said. “Whether it is my career where I started in national security to working in local government to supporting small businesses to eventually running the constitutional amendment to save our state treasurer’s office and now serving statewide, to me, this has always come down to one thing, which is how I can make the biggest difference in Wisconsin.”

Godlewski has served in her current office since March 2023. She was appointed by Gov. Tony Evers to fill a vacancy left when former-Secretary of State Doug La Follette, who had served in the position since 1983, abruptly stepped down less than three months into his term. The position in Wisconsin has been diminished over the years, in part because Republican lawmakers took away its responsibilities and in part because the office lacked resources, though Godlewski has worked to modernize its operations.

Godlewski previously served as state Treasurer from 2019 to 2022, running for the office just a couple of months after leading a successful campaign to urge voters to reject a Republican ballot measure that would have eliminated the position from the state constitution. 

When she won the election for Treasurer in 2018, she flipped nine counties in Wisconsin that voted for Trump in 2016 — something that she noted Wednesday in making the case for her candidacy. She didn’t run for reelection in 2022 because she ran in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate that year, withdrawing before the August primary election. 

If elected, the lieutenant governor’s office would be her third statewide position in Wisconsin. Godlewski said her sisters jokingly asked whether she was going for a record when she told them about her campaign. 

“All kidding aside, I’m not running for this office because I need another title,” Godlewski said. “I’m running for this office because I want to be a part of the team that’s not only going to win but is actually going to deliver for the state of Wisconsin.”

Former Democratic Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton, the first female to hold the office in Wisconsin, and several Democratic state legislators were also at the announcement. Godlewski said she has endorsements from Lawton and 27 of state lawmakers — about 54% of the Democrats in the state Legislature. 

Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire) called Godlewski “Eau Claire’s favorite daughter,” saying she “knows how to build coalitions and bring people together across communities and even across partisan divides.” 

“When she sees a problem, she rolls up her sleeves and she digs in and she talks to people who need to get it fixed, from saving the treasurer’s office to revitalizing the treasurer’s office and the Secretary Secretary of State’s office to managing a $1.4 billion dollar trust fund to invest in our communities,” Emerson said — a reference to the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands, which Godlewski has served on both as state treasurer and secretary of state. 

Godlewski has said she has heard from people across the state who are struggling financially to afford their homes, health care and other expenses. 

“They’re fed up that workers who are critical to our community, like EMT workers and nurses and teachers, can’t even afford a home in the communities that they serve, while they’re watching these billionaires get tax write-offs for their second and third vacation home,” Godlewski said. “They’re fed up that corporations are cashing in on some of the largest tax breaks in our history, and families are getting the scraps.”  

She said she wants to help find solutions for those issues, but can’t work on them as secretary of state. 

Godlewski criticized Republicans and said Wisconsinites deserve better leadership. 

“In Madison this year alone, we’ve seen how Republicans have had an opportunity to expand Medicaid to 90,000 more Wisconsinites. They said no. Republicans had an opportunity to expand postpartum care for new moms. They said no. The Republicans had an opportunity to invest in our kids’ future by supporting and funding public schools. They said, no. But when it comes to giving tax write-offs for corporations and perks to the well-connected, they said yes, yes, yes,” Godlewski said. “This isn’t leadership. It’s betrayal.”

Godlewski told reporters that she decided to run for the number two position over running for governor because she thinks it will be the right fit for her. 

“We’ve got some major challenges we’ve got to solve in Wisconsin, whether it’s affordable health care to families being priced out of their communities, and I want to be a part of the team that’s going to help solve these problems for Wisconsin,” Godlewski said.

In Wisconsin, voters cast votes separately for governor and lieutenant governor during the partisan primary. After the primary, the winners run on the same ticket in November and voters choose them as a pair. 

Wisconsin’s partisan primary is about a year away and the Democratic field for governor is still taking shape. Godlewski didn’t make any endorsements in the race Tuesday.  

“We have a really impressive bench in the Democratic party, and so I look forward to seeing who’s going to get in” and to working with whoever is the nominee, Godlewski said. 

Gov. Tony Evers’ decision not to seek a third term has made the race for governor the first open one in Wisconsin in 16 years and is leading to some other open seats as well, including lieutenant governor and now secretary of state. With Evers not on the ballot, the Wisconsin governor’s race has been rated a toss-up by Sabato’s Crystal Ball. 

Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez jumped into the race for governor less than 24 hours after Evers announced his retirement. Other Democrats considering a run for governor include Attorney General Josh Kaul, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, state Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) and state Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison).

Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann and Whitefish Bay manufacturer Bill Berrien are the two announced Republican candidates so far. U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany is also considering a run for the office. 

Godlewski told reporters Democrats need to listen to people if they’re going to win statewide in 2026.

“We’re seeing how folks don’t trust politicians, and it’s because they feel like they’re not hearing us. They’re watching a system that’s working for corporations and not for them, and so, how do we build trust? We’ve got to travel the state, meet them where they are, listen and that’s how we rebuild it,” Godlewski said. 

She added she recently met a mom in Kenosha, who “literally has two jobs just to support her family” and met another family in the northern parts of the state who “are still drinking bottled water because they have PFAS that are coming out of their faucet.” 

“These are real big issues, and that’s what I look forward to talking about — things that are keeping Wisconsinites up at night — and actually doing something about it,” Godlewski said.  

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will no longer administer a grant program that provided millions of dollars to local television and radio stations to upgrade the equipment they use to send out emergency alerts to warn of impending natural disasters and more. In this photo, flood waters left debris including vehicles and equipment scattered in Louise Hays Park on July 5, 2025 in Kerrville, Texas. (Photo by Eric Vryn/Getty Images) 

WASHINGTON — The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will no longer administer a grant program that has so far provided millions of dollars to local television and radio stations to upgrade the equipment they use to send out emergency alerts.

The change comes after Republican lawmakers voted last month to defund the corporation, following a request from President Donald Trump to zero out more than $1.1 billion in previously approved spending for the organization.

Congress originally formed the Next Generation Warning System grant program in fiscal 2022 and provided the Federal Emergency Management Agency about $40 million during its first year.

FEMA then gave that money to CPB to reimburse stations for infrastructure and other improvements meant to get emergency alerts sent through the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System to more Americans.

That appears on track to change in the months ahead.

FEMA officials wrote in a notice of funding opportunity for the current fiscal year that the grants will now go directly to state and tribal governments that can then award funding to public broadcasting stations that make improvements to their emergency alert systems.

Democrats and some Republicans have raised concerns that without funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, local stations wouldn’t be able to raise enough funding to remain in operation, potentially leading to holes in the country’s emergency alert system.

‘Rescission consequences’ for local public media

CPB, which plans to cease operations later this year, announced this week that it would no longer be able to administer the grant funding Congress approved during fiscal 2023 and 2024. The corporation had yet to determine which applicants would receive the funding lawmakers provided for those two years.

“CPB has been fully invested in the NGWS program and its mission to protect the American public,” CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison wrote in a statement. “This is one more example of rescission consequences impacting local public media stations and the communities they serve—in this case, weakening the capacity of local public media stations to support the safety and preparedness of their communities.”

That could potentially leave much of the $136 million in grant funding approved by Congress in limbo.

CPB wrote in a statement that “FEMA should assume responsibility for disbursing the funds as Congress intended, or most of the FY 2022 funding—and all funds from FY 2023 and FY 2024—will go undistributed.

“As a result, critical emergency alerting equipment will not be purchased, leaving communities, especially those in rural and disaster-prone areas, without the upgrades Congress intended.”

A FEMA official, speaking on background, couldn’t say definitively how the agency would handle funding for those three fiscal years.

The White House and Office of Management and Budget did not immediately respond to requests for comment from States Newsroom on Wednesday about the grant program.

Projects funded so far include:

• Mid-South Public Communications Foundation in Cordova, Tennessee, which received $1.657 million to “replace a transmitter and two emergency generators to ensure the rural agricultural communities in Tennessee, Mississippi, and eastern Arkansas receive timely emergency communications.”
• Blue Ridge PBS in Roanoke, Virginia, which received $1.122 million to “replace critical broadcast infrastructure that will strengthen their signal in the mountainous region to reach more rural communities with targeted emergency alerts.”
• Louisiana Public Broadcasting, which received nearly $2 million to “install transmitters and antennas for KLTL-TV in Lake Charles and KLTM-TV in Monroe and update alerting equipment to enable statewide delivery of alerts and warning messages.”

Congress votes to end public media funds

Kate Riley, president and CEO of America’s Public Television Stations, released a written statement this week calling CPB’s inability to administer the grant program for FEMA “yet another devastating result of the rescission of public media funding.”

She also called on FEMA “to establish a new process for delivering this funding to public broadcasters” and urged “Congress to restore essential direct funding to local stations throughout this country whose communities depend on them for lifesaving public safety services, proven educational resources and essential community connections.”

Trump sent Congress a rescissions request in early June, proposing lawmakers eliminate previously approved funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and several foreign aid accounts.

The House voted mostly along party lines to approve the full $9.4 billion proposal later that month. GOP senators, except Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, approved a similar bill in July after removing spending cuts to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. The House voted to clear the revised legislation a few days later, sending the bill to Trump for his signature. 

An electric car charging station. The National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program to build out the capacity for charging electric vehicles has been restarted after being suspended by the Trump administration early this year. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

A suspended federally funded program to expand the nation’s electric vehicle charging capacity has been jolted back to life.

Prospective developers seeking to build stations in Wisconsin and share in the state’s federal grant have until Sept. 5 to submit their proposals, according to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.

Wisconsin was one of the first states to take part in the $5 billion National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) project, part of the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.

“Our state DOT was incredibly proactive” in participating in the program, Amy Barilleaux, communications director for Clean Wisconsin, told the Wisconsin Examiner.

The state’s allotment was $78 million and 53 projects were awarded with the funds in May 2024, a state DOT spokesperson said. The department signed 39 agreements accounting for $16 million before the program was frozen earlier this year; eight projects have been completed and five are under construction.

Countermanding the push to reduce reliance on fossil fuels that have been associated with worsening climate change, President Donald Trump issued executive orders promoting fossil fuels and attempting to block measures to promote renewable energy that were enacted during former President Joe Biden’s administration.

One of Trump’s first such orders, on the day he took office, froze NEVI funding that had not been committed to projects by then.

“It should have never been paused in the first place,” Barrilleaux said. “This was money that was allocated by Congress that was ours to spend under this program.”

Wisconsin along with more than a dozen other states and the District of Columbia sued to restore the NEVI grants. A federal judge in June blocked the Trump administration from freezing the grants or withholding the money from the 14 states and D.C. that joined the lawsuit.

Barrilleaux noted that by joining the lawsuit, Wisconsin was able to benefit from the ruling that released the money.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy issued new guidance for the grants Aug. 11. The new guidance eliminates various provisions in the original federal program, including specifications that emphasized using renewable energy, required consumer protections and required engagement with rural, underserved and disadvantaged communities.

“While I don’t agree with subsidizing green energy, we will respect Congress’ will and make sure this program uses federal resources efficiently,” Duffy wrote in a statement.

“It’s good that we’re getting back to building out this infrastructure,” said Ben Behlke, clean technology programs manager for Renew Wisconsin. “This is a great opportunity for us to solve ‘the chicken or the egg’ issue as it relates to making charging available as adoption of electric vehicles becomes more prevalent. Beyond making this technology more accessible, electrifying our transportation is a necessary part of our effort to create a clean energy economy.”