A young woman asks AI companion ChatGPT for help this month in New York City. States are pushing to prevent the use of artificially intelligent chatbots in mental health to try to protect vulnerable users. (Photo by Shalina Chatlani/Stateline)

Editor’s note: If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.

States are passing laws to prevent artificially intelligent chatbots, such as ChatGPT, from being able to offer mental health advice to young users, following a trend of people harming themselves after seeking therapy from the AI programs.

Chatbots might be able to offer resources, direct users to mental health practitioners or suggest coping strategies. But many mental health experts say that’s a fine line to walk, as vulnerable users in dire situations require care from a professional, someone who must adhere to laws and regulations around their practice.

“I have met some of the families who have really tragically lost their children following interactions that their kids had with chatbots that were designed, in some cases, to be extremely deceptive, if not manipulative, in encouraging kids to end their lives,” said Mitch Prinstein, senior science adviser at the American Psychological Association and an expert on technology and children’s mental health.

“So in such egregious situations, it’s clear that something’s not working right, and we need at least some guardrails to help in situations like that,” he said.

While chatbots have been around for decades, AI technology has become so sophisticated that users may feel like they’re talking to a human. The chatbots don’t have the capacity to offer true empathy or mental health advice like a licensed psychologist would, and they are by design agreeable — a potentially dangerous model for someone with suicidal ideations. Several young people have died by suicide following interactions with chatbots.

States have enacted a variety of laws to regulate the types of interactions chatbots can have with users. Illinois and Nevada have completely banned the use of AI for behavioral health. New York and Utah passed laws requiring chatbots to explicitly tell users that they are not human. New York’s law also directs chatbots to detect instances of potential self-harm and refer the user to crisis hotlines and other interventions.

More laws may be coming. California and Pennsylvania are among the states that might consider legislation to regulate AI therapy.

President Donald Trump has criticized state-by-state regulation of AI, saying it stymies innovation. In December, he signed an executive order that aims to support the United States’ “global AI dominance” by overriding state artificial intelligence laws and establishing a national framework.

Still, states are moving ahead. Before Trump’s executive order, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis last month proposed a “Citizen Bill of Rights For Artificial Intelligence” that, among many other things, would prohibit AI from being used for “licensed” therapy or mental health counseling and provide parental controls for minors who may be exposed to it.

“The rise of AI is the most significant economic and cultural shift occurring at the moment; denying the people the ability to channel these technologies in a productive way via self-government constitutes federal government overreach and lets technology companies run wild,” DeSantis wrote on social media platform X in November.

‘A false sense of intimacy’

At a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last September, some parents shared their stories about their children’s deaths after ongoing interactions with an artificially intelligent chatbot.

Sewell Setzer III was 14 years old when he died by suicide in 2024 after becoming obsessed with a chatbot.

“Instead of preparing for high school milestones, Sewell spent his last months being manipulated and sexually groomed by chatbots designed by an AI company to seem human, to gain trust, and to keep children like him endlessly engaged by supplanting the actual human relationships in his life,” his mother, Megan Garcia, said during the hearing.

Another parent, Matthew Raine, testified about his son Adam, who died by suicide at age16 after talking for months with ChatGPT, a program owned by the company OpenAI.

“We’re convinced that Adam’s death was avoidable, and because we believe thousands of other teens who are using OpenAI could be in similar danger right now,” Raine said.

Prinstein, of the American Psychological Association, said that kids are especially vulnerable when it comes to AI chatbots.

“By agreeing with everything that kids say, it develops a false sense of intimacy and trust. That’s really concerning, because kids in particular are developing their brains. That approach is going to be unfairly attractive to kids in a way that may make them unable to use reason, judgment and restraints in the way that adults would likely use when interacting with a chatbot.”

The Federal Trade Commission in September launched an inquiry into seven companies making these AI-powered chatbots, questioning what efforts are in place to protect children.

​​“AI chatbots can effectively mimic human characteristics, emotions, and intentions, and generally are designed to communicate like a friend or confidant, which may prompt some users, especially children and teens, to trust and form relationships with chatbots,” the FTC said in its order.

Companies such as OpenAI have responded by saying that they are working with mental health experts to make their products safer and to limit chances of self-harm among its users.

“Working with mental health experts who have real-world clinical experience, we’ve taught the model to better recognize distress, de-escalate conversations, and guide people toward professional care when appropriate,” the company wrote in a statement last October.

Legislative efforts

With action at the federal level in limbo, efforts to regulate AI chatbots at the state level have had limited success.

Dr. John “Nick” Shumate, a psychiatrist at the Harvard University Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and his colleagues reviewed legislation to regulate mental health-related artificial intelligence systems across all states between January 2022 and May 2025.

The review found 143 bills directly or indirectly related to AI and mental health regulation. As of May 2025, 11 states had enacted 20 laws that researchers found were meaningful, direct and explicit in the ways they attempted to regulate mental health interactions.

They concluded that legislative efforts tended to fall into four different buckets: professional oversight, harm prevention, patient autonomy and data governance.

“You saw safety laws for chatbots and companion AIs, especially around self-harm and suicide response,” Shumate said in an interview.

New York enacted one such law last year that requires AI chatbots to remind users every three hours that it is not a human. The law also requires the chatbot to detect the potential of self-harm.

“There’s no denying that in this country, we’re in a mental health crisis,” New York Democratic state Sen. Kristen Gonzalez, the law’s sponsor, said in an interview. “But the solution shouldn’t be to replace human support from licensed professionals with untrained AI chatbots that can leak sensitive information and can lead to broad outcomes.”

In Virginia, Democratic Del. Michelle Maldonado is preparing legislation for this year’s session that would put limits on what chatbots can communicate to users in a therapeutic setting.

“The federal level has been slow to pass things, slow to even create legislative language around things. So we have had no choice but to fill in that gap,” said Maldonado, a former technology lawyer.

She noted that states have passed privacy laws and restrictions on nonconsensual intimate images, licensing requirements and disclosure agreements.

New York Democratic state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, who sponsored a law regulating AI transparency, said he’s seen the growing influence of AI companies at the state level.

And that is concerning to him, he said, as states try to take on AI companies for issues ranging from mental health to misinformation and beyond.

“They are hiring former staffers to become public affairs officers. They are hiring lobbyists who know legislators to kind of get in with them. They’re hosting events, you know, by the Capitol, at political conferences, to try to build goodwill,” Gounardes said.​​

“These are the wealthiest, richest, biggest companies in the world,” he said. “And so we have to really not let up our guard for a moment against that type of concentrated power, money and influence.”

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.

A trial over Missouri’s abortion regulations began Monday at the Jackson County Courthouse in Kansas City, Mo. Experts are watching the case, which could impact abortion access across the Midwest and South. (Photo by Kevin Hardy/Stateline)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The outcome of a trial over Missouri’s abortion regulations could ripple far beyond the state, potentially creating new availability for women in the Midwest and South who can’t access abortion close to home.

As a judge weighs the constitutionality of a litany of state restrictions on abortion, the stakes are clear for Missouri women: The decision could hamper access for nearly everyone in the state — or greatly broaden it in ways not seen in decades. That would allow women in a dozen nearby states with abortion bans to travel a shorter distance to access the procedure.

“Opening and reestablishing rights in the state of Missouri would help to alleviate some of the pressure that other states have since so many Southern states have banned abortion,” said Julie Burkhart, the co-owner of Hope Clinic in Granite City, Illinois. “It just seems logical that we would see a shift in migration patterns of patients in the country.”

At her clinic, about a 15-minute drive from downtown St. Louis, Missourians account for about half of all patients, Burkhart said. Though Missouri voters in 2024 enshrined a right to abortion in the state constitution, access has remained highly limited because of restrictive state laws. Only procedural abortions are available on a limited basis across three Planned Parenthood clinics in the state.

Many of those state laws face legal scrutiny this week as a Missouri judge weighs the constitutionality of regulations targeting abortion providers. Those include a 72-hour waiting period between initial appointments and procedures, mandatory pelvic exams for medication abortions and a ban on telemedicine appointments for medication abortions.

Planned Parenthood affiliates in Missouri argue state restrictions are unconstitutional under 2024’s voter-approved constitutional amendment. Over decades, state restrictions have gutted Missouri’s provider networks, limited appointment availability and ultimately forced abortions to a halt in 2022, before a limited number resumed after the 2024 vote.

Experts and advocates are closely monitoring the Missouri case, which is expected to be appealed regardless of the outcome, because of its practical implications on access in the region. While many women now rely on abortion medication, procedural abortion is still crucial for those seeking later-term abortions or who prefer an in-clinic procedure.

But the two-week bench trial in downtown Kansas City also tests lawmakers’ ability to put in place rules so restrictive that they effectively ban abortion — a practice used by anti-abortion lawmakers in other states looking to limit access to the procedure.

“Judges do not operate in a vacuum,” Burkhart said, “ … and we know for a fact that judges look outside the borders of their state for information and for guidance. I do see this as having national importance.”

That’s especially true in other states also litigating abortion access, including Arizona, Michigan and Ohio, said Rebecca Reingold, an associate director at Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law.

While state judges are not bound by the decisions of judges in other states, their deliberations can be informed by court rulings, particularly involving novel legal questions or areas of the law that are evolving.

“There is little doubt that advocates and decision-makers in other states navigating similar legal challenges are closely monitoring the litigation over Missouri’s abortion regulations,” Reingold said.

Restrictions targeting abortion

In the first days of the trial, Planned Parenthood leaders argued that ever-changing state laws and agency regulations have drastically limited access, caused needless red tape and posed privacy risk for their patients.

Dr. Margaret Baum, chief medical officer with St. Louis-based Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, said the Missouri requirements specifically target abortion rather than all other kinds of medical care.

“I provide vasectomies routinely. … And I am not required to have a complication plan, contact a primary care physician, even ask the patient how many miles they live from the health center.”

Opening day of Missouri abortion-rights trial focuses on decades of state restrictions

Baum said state-mandated reporting rules unique to abortion require clinicians to ask the race, education level, marital status and specific location of each patient — none of which is relevant to their care.

Planned Parenthood Great Rivers would like to offer abortion services in Springfield, Baum testified. Access in that region would provide an option for rural Missourians, and also could help serve residents in nearby Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, where abortion is almost universally banned.

But the organization’s facilities there do not meet state abortion regulations for physical attributes, including hallway size, doorway size and the number of recliners in recovery rooms, Baum testified.

Lawyers for the state defended Missouri’s restrictions as commonsense safeguards aimed at protecting vulnerable women. The attorney general’s office argued that complication risks of abortion justify additional state regulation — despite professional medical associations saying it’s generally safe. The AG’s office also maintained that Planned Parenthood faced a conflict of interest because of its financial motivations.

“Abortion is a business,” Deputy Solicitor General Peter Donohue said during a procedural argument on Monday. “Your Honor, the plaintiffs are asking to deregulate their profession in order to make more money.”

The state was expected to call as witnesses anti-abortion doctors and activists later in the trial.

Patients traveling for care

Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that overturned federal constitutional protections for abortion in June 2022, the number of abortions has increased slightly across the country, according to the health research nonprofit KFF.

The group points to expanded telehealth, which can offer medication abortion more affordably through virtual appointments.

Since the 2022 ruling and subsequent state abortion bans, patients have experienced higher travel costs for abortions and delays in care, according to research published in the American Journal of Public Health in July.

Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco found that travel time to access abortion increased from 2.8 hours to 11.3 hours for residents in states with abortion bans. Travel costs increased from $179 to $372. And more than half of survey respondents said their abortion care required an overnight hotel stay, compared with 5% before an abortion ban.

In 2024, an estimated 7,880 Missourians traveled to Illinois and 3,960 traveled to Kansas to access abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organization focused on advancing reproductive rights.

Those Missourians were among the approximate 155,000 people who crossed state lines to access abortion care that year, representing 15% of all abortions provided in states without total bans.

Ongoing uncertainty

Regardless of its outcome, the Missouri case is expected to be appealed. Even if the plaintiffs are ultimately successful, it may take a long time to restore care networks across the state, said Isaac Maddow-Zimet, a data scientist at the Guttmacher Institute.

“And that’s particularly the case when there are states that have a lot of legal uncertainty or restrictions coming into effect and then coming out of effect,” he said. “It’s not quick to open up a clinic. It’s not quick to even necessarily expand the kinds of services, or the kinds of the number of people that a clinic can see.”

Kimya Forouzan, the organization’s principal state policy adviser, said Missouri’s landscape is evidence that lawmakers can drastically curb abortion access without total bans. And despite an overwhelming vote to amend the constitution, legal battles can follow.

Even if the state’s laws are found unconstitutional, Forouzan said, lawmakers will likely still push anti-abortion measures. She noted that several bills have already been introduced in this year’s just-convened legislative session, and that Republican lawmakers are pushing a ballot measure to repeal 2024’s reproductive rights amendment.

“There’s very much a push to pass as many restrictions as possible and kind of see what happens later and how things shape up later. … Time will tell, but we do know that they’re still pushing forth restrictions,” she said.

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org. Missouri Independent reporter Anna Spoerre can be reached at aspoerre@missouriindependent.com.

There are about 11 months until the primary, which is scheduled for August 11. Gubernatorial candidates at a November forum. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

The first campaign finance reports of the year show that Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley is leading the Democratic primary field in fundraising, while U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany is ahead in  the Republican primary field. Tiffany has raised about $2 million, the most of any candidate. The reports cover the period from July 1 to Dec. 31, 2025.

There are about 11 months until the primary, which is scheduled for August 11. 

Crowley leads Democratic field

Crowley, who launched his campaign in September, has raised $800,949, including $789,281 in donations and $11,666 in in-kind contributions. About $138,000 was transferred to his governor’s campaign from his county executive campaign committee account. 

According to his campaign finance report, he spent $187,529 and finished the period with $602,181 cash on hand. Seven contributors gave the maximum $20,000 donation allowed in the governor’s race, including executive of the Milwaukee Bucks Alex Lasry. 

“People across Wisconsin are feeling the financial squeeze, and they want a governor who knows how to get things done,” Crowley said in a statement. He said the support is providing him “the resources to build a serious, statewide operation focused on delivering results for working families.”

Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, who launched her campaign in July becoming the first Democratic candidate in the race, raised $618,284 in donations and $2,034 in in-kind contributions. She spent $174,894 and ended the period with $603,075. 

The Democratic Lt. Governors Association pledged in October to invest $2 million in independent expenditures in 2026 to support Rodriguez’s campaign. She listed a $86,000 contribution from the PAC. 

Former Department of Administration Sec. Joel Brennan, the latest candidate to launch a campaign, reported raising $566,212 in donations and $1,610 in in-kind contributions. He spent $13,873 and reported having $552,339 on hand at the end of the period. 

Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes raised $555,647 since launching his campaign on Dec. 2 from 3,790 donations. He spent $88,265 and ended the period with $471,471. Shortly after launching his campaign, Barnes said his fundraising goal is $50 million over the course of his campaign.

According to his campaign finance report, he received donations of the maximum $20,000 from megadonors George and Alexander Soros. 

Former Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation CEO Missy Hughes reported raising $465,403 and $13,681 in in-kind donations. She spent $63,059 and ended the period with $402,344 on hand. 

State Rep. Francesca Hong (D-Madison), a Democratic socialist, raised $368,685 in donations and $1,188 from in-kind contributions, though she also spent a majority of the funds during the period. According to her report, Hong spent $234,782 during the period and ended it with $134,588 on hand.

Hong’s fundraising came from over 7,300 donors. According to her campaign, the average donation was $49.96 and about 75% of the total dollars raised came from donors in Wisconsin.

State Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) raised $355,455 in donations and $23,132 from in-kind contributions during the period. According to her report, she spent $84,930 and reported having $334,032 on hand.

Roys reported four donations of the maximum $20,000, including from her husband and Peter Gunder, a former executive at American Family Insurance, and his wife. 

In a statement, Roys’ campaign said that about 82% of the donations to her campaign came from Wisconsin residents and that she isn’t accepting corporate donations. 

“Kelda’s campaign is funded by grassroots donors from every corner of the state. With our disciplined financial management and a committed Wisconsin donor base that is growing every day, Kelda will have the resources necessary to win the primary on August 11,” Roys’ campaign manager Jasper Bernstein said in a statement. 

Tiffany leads Schoemann in fundraising

Tiffany, who launched his campaign in September, led the field of GOP candidates, reported over $2 million raised — raising the most of any candidate in the Democratic or Republican field. The Republican primary field is much smaller than the Democratic field with only two candidates.

According to his campaign finance report, Tiffany raised $2,122,489 in donations and also received $3,808 in in-kind contributions. He spent $438,160 and ended the period with $1,695,038 on-hand. 

Tiffany also received $20,000 each from Republican megadonors Diane Hendricks, Dick Uihlein and Liz Uihlein. 

The largest donation Tiffany reported was $86,000 from the Wisconsin Federation of College Republicans. Wisconsin state law allows for unlimited donations from political parties to candidates.The College Republicans, who boasted raising over $1 million, had received $500,000 from the Uihleins.

Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann, who launched his campaign in early May, reported raising nearly $1 million over the course of the year.

During the reporting period from July to December, he brought in $535,650 in donations and $3,649 in in-kind donations. He spent $381,394 during the period and ended it with $492,495 in-hand.

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Multi-colored traditional Greenlandic homes in Nuuk, Greenland, are seen from the water on March 29, 2025. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump threatened Friday to place tariffs on Greenland and any country that opposes his efforts to take over the Arctic island, as members of Congress from both political parties were in Europe to assure allied nations that lawmakers won’t go along with his plans. 

“I may do that for Greenland too. I may put a tariff on countries if they don’t go along with Greenland because we need Greenland for national security,” Trump said. “So I may do that.”

Trump has been increasingly focused on acquiring Greenland during his second term in the Oval Office and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said earlier this month that “utilizing the U.S. Military is always an option at the Commander in Chief’s disposal.”

Lawmakers not on board

Republicans and Democrats in Congress have been skeptical or outright opposed to Trump’s aspirations for Greenland, a territory of Denmark, which is a NATO ally.

Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Maine independent Sen. Angus King, co-chairs of the Senate Arctic Caucus, met with officials from Denmark this week to try to reassure the country’s leaders. 

King wrote in a statement after the meeting that “the Denmark and Greenland coalition reiterated to us that they are fully prepared to cooperate with the United States in any way to expand our national security presence in Greenland – an agreement which goes back 75 years.” 

“It was a very productive meeting and I’m hopeful that the administration will finally realize that taking Greenland over by a military force is almost unthinkable — to attack essentially a NATO ally,” King added. “That would be the greatest gift to (Russian President) Vladimir Putin that this country could possibly bestow.”

Murkowski wrote that the “United States, Denmark and Greenland should be able to count on each other as partners in diplomacy and national security.”

“Respect for the sovereignty of the people of Greenland should be non-negotiable, which is why I was grateful for the opportunity to engage in direct dialogue with Foreign Ministers from Denmark and Greenland,” Murkowski wrote. “Meetings like the one held today are integral to building stronger relationships with our allies that will continue to endure amid a shifting geopolitical landscape.”

House speaker derides ‘media narrative’

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said during a press conference this week that he hasn’t heard any plans for military action in Greenland at any briefings he’s attended and that he believes “this is a media narrative that’s been created.”

Johnson said he doesn’t “anticipate any boots on the ground anywhere anytime soon,” though he added the United States does have national security and critical mineral interests in Greenland. 

“Greenland is of strategic importance, its geography and everything else. So look, again, you have to wait for that to play out. I’m going to leave it to the administration to articulate it how they will,” Johnson said. “But I think what the president is articulating is something that everybody objectively has to acknowledge, that Greenland has strategic significance to us and also to other countries around the world, so we need to play that very seriously.”

A bipartisan congressional delegation was in Denmark on Friday to communicate to leaders of that country and Greenland that they don’t support Trump’s efforts. 

Lawmakers on the trip include Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons, Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, Murkowski, New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, as well as Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean, Maryland Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer, California Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs, Delaware Democratic Rep. Sarah McBride and New York Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks.

Craig Stingley listens during a Milwaukee County court hearing. Stingley spent years fighting for justice after the death of his son Corey. | Taylor Glascock for ProPublica

This story was originally published by ProPublica

A judge in Milwaukee brought a 13-year quest for justice by a grieving father to a close on Thursday, accepting a plea deal for two men charged criminally for their role in the killing of his teenaged son.

Robert W. Beringer and Jesse R. Cole pleaded guilty to felony murder under a deferred prosecution agreement that allows them to avoid jail time yet publicly stand accountable for their actions leading to the 2012 death of Corey Stingley. The men helped restrain the 16-year-old inside a convenience store after an attempted shoplifting incident involving $12 worth of alcohol.

“What happened to Corey Stingley should have never happened. His death was unnecessary, brutal and devastating,” Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne told the judge in a letter filed with the court.

Both of Stingley’s parents spoke directly to the judge in an hourlong hearing in a courtroom filled with family members, community activists, spiritual leaders and some of the teen’s former classmates.

“Corey was my baby. A mother is not supposed to bury her child,” Alicia Stingley told the judge. She spoke of the grace of forgiveness, and after the hearing she hugged Beringer. The Stingleys’ surviving son, Cameron, shook both men’s hands.

The agreement requires Cole and Beringer to make a one-time $500 donation each to a charitable organization of the Stingley family’s choosing in honor of Corey. After six months, if the two men comply with the terms and do not commit any crimes, the prosecution will dismiss the case, according to documents filed with the court.

ProPublica, in a 2023 story, reexamined the incident, the legal presumptions, the background of the men and Stingley’s father’s relentless legal campaign to bring the men into court. The three men previously had defended their actions as justified and necessary to deal with an emergency as they held Stingley while waiting for police to arrive.

Ozanne, who was appointed in 2022 to review the case, recommended the agreement after the two men and the Stingley family engaged in an extensive restorative justice process, in which they sat face to face, under the supervision of a retired judge, and shared their thoughts and feelings. Ozanne said in the letter that the process “appears to have been healing for all involved.”

From the bench, Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Laura Crivello said she found the agreement to be fair and just and commended the work of all the parties to come to a resolution.

“Maybe this is the spark that makes other people see similarities in each other and not differences,” she said. “Maybe this is the spark that makes them think about restorative justice and how do we come together. And maybe this is part of the spark that decreases the violence in our community and leads us to finding the paths to have those circles to sit down and have the dialogue and to have that conversation. So maybe there’s some good that comes out of it.”

Craig Stingley, Corey’s father, said during the hearing that his 13-year struggle “has turned into triumph.”

Earlier, the Stingley family filed a statement with the court affirming its support for the agreement and the restorative justice process.

“We sought not vengeance, but acknowledgement — of Corey’s life, his humanity, and the depth of our loss,” it states. “We believe this agreement honors Corey’s memory and offers a model of how people can come together, even after profound harm, to seek understanding and healing.”

The family remembered Stingley as a “vibrant, loving son, brother, and friend” and found that the restorative dialogues brought “truth, understanding, and a measure of healing that the traditional court process could not.”

Jonathan LaVoy, Cole’s attorney, told reporters after the hearing: “This has been a long 13 years. He’s been under investigation with multiple reviews over that time. I think everyone is just so happy that this day has come, that there’s been some finality to this whole situation.”

In a joint written statement provided to the court, Beringer and Cole said they came to recognize “the profound ripple effects” of the incident and their connection to Stingley’s death. They expressed sorrow that Stingley’s “time on this earth ended far too soon.”

The proceeding followed years of work by Craig Stingley to force the justice system to view his son as a crime victim whose life was unlawfully cut short by Beringer, Cole and another store patron, Mario Laumann, who died in 2022.

Prosecutors at the time declined to charge anyone, saying the men did not intend to kill Corey Stingley when they tackled him and pinned him to the floor of VJ’s Food Mart, in West Allis, Wisconsin. They were detaining him for police after the youth attempted to steal bottles of Smirnoff Ice. In surveillance video, Laumann can be seen holding Stingley in a chokehold while the other two men aided in restraining him. A witness told police Laumann was “squeezing the hell” out of the teenager.

The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office found that Stingley died of a brain injury due to asphyxiation after a “violent struggle with multiple individuals.” It ruled the death a homicide.

Under Wisconsin law, the charge of felony murder is brought in cases in which someone dies during the commission of another alleged crime — in this case false imprisonment.

Ozanne wrote to the court that his analysis found that “there is no doubt Cole, Beringer and Laumann caused Corey Stingley’s death.”

All three men, he wrote, restrained Stingley “intentionally and without his consent” and without legal authority to “arrest” him. “Simply put, Corey, a teenager, was tackled and restrained to the ground by three grown men because they suspected him of shoplifting,” Ozanne wrote. “They killed him while piled on top of his body awaiting the police.”

But he noted that there is no evidence that Beringer or Cole knew that Stingley was in medical distress during the incident. He described their hold on him as “rudimentary detention techniques.”

It was Laumann, Ozanne concluded, who “strangled Corey Stingley to death.” Ozanne wrote that surveillance video shows Laumann’s arm for several minutes across Stingley’s neck “as he fades out of consciousness.”

If Laumann were still alive, Ozanne said in court, prosecutors likely would have been seeking a lengthy prison term for him.

Stingley died the same year as Trayvon Martin, a Black Florida teen shot to death by a neighborhood volunteer watchman, who was acquitted in 2013. Martin’s case drew national attention and led to the formation of the Black Lives Matter movement. But Stingley’s death after being restrained by three white men did not garner widespread notice outside Wisconsin.

Over the years, Craig Stingley unsuccessfully advocated for the men to face charges. Two prosecutors reviewed the case, but nothing came of it.

He then discovered an obscure “John Doe” statute, dating back to Wisconsin’s territorial days, that allows a private citizen to ask a judge to consider whether a crime has been committed and, if so, by whom when a district attorney can’t or won’t do so.

Stingley filed such a petition in late 2020. That led to the appointment of Ozanne as a special prosecutor to review the matter yet again. In 2024, Ozanne informed the Stingley family that his office had found evidence of a crime but that a guilty verdict was not assured for the remaining two men.

That set in motion an effort to achieve healing and accountability through a restorative justice process. Restorative justice programs bring together survivors and offenders for conversations, led by trained facilitators, to work toward understanding and healing and how best to make amends. Last year, Stingley and members of his family met on separate occasions with both Cole and Beringer through the Andrew Center for Restorative Justice, part of the law school at Milwaukee’s Marquette University.

The discussions led to the deferred prosecution agreement.

In an interview, Anthony Neff, a longtime friend of Craig Stingley’s, recalled seeing Corey Stingley in a hospital bed, attached to tubes and a ventilator in his final days. Corey Stingley had been a running back on his high school football team. Everyone in the program showed up for the funeral, Neff said.

“Coaches. The ball boys. The cheerleaders. I mean, they’re all standing in solidarity with Craig and the family,” he said.

In the years since, he and other golfing buddies of Craig Stingley’s have provided emotional support in his quest. Neff called it “a lesson in civics, a master lesson in civics.”

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) told reporters ahead of the session that his caucus was seeking to address affordability with the legislation. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner).

The Wisconsin Assembly — seeking to align state policy with Trump administration initiatives — passed bills Thursday to exempt overtime pay and tips from income tax. Lawmakers also passed bills to make English the official language of the state as well as school related bills.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) told reporters ahead of the session that his caucus was seeking to address affordability with the legislation, though Democratic lawmakers argued the bills would not help address the issue in an effective way.

AB 38 would implement an income tax exemption for cash tips paid to an employee that would sunset in 2028. President Donald Trump signed a law in July to allow workers to deduct up to $25,000 in tips annually from their federal taxable income. Those earning more than $150,000 aren’t eligible for the deduction. 

The Wisconsin bill would apply the same policy when it comes to the state income tax. The deduction would apply to tips whether paid by cash or credit. 

Bill coauthor Rep. Ron Tusler (R-Harrison) said the tips tax cut is for the working and middle class. The bill passed 61-33 with a handful of Democrats joining Republicans. Rep. Lee Snodgrass (D-Appleton) and Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwatosa) abstained from the vote.

“Tips are primarily earned by the working class and the lower middle class and tips should never have been taxed. A tip is a gift, it’s not income,” Tusler said. “Tips are not mandatory; they are a way to say thank you to someone.”

Tusler told reporters that his legislation wasn’t permanent because legislators want to “watch and see how it works out.” 

“I think it would be a great idea for it to become permanent someday. I hope it does,” Tusler said.  

Tusler also called on the Department of Revenue (DOR) to “get to work right away” should the bill become law to ensure it has forms ready. 

“This bill is going to pass, and it’s going to get signed by the governor, but if the Department of Revenue doesn’t get ready for that, they will not have their forms ready for the tip earners come tax time. Those tip earners will wind up paying their taxes for 2025 and then they’ll have to refile their taxes to pay it to get their tip refund back. That’s not something we should be asking working-class and middle-class taxpayers to do.”

Evers told reporters Monday that he is open to looking at Republican proposals to eliminate taxes on overtime and tips but wants to consider more “universal” forms of tax relief. He has proposed property tax relief as well as exempting certain items from the sales tax including diapers and over-the-counter medications. 

Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) tried to introduce an amendment to bring tipped employees, who can make a minimum wage of $2.33, up to the minimum wage of $7.25. He said it would’ve helped raise the standard of living for workers across the state. 

“Restaurant workers, hotel cleaners, bartenders, and too many other Wisconsin workers still rely on the inconsistent generosity of their customers just to survive. This is a terrible system that primarily benefits bosses and corporations – it’s also rife for abuse, leading to frequent unethical and sometimes illegal behavior like forced pooling of tips, assigning of non-tipped work assignments to tipped employees, and outright tip theft by bosses and managers,” Clancy said in a statement. 

His amendment was rejected by Republican lawmakers.

The Assembly also passed AB 461 in a 61-35 vote. It would create an income tax subtraction for certain overtime compensation. Single filers could claim up to $12,500 per year under the subtraction, while joint filers could claim up to $25,000. Unlike the “no tax on tips” bill, this policy change would be permanent.

Bill coauthor Rep. Paul Melotik (R-Grafton) noted that overtime work can be essential to communities and also take a toll on family life. He said the bill would help support the “hard-working people of Wisconsin, who put out extra effort… whether it’s nurses working double shifts, deputies filling in on weekends, line workers staying late to meet production goals or service employees keeping the doors open.  

Bill to make English the official language.

AB 377 would make English Wisconsin’s official language and allow state agencies to use artificial intelligence translation tools instead of providing an interpreter to people during court proceedings.

The bill passed 51-43. Rep. Jessie Rodriguez (R-Oak Creek) voted with Democratic lawmakers against the bill.

Rep. Priscilla Prado (D-Milwaukee), who chairs the Wisconsin Hispanic Legislative Caucus, delivered her opposition to the bill in Spanish — telling lawmakers that after that they could “use Google to translate that.” Prado stood again later to deliver her remarks in English, saying she would help lawmakers out.

“You want to make it legal to use AI as a translator, which might be useful for ordering lunch, but certainly not sufficient for legal hearings, official forms and civil rights — not to mention that this implementation of AI would, quite literally, take jobs away from Wisconsinites who work as translators,” Prado said. “If efficiency were the goal, we would be talking about improving language access, not political symbolism. Wisconsin does not lose its identity because Spanish or another language is spoken. What it does lose is credibility when it ignores a substantial part of its population.” 

Rep. Nate Gustafson (R-Ormo) said he didn’t think the bill was stripping people of their identity, but would instead give people a “tool in the toolbox.” 

“It allows our legal system to move efficiently and forward instead of waiting on, let’s say, a limited pool of resources that aren’t there again,” Gustafson said. “We have declining birth rate. Our absolute workforce  is obviously diminished at this point, but we’re still reliant on people at the end of the day. There is a point where we need to give the people who are doing these jobs the tools to be more efficient.”

Bill coauthor Rep. Dave Murphy (R-Hortonville), speaking after Prado, said the speech represented a failure to communicate as most people in the Assembly did not understand what she said.

“One of the important things about having an official language for society is language draws people together, and I think it’s really important to give a society cohesiveness with people that speak the same language. Now, that doesn’t mean that this bill in some way makes it illegal, or you know, somehow, impeaches your ability to to speak another language, however  I think we are making a mistake here that if you speak English in the society — it’s a huge advantage to you.” 

School revenue and lunches

AB 457, coauthored by Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie) and Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield), would require Wisconsin school districts’ financial reports to the Department of Public Instruction on time before they are able to go to referendum. It passed 52-44 with Republicans for and Democrats against. 

The bill was introduced in response to Milwaukee Public Schools’ financial scandal where the district was months late in submitting financial documents to the state. The news was unveiled just weeks after voters had approved a historic referendum for the state’s largest school district.

Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) said that the bill was a “distraction” from other issues that school districts and property taxpayers are facing. 

Wisconsin taxpayers’ December bills included the highest increase since 2018. The increase followed  a controversial line item veto by Gov. Tony Evers , which extended a one-time increases to school revenue limits for the next 400 years. State  lawmakers did not provide additional state aid to schools, pushing many districts to use their additional taxing authority and others to go to referendum to ask local residents to raise their own taxes.

“The Department of Public Instruction is already working through any financial issues that they need to work through with the Milwaukee Public Schools,” Phelps said. “Educators and property taxpayers just are not buying the Republican spin. They can see the impact of what this building has done on the services in our public schools and their property tax bills, so it is frankly a waste of taxpayer-funded time for us to debate this silly bill that isn’t going anywhere.” 

Referencing the acronym for the school district, Nedweski called her bill the MPS bill — saying it  stood for “maximizing public scrutiny.” Nedweski said her bill is “straightforward” and would ensure that school districts are transparent before seeking to raise property taxes. 

“Public trust was shattered,” Nedweski said of the Milwaukee schools financial reporting failure. She also asked whether the outcome of the Milwaukee referendum would have been different if voters had known about the absent financial reports. 

“As property taxes continue to rise thanks to that 400-year Democrat property tax increase, it’s imperative that voters have complete information about the financial outlook of their school district before voting to further raise their own taxes,” Nedweski said. “This bill does not ask school districts to do anything new. It is not one new hoop they have to jump through… They are already supposed to be completing and submitting their financial information on time in accordance with state law.” 

AB 226 would prohibit Wisconsin public schools, independent charter schools, and private schools participating in a parental choice program serving meals that contain certain ingredients. Some of the food additives that would be prohibited include brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propylparaben, azodicarbonamide and red dye No. 3, which can be found in candy, fruit juices and cookies.

The bill is another instance of GOP lawmakers seeking to align state policies with Trump administration efforts. The exclusion of the additives is meant to target “ultra processed foods,” which were one of the top concerns outlined by Health Sec. Robert F. Kennedy and a report the Trump administration commissioned. 

It passed 53-43. A handful of Democrats, including Reps. Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay), Jill Billings (D-La Crosse), Brienne Brown (D-Whitewater) and Renuka Mayadev (D-Madison), voted for the bill, while a handful of Republicans voted against the bill including Reps. Lindee Brill (R-Sheboygan Falls), Joy Goeben (R-Hobart) and Chuck Wichgers (R-Muskego).

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The price of making phone calls from prisons and jails was set to drop under a 2024 FCC rule, but a 2025 rule revision is driving costs back up | Getty Images

For many, the recent holiday season was a time to connect with family. For some, family includes someone incarcerated in one of Wisconsin’s prisons or jails. 

Juli Bliefnick told the Wisconsin Examiner she was incarcerated in county jail and state prison from January 2012 to June 2016. She said that many people would save up precious telephone time to call their families for the holidays. 

“People that came from more disadvantaged backgrounds would not call their families as often,” Bliefnick said.

She remembers the cost of calls putting strain on her relationship with her parents while she was incarcerated. 

While incarcerated, Ventae Parrow said he had to choose whether to spend his money on additional food items and hygiene, or on talking with family on the phone. Parrow left prison in 2020 and is an organizer for the advocacy network WISDOM. He told the Examiner that how often he talked to his family depended on how much money he had.

Nationally, jail and prison phone call rates have declined over the years, according to a report covering 2008-2021 from the Prison Policy Initiative. And in 2024, the Federal Communications Commission voted for new rules to lower how much calls could cost.

The agency announced that for the overwhelming majority of people, the upper limit on the per-minute cost of calls would drop by over half. New per-minute caps ranged from 6 cents per minute for prisons to 12 cents per minute for very small jails.

However, the agency postponed aspects of the new rules in June, including the 2024 caps, until April 2027. Then the FCC voted in the fall of last year to partially roll back the 2024 change with new caps. The commission voted to increase the caps on the cost of a minute on the phone partway back to the caps that preceded the 2024 rules. The new caps range from 11 cents per minute for prisons to 19 cents per minute for extremely small jails. The FCC called them interim caps, and said it was seeking comment on how to establish permanent caps.

The FCC decision includes a ban on site commissions — payments from service providers to correctional facilities that the Prison Policy Initiative said had had the effect of inflating the final costs families paid. The ban will take effect on April 6. Wanda Bertram of the Prison Policy Initiative said that sheriffs’ desire for commissions “was an important factor in driving up phone rates in the past, but it’s hard to say how that is going to change the setting of rates going forward with the new rules,” and that companies may or may not choose to jack rates up to the maximum now allowed by the FCC.

Worth Rises, a group advocating for lower rates, said the 2025 revised caps will deliver substantially less financial relief to families affected by incarceration. They will take effect April 6 barring further action.

In northeastern Wisconsin, people incarcerated in the Brown County Jail currently pay a per-minute rate of 15 cents for phone calls, Captain Heidi Michel told the Examiner. They receive two free phone calls and two free messages per week.

Michel said the jail’s average daily population for 2025 was 661 people, which meets the FCC’s definition of a medium-sized jail. The 2025 caps will require jails of this size to have rates of 12 cents per minute or less. Under the 2024 rules, medium-sized jails would have to abide by a lower rate — 7 cents per minute or less — and therefore charge incarcerated people and their families less money.

The 2025 caps also allow for people to be charged higher rates for video calls than the 2024 rules. Michel said people incarcerated in the Brown County Jail can have video visitation for 18 cents per minute. A medium-sized jail can have this rate under the 2025 caps for video calls. However, the 2024 caps would have required a rate of 12 cents per minute or less.

Michel didn’t immediately respond to a question from the Examiner on Friday about whether the county currently receives a portion of the revenue from the phone calls that incarcerated people in their jail and their families make.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said rules the commission adopted in 2024 resulted in “serious, unintended consequences.” He said that limiting how facilities could recover safety and security costs through phone call charges caused some correctional facilities to scale back or even stop offering calling services.

The Baxter County Sheriff’s Office in Arkansas announced that the phone system used at the Baxter County Detention Counter would soon no longer be available due to the regulations. Two companies claimed to the FCC in April that its 2024 order was forcing correctional facilities to end or reduce access to services, and that the two companies were forced to end service to a few facilities.

Commissioner Anna Gomez, who dissented in the rollback of the 2024 rule change, said the commission took “narrow and speculative” concerns and granted a waiver of the entire 2024 decision. She also raised the idea that the commission could have considered an individual waiver of the 2024 caps for facilities that showed that having less revenue led to communication services being unavailable.

Gomez called the FCC’s order indefensible, saying it would implement “an egregious transfer of wealth from families in incredibly vulnerable situations to monopoly companies that seek to squeeze every penny out of them.”

Wanda Bertram of the Prison Policy Initiative told the Examiner that according to the FCC, the caps were calculated to offset the cost of companies offering certain features to jails and prisons, such as call monitoring. In an interview, Bertram argued that call monitoring technology should not be funded by fees charged to incarcerated people and their families. 

Call costs for Wisconsin jails and prisons

The cost of a phone call varies across facilities. In the Eau Claire County Jail in western Wisconsin, incarcerated people pay 9 cents per minute on the phone and receive two free phone calls a week, Security Services Captain Chad Dachel told the Examiner. For the Polk County Jail, the rate is $0.19 per minute, and incarcerated people are allowed two free calls per week, according to Sheriff Brent Waak.

As of late 2021, the average cost of a 15-minute call from a local jail in Wisconsin was $3.00, according to a Prison Policy Initiative report.

In a statement to the Examiner, Mark Rice of WISDOM called for making prison and jail phone calls free for all. The effects of this would include reducing the financial challenge for families and improving the mental wellbeing of affected people, he wrote. The Prison Policy Initiative has argued that family contact also reduces recidivism.

In November, lawmakers and organizers announced a package of bills aimed at improving conditions in prisons and jails, including the affordability of communication, the Examiner reported.

ICSolutions, telephone service provider for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC), charges 6 cents per minute for calls at the department’s adult facilities, DOC communications director Beth Hardtke told the Examiner, as of late December. ICSolutions charges 1 cent per minute for calls made at juvenile facilities and continues to charge $2.50 for a 25-minute video visit or $5 for a 50-minute visit, according to Hardtke.  According to reporting from the Examiner in 2024, a family member of a man incarcerated at Fox Lake Correctional Institution said people receive two free calls every Sunday. Three free weekly messages are provided, according to the department’s website.

People incarcerated in jails and their families have tended to experience higher phone rates than those in prison, according to the Prison Policy Initiative report covering 2008-2021. Under the caps the FCC passed in 2024, the DOC’s 6-cent rate would still have been allowed; that’s a 15-minute rate of 90 cents In 2021, the average 15-minute rate for a jail phone call was roughly $3.

However, ICSolutions is required to pay the department a commission of 4 cents per minute for all calls at adult institutions. The FCC decision includes a ban on site commissions, which critics say inflate call costs. The ban will take effect on April 6. 

Will the commission ban affect state prisons?

Under state law, two-thirds of the phone commission from the contract must go to the Department of Administration, according to Hardtke. One-third goes to DOC and must be spent on services that “directly benefit” incarcerated people.

In September 2024, Hardtke told the Examiner that ICSolutions paid nearly $6.3 million in commission in fiscal year 2024. The Department of Corrections’ share was nearly $2.1 million. 

Hardtke said that “the commissions received allow DOC to purchase the following in support of the persons in our care,” and provided a list of items ranging from mail processing services to re-entry portfolios to art supplies. 

It’s unclear whether the FCC’s commission ban will affect prisoners’ ability to access items and services currently funded by  the commission money, or if other funding will sustain those items and services. However, $2.1 million is a tiny fraction of the Department of Corrections budget, and the commission money may not account for all of the funding supporting each item or service Hardtke listed. Hardtke said the Department of Corrections is continuing to evaluate how to best continue services to the Wisconsin prison population.

Bertram of the Prison Policy Initiative said that charging people higher phone rates shouldn’t be the source of money for things like free video calls that benefit incarcerated people.

The decision leaves some room for authorities to receive money from phone calls. Within the new FCC caps, a portion of up to 2 cents per minute exists “to account for the costs correctional facilities incur in allowing access to (communication services).” 

Bertram told the Examiner that an example of this would be time spent by a correctional officer to escort people to a phone bay. The FCC said this was an interim measure while it sought comment for a permanent version. 

Hardtke’s full list of items that receive funding from the commission was: “mail processing services, driver education simulation equipment, recreation equipment, exercise equipment, library resources, TVs, cable TV, art supplies, re-entry portfolios, puzzles, yarn, activity books, CD/DVD players, movies, dayroom microwaves, incentive prizes, visiting room toys/activities, media credits, dayroom newspapers, magazine subscriptions, modern technology improvements and services, bus tickets for release, dayroom ice machines, personal laundry washing machines and repairs, barber services, religious and chapel supplies and services, legal loans, lanyards, burial/cremation for unclaimed bodies, dayroom game tables, dayroom board and card games, graduation ceremonies expenses, and more.”

Before the rollback in October, the FCC postponed its rate cap rules in June. In a November interview, Bertram said she’d already heard from families about the cost of connection going up in the wake of the loss of the 2024 caps. 

“This is going to come as a shock to a lot of families who had gotten a lot of relief from the 2024 rules,” Bertram said. 

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The LFB projection is about $1.53 billion above the projected balance when the 2025-27 biennial budget was enacted last year. Wisconsin State Capitol. (Examiner file photo)

According to a Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) analysis released on Thursday, Wisconsin’s general fund balance at the end of the biennium, June 30, 2027, is projected to be $2.37 billion. The projection is about $1.53 billion above the projected balance when the 2025-27 biennial budget was enacted last year.

According to the LFB, the majority of the growth, $1.367 billion, is due to an increase in estimated tax collections. Other contributions to the growth include $104 million in departmental revenues, an increase of $49.9 million in sum sufficient appropriations and an increase of $107.8 million in the amounts that are estimated to lapse to the general fund.

Both Republicans and Democrats sought to take credit for the news.

Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) and Sen. Howard Marklein (R- Spring Green) said in a statement that Republicans’ “long-standing commitment to responsible budgeting and fiscal discipline is working.” 

The lawmakers warned that the state should continue to exercise caution. 

“These increased revenue estimates are driven in part by strong stock market performance and resulting tax collections,” the lawmakers said. “We must be careful when committing to ongoing spending using one-time money. Our disciplined approach has delivered results and put Wisconsin in a strong fiscal position.”

Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) said that the numbers are “a tribute to Wisconsin Democrats, who have prioritized investments in the people of Wisconsin that have improved our state’s economy, provided middle class tax relief and helped make Wisconsin a state where businesses want to invest and families want to live.”

Gov. Tony Evers told reporters that the revenues were larger than expected on Monday and he wanted to use the funds for priorities including over $1 billion in property tax relief. Republican lawmakers have said that they want Evers’ 400-year veto, which gave school districts the ability to enact annual revenue limit increases, repealed in order to deal with rising tax cuts.

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Federal Bureau of Prisons officers on the scene where a federal immigration agent shot a man Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in north Minneapolis. (Photo by Max Nesterak/Minnesota Reformer)

A federal immigration agent shot a man Wednesday evening after a scuffle in north Minneapolis, drawing a crowd of protesters blowing whistles and engaging in minor skirmishes with law enforcement who deployed chemical irritants. 

The shooting comes one week after the killing of Renee Good by federal immigration officer Jonathan Ross in south Minneapolis touched off a wave of protests. 

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the man who was shot is an undocumented Venezuelan national who was pulled over in a “targeted traffic stop” but ran away. When the officer caught up to him, they got into a fight, after which two bystanders also attacked the officer, according to DHS. 

The weapons used on the federal officer: “a shovel or broom stick,” according to DHS.

“Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life. The initial subject was hit in the leg,” DHS said. 

Their account couldn’t be confirmed. 

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said in the briefing Wednesday night that at 6:51 p.m., MPD received 911 calls about the shooting. 

The incident began on I-94, O’Hara said, where federal agents were trying to apprehend a man. The man drove towards a house on the 600 block of 24th Avenue North in north Minneapolis, where he crashed the car, ran towards a house and got into a struggle with federal agents when a federal agent shot him. 

The man went into the house and refused to come out; eventually, federal agents entered the house. The man was transported to the hospital. His injuries are not life threatening, O’Hara said. He said he heard there was a snow shovel and a broom on the scene. 

Two videos add details to what happened before and after.

One video, a livestream of a 911 call, suggests that the agent shot at the man as he was trying to escape into the house, which would contradict the Department of Homeland Security account that the federal immigration agent fired a shot defensively. 

Another video, taken by a north Minneapolis resident from across the street and shared with the Reformer, shows federal agents firing numerous times into the house, breaking a second-floor window. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in an email to the Reformer that the agents had fired tear gas, not live rounds.

In the immediate aftermath of the killing of Renee Good, the Trump administration said she was attempting to run over the ICE officer and kill him. But bystander footage shows a chaotic scene with the officer to the side of her car when he shoots her as she seemingly tries to leave.

The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the state agency that investigates law enforcement shootings, was on the scene Wednesday along with FBI agents to process evidence.

It’s unclear if state authorities will be allowed to continue investigating the shooting. The U.S. Department of Justice blocked the BCA from participating in the investigation into the fatal shooting of Good, leading local prosecutors to open their own probe. 

 

Scores of demonstrators showed up to the scene, shouting expletives at federal agents and telling them to get out of Minneapolis. Federal agents deployed tear gas and flash bangs, while some protesters shot fireworks at law enforcement. At least two people were detained by federal agents after someone threw fireworks at the agents. At least two vehicles believed to be used by federal officers were vandalized. 

O’Hara said the crowd had crossed the line into an unlawful assembly and State Patrol and Hennepin County sheriff’s deputies responded to requests for help with crowd control. 

Mayor Jacob Frey renewed his call for residents to remain peaceful and not “take the bait.” 

“Go home,” Frey said. “We cannot counter Donald Trump’s chaos with our own brand of chaos.”

By 11:30, law enforcement and demonstrators had mostly left the scene, though some remained.

Frey also renewed his call for DHS to end its aggressive operation in the city, which the agency calls its largest operation ever. Minnesota along with the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul filed a lawsuit seeking to force DHS to end its operation, calling it a “federal invasion.” 

The roughly 3,000 federal agents in the state far outnumber Minneapolis’ roughly 600 police officers, who are struggling to respond to 911 calls and investigate crimes on top of near round-the-clock confrontations between federal agents and residents. 

“This is not sustainable. This is an impossible situation that our city is presently being put in,” Frey said. 

Shawn Jackson was parked nearby the scene with his kids in the car. A law enforcement agency — unclear which one — set off flash bangs that detonated the airbags in his car. Officers then sprayed tear gas. The Minneapolis Fire Department took the children — including a baby suffering breathing problems, Jackson’s mother said — to the hospital. 

“They out of control,” Jackson said. 

Patricia Abrams was driving past with her sister when they saw the commotion and stopped. 

She told the Reformer that the ICE incursion into Minnesota is illegal and should end.

“The public should know to get these motherf*cking ICE people outta here. They over here illegally trying to lock immigrants up. B*tch, y’all over here illegally — excuse my French — y’all here illegally trying to lock people up.” 

She added: “D’f*ck’s wrong with you?” 

Local and state politicians were also on the scene: Rep. Mohamud Noor, DFL-Minneapolis, and Minneapolis council members including Elliott Payne, Jason Chavez, Aisha Chughtai and Jamal Osman. 

The shooting happened just moments before Gov. Tim Walz made a statewide address encouraging Minnesotans to record federal immigration actions, promising that “accountability is coming” for abuses by federal officers.

Department of Homeland Security police clash with protesters at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility south of downtown Portland, Ore. President Donald Trump continues to threaten federal funding both to “sanctuary cities” such as Portland and the states where they’re located. (Photo by Alex Baumhardt/Oregon Capital Chronicle)

President Donald Trump’s threat this week to stop federal funding to both so-called “sanctuary” cities and the states where they’re located was greeted with disbelief by many states and cities since the administration has fared poorly on that issue in court. 

“We will go to court within seconds, and we will win if he does this. It’s already proven unlawful. We’ve already won multiple times,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta told ABC News7 in San Francisco on Wednesday. 

“Those are funds that belong to the people of Chicago, not the President,” Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson said in a statement. There were similar reactions in Massachusetts and New York City.

Trump, speaking Tuesday to the Detroit Economic Club, said he would cut off “any payments” starting Feb. 1 “to sanctuary cities or states having sanctuary cities, because they do everything possible to protect criminals at the expense of American citizens.” 

Trump was responding to those communities with policies against helping U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrest people suspected of living illegally in the United States. States and cities reacting thus far have said it would be illegal for the Trump administration to withhold all federal funding, noting that judges have made that clear in recent rulings. 

Cities and states with so-called sanctuary policies generally refuse to assist with immigration raids and refuse some requests for local jails to hold prisoners for deportation, depending on the crimes involved.

There’s no universal definition of a “sanctuary city,” but the U.S. Department of Justice published a list in August that includes 12 states, the District of Columbia, four counties and 18 cities. States either listed as sanctuary by themselves or as including one of the cities were: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. 

The Trump administration is attempting to force more cooperation with immigration arrests. But it suffered a serious court reversal last July, when a federal judge dismissed a federal sanctuary policies case against Illinois, Chicago and surrounding Cook County.

The state and local policies reflect a “decision to not participate in enforcing civil immigration law — a decision protected by the Tenth Amendment,” U.S. District Judge Lindsay Jenkins wrote. That order is now under appeal.

A California judge also issued a preliminary injunction in August stopping the Trump administration from cutting unrelated funding over sanctuary policies. The injunction covers 50 areas in 14 states. That case is also now on hold pending an appeal by the Trump administration. 

In that case, U.S. District Judge William Orrick ruled that the Trump orders to stop funding over immigration policy were “coercive” and “intended to commandeer local officials into enforcing federal immigration practices and law.”

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

President Donald Trump addresses the Detroit Economic Club at the MotorCity Casino on Jan. 13, 2025. (Photo by Ben Solis/Michigan Advance)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump outlined his health care proposals to Congress on Thursday, asking lawmakers to approve several broad policy changes “without delay” — but left out any mention of enhanced tax credits whose expiration has left some Americans with skyrocketing costs. 

Health care costs, especially the rising price of health insurance, have become a frequent talking point for politicians from both political parties following last year’s government shutdown, when Democrats repeatedly called on Republicans to extend the now-expired enhanced tax credits for Affordable Care Act marketplace plans. 

Trump reiterated in a five-minute video that he wants Congress to give Americans money directly so they can use it to offset the cost of health insurance or health care, a proposal that has so far been unable to get the traction needed to advance on Capitol Hill. 

Trump didn’t detail any income caps on the direct payments, which would likely be sent to Health Savings Accounts as opposed to a simple check. He also didn’t say how much per month or annually he wants lawmakers to provide Americans, leaving it for members of Congress to hash out. 

“The government is going to pay the money directly to you. It goes to you, and then you take the money and buy your own health care,” Trump said. “Nobody has ever heard of that before, and that’s the way it is. The big insurance companies lose and the people of our country win.”

The enhanced ACA marketplace tax credits, first implemented by Democrats during the coronavirus pandemic, expired at the end of 2025. The subsidies helped to keep premiums lower than they would have otherwise been for about 22 million Americans on those health insurance plans. 

The House voted earlier this month to keep the enhanced tax credits going for another three years, but the bill has stalled in the Senate as a bipartisan group of lawmakers tries to reach consensus on two more years of the subsidies with significant changes. 

Lower drug prices

Trump said in the video that Congress should approve legislation that requires prescription drug companies to ensure Americans pay the lowest price in the world for pharmaceuticals, a policy known as “most favored nation” that he has pursued during his second term. 

“So instead of Americans paying the highest drug prices in the world, which we have for decades, we will now be paying the lowest cost paid by any other nation,” he said. “So any other nation that’s paying the lowest cost, that’s what we’re going to pay. And the American people will get the savings.”

Trump said the legislative request, which he dubbed “The Great Health Care Plan,” would require health insurance companies and health care providers to publicly share easy-to-understand information about what they charge and how much they make in profit.  

“As the saying goes, sunlight is the best disinfectant. That is why my plan orders all insurance companies to publish rate and coverage comparisons in very plain English,” Trump said. “It requires insurers to publish detailed information about how much of your money they’re going to be paying out in claims versus how much they’re taking in in profits.” 

Health insurance companies, he said, would be required to detail how many claims they deny and whether those refusals to pay for health care were overturned on appeal. 

“And most importantly, it will require any hospital or insurer who accepts Medicare or Medicaid to prominently post all prices at their place of business so that you are never surprised and you can easily shop for a better deal or better care,” Trump said, though a 2019 rule created a similar requirement. “We will have maximum price transparency and costs will come down incredibly.”

Path through Congress

A one-page outline of the proposal posted to the White House website doesn’t detail whether Trump wants Congress to approve the policy requests through the complex budget reconciliation process that Republicans used to approve the “big, beautiful” law this summer or to negotiate a bipartisan bill with Democrats. 

A White House official, speaking on background on a call with reporters to detail the plan and the next steps, said the administration believes the “proposals all have broad support from the American people.”

“We expect both Republicans and Democrats to be able to embrace them, so reconciliation would not be necessary,” the official said.

The framework is intended to provide “broad direction” to lawmakers, leaving negotiators the ability to take any bill they may write in different directions, the official said, adding the administration is “open to working” with Congress on the details. 

“We want to make progress,” the official said. “We’re not laying out a specific path.”

The official said the president leaving out any mention of the expired enhanced tax credits for people who purchase their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act marketplace was not intended to cut off ongoing bipartisan talks in the Senate. 

“This does not specifically address those bipartisan congressional negotiations that are going on,” the official said. “It does say that we have a preference that money goes to people, as opposed to insurance companies.”

Engaging drugmakers

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said on the same call with reporters that the framework focused on “four pillars” the administration believes must be codified into law — solidifying most favored nation drug pricing, lowering health insurance costs, transparency from health insurance companies and more pricing information from health care providers. 

“Although we’re taking major action at CMS, including fines and the like, having Congress say, ‘This is how it’s going to be, this is a law of the land’ is important,” Oz said, adding that he really does believe there can be bipartisan support for at least some of the proposals. 

Oz said the administration’s approach to bring down the cost of prescription drugs to the lowest level offered anywhere in the world is not intended to impede innovation and reiterated that lawmaking is crucial for longer-term stability. 

“We believe by codifying it, we’ll make sure that the drug companies stay engaged for future administrations,” Oz said. “We also believe that by doing it correctly, we’ll not overreach and create challenges to life-saving drugs being continually evolved and developed in the United States.”

The Trump administration, he said, wants Congress to give the Food and Drug Administration more leeway to convert prescription medications to over-the-counter availability, possibly increasing competition and decreasing prices. 

Oz said the price transparency portion of the request would help Americans to have more information about how long it takes to get routine appointments and whether health insurance companies are able to keep their rates down by frequently denying claims.

An aerial view of residential housing under construction at a planned community in Fontana, California, on Sept. 17, 2025. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats began detailing their affordability agenda Thursday ahead of the November midterm elections, starting with a focus on housing. 

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said during an event at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, that if Democrats regain control of the House and Senate they would pass legislation to expand rental assistance, reduce barriers to home ownership, build more housing and address predatory practices. 

Schumer listed several statistics he finds concerning, including that the median price of a home has gone up by 55% since the coronavirus pandemic, that rent has risen by one-third and that the average age for a first-time home buyer is 40. 

“That’s a record high,” he said. “That’s a devastating statistic that should shake up everyone in a position of power at the federal, state or local levels.”

Schumer said the outline for housing is just the first of several cost-of-living policy proposals Democrats will detail this year as they seek to sway voters in key districts and states to vote for their candidates over Republicans.

Democrats, he said, will also focus on how to curb the rising cost of groceries, electricity, child care and health care as part of the midterms messaging. 

On housing, Schumer said Democrats will focus on legislation that would 

• incentivize construction companies to build more housing to address shortages throughout the country;
• expand rental assistance, including Section 8 vouchers for low-income families;
• reduce barriers to home ownership;
• expand the low-income housing tax credit;
• allow the Department of Housing and Urban Development to use the Defense Production Act to purchase “housing materials in short supply”;
• create an agency focused on advanced research into housing issues, similar to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; and
• block “predatory companies” from being “allowed to gobble up entire neighborhoods so easily and turn them into profit machines.”

Democratic bills would provide down payment assistance, lower the cost of mortgage insurance, expand access to portable mortgages and “reform homeowners insurance which is now at a crisis level and so important for people who can’t afford that down payment,” Schumer said.  

Democrats have relatively good odds of winning back control of the House during the November midterm elections, especially since the president’s party tends to lose that chamber two years after taking power. 

Campaigns to regain control of the Senate will be much more difficult for Democrats, who face challenges keeping seats in Georgia and Michigan, while trying to flip Republican seats in Alaska, Maine, North Carolina and Ohio. 

Even if voters were to give Democrats control of Congress, leaders in the party would still need some Republican buy-in to move legislation past the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster and need President Donald Trump to sign legislation into law, unless they had the two-thirds needed in each chamber to override a veto. 

A ‘family conversation’

Hawaii Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz said during a panel discussion with Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth that was moderated by CAP President and CEO Neera Tanden that he’s been “radicalized on housing” and pressed for members of the party to talk realistically about issues with supply and affordability. 

“And the reason is that our shortage nationwide, but especially in Hawaii, is so acute that people can’t make the math work anymore,” Schatz said. “In Hawaii, people are paying more than 50%, all-in, of their income for housing, either rental housing or paying a mortgage. And what I have come to realize is that we are the problem.”

Schatz argued that the government “is the primary impediment to alleviating the shortage” and said that realization has led him to have some “very difficult conversations.” 

In Hawaii, he said, there are environmental and cultural protections intended to safeguard “special places” but that have ended up applied more broadly, impeding housing development. 

“They were not originally conceived to prevent a walk-up apartment building on the corner of Eisenberg and King to house Native Hawaiian families,” Schatz said. “And yet those same laws are being weaponized against people in Hawaii even being able to live in the state of Hawaii.”

Schatz said Democrats must be honest with voters about what their housing policies would mean for communities throughout the country, contending the party needs to “solve the politics” around expanded housing before it can tackle the policy debate. 

“I actually think we have to have this family conversation around the politics of housing and realize that some of our base voters in the suburbs, who are otherwise good all the way down the line on all the progressive issues, also want to prevent a nurse or a firefighter or the disabled or the elderly or the student from living anywhere near them,” Schatz said. “And we have to have that conversation in the progressive coalition.”

Rethinking inspections, other processes

Duckworth said some solutions to housing could come through rethinking the processes in place now, similar to how the Department of Veterans Affairs changed its approach to homeless veterans. 

“VA used to say, ‘You have to get clean and sober, and then we’ll give you a voucher to get into an apartment.’ And so it made no sense, right?” Duckworth said. 

“So we had to change the thinking to what the homelessness community had been working on, which is reduction of harm — get them into the housing and then work on getting them clean and sober,” she continued. “And by changing that thought, we were able to immediately start pulling veterans off the streets, put them into housing units where they immediately were also getting counseling, getting treatment.”

Duckworth compared the sometimes slow process of housing inspections that can stop construction with the way the government approaches vehicle safety as one possible way to get things moving faster. 

“With automobiles, we say, ‘This car that you’re manufacturing must be able to withstand a crash at 35 miles an hour into a brick wall.’ And then when they meet and get that car approved, when we go buy that car, we don’t have to take that car to get it inspected from top to bottom, like we do with homes,” Duckworth said. 

She added: “So why would we not say to homebuilders, especially (prefabricated) homes, if you come to VA and you are willing to get two models of your home, pre-inspected, pre-approved, then when a veteran builds a new home and they say, ‘Hey, I’m going to choose one of these models that already has a VA good housekeeping seal of approval,’ they can shortcut that inspection process.”

Flags of the 11 Native American tribes of Wisconsin in the Wisconsin State Capitol. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

“How sad that indigenous people have to prove they are not illegal immigrants,” wrote Cindy Smith in response to a Facebook posting by the Lac Courte Oreilles (LCO) Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians.

On Jan. 10, the LCO Tribal Governing Board issued an immediate release that it was “closely monitoring recent events that took place in Minneapolis, and around the country involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agents.”

Just a few days before, on Wednesday, Jan. 7, a 37-year-old woman, Renee Good, was shot and killed in her vehicle by an ICE agent in South Minneapolis.

Over 1,000 ICE agents were in the Twin Cities area as a major campaign that has received national attention to detain and arrest those who had reportedly violated federal immigration laws. The agents not only tracked down those without legal status to reside in the U.S., but also questioned and detained others because of their appearance, such as skin color and accent, whether or not they were legal residents or citizens. Caught up in the crackdown were at least five Native Americans who were detained, including four Oglala Sioux from South Dakota and one from the Red Lake reservation in Minnesota.

Jose Roberto “Beto” Ramirez, a Red Lake descendant, told a reporter for ICT that he was trailed by an SUV and  when he parked in a grocery store parking lot, he was dragged out of his vehicle without explanation and detained for several hours. Ramirez said he felt like he had been “kidnapped”. He  was subsequently released without any charges.

News reports from the Twin Cities have stated that Native Americans, who are fully U.S. citizens, had been approached by ICE agents regarding their immigration/citizenship status.

In response to Native Americans being stopped by ICE, several Wisconsin tribes issued statements voicing concern over the stops and also offering advice to their members.

“We humbly offer our sincere condolences to all those affected by these incidents,” reads the Lac Courte Oreilles release, which assured members that the Tribal Governing Board “is actively working to ensure our tribe and members are as safe as possible and is reviewing policies to implement access restrictions in areas that are non-public, employee-only, and restricted to ensure our facilities are entitled to every legal protection possible.

“In these unprecedented and uncertain times, it is essential that we remain vigilant and protect one another. We encourage everyone to stand together in solidarity to support each other spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically. The safety and well-being of all tribal members continues to be our highest priority. We will do everything in our power to protect our members, reservation, government buildings, and enterprises.”

Jon Greendeer, president of the Ho-Chunk Nation posted Wednesday, Jan. 14, “My office and social media feeds have been buzzing with concerned tribal members following the recent shooting of an American Citizen by an armed ICE official. Now with the news of alleged door-to-door campaigns, the threat literally hits home.”

Also on Jan. 14, the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians posted the following: “The Tribe wants to be clear: we do not support or cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Our priority is the safety, dignity, and protection of our tribal members. We are deeply concerned by reports coming out of Minnesota involving the detention of tribal members, as well as ICE actively being reported in areas near our community. As indigenous people to this land, our identity should never be questioned, challenged, or used as a reason for detention.”

On Jan. 12, the St. Croix Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians issued a statement on “opposing ICE and affirming tribal sovereignty,” which said, in part, that tribal leaders “strongly oppose the actions and presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) including the targeting of community members, the detention and separation of families, and the ongoing disregard of human rights.”

On Jan. 10, the Stockbridge-Munsee Community alerted members on Facebook that Native Americans “are being caught up in raids and detained.”

Like several of the tribal posts, the Stockbridge-Munsee tribe encourages its members to be prepared for being “stopped, detained and questioned regarding your citizenship.”

Even though tribal members are U.S. citizens, Wisconsin tribal members are being encouraged to carry their tribal, state and federal IDs and even birth certificates.

On Jan. 14, the LCO tribe said it would be issuing ID cards for enrolled members who live off the reservation in the Twin Cities at the Minneapolis American Indian Center Rotunda, and like other tribes, LCO noted that fees are being waived for the ID cards.

On Jan. 11, the Oneida Nation offered detailed guidance if members encountered ICE agents:

1. “Stay calm and ask for identification.”
2. “Always carry your Oneida ID.”
3. “If detained, say ‘I want to speak with an attorney.’”
4. “Report encounters to Oneida Police Department.”
5. “At home, keep the door closed and request a judicial warrant.”

Several tribes are notifying members that if the ICE agents do not have a warrant signed by a judge, the agents do not have permission to enter their home without consent.

ICE agents have been observed approaching homes and businesses with administrative warrants issued by ICE, which lack the legal weight of a judicial warrant.

Some of the tribes are advising members if ICE comes to their doors without  a judicial warrant to not only not open their doors, but also report the presence of the ICE agents to tribal police.

The Ho-Chunk Nation said it will provide its members with door signs for law enforcement that “alert” officers of the “state, tribal and federal citizenship” status of the residents and communicate that “agents may not enter the property without a valid warrant.” 

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Residents confront federal agents following a shooting incident on Jan. 14, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump threatened on Thursday morning to send the military into Minnesota to stop protests, following another shooting by immigration agents that injured one person, seven days after an agent fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis.

Writing on his own social media platform, Trump said he would invoke the Insurrection Act, a 19th-century law empowering the government to deploy the military domestically to “repress insurrections and repel invasions.”

“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State. Thank you for you attention to this matter! President DJT,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The law grants an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the military from performing domestic law enforcement.

The Insurrection Act was last invoked in 1992 under President George H. W. Bush in response to civil unrest that included the deaths of 63 people, following the acquittal of four white police officers charged with beating Black driver Rodney King. The statute has been used about 30 times since the country’s founding, according to records kept by the Brennan Center for Justice.

Protests Wednesday night

Protests erupted across the Twin Cities after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good in south Minneapolis on Jan. 7.

The demonstrations escalated Wednesday night after a federal immigration agent shot and injured a man in north Minneapolis. 

According to a statement issued by the Department of Homeland Security, a man crashed his vehicle and ran away as agents were “conducting a targeted traffic stop” at 6:50 p.m. Central time. An agent fired “a defensive shot to defend his life” after the man and two bystanders “attacked the law enforcement officer with a snow shovel and broom handle,” according to the statement. 

The agent shot the man in the leg, according to the department. The statement described the man as “an illegal alien from Venezuela who was released into the country by Joe Biden in 2022.”

States Newsroom’s Minnesota Reformer was unable to confirm the account. 

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said in a late-night press conference that the man was transported to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

The Reformer reported that scores of demonstrators arrived at the scene, sparking a back-and-forth with agents, who deployed tear gas and flash bangs. Agents detained at least two people after someone threw fireworks at the agents. At least two vehicles believed to be used by federal officers were vandalized. The clashes largely stopped by 11:30 p.m., according to the Reformer.

Mayor, governor urge that ICE be withdrawn

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, asked for calm and reiterated his call for the Trump administration to remove ICE from the city. Frey urged the protesters to “go home.” 

“We cannot counter Donald Trump’s chaos with our own brand of chaos,” he said.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in addition renewed calls Wednesday for Trump to withdraw ICE. Walz also asked residents in a Wednesday evening address to record ICE encounters with the public to help “create a database of the atrocities against Minnesotans, not just to establish a record for posterity but to bank evidence for future prosecution.”

Minnesota, Minneapolis and St. Paul officials are suing the Trump administration for what they allege is “a federal invasion of the Twin Cities.” 

Trump surged more ICE agents to Minneapolis following the fatal shooting of Good, bringing the total to roughly 3,000 — far outnumbering the city’s 600 local police officers. 

Noem talks Insurrection Act with Trump

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters Thursday morning that she has “no plans” of withdrawing ICE from Minneapolis. 

She described the situation on the ground as “violent violation of the law in many places.”

“I discussed with the president this morning several things that we are dealing with under the department in different operations. We did discuss the Insurrection Act. He certainly has the constitutional authority to utilize that. My hope is that this leadership team in Minnesota will start to work with us to get criminals off the streets,” Noem told reporters at the White House.

Noem attributed current ICE “surge operations” in the Twin Cities to a massive COVID-19 financial fraud case, which federal prosecutors in Minneapolis had already been pursuing for years.

Trump press secretary blames Dems

During an afternoon briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt blamed Democrats for violence in Minneapolis.

“I think the President’s Truth Social post spoke very loud and clear to Democrats across this country, elected officials who are using their platforms to encourage violence against federal law enforcement officers,” she told reporters.

Leavitt held up photos of vehicles covered in spray paint, alleging that ICE property was “vandalized last night by these left-wing agitators.” 

Leavitt also said “comrades” of the man pursued, and then shot, by the ICE agent “used a shovel or broom to smash his face in.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a Nashville press conference on July 18, 2025, to discuss arrests of immigrants during recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweeps. (Photo by John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)

WASHINGTON — A panel of appellate judges Wednesday heard a challenge from civil rights groups to the Trump administration’s decision to revoke an extension, as well as end, temporary protections for nearly 1 million immigrants from Haiti and Venezuela. 

The challenge comes from the National TPS Alliance, which represents immigrants with Temporary Protected Status because their home country is deemed too dangerous to return to due to violence, war, natural disasters or other instability. 

The hearing came two weeks after the U.S. military actions in Venezuela, where the country’s president and his wife were captured and brought to New York City to face an indictment. 

Despite the upheaval in the Venezuelan government from the U.S. operation, the Trump administration has continued to move forward with stripping TPS for more than 600,000 Venezuelans. 

Before Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem vacated extended protections put in place by the Biden administration, TPS for Venezuelans was set to expire in October. TPS for roughly 330,000 nationals from Haiti is set to expire Feb. 3, which the panel of judges acknowledged could make the issue of TPS for Haiti moot.

Ahilan T. Arulanantham, from the UCLA Center for Immigration Law, who is representing the National TPS Alliance, said there are members in all 50 states who are experiencing harm as a result of their TPS being terminated by the Trump administration.

He said some of those harms include “people separated from their infant children, families deported, people detained, lots of people detained.”

The panel of judges from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Wednesday’s oral arguments are Kim McLane Wardlaw, Salvador Mendoza, Jr. and Anthony D. Johnstone. 

Former President Bill Clinton nominated Wardlaw and former President Joe Biden nominated Mendoza and Johnstone.

DOJ says Supreme Court in agreement

Department of Justice attorney Sarah Welch said because the Supreme Court has twice granted the Trump administration’s request to move forward with TPS termination for Venezuelans, the high court must have determined the Trump administration was likely to prevail in court. 

A lower court in December found that Noem’s decision to vacate protections for Venezuelans and end their TPS destination was unlawful.  

Wardlaw questioned how the Supreme Court’s decision, which was made on an emergency basis and gave no reasoning, impacted the case before the panel.

Welch said the Supreme Court “must have concluded that we were likely to succeed on the merits of that claim, whether or not it provided reasoning published in an opinion.”

Arulanantham said the Supreme Court’s orders regarding TPS for Venezuelans are “not precedent because the Supreme Court does not treat them as precedent.” He added that in the past, the Supreme Court has reversed its initial rulings, especially those made on an emergency basis. 

He also pushed back against Welch’s argument that Noem had the statutory authority to vacate an extension granted under TPS for Venezuelans. 

“The statute says once you have made an extension, it lasts for the time prior that’s given in the Federal Register notice,” Arulanantham said, referring to the TPS statute.

He added that the authority to vacate a TPS extension that Noem claimed is “nowhere written in the statute.” 

Wisconsin Farmers Union President Darin Von Ruden's farm. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

At the Wisconsin Farmers Union annual farm and rural lobby day on Wednesday morning, the organization’s members heard about how antitrust policy, environmental regulation enforcement and immigration law are affecting the state’s farmers. 

About 90 farmers union members sat around tables in a conference room at the Madison Public Library before heading to the Capitol to push their legislators on the group’s 2026 priorities. 

Gov. Tony Evers addressed the group in a kick-off address, discussing  what his administration has accomplished and what it plans to do moving forward as the “chaos and confusion” of the federal government under the Trump administration “continues to make an already strenuous job harder.” 

“Regardless of what happens in Washington, here in America’s Dairyland, we’re going to keep fighting for Wisconsin farmers and producers and their families because Wisconsin’s agricultural industry isn’t just core to our economy, it’s core to our culture, core to our heritage and who we are as a state,” Evers said. 

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul addressed the group next to discuss how the Department of Justice is working to help the state’s farmers, noting the DOJ was involved in the lawsuit to keep federal food benefits available during the government shutdown last year.

He also discussed the DOJ’s work to protect fair markets and evenly enforce the state’s environmental rules to make sure that the state’s largest corporate farms are playing by the same rules as its smallest family operations. 

“One area that we are engaged in is ensuring that the market is fair, that there’s competition, and ensuring that there’s a level playing field for everybody to compete on. To me, that is fundamental to a lot of what we do,” he said. “So one way is regarding consumer protection. Another area where we take that very seriously is protecting our environmental laws and ensuring that the environmental laws in the state are evenhandedly enforced, because, as you all know firsthand, if massive corporate farms are able to cut corners, that puts them at a major competitive advantage, and all the farms that are out there doing the right thing, very carefully complying with rules and regulations that are in place. If the rules aren’t evenly enforced, that puts the small farmers, often small businesses, at a major competitive disadvantage.” 

Immigration crackdown

Among the farmers union’s top legislative priorities this year is protecting immigrant farm workers. 

On immigration, the organization said it is lobbying legislators to oppose a bill that would require all Wisconsin sheriffs to join the federal government’s 287(g) program, which grants sheriff’s deputies some authority to enforce federal immigration law. Under the bill, if counties refused to participate, the state would reduce the amount of shared revenue provided to the county by the state by 15%. 

Across the state, 18 sheriff’s offices have entered 287(g) agreements, including Kenosha County, which signed its contract to hold immigrants in its jail on behalf of ICE last week. 

The organization also wants to support a bill that would allow DACA recipients — people whose parents brought them to the country without documentation when they were children — to obtain occupational credentials such as licenses to practice medicine. 

In a panel on immigration policy, Amanda Martinez, a policy analyst at Kids Forward, said 287(g) can cause fear to spread throughout rural immigrant communities. 

“This could really deeply impact rural communities who already have those smaller budgets, and also impact the immigrant workers within local communities, because they are a big part of the workforce, whether it’s at farms [or] food productions,” Martinez said. “Bills like 287(g) and Assembly Bill 24 really creates that fear in communities, because immigrants don’t want to go to work, take their kids to schools, and can’t really participate in everyday life, and essentially will impact the workforce as a whole.”

Kaul was asked to respond to the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and criticized the ICE activity that led to the shooting death of Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good, and the exclusion of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from the investigation of that incident.

Attorney General Kaul says Minnesota ICE action harms public safety

Cottage-industry food makers

The Farmers Union is also opposing a bill that would regulate cottage foods makers in a way that advocates said would effectively kill the industry — which was only launched after a lawsuit in 2017 changed existing state law. The bill under consideration this year would require the business owner to use a commercial kitchen if their annual revenue exceeds $40,000. 

Advocates said this limit makes it impossible for these businesses to survive because $40,000 per year isn’t enough to support a family and the cost of renting commercial kitchen space, in communities where that’s even available, would make it harder to turn a profit. 

“If you do revenue of $40,000 your take home or profit is not going to be that, and it is not a living wage, and there is no amount of business you can do and put in an energy that is going to make this a sustainable business, even as a value-add product for farmers,” Jobea Murray, a Milwaukee home baker and president of the Wisconsin Cottage Food Association, said. “The amount of effort and time you put into this. There is no ROI on this. So you can can all day, you can bake all night. You are going to hit that revenue cap and you’re going to make not a lot of money.”

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Preschool children playing with colorful shapes and toys in a child care center. (Getty Images)

The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families Sec.-designee Jeff Pertl told reporters that he is confident in the state’s child care accountability measures and isn’t concerned about the state potentially losing federal funding. 

Last week, the Trump administration froze over $10 billion in federal child care funds designated for Minnesota and four other states amid fraud allegations. The funds cover child care subsidies, social services and cash support for low-income families. 

Pertl told reporters that “nothing can stop the president from politicizing an issue.” 

“I think we all see that playing out in a variety of ways all across the country right now, and I think that concerns everyone frankly,” Pertl said. 

Even with the politicization of the issue, Pertl expressed confidence in Wisconsin’s system. 

The Wisconsin Shares program is a subsidy program for low-income families where funds are paid to parents on an EBT card that is then used to pay a child care provider. According to the agency, this program is the main way that federal child care funding is utilized in Wisconsin. There is also some funding that goes towards quality improvement for programs, training and technical assistance.

Pertl said January payments have already gone out to families and he said he doesn’t expect any issues with February payments or other future payments. 

“People are using them. Folks should have confidence in the system,” Pertl said. “We’re likely to see an increase, maybe, in reporting requirements, but our system is well positioned to be able to meet those and continue to move forward. It may be administratively burdensome, and maybe more paperwork and things we’ve got to collect, but we’re confident that our system, particularly because of its unique history, is probably one of the best systems in the country for being able to navigate some of the questions that are coming in.” 

Wisconsin dealt with significant fraud involving improper payments a decade ago, which led to the state beefing up its accountability measures. 

A 2009 Pulitzer prize-winning investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel uncovered fraud within the WisconsinShares program that led to criminal indictments and prompted the state to implement protections. 

An audit that year by the Legislative Audit Bureau found there was an estimated $16.7 to $18.5 million in improper subsidy payments made and child care providers were estimated to have received an additional $4 million in improper subsidy payments as a result of errors or fraudulent reporting.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), who was in the Legislature at the time, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in December that he remembers the work that was undertaken to address the issue in 2009. 

“I want to definitely make sure it’s not happening again,” Vos said. He noted that he hasn’t heard of specific examples of fraud happening, but he doesn’t “want to assume that it’s not.”

Gov. Tony Evers also told reporters this week that Wisconsin is “in a good place.” 

“There’s lots of auditing going on… so I think we’re in a great place,” he said. 

Some of the reforms that the state has adopted relating to ensuring proper payments include expanding program integrity staff, improving attendance tracking and reporting, implementing fingerprint background checks, expanding the list of crimes that prohibit someone from running  a child care center, adopting YoungStar, which is the quality rating system in the state, and moving to using EBT cards. 

The state has also passed laws to allow DCF to collect money from providers if they go out of business and to suspend or revoke licenses and subsidy payments to people previously convicted of crimes relating to the operation of a business. 

Those measures can help ensure accountability.

“How do you know when it’s fraud? How do you know when a kid just stopped showing up?” Pertl asked. “When we do the licensing visit or get a tip or we’re checking the enrollment and attendance records, if there’s discrepancies… that’s going to trigger a review. It might trigger a claw-back and recovery of money.”

Wisconsin DCF also maintains a list on its website of child care centers that have been suspended or terminated from the WisconsinShares program. 

The federal government conducts monitoring checks every three years. In recent years, Wisconsin has had a low payment error rate. In 2023, the last time the check happened, Wisconsin’s error rate was 2.9%. In 2020, it was 1.81% and in 2017, it was 4.35%. In 2013, the error rate was 18.84%. 

Pertl noted that the changes made by the state were a bipartisan effort under the administrations of former Govs. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, and Scott Walker, a Republican. 

“There are certainly some very significant issues going on in Minnesota and there is no question that the president politicizes this for an agenda and targets folks for it,” Pertl said. “I think what you’ve seen [Gov. Evers] say and what you see Wisconsin leaders doing is showing that we have a strong system that has navigated these issues, that has high integrity, that addresses these things when they come, and so we’re confident about our ability to continue to run a robust and great child care system.”

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UW-Milwaukee. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)

The Joint Finance Committee unanimously approved the release of $53 million for the University of Wisconsin system to support campuses struggling with declining enrollment. 

The UW system will have $26.5 million in the 2025-26 fiscal year and $26.5 million in the 2026-27 fiscal year that can be used for grants to campuses. The funds were initially set aside for the system in the recent state budget. 

In each year, $15.25 million will be distributed to campuses with declining enrollment over the last two years and $11.25 million will be distributed through a formula dependent on the number of credit hours undergraduates complete.

In 2025, enrollment across the system’s 13 campuses remained stable with about 700 more students enrolled in the fall when compared to 2024. The slight increase represents the third consecutive year of increased enrollment. 

UW President Jay Rothman thanked lawmakers and Evers in a social media post and said the release of the funds “affirms our shared commitment to student success and Wisconsin’s workforce.” 

“Together, we’ll keep more talented graduates in Wisconsin and ensure our universities are delivering the education students deserve and parents expect,” Rothman said.

At the time of the budget process in June, committee co-chair Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) said the funds would “put the thumb on the scale” to help campuses with declining enrollment over the last decade including UW Platteville, which is in his district.

Lawmakers did not debate the release of the funds, though Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Oconto), who voted to release the money, noted that the system has had a growing number of staff members even as enrollment has declined.

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U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., talks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, June 28, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance broke a tied Senate vote to block advancement of a war powers resolution that would have stopped President Donald Trump from taking further military action against Venezuela without congressional authorization.

Senate Republicans used a procedural maneuver Wednesday night to halt debate on the Vietnam War-era statute that gives Congress a check on the president’s deployments abroad. 

Sens. Todd Young of Indiana and Josh Hawley of Missouri flipped on their previous votes to advance the resolution, splitting support at 50-50 — and delivering a victory to Trump, who had strongly criticized Republican senators who earlier defected from the administration.

Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky voted to keep the effort alive in the Senate. Paul is the only Republican co-sponsor of the bill. Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia was the leading Democratic co-sponsor.

Young said while he “strongly” believes Congress must be involved in any decisions about the commitment of U.S. troops, administration officials assured him that is not the state of play in Venezuela.

“After numerous conversations with senior national security officials, I have received assurances that there are no American troops in Venezuela. I’ve also received a commitment that if President Trump were to determine American forces are needed in major military operations in Venezuela, the Administration will come to Congress in advance to ask for an authorization of force,” Young said in a written statement after he cast his vote.

Rare rebuke doesn’t last

The vote came less than a week after Young and Hawley were among the  five Senate Republicans who broke with party ranks to move the resolution across an initial procedural hurdle — a rare rebuke of Trump from some in his own party.

Trump pointedly attacked the five GOP senators after they voted, writing on his Truth Social platform that the lawmakers “should never be elected to office again.” 

Senate Republicans argued a resolution to rein in Trump’s military actions against Venezuela is not relevant because “there’s no troops there, there is nothing to terminate,” as Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Jim Risch said on the floor ahead of the vote.

“Now, I know some of my colleagues will argue that a vote for this resolution is a prospective statement about limiting future action in Venezuela. That’s not what it says. They argue, ‘we still have ships in the Caribbean, and clearly the president is ready to invade again,’ they say. But again, that is not what the resolution says. … No language in this resolution addresses future action,” said Risch, R-Idaho, who moved to table the measure.

The vote came 11 days after U.S. special forces apprehended Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, from their bedroom during a surprise overnight raid. The couple was wanted by U.S. authorities on federal drug and conspiracy charges.

The vote also comes after a monthslong bombing campaign on small boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean in which U.S. strikes killed more than 115 alleged “narco-terrorists,” according to U.S. Southern Command.

Within an hour before senators voted to block any advancement of the war powers resolution, Trump posted on social media that he “had a very good call” Thursday morning with Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodríguez.

“We are making tremendous progress, as we help Venezuela stabilize and recover. Many topics were discussed, including Oil, Minerals, Trade and, of course, National Security. This partnership between the United States of America and Venezuela will be a spectacular one FOR ALL. Venezuela will soon be great and prosperous again, perhaps more so than ever before!” Trump wrote on his own platform, Truth Social.

Trump hosted oil executives at the White House Friday for a meeting on potential investment in Venezuela’s oil industry. Prior to the meeting, the president announced the South American nation had already agreed to give the U.S. between 30 million and 50 million barrels of oil. Trump said he would control the money made from the sale.

‘We are heavily engaged’

Paul and Democratic sponsors of the war powers resolution vehemently disagreed with the GOP statements about the U.S. presence in and around Venezuela.

“You don’t have to be a great expert in military affairs to know that we are heavily engaged,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, ahead of the vote.

“Donald Trump says we’re not engaged in hostilities? Tell that to the 16,000 U.S. service members currently deployed in the Caribbean. Tell that to our service members on the Ford carrier strike force. Look at the Marine expeditionary unit operating in the region,” Schumer said. “Donald Trump is turning the Caribbean into a dangerous powder keg — and Congress must rein him in before one mistake ignites a larger, more unstable conflict.”

Kaine likened the Republicans’ procedural move to “a parliamentary gag rule on discussion of this military operation.”

“If this cause and if this legal basis were so righteous and so lawful, the administration and its supporters would not be so afraid to have this debate before the public and the United States Senate,” Kaine said on the floor ahead of the vote.

Paul said the administration’s claim that Venezuela is not an official war is “an absurdity.”

“The invasion of another country, blockading of a country and removing another country’s leader, to my mind, clearly, is war,” Paul said on the floor ahead of the vote.

U.S. Southern Command declined to confirm Wednesday the exact number of troops and warships present in the region.

Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said more than 100 were killed in the raid, according to numerous media outlets that posted a video of his statement. The Cuban government announced on Facebook 32 of its citizens were among the dead.

Seven U.S. troops were injured in the incursion, according to the Pentagon. Five returned to work within days after the attack, while two were still recovering as of Jan. 8. Pentagon officials declined to comment further on their conditions Wednesday.

(Darwin Brandis | iStock Getty Images Plus)

UPDATE 1/15/26: The Trump Administration has reportedly reversed up to $2 billion in cuts to grants that fund addiction treatment, after sending termination letters to programs across the country on Tuesday night. 

Nonprofits that address housing, addiction, mental health and other human service needs were notified this week that they will lose up to $2 billion in federal grant money, in a wave of termination letters issued to programs across the country. 

The cuts will make it more difficult for frontline groups to provide treatment and harm reduction care that has been crucial to combating overdose deaths, and breaking the cycles of addiction and housing insecurity. Resources like Narcan medication used to save lives by reversing overdoses, peer support, and treatment access could dry up, just as communities nationwide began to see reductions in overdose deaths.

The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), which issued the letters, hasn’t yet commented on the cuts. There are 30 SAMHSA-funded opioid treatment programs scattered across Wisconsin including in Appleton; Beloit, Eau Claire, Fond Du Lac, Green Bay, Madison, Milwaukee, Oshkosh, Kenosha, and others, according to the agency’s website. One of those programs, Vin Baker Recovery, is named after a Milwaukee Bucks basketball team player and assistant coach.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley condemned the sudden funding cuts. “The Trump administration’s cuts are not just numbers on a budget sheet; they are threats to the wellbeing of real people — our neighbors, our families, and our loved ones,” Crowley said in a statement. “While I will continue fighting for funding and resources to deliver results for our most vulnerable communities, the federal government must recognize the urgent need to preserve these vital services. These cuts cannot stand, because the lives of Wisconsinites depend on it.” 

A Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) spokesperson said that so far, no termination letters have been sent to the county. DHHS received $13.9 million in direct SAMHSA funds, with $6.2 million remaining as of December. The county also receives another $15.3 million in state mental health and substance use disorder grants which  partially consist of federal funding through SAMHSA.

In an emailed statement the spokesperson said that “any termination of SAMHSA funding would result in immediate termination of mental health and substance use services in Milwaukee County.” Wisconsin’s most populous county has no other funding alternatives, and the loss of federal grant money would lead to more hospitalizations and higher incarceration rates, the spokesperson warned.

Elizabeth Goodsitt, a spokesperson for Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services (DHS) wrote in an email statement Wednesday that the department was “notified late yesterday that effective January 13, the Tribes of Wisconsin Prescription Drugs/Opioid Overdose-Related Deaths Prevention Program (PDO) grant has been terminated by the federal government.” Goodsitt described this as “part of a much larger set of cancellations across the country for federally funded projects that provided life-saving mental health and substance use disorder services.” 

Wisconsin had received nearly $1 million to operate the PDO until August 2026. The program was in the third year of a five-year grant. “The goal of the PDO is to save lives,” said Goodsitt. “The funding supports training first responders and other key community sectors on overdose prevention strategies, and it supports the purchase and distribution of naloxone, the overdose reversal medication for opioids.” 

For now the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents have not received termination letters regarding SAMHSA funding. Native American communities are disproportionately affected by overdose deaths in Wisconsin at a rate of 75.4 people per 100,000 in 2023, as compared to a rate of 20 people per 100,000 for white Wisconsin residents. 

“We are assessing all avenues possible to ensure the federal government is following all requirements in these existing funding agreemets,” said Goodsitt. “While there continues to be much uncertainty about this evolving situation, we will keep working to serve Wisconsinites and support their behavioral health needs. We will continue to closely monitor this situation and will share more information as it becomes available.” 

This story was updated Thursday morning to reflect the Trump Administration’s decision to reverse the grant cuts. 

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