Center Square

A growing debate over how tipped income is taxed in Illinois has resurfaced as state Rep. Regan Deering, R-Decatur, introduced legislation aiming to align Illinois law with the federal “No Tax on Tips” policy.
The move comes after state officials said Illinois would not adopt the federal exemption, citing concerns that exempting gratuities could create an unequal tax burden.
Deering, a vocal proponent of tax relief, emphasized that the state’s real issue is spending, not revenue.
“We all know that Illinois doesn’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem, so we should be looking for every opportunity to cut taxes for Illinois citizens while simultaneously cutting government spending,” Deering said.
House Bill 4519, filed by Deering, would exempt tips from state income taxes up to $25,000, mirroring federal rules. According to Deering, the measure would provide direct relief to tipped employees, many of whom earn a lower base wage.
“It makes sense that we would match the federal standard and allow our tipped employees to keep more of their hard-earned money. By adopting a no tax on tips, it would make Illinois more attractive, more competitive, which of course could bring in more businesses and residents,” she said.
Deering framed the policy as a step toward economic growth and retaining talent within the state.
“We’re going to continue to lose revenue if we keep forcing people and businesses out of Illinois. As a state, we shouldn’t remain trapped in this perpetual tax and spend cycle. No tax on tips would do things like encourage economic growth, help offset potential revenue impacts by keeping Illinois workers here, and of course attract new businesses,” Deering said.
Deering criticized proposals from Chicago Democrats to increase taxes, including a possible retirement tax and a graduated income tax, arguing that residents need relief now.
“I try to find ways every day to put more money in the pockets of hardworking Illinoisans, and this legislation would simply do that,” said Deering.
She described tips as “voluntary payments from customers” rather than compensation guaranteed by an employer, noting that many tipped workers rely on them to supplement a much lower base wage.
She emphasized that exempting tips from taxation would not allow workers to avoid paying taxes altogether.
“They would still be taxed on their earned wages,” Deering said, explaining that the exemption would apply only to customer-provided tips. The proposal would also cap the exemption at $25,000, aligning Illinois law with the federal standard.
Comparing tipped workers to higher-earning salaried professionals, Deering said many tip-based employees are paid “at a much lower level,” and that exempting gratuities recognizes the unique structure of their income while still maintaining taxation on base wages.

Twenty-two state attorneys general sent a letter to chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committee, requesting that an investigation concerning improper influence on judges be expanded to include the Federal Judicial Center’s manual that the attorney generals say has been influenced by climate activists and diversity, equity and inclusion ideology.
Leading the charge of attorney generals is Nebraska AG Mike Hilgers, who told The Center Square: “The Federal Judicial Center’s new science manual should present complex evidence fairly and impartially to judges, but instead it appears to embed the views of climate activists and diversity, equity, and inclusion ideologues into what is presented as neutral guidance.”
“I joined my colleagues in urging Chairman Jordan, Chairman Issa, and the House Judiciary Committee to expand their investigation into the Federal Judicial Center’s climate science chapter and its embrace of ideological policies,” Hilgers said.
For reference, the House Judiciary Committee recently opened an investigation into whether a climate law group “is improperly influencing federal judges on environment-related cases.”
Hilgers told The Center Square: “When the same advocates and experts who are actively litigating climate cases help write and review a chapter that will be used by federal judges behind the scenes, it raises obvious and serious concerns about impartiality of the judicial system.”
“Nebraskans, and all Americans, deserve courts that are neutral and fair,” Hilgers said.
The other 21 signers of the letter to House and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairmen Jim Jordan, Chuck Grassley, and Darrell Issa include the attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Neither Jordan, Senator Chuck Grassley nor Issa responded to The Center Square’s requests for comment by the time of publishing.
CEO of the American Energy Institute Jason Isaac informed The Center Square how the “House Judiciary is already investigating efforts to improperly influence federal judges,” and said that “the Federal Judicial Center now sits squarely within that scope.”
“The FJC used taxpayer dollars to publish a reference manual that embeds disputed, plaintiff-driven climate alarmist theories into materials judges consult,” Isaac said.
“That is not education, it is outcome-shaping, and it directly undermines judicial impartiality,” Isaac said.
“Congress has both the authority and the obligation to examine how this happened and to put guardrails in place before trust in the courts is further eroded,” Isaac said.
Consumer advocacy organizations also weighed in on the letter, with director of Consumers’ Research Will Hild telling The Center Square: “I commend these attorneys general for not allowing the left to rewrite the rules and force their climate agenda on everyday Americans.”
“Attempts by climate activists to inject politics into a supposedly impartial judicial manual is nothing more than woke activism masquerading as ‘science,’” Hild said.
Similarly, executive director of consumer protection group Alliance for Consumers O.H. Skinner told The Center Square that his organization “commends the Attorneys General for calling for this investigation and fighting back against the woke lawfare campaign that attempts to mandate Progressive Lifestyle Choices via judicial activism – driving popular products off the shelf and raising prices for consumers.”
“This is the woke lawfare playbook in action,” Skinner said. “They see courtrooms as the best chance to usher in a leftwing ideology that could never pass at the ballot box or in legislative chambers.”
President of Public Policy Solutions and former domestic policy advisor to President Donald Trump Joe Grogan told The Center Square that “the House Judiciary Committee must add the Federal Judiciary Center to its investigation of entities working to twist America’s legal system to enact a radical, climate action agenda.”
“By allowing climate activists and, worse, climate litigators to take the pen on a document that is intended to provide impartial guidance to judges who decide the very cases they try, the Federal Judiciary Center has undermined faith and confidence in yet another institution,” Grogan said.
In their letter, the 22 attorney generals outlined their concern that a climate agenda influenced the Federal Judicial Center’s manual, as well as diversity, equity and inclusion ideology.
“Start with who wrote the climate change chapter,” the letter stated. “Co-author Jessica Wentz is a climate change advocate at Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.”
The letter stated that Michael Burger reviewed the climate chapter; Burger is known for representing the City of Honolulu in its lawsuit against energy companies, trying to make them liable for climate change.
Additionally, the letter explained that the manual “advances diversity, equity, and inclusion principles” and “advocates for more ‘equitable’ outcomes.”
“In the chapter on medical testimony, the manual reports that ‘social and economic inequities’ have caused America’s healthcare system to have ‘substantial disparities by race/ethnicity, but also by “socioeconomic status, age, geography, language, gender, disability status, citizenship status, and sexual identity and orientation,”’” the letter said.

Four Michiganders, including a sitting judge, have been charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with embezzlement-related charges.
All four are residents of Detroit and allegedly conspired to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from incapacitated individuals.
United States Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon, Jr. made the announcement recently, which U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi applauded over the weekend.
“No one is above the law – judges included,” Bondi said. “Using the power of the bench to allegedly take advantage of vulnerable people is a particularly vile crime. Thank you to our great prosecutors in Eastern Michigan.”
Nancy Williams, Avery Bradley, Andrea Bradley-Baskin and Dwight Rashad were all charged in a federal indictment. The indictment came as part of an investigation by the FBI and the IRS.
All were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, while additional charges included:
• One count of wire fraud for Bradley
• Several counts of money laundering for Bradley, Bradley-Baskin, and Rashad
• One county of making a false statement to a federal law enforcement agent for Bradley-Baskin
The charges are all part of a scheme that allegedly went on for years. Bradley-Baskin is currently a district judge on Michigan’s 36th District Court – serving in that role since 2023. She is also the daughter of Bradley, who is an attorney.
Gorgon said the allegations, especially against a sitting judge, should be concerning for the public.
“We respect the authority that covers a black robe,” he said. “This state judge and her cronies allegedly abused that high honor for personal gain by preying on the needy protected by the court. This would be a grievous abuse of our public trust.”
Probate courts regularly appoint guardians and conservators to manage the personal and financial of incapacitated individuals, who are often known as wards. While those guardians and conservators are meant to act in the best interests of their wards, this case shows how that can go wrong.
Williams owned Guardian and Associates, an agency that was appointed as a fiduciary for incapacitated wards in more than 1,000 cases. Bradley and Bradley-Baskin often represented that agency in court, while Rashad operated a series of group homes and residential facilities where wards would sometimes reside.
According to the indictment, the four defendants conspired to systematically embezzle funds from wards. That included obtaining money for themselves from estates, either by misusing funds, taking funds outright, or misappropriating funds for services that were not actually used by the wards.
“These four defendants allegedly conspired to steal from some of our most vulnerable citizens – looting bank accounts, exploiting legal authority, and profiting off those who relied on them for care and protection,” said Jennifer Runyan, special agent in charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office. “Let me be clear: if you prey on the vulnerable, we will find you and bring you to justice.”

The U.S. House passed a critical government funding package along bipartisan lines in a nail-biter Tuesday vote, sending it to the president’s desk.
Once President Donald Trump signs the legislation into law, Congress will have knocked out 11 of the 12 appropriations bills for fiscal year 2026.
“Funding the government is not an optional exercise – it’s the most basic duty we have in Congress,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole, R-Okla., told lawmakers before the vote. “I share the frustrations of many that the Senate altered our deal at the last minute. But our obligation is not to those emotions – it’s to the American people.”
The $1.2 trillion legislation funds State-Foreign Affairs, Financial Services, Defense, Labor-HHS-Education, and Transportation-HUD through Sept. 30.
It also includes a two-week Continuing Resolution in place of the Homeland Security bill, a last-minute change by the Senate that required the package to return to the House. Senate Democrats had demanded the change in exchange for their votes after the second fatal shooting of a protester in Minneapolis.
The CR temporarily freezes DHS and related departments’ funding at current levels as Democrats and Republicans craft a new Homeland Security bill that includes immigration enforcement reforms.
The action stung many House Republicans, causing 21 of them to vote against the package, which only succeeded due to 21 Democrats supporting it.
“Funding Democrat earmarks and resettlement money while giving DHS two weeks is not a compromise,” Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., said on social media. “It’s a bad deal.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has outlined Democrats’ demands, which include barring agents from wearing masks, enforcing body-worn cameras, and requiring agents to obtain judicial warrants on top of immigration court warrants in order to arrest people.
While Republican leaders have expressed support for measures like requiring body-worn cameras, they firmly oppose warrant reform. Lawmakers have until Feb. 13 to come to an agreement, or else risk another partial shutdown.

Federal officials have made nine arrests in connection with a protest that disrupted a Sunday morning church service in St. Paul on Jan. 18.
That comes after U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi announced two additional arrests Monday.
“If you riot in a place of worship, we WILL find you,” Bondi said. “We have made two more arrests in connection with the coordinated attack on Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota: Ian Davis Austin and Jerome Deangelo Richardson.”
All nine were indicted by a federal grand jury in Minnesota last week on two counts:
• conspiracy against right of religious freedom at a place of worship
• and injure, intimidate, and interfere with exercise of the right of religious freedom at a place of worship
This comes following widespread calls for arrests in the wake of the protest, which quickly captured attention far beyond Minnesota.
The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating the protest, which was organized in part by members of Black Lives Matter Minnesota.
Video posted by the group shows protesters chanting “ICE out” and “justice for Renee Good” during the service at Cities Church. Another video circulating on social media shows Kelly calling congregants “pretend Christians” and “comfortable white people.”
Caleb Phillips, a congregant at the church, told The Center Square in an exclusive interview that the protestors were seated throughout the congregation before the service began.
“The entire congregation came alive. Individuals who are planted from front to back throughout the entire place stood up,” Phillips said. “It felt like we were surrounded, because they were all throughout the congregation.”
Reports allege the protesters discovered one of the church’s pastors works for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, calling the protest a “clandestine mission.”
The church protest came in the wake of the Jan. 7 killing of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good during an encounter with ICE officers conducting enhanced immigration enforcement. Lemon, a former CNN anchor, defended the protesters.
“I imagine it’s uncomfortable and traumatic for the people here,” Lemon said during a livestream of the protest at service. “But, that’s what protesting is about.”
The indictment called the protest a “coordinated takeover-style attack.” Lemon was arrested on Friday, but almost immediately released after a judge ruled there was a lack of probable cause for any of the arrests.
Since then, Lemon has appeared at the Grammy’s and on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
“I will not stop now. I will not stop ever,” Lemon said. “In fact, there is no more important time but right now, this very moment, for a free and independent media that shines a light on truth and holds those in power accountable.”

Culver City High School’s California-based robotics team – known as the Bagel Bytes – has begun its 25th season of competition with this year’s challenge for students around the world to build robotics that “re-imagine the past.”
FIRST, or For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, an international organization that combines competitive robotics with mentorship, launched its 2026 robotics competition season in January.
Over 93,000 high school students across 35 countries participated in the 2025 FIRST Robotics Competition season, with more than 3,400 teams competing worldwide as of 2024.
This year’s game, titled REBUILT, requires teams to design robots capable of scoring yellow chips into a hub and navigating a three-bar metal climbing structure known as the Tower.
The Center Square got an exclusive interview with FIRST Robotics Competition Team 702, the Bagel Bytes, at Culver City High School in the Los Angeles area.
Dennis Paniza, a U.S. Air Force veteran with a background in electronics engineering, is in his second year as coach for the Bagel Bytes. There are 47 student members at the school
At Culver City High School, students balance long hours with academics. The club meets three days a week after school, until 9 p.m., during build season, January through April. During the off-season, students continue to plan workshops, community outreach and mentorship. The high school students teach middle and elementary school students, as well as learn from guest speakers.
“Balancing robotics and school is kind of difficult, but it’s a good challenge you have to overcome,” said Dylan Chung, a junior and robot driver for the team.
The program at CCHS operates as both a class and an after-school club, organized into subcommittees: electronics, Computer Aided Design or CAD, programming, mechanics, safety and business, each led by student heads who report to the team captains, James Cole and Nathan Salyer.
Students said the robotics club was a great way to make friends and enjoy the camaraderie that comes with competition.
“Friends is what got me in, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s a competition, and you want to win,” senior Nathan Pugh, head of mechanics, said.
Since the robotics club receives limited funding from the Culver City Unified School District, the team’s business and outreach efforts are led by senior Chaiya Jones, who manages fundraising, sponsor relations and public outreach. The subcommittee aims to raise $50,000 annually, though it typically does not need to spend the full amount.
“I think it’s truly a place of connection and community,” Jones said. “It has really built me as a person and gotten to show me the real world and work environments, and I am really grateful for who that has made me become and what that has shown me.”
In the programming department, seniors Cameron Trux and Nathan Herrera manage the robot’s motors and camera systems.
Despite the rise of artificial intelligence, the programmers expressed a cautious view of AI in coding.
“AI is not actually intelligent,” Trux said. “You can use it as a tool if you are a professional, but you don’t want to use it for something and not understand what it is spewing out.”
Herrera added that reliance on AI-generated code often leads to errors. “When you get a spew of coding nonsense and try to apply it, it usually does not work,” he said.
FIRST emphasizes its core values of teamwork, respect, learning and community involvement, while promoting inclusion across its global programs.
“We are thrilled to continue supporting FIRST as it kicks off this exciting 2026 season,” Kathy Looman, executive director of the Gene Haas Foundation, which sponsors the competition, said as the season launched on Jan. 10. “The impact of FIRST on today’s youth is unparalleled.”
Coach Paniza said the program’s primary goal is to bridge the gap between high school and professional pathways.
“A majority of our students want to head towards the engineering pathway,” Paniza said. “This is perfect at this level for them to just get familiar with it and start practicing safety, especially when they go to career or college.”
Students and mentors highlight that the program’s impact extends beyond the competition field, preparing young people today for the workforce of tomorrow.
In an exclusive interview with The Center Square, Jacob Kuhlmann, an alumnus of FIRST Robotics Team 3476, Code Orange, said the league inspires young people to pursue science and engineering “by tricking them through using competitive spirits.”
He went on to mentor the Irvine, Calif.-based team of high school students for four years after graduating. Kuhlmann said mentorship was one of the most valuable aspects of his robotics experience.
“The biggest thing that robotics does is it enables you to have time with industry mentors,” Kuhlmann said. “They invested in my future by showing me what they were doing and giving me guiding principles, and they built my confidence that doing hard things is possible.”
Kuhlmann is now a mechanical engineer at Matter Intelligence, a startup based in El Segundo, a city in the Los Angeles area. He said his time in robotics helped prepare him for both college and the workforce.
“In college, I noticed I came in with design experience,” Kuhlmann said. “Group projects were kind of a walk in the park for me, because I already knew how to set up a schedule, do the design of it, and it was pretty straightforward. But it’s not always that straightforward for people who haven’t done major engineering projects before.”

To the dismay of her critics, U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi has made millions from Wall Street while in Congress, but the California Democrat is not alone. U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat, has also made a fortune, pursuing an aggressive and sophisticated investment strategy similar to Pelosi’s. It is one that may have benefited from a perch on Capitol Hill, a family member with venture capital expertise, and extensive use of a financial tool known as call options, an investigation by The Center Square found.
Gottheimer’s net worth increased by almost $40 million in two years, according to Quiver Quantitative, a website that tracks members of Congress’s financial dealings. He saw his wealth skyrocket from $11.05 million in 2019 to $50.5 million in 2021. Despite a dip in his net worth, the 50-year-old lawmaker is the 36th-richest on Capitol Hill and one of its most frequent traders.The Center Square looked at Gottheimer’s House financial disclosure reports from 2017, his first year in office, to last year. Gottheimer made much of his fortune through the purchase of call options, a sophisticated financial security that can act like lottery tickets or premium, refundable concert tickets.Gottheimer first made extensive use of them in 2019, when he bought 47 call options worth $1.3 million to $3.4 million. Each call was for stock in Microsoft Corp, the Redmond, Washington-based computer giant. The year was notable because Microsoft was competing with rival Amazon for a $10 billion cloud-computing contract from the Pentagon.In mid-to-late March 2019, Gottheimer bought six out-of-the-money or at-the-money options in Microsoft worth as much as $140,000 with various expiration dates, the largest amount he had purchased in a single month. On April 10, The New York Times reported that Microsoft and Amazon were the two finalists for the contract. In addition to being a former Microsoft employee, Gottheimer served on the House Committee on Financial Services. The panel oversees public companies such as Microsoft, which, with a market capitalization of almost $1 trillion in 2019, was the largest in the country. In no other year has Gottheimer’s net worth increased the most in relative terms, from $11.05 million to $28.3 million.Gottheimer’s office in Washington did not return multiple voicemails asking for comment. Legislation to limit trading
Lawmakers’ investments are likely to come under greater scrutiny in the coming months.
House members have circulated several bills to ban stock trading by federal elected officials. One legislative proposal from U.S. Representatives Chip Roy, a Texas Republican, and Seth Magaziner, a Rhode Island Democrat, would bar members of Congress and their immediate family members from purchasing or selling stocks, but not the President or Vice President.
Craig Holman, a lobbyist for Public Citizen, a non-profit advocacy organization, said in an interview that the time for a ban is propitious.“We’re going to pass a bill this year,” Holman said in an interview, adding that he expects the House to do so in March or April. Despite neither the House nor the Senate ever bringing up a bill for a vote, polls show that the public overwhelmingly supports a prohibition, and the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs has approved a legislative ban in each of the past two years.
On Jan. 14, the House Administration Committee approved a stripped-down bill that would prohibit members of Congress from buying stock, but it would permit them to sell stock and their spouses to trade stock.
Despite public perception that lawmakers day-trade on the job, most members of Congress avoid the stock market. In the last year, only 135 U.S. representatives and senators reported investing in securities, one-quarter of the 535 overall, according to capitoltrades.com, an online site that tracks lawmakers’ investments.
Of those who invest, some lose money. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican who resigned Jan. 5, saw her fortune dip to $25.02 million in 2024 from $34.46 million in 2020, the year she was elected to Congress, according to Quiver Quantitative.
Of those who make money while in office, most do so from investing in real estate, and then only gradually. U.S. Rep. Donald S. Beyer Jr., a Virginia Democrat, increased his net worth from $97.55 million in 2015, the year he entered Congress, to $106.91 million in 2024, a fortune based almost entirely in real estate investments, according to Quiver Quantitative.Even lawmakers who get rich quickly don’t do so through the stock market. U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, a Florida Republican, has gotten rich while in Congress, from the $81,000 he and his wife had in 2020, the year he was elected, to $4.4 million today, according to Quiver Quantitative. Yet, $3.8 million of his fortune comes from ownership interests in business. Donalds’s wife, Erika, is founder and chairwoman of OptimaEd, an education firm.
Of lawmakers who make money mainly from the stock market, former House Speaker Pelosi is the best known. When she entered Congress, in 1987, her net worth was roughly $1 million to $3 million, according to published reports. Today her fortune is $275.6 million, according to Quiver Quantitative. Roughly half of her portfolio is invested in stocks and options.HEEDING THE CALL
Gottheimer invests even more heavily in Wall Street. Of his estimated net worth of $40.8 million, nearly three-quarters are in stocks and options. His financial portfolio is similar to Pelosi’s in one way, though: frequent purchases of call options.
The sophisticated financial tools are akin to renting stock rather than buying it: the investor pays a premium for the right, but not the obligation, to buy it at a fixed price before it expires. That makes them riskier than stocks, but they can make more money because the investor spends less money to benefit from the same stock move. A one-call option is worth 100 shares, so a move in the stock price magnifies the payoff.
After the Times’ story in April 2019, Gottheimer increased his purchases of call options in Microsoft. He bought ten call options in April worth as much as $290,000, eight in May worth a maximum of $330,000, and two in September worth as much as $500,000. On October 25, 2019, the Pentagon announced that Microsoft would receive the $10 billion contract. Wedbush securities analyst Daniel Ives called the contract a “paradigm changer” and predicted Microsoft’s stock value would increase by $10.On November 18, 2019, Gottheimer bought six deep-in-the-money call options on Microsoft stock, with premiums ranging from $100,001 to $250,000. Deep-in-the-money options are like buying nonrefundable tickets to a concert, even though the band members might get sick and cancel the show. The investor is unlikely to lose the whole investment and may make money if demand increases, such as the ban announcing this will be their farewell tour.
Holman, the lobbyist for Public Citizen, said Gottheimer’s trades raise the question of undue influence peddling.
“Anyone who uses call options is very bullish and quite confident that the stock market value will go up significantly,” Holman said in an interview. “This raises a lot of questions. The amount of money he gained alone is suspicious. That he did much of it through call options shows he was very confident and secure in the knowledge that his stock would increase significantly through a call option.”
Like Pelosi, whose husband, Paul, is the founder of a real estate and venture capital firm, Financial Leasing Services, Gottheimer keeps his assets jointly held with his spouse, Marla Tusk. She is general counsel at Tusk Strategies, a political consulting firm founded by her brother, Bradley. Bradley Tusk is also the co-founder and managing partner of Tusk Venture Partners, an early-stage venture capital firm that specializes in businesses in industries overseen and controlled by government, such as the online gambling site FanDuel.
“We understand regulatory risk better than any other venture capital firm…” Tusk Ventures company said on its website.
Gottheimer has not disclosed who manages his finances.“I’ve got an investment firm; it’s literally handed over,” he said in an interview on CNBC in January 2022. “I have literally no idea what they do, so that’s up to them what they buy and sell.”
Congress does not require members or staff to disclose key details of their trades, such as the date of the sale or the security price, so determining how much Gottheimer earned from his investments is unclear.
However, Professor Mahendrarajah Nimalendran, chair of the Department of Finance at the University of Florida, concluded that Gottheimer may have earned $300,000 on a call option in Microsoft stock he purchased on January 2, 2020. Gottheimer may have bought 100 call option contracts with a $140 strike price on stock trading at $152 a share. If he sold the option when it expired on January 15, 2021, when stock was $212 a share, the value of his option would have been $30, since the premium was likely $30. With 10,000 shares of Microsoft stock worth $30 a share, he would have earned $300,000.

(The Center Square) A federal judge in Washington, D.C. has extended Temporary Protected Status for nearly 350,000 Haitians throughout the country, including roughly 13,000 in Springfield, Ohio.
The protected status was scheduled to end today, prompting fears the federal government would launch ICE operations in Springfield to arrest immigrants, similar to those in Minneapolis.
But U.S. District Court Judge Ana Reyes on Monday night extended the protected status.
“The Government does not cite any reason termination must occur post haste,” she wrote.
In the ruling, the judge criticized U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
“Secretary Noem complains of strains unlawful immigrants place on our immigration-enforcement system,” the judge wrote. “Her answer? Turn 352,959 lawful immigrants into unlawful immigrants overnight. She complains of strains to our economy. Her answer? Turn employed lawful immigrants who contribute billions in taxes into the legally unemployable.”
On social media, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin promised to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Supreme Court, here we come. This is lawless activism that we will be vindicated on. Haiti’s TPS was granted following an earthquake that took place over 15 years ago, it was never intended to be a de facto amnesty program, yet that’s how previous administrations have used it for decades. Temporary means temporary and the final word will not be from an activist judge legislating from the bench,” McLaughlin wrote on X.
In a statement, Springfield Mayor Rob Rue called the ruling shows the contributions Haitians make to the Springfield community.
“It reflects the reality that many individuals are working, pay taxes, raising families and contributing every day to the life of our city,” Rue said in a statement. “Economic stability in our community matters because uncertainty can affect businesses, workers and families alike. We respect the judicial process and remain committed to the wellbeing of the people who call our city home.”
Ohio Senate Democrats called Monday for the federal government to extend TPS for Haitians in Springfield.
“When their legal status is called into question, it creates uncertainty not just for them, but for local businesses, schools, and governments trying to plan responsibly,” the Democrats said in an open letter. “These are families that came here years ago seeking a better, safer life. Many have children who were born here in the United States, and many of them have no safe place to return to in Haiti.”
Ending protective status will mean that “overnight, their jobs and livelihoods are threatened,” the letter said.
On its website, the city of Springfield says it has experienced a “surge” in population over the last several years mainly because of an influx of legal immigrants. They were attracted to Springfield because of the lower cost of living and availability of jobs, the city said.
Springfield has never designated itself as a “sanctuary city,” according to the website.
“Haitians are more likely to be the victims of crime than they are to be the perpetrators in our community,” the city said.

Former President Bill Clinton and his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have finally agreed to appear before the U.S. House Oversight Committee; however, a date has not been set.
The announcement came on the cusp of a vote to hold the couple in criminal contempt of Congress for failing to appear before the committee regarding the investigation into the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and their relationship to the disgraced financier.
Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., rejected an attempt from the Clintons’ attorneys to provide limited testimony, the former president to conduct a maximum four-hour transcribed interview, and the former first lady to submit a sworn declaration. Comer has dug in his heels, demanding that the couple appear before the committee.
In light of the latest development, the House Rules Committee has agreed to postpone proceeding with contempt of Congress charges – though it is not off the table with Comer noting to reporters that the committee doesn’t “have anything in writing” and is dependent on the terms.
“Actions have consequences … Former President Clinton and former Secretary Clinton were legally required to appear for a deposition before the Oversight Committee,” Comer told the House Rules Committee.
Comer issued subpoenas to the Clintons in early August, noting examples of a potentially close relationship between the former president and Epstein in the letter to Bill Clinton.
“By your own admission, you flew on Jeffrey Epstein’s private plane four separate times in 2002 and 2003. During one of these trips, you were even pictured receiving a ‘massage’ from one of Mr. Epstein’s victims,” the congressman wrote. “It has also been claimed that you pressured Vanity Fair not to publish sex trafficking allegations against your ‘good friend’ Mr. Epstein, and there are conflicting reports about whether you ever visited Mr. Epstein’s island. You were also allegedly close to Ms. Ghislane Maxwell, an Epstein co-conspirator, and attended an intimate dinner with her in 2014, three years after public reports about her involvement in Mr. Epstein’s abuse of minors.”
Comer’s letter to Hillary Clinton indicated that the former president’s trips on Epstein’s plane were part of the Clinton Family Foundation trips. He also included a connection between the former first couple and Maxwell, noting that Maxwell’s nephew was employed by Hillary Clinton’s 2008 failed presidential campaign and then hired by the State Department after becoming Secretary of State.
Comer insists the purpose of the investigation is to “inform legislative solutions to improve federal efforts to combat sex trafficking and reform the use of non-prosecution agreements and/or plea agreements in sex-crime investigations.”