INTRO GOOD (DAY) EVENING MADISON! YOU’RE LISTENING TO THE 5/6 O’CLOCK NEWS UPDATE ON WSUM 91.7 FM MADISON STUDENT RADIO. I’M TALULA HAYES.

IN THE NEWS TODAY, 

IN CAMPUS NEWS,
UW Athletics approved the renewed contracts of three coaches. Wisconsin football head coach Luke Fickell did not receive his expected annual contract update after a disappointing fourth season. Coaching since 2022, Fickell is only 17-21 overall and 10-17 in conference play, which includes the low 4-8 record last season. Despite receiving extensions in 2024 and 2025, he is still under contract currently, which is set to end March 31, 2032. Kelly Sheffeild, the women’s volleyball coach since 2013, was able to lead Wisconsin to its first NCAA Championship in 2021 and has signed a five-year contract with Wisconsin which will run through Jan. 31, 2031. At Madison since 2007, women’s soccer coach Paula Wilkins has won the most games in program history, with her past season leading the Badgers to finish 14-6 overall and 6-3-2 in conference play. She signed a five-year agreement that will also run until Jan. 31, 2031. Men’s soccer coach Neil Jones began in 2022, gaining a contract extension until that same date of Jan. 31, 2031, after Jones led Wisconsin to eight more wins, reaching their most wins since 2018.


IN STATE NEWS, 
Wisconsin announces record $73.5 million for public school library funding. This was announced by Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski during a visit to Memorial High School in Eau Claire. This funding for 2026 represents a 5% increase from the previous year, and is distributed per-pupil, per-school district across Wisconsin. The Common School Fund, a support system for students across the state of all financial backgrounds, now sits at $1.6 billion for 2026. This fund is especially important for the funding of everyday accessibility for students, namely books and technology. This increase in funding is then distributed across the state for schools to decide its best placement, “Here in the Chippewa Valley, we’re looking at around 1 million dollars. Those funds then go to school librarians where they can decide whether that’s for books, or technology, or research material,” Godlewski said.


IN NATIONAL NEWS,
Democrats negotiate Immigration and Customs Enforcement funding with President Trump over the next two weeks. This bi-partisan agreement led by Democrats has the goal of creating harsher restrictions for federal immigration enforcement to follow. One of the implementations released today led Trump’s border czar to announce 700 immigration officers must leave Minnesota, greatly diminishing their operational power. These discussions in Congress are a result of immigration enforcement officers shooting and killing two Minneapolis protestors in January. President Trump has agreed to and pushed for the Department of Homeland Security to be separated from a larger spending bill and extended at a stagnant rate for two weeks while Democrats and Trump negotiate. The bill, with Democratic and Republican support, has been directed to relocate $20 million in the budget for body cameras to be equipped on all Homeland Security personnel, including ICE. Democrats and Republicans have disagreed on the facemasks, as Democrats argue for their removal to hold officers accountable, whereas Republicans want to diminish the targeted harm against named ICE agents. Democrats are hoping to implement stricter judicial warrant grantings to stop the patrol of ICE agents targeting citizens based on means of racial profiling; currently, many immigration arrests are under administrative warrants which do not have the permittance of house invasion. Finally, Democrats called for a code of conduct standard for all ICE agents to follow, which has surged after federal officials blocked state investigators following Renee Good’s killing.


ALSO IN NATIONAL NEWS,
The Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos, conducts mass layoffs of one in three employees across the company Wednesday morning. Bezos’ plan for The Post’s management team was to increase profitability, however this initiative was criticized by journalists of the paper. These layoffs are impacting almost all news departments; some of the major changes are impacting the Metro desk, shutting down the majority of the Sports section, cancelling the Books section, and cancelling the daily “Post Reports” podcast. The Post’s international coverage has been significantly reduced, as well as large cuts to the business side of the Post. These cuts have been occurring for the last few weeks, and many journalists are outraged by their severity. The Post’s publisher, Will Lewis, has looked to implement Bezos’ monetary vision by honing in on their politics and laying off other areas, namely sports and foreign affairs. Many believe this decision will have a larger impact on The Post’s credibility as a whole, “This comes six months after hearing in a national meeting that race coverage drives subscription. This wasn’t a financial decision, it was an ideological one,” said now-laid-off race and ethnicity reporter Emmanuel Felton.

OUTRO: THANK YOU FOR TUNING IN! FROM THE WSUM NEWS BOOTH, I’M TALULA HAYES. HAVE A GREAT EVENING MADISON!