Lives on Hold
Thousands await jobless aid as Wisconsin leaders blame each other for failure
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Wisconsin’s unemployment system buckled during the pandemic. State leaders are moving slowly to address a crisis years in the making.
Narrow Margin
Misplaced Milwaukee flash drive morphs into false charges of vote fraud
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Milwaukee’s head of elections says the flash drive with absentee vote totals was always in the custody of election authorities or the police.
Seeking a Cure: The Quest to Save Rural Hospitals
How one small Wisconsin hospital was saved amid a statewide rural health crisis
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Mergers, reduced services and expanding Medicaid are some ways to save rural hospitals; proposals for new funding models are stalled in Congress.
Government
Property owners near Foxconn say they were misled. Now their homes are gone.
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Homeowners near the Foxconn facility say they sold their homes for road widenings that were either abandoned, embellished — or never planned.
Government
‘Blight’ declaration for Foxconn one of the largest ever seen, experts say
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In June 2018, the village of Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, declared four square miles as blighted, giving the village board one more tool to force landowners to sell their property to make way for the Foxconn plant and associated development.
Government
More homes in the crosshairs as Foxconn-related road projects proceed
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One homeowner describes the ‘nightmare’ of discovering that her newly purchased home may be in the path of a road widening underway near Foxconn.
Environment
Great Lakes freighters may have to treat ballast water to curb invasives
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Ballast rules for ocean-going vessels to limit invasive species work; adding rules for local freighters would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, the industry says.
The Cannabis Question
Advice to immigrants: ‘Do not mess with marijuana’ even where it is legal
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Immigrants face a danger of deportation if they possess or invest in marijuana, even in states where it is legal.
The Cannabis Question
Blacks arrested for pot possession at four times the rate of whites in Wisconsin
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Gov. Tony Evers’ decriminalization proposal focuses on decreasing racial disparities in arrests; experts point to policing practices as the main issue.
Environment
Solar flare-up: Utility blocks Iowa firm from harnessing the sun in Milwaukee
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A solar company is challenging public utilities’ monopoly on providing electricity from solar in Wisconsin; state regulators have declined to intervene in the feud.
Cruel and Unusual?
Hard road ahead for Gov. Tony Evers’ promise to slash Wisconsin prison population
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The Democrat’s goal to reduce incarceration by 50 percent faces numerous hurdles; his own 2019-21 budget proposal calls for increasing prison beds.
Cruel and Unusual?
Wisconsin’s high supervision rate can cause — rather than prevent — longer incarceration, studies show
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Supervision time in Wisconsin is third-longest in the U.S., meaning more chances for revocations and increased prison populations.