Skip to main content

Category: State news

Wisconsin Supreme Court suspends Dane County judge over ‘intemperate’ behavior

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

Although the process for handling judicial misconduct varies by state, it is “somewhat rare” for judges to be suspended in Wisconsin and across the nation, said Bryna Godar, a staff attorney at the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

“[Nationwide] the overall judicial disciplinary process is sometimes critiqued from both sides as being overly lenient on judges or as being too harsh on judges,” Godar said. “It’s really difficult to strike this balance between accountability for judicial officers while wanting to preserve the independence of state courts and state judges.”

Lawmakers unveil bold plan to build game-changing energy device in unexpected location: ‘An incredible opportunity for the future’

Posted on
The Cool Down

A group of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been working with local Realta Fusion to make fusion energy a reality, but they’re not the only ones, according to a report by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Three of the 45 companies working on fusion are already based in Wisconsin, and new bills supporting the advancement of this promising clean energy technology could draw even more to the area.

Wisconsin commemorates 50th anniversary of Hmong resettlement

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

Mai See Thao, a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that these resolutions are “long overdue.”

“Recognizing Hmong-Lao veterans is really important because they have never received the kinds of recognition that they’ve needed, given the fact that they supported the U.S. as proxy soldiers,” she said.

Packers, Bucks and some of Wisconsin’s biggest businesses wade into UW funding debate

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Nearly 800 business leaders and organizations have signed a letter urging state lawmakers to increase funding for the University of Wisconsin System.

The letter pulls a page from UW-Madison’s playbook. The university in 2023 gathered signatures from dozens of business leaders who supported an engineering building Republicans held up in the previous state budget and shared their support in a statewide campaign.

Federal cuts threaten Wisconsin farm safety center for children, rural communities

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

“Without the continued research that’s made possible with federal funding, it would set us back,” said John Shutske, an agricultural safety and health specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “We’ve seen over the last several decades a pretty dramatic decrease overall in our farm fatality rate. And while I think [the number of deaths] would probably plateau, I don’t think we would be able to continue to make the kind of progress that we’ve had.”

Stretch of dry weather is a welcome change for Northeast Wisconsin farmers

Posted on
FOX 11, Green Bay

Kevin Jarek, regional crops and soils educator with UW-Madison’s Division of Extension for Outagamie & Winnebago counties, noted, “If I were to go to counties like Shawano and Waupaca, especially the western parts of those counties, they get much lighter in soil. It’s a sandy loam texture, whereas here as we get closer to Lake Michigan, we tend to have a lot of clay.”

Maternal health care in Wisconsin and the future of Medicaid

Posted on
PBS Wisconsin

Dr. Ryan Spencer is an OB/GYN at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. He says the state is in a maternal health care crisis, in part due to years without Medicaid expansion.

“I think we’re actually in the long-term impacts of having not addressed those for decades,” he said. “Any expansion to Medicaid is highly likely in any given area or state to improve access that women have to prenatal care, intrapartum care, and postpartum care.”

Tariffs could churn up trouble for Wisconsin’s dairy industry

Posted on
The Badger Herald

Tariffs enacted under the Trump administration could have significant impacts on the agriculture industry in the U.S. and particularly on the dairy industry in Wisconsin, according to University of Wisconsin associate professor of agriculture and economics Chuck Nicholson.

“The tariffs have a number of different impacts, whether that be the tariffs we are placing on imports from other countries or the tariffs that other countries will place on us,” Nicholson said.

State audit reveals gaps in tracking DEI initiative spending at Wisconsin agencies, universities

Posted on
The Badger Herald

Republican-ordered audits found April 11 determined Wisconsin state agencies and the University of Wisconsin System failed to track millions of dollars spent on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts during the 2023-24 fiscal year — making it difficult to fully assess the efforts which have been under review due to recent federal orders.

Wisconsin home sales saw double-digit decrease last month compared to 2024

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

Steve Deller, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the seasonality of Wisconsin’s housing market helped insulate the state from similar month-to-month declines.

“I’m not going to rush my purchasing of a house because I think tariffs are going to hit,” Deller said. “I’m going to rush my purchasing of, say, a washer and dryer or refrigerator or a car because I think tariffs are going to cause prices to go up and I want to get them now. The housing market isn’t going to be hit by tariffs the same way.”

Judge Hannah Dugan has all-star legal team, including ‘LeBron James of lawyers’

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Richard Frohling, Acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, oversees the federal team. He has spent much of his career as a prosecutor. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin Law School and working as a law clerk and in private practice, Frohling joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Milwaukee in 2000. He was named first assistant in 2015. He has twice been the Acting U.S. Attorney and briefly served as U.S. attorney in 2022.

New group sees ‘fusion voting’ as a path to ease Wisconsin’s political polarization

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Barry Burden, a political science professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the university’s Elections Research Center, said while there is no silver bullet to inject harmony into the state’s politics, “allowing fusion to be used once again in the state has the potential to at least begin moving politics in a healthier direction without any negative side-effects.”

Wisconsin EMS providers are ‘in crisis.’ Lawmakers have ideas

Posted on
The Cap Times

Belleville Area EMS is fully staffed — which is increasingly rare in Wisconsin — but a drop in volunteers has forced the service to rely on student recruits from the University of Wisconsin-Madison more than on local residents. Belleville also is among a growing number of EMS services shifting from an all-volunteer model to one that leans on some paid staff.

Heads of UW system, state agencies defend diversity, inclusion practices to audit committee

Posted on
Wisconsin Examiner

President of the Dane County NAACP chapter Greg Jones was the only member of the public to testify at a Joint Audit Committee hearing Tuesday on two recent audits into the diversity, equity and inclusion practices of state agencies and the Universities of Wisconsin. His message to lawmakers was simple: listen to individuals’ stories about the impact of diversity, equity and inclusion programs and stay away from politicized attacks on DEI.

Visa terminations are ‘deeply troubling,’ seem ‘arbitrary and unjust,’ Mnookin says in newspaper column

Posted on
The Daily Cardinal

In a column published in the Wisconsin State Journal, Mnookin addressed the recent visa terminations of UW-Madison students and alumni. As of Tuesday, the university is aware of the termination of 27 total records, which includes 15 current students and 12 alumni.

Academic unions rally against Trump, demand action from UW-Madison leaders

Posted on
WORT FM

More than 250 people gathered on campus to rally against the Trump administration and demand action from UW-Madison higher-ups. The local unions representing university faculty, academic staff, and graduate students organized the demonstration, joining countless others today across the country as part of the National Day of Action for Higher Ed.

Higher education leaders ask lawmakers for state funding as federal cuts loom

Posted on
Wisconsin Examiner

Federal funding cuts and national culture war politics cast a long shadow over a state legislative committee hearing Thursday as Wisconsin’s higher education leaders asked lawmakers for additional investments in the next state budget — warning that disinvestment by the state could damage  public universities’, private nonprofit schools’ and technical colleges’ ability to serve students and the state.

Madison Water Utility earns high marks in first-ever Wisconsin water report cards

Posted on
The Daily Cardinal

The report cards, compiled by Manuel Teodoro, a professor at UW-Madison’s La Follete School of Public Affairs, evaluated 572 water utilities using data from 2022 and 2023 provided by the Wisconsin Public Service Commission, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and Teodoro’s research team.

Wisconsin’s name-change law raises safety risks for transgender people

Posted on
Wisconsin Watch

This is less privacy than the legal system typically affords young people, confirmed Cary Bloodworth, who directs a family law clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Bloodworth said both child welfare and juvenile courts tend to keep records confidential for a number of reasons, including that what happens in a person’s youth will follow them for a lifetime.

“I certainly think having a higher level of privacy for kids is a good thing,” Bloodworth said, adding that she thinks the publication requirement is unnecessary for people of any age.

Wisconsin and Great Lakes research could suffer under proposed cuts to NOAA

Posted on
Wisconsin Public Radio

At Wisconsin Sea Grant, the program’s director Christy Remucal said NOAA funding is the largest source of revenue for the program that’s operated for 57 years on state and federal support. Federal funding makes up 32 percent of the program’s funding, or $2.4 million. Wisconsin Sea Grant and its 30 staff support conservation of Great Lakes resources and communities through research, education and outreach.

“We have staff that are working directly with communities and really making a difference on so many different things whether it’s flooding or clean marinas or invasive species,” Remucal said.

Researchers, lawmakers look to turn Wisconsin into the ‘Silicon Valley’ for nuclear energy

Posted on
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A group of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Realta Fusion, a Madison-based nuclear startup, have developed a fusion device in Stoughton that creates the same kind of reaction that fuels the sun and stars. The process is much different than fission, the nuclear reaction that powers current nuclear reactors and the atomic bomb.

UW joins other Big Ten schools in implementing fiscal controls amid federal funding cuts

Posted on
The Badger Herald

The University of Wisconsin will implement fiscal controls for the remainder of the 2025 fiscal year including hiring reviews, reductions in non-essential spending and the development of 5% and 10% budget reduction scenarios for fund 101 — a fund dedicated to state tax, federal indirect cost and tuition allocation.