Skip to main content

Category: State news

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

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

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’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Wisconsin volunteers flock to count sandhill and whooping cranes this weekend

Wisconsin Public Radio

Paul Robbins, dean of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a former board member for the ICF, told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” that counting cranes might seem like a simple task, but it’s the only way to get a snapshot of the population around the state.

“Conservation is really based on pretty small numbers of beings in the world, so you actually have to find them and see them,” he said. “And that really requires people to be on the ground.”

Crime-related TV ads consumed $27 million of spending in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Overall, it may look like Schimel and his conservative allies aired more crime-related TV ads than did Crawford, said University of Wisconsin political science professor Barry Burden. But Burden noted that most of the spending on the left went through Crawford’s campaign. On the right, many conservative groups spent their own cash instead of funneling it through the state Republican Party to Schimel.

“Campaigns who spend directly are guaranteed by law to get lower ad rates, so even equal spending by the two sides means that Schimel was able to purchase less because more of his support came from outside groups,” Burden said.

Calling for change in Madison

Madison Magazine

The way these protests affected and defined Madison proves yet again that the University of Wisconsin–Madison is the most important thing about the city. Of the demonstrations listed in this article, only two — against Gov. Scott Walker’s Act 10 assault on public employees in 2011 and for Black lives in 2020 — weren’t driven by UW–Madison students.

Double-digit Wisconsin Supreme Court defeat has Republicans at a crossroads entering a big 2026

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“Democrats are now a party of higher income and more educated voters, rather than lower income and less educated voters, and that makes them more reliable voters,” said Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and director of the university’s Elections Research Center.

Latin, Hmong immigrants enrich Wisconsin farm organization through cultural contributions

The Daily Cardinal

Martin Ventura, the Urban Agriculture and Community Gardens Specialist at UW-Madison Extension, manages and maintains farms in the Milwaukee area, some of which are farmed by immigrants, particularly in the Hmong community. UW-Extension, Ventura said, had a former partnership with the Hmong American Friendship Association to establish a Hmong heritage garden plot, allowing local communities to farm.

Retiring Justice Ann Walsh Bradley elected chief justice, will hand reins to Jill Karofsky

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A Middleton native, Karofsky has a bachelor’s degree from Duke University and master’s and law degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1992, she started as a Dane County assistant district attorney and was later promoted to deputy district attorney. She also has worked as director of human resources and general counsel for the National Conference of Bar Examiners and as an adjunct professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

Political expert breaks down results of Wisconsin Supreme Court race

WKOW - Channel 27

“Although Green Bay being a city, you know, of course has a substantial number of Democratic leaning votes as well,”said Howard Schweber, a professor emeritus of political science and affiliate faculty member at the University of Wisconsin Law School.  “Counties like Brown County and other northern counties, which are traditionally conservative strongholds in Wisconsin depend heavily on manufacturing and agriculture, and those are areas that are being slammed by the tariffs.”