State and Local News That Matters
Republicans at the Wisconsin Capitol are not happy with the new choice for chancellor at UW-Madison.
Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, who is the vice chairman of the Senate’s committee for universities and technical colleges, called Dr. Jennifer Mnookin a “ridiculous choice.”
Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s campaign slogan to “fix the damn roads” gained viral attention for the Michigan Democrat.
However, as she gears up to seek another term, the state is still burdened with infrastructure issues. Residents of the state are required to pay thousands of dollars annually to repair their vehicle due to poor road conditions, according to one study from the nonprofit organization, TRIP.
A local high school softball team kneeled for the national anthem at a recent game, earning an understanding explanation from their school which said they were protesting for “social justice.”
Alpha News received a video of the Robbinsdale-Cooper girls softball team kneeling as the Star-Spangled Banner was played before a recent game. Only two of the fourteen players pictured remained standing for the national anthem.
Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) joined a resolution introduced by his Republican colleagues in the Senate to call on President Joe Biden to take action on border security and a spike in crime across the country.
Wisconsin has been subjected to a wave of violent crime that has included riots, a mass attack on a Christmas parade, and an arson attack on a pro-life group.
Controversy is swirling around Michigan Second District Court of Appeals Chief Judge Elizabeth L. Gleicher issuing a preliminary injunction Tuesday afternoon against the state’s moribund 1931 law criminalizing abortions.
Anti-abortion advocates, including Right to Life Michigan and the Michigan Catholic Conference, assert Gleicher should have recused herself in the case, Planned Parenthood v. Attorney General Dana Nessel, because Gleicher donates regularly to the organization. Additionally, Gleicher offered free legal services to the American Civil Liberties Union and its client Planned Parenthood in a late 1990s abortion case, Mahaffey v. Attorney General.
A bar praised for trying to challenge the public’s perception of downtown Minneapolis as dangerous was broken into, early Monday morning.
Ties Lounge & Rooftop is a recent startup that features four floors where people can congregate to drink and enjoy food. “We really want this place to be a place of healing for people, where people can come back and sit back and enjoy themselves and meet new people, network” one of Ties’s five original cofounders said in a March interview with Fox 9. MinnPost has also profiled the establishment, explaining that the founders “were driven to action by the murder of George Floyd,” taking over a space left vacant after the previous tenants were run out of business by “perceptions of crime.”
Amid calls from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to remedy a perceived teacher shortage in Michigan, some of the leading policy analysts in the state claim the governor’s “one-size-fits-all approach” is based on faulty premises.
Those premises are echoed in a Monday report in the education journal Chalkbeat Detroit.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Republican leaders in the legislature reached an agreement to invest $4 billion for education, public safety, and health care and an additional $4 billion for tax cuts.
The group worked together to reach the agreement as the term of the legislative session comes to an end.
There’s now legal help for three middle school boys in Kiel who are facing a sexual harassment complaint that accuses them of misgendering another student.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on Monday announced that it is defending the three.
The Republicans running for governor in Wisconsin are promising more cops, more prisons, and say they’ll fire prosecutors who don’t get tough on crime after a violent weekend in Milwaukee that saw more than two dozen people shot.
Milwaukee Police say Friday night’s shootings near the Deer District wounded 21 people. Another of those shootings saw 17 people shot. A string of shootings on Sunday saw another five people shot, including two people who died.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and one economic analyst agree that Michigan needs more workers but disagree on the proper strategies necessary to acquire them.
John Mozena, president of the Center for Economic Accountability, a nonprofit organization for transparent economic development policy, questioned Whitmer’s “doubling down” on big business subsidies while many businesses need workers. There are about 10 million Michiganders but, as of January 2021, only 4.7 million are in the workforce.
The Pledge of Allegiance is preceded by a “land acknowledgement / BLM” statement in at least one Roseville public school.
All Minnesota public and charter schools are required by law to lead students in reciting the pledge at least one time each week. While Roseville schools maintain compliance with this policy, at least one elementary school in the district has inserted politically charged language into what is usually a brief moment of patriotism.
Nurses in Wisconsin say Gov. Tony Evers is making it harder for folks in rural parts of the state to get care.
Evers last month vetoed a proposed law that would have allowed advanced practice nurses to work more independently. Advanced practice nurses currently can provide care, but need to collaborate with a doctor.
The state of Minnesota will not allow the public to view the materials that underlay a recent report accusing the Minneapolis Police Department of routinely violating human rights.
The report, compiled by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR), concluded that “there is probable cause that the City and MPD engage in a pattern or practice of race discrimination in violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act.”
Wisconsin GOP gubernatorial candidate Rebecca Kleefisch is running on a get-tough-on-crime agenda to unseat Democrat Gov. Tony Evers, saying Friday his “permissive culture” allowed the 2021 Waukesha Christmas parade tragedy to happen.
“The Waukesha parade massacre killed six people, injured 61. And it’s because of his permissive culture,” she said Friday on the “Just the News – Not Noise” livestream TV show on the Real America’s Voice network.
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Michigan moms and babies relying on a steady supply of baby formula are joining families nationwide stymied by supply chain issues, product recalls, and record 40-year high inflation that’s left many baby formula shelves bare.
Lynn Sutfin, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman, said the problem affected about 85% of the more than 200,000 people in the Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) program that gives recipients about $30 to $112 or more per month.
U.S. drug overdoses increased 15% between December 2020 and December 2021, according to data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.
The two-year jump established new records for overdose deaths over previous years.
A new poll shows that Minnesotans are practically split down the middle on the question of keeping Roe v. Wade.
According to results of a KSTP/SurveyUSA poll, 51% of Minnesotans said the Supreme Court should not overturn Roe. 29% expressed support for its overturn, while the remaining 20% said they weren’t sure.
GOP gubernatorial candidate Kevin Nicholson called on Governor Tony Evers to remove the chair of the Wisconsin Parole Commission.
Chairman John Tate II and the panel opted to allow a convicted killer, Douglas Balsewicz, to be released after serving only 25 years of the 80-year sentence he was given.
It started with the University of Michigan firing former president Mark Schlissel for a years-long relationship with a subordinate coworker deemed inappropriate. It ended with Schlissel receiving about $1 million in payouts.
UM granted Schlissel one year of leave starting May 1, 2022, with a salary of $463,000.
The calls for a federal investigation into a firebombing at the pro-life office in Madison are growing.
Wisconsin’s Republican congressmen Tom Tiffany, Scott Fitzgerald, Glenn Grothman, Bryan Steil, and Mike Gallagher all signed a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland this week, asking the Department of Justice to get involved in the case.
Around four years prior to preventing a Catholic conservative commentator from speaking on campus, an abortionist from Planned Parenthood spoke at a “workplace inclusion” conference affiliated with the University of St. Thomas.
In April 2018, Dr. Sarah Traxler, the medical director of Planned Parenthood North Central States, which is headquartered in St. Paul, spoke at the 30th annual “Forum on Workplace Inclusion.”
An election integrity law firm has filed a complaint against Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon after discovering that nearly 600 duplicate registrants appear on state voter rolls.
With the assistance of the Upper Midwest Law Center (UMLC), the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) has requested a hearing on the duplicate registrants at the Minnesota Office of Administrative Hearings in St. Paul.
The investigation into Wisconsin’s last vote for president is on hold.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on Wednesday said he is pausing the investigation from former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Michigan’s Long-Term-Care Ombudsman Program failed to visit most facilities in person, an auditor general report found.
MLTCOP, housed within the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, advocates for more than 100,000 long-term care residents statewide, investigates complaints and supports improved policies.
Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) voted against a new measure in the U.S. Senate to advance federal, pro-abortion legislation.
The measure failed on a bipartisan vote, as Senator Joe Manchin, (D-WV) joined all Republicans in opposing the measure.
When Gov. Gretchen Whitmer shut down most of Michigan’s economy in 2020, she promised to return 10% of her $159,300 annual salary to the state in solidarity with more than 1 million Michiganders either out of work or who were soon to be.
“I’m going to lead by example,” Whitmer said on April 20, 2020. “I know that times are tough and that we as a state are going to be confronting a tough budget as a result of the economic shutdown.”
The Minnesota Senate passed legislation to approve the terms of an opioid settlement negotiated by various Attorneys General throughout the country.
According to the agreement, major pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors settled on a $26 billion payout over the next 18 years. Minnesota could see up to $337 million of those funds.
“Justin Teigen was brutally beat to death by the St. Paul police here in the state of Minnesota,” Toshira Garraway said at one press conference.
“It happened on Aug. 19, 2009 and he was thrown inside of a trash dumpster,” she said at another.
The Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) does not have the resources to investigate a substantial number of crimes that occur in the city.
In response to this dire situation, the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) and State Patrol have now launched their own operations in the city. The BCA has already begun helping MPD work through its backlog of cases, decreasing it by 1,200.