Author: Correspondent

BMO Harris Bank unveiled its much-anticipated annual holiday display, “A Holiday in King Arthur’s Court – the Magic of Camelot,” at the BMO Harris Bank’s downtown Milwaukee location at 770 N. Water Street. The display is free and open to the public. Celebrating its 45th year, this annual holiday tradition transforms BMO’s downtown lobby into A Holiday in King Arthur’s Court. This year’s scene features more than 150 life-sized Steiff animals dressed in their own carefully-crafted, rich, royal-themed costumes. The animals will be displayed in an elaborately designed vignette in BMO’s downtown bank lobby where kings, queens, knights, thrones,...

The U.S. Senate’s Committee on Appropriations released its funding bill for the Department of the Interior, EPA, and other related agencies on November 20. In March, when the Trump Administration’s preliminary budget was leaked to the press, showing steep cuts to core Great Lakes programs, Great Lakes senators sent a letter to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, urging the administration to maintain funding. The bill provides: $300 million for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative to clean up toxic pollution, reduce farm and urban runoff, control invasive species, and restore fish and wildlife habitat. The bill maintains funding at the same...

An evening with Peter Edelman, author of “Not a Crime to Be Poor” will take place in Milwaukee on November 29. Community Advocates Public Policy Institute welcomes author and advocate Peter Edelman to the Boswell Book Company at 7:00 p.m. on November 29, to discuss his latest book, Not a Crime to be Poor: The Criminalization of Poverty in America. Since the Justice Department’s report on Ferguson, Missouri, illuminated the modern-day debtors’ prisons that were plaguing that community’s poor, African American residents, a national dialogue has emerged about how poverty is criminalized by the practice of imposing exorbitant fines...

The City of Milwaukee Department of Public Works (DPW) issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for marketing The Milwaukee Streetcar, with a December 22 deadline for submissions. The initial contract is slated to begin in early 2018 and run for three years, with two possible one-year extensions. The 2.1-mile starter streetcar system (Phase 1) will connect the Milwaukee Intermodal Station with the central business district and the dense housing on the lower East Side, providing service to residential, commercial, employment, parking, and hotel destinations. Construction of Phase 1 is underway, with service slated to begin in Fall 2018. The...

A distinguished UWM professor was recently named one of world’s most cited academic researchers in the field of engineering by Clarivate Analytics, a leading company that monitors scholarly data. Junhong Chen is among 3,300 researchers from 900 institutions who have produced a high number of papers that rank in the top 1 percent most-cited in a field over an 11-year period. This recognition amounts to having “won peer approval in the form of high-citation counts,” according to Clarivate Analytics, and it means the listed researchers’ discoveries inspire and challenge colleagues in their field to further advance the work. Chen...

For Peter Dunn, UWM distinguished professor of biological sciences, bird-watching offers clues to overarching ecological questions like climate change and species survival. He wants to know the purpose behind bird preferences such as feather brightness and why some birds follow the same mating playbook, while others deviate. He and Professor Linda Whittingham are now in their 21st year of studying tree swallows at the UWM Field Station, a 320-acre wetland near Saukville. This has given the ornithologists a long-term perspective on the birds they study, which include common yellowthroats and tree swallows. What attracted you to this work? When...