Author: Wisconsin Public Radio

Governor Tony Evers started his second term on January 3, but scores of holdovers from the Democratic governor’s first term are stuck in a kind of legislative limbo. Nearly 180 people appointed by Evers to lead state agencies, boards and commissions had yet to be confirmed by the state Senate, according to lists provided in mid-December by the governor’s office and the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau. That includes five Cabinet members who continue to lead state agencies despite having never been confirmed by the Senate. While they have all the duties of other cabinet secretaries, they’re technically secretary-designees, which...

Wisconsin utility regulators approved rate hikes for electric and natural gas customers served by two of the state’s largest utilities on December 1, but they reduced profits utilities can collect amid outcry from financially-strapped ratepayers. The Wisconsin Public Service Commission approved overall electric rate hikes of 8.8 percent for We Energies and 9 percent for Wisconsin Public Service, according to commission staff. The increase is higher than what utilities initially proposed, but less than changes they suggested later that would have shifted more costs to residential customers. This fall, the utilities owned by Milwaukee-based WEC Energy Group asked for...

Since the start of the pandemic, deaths by domestic violence in Wisconsin have surged to record levels. According to a new report from End Domestic Abuse Wisconsin, domestic violence claimed 80 lives last year, including victims and perpetrators. That is up from 72 in 2019 and 68 in 2020. Around half of the victims were people of color, despite the population of Wisconsin being about 87 percent White. The cases occurred across Wisconsin, but 74 percent happened in urban areas, and the homicides were most concentrated in Milwaukee. While COVID alone did not create this spike in violence, it...

Milwaukee-area commuters will see a widened Interstate 94 on the city’s west side if a new recommendation from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation is adopted. The department announced its preferred plan for the $1.2 billion highway expansion on November 11. It would expand the road from six lanes to eight — four lanes in each direction — on about a 3.5-mile stretch of highway that passes the Brewers’ American Family Field. Its recommendation comes some 12 years after plans for the highway became a political issue, and more than 18 months since the state put it on hold in...

New York has Broadway. California has movie stars you will only see in Hollywood, Maine is known for its lobster, and Iowa has corn. Here in Wisconsin, we are known for a lot of products, but predominately beer. It is the state’s history with the beer industry that often raises the question about what happened to local breweries and alcohol production during prohibition. Prohibition began in the 1920s when the 18th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibited the manufacturing, transportation and sale of intoxicating beverages — it did not make the possession or consumption of alcohol illegal. It was...