News

Public Health: Abortions have increased in the U.S. as desperate women turn to pills and travel

Abortion is slightly more common despite bans or deep restrictions in most Republican-controlled states, the legal and political fights over its future are not done yet. It is now been two and a...

Maternal Mortality: Review committees are quietly fighting to save mothers amid political turmoil

Efforts to reduce the nation’s persistently high maternal mortality rates involve state panels of experts that investigate and learn from each mother’s death. The panels, called maternal...

How neurons power new biocomputing platforms built from living tissue as AI devours global resources

A new generation of computing technology is emerging. Not from factories or cleanrooms, but from biological laboratories where human neurons are grown, trained, and wired into living machines. These...

U.N.’s crucial humanitarian aid programs face a clouded future as the world body turns 80

At a refugee camp in northern Kenya, Aujene Cimanimpaye waits as a hot lunch of lentils and sorghum is ladled out for her and her nine children, all born while she has received United Nations...

Remembering the legacy of Summerfield United Methodist Church as a sanctuary of conscience

For more than 170 years, the congregation of Summerfield United Methodist Church served as a moral anchor on Milwaukee’s east side. Founded in 1852 by abolitionists, it was sustained through eras of...

Milwaukee hosts U.S. premiere of film documenting Russia’s brutal war on education in occupied Ukraine

The North American premiere of “War on Education,” the acclaimed documentary about Ukraine by filmmaker Stefano Di Pietro, arrived in Milwaukee on June 1 with a message of urgency and a...

Waiting for Peace: South Korea marks 75 years since North Korea began a war that has never ended

When the Korean War began on June 25, 1950, it was understood to be the first major armed conflict of the Cold War era. Seventy-five years later, the armistice that halted the fighting still defines...

Trump abandons promise to avoid war by inserting U.S. into Netanyahu’s undeclared war with Iran

Donald Trump expressed certainty that his big gamble to directly assist the Israelis delivered a knockout blow to Iran’s nuclear program, even as many supporters and detractors alike were...

Trump outsmarted by Netanyahu over Iran as U.S. stumbles closer to another Middle East war

Donald Trump’s calls for Iran to surrender “unconditionally” have drawn sharp warnings from Tehran and stirred growing fears of deeper U.S. military involvement, as Israeli warplanes continue to...

A guide to understanding what Juneteenth is and how to celebrate the 160-year-old national holiday

It was 160 years ago that enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been freed, after the Civil War’s end and two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation...

Wisconsin dairy farmer files lawsuit claiming Trump is failing to stop discrimination against White farmers

A Wisconsin dairy farmer alleged in a federal lawsuit filed on June 16 that the Trump administration is illegally denying financial assistance to White farmers by continuing programs that favor...

When a cult goes mainstream: Inside the toxic psychological engine of Trump’s MAGA movement

With Donald Trump’s return to the White House in 2025, his political base has emerged as one of the most studied and polarizing forces in American political history. Hardened through years of...

Why the Green Revolution is not a blueprint for feeding a hungry planet but a dire warning

Nov 18, 2023

By Glenn Davis Stone, Research Professor of Environmental Science, Sweet Briar College Feeding a growing world population has been a serious concern for decades, but today there are new causes for alarm. Floods, heat waves and other weather extremes are making...

Toxic Contamination: Legacy of the nuclear arms race leaves staggering cleanup costs at home

Nov 18, 2023

By William J. Kinsella, Professor Emeritus of Communication, North Carolina State University Christopher Nolan’s film “Oppenheimer” has focused new attention on the legacies of the Manhattan Project – the World War II program to develop nuclear weapons. As the...

Slow violence of contamination: The importance of shining a light on hidden toxic histories in America

Nov 17, 2023

By Elizabeth Kryder-Reid, Chancellor’s Professor of Anthropology and Museum Studies, Indiana University Indianapolis proudly claims Elvis’ last concert, Robert Kennedy’s speech in response to Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, and the Indianapolis 500....

Thugs and vermin: Political sycophants downplay Trump’s unhinged speech echoing Nazi propaganda

Nov 16, 2023

In a speech on November 11 in Claremont, New Hampshire, and then in his Veterans Day greeting the day after on social media, former president Trump echoed German Nazis. “In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran’s Day [sic] we pledge to you that we will root out the...

March for Israel: Milwaukee group joins historic Washington rally calling for the release of hostages

Nov 15, 2023

Almost 200 residents from the Milwaukee area traveled to Washington DC on November 14 to participate in the “March for Israel.” They joined an estimated 290,000 others from across the nation, calling for the release of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza....

Chatbot bans: Colleges revert to paper exams in effort to create “ChatGPT-proof” assignments

Nov 14, 2023

When philosophy professor Darren Hick came across another case of cheating in his classroom at Furman University last semester, he posted an update to his followers on social media: “Aaaaand, I’ve caught my second ChatGPT plagiarist.” Friends and...

Why sci-fi books can help kids better understand science yet remain scarce resources in schools

Nov 14, 2023

By Emily Midkiff, Assistant Professor of Teaching, Leadership, and Professional Practice, University of North Dakota Science fiction can lead people to be more cautious about the potential consequences of innovations. It can help people think critically about the...

Associated Press joins handful of news organizations to develop standards for using AI in journalism

Nov 13, 2023

The Associated Press has issued guidelines on artificial intelligence, saying the tool cannot be used to create publishable content and images for the news service while encouraging staff members to become familiar with the technology. AP is one of a handful of news...

$68B SEO industry under threat as Google, Bing, and other search engines embrace generative AI

Nov 13, 2023

By Ravi Sen, Associate Professor of Information and Operations Management, Texas A&M University Google, Microsoft, and others boast that generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT will make searching the internet better than ever for users. For...

Wisconsin’s Muslim leaders pledge to abandon Biden in 2024 presidential election over no Gaza cease-fire

Nov 10, 2023

Muslim leaders from across the state and the Wisconsin Christians for Justice in Palestine held a press conference at Milwaukee City Hall on November 9, making a public pledge that without a ceasefire and immediate assistance of the people in Gaza, they would not vote...

Forced removals from elected office emerge as a political weapon of choice in Wisconsin and Red states

Nov 9, 2023

Republicans in Wisconsin are threatening to impeach a recently elected state Supreme Court justice and raised the possibility of doing the same to the state’s election director. A Georgia Republican called for impeaching the Fulton County prosecutor who brought...

Meta engineer testifies as a witness before Congress about how his own child faces sexism on Instagram

Nov 8, 2023

On the same day whistleblower Frances Haugen was testifying before Congress about the harms of Facebook and Instagram to children in the fall of 2021, Arturo Béjar, then a contractor at the social media giant, sent an alarming email to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg about...