News
AG Kaul joins fight against Trump administration’s reproductive care ‘gag rule’
As the battle over reproductive rights unfolds before the U.S. Supreme Court, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul is joining a multi-state coalition supporting a Biden administration rule that would allow Title X funds to once again be used for family planning for low-income and uninsured individuals. The funds were redirected under the Trump Administration. Under […]
Biden to unveil plan to blunt potential COVID surge this winter
WASHINGTON — Reimbursements for at-home rapid COVID-19 tests. Tougher testing requirements for international travelers. More emergency response teams to aid states combating infection spikes. And another big push to get Americans vaccinated. Those are the latest steps to fight COVID-19 that President Joe Biden will be announcing Thursday, according to senior administration officials who briefed […]
GOP plans for secretary of state echo national push for elections control
Rep. Amy Loudenbeck (R-Clinton) announced Wednesday that she is running for secretary of state to empower an office she previously voted to gut. If she wins, she says she will seek to give the office the power to oversee elections, a goal other Republicans nationwide have been pursuing. In announcing her candidacy, Loudenbeck accused current […]
‘I don’t believe it was a dead end’
Second of two parts On the same day that the Wisconsin Assembly overwhelmingly approved a $15 million loan guarantee that officials in Park Falls hoped would save the city’s historic paper mill, a Wisconsin state senator pronounced the legislation all but dead. Language completely unrelated to the bill but tacked on in the second part […]
U.S. Supreme Court considers new limits on abortions in Mississippi case
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is weighing potentially sweeping changes to the right to an abortion, after two hours of arguments Wednesday morning on a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The court’s conservatives, who hold a 6-3 majority, appeared through their questions to be sympathetic to Mississippi’s arguments that its […]
Protesters rally at Supreme Court as justices hear landmark abortion case
WASHINGTON — Lucia Ruta remembers a time when abortions were illegal. A native of Washington, D.C., she says she received an abortion in a back alley when she was 16, in the 1960s. “The doctor told me that if I made as so much a whimper, he was going to stop and kick me out,” […]
Vaccine mandate for health care workers halted nationwide by Louisiana judge
WASHINGTON—A federal judge in Louisiana on Tuesday issued a ruling blocking nationwide the Biden administration mandate requiring millions of health care workers be vaccinated against COVID-19. A suit challenging the mandate was led on behalf of multiple states by Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican, and U.S. Judge Terry Doughty granted the states’ request […]
$200 million in ARPA money sent to local governments across Wisconsin
Local governments big and small across Wisconsin received a total of $200 million through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) this week. The program is meant to help local governments recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and was disbursed by the Wisconsin Department of Administration. The amount each municipality received was determined through a formula based […]
Democrats risk losses in 2022 if they give up on paid leave, advocates say
WASHINGTON — When paid family leave was briefly dropped from congressional Democrats’ massive social policy and climate bill earlier this fall, the outcry was swift. Women and caregivers suddenly were calling lawmakers and advocates, and they were sharing their own stories on social media in huge numbers, said Dawn Huckelbridge, director of Paid Leave for […]
ICU beds fill up as officials watch for coronavirus omicron variant
With the continued resurgence of COVID-19 in Wisconsin, still driven by the delta variant of the virus, hospital intensive care units are full in the state’s western and northwestern regions, the Wisconsin Hospital Association (WHA) reported Tuesday. “We are in the middle of a delta wave with record cases and record hospitalizations in Wisconsin for […]
Wisconsin Supreme Court sides with GOP on maps
In a decision released late Tuesday, the state Supreme Court sided with Republicans, ruling that new voting maps should take a “least-change approach,” hewing as much as possible to the GOP-tilted maps that locked in a Republican legislative majority 10 years ago. The 4-3 ruling, in which the justices split along ideological lines, lays the […]
Rittenhouse no longer enrolled in classes at Arizona State
Kyle Rittenhouse, who testified last month at his homicide trial that he was a student studying nursing at Arizona State University, is no longer enrolled at the school, according to a report from the Phoenix New Times. Rittenhouse, who was found not guilty on self-defense grounds earlier this month for shooting and killing two people […]