Author: Wisconsin Watch

A bill progressing through the Wisconsin Legislature was meant to spur the expansion of electric vehicle charging by confirming that private businesses can sell electricity to drivers at charging stations. But amendments to the bill have turned electric vehicle proponents against it. The current version would ban government entities from owning or leasing charging stations and would only allow stations to charge for electricity that comes from utilities, not from on-site solar installations. Clean energy proponents including Renew Wisconsin now say they want Governor Tony Evers to veto the bill if it passes the Legislature with those provisions intact....

To understand how Wisconsin’s labor shortage has transformed the jobs market, look no further than an October 14 job fair to hire workers for expansions of Pierce Manufacturing’s production plants in Neenah and Fox Crossing. The fire truck manufacturer aimed to hire 200 assemblers, welders, electricians and painters. Pierce touted competitive pay, health and well-being services and matching retirement contributions as most major employers do now, and it highlighted another incentive: $10,000 in educational reimbursement per year for employees working toward a college degree. The company conducted interviews and drug tests on the spot, and it welcomed candidates with...

MATC offers 200 programs that can help prepare students for careers in one or two years and provides a more affordable avenue for students who transfer to other schools to pursue four-year degrees. Jasmin Treske had planned to go to college after graduating from South Milwaukee High School. She picked out classes at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and attended orientation, but the looming financial commitment spooked her. So she decided to take a year off. And in that year, Treske got pregnant. “Going to school just became that much harder. Now somebody else was in the equation,” she said....

The Republican chair of the Wisconsin Senate elections committee on December 13 urged members of her own party to halt their attempts to discredit the bipartisan elections system they created and to oust the state’s top official. The moves began after President Joe Biden’s narrow victory over Donald Trump in Wisconsin’s 2020 presidential race. “We have a great system here, and no one should falsely accuse election officials of cheating,” Sen. Kathleen Bernier, R-Chippewa Falls, said at a state Capitol event organized by Washington, D.C.-based Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR), a nonprofit that works with Republican and...

The winds and waves of Lake Michigan have sculpted the landscape of Whitefish Dunes State Park, a must-see treasure along Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula. Water delivers fine sand to a shoreline that supports threatened plants like the dune thistle. Wind stacks that sand into the mighty dunes that inspired the park’s name. Summer visitors splash on its beach or hike to Old Baldy, the park’s tallest dune that rises nearly 100 feet above the lake. Come winter, gazers marvel at erupting ice volcanoes — cone-shaped mounds formed when waves shoot slush and water through cracks in ice. These shores have...