Author: NNS

Funds raised from the run/walk support Friends of Hank Aaron State Trail’s free summer Bike Adventure Camps for youth living in neighborhoods along the Trail. Carl Granetzke, 77, had competed in 100 triathlons and run in 752 races in southeastern Wisconsin before running in the 17th annual Hank Aaron State Trail 5K run/walk. “I’m here representing the old guys,” said Granetzke, of Racine, who received a prize for placing third in his age division (75 to 79) with a finishing time of 23 minutes. More than 1,000 people participated in the event that benefits the Friends of Hank Aaron...

All Traci Lee wants to be able to do is to buy a new class uniform and a pair of shoes for her young son each year without having to worry about whether she will be able to pay her bills. She would also like to get out from under an overdue electric bill before winter, and she dreams of one day buying a car so she could easily get to her two part-time jobs as a home health care worker. So when the 28-year-old heard about the Stronger Way Act, a piece of legislation that may mean a...

Local artists Chacho Lopez, Adam Correa, Julian Correa, Jon Bartels, Ben Stark, Josh Ebert, Tom Aldana and Mike Davenport all contributed to the mural in Walker’s Point. Looking out the classroom window of the high school he seldom attended, 16-year-old Chacho Lopez could see police officers pulling up to the school building. Scared out of his mind because he knew they were looking for him, he pulled his hood over his head and crept out of the building past the officers. Lopez remembers his gut dropping as his father screamed over the phone, “They’ve raided the house, they’ve got...

J’Ali Thornton loves sports, particularly football and basketball. When the wiry, energetic 9-year-old is not in school, he’s usually absorbed in a ball game with his friends. But when J’Ali starts to have trouble breathing, he often doesn’t want to stop playing. “It’s s very scary thing,” said his mother Latrina Thornton, who lives on the Northwest Side. “His asthma is very severe … When I take him to urgent care, they have to rush him to the back for his breathing treatment.” From J’Ali’s perspective, the hardest part of having asthma is that “it makes me slower sometimes...

Signs reading “Keep the Change” have been appearing in windows of businesses throughout Milwaukee, advising patrons not to give money to panhandlers. The fliers are a result of the Keep the Change initiative adopted by the Milwaukee Common Council on March 1. The program encourages donations to nonprofits that serve the homeless and other people in need. “When you Keep the Change, you can help that person make a real change in his or her life,” according to the council’s website. Tim Schwab, who has been homeless for six months, is not happy about the program. He said he...

As sirens blare through the warm summer air on a recent Milwaukee night, a group of about 40 demonstrators gathered on the corner of North 7th and West Ring streets near a pedestrian overpass spanning the I-43 freeway. One of those demonstrators was 9-year-old Nya Bryant, who accompanied her parents to the protest; it was her first. “You know, they see the images just like we do,” said Jerome Bryant, Nya’s father, of his four children. Bryant, who is black, said he and Nya had “deep conversations” about the recent killings of black men by police, during which he...