Author: Wisconsin Public Radio

Zory McDonald works as a finance manager at Rust-Oleum’s plant in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, commuting about 45 minutes a day from her home in Round Lake, Illinois. She is worried about a pending bill in Illinois that would allow the state to remain in daylight saving time year-round. Doing so would put her home and her job in different time zones for half the year. McDonald’s 11-year-old son goes to before- and after-care at his school. She said when the time zones are different, she would need to work with her boss to adjust her hours. “When they are...

Wisconsin Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin called on Republicans to call former national security adviser John Bolton to testify in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump on January 27, saying it was “gut check time” for senators who had sworn oaths to defend the United States Constitution. Baldwin also singled out her Republican counterpart, Wisconsin U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, saying what Bolton reportedly wrote in his unpublished memoir about Trump’s position on U.S. aide to Ukraine contradicted what the president told Johnson last August. The New York Times first reported on the Bolton manuscript over the weekend, stating...

Presidential candidates would not be allowed to hold campaign rallies in Wisconsin if they have unpaid bills for past events in the state, under a new proposal from Democratic state lawmakers. The bill was circulating for cosponsors on January 13, the day before President Donald Trump’s Milwaukee re-election event. The legislation was introduced by Representatives Jodi Emerson, D-Eau Claire, and Amanda Stuck, D-Appleton, and Senators Jeff Smith, D-Eau Claire, and Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee. It would allow municipalities to charge presidential and vice presidential campaigns estimated security and sanitation costs up front. It would also block local governments from issuing event...

Governor Tony Evers used his second State of the State address Wednesday evening to call lawmakers into a special session to address Wisconsin’s dairy crisis. Wisconsin lost 10 percent of its dairy farms in 2019, breaking the previous year’s record high. “We’ve heard people who’ve said there’s no place for small farms anymore, they ought to go big or bust. Well, they’re wrong,” Evers said, referencing comments made by U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue during a visit to Wisconsin in October. “They don’t know Wisconsin.” Evers said he was calling in lawmakers next week to take up...

Two years ago, former Governor Scott Walker stood in a crowded office tower in downtown Milwaukee about 30 miles north of Foxconn’s planned manufacturing plant. Seven months earlier the company announced it would build a 22-million-square-foot facility in Mount Pleasant in exchange for one of the largest tax incentive deals ever made between a state and private company. Those plans have since changed. Foxconn is currently building a nearly 1 million-square-foot manufacturing building in Mount Pleasant that is expected to be open later this year or in early 2021. The company and the state are currently renegotiating their contract...