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In 2005, long-lost letters from the famed Pabst and Best families, written from 1841 to 1887, were found at Pabst Farms in Oconomowoc. Once discovered, they were moved to the basement of the Pabst Mansion in Milwaukee and the content of those letters wouldn’t be known until 15 years later.

A big name came up last week as a possible candidate for Republican U.S Sen. Ron Johnson’s seat next year.

Longtime Democratic Congressman Ron Kind of La Crosse indicated he might run. Kind narrowly won re-election to his House seat in November, beating his Republican challenger by only two percentage points.

In this week’s Capitol Notes, Marti Mikkelson asks JR Ross of wispolitics.com if he thinks Kind can beat Ron Johnson — if Johnson decides to run for a third term.

When it comes to discussing politics, especially controversial topics, it can be difficult to leave a conversation without feeling the need to shout at the top of your lungs and become uncivil.

For many people, they feel that American discourse has lost the civility it is supposed to have.

Bill Keith is the co-author of the book, Beyond Civility: The Competing Obligations of Citizenship and a professor of rhetoric at UW-Milwaukee.

On Feb 1., the democratically-elected government of Myanmar was taken over in a military coup. The southeastern Asian country, also known as Burma, has dealt with political instability since 1948, when it declared independence from British rule.

This is the same military which for decades has been persecuting a Muslim ethnic minority in the country who call themselves Rohingya. Since the 1990s, over a million Rohingya have fled the country and become refugees around the world.

Local health officials are optimistic Wisconsin is on the road to increased supply of the COVID-19 vaccine. They say that’s the only way to get shots in the arms of more high-priority groups.

Production is ramping up all over the country on the two vaccines already approved by the FDA and in use. But a new Johnson & Johnson vaccine is expected to receive emergency use authorization possibly as early as this weekend.

Greenfield Health Director Darren Rausch said additional doses of the COVID-19 vaccine are necessary to meet demand.

A Milwaukee alderwoman wants the city to adopt a “universal basic income” pilot program.

The proposal by Ald. Chantia Lewis would supplement low-income families’ wages, so they’re making a living wage. She says cities across the country are beginning to experiment with universal basic income programs, and she wants Milwaukee to do the same.

Wisconsin health officials are creating a statewide COVID-19 vaccination schedule for school employees, in an effort to prioritize underserved communities.

>>Wisconsin Educators And Childcare Workers Next In Line For Vaccine, Beginning March 1

A Bubbler Talk listener was curious about Black historical sites in Milwaukee. There are many, so I chose to look at one that’s had many lives: the Jones-Hill House in the Harambee neighborhood. The building on N. Palmer St.— and its owners — played key roles in the city’s Black culture, starting in the 1950s.

Black history in the United States is often focused on the incredible tragedy and pain Black Americans have faced since the beginning of the nation’s history. While that history can’t be ignored, the success stories across Black history are rarely taught and often forgotten.

Hermione Bell-Henderson is the coordinator of business, technology and periodicals at the Milwaukee Public Library. For this year’s Black History Month, she put together a list of children's books aimed at teaching the stories of successful and influential Black Americans.

When it comes to Jewish holidays, people most likely have heard of Hannukah, the high holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, and Passover — the holiday in which people retell the story of Exodus.

People may not have heard of Purim, which starts on sundown Thursday, Feb. 25 and ends on sundown Friday, Feb. 26.

Cantor David Barash of Congregation Emanu-El B'ne Jeshurun says it’s a fun and festive holiday that congregations around the state are creatively celebrating in the pandemic. He describes the Purim story in a nutshell:

Updated 12:03 p.m. CST

Foxconn and Fisker, a California-based electric vehicle company rebooted after a bankruptcy, announced they've signed a memorandum of understanding to build 250,000 electric vehicles (EVs) per year. The cars would be sold in North America and other parts of the world.

Just where the EVs would be built has touched off a lot of speculation.

Richard Hedderman is a local poet, author and educator at the Milwaukee Public Museum, where he also coordinates the creative writing programming.  

His work has been featured in national and international literary publications, and his latest book of poetry is called Choosing A Stone.

On Monday evening, Nearby Nature Milwaukee held their second Annual African American Environmental Pioneer Awards celebration to honor people in Milwaukee who are helping to create a healthier and more racially just environment.

Sylvia Wilson, program director of  Teens Grow Greens, was one of the honorees.

There's been a shifting of a major COVID-19 vaccination site in the Milwaukee area and more sites are coming — eventually. Some of the locations could help ease racial disparities in vaccinations that include fewer Black and Latino people receiving the vaccine than their percentages in the population.

There's a lot going on in Wisconsin politics. From the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out to funding for the businesses and workers who have been hurt by the pandemic. Not to mention the political divisiveness among state lawmakers.

To unpack some of these issues, Lake Effect’s Joy Powers invited listeners to submit questions to ask Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes to learn more about his and the governor’s work. Here are his answers:

What are you and the governor doing to alleviate some of the confusion around the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out process?

For one week in 1968, late night host Johnny Carson made the historic decision to give up his job on The Tonight Show and allow actor and activist Harry Belafonte to take over.

At the time the country was facing historic protests over racial justice, continued involvement in the Vietnam War and a contentious election that eventually saw Richard Nixon win the White House.

Classical Latin American music comes from a wide range of influences. From classic European artists like Bach and Mozart to the Afro-Indigenous communities across Latin America, each musical influence has melted into what became known today as classical Latin music.

Dinorah Márquez is the founder and director of the Latino Arts Strings Program, a program designed to teach students string technique through various forms of Latin American folk music.

Milwaukee poet Richard Hedderman serves on the education staff at the Milwaukee Public Museum, which often gives him writing inspiration. Here's a poem influences by one of the museum's most popular exhibits:

It is endless, the early October dusk, smelling of smoke,
And lit in the flare of gaslight. The butterfly in the Mason jar
Folds its wings as if under the weight of dust,

Now that close to half of Wisconsinites age 65 and older have received at least one shot, the Department of Health Services is opening eligibility to more people in Phase 1b. It's starting with school and daycare employees – an estimated 225,000 people – who will be eligible March 1.

The Wisconsin Assembly on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a bipartisan bill designed to jump-start updates to the state's antiquated unemployment claims processing system that led to many people waiting weeks or months to get paid during the coronavirus pandemic.

Gov. Tony Evers has promised to sign the bill which the Senate passed last week on a 27-3 vote. The Assembly passed it 89-0.

On Sep. 6, 1861, George Marshall Clark was lynched on the northwest corner of Buffalo and Water Streets in Milwaukee — becoming the only Black victim of lynching in the city. Efforts are underway today to put a headstone on his unmarked grave.

Clark was only 22-years-old when he was killed. He was studying to be a barber under his father who owned a shop on Wisconsin Ave. 

A Wisconsin researcher has taken on the grim task of looking at how many years, cumulatively, COVID-19 has cut from people's lives. The answer just for last year, and for the U.S. and 80 other countries with good health statistics, is more than 20 million years. 

The co-authors of the study came up with their lost life metric by subtracting the age of everyone who died of COVID-19 from the life expectancy in the dead person's country, taking gender into account.

Joshua Kaiser is a tea expert and founder of Milwaukee-based Rishi Tea. He says while every new type of tea gets some getting used to when brewing, there are some good rules to follow to make the perfect cup of tea.

First, making sure the water is the right temperature.

“You want to bring the water to a boil and then let it cool down a little bit, so maybe, boil the water and let it cool for three, four minutes and pour it over the tea,” he says.