News

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett would reduce the city's police force by 120 positions in his proposed 2021 budget. Barrett is presenting the $1.5 billion budget to the Common Council Tuesday.

The police positions would be reduced through attrition. The mayor's budget cuts about $430,000 from the police department's current funding level.

The proposal follows the loss of 60 sworn police jobs in this year's budget, which cut the department to about 1,800 officers.

Updated at 11:55 a.m. CT

Faced with soaring coronavirus cases across Wisconsin, particularly on college campuses, Gov. Tony Evers on Tuesday extended a statewide mask mandate until Nov. 21.

The order, which has been in effect since August, was scheduled to expire on Monday. Evers extended the order even as his authority to issue a previous mandate is being challenged by conservatives in court.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison's chancellor on Monday pushed back against repeated calls from Dane County's top leaders to close the campus to slow COVID-19, saying he needs to stop wishing students were gone and crack down on off-campus gatherings.

Rebecca Blank's remarks are the latest in an escalating war of words with Dane County Executive Joe Parisi, who has complained that the rash of student infections since campus opened several weeks ago are skewing the county's case numbers upward.

Like many states, Wisconsin is expecting a major shift toward mail-in voting this fall due to the coronavirus pandemic. It's also a key state that could decide whether President Trump gets another term. 

Updated at 4:26 p.m. CT

A federal judge ruled Monday that absentee ballots in battleground Wisconsin can be counted up to six days after the Nov. 3 presidential election as long as they are postmarked by Election Day.

The highly anticipated ruling, unless overturned, means that the outcome of the presidential race in Wisconsin might not be known for days after polls close. Under current law, the deadline for returning an absentee ballot to have it counted is 8 p.m. on Election Day.

I’ve discovered the perfect cure for pandemic boredom.

Slip into the camel brown suede and black leather interior of a muscle-bound hot rod, known to the Mopar brethren as a Dodge Challenger. But not the low-end V6-powered SXT, although I’m sure it has its party favors too. But lavish in the luxurious cow-threatening interior of the R/T Scat Pack Widebody.

The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development's top leader resigned Friday after failing to find a way to address a massive backlog of unprocessed unemployment benefit claims sparked by the coronavirus pandemic.