Associated Press

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.

Updated at 2:34 p.m. CT

Giannis Antetokounmpo’s historic year earned him a historic awards sweep.

The Milwaukee forward is the NBA’s Most Valuable Player for the second consecutive season, receiving that award Friday. He got the Defensive Player of the Year award earlier in these NBA playoffs.

The 25-year-old Antetokounmpo becomes just the third player in league history to win MVP and Defensive Player of the Year in the same season, joining only Hall of Famers Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon.

President Donald Trump is aiming to boost enthusiasm among rural Wisconsin voters Thursday, looking to repeat his path to victory four years ago.

Making his fifth visit to the pivotal battleground state this year, Trump views success in the state’s less-populated counties as critical to another term. He is set to hold a rally Thursday evening in Mosinee, in central Wisconsin, an area of the state that shifted dramatically toward Republicans in 2016, enabling Trump to overcome even greater deficits in urban and suburban parts of the state.

Big Ten is going to give fall football a shot after all.

Less than five weeks after pushing football and other fall sports to spring in the name of player safety during the pandemic, the conference changed course Wednesday and said it plans to begin its season the weekend of Oct. 23-24.

University of Wisconsin-Madison officials made the right decision to reopen the campus even though there's been a surge of COVID-19 cases among students and university employees, Gov. Tony Evers said Tuesday.

A Republican member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission advised a Green Party representative about who to hire as an attorney after its presidential nominee was denied ballot access in the key battleground state, records obtained by The Associated Press show.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison decided Monday to eliminate spring break next semester in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

The university's Faculty Senate voted 140-7 to erase the nine-day break from the 2021 spring calendar. Officials said the move is designed to discourage students and staff from traveling long distances and bringing the virus that causes COVID-19 back to campus, officials said.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday rejected the Green Party presidential candidate's request to be added to the state ballot, ruling that it came too late for any relief “that would not cause confusion and undue damage” just seven weeks before the election.

The 4-3 ruling blocks a third-party candidacy that Democrats had feared could hurt Joe Biden in this narrowly divided battleground state. It also clears the way for local clerks to resume mailing absentee ballots to more than 1 million voters who have already requested one.

Updated at 1:41 p.m. CT

The conservative-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court on Thursday ordered that no absentee ballots be mailed until it gives the go-ahead or makes any future ruling about who should be on the ballot in the critical battleground state.

The order injects a measure of confusion into the voting process in Wisconsin a week before a state's deadline for absentee ballots to be mailed and less than two months before the Nov. 3 presidential election. Polls show a tight race in the state between President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden.

Updated 9:20 p.m.

UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank announced Wednesday evening that due to increasing COVID-19 cases among students, the university would shift to remote instruction for two weeks.

Students in two residence halls, Sellery and Witte, will also be quarantined for two weeks and tested for the virus. Blank said, this is because a rising number of positive COVID tests are now occurring in the on-campus population.

When the sun rose on Kenosha Wednesday, Aug. 26, former Marine Tim Thompkins said his hometown felt like a battlefield. Smoke lingered in the air from buildings and cars set ablaze the night before. Empty tear gas canisters and pepper bullets littered the streets. Homes were boarded up, and businesses ravaged.

Jacob Blake's father said Friday that his “happy-go-lucky” son is optimistic for his future, although he remains paralyzed from the waist down after being shot seven times in the back by a Kenosha police officer.

A clearly exhausted Jacob Blake Sr., speaking by video chat from a Milwaukee hotel, told The Associated Press that the past two weeks have been “surreal” and “like a dream” and he’s mentally worn out. He said he’s been receiving death threats, which he said he couldn’t talk about in detail.

Updated at 3:41 p.m. CT

A Black journalist quit his job at a Kenosha daily newspaper after disputing a headline for a story about a rally organized by the family of Jacob Blake, a Black man who was shot by a police officer.

Daniel Thompson resigned from his position as a digital editor at The Kenosha News after seeing the headline that was posted online for Saturday's story. The headline read "Kenosha speaker: 'If you kill one of us, it’s time for us to kill one of yours.' "