Audrey Nowakowski

When people started staying at home due to the coronavirus pandemic, we all looked for things to do for fun to keep us occupied while staying in the house. One major outlet is games.

As Pride is celebrated in June, people are looking back on all of the accomplishments and progress the LGBTQ community has made — like the recent Supreme Court decision that bans LGBT employment discrimination.

It seems like the world has been fascinated by Mars for decades. Since unmanned missions began in 1960, there have been 56 missions to Mars from countries around the world. While less than half of these missions have been successful, the problems haven’t stopped us.

June is Pride month in honor of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Greenwich Village, New York. The riots against police brutality and oppression were largely led by LGBTQ people of color. One of those leaders was Marsha P. Johnson, a gay liberation activist and self-identified drag queen.

>> Stonewall: The Hidden History Of Gay Rights

Campaign finance, dark money, Super PACs, political campaigning — sounds like a perfect comedy to be set in small town Wisconsin.

About a third of our lives is spent sleeping. Sleep is good for our health and builds our immune function, something especially important during a pandemic.

However, the CDC estimates that 30-40% of American adults sleep less than six hours a night. That's two hours less than the recommended eight hours. Sleep deprivation is often associated with an increased risk of high blood pressure, anxiety, depression, and our ability to cope with stress.

The protests that erupted after the death of George Floyd launched the issues of systemic racism to the front of the world’s consciousness. For many children, these recent events and continuing protests in their communities will result in some of their first questions about race and racism. 

Research has shown that children can pick up racial biases by the age of 4. While race is a simpler thing to address once a young child notices differences in skin color, racism is much more difficult of a topic to address with your children. 

Since March, the coronavirus pandemic has changed the lives of people of all ages. But the changes have been especially challenging for parents and their children.

Suddenly, kids are home all day while many parents work remotely. Some children are trying to learn virtually, and most are unable to participate in the typical activities they enjoy.

So, how can we help kids cope during the coronavirus? We spoke with Dr. Maggie Altschaefl, a psychologist at Children’s Wisconsin Community Services, to find out.

Identify emotions and teach coping skills

Many organizations are finding new ways to engage with the public during the coronavirus pandemic. Like most places, the Milwaukee Public Museum has remained closed. But a new partnership with Google is allowing people back inside the museum without leaving home.

People in Milwaukee and throughout the United States continue to march against police brutality and call for justice, reforms and accountability. These protests centered on racial inequities are especially potent in Milwaukee — the most segregated metro area in America.

Wisconsin is known for having some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the nation. Currently, women can only go to four clinics in the state to access abortion services. If they can get appointments at these clinics, additional restrictions such as state-directed counseling and a 24-hour waiting period require multiple trips.

If you turn on Netflix, the top 10 films during the international Black Lives Matter protests following the killing of George Floyd include movies like The Help, Greenbook, or Crash. But these films aren't necessarily the ones to watch to learn more about race issues and racism.

While films are a powerful medium and a widely accessible tool, it’s important to watch films that give accurate representations of events and are made by voices of color — whether fiction or documentaries.

Civil rights protesters continue to march around the country and in Milwaukee against police brutality since the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.

The way many people are connecting with the demonstrations is through the videos and photographs from people on the ground. At WUWM, our reporters have been aided by local photographer and videographer Samer Ghani, who has been out at the protests nearly every day working to capture what’s been happening in our city.

Throughout United States history, Milwaukee and Wisconsin have been politically significant. And Milwaukee has an interesting political past you may not know about: socialists ran the city for nearly half of the 20th century. One of the most notable was Mayor Daniel Hoan, who served for a consecutive 24 years — the longest socialist administration in U.S. history.

Protests continue to happen around the country following the death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck and a black woman named Breonna Taylor was shot several times in her bed in Louisville.