Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Keeping a promise

More than 73 years after his Air Force plane crashed into an Alaskan mountain, a Wisconsin airman’s remains came home. ● Airman Second Class Daniel McMann was the 51st of 52 people aboard a cargo plane that crashed Nov. 22, 1952, to be brought to their...

Healing with horses

Along time ago, in the days before the legal drinking age in the United States was 21, Isaac Steele spent time at a nightclub called Payback. There was loud music, bright lights, dancing. Cold drinks that seemed to flow perpetually. Steele would look...

A second calling

ELKHART LAKE – The most interesting person at Road America for this IndyCar weekend, or really for any racing weekend here, probably isn’t one of the obvious suspects. He’s never won the Indianapolis 500 or quickstepped on “Dancing with the Stars” or...

DIET, EXERCISE AND LOTS OF LOVE

Sarah Levin has zero interest in getting mic’d up on this celebratory afternoon. She calls it “monkey business.” Something she is “too old” for. ● Poppycock. This is a woman who, when only 100 years old, underwent hip surgery — and came out the other...

Rodriguez leads field for governor in Dem straw poll

MADISON - Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez received the most votes in a straw poll of Wisconsin Democrats at the party’s state convention this weekend − a shot in the arm to Rodriguez’s campaign that has trailed the field’s two frontrunners in statewide...

DHS, State Dept. delays hit seasonal businesses

Salute Mexican Lounge in Egg Harbor has been forced to shut its doors on Mondays and Tuesdays due to staff shortage. The general manager at Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant & Butik in Sister Bay has been working 100 hours a week, cooking and prepping...

THE GREAT SUMMERFEST DEBATE

Just looking at the numbers, what Summerfest in Milwaukee offers is staggering. Six hundred acts. Nine days. Thirteen official stages. Plus 15 ways to get in for free. And the lineup for its biggest stage, the American Family Insurance Amphitheater,...

Waterways

Thunder rumbled over a packed meeting room at the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District’s headquarters Thursday evening while an hours-long water drop alert aptly underscored what’s at stake for Lake Michigan and local waterways. About 100 people...

‘Food collective’ gives meals, community

The 27-gallon plastic bins filled up quickly with a bounty of fresh produce, meat and dairy. Salmon fillets, with $26 price tags, went into the bins. Heads of cabbage, Chobani yogurt drinks, Planters peanut packets, boxes of pasta – into the bins,...

If you want Ferney’s pizza, get in that long line early

Church bells bonged 12 times at Our Lady of Divine Providence in Riverwest. It was noon, and across the street at Clarke Foods, 832 E. Clarke St., a makeshift pizza shop in the back of the store had already drawn a line 20 deep in its first seconds of...

Israel, Iran halt retaliatory attacks

Israel and Iran said they would halt strikes on each other for now but warned of forceful responses to any future aggression – ending, at least temporarily, an exchange of missile attacks over the weekend that put a fragile ceasefire and diplomatic...

Hidden TREASURE

Just east of the Capital City Trail crossing at the Yahara River, a nondescript warehouse rises on Madison’s east side. Its blank exterior offers no hint of what’s inside, and even the interior is not set up for glass cases and museum spotlights. • But...

MCTS announces ‘modest surplus’

A year after a surprise $10.9 million budget hole, the Milwaukee County Transit System is on the mend. So says the county, at least. At a press conference on June 4, County Executive David Crowley and MCTS President and CEO Steve Fuentes announced...

Leader feels uncertain with refugee resettlement gutted

Adecade ago, Sheila Badwan was working in health care administration when a friend connected her with a few local Syrian refugee families that needed help. • Seeing the Milwaukee home where one family of 13 had been placed, she was horrified. • Badwan...

NEGOTIATORS REACH POSSIBLE IRAN DEAL

Negotiators for the United States and Iran have reached a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and extend the 60-day ceasefire while discussions continue over Tehran’s nuclear program, according to an American official. President Donald Trump has yet...

SILENT SHOP TALK

They call it “mill talk.” • At least, that’s what Menominee tribal members who don’t work in the tribe’s sawmill call it. • It’s a kind of sign language that mill workers at Menominee Tribal Enterprises use to communicate when heavy, loud machinery is...

Free mobile dental clinic is ‘life-changing’

The clinic where Francesca Malensek and Vanessa Zuniga bent over their young patient looked like any other dentist’s office: laid-back chairs, a TV for distraction and photos of smiling children on the walls. But it isn’t like any other clinic. The...

GA hopefuls vie to be ‘more MAGA’

The Georgia Republican gubernatorial runoff election is set. Current Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and health care CEO Rick Jackson have been battling it out for months in a crowded Republican primary field for the top seat in the state. Both have painted...

TREASURED VIEWS

From Taliesin to the Great River Road, these sites showcase Wisconsin’s natural beauty and cultural impact

Gabbard to resign, cites husband’s cancer

WASHINGTON − Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced May 22 she was resigning from her post as the nation’s top intelligence official amid her husband’s rare bone cancer diagnosis. “I am deeply grateful for the trust President Trump...

Insensitive officer added insult to injury

CEditor’s note: This article contains descriptions of sexual violence. The National Sexual Assault Hotline can be reached at 1-800-656-4673. harlotte Nozar had forgotten how bad it was. Not the rape – that is seared into her memory – but what came...

‘This one felt like home’

WATERTOWN — When Martice Scales moved his family to a farm in rural Dodge County last fall, the life they led in Milwaukee sometimes felt a world away. • Nights were dark without the glow of city lights. It was quiet. In the car, they were more likely...

‘We are reframing ... what rehabilitation looks like’

OREGON – Visitors aren’t normally allowed on Mondays at Oakhill Correctional Institution, but May 18 was an exception. ● Instead of routine and monotony at this minimum-security prison just south of Madison, there was pride and joy. Instead of prison...

Chicks with transmitters usher in a new chapter

OAK CREEK – Greg Septon of Muskego had banded about 1,500 falcon chicks since he founded the Wisconsin Peregrine Falcon Recovery Project in 1986. ● Each was fitted only with colored and numbered leg bands to help identify the bird. ● Until May 18,...

A SHINY NEW MUSEUM

Museum President and CEO Ellen Censky answers questions on May 14 while giving a tour of the butterfly vivarium on the top floor of the new Nature and Culture Museum of Wisconsin. The tour revealed elements as museum work progresses, including a...

OWNER OCCUPIED AGAIN

Less than a decade ago, Milwaukee was nearing the end of a long and painful downward spiral. The city had seen its working-class neighborhoods battered by the aftershocks of the Great Recession. Thousands of homes that once offered their owners a...

FBI probes 2 more ’20 election staffers

Federal investigators are seeking interviews with Milwaukee city employees who helped administer the 2020 election, according to three sources with knowledge of the investigative activities. The latest federal inquiry comes after FBI agents...

Commercial properties also suffered under Stair

Beauty and Bargains, a hybrid salon and convenience store, has been located in a small storefront near West Greenfield Avenue and South Layton Boulevard for five years, according to store owner Danyell Austin. Austin, who rents the storefront from S2...

Would-be Canadians pile work on archivists

One Friday in April, archivists at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay set aside all other work to tackle a growing backlog. Fifty-two nearly identical research requests had piled up. All asked about French-Canadians who once lived in northeastern...

City spent millions to train lead removal workers

Damon Green stood over his rectangular block of wood, chisel and hammer in hand, and started carving. The 26-year-old Green was sharpening his skills with six other students inside the workshop of Revitalize Milwaukee, a local nonprofit. Program...

Milwaukee still has 65,000 lead pipes it must replace

On a cold morning earlier this year, Eddie Christoffel and a crew of workers dug nearly four feet into frozen soil to remove a lead pipe in Milwaukee. “I think it’s important to get that lead out of the ground,” Christoffel, the foreman,...

The making of a flashpoint

For 60 years, Ridglan Farms has sat on a rural road tucked in the rolling hills of Blue Mounds, a small town about 30 miles west of Madison. ● Over time, the company became the second-largest beagle breeder in the country, supplying thousands of dogs...

THE CHORDETTES

THE CHORDETES

Regulators tell Alliant to set data center rate

State regulators approved Alliant Energy’s proposal to power a hyperscale data center in Beaver Dam, but the utility must set a standard electric rate for all large data center customers. The three-member Public Service Commission approved a modified...

Health care costs soar for aging inmate population

Wisconsin inmates are getting older, and that’s costing the state millions. A report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum shows the incarceration rate among people 60 and older increased by six times from 2000 to 2023, jumping from 330 to 1,960. In that...

Some Ascension Wisconsin ICUs to use telemedicine

Ascension Wisconsin is no longer staffing some of its hospitals’ intensive care units with in-person critical care physicians, part of a telemedicine push in its smaller ICUs. As of May 1, critical care physicians are no longer physically present in...

Renters raise concerns in S2 Real Estate apartments

When the home Cornelia Hall had been renting for six years was sold to a local real estate group in 2024, she felt hopeful. • She thought the new company might be easier to deal with than the previous landlord, who had been convicted of reckless use of...

Woman reported missing months before body found

Tom Trotter reported his 26-year-old granddaughter missing in January. Four months later, she was found dead in a Milwaukee alley. Frustrated with police and still searching for answers, Trotter knocked on doors and handed out fliers seeking...

New Meta House treatment center is nearly complete

Meta House, which has served women in addiction recovery and their children in Milwaukee since the 1960s, will start seeing clients at its new campus in the city’s Piggsville neighborhood in May. The development, dubbed Project Horizon, will double...

American Girl legacy

American Girl dolls and books, which have connected girls to U.S. history for 40 years, were directly inspired by the era that gave birth to this nation. On a trip to the living-history museum Colonial Williamsburg in the 1980s, American Girl founder...

Water treatment bidder has link to ICE software

One of the finalists for a $700 million contract to run Milwaukee’s wastewater treatment system has ties to Palantir, the software company that is helping ICE agents find and deport undocumented immigrants. Jacobs Solutions, based in Dallas, is one of...

Ridglan Farms sells 1,500 beagles to rescue groups

MIDDLETON - Ridglan Farms, the Blue Mounds beagle breeding facility raided this spring by animal rights activists, will sell 1,500 of its dogs to animal rescue groups. Two rescue organizations, Big Dog Ranch Rescue and the Center for a Humane Economy,...

Supreme Court rejects Louisiana voting map

WASHINGTON – After the Supreme Court on April 29 threw out a congressional map in Louisiana that had been drawn to protect the voting power of Black residents, the decision was criticized for “eviscerating” the 1965 Voting Rights Act, though it’s...

But governor’s race rivals question her electability

MADISON – Within the first few months of the year that Wisconsin will elect its next governor, democratic socialist Francesca Hong is leading the pack in the state’s most prominent public poll and running a campaign at a moment she’s said “may be the...

Dealing with limitations

With Milwaukee moving toward possible development of a publicly financed convention hotel, one city asset could challenge the goal of attracting more meetings. Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport offers fewer flights than airports at other...

We Energies’ new electric rate for data centers OK’d

Artificial intelligence data centers in southeast Wisconsin will have to pay more for energy than they – and utilities – anticipated. The state Public Service Commission approved We Energies’ special energy rate for large data centers on April 24, but...

Nighttime NAVIGATORS

With their gravity-defying ability of flight, birds likely have been a source of fascination for humans as long as they have coexisted on Earth. But the feathered animals gave up their secrets slowly over the millennia. Until the early 1800s,...

Methadone rules limit access to care

After years of opioid use, Bob saw three paths ahead: jail, death or methadone. The 70-year-old Stevens Point resident chose methadone, which he has stuck with for more than half his life. He credits the treatment for his long career and ability to...

Backup power for AI eyed for pollution risk

Neighbors of Port Washington’s $15 billion AI data center and advocacy groups are voicing public health and environmental concerns about plans for backup diesel generators at the site under review by Wisconsin regulators. They’re also asking...

Wisconsin sheriffs split on working with ICE

In northern Wisconsin’s Rusk County, known for its winding trails through the forested Blue Hills, Sheriff Phillip Grassmann’s deputies are no longer supposed to notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement when booking immigrants into jail. ● Close...

Police dig at former home of notorious drug dealer

Milwaukee police and city workers dug for a second day April 21 in the backyard of a home formerly owned by notorious Milwaukee drug dealer Michael Lock to assist detectives in the search for the remains of homicide victims. At about 10 a.m. April 21,...

Turkey hunter becomes hunted in bobcat attack

Carson Bender, 19, of Wisconsin Rapids is an avid hunter, including for white-tailed deer and wild turkey. But to his knowledge he had never been hunted. Until April 18, that is. Bender went turkey hunting that day on private land near Nekoosa, Wis....

Menominee language reveals deep forest link

Menominee people have long been known for having a deep connection with their forest. As masters of blending ancient tribal knowledge with modern ecological science, they have cultivated the Menominee Forest into a famed example of sustainable...

Covering, creating community

Kelli Arseneau joined the Journal Sentinel in 2025, covering breaking and trending news on a wide variety of topics. The 2021 graduate of Marquette University isn’t new to Wisconsin news coverage, however, coming back to Milwaukee after four years at...

Iran reopens Strait of Hormuz Trump says naval blockade to continue

Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz “completely open” to commercial vessels April 17 – then threatened to again close the global shipping lane if the United States did not end its blockade on Iranian ports and ships. It was the latest back-and-forth...

FLOODS INUNDATE MILWAUKEE STREETS

Residents in the waterlogged Milwaukee area watched April 15 as floodwaters overtook city streets and interstates, stranded drivers and swept away trash cans. And they waited anxiously to see the impact of yet another round of severe storms, in the...

Thunderstorms, tornadoes, hail tear through state

A second consecutive evening of severe storms battered Wisconsin on April 14, leveling at least one Juneau County home and tearing part of the roof off a Waukesha County church. High winds tore down trees and twisted power lines. Baseball-sized hail...

Shootings down 27% in Milwaukee to start the year

Police data from the start of 2026 indicates crime in Milwaukee is decreasing from both 2024 and 2025. Law enforcement and city leaders say they are collaborating between departments to do everything in their power to keep the trend continuing downward...

If Giannis stays, new coach needs to match his energy

The Milwaukee Bucks desperately need a strong-willed, energetic and battle-ready coach if they end up repairing the relationship with Giannis Antetokounmpo and the two sides decide it is best he remains in Milwaukee. Because that coach is going to...

Referendums mostly pass, but support is waning

Voters in Wisconsin approved a majority of school referendums on April 7 ballots, agreeing to raise property taxes to fund local school districts. But early results suggest it’s getting harder for districts to gain voter approval of the money they say...

AN unsual EDUCATION

Microcolleges, like Wisconsin’s Thoreau College, offer a chance to step away from traditional classrooms

Columbus a model for convention hotels

As Milwaukee considers developing a publicly financed hotel connected to its downtown convention center, it could emulate a rival Midwestern community. Columbus, Ohio, one of Milwaukee’s main competitors for conventions, in 2022 expanded a Hilton...

Landlord

When Eric Magnuson posted a onestar Google review of his Whitefish Bay landlord last year, he complained about excessive fees and called the management company slumlords. After his landlord threatened legal action, Magnuson removed the review. Two...

A STUNNING PERFORMANCE

The liberal victory for state Supreme Court on April 7 should surprise no one who follows Wisconsin politics. But in the grand scheme of things, it’s stunning all the same. It’s stunning that in the nation’s most competitive battleground an entire...

French Island residents celebrate PFAS action

TOWN OF CAMPBELL - Residents of French Island celebrated new laws in Wisconsin that will help bring their community fresh water, nearly five years after finding out that “forever chemicals” polluted their drinking water. Gov. Tony Evers visited the...

Evers signs laws to fund PFAS remediation for WI DNR secretary: Water testing should begin this summer

MADISON – The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will now have the authority to launch grant programs, hire staff and help communities remediate “forever chemical” contamination after years of disagreements between lawmakers and the governor...

A walk in Jesus’ shoes

A STATE THAT SHAPED AMERICAN POLITICS

In the story of American democracy, Wisconsin has played an outsize role. As part of the USA TODAY Network’s USA250 project, the Journal Sentinel looks at three political eras that grew to national prominence. From the birth of the Republican Party to...