by Andrew Beckett | Dec 29, 2017
A pair of state lawmakers are leaving the Legislature to take jobs with Governor Scott Walker’s administration. The Department of Workforce Development announced Friday that the state Senator Frank Lasee (R-De Pere) is joining the agency as the new administrator...
by Andrew Beckett | Dec 28, 2017
Governor Scott Walker will deliver his State of the State address on January 24th. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate President Roger Roth sent a letter to the governor Thursday, inviting him to give his annual speech to a joint session of the Legislature. It will...
by Andrew Beckett | Dec 28, 2017
Majority Republicans in the Legislature and the governor found themselves at odds this year on how to resolve a budget impasse. The nearly three month delay in getting a plan signed into law dominated headlines and was one of WRN’s top stories of the year. A...
by Andrew Beckett | Dec 27, 2017
About 60 utility workers from Wisconsin companies will travel to Puerto Rico next month, where they will help with ongoing efforts to repair the island nation’s electric grid. Following Hurricane Maria in September, about 3.5 million residents of Puerto Rico...
by Andrew Beckett | Dec 27, 2017
Wisconsin’s top prosecutor is addressing delays in clearing a backlog of thousands of untested rape kits. The Department of Justice received a $2 million federal grant in 2015 to test 6,386 rape kits from sexual assault cases that had been left untouched. In...
by Andrew Beckett | Dec 26, 2017
With what may end up being one of the largest private development projects in state history, the announcement that Foxconn plans to build a major factory in Wisconsin was among one of the biggest economic development stories for the state in 2017. Rumors began...
by Andrew Beckett | Dec 25, 2017
While the state Supreme Court ordered an end to a secret investigation targeting Governor Scott Walker’s campaign and conservative groups two years ago, the so-called John Doe II probe once again found itself in the spotlight this year. The investigation, which...
by Andrew Beckett | Dec 22, 2017
The head of the Wisconsin Ethics Commission wants the agency to investigate his past conduct. The request from interim administrator Brian Bell comes as Republican lawmakers are calling for his resignation and threatening to reject his confirmation. During a meeting...
by Andrew Beckett | Dec 22, 2017
If you’re hitting the road for the holidays, expect plenty of company on the roads and in the airports. About 107 million Americans are expected to travel at least 50 miles from home in the next week, according to projections from AAA. Nick Jarmusz with AAA...
by Andrew Beckett | Dec 21, 2017
The head of the state Elections Commission is calling on Republican lawmakers to stop implying staff at the former Government Accountability Board acted criminally while carrying out a now closed John Doe investigation. In a letter to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos...
by Andrew Beckett | Dec 21, 2017
The Republican-controlled Senate Committee on Organization has voted to re-open and expand an investigation into a leak at the former Government Accountability Board. The panel voted 3-2 along party lines Thursday to authorize the Department of Justice to take another...
by Andrew Beckett | Dec 21, 2017
One of two girls who admitted to stabbing a classmate 19 times as a tribute to the “Slender Man” horror character could spend up to 25 years in a mental institution. A Waukesha County judge on Thursday ordered Anissa Weier committed to the maximum sentence...
by Andrew Beckett | Dec 21, 2017
The U.S. Air Force has named the 115th Fighter Wing based out of Truax Field in Madison as one of two preferred candidate bases for missions involving the F-35A Lightning II fighter jet. The other location selected is the Dannelly Field Air Guard Station in...
by Andrew Beckett | Dec 20, 2017
Wisconsin will remain America’s Dairyland. State Representative Scott Allen is backing away from a bill he introduced earlier this year that would have had high school students redesign the state’s license plate and potentially drop the iconic slogan. The...
by Andrew Beckett | Dec 20, 2017
The top Republican in the state Assembly does not see the need to sweep out all staff at the state Ethics and Elections commissions who worked at the former Government Accountability Board, although he does believe there needs to be confidence in the way those...
by Andrew Beckett | Dec 20, 2017
The field of six candidates running for the 10th state Senate District has been cut down to three. State Rep Adam Jarchow beat fellow Assemblyman Shannon Zimmerman, with unofficial returns showing him winning 56 percent of the vote in Monday’s state Senate...
by Andrew Beckett | Dec 19, 2017
State Senator Leah Vukmir says she wants to know if staff at the former Government Accountability Board and investigators broke the law when they collected her emails and those of other conservatives and, if any did, she believes they should go to jail. The emails,...
by Andrew Beckett | Dec 19, 2017
The top Republican in the state Senate wants the Department of Justice to reopen its investigation into the leak of documents from a secret John Doe probe. Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau) is also asking the agency to expand the scope of its original...
by Andrew Beckett | Dec 19, 2017
Voters in three of the state’s legislative districts are at the polls today, for primaries to help fill three vacant seats at the Capitol. Much of the attention is focused on the 10th Senate District, where Republican state Representative Adam Jarchow and...
by Andrew Beckett | Dec 18, 2017
The state Department of Justice is fighting back against claims by a judge that records included in a report released by the agency earlier this month should not have been made public. The report about the leak of secret records from the former Government...
