Local Coverage

Local Coverage Yee Leng Xiong, a Wausau County supervisor, speaks during a May 17, 2021, press conference in Wausau declaring the city a welcoming place for all people as Wausau Mayor, Katie Rosenberg, far left, and Marathon County Supervisor William Harris listen. (Photo courtesy of the Wausau mayor’s office)
Local Coverage With Afghan Refugees, Wausau Gets Chance to Show Welcoming Side After ‘Community for All’ Controversy

Wausau Mayor Katie Rosenberg hopes the Wausau community will be welcoming to the up to 85 Afghan refugees who will be resettled in the city.

Julian Emerson Julian Emerson October 4, 2021 4:44 pm EDT
Coronavirus A COVID-19 outbreak forced Mondovi Middle & High School to close just four days into the new school year. With school having just started, hundreds of students and staff across Wisconsin have been forced to quarantine due to contracting or being exposed to COVID-19. (Photo via Mondovi School District)
Coronavirus A Mondovi High Schooler Died While COVID-Positive. The School Board Still Didn’t Require Masks.

Dylan Passa is the second school-age Wisconsinite to die after testing positive for COVID-19 since the school year began.

Julian Emerson Julian Emerson September 24, 2021 3:32 pm EDT
Local Coverage Residents of the Kenosha Unified School District, led by a local chapter of a right-wing activist group, recently voted to slash pay for school board members and require them to attend meetings in person to get paid. It is just one example of a district where school board members are being punished, threatened, or even recalled for enacting COVID-19 safeguards. (Screenshot via Kenosha Unified School District/Youtube)
Local Coverage ‘My Family No Longer Feels Safe’: School Board Members Face Threats, Harassment Over COVID Safety Rules

One outgoing school board member says she hopes the current toxic political climate encourages more young people to speak up and get involved.

Julian Emerson Julian Emerson September 23, 2021 5:42 pm EDT
Environment Jeff Lamont grew up in the Town of Peshtigo and returned to enjoy his retirement after 30 years as a hydrologist working on remediation sites across the country, including one on the Menominee River, which Tyco had contaminated with arsenic. Now he's involved with the citizen group monitoring the PFAS cleanup in his hometown. “It'll be decades before this has been cleaned up,” he said. (Photo by Christina Lieffring)
Environment The Problem of ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Marinette, and the Solutions That Could Take as Long

A corporation impedes progress on tracing and fixing PFAS contamination in the local water supply—pollution that it caused.

Christina Lieffring Christina Lieffring September 13, 2021 11:33 am EDT
Local Coverage Ginger Liddell credits the Western Dairyland Fresh Start program with helping her turn her life in a positive direction. Liddell and other Fresh Start participants helped build a house in Fall Creek that will be inhabited by a person or family facing difficulties affording housing. (Photo by Julian Emerson)
Local Coverage ‘A Good Life is Possible’: At-Risk Youth Find Opportunities With Fresh Start Program

Program participants finished building a house for a low-income family this week.

Julian Emerson Julian Emerson September 7, 2021 6:07 pm EDT

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The post-war economic boom of the 1950s and 60s sharply increased Wisconsin crop production. In this photo from the Wisconsin Historical Society, Latino farm workers hoe a cucumber field near Wautoma in 1967. Economy From Farms to Factories to New Businesses, Latinos Have Made a Mark on Wisconsin’s Economy for More Than a Century
This 2018 photo shows the signage of the Fayetteville Works plant where the Delaware-based Chemours Company manufactures C3 dimer acid, also known as GenX. The chemical has entered the Cape Fear River, a source of drinking water for much of the southeastern part of North Carolina for an unknown time period. (Photo via AP Photo/Gerry Broome) Environment Polluters of ‘Forever Chemicals’ No Longer Getting a Pass, EPA Head Pledges
A photo of the Fall Creek School District building in Eau Claire County. Gina Kildahl, a parent whose 7-year-old son contracted COVID-19 while attending the school, recently filed a lawsuit against the district for failing to implement masking requirements and other precautions aimed at mitigating the spread of the virus. (Photo courtesy of the Fall Creek School District) Coronavirus Mom Who Sued Over Lack of COVID Protections in National Spotlight
Getty Images Elections Michigan’s County Clerks are Still Living Through the 2020 Election
Coronavirus Jason Jon Anderson, executive director of the Pablo Center at the Confluence in Eau Claire, discusses challenges that arts center and others have faced without operating revenue during the coronavirus pandemic. He called federal relief funding to the Pablo Center and other art and entertainment venues “a vital lifeline” and said many of them may have had to shut down for good without those dollars. (Photo by Julian Emerson)
Coronavirus ‘A Vital Lifeline’: How COVID Relief Saved Local Arts Venues

A federal grant program kept some venues, like the Pablo Center in Eau Claire, from closing permanently.

Julian Emerson Julian Emerson September 7, 2021 6:07 pm EDT
Economy Becky Cooper in Bounce Milwaukee
Economy How Does This Milwaukee Business Plan to Address the Worker Shortage? A Union.

Bounce Milwaukee is proactively seeking a union contract on behalf of its own workers in advance of its reopening.

Olivia Stern Olivia Stern August 9, 2021 1:27 pm EDT