Reading Time: < 1 minute Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims. No. President Joe Biden’s administration has not set forth plans to make all Army tanks electric. Alluding to the administration, former President Donald Trump claimed on May 1, 2024, in Waukesha, Wisconsin, that “they want to make our Army tanks all electric.” A 2022 Army climate strategy plan, which does not mention tanks, calls for fielding an all-electric light-duty n ..read more

Reading Time: < 1 minute Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims. No. Records for more than 20,000 people listed with the same phone number in the Wisconsin Elections Commission system are for inactive voters. Mike Lindell claimed May 7, 2024, on talk radio in Green Bay, Wisconsin, that in the 2020 election, Wisconsin “had 20-some thousand people that voted from the same phone number.” Lindell, the MyPillow company founder, is prominent in t ..read more

Reading Time: 13 minutes Click here to read highlights from the story Wisconsin lacks a clear system for maintaining and making publicly available information about police officers who are subject to what are known as Brady disclosures in court. Many district attorneys maintain Brady lists, named after the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case requiring prosecutors to disclose evidence favorable to a defendant. That includes police officers called to testify who have a history of lying. Records requests to all 72 counties turned up more than 360 names of current and former law enforcement officers ..read more

Reading Time: 5 minutes Public access to information about police officers caught lying is inconsistent across Wisconsin’s 72 counties. That’s the key takeaway after Wisconsin Watch filed records requests with every district attorney’s office and the state Department of Justice. Here’s a recent example and a look at Wisconsin’s inconsistency compared with Colorado — the first state in the nation to mandate tracking and disclosure. Drug investigator caught forging signatures on warrants An Appleton police sergeant investigating suspected drug trafficking was caught forging the signatures of a p ..read more

Reading Time: 2 minutes The Legislature’s audit committee voted Tuesday to launch a comprehensive review of diversity and inclusion efforts across state government after the Assembly’s top Republican vowed to eliminate equity initiatives. The committee voted 6-4 to order the Legislative Audit Bureau to conduct the review, with all four Democrats on the panel voting against the proposal. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed an executive order in 2019 requiring each state agency to create and monitor equity and inclusion plans to address employment barriers, assess workplaces to ensure th ..read more

Reading Time: 5 minutes Spring migration is underway along the Mississippi River flyway, making the river and its floodplain a hotspot for waterfowl and soon-to-arrive songbirds. The Mississippi plays a critical role guiding these birds across the country and providing them habitat to rest. Here’s everything you need to know about this important flyway — and when and where to see the birds amid their long journey. What is the Mississippi River flyway, and which birds use it? The Mississippi Flyway is a migration route along the Mississippi, Missouri and lower Ohio rivers that birds take each s ..read more

Reading Time: < 1 minute Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims. No. The average price of regular unleaded gasoline in California was $5.36 on May 1, 2024, the highest nationally, according to GasBuddy.com. That contradicts a May 1 claim by former President Donald Trump. Asked about inflation under President Joe Biden, he told a Milwaukee talk radio show, “gas is over $7 now in California.” News reports on April 23 said gas cost ..read more

Reading Time: < 1 minute Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims. No. Authorities including the Stanford Constitutional Law Center, Northwestern University law professors and the New York Civil Liberties Union say private universities generally are not bound by the First Amendment. Among the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment are the rights of individuals to speak freely and assemble peaceably. “While public universiti ..read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes Milwaukee’s election leader has been ousted by the mayor in a surprise move that comes just six months before Wisconsin’s largest city will be in the spotlight in the presidential swing state. Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson announced Monday that he would be replacing Milwaukee Election Commission Executive Director Claire Woodall with her deputy, Paulina Gutierrez. Milwaukee has been at the center of attention in Wisconsin, a state known for close elections and where four of the past six presidential contests have been decided by less than a percentage point ..read more

Reading Time: 2 minutes Wisconsin funds its state transportation system mostly through a gas tax and various vehicle registration fees. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a proposal to study a mileage-based fee system in 2019, but national efforts are underway to expand such systems as vehicles become more fuel-efficient. Wisconsin charges $85 to register an automobile with the state, with certain larger vehicles — tractors, trucks, buses — costing more. It costs an extra $75 to register a hybrid vehicle and $175 to register an electric vehicle, an amount that increased $75 in the most recent s ..read more