The staff of the Wisconsin Examiner. From left, Erik Gunn, Baylor Spears, Ruth Conniff, Henry Redman and Isiah Holmes. (Wisconsin Examiner photo) The Wisconsin Examiner won top honors for online investigative reporting, editorial writing and long feature writing at the annual Milwaukee Press Club Excellence in Journalism awards recognition dinner Friday evening. This year’s edition of the Press Club’s annual contest recognizes work published during the 2023 calendar year. One of 50 state outlets launched by or partnered with the nonprofit States Newsroom, the Examiner competed in the Milwauke ..read more

Dr. Samuel Cook, a resident at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on May 2, 2024, about the need for more support for HBCU schools of medicine. (Screenshot from U.S. Senate webcast) WASHINGTON — Doctors on Thursday urged Congress to pass legislation addressing the disproportionately high rates of maternal mortality throughout the country and to lower barriers that have hindered people of color from becoming medical professionals. During a hearing in the U.S. Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and ..read more

A girl reads a book in a school library. (Getty Images) Last July, Gov. Tony Evers signed into law a sweeping bill to remake how Wisconsin teaches reading. Nine months later, several roadblocks exist ahead of the new literacy programs the law promised as lawmakers, the administration and the Department of Public Instruction quarrel over how to implement them. The 2023-25 state budget allocated $50 million for the new programs and curriculum materials for  Wisconsin schools. But Superintendent Jill Underly has told Republican lawmakers that DPI can’t spend the money because the Republican ..read more

A customer shops for food at a grocery store on March 12, 2024, in San Rafael, California. (Justin Sullivan | Getty Images) In 2004, I was a single mom raising three daughters on my own. I worked three jobs, including an overnight shift as a translator at our local hospital, to make ends meet. Every time I stood in line at the supermarket, I worried about what I would have to put back on the shelf to stay within our weekly $100 food budget. My daughters are all grown now. But whenever I’m buying groceries, I still get that horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach as I remember not knowing i ..read more

UW-Madison protesters gathered on Library Mall Wednesday morning as police began dismantling their tents. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner) WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden responded Thursday to weeks of protest on college campuses calling for a ceasefire in Gaza with a brief statement that the right to protest should be protected, but “not the right to cause chaos.” “We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people or squash dissent,” Biden said from the White House’s Roosevelt Room. “In fact, peaceful protest is in the best tradition of how Americans respond to consequential is ..read more

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge sprawls to the shoreline of the Beaufort Sea, seen here in 2006. The U.S. House passed a bill Wednesday to allow oil and gas leases in the refuge. (Steve Hillebrand | U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) The U.S. House passed a bill Wednesday to counter an Interior Department order canceling oil and gas leases in a section of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, taking aim at the Biden administration’s conservation agenda that Republicans say weighs environmental concerns too heavily at the expense of economic opportunity. But the Republican majority also s ..read more

California Highway Patrol officers patrol at a pro-Palestinian encampment, the morning after it was attacked by counter-protestors at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus, on May 1, 2024, in Los Angeles, California. (Mario Tama | Getty Images) WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans Wednesday passed a bill, with heavy support from Democrats, that would define antisemitism for the Department of Education, amid nationwide college campus protests in which students are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The 320-91 vote would codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s d ..read more

Tim Blakeley, manager of Sunset Junction medical marijuana dispensary, shows marijuana plant buds on May 11, 2010, in Los Angeles, California. (Kevork Djansezian | Getty Images) Leading U.S. Senate Democrats reintroduced a bill Wednesday to remove marijuana from the list of federal controlled substances, following the Biden administration’s move a day earlier to significantly ease regulations on the drug. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden of Oregon and Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, on Wednesday at a press conference applauded the Justice Dep ..read more

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks during a rally on Wednesday, May 1, in Waukesha, Wisconsin. (Scott Olson | Getty Images) With supporters hanging over the balconies and hundreds more turned away at the entrance, former President Donald Trump held a rally in Waukesha Wednesday afternoon where he spent nearly 90 minutes describing “a nation in decline” due to immigration at the southern border, inflation and his legal troubles.  Guests wait in line to enter a rally with Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump on May 1 i ..read more

UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty testified before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday, May 1, 2024, about a cyberattack on Change Healthcare, a subsidiary. (Screenshot from committee webcast) WASHINGTON — Capitol Hill lawmakers from both parties on Wednesday grilled UnitedHealth Group’s CEO over the largest-ever cyberattack on the U.S. health care industry, which has crippled payments to providers and pharmacies and left millions of patients clueless about whether their information is now on the dark web. A Russia-linked cybercrime organization dubbed “BlackCat” infiltrated a vulnerab ..read more