Reading Time: 3 minutes Milwaukee resident Maria Beltran relied on the Social Development Commission for years for home improvements, including the installation of new furnaces and weatherization. The Social Development Commission, or SDC, is a quasi-governmental community action agency responsible for providing a variety of services to low-income residents in Milwaukee County. Among those services are weatherization and lead abatement. Those and other services have remained in limbo since the SDC’s weatherization program was suspended in March by the Wisconsin Department of Administ ..read more

Reading Time: 5 minutes For 20 years, Pablo Sobron sought a better way to learn exactly what was in the soil, rock or any other substance on Mars.  Instead of sampling and laboratory analysis — the old way of soil testing — scientists began to use lasers and sensors to get high-precision data quickly. Eventually, that led Sobron to think the same type of technology could work on Earth, particularly farms. “The idea is to do exactly what we do on Mars, which is drive and, without stopping, get real time measurements of every square inch if you want to. As small as you want,” he said. Impos ..read more

Reading Time: 8 minutes High school sophomore McCartney Schwab spreads several dishes on a counter, scooping ice cream into each. It’s her third summer working at Wilson’s Restaurant & Ice Cream Parlor in Door County’s village of Ephraim, which sits along Eagle Harbor on the eastern side of the bay of Green Bay. Schwab said her co-workers, boss and passion for making ice cream sundaes are what keeps her coming back — but making some extra cash doesn’t hurt either. “I’ve been able to save a lot of money,” she said. “It’s helped me pay for gas when I go driving and have the independence to p ..read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes Jautone Ferguson says she is still owed two paychecks from her former employer, Milwaukee’s Social Development Commission, or SDC, which suspended its operations and laid off its entire staff at the end of April. By not paying employees like Ferguson for work they performed, the SDC is in conflict with Wisconsin wage payment laws, experts say.  This also means that Ferguson, who worked in one of SDC’s lead hazard programs, is in a tough situation.  “I have a car note. I am a single mother. And now, I need to go talk to my landlord,” she said. Ferguso ..read more

Reading Time: 4 minutes Click here to read highlights from the story U.S. Customs and Border Protection will block imports of gloves made by Shanghai Select Safety Products Company, which was accused of relying on forced prison labor to manufacture Milwaukee Tool-branded gloves. The agency cites information that “reasonably indicates the use of convict labor” in violation of federal law. Regulatory filings showed Shanghai Select was contracted to manufacture “Performance Gloves” for a subsidiary of Milwaukee Tool’s parent company. Milwaukee Tool says it has found no evidence of forced labor w ..read more

Reading Time: 9 minutes During the 2023 harvest season, one of Jake Lieb’s tractors quit working. A week later, his combine stopped working, too. Both were new — and he was locked out from making any repairs himself because of software restrictions embedded in the machines. Instead, a technician from John Deere was dispatched to diagnose and repair the problems. While waiting for the technician to come out, Lieb fired up a 20-year-old tractor he hadn’t used for harvesting in years. Crops are vulnerable to the weather, and had he not, Lieb could have lost at least a day of harvest. Some of the ..read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Tuesday let stand a lower court ruling that declared some delivery drivers for Amazon were employees as the state argued, not independent contractors as the online retail giant contended. The court, in a unanimous decision, said the appeal was “improvidently granted,” meaning the Supreme Court should not have reviewed the case. That decision dismissing the case, issued after the court heard oral arguments, leaves a 2023 Wisconsin appeals court ruling against Amazon in place. That ruling found that drivers in the Amazon Flex progr ..read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes FlexRide Milwaukee celebrated its 50,000th ride in January. But although the program continues to be in high demand, its future is unclear.  Launched in 2022, FlexRide Milwaukee is an on-demand transportation service that provides affordable transportation to inner-city residents who work in Franklin, Oak Creek, New Berlin or Menomonee Falls. After serving only 11 riders in its first month, FlexRide now averages 4,000 rides each month, said Dave Steele, executive director of MobiliSE, which operates FlexRide with financial support from various city ..read more

Reading Time: 3 minutes News414 is a service journalism collaboration between Wisconsin Watch and Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service that addresses the specific issues, interests, perspectives and information needs identified by residents of central city Milwaukee neighborhoods. Learn more at our website or sign up for our texting service here. In 1966, Jesús Salas led the historic march of migrant farmworkers from Wautoma to Madison, in the process helping organize Wisconsin’s first farmworker union. He went on to become a leader in Latinx community organizations throughout Milwauk ..read more

Reading Time: 6 minutes Walmart, the largest retailer in the United States, is no longer selling Milwaukee Tool-branded gloves on its online marketplace  — responding to allegations that a subcontractor for the Brookfield, Wisconsin-based tool company relied on forced Chinese prison labor to manufacture certain models of gloves.  “We looked into the allegations regarding the gloves in question, and we made a decision to de-list those from the marketplace,” Kathleen McLaughlin, Walmart’s chief sustainability officer, told shareholders during a virtual meeting on May 31, according ..read more