Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel charged former union leader Jonathan Byrd, 40, of Battle Creek with one count of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct.
Byrd worked for the Michigan Laborers’ District Council, of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, where he pushed forward the repeal of Michigan’s right-to-work law after the alleged incident.
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Minnesota’s tourism arm spent $1,000 to produce an Instagram reel celebrating gay pride month that featured partial nudity.
“Explore Minnesota did not pay Instagram any money to run this video as an ad,” Senior Business Operations Manager Mike Meyer told The Center Square in an email. “Explore Minnesota paid $1000 for the production of the video.”
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The second week of the disbarment trial of Trump attorney and constitutional scholar John Eastman concluded Friday, with testimony from the State Bar of California’s (SBC) expert witnesses Justin Grimmer and Jonathan Brater, director of the Michigan Bureau of Elections (MBE). Grimmer is a political science professor at Stanford.
Much of SBC attorney Duncan Carling’s questions to Grimmer consisted of asking him to debunk claims of election fraud, prompting First Amendment attorney Mark Fitzgibbons to tweet, “Am I wrong, but isn’t this bizarre CA Bar trial of Trump lawyer Dr John Eastman hearing more evidence than all the pre-Jan 6 election litigation challenges combined?” Analyzing election fraud claims did not come up in the 2020 election cases, since the judges dismissed them on technicalities without getting to the merits.
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A trio of Minnesota residents, along with a conservative voters rights watchdog organization, have filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a new law that restores the right to vote for felons still on probation or parole.
The petitioners in the lawsuit include: the Minnesota Voters Alliance and Anoka County residents Mary Amlaw, Ken Wendling and Tim Kirk. They are being represented by the Upper Midwest Law Center.
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The Michigan Department of Education is set to receive a 54% increase in funding in the 2023-24 budget despite lagging student test scores.
The proposed budget increases funding for the MDE from $420.6 million in the current budget to $647.4 million in 2023-24. That’s a $226 million increase from the previous fiscal year.
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So much for Senate decorum.
Wisconsin state Senator LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee) dropped the f-bomb — and another bad word to boot — during Wednesday’s budget debate.
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A Michigan woman is leading an effort to try to oust elected officials in her township for allowing the maker of electric vehicle batteries with ties to China to open a plant in her township.
The headquarters for battery maker Gotion Inc. is in California, but its parent company, Gotion High-tech, is based in China, which is raising concern about its connections to the Chinese Communist Party and national security.
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The majority of Wisconsin Republican state senators are on board with the new $99 billion state budget.
Almost every Republican voted for the two-year spending plan Thursday night.
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A Lutheran church in Edina stood for the reading of the “sparkle creed” during a church service, according to a livestream available on its YouTube page.
“I believe in a non-binary god, whose pronouns are plural,” Pastor Anna Helgen said during Sunday’s service. “I believe in Jesus Christ, their child, who wore a fabulous tunic and had two dads.”
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In a move that turned the tables on Democrats who had played political games with the appointment of controversial Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe, the Republican-controlled state Senate late Wednesday evening dropped a surprise resolution that sets up a confirmation vote sources say Wolfe can’t win.
Democrats stormed out of the Senate Chamber, refusing to vote on the resolution.
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A federal bankruptcy judge approved Detroit’s plan to push the city’s pension payments for the Police and Fire Retirement System over 30 years instead of 20.
Judge Thomas Tucker ruled that “a 30-year amortization is indeed part of the confirmed [Plan of Adjustment], and the PFRS cannot change it.”
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The Office of the Legislative Auditor will release the second of two program evaluation reports as part of its 2023 audit of the Southwest light rail project on Wednesday morning.
The heavily scrutinized $2.76 billion extension of the Metropolitan Council’s light rail Green Line will span 14.5 miles between Minneapolis and Eden Prairie. It’s been under the microscope of legislators in both major parties since early 2022, when it was found to be more than $700 million over budget and four years behind its originally scheduled completion.
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A Minnesota parent organization is pushing back after being labeled a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center in its annual “Year in Hate and Extremism Report.”
The center claims Moms for Liberty advances an “anti-student inclusion” and “antigovernment” agenda.
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The Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature wouldn’t go along with Governor Tony Evers’ far-left climate change and “environmental justice” initiatives, so the Democrat went around the legislature.
Evers took in hundreds of thousands of dollars in third-party funding from media tycoon Ted Turner’s United Nations Foundation, according to a new report from the Institute for Reforming Government’s Center for Investigative Oversight.
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There’s been a shift in tone from Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer on policing issues, most notably on the funding of the state’s police and adding school resource officers.
After the George Floyd murder in May 2020, Whitmer said that she supported the “spirit” of efforts to defund the police as a way of reallocating resources, the Detroit Free Press reported. A few years later, the state is hiring more than 200 school resource officers with state police funding on the rise.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration say Michigan will receive over $1.5 billion through the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program to expand high-speed internet access and digital equity to over 200,000 Michiganders in underserved areas.
Funding for this program comes from the $65 billion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and aims to ensure Michigan residents have access to affordable, reliable, and high-speed internet.
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The majority of a unit of nursing support, clerical and environmental staff have voted to remove a union’s officials from power at Mankato Mayo Clinic.
Members of the unit signed the petition May 9 to oust American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 1856 union officials, according to a National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation news release. Mankato Mayo employee Melody Morris, with free legal aid from the foundation, filed the petition asking the National Labor Relations Board to hold a union decertification vote at the hospital. The majority of her coworkers supported the petition, the release said.
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State Representative Janel Brandtjen (R-Menomonee Falls) is urging the Wisconsin Elections Commission to fire Meagan Wolfe, WEC’s controversial administrator.
The commission meets at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday to take up Wolfe’s re-appointment to a four-year term. Her current term ends Friday.
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After Michigan taxpayers gave $1.75 billion for Ford’s Marshall electric vehicle factory, the company will lay off workers.
Michigan gave the money under the promise of creating 2,500 jobs, but the company cut 3,000 jobs last summer and expects a $3 billion loss on EVs in 2023. After those job cuts, a Ford spokesman said the company has nothing to announce.
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U.S. Representative Mike Gallagher (R-WI-08) is criticizing a long-awaited report on the origins of COVID-19, saying it failed to answer significant questions surrounding researchers at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology who became sick with an unspecified illness in November 2019.
The 10-page report, finally declassified by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), underscores the fact that the intelligence community remains divided on the origins of a virus that is believed to have killed more than 1.13 million people in the United States, and nearly 7 million worldwide.
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The $4.4 billion tax cut plan approved by Republicans at the Wisconsin Capitol is the latest piece of the new state budget that Gov. Tony Evers is promising not to sign.
Republicans on Thursday okayed a tax cut package that will lower income taxes for everyone, but will give top earners in the state a larger tax cut.
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Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has co-authored a letter to the CEO of Target that suggests he would use the powers of his office to ensure that Target is not intimidated into “pulling some Pride merchandise from stores.”
In a June 20 letter Ellison and Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell wrote to Brian Cornell, chairman and CEO the Minneapolis-based retail titan, they expressed concern over Target’s “choice to pull Pride merchandise,” which Ellison and Campbell said “demonstrates that intentional violence and intimidation can set back the march for social progress and LGBTQIA+ equality which as we have noted is already under intense attack nationwide.”
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The Democrat-dominated Michigan House passed two sales and use tax bills critics say are unnecessary and will confuse business owners.
House Bills 4377 and 4378 passed on votes of 56-53. The bills cover prepared food either sold in a heated state or heated by the seller or that is two or more food ingredients that are mixed or combined by the seller for sale as a single item.
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As promised, Republican lawmakers have cut $32 million from the University of Wisconsin’s budget in a showdown over diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The budget-writing Joint Finance Committee made good on the promise from Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to send a message to the university about focusing on education, and not “indoctrination.”
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The University of Minnesota is guilty of “genocide” of Native Americans and should atone for it with reparations forever and the return of land.
The “Towards Recognition and University Tribal-Healing Project,” shortened to “TRUTH Project,” released a 215-page report that accused the Big Ten university of “persistent, systemic mistreatment of Indigenous peoples.”
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After a season of spending, the Wisconsin Legislature is finally getting around to talking tax cuts. Perhaps Republicans have saved the best for last.
The Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee put the finishing touches on a complete rewrite of Democrat Governor Tony Evers’ 2023-25 state budget proposal, passing a tax reform package that promises to deliver $3.5 billion in income tax cuts and nearly $800 million in property tax relief.
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An internal email from the St. Louis Park Police Department explains that the agency will be obtaining Pride ribbons, trans visibility ribbons and pronoun stickers for officers to wear.
The email, obtained by Alpha News, says the stickers and ribbons were provided by the city’s LGTBQ Employee Resource Group (ERG).
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Not seasonally adjusted unemployment rates increased in 16 of Michigan’s 17 labor market areas over the month, according to data released today by the Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget.
“Regional jobless rates advanced in May as residents began entering the summer job market,” labor market information director for the Michigan Center for Data and Analytics Wayne Rourke said in a statement. “Payroll employment rose in most metro areas over the month.”
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The Michigan House approved six bills to boost union membership that critics say would prioritize union politics before the quality of education.
House Bill 4357 aims to allow school districts to deduct automatically union dues from teacher salaries.
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While acknowledging that it “can always strive to be better,” the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis criticized a recent U.S. Department of Justice report because it “condemns an entire agency and its employees based on anecdotes.”
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland was in Minneapolis Friday to announce the findings of the federal government’s “pattern or practice” investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department.
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U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) joined a chorus of Republicans blasting plea deals that would keep the president’s ne’er-do-well son out of prison.
“Well first of all, this stinks to high heaven. It certainly proves we do not have equal application of justice under the law,” Johnson said this week on Fox News’ Jesse Waters Prime Time.
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Time is of the essence for the Evers administration to act on a critical energy pipeline relocation project in northern Wisconsin, according to the state’s largest chamber of commerce and manufacturers’ association.
Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce (WMC) is urging the state Department of Natural Resources to swiftly move forward with a slow-moving permitting process of Enbridge Energy Co.’s Line 5 relocation project in northern Wisconsin.
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One of the most outspoken critics of elections in Wisconsin says the latest from the state’s Election Commission isn’t doing much to instill confidence among voters.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Friday announced it has mailed postcards to 116,051 voters who have not cast a ballot in the past four years.
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A federal court on Friday ordered Canadian oil company Enbridge to cease the flow of oil and decommission within three years the segment of its Line 5 pipeline in Wisconsin trespassing on the reservation of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians.
Concurrently, Michigan’s business leaders urged the United States Army Corps of Engineers to give the approval needed for the construction of the Great Lakes Tunnel.
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School boards just gained more control over your property taxes, thanks to a new law that took effect across Minnesota last month.
In May, Gov. Tim Walz signed the state’s largest ever education bill that increases spending for K-12 education by 10.2 percent, or about $2.26 billion, over the next two years — for a total of $23.2 billion.
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U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI-07) has introduced a bill that would stop the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s war on chocolate milk in school lunchrooms.
The Milk is Indisputably Liked by Kids Act of 2023 – MILK Act — would amend the Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act to require schools to offer flavored milk under school lunch program.
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A Marquette University professor said the American flag makes him “anxious” in a National Public Radio interview Wednesday.
Philosophy Professor Grant Silva told an interviewer with WUWM, an NPR affiliate station in Milwaukee, that he feels “anxious” when he sees an American flag. In the interview, Silva described how “excessive imagery” of American flags is borderline “nationalism.”
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Don’t look for Wisconsin Republicans to reverse course on their proposed diversity, equity and inclusion cuts at the University of Wisconsin.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos on Wednesday defended his plan to cut $32 million from the UW System’s budget if university leaders don’t shift it away from DEI efforts.
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Starting July 1, car insurance rates will jump in Michigan.
The Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association raised annual per-vehicle assessments on all auto insurance policies.
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The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the results of a years-long probe Friday finding that the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) repetitively violated the rights of residents prior to the death of George Floyd.
“The Department of Justice has reasonable cause to believe that the City of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Police Department engage in a pattern or practice of conduct that deprives people of their rights under the Constitution and federal law,” the DOJ wrote in its report.
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Just months into his second term, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers is already dropping hints about a potential 2026 reelection run.
“Some things have changed since our last convention,” Evers recently told onlookers at the Wisconsin Democratic Party Convention in Green Bay. “Some people have called me two-term Tony. You can call me governor. You can call me Tony. You can call me two-term Tony or three-term Tony, I don’t mind.”
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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has asked President Joe Biden for a major disaster declaration and activation of the public assistance program for five counties.
The damage from spring flooding is estimated at $56 million.
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The House Judiciary Committee next week will hear testimony from Special Counsel John Durham on his report into the Russia-Trump collusion hoax, and two Wisconsin congressional members on the committee say they expect some startling revelations to come out.
Released last month, Durham’s scathing report found the Department of Justice and FBI “failed to uphold their mission of strict fidelity of the law” when they launched an investigation against then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016.
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Democrats at the Wisconsin Capitol are furious with the Republican plan to cut diversity, equity, and inclusion money from the University of Wisconsin.
Gov. Tony Evers on Tuesday said the plan to cut $32 million in DEI money from the UW System’s $6.5 budget is part of a “decade-long war on higher education.”
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In response to a recent lawsuit filed by Christian families and schools, the state of Minnesota has agreed to not enforce a new law that restricts some faith-based schools from offering Post Secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) to high school students.
“It’s not every day that a state asks a federal court to tie its hands to prevent it from enforcing its own anti-religious law — but Minnesota has done just that,” said Diana Thompson, senior counsel at Becket, the legal firm representing the families and schools.
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On Tuesday, the city council of Hamtramck, Michigan voted to pass a resolution that forbids the display of pro-LGBTQ flags from any city property.
As reported by Breitbart, the vote by the all-Muslim council of the Detroit-area city was unanimous. The resolution in question was proposed by Mayor Pro-Tem Muhammad Hassan, and also prohibits the display of any flags that feature religious, racial, sexual, or political connotation; only the American flag is allowed on city property under the new measure, along with state and city flags, other nationalities’ flags, and the Prisoner of War flag.
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The Sun Prairie Area School District now faces a civil rights complaint following an incident earlier this year involving an 18-year-old biological male identifying as a woman who exposed his genitals to four freshman girls in a high school shower.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) filed the sex discrimination complaint Wednesday with the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights.
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Several DFL legislators posed for a picture in April with members of an organization that has been widely condemned as an “anti-Catholic hate group.”
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, whose roleplaying as Catholic nuns has been described by some as “religious blackface,” are at the center of a national controversy that began when the Los Angeles Dodgers announced plans to present them with a “community hero” award.
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Meagan Wolfe, the controversial administrator of the controversial Wisconsin Elections Commission, sent out a defiant letter on Wednesday to local elections officials as she looks to save her job.
Wolfe’s current term is set to expire in a couple of weeks, and, as she notes, her future is uncertain.
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Local and national efforts to stymie the building of an electric vehicle battery components plant in Michigan were dealt another setback on Tuesday.
The U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment declared that the purchase of farmland in Big Rapids by Gotion was not within its jurisdiction. Opponents of the $2.4 billion plant have protested ties by its parent company to China and raised concerns about the environment.
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