Milwaukee News

The city of Milwaukee on Wednesday opened its second charging station for electric vehicles – this one at Discovery World – with three more stations planned on East Brady Street, the Clarion Hotel and Conference Center on South Howell Avenue, and on the city’s west side.

One station already is up and running at the City Center at 735 N. Water Street downtown office property. The city is using a $5.8 million federal stimulus grant to pay for the stations.

Several cases of whooping cough have been reported at a Milwaukee school. Health officials said they are seeing a rise in cases around the state. The Milwaukee Health Department confirmed to WISN 12 News there are 16 cases of whooping cough at St. Matthias School on the south side.

The students are between 11 and 14 years old. Administrators sent letters to parents and staff at the school explaining the symptoms.

A Milwaukee man faces felony child abuse charges after a 4-year-old girl told her mother he had put her in the dryer and turned it on because she had peed her pants. The girl’s mother heard her threaten to put her brother in the dryer and started asking questions. The girl said Nicholas Fuchs, 26, had done it more than once. She told investigators that “it was very dark and warm inside the dryer and this made (her) scared.”

As if that story weren’t heartbreaking enough, the little girl called the man “Mean Nick,” and that isn’t the only incident of abuse, police say.

7 Milwaukee Police officers and a sergeant face accusations of conducting illegal strip searches. Some city officials are pushing to have that investigation conducted in public, and they were to propose that public investigation on Wednesday at 9:00 a.m. at a Common Council meeting.

The goal is to bring transparency to the investigation into alleged illegal strip searches. “My illegal searches happened at least three times,” said a 22-year-old woman, who claims a police officer strip-searched her.

A bankruptcy judge will hold a hearing today on a request to disclose evidence that would expose the scope of previous sex abuse by Catholic priests in the Milwaukee archdiocese.

Judge Susan Kelley is being asked to unseal a court deposition made several years ago by former Archbishop Rembert Weakland. It apparently identifies the offending priests and the children they molested over the last few decades. And attorney Jeff Anderson says it would demonstrate the church’s liability as the judge considers damage claims by about 570 victims of priest sex abuse. The claims were filed as part of the Milwaukee Archdiocese Chapter-11 bankruptcy case.

While presidential candidate Newt Gingrich stumps in Wisconsin, it’s a return home for his wife, Callista. The GOP candidates’ wife is from Whitehall, Wis., and has been touring the state this week leading up to the April 3 primary. More >

A federal court ruling puts a hold on new voter maps drawn up by a Republican-controlled Legislature last year. Those maps were to be put in place for upcoming elections, but a judicial panel Thursday said there are problems with the maps on Milwaukee’s near south side.

Thursday’s decision is the result of a court challenge to the new maps, heard by federal judges last month. Now, both sides are declaring a victory, of sorts.

Summer-like temperatures this March in Milwaukee has thawed out every last bit of winter. That makes trash littered around our neighborhood more visible.

The City of Milwaukee is taking action, but some people in the city are cautious with their optimism. Many people have found trash littered all over their yards, in nearby playgrounds and all over the city.

The Assembly and Senate passed a plan Wednesday allowing Milwaukee schools to reopen negotiations for compensation or fringe-benefit concessions without nullifying existing union contracts.

Gov. Scott Walker is expected to sign the bill, which gives Milwaukee Public Schools 90 days to open negotiations to reduce costs. But the Green Bay, Kenosha, Racine and Madison teachers unions said it gives Walker a political advantage in the upcoming recall election, while Walker’s office accused them of worrying more about politics than jobs.

Republican lawmakers on Wednesday declined to re-evaluate the state’s contentious electoral maps, meaning a federal trial will begin Thursday to determine whether the maps were drawn in compliance with legal restrictions.

The trial was originally scheduled to begin Tuesday, but a panel of three federal judges seemed almost reluctant to push forward. They cited a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that said redistricting, the process of drawing new voter maps every 10 years, is better left to lawmakers than to a court.