Writing a weekly column is always a snapshot in time. Things can and do happen to advance the story. Here are a few examples tied to my recent “Inside Wisconsin” columns:

Wedding barn law already bites into Wisconsin businesses

There are still major gaps in how the law protects students’ health and personal data once it leaves a doctor’s office or a classroom.

In Minnesota, a needless reenactment of 2020

Alex Pretti was trying to help a woman who was violently shoved to the ground by ICE agents. He was beaten. He was disarmed of a gun he was legally permitted to carry. And he was executed. There is no other side to that.

President Donald Trump and his federal forces chose the wrong city and state for the escalating war on civilians out on the streets and in their homes, resulting in two deaths so far.

When our public discourse becomes trite slogans, when complexity is treated as elitism, and federal institutions such as the Justice Department become a partisan engine, the result is not merely polarization. It is the very definition of instability.

As 2026 approaches, rebuilding faith in our elections is more urgent than ever. In recent years, both parties have, at times, cast doubt on election processes when outcomes didn’t go their way. Left unchecked, that skepticism corrodes confidence and discourages participation. It is critical to push back, to reassure voters their ballots will be counted and safeguards exist to detect and prosecute fraud when it occurs.

His press conference was supposed to be about taxes. How did it go so terribly wrong?

A money grab at death drives outmigration

Comparing to Midwest and the nation. A solution to affordability issue?

Flock insists its system reduces crime, but long-term reporting doesn’t support that claim.

Great Lakes region needs to unite now in the face of fascist occupation.

Across the country, reforms increasingly reflect the principle that those wrongfully convicted should not be punished a second time by a system that fails to help them rebuild.

Wisconsin is currently behind much of the country in providing these protections. As a result, journalists, activists and ordinary citizens in Wisconsin are more vulnerable to retaliatory lawsuits.

Do we really own our homes or are we only allowed to keep them subject to the whims of the state? Can we be forced to sell all or a part of our “Castle and Fortress?” Maybe.

Wisconsin’s Open Meetings Law — arguably one of the best in the country — states that it is the government’s duty to “make a reasonable effort to accommodate any person desiring to record, film or photograph the meeting.”

It is all about Ukraine. The history of the Nobel Prize Committee is pretty clear: no cigar for a truce, a ceasefire, a buffer zone or postponing war while Russia regroups.

What was even more disturbing than ICE’s behavior in Minneapolis this month was the reaction of all too many Americans.

One traditional rule — any bill that hasn’t passed one house of the Legislature by now, the second year of a legislative session, has little chance of becoming law — doesn’t apply so much anymore.