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Frances Vavrus: 50 students hoping to study at UW-Madison caught in limbo. We need answers.
For our Wisconsin businesses to thrive, we need a workforce that knows the languages of our partners, navigates cultural differences, and excels in building global partnerships.

Kristen Brey: Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissent cuts through racial doublespeak on ICE roundups
The Supreme Court insists the Constitution is colorblind. But its ruling in a case about ICE roundups proves the opposite: it sees color very clearly.

Tony Wied: Charlie Kirk’s assassination should be turning point
Spirited policy debates should end with handshakes, not hatred.

Cavalier Johnson: Our country is scarred with political violence. It’s time to end it.
It is time for our country and our leaders to go beyond simply decrying politically motivated violence. We must transform the nature of contemporary political disputes.

Brian Fraley: An anxious time in our history
Right, Left, or neither, you know it’s an anxious time in our history. We all feel it, regardless of your opinion of the work of Charlie Kirk. Society is not irreparably broken. But we are in crisis.

Gregory Humphrey: Wednesday in America: Charlie Kirk shot and killed, another school shooting, 13-year-old arrested with 20 guns
We absolutely have to be unequivocal: Political violence can never be tolerated. This is not a partisan issue; it is a fundamental threat to the democratic process.

Stephanie Klett and Bill Barth: A different way to deliver American health care
Open Arms delivers $5 million of care for about $2 million annually, money raised mostly through donors and fundraising events. The clinic serves about 1,200 patients each year with 30 paid staffers bolstered by 250 volunteers.

Bruce Thompson: Comparing Milwaukee homicide data to other cities
Though murders are declining, an overwhelming percentage involve guns.

Danny Akenson: Citizens fight back against factory farm pollution
For the last two years, Grassroots Organizing Western Wisconsin (GROWW) has played a key role in bringing together ordinary people and small farmers to pass local ordinances to protect our homes. People across the region are holding strong as corporate mega-dairies try to take over our agricultural landscape.

Angela Lang: Weaponizing the National Guard is fascism
A military is designed to protect citizens, not to be weaponized by a president who is determined to centralize as much power as possible.

Tony Evers: One Big Beautiful Bill Act will make Wisconsin pay more, receive less
Republicans have created a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar hole in our state’s future budgets, on top of the nearly $70 million we’ll have to pay over the next two years.

M.D. Kittle: Evers is going out with a leftist bang
With leftists firmly in control of the state’s court of last resort for the foreseeable future, Evers could go out with a leftist bang. He’s got nothing to lose.

Steven Walters: Restructuring plan for Wisconsin prisons rejected
With Gov. Tony Evers on his way out, the landscape for prison reform in the state has changed.

Daniel Buck & Will Flanders: How conservatives can win over teachers
Separating them from their unions will require smart politics.

Christian Schneider: American universities are schooling China on authoritarian tactics
The attempt to limit speech through peer pressure risks turning campuses into surveillance states.

Bruce Murphy: Vivent Health rakes in donations, pays big salaries
United Way-funded nonprofit pays $8 million over 4 years to top employees.

Gregory Humphrey: Great Wisconsin Quilt Show and Trump’s tariffs
In conversations with vendors from Arizona to Iowa to Virginia, a continuous theme emerged and was expressed by those displaying their goods and promoting their services. Donald Trump’s tariffs are hurting their businesses.

Dave Zweifel: In Trump’s America, criminals walk, civil servants get fired
The rioters who ransacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, beat and killed law enforcement officers and stunned the world are free and unpunished. But the Justice Department lawyers and federal investigators who sought to make them pay for their crimes have lost their livelihoods, and several are having to hire lawyers to fight charges themselves.

Neil Kraus: Ever-expanding AI continues to invade higher education
Trump and Big Tech promise “human flourishing” in the UW System.

Tom Still: AI mistrust is natural human reaction, but history suggests that may fade
It’s only human to question the safety and potential economic disruption of inventions that test our ability to absorb the change, but history shows acceptance is widespread once benefits become clear. That may be the case with AI in time.

WisOpinion: ‘The Insiders’ preview Trump’s inauguration, Evers’ State of the State address
The WisOpinion Insiders, Chvala and Jensen, preview President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural address and Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ State of the State speech. Sponsored by the Wisconsin Counties Association and the Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership…. Please log in

Rewind: Your Week in Review for Dec. 20
On this week’s episode of “Rewind,” WisPolitics.com’s JR Ross and CBS 58’s Emilee Fannon discuss the debate over school safety after Monday’s school shooting in Madison, legislative priorities in 2025, disagreement over funding for university building projects, Wisconsin’s GOP electors certifying President-elect Donald Trump’s win and Attorney General Josh Kaul’s vow to challenge the Trump administration on deportations and other issues.