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For the second year in a row Madison is named the best place to live in America.  Livability gives Madison a Liv Score of 725, beating Ann Arbor, Michigan by 39 points for the top spot.  Livability ranks cities in several different categories including the economy, housing, education, and others.  Waukesha also ranks high on the list at 12th.

 Milwaukee is working on a six-day shooting spree. Police say four more people were shot yesterday, two of them died. Milwaukee Police say that was a case where a man killed a woman, then shot himself a short time later. He died at the hospital. Yesterday’s shootings come after 28 people were shot between last Friday and Tuesday night.

Wisconsin’s governor says he’s not ready to sign-off on a new casino in Kenosha. Governor Evers yesterday said he’s ‘a long way’ from a decision on a proposed Hard Rock Casino for the Menominee Tribe. The tribe and Hard Rock announced a partnership yesterday, and local leaders in Bristol okayed a land sale for the casino earlier this week. Evers would have to sign-off on any new gambling compact with the tribe for the project in Kenosha.

A water rescue brings everyone in safely, but with some mild injuries to attend to. The Eau Claire Fire Department and the Eau Claire Police Department were dispatched to the Dewey Street bridge for a water rescue. It was reported that 4 tubers were clinging to a tree on the South side of the Eau Claire River upstream of the Dewey Street bridge. Police officers and fire personnel arrived to find 4 teenagers holding onto a tree in the river.

A carnival worker at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair remains in jail in Chippewa Falls in a sexual assault case. A judge on Tuesday set Craig McPherson’s bond at 50 thousand-dollars cash. Police say he assaulted a 14-year-old girl who was at the fair. Prosecutors say McPherson gave the girl and her 22-year-old sister a ride from the fair to a local gas station, and that’s when the assault happened. McPherson is originally from Georgia.

Eau Claire County is looking at an advisory referendum on marijuana this fall. The county board last night approved a plan that will ask voters if they think marijuana should be legalized in the state. The vote will not make marijuana legal in Wisconsin or Eau Claire, it will simply give elected leaders a sense of where people are on the issue.

Wisconsin is suing the makers of firefighting foam for a billion-dollars. Attorney General Josh Kaul and Governor Tony Evers announced the lawsuit yesterday. It names Tyco Fire Products in Marinette as one of the biggest PFAS polluters in the state. But the suit also names 17 other companies that make firefighting foam. Kaul says the companies, not the taxpayers of Wisconsin, need to pay for clean-up efforts. PFAS chemicals are found in everything from microwave popcorn bags to non-stick skillets, but the

Local election managers in Wisconsin cannot add anything to absentee ballots without contacting voters first. The legislature’s Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules yesterday killed a proposal from the state’s Elections Commission that would have allowed local clerks to make changes on their own. JCRAR chief Senator Steve Nass said Wisconsin law is clear about who can change ballot information and how, and said the Elections Commission plan was outside the law. Democrats at the Capitol say they want to see a voter’s

Georgia Pacific is moving ahead with its half-billion dollar expansion at its mill in Green Bay. The company says the new addition will help grow its tissue and paper towel business. G-P announced the expansion last year, the hope is to have the 500 million-dollar upgrade finished by 2024. Mill managers say the expansion will create 100 new jobs, in addition to the 800 people who are already working at the plant.

Another Wisconsin lawmaker says it’s time for criminal investigations into the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Waukesha state Rep. Scott Allen yesterday said the Commission needs to be reigned-in and forced to follow state election laws. Allen’s comments came after the legislature’s Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules killed a rule from the Commission that would have allowed local election clerks to make changes to absentee ballots. Allen says that is clearly against the law, as was the Commission’s guidance to election managers back in