Gov. Scott Walker signed the budget June 26, effectively ending the state’s 33-year-old system of providing public funding to candidates who agree to abide by overall spending limits.

News of a physical altercation between two state Supreme Court justices has, ironically, brought the people of Wisconsin together. Everyone, it seems, agrees there is something terribly wrong with our state Supreme Court.

The Wisconsin Judicial Commission and the Dane County’s Sheriff’s Office announced Monday that they are conducting separate ethical and criminal investigations into an alleged physical altercation between two Wisconsin Supreme Court justices.

For farmer Brian Wickert, the raw milk bill is about having the freedom to live without interference from the government. But for health officials in America’s Dairyland, it’s about potentially exposing unsuspecting citizens to disease-causing bacteria. At the crux of this debate is the age-old question: How much should government protect its citizens from possible hazards?

Editor’s note: The Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism is debuting a column called Money & Politics. Written by Bill Lueders, the Center’s Money and Politics Project director, the column will cover a wide range of topics related to money and politics, tied into contemporary events. And it will invite readers into a process of discovery, [...]

Several sources told Wisconsin Public Radio and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism that an argument before the court’s release of a decision upholding a bill to curtail the collective bargaining rights of public employees culminated in a physical altercation in the presence of other justices.

The public is invited to examine the first online archive of top state officials’ 2011 financial disclosure forms, now posted on Wisconsin Watch, the website for the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism.

In September, a family’s vacation in Wisconsin Dells turned tragic when an infant touched the glass front of a fireplace and suffered third-degree burns at a resort hotel. Manufacturers of gas fireplaces are being buffeted by lawsuits and the threat of federal regulation amid heightened concerns about the risk of burns from the appliances, which can get hot enough to melt skin.