Milwaukee County’s green space - some 15,000 acres of parks – is in varied states of decay. A 2009 audit found Milwaukee County Parks facing $200 million in deferred maintenance and the backlog of capital and maintenance needs now total $246 million.

Virginia Small and Tom Tolan teamed up to write about what might be done to bring the luster back to the park system in this month's issue of Milwaukee Magazine.

If you’ve ever taken a drive south along I-94, you might remember seeing a roadside sign in Sturtevant - near Racine - that advertised the "University of Lawsonomy." Or you might have seen the painted sign on a barn that says “Study Natural Law.”

The "law" in question is Lawsonomy: a utopian movement that began in 1929 by Alfred Lawson, a British immigrant who, before he started the eponymous Lawsonomy, founded two Wisconsin airplane manufacturers, and is credited as the inventor of the first passenger airliner.

Entering a grocery store, buyers are often bombarded with seemingly all-important yet ill-defined terms; words like “organic”, “sustainable”, or – perhaps the most pernicious culprit – “natural.”

But what do these terms actually mean? And how can consumers know if the foods they’re buying - usually at a premium - were grown or raised in an organic environment?

The US Department of Agriculture, or USDA, is tasked with setting minimum organic standards that farms of all sizes must meet, and then ensuring compliance with those standards.

Writer Bianca Marais was born in South Africa in 1976, a time when the country was still very much ruled under Apartheid laws that separated people of different skin colors.  It was the year of the Soweto Uprising, when Black high school students living in the ghetto designated by the White government outside Johannesburg marched in protest of the Apartheid laws.

Community leaders are banding together in an effort to reduce prostitution on Milwaukee’s south side. Last week, the Benedict Center announced a partnership with the Milwaukee Police Department. Patrol officers will start referring prostitutes to a place they could go for shelter and drug treatment. A couple of south side aldermen rolled out another approach on Wednesday.

When Taiwanese planes belonging to Foxconn representatives landed at Milwaukee's General Mitchell Airport last week, Journal Sentinel reporter John Schmid took notice. Since President Trump's allusions to Foxconn negotiations in June, he has been following the trail left by Wisconsin politicians, economic officials and the Asian technology manufacturer. 

On August 21st, parts of the United States will experience a total solar eclipse. It’s the first time in a century that the path of totality will be visible from the west coast to the east. Milwaukee isn’t in the totality path but it will still be darker than normal as the sun will be 86% eclipsed.