The contract says power plants serving Microsoft’s Mount Pleasant data center must be in eastern Wisconsin or Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, even though the state Public Service Commission rejected that requirement.
Paul Kiefer / Wisconsin Watch
Paul Kiefer joined Wisconsin Watch in September 2025 as a Roy W. Howard fellow, focusing largely on immigration and data reporting. He grew up in Washington state, first setting foot in a newsroom as a teenage producer-in-training at a Seattle public radio station. He went on to cover criminal justice in Washington for both the Seattle news site PubliCola and InvestigateWest. He headed east in 2023, finding work as a state politics reporter for Delaware Public Media before receiving a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland and interning with the Washington Post’s metro desk.
Posted inEconomic Development
We Energies says Oracle dispute won’t derail Port Washington data center
The utility told investors the project remains on schedule despite the tech giant’s legal challenge to Wisconsin’s new credit rating requirements for large data center operators.
Posted inPublic Safety & Criminal Justice
Wisconsin immigrant’s case breaks appeals court split on mandatory detention rule
The ruling could allow hundreds of immigrants in Wisconsin, Indiana and Illinois to seek bond hearings after long stays in mandatory detention.
Posted inPublic Safety & Criminal Justice
Scammers target injured Wisconsin workers with fake worker’s compensation hearings
Wisconsin officials warn that scammers are using fake worker’s compensation hearings to trick injured workers, most of them Spanish-speaking, into paying bogus fees.
Posted inEconomic Development
Oracle credit rating drops amid Wisconsin fight over data center credit rules
The downgrade comes as Oracle challenges state regulators’ decision to require companies with lower credit ratings to post millions in collateral for new data centers.
Posted inEconomic Development
Fight over who expands Wisconsin’s power grid heads to Washington
After losing a major transmission project to a startup, American Transmission Company asks federal regulators to reopen the bidding, escalating a fight over who will build — and profit from — Wisconsin’s grid expansion as data centers drive demand.
Posted inEconomic Development
In a Wisconsin land rush, data centers made them millionaires
Some sellers whose properties fetched several times the fair market value are dissatisfied, and their former neighbors aren’t happy either.
Posted inCommunity
Wisconsin to cut FoodShare, Medicaid for thousands of refugees under new federal rules
Wisconsin will begin enforcing new federal eligibility rules that cut FoodShare and Medicaid for an estimated 7,200 refugees and other legally present immigrants.
Posted inPublic Safety & Criminal Justice
Local officials voice frustrations as ICE announces 39 Wisconsin arrests
Federal agents conducted a rare public enforcement operation across the state as immigrant advocates reported widespread fear and Milwaukee officials questioned ICE’s use of city and county property.
Posted inPublic Safety & Criminal Justice
ICE ramps up operations in Milwaukee while advocates rush to catch up
The wave of arrests — likely among the largest in Milwaukee since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025 — sent shock waves through the city’s immigrant neighborhoods.