Thursday, January 23, 2025
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Thursday, January 23, 2025

Milwaukee Press Club 'Excellence in Wisconsin Journalism' 2020 & 2021 Award Winners

Wisconsin Has 2nd Highest Black Homicide Victimization Rate in U.S.

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The City of Milwaukee, which has decimated Milwaukee police staffing levels, is driving the numbers. The homicide disparity is occurring against a backdrop of criminal justice problems.

Wisconsin’s inability to get a handle on violent crime is having a disproportionate effect on blacks, and it’s one of the worst disparities in the country, a new report found.

Wisconsin has the “second highest Black homicide victimization rate in the nation with a rate of 45.72 per 100,000—twice the national Black homicide victimization rate and seven and a half times the overall homicide rate nationwide,” a new analysis by the Violence Policy Center (VPC) shows.

Missouri ranked number one.

The City of Milwaukee, which has decimated Milwaukee police staffing levels, is driving the numbers. The homicide disparity is occurring against a backdrop of criminal justice problems.

Black homicide victimization rate

 

Milwaukee County has failed to fix a severe felony backlog, allowing offenders to remain longer on the streets. The jail is refusing to book some people on misdemeanor warrants meaning police often just give those individuals a piece of paper to show up for court, on their honor. The governor has expanded the state’s early release program from prison, and parolees who commit news crimes are not always incarcerated.

The annual study, Black Homicide Victimization in the United States: An Analysis of 2020 Homicide Data, also “ranks the states according to their Black homicide victimization rates,” a press release from the center says.

“It is based on unpublished data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR). The study details homicide rates for 2020, the most recent year for which comprehensive national data is available. This is the 17th year the Violence Policy Center has released the study. To see past editions of the study, click here.”

“The consistent, disproportionate impact of homicide on Black men, women, boys, and girls is a national shame. Guns are almost always the weapon used, and the ripple effects of each death ravage families, friends, and whole communities. Each year we release this information to help support violence prevention advocates and organizations working on the local level while continuing to educate and engage policymakers and the public on the need to address this national crisis,” state VPC Executive Director Josh Sugarmann.

The report notes: “This is the 2nd year in a row that Wisconsin has ranked within the 10 states in the nation with the highest Black homicide victimization rates.”

For Wisconsin, the study found that in 2020, according to the press release:
  • “Of the 199 Black homicide victims, 158 were male and 41 were female.
  • Twenty-four Black homicide victims (12 percent) were less than 18 years old and 3 victims (2 percent) were 65 years of age or older. The average age was 31 years old.
  • When the weapon used could be identified, 95 percent of the Black homicide victims (169 out of 177) were killed with guns. Of these, 33 percent (55 victims) were killed with handguns.
  • For homicides in which the victim-to-offender relationship could be identified, 66 percent of Black homicide victims (52 out of 79) were killed by someone they knew. Twenty-seven were killed by strangers.
  • For homicides in which the circumstances could be identified, 79 percent (93 out of 118) were not related to the commission of any other felony. Of these, 47 percent (44 homicides) involved arguments between the victim and the offender.”
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TikTok Restores U.S. service after Trump Intervention

TikTok restored service to American users Sunday after temporarily shutting down in response to a Congressionally passed law upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court over its Chinese ownership.

The company said it was restoring service after President-elect Donald Trump pledged to sign an executive order to give TikTok more time to work out its ownership concerns.

"We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive," TikTok said in a statement. "It's a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship. We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States."

The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the ban signed by President Joe Biden was constitutional.

"There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community," the Supreme Court said in its decision. "But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok's data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary. For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the challenged provisions do not violate petitioners' First Amendment rights."

The ban enacted by Biden mandated that TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, sell by Jan. 19 or be shut down.

Federal lawmakers had argued the ban was necessary to safeguard sensitive data while the Chinese-owned company's legal team argued that it violates First Amendment rights, stating officials failed to provide sufficient evidence related to those concerns.

Trump had previously petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to delay the enforcement after expressing sympathy over TikTok's position. He asked that his incoming administration address the national security concerns through "political negotiations" rather than an outright ban.

"I’m asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark! I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security," Trump wrote on Sunday. "The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order."

Trump also said he'd like the U.S. "to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture. By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to say up."

• The Center Square reporter Shirleen Guerra contributed to this report.

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DAY ONE: Here’s What Trump Could Do on His First Day in Office

President-elect Donald Trump, who is set to take office Monday, has made a series of promises of major executive actions on “day one” in office.

One of the simplest and more controversial of those “day one” plans is to pardon some of the Jan. 6 protesters currently behind bars or facing prosecution. The president has broad power to pardon, shown most recently when President Joe Biden pardoned his own son for crimes he committed or may have committed over more than a decade span.

But Trump’s “day one” executive orders are far from limited to pardons.

On energy policy, Trump has pledged to open up domestic oil drilling in a major way in an effort to lower costs for Americans and boost the energy industry. He has also promised to end a Biden-era rule that would require more than half of Americans to transition to electric vehicles over the next decade.

Trump has also consistently tapped into America’s frustration over the border crisis and broken immigration system.

Since President Joe Biden took office, more than 12 million illegal immigrants have entered the U.S., overwhelming some cities and raising national security concerns, since some migrants are on the federal terror watch list.

Trump has also promised to end transgender participation in women’s sports, something lawmakers in the House have already passed a bill to quench.

Trump has threatened “day one” tariffs as well, though it is unclear how wide-ranging those tariffs could be, since Trump likes to wield them as a negotiating tool against other nations.

On foreign policy, a ceasefire in the war between Hamas and Israel apparently has been reached, just days before Trump took office. In the Ukraine-Russia war, Trump promised on the campaign trail to put an end to that war "in 24 hours.”

In a series of campaign speeches and media interviews, Trump has promised some “day one” actions to address the border and immigration crises.

These actions include:

• Trump has plans to reinstate Title 42, a COVID-era policy that helps shut down the southern border.

• Trump has said he would also reinstate “Remain in Mexico,” a policy that Trump used during his first term that requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their claim to be processed. Biden ended that policy and let migrants in and asked questions later.

• According to Politico, Trump is considering designating cartels south of the border as terrorist organizations, a policy once pushed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis when he was running for president that could open up a flood of new resources and executive powers at the border. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott designated the violent Venezuelan prison gang, Tren de Aragua, a foreign terrorist organization last year.

• Trump has threatened to end birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants born in the U.S., but it remains unclear if he has the Constitutional authority to do so since birthright citizenship is enshrined in the 14th Amendment.

• Trump has made overtly clear that he plans to kickstart a massive, never-before-seen deportation program for the millions of illegal immigrants in the U.S. Trump’s appointee as border czar, Tom Homan, has been clear saying publicly that Trump named this as a top priority when choosing him for the job.

“On day one, we will SHUT DOWN THE BORDER and start deporting millions of Biden's Illegal Criminals,” Trump said over the summer during the campaign. “We will once again put AMERICANS First and MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN!”

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