Ava Menkes

2 months ago | isthmus.com | Ava Menkes

For the last several years, Rooted, a Madison nonprofit focused on urban agriculture, has run programs that help get locally grown food into student lunches and snacks, as well as fund school gardening programs and other initiatives. Now these programs are threatened by the Trump administration’s cuts to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) funding. One of the grants the group applied for is canceled for the next funding cycle, while the grant it currently has is uncertain for the next cycle.

2 months ago | dailycardinal.com | Ava Menkes

James Steakley/Wikimedia Commons The FBI national press office told The Daily Cardinal Friday morning they do not have immediate comment. The FBI arrested a Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Friday morning on charges of obstruction for helping an undocumented immigrant avoid arrest after he appeared in her courtroom last week.

2 months ago | dailycardinal.com | Francesca Pica |Oliver Gerharz |Ted Hyngstrom |Ava Menkes

Your browser does not support the audio element. Cardinal Call: Uncertain Horizons for Immigration in Wisconsin On this episode of Cardinal Call, hosts Oliver Gerharz and Ted Hyngstrom talk to the Daily Cardinal’s Editor-in-Chief Frankie Pica and Managing Editor Ava Menkes about the Cardinal’s Spring 2025 Action Project, Uncertain Horizons: Immigration in Wisconsin. They discuss the stories in the issue including a photo essay on immigrant students, a local choir, and the Fulbright program.

2 months ago | isthmus.com | Ava Menkes

The high-stakes race for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, which drew intense scrutiny and national attention, overshadowed the statewide race for head of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. Election Night felt no different. While hundreds gathered across Madison’s Capitol Square at a party for Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford, a much smaller group waited at the Concourse Hotel to see if superintendent Jill Underly would defeat challenger Brittany Kinser.

Mar 28, 2025 | isthmus.com | Ava Menkes

Education consultant Brittany Kinser is challenging incumbent Jill Underly for superintendent of the Department of Public Instruction in the April 1 general election. Kinser has been a special education teacher in Chicago public schools — though she has never had a Wisconsin teaching license — a Milwaukee school principal, and executive director of a national public charter school network.