By SCOTT BAUER

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Department of Justice on Monday asked a judge to immediately put on hold his order that would require elections officials to verify the citizenship of all 3.6 million registered Wisconsin voters before the next statewide election in February.

Related Articles

US Treasury sanctions Mexican companies accused of aiding Sinaloa cartel’s fentanyl production

Trump’s use of the National Guard sets up a legal clash testing presidential power

CDC stops recommending COVID-19 shots for all, leaves decision to patients

Social Security Administrator Frank Bisignano is named to the newly created position of IRS CEO

Groups sue EPA over canceled $7 billion solar program intended to help poorer Americans

The state justice department, which represents the Wisconsin Elections Commission, is seeking the stay of Friday’s ruling pending an appeal.

The fight over verifying the citizenship status of voters in battleground Wisconsin comes as President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice has sought voter records from at least 19 states, including Wisconsin. Trump’s Justice Department is taking steps to crack down on voter fraud and noncitizen voting, both of which are rare but have been the subject of years of false claims from Trump and his allies.

The Wisconsin lawsuit was filed in August 2024 in the lead-up to the November presidential election by two suburban Milwaukee voters, including a longtime critic of how elections are run in the state.

They sought a court order requiring the Wisconsin Elections Commission and state Department of Transportation to verify the citizenship of all applicants registering to vote. They argued that the state elections commission is failing to investigate unlawful voter registrations and not taking steps to ensure that noncitizens are not voting.

The state justice department argued that there is no requirement or duty under Wisconsin law for the elections commission and transportation department to share and match data to remove non-citizens from the statewide voter list.

Wisconsin law requires voters to certify that they are U.S. citizens but does not require election officials to obtain proof or require voters to present any.

Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Maxwell ruled on Friday that the elections commission is “violating state and federal statutes by maintaining an election system that potentially allows individuals on to the voter rolls who may not be lawfully entitled to cast a vote in Wisconsin.”

The Wisconsin Elections Commission “is failing in the most basic task of ensuring that only lawful voters make it to the voter roll from where lawful votes are cast,” the judge ruled.

He ordered the elections commission to review the voter rolls before the Feb. 18 spring primary election to determine if anyone who is not a U.S. citizen is registered to vote. He also prohibited accepting any new voter registration request “without verification that the applicant is a U.S. citizen.”

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat who is considering running for governor, argued Monday that the court’s order would “require a massive overhaul of Wisconsin’s voter registration system and the creation of new verification requirements not otherwise provided for by statute.”

Further, the judge’s order does not explain what it would entail to verify that an applicant is a U.S. citizen. Requiring additional documents, like a U.S. passport, will take time to implement, Kaul argued.

“A major modification to Wisconsin’s electronic voter registration process will require months of development and testing before the changes may be deployed,” he said in the request for a stay of the ruling.

Any disabling of the voter registration system while those changes are implemented would violate the rights of others who are trying to register, Kaul argued. The state receives an average of 200 online voter registrations each day, he said.

Kevin Scott, an attorney for the voters who brought the lawsuit, said in a statement Monday that he hoped the state elections commission “does the right thing” and works to implement the judge’s ruling.

A spokeswoman for the state elections commission did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

“It is far too difficult to get a street tree planted in the five boroughs. The Urban Forest Plan must reverse this paradigm; if the goal of growing the city’s tree canopy to 30 percent coverage is as worthy as we say it is, let’s pull out the stops.”

A newly planted tree in the Bronx. (NYC Council/William Alatriste)

As New York City develops its new Urban Forest Plan, I couldn’t be more excited. Given the urban heat island effect, cloudburst flood events, air pollution, and climate change, we need trees more than ever. As this past Saturday, Oct. 4, marked City of Forest Day, it’s worth asking: to be effective, what should this new Plan emphasize?

First and foremost: get more trees in the ground 

As I know from experience, it is far too difficult to get a street tree planted in the five boroughs. The Urban Forest Plan must reverse this paradigm; if the goal of growing the city’s tree canopy to 30 percent coverage is as worthy as we say it is, let’s pull out the stops. 

The city’s new Urban Forest Plan needs to reduce hurdles to getting new trees in the ground – and it needs to let everyday New Yorkers help in real ways to make that happen, even if it means city agencies accepting more informality and imperfection than usual. 

Flipping the constrained street tree script

Here’s how we change the way we think about planting street trees:

The city should not prioritize jackhammering new tree pits into sidewalks given the number of existing open tree pits; focus on the extant low hanging fruit first. 

The city should conduct a lightning survey of all existing open street tree beds for actual underground pipes or cables (a typical Digger’s Hotline review, not the inscrutable “conflicts with surrounding infrastructure” analysis used in the city’s now-defunct 311 request-a-street-tree option). 

The city should eliminate its tree planting permit requirements (financial and paperwork). 

The city should publish a map showing all of the eligible tree pits open for planting. 

The city should encourage anyone (individuals, families, community groups, local businesses) to plant a tree in any of the eligible tree pits so long as it is at least four feet tall and staked. Non-profit partners can continue—and expand—their free tree giveaways. 

And then the city government should stand back after a bit of promotion of this new paradigm, and let New Yorkers of all kinds plant the saplings of their own collective future. 

Will this approach be less than perfect? Yes. Should it be done alongside city contractor tree planting? Yes. Will some new trees die? Yes. But will it lead to an overall greater number of trees planted and growing by 2030 than the city will otherwise be able to muster, even in partnership with large non-profit partners, by that date if it keeps current strictures in place? When the soil clods settle, I know we’ll see the answer is a resounding yes.

Today, open tree pits sit empty for years despite requests by neighbors and owners. Some individuals have even resorted to making donations of over $1,500 to a city-preferred non-profit to get a tree planted, if they’re lucky. It’s emblematic of just how wrong the default is: the switch is flipped to a presumption of “do not plant” instead of “yes, plant.” If the Urban Forest Plan is going to ramp up tree planting in a profound way, it needs to revamp the city’s calcified, overly cautious presumptions.  

Will existing contractor requirements for tree size, watering, staking, and maintenance be sacrificed for trees planted by the community under the new paradigm? In some cases, yes, though some of those things may well be replaced by community and individual efforts. At any rate, those considerations should be secondary to actually getting new trees in the ground, many of which will persist even with minimal amounts of care. But critically, the cost to get a given tree in the ground will be so much less than the current $3,000 per tree that it is worth the experiment on a large scale. I’ve seen a grassroots planting “pilot” prove as much.

Prioritize biodiversity, adaptation, species realities

Along with this fundamental shift in approach to help reach our tree planting goal, the Urban Forest Plan must also change other presumptions. For one, the existing limited list of permitted street tree species must be jettisoned to allow greater biodiversity and prevent single-species Dutch Elm Disease-style catastrophe.

Species that traditionally hail from farther south, like water tupelo (nyssa aquatica), should be tried out as the city’s climate zone shifts (Green-Wood Cemetery has been experimenting with this species, and we have seen similar “unlikely” species like bald cypresses succeed as street trees). 

Additionally, while native tree species should be foregrounded, the Urban Forest Plan must not be too precious. If arrived species are most likely to succeed in disturbed areas, we should accept their erosion control, flood mitigation, carbon sequestration, shade, oxygen production, habitat benefits, and higher growth rates in some cases in service of the overall canopy coverage target.

The script should be flipped here, too: instead of limiting what types of trees can be planted to a dozen or so, only a handful of the most noxious should be outright discouraged. I’ve long wondered why so many species of fruit- and nut-bearing trees are not on the permitted street tree list when there are several species listed that make just as much of a mess on the sidewalks and vehicles (gingko, Kentucky coffee, and sweetgum, I’m looking at you). 

Looking at the big picture

Taken together, these proposed fundamental shifts from the existing street tree-planting paradigm in New York City give us a real chance of achieving —and exceeding—the stated Urban Forest Plan canopy cover goal. It also gives everyday New Yorkers a meaningful role in a truly exciting citywide effort while building a corps of grassroots stewards deeply entwined with their curbside charges. 

Brad Vogel is a resident of Gowanus, Brooklyn. He has volunteered with and helped lead groups planting trees in multiple boroughs over the past decade. Vogel has long found inspiration in the legacy of the late Hattie Carthan, the Tree Lady of Brooklyn. 

The post Opinion: Flip the Script With NYC’s New Urban Forest Plan appeared first on City Limits.

British rock band Bring Me the Horizon will headline St. Paul’s Grand Casino Arena for the first time on May 13.

Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday through Ticketmaster. Citi cardholders have access to a presale that runs from 10 a.m. Tuesday through 10 p.m. Thursday.

The five-piece formed 2004 when the members were teenagers who shared a love of various forms of metal and punk. They took their name from a line uttered by Captain Jack Sparrow in the 2003 film “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl”: “Now, bring me that horizon.”

A band demo landed Bring Me the Horizon a deal with the now-defunct British indie label Visible Noise, home to the likes of Lostprophets and Bullet For My Valentine. They toured the U.S. for the first time in 2008. They broke into the Top 20 in the States and the U.K. with their third album, 2010’s “There Is a Hell Believe Me I’ve Seen It. There Is a Heaven Let’s Keep It a Secret.”

In 2013 Bring Me the Horizon signed a major label deal with RCA abroad and, two years later, made a U.S. deal with Columbia. In the years since, the group has found a welcome home at rock radio, where they hit No. 12 with “Throne” and No. 9 with “Medicine.” They also went from playing the Myth in Maplewood in 2014 and 2015 to headlining the larger Armory in downtown Minneapolis in 2019 and 2022.

The upcoming tour supports the band’s seventh album, “Post Human: Nex Gen.” The band dabbled in numerous styles on the record, earning comparisons to everyone from Charli XCX to the Smashing Pumpkins.

Related Articles

Review: An improvisation-infused mash-up of electronic and classical music

Nine-piece K-Pop group Twice to headline Grand Casino Arena in April

Pop star Doja Cat is coming back to Target Center next October

Concert review: Keith Urban scores a jackpot at St. Paul’s Grand Casino Arena

Country star Eric Church to play Grand Casino Arena in February

After spending the first five-plus years of his North American hockey career stuck in the Ottawa Senators’ minor league system, Filip Gustavsson admits that the idea of returning to his native Sweden and finishing out his playing days back home was a consideration.

A trade to Minnesota in the summer of 2022, and the chance to split the puck-stopping duties with future hall of famer Marc-Andre Fleury, changed the trajectory of Gustavsson’s career. He enters this season with a firm hold on the No. 1 spot and a five-year $34 million contract extension.

Meeting with the media on Monday, following the Wild’s practice at TRIA Rink, Gustavsson, 27, said learning Fleury’s light-hearted approach to the game, and his pesky habit of keeping the puck out of the net, was a game-changer in terms of dealing with the pressures of the NHL spotlight.

“Fleury had such a good mindset … with how much he just thought of it as a game and not as a job,” Gustavsson said. “He helped me really see it for what it was. Sometimes I felt it was hard and it was tough as a job, and (he) wanted to put your skates on every day and just have fun out there.”

After starting as Fleury’s backup in 2022-23, Gustavsson gradually took the top job, appearing in 58 of 82 regular season games in 2024-25 and backed up this season by prospect Jesper Wallstedt. With his potential free agency approaching next summer, the Wild made Gustavsson’s contract their next priority after signing Kirill Kaprizov to the richest contract in NHL history.

“Knowing that Gus wants to stay here is great for us,” said Wild general manager Bill Guerin, revealing that the extension came together after just a few days of discussion. “It’s just something that seemed like a no-brainer, and we’re just really happy.”

Gustavsson, who is from a hockey family, played extensively in his native Sweden before being picked by Guerin, then with the Pittsburgh Penguins, in the second round of the 2016 NHL draft. Guerin made it clear on Monday that he was not involved in the Penguins’ decision to trade Gustavsson to Ottawa less than two years later.

In Sweden, Gustavsson signed his first pro contract as a teenager, making the equivalent of around $20,000 per season. He said that signing the extension that will pay just under $7 million per season brought back a familiar feeling.

“The hockey career feels short, but it’s the same butterflies in the stomach every time you sign a contract,” he said. “I remember going to the room in Sweden with the GM and signing, and I thought that I was the coolest guy in school. It’s the same thing now. It’s so cool, and I’m so grateful just to play hockey for a living.”

In addition to wearing red and green in Minnesota, Gustavsson still puts on the blue and gold of his nation and was Team Sweden’s top goalie for the 4 Nations Face-Off last season. He is solidly in the mix to be the first option in goal for Sweden at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy come February.

And having learned under Fleury, he is now embracing the role of mentor for fellow Swede Wallstedt, who got two NHL starts last season while the Wild dealt with injuries.

“I think we have some potential to be a top five goalie tandem in the league together,” Gustavsson said. “He has had a few games now under his belt, and he’s going to grow and be very good.”

Gustavsson is expected to start Thursday in St. Louis when the Wild open the regular season versus the Blues. It was at the Enterprise Center in St. Louis last season on Oct. 15 that Gustavsson fired a puck end to end into an empty Blues net, sealing a 4-1 win and becoming the first goalie in Wild history to score a goal.

Minnesota Wild goaltender Filip Gustavsson (32) defends a shot by Vegas Golden Knights left wing Pavel Dorofeyev (16) during the second period of Game 5 of a first-round NHL hockey playoff series Tuesday, April 29, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/David Becker)

Related Articles

Wild reassign Hunter Haight to Iowa, reduced roster to 27

Five-year extension keeps goalie Filip Gustavsson with Wild

For mind and body, Wild defenseman Zach Bogosian likes it hot

Wild: Rising cap makes Kirill Kaprizov’s NHL-record deal a reasonable risk

Questions remain as Wild’s preseason comes to a close