• Wauwatosa West guard Jalen Brown has committed to the Wisconsin men’s basketball program.
• Brown is the first commitment for the Badgers’ 2027 recruiting class.
• The four-star recruit is ranked as a top-100 player nationally by both 247 Sports and Rivals.

MADISON – Wisconsin men’s basketball has kept one of the best in-state recruits home.

Wauwatosa West’s Jalen Brown has committed to the Badgers, he announced on June 5, giving Greg Gard his first commitment of the 2027 class.

Brown – a four-star recruit rated 66th nationally by 247 Sports and 63rd nationally by Rivals – chose Wisconsin over scholarship offers from Indiana, Iowa, Washington, California, Minnesota and others.

The 6-foot-4 guard was on the Journal Sentinel’s first-team all-area boys basketball team in 2025-26 after averaging 20.5 points, 7.2 rebounds, 6.2 assists and 2.9 steals per game. He also was the Greater Metro Conference’s player of the year.

That was a year after helping Wauwatosa West win its first-ever state title in 2024-25 while earning third-team all-area recognition.

“They’re getting a really good basketball player, but probably even a better person,” Wauwatosa West coach Christopher Newbauer told the Journal Sentinel. “Super awesome guy. … They’re getting a point guard or combo guard that sees the floor extremely well. He gets his teammates involved. He’s a kid that can score at all three levels.”

Looking ahead to Brown’s senior year of high school, Newbauer wants to see Brown add more muscle and become more vocal ahead of competing in the Big Ten.

“He’s the complete package kid,” Newbauer said. “The two things things that he needs to work on, if he gets that, I think he could be a pro down the line. If he isn’t maybe playing in the NBA or something like that, he definitely will be playing overseas.”

He is the first top-100 in-state player, as ranked by 247 Sports, to join the Badgers since Brevin Pritzl in the 2015 recruiting class. Two of the other top-100 in-state players in the 2027 class, Dooney Johnson and Donovan Davis, committed to Gonzaga and Iowa State, respectively.

A Wayne County judge has blocked a local heating and cooling company from doing work on a steam line project on Lafayette Park property in Detroit, a ruling some residents of the famed development are cheering.

Detroit Thermal, a company that provides heating and cooling to buildings through an underground network, said it will appeal the decision.

Detroit Thermal wants to upgrade and reconnect a steam line to the 1300 Lafayette East Cooperative. But residents who live in the housing cooperatives designed by famed architect Mies van der Rohe worry the project would damage their community’s landscape because it would involve excavation work.

Earlier this week, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Annette Berry granted a permanent injunction, which the Mies housing cooperatives had sought.

Berry ordered that Detroit Thermal is enjoined, or prohibited, from entering on Lots 19-22 of the Lafayette Park Subdivision, excavating on the lots and using the lots for the purpose of installing a slip line into existing steam pipes.

“I think generally that we feel vindicated and … feel like it was important for us to stand up for our property rights,” said Randy Essex, a resident of the Nicolet Co-op, one of the housing cooperatives.

What is Lafayette Park?

Completed in stages in the 1960s, the Mies van der Rohe Residential District is considered one of America’s most successful post-World War II urban redevelopment projects, according to the Detroit Historical Society. Located east of the Chrysler Freeway and roughly bounded by Rivard Street, Lafayette Avenue, Orleans Street and Antietam Street, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.

MILWAUKEE — The Milwaukee LGBT Community Center is celebrating Pride Fest’s 30th anniversary this weekend from a new home — and its executive director says the move feels like a homecoming.

The center relocated to its current space in February, situated near the intersection of First Street and Pittsburgh Avenue, across from the Bobblehead Museum and Collectivo coffee shop.

WATCH: MKE’s LGBT Community Center executive director calls move a homecoming

Milwaukee LGBT Community Center executive director calls move a homecoming as PrideFest kicks off

“We have been here since February. We are loving it. It’s been a welcome home for us. When the center first opened up back in 1998, we were actually on South 1st Street, and so it’s been a homecoming for us,” Executive Director Ritchie T. Martin, Jr. said.

The center provides a range of services to Milwaukee’s LGBTQ+ community, including behavioral health services, a food pantry, a gender-affirming clothing boutique, and Project Here — its oldest program — which serves young people between the ages of 13 and 24.

Martin, Jr. said the community’s support has been critical, especially as the center has faced federal funding losses over the past year.

Milwaukee LGBT Community Center

“The community has grown. The center has grown. We’ve gone through our ups and downs like any other nonprofit across the country, but the community’s really showing up for us, especially over the last year as we face federal funding loss. It has been really, really unique the way the community shows up,” Martin, Jr. said.

Martin, Jr. emphasized that every form of support makes a difference.

“Volunteering, you know, there’s actually no little bit that can help. Every little bit that a person can do, whether it’s volunteering, whether it’s clothing donations, whether it’s giving monetary donations, every little bit helps in these times,” Martin, Jr. said.

Milwaukee LGBT Community Center

He said the need for centers like this one remains as important as ever.

“Very much so important. We show up each and every day living through our mission, providing services to a marginalized vulnerable community, and the people need these services. We’ve seen the growth in the services that are needed and so it’s important that we continue to show up, the community shows up, and we’re all here for each other,” Martin, Jr. said.

PrideFest’s 30th anniversary celebration continues this weekend in Milwaukee.

This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.

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