What we know:

MILWAUKEE – The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has proposed to open an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Milwaukee, an alderwoman announced Tuesday, Jan. 14.

Ald. Larresa Taylor, who represents Milwaukee’s 9th District, said DHS requested modifications to a building located at 11925 W. Lake Park Dr. Those modifications include adding a sally port and a chain link fence with privacy slats. A sally port would be used to transport prisoners to and from the facility.

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“I want District 9, and the rest of the city, to know that we do not support the Department of Homeland Security in their decision to move into our district, and we definitely do not support any such modifications to any building in our district (as a location to house prisoners!),” Taylor said in a statement.

What’s next:

Taylor scheduled a news conference at 1 p.m. Wednesday outside the building. She invited all organizations that will be impacted to join her, noting “Milwaukee’s 9th Aldermanic District will no longer be Wisconsin’s dumping ground for detention facilities.”

An anonymous post on an unofficial Instagram page named “powderhornskatingclub” was all it took to coax nearly three dozen intrepid skaters onto the frozen lake at Powderhorn Park in Minneapolis a few days later. 

“That’s right baby. The Powderhorn Skating Championship is back!” the post said.

The origins of speed skating on Powderhorn Lake in Powderhorn Park date back to the 1930s and ‘40s when, according to the Minneapolis Parks website, a local ice track hosted national skating championships and even Olympic trials. In 1948, four of the nine skaters on the U.S. Olympic team were from the south Minneapolis neighborhood.

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Organizers said they wanted to honor Powderhorn Park’s history of speed skating and bring their neighbors out for some winter fun. On Saturday, skaters toed the starting line of the hand-shoveled track in two categories: beginner and intermediate. Heats consisted of one lap for beginners and two laps for the intermediate division.

Before the start, Powderhorn community members Orren Fen and Helena Howard passed out handmade cardboard signs for a dozen or so spectators lined up on the frozen lake.

“We saw the flyer and I was like, ‘We should grab some flags and come on down,’” said Fen.

Racers were decked out in outfits ranging from figure skating tutus and Carhartt coveralls to neon-patterned singlets straight out of 1980s workout videos. 

Mar Horns, who skated in the beginner heat, said her grandfather grew up competing on the ice at Powderhorn Park. “It’s cool hearing my grandpa talk about his time living here, then seeing people continue to have some of these really cool traditions.”

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“The real victory is being here with my friends and feeling my heart race as I skate around the ice,” said Spencer Polk, who finished first in the intermediate heat. 

In the end, unofficial winners received tiny prizes that were thrifted from a store up the street, and awards for best outfits and most helpful shovelers were handed out as well.

MPR News video producer Anne Guttridge contributed to this story.

As a taxpaying citizen of Indiana, I am outraged to read in IndyStar that House Roads and Transportation Chair Jim Pressel wants Marion County to address our potholes and maintain the county’s nearly 8,500 lane miles of roads by allowing us to raise taxes to meet funding needs.

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Pressel and his fellow rural Republican legislators support a lane-mile funding formula that gives as much money to a one-lane county road as to six lanes for a street such as Keystone Avenue. Our county receives about half the lane-mile funding as most other counties. We also get 11 cents per every dollar our taxpayers generate for the state’s Community Crossings program, while other counties receive $1. Pressel says, “I’m trying to help them help themselves.” He rounds out his subterfuge by saying, “They know they have a problem.”

Yes, we know we have a problem: It’s the Republican-dominated state government with its anti-Indianapolis bias. Don’t they notice the discrepancy when they are in town spending their $196 per-diem staying at our hotels or eating at our restaurants courtesy of corporate lobbyists? Why wouldn’t they want their state’s capital city to thrive and serve as a magnet to attract businesses and new residents to Indiana? Instead, they spend their time trying to dismantle our public school system, put roadblocks in the way of efficient public transportation, prevent us from banning right turns on red, and take our money to prop up their backwoods towns.

When the legislative session is over and Pressel is driving back to Rolling Prairie, let’s hope his mega truck doesn’t hit a pothole, bend a rim and destroy a tire when he hits a pothole within our city limits.

Michael Nolan lives in Indianapolis.