The groundswell of organized retail crime is a national issue that risks spreading local law enforcement thin. While the American public sees headlines of smash-and-grab robberies or watches shock-inducing footage of their favorite retailers left ransacked and wrecked, it’s our local police forces that are left to pick up the pieces.

Almost 70 percent of storefronts have reported an increase in theft this past year, and the Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail estimates that organized retail crime accounts for $45 billion in annual retail losses. In one instance alone in February 2021, a group brazenly grabbed handbags worth $165,000 from the shelves of a Chanel store in New York in a daytime robbery.

Why the sudden spike in crime sprees over the past couple of years? Historically, organized retail crime tends to increase in challenging times. According to U.S. court statistics, retail theft skyrocketed by 16 percent after 9/11 and by 30 percent during the 2008 recession. It’s no surprise that we are seeing a similar, albeit accelerated, trend amid the protracted pandemic and crippling inflation.

But what makes this current organized retail crime wave more pervasive and problematic than ever is where these stolen goods may end up once they are swiped from store shelves. Gone are the days of pawning stolen merchandise on street corners and flea markets; criminals are turning to the anonymity of the internet to peddle their loot. Stolen items are showing up on the virtual marketplaces that consumers traffic on a daily basis, seamlessly fitting in with honest online storefronts and businesses.

That’s why federal legislation such as the Integrity, Notification, and Fairness in Online Retail Marketplaces for Consumers, or INFORM Consumers Act, could be a valuable and essential tool. It’s the least Congress can do to support law enforcement online as they continue to work to combat organized retail crime. The bill requires online marketplaces to clearly disclose contact information of certain high-volume, third-party sellers to consumers and provide consumers with ways to report suspicious marketplace activity. The Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general would have authority to enforce the requirements.

Factory activity in the United States last month dropped to its lowest level since July 2020 as supply chain snarls intensified amid a new wave of pandemic-related lockdowns in China, an industry survey said on Monday.

The Institute for Supply Management said its manufacturing index dropped almost 2 percentage points to 55.4 percent in April, against expectations for a modest increase, but still above the 50-percent threshold indicating expansion.

The culprit was a renewed flareup in the supply chain woes that have dogged American factories throughout their recovery from the Covid-19 downturn, and in particular, China’s aggressive moves to stop renewed outbreaks in Beijing, Shanghai and other major cities.

“Overseas partners are experiencing Covid-19 impacts, creating a near-term headwind for the US manufacturing community,” said Timothy Fiore, the survey’s chairman. “Fifteen percent of panelists’ general comments expressed concern about their Asian partners’ ability to deliver reliably in the summer months, up from 5 percent in March,” he added.

We Energies wants to raise your rates. Residential customers would see electric bills go up $5 to $6 per month to cover what We Energies calls the largest clean-energy transition in its history, according to our partners at the Milwaukee Business Journal.

The proposed electric rate increases would be 5% to 6%, the company said.

The investment includes $175 million for a solar farm in southwest Wisconsin. It creates nearly as much power as the biggest coal burning unit at the Oak Creek power plant with zero emissions.

It also includes $660 million for two large solar and battery projects in southeast Wisconsin. The company said it also plans to spend $700 million over the next decade to bury power lines and strengthen its delivery against severe weather, the Milwaukee Business Journal reports.

The typical customer’s rate increase will amount to $4 to $8 per month for natural gas. However, the majority of a customer’s gas bill results from therms used rather than the base rate.

A final decision on the rate change is expected later this year.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday adopted Republican-drawn maps for the state Legislature, handing the GOP a victory just weeks after initially approving maps drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.

The court reversed itself after the U.S. Supreme Court in March said Evers’ maps were incorrectly adopted, and came just as candidates were about to begin circulating nominating papers to appear on this year’s ballot without being sure of district boundaries.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court had adopted Evers’ map on March 3, but the U.S. Supreme Court overturned it on March 23. The high court ruled that Evers’ map failed to consider whether a “race-neutral alternative that did not add a seventh majority-black district would deny black voters equal political opportunity.”

Evers told the state Supreme Court it could still adopt his map with some additional analysis, or an alternative with six majority-Black districts. The Republican-controlled Legislature argued that its map should be implemented.

The Wisconsin court, controlled 4-3 by conservatives, sided with the Legislature.

“The maps proposed by the Governor … are racially motivated and, under the Equal Protection Clause, they fail strict scrutiny,” Chief Justice Annette Ziegler wrote for the majority, joined by Justices Patience Roggensack, Rebecca Grassl Bradley and Brian Hagedorn.

The Legislature’s maps, they wrote, “are race neutral” and “comply with the Equal Protection Clause, along with all other application federal and state legal requirements.”

Hagedorn, a conservative swing justice, initially backed Evers’ map but reversed himself once the matter came back before the court. In a separate concurrence, he wrote that the U.S. Supreme Court decision required the state court to adopt a race-neutral map, and the Legislature’s maps “are the only legally compliant maps we received.”

The court’s three liberal justices — Jill Karofsky, Ann Walsh Bradley and Rebecca Dallet — dissented. Karofsky, writing for the minority, said the Legislature’s maps “fare no better than the Governor’s under the U.S. Supreme Court’s rationale.”

Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) Secretary Randy Romanski and Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation Secretary and CEO Missy Hughes announced yesterday the creation of the new Wisconsin Agricultural Export Advisory Council (WAXC). This council will help guide the initiatives created through the Wisconsin Initiative for Agricultural Exports (WIAE), a collaborative project between DATCP and WEDC to promote the export of Wisconsin’s agricultural and agribusiness products.

The council includes international trade experts from WEDC and DATCP, state legislators, and agriculture organizations and agribusinesses representing crop, dairy, and meat products. The council will meet at least twice per year, and the first council meeting will take place at 9 a.m. on May 4, 2022 at the WEDC headquarters, 201 West Washington Avenue, Madison, WI 53703. These meetings are open to the public, and are
expected to have virtual attendance options.

Wisconsin agricultural exports reached an all-time high of $3.96 billion in 2021. Through the WIAE, DATCP is working collaboratively with WEDC to build on that momentum by promoting Wisconsin agricultural products in the international marketplace.

Today the United States Postal Service filed notice with the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) of price changes to take effect July 10, 2022. The new prices, if approved, include a two-cent increase in the price of a First-Class Mail Forever stamp from 58 cents to 60 cents.

The proposed prices, approved by the Governors of the U.S. Postal Service, would raise First-Class Mail prices approximately 6.5 percent. The proposed Mailing Services price changes include:

Product                                                        Current Prices                Planned Prices

Letters (1 oz.)                                                  58 cents                         60 cents
Letters (metered 1 oz.)                                   53 cents                         57 cents
Letters additional ounce(s)                              20 cents                        24 cents
Domestic Postcards                                       40 cents                        44 cents
International Letter (1 oz.)                              $1.30 cents                  $1.40 cents

The PRC will review the prices before they are scheduled to take effect. The complete Postal Service price filing with prices for all products can be found on the PRC site under the Daily Listings section at prc.gov/dockets/daily.

The United States Supreme Court ruled March 23 that redistricting maps for the state legislature created by Governor Tony Evers under a Wisconsin Supreme Court-ordered “least change” requirement contain a racial gerrymander. The nation’s top court sent the maps back to the state’s top court, and ordered it to hold proceedings to fix these maps or approve different ones.

At the same time, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request to overturn the “least change” congressional maps submitted by Evers and approved by a majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, meaning those new district boundaries will be in place for the fall 2022 election.

The issue at the heart of the legislative maps is whether it was lawful to expand the number of Milwaukee-area Assembly seats with a majority of Black voters. In the maps approved in 2011, there have been six districts with a majority of Black voters. The maps submitted by Evers would increase that number to seven districts, by adjusting the lines and lowering the percentage of Black voters in each district to just above the 50% mark.

After the Wisconsin Supreme Court approved the governor’s “least change” legislative maps, Republican lawmakers and a conservative legal group asked the U.S. Supreme Court to step in, saying the Evers maps illegally used race as a primary factor in drawing the district lines.

The issue of the legislative maps now returns to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which may pursue a number of options.

“On remand, the court is free to take additional evidence if it prefers to reconsider the Governor’s maps rather than choose from among the other submissions,” stated the U.S. Supreme Court’s order.

Essentially, the Wisconsin high court can ask parties to submit a revised version of the Evers maps that would keep the number of majority Black districts at six, or it could reverse its earlier decision and choose the maps submitted by the Republicans in the state Legislature, which contained six black districts in Milwaukee.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday stayed a district judge’s injunction against President Joe Biden’s social cost of carbon, reinstating the metric used to measure the climate impacts of rulemakings and projects.

The social cost of carbon, which is used by the federal government when issuing regulations, approving infrastructure projects or taking other actions, is an estimate of the present and future damages resulting from emitting one ton of the greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. Climate activists hope a higher estimate will significantly increase the value assigned to pollution reductions, which in turn will help justify stronger climate regulations.

The stay allows EPA, the Departments of the Interior, Energy and Transportation and other federal agencies to resume using the interim SCC figures in rulemakings and other decisions. At least one major rule, regarding emissions from heavy-duty trucks was published without quantifying its climate benefits because of the injunction.

The stay is pending a fuller appeal of the injunction, but the order issued on Wednesday indicates the appellate court is not amenable to Louisiana’s arguments.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will tell lawmakers Wednesday the central bank will likely hike interest rates later this month with inflation “well above” the central bank’s target range.

The Fed chief is set to tell members of the House Financial Services Committee that bank officials “expect it will be appropriate” to raise the baseline interest range from its current level of zero to 0.25 percent, according to prepared remarks released ahead of Powell’s appearance before the panel.

“We understand that high inflation imposes significant hardship, especially on those least able to meet the higher costs of essentials like food, housing, and transportation. We know that the best thing we can do to support a strong labor market is to promote a long expansion, and that is only possible in an environment of price stability,” Powell will say.

The Fed slashed interest rates to near-zero levels in March 2020 as the emerging coronavirus pandemic derailed the global economy. The Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed’s monetary policy panel, is on track to hike interest rates at the conclusion of its meeting on March 15-16, almost two years to the day it cut rates to current levels.

Powell will highlight the rapid recovery of the U.S. economy from the depth of the pandemic-driven recession, including the record-breaking gain of 6.7 million jobs in 2021 and economic growth of 5.5 percent. The Fed chief credited the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines along with substantial fiscal and monetary support deployed by the federal government in 2020 for the swift rebound.

Even so, the speed of the recovery also fueled a rapid rise in prices as it ran up against stubborn pandemic-related obstacles, Powell will note.

“As a result, employers are having difficulties filling job openings, an unprecedented number of workers are quitting to take new jobs, and wages are rising at their fastest pace in many years,” Powell will say.

“Demand is strong, and bottlenecks and supply constraints are limiting how quickly production can respond. These supply disruptions have been larger and longer lasting than anticipated, exacerbated by waves of the virus, and price increases are now spreading to a broader range of goods and services.”

A federal judge in Louisiana on Friday shot down President Biden’s interim estimates on the social costs of greenhouse gas emissions, dealing another judicial blow to the administration’s climate agenda.

A 2021 executive order directed agencies to use an interim metric that estimated costs to society that would come from burning carbon in environmental permitting and regulatory decisions. But Louisiana, Alabama, and eight other states “sufficiently identified the kinds of harms” needed to block the metric’s use, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana ruled.

“The Court agrees that the public interest and balance of equities weigh heavily in favor” of ordering the administration to disregard the calculations Judge James D. Cain Jr. wrote in the opinion.

States challenged the temporary cost, claiming Biden didn’t have the authority to issue such a significant decision without notice-and-comment rulemaking. They also claimed that its use in decisions would hamper their economies through higher costs and more stringent standards.

The Justice Department unsuccessfully tried to argue that the states’ claims were premature until the metric was actually used in a decision. The DOJ said it’s “reviewing the decision” and declined to comment further.

The court did make it clear that it was ruling on whether Biden had flown against administrative procedures with his interim metric and not on “the scientific issues regarding greenhouse gas emissions, their effects on the environment, or whether they contribute to global warming.”