📝 Why Aldo Leopold has a week in Wisconsin

💰 Starbucks Begins Bargaining, Agrees to Raises

• Madison’s unionized Starbucks workers could soon receive raises and benefits. The company has agreed to meet with their union to negotiate a framework for bargaining for roughly 400 stores across the country.
• The latest agreement came out of mediated talks to resolve some of the hundreds of lawsuits the company and the union have filed against each other.
• This news could impact around 100 workers across four Starbucks locations in Dane County. Around 75 people are represented by the Workers United union, and another 30 are in the process of union elections.
• On Feb. 20, workers at 21 Starbucks in 14 states – including two in Dane County — filed for union elections as part of the biggest single-day filing in the history of Starbucks. On Feb. 22, University of Wisconsin-Madison students called on the university to cease ties with Starbucks for allegedly violating labor laws. [Cap Times]

🎒 Conservative Law Firm Challenges Race-Based UW Programs

• Following the June U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down the use of race in college admissions, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty is challenging 10 race-based programs and scholarships run by the Board of Regents representing several University of Wisconsin campuses.
• The firm is arguing that the scope of the ruling was “not limited to admissions,” and is calling on the board to “investigate any remaining race-based policies or programs and open them up to all students, regardless of race."
• UW-Madison professor Howard Schweber told the Wisconsin State Journal that the anti-affirmative action group is "trying to promote a maximalist reading of what the court said."
• In January, the spokesperson for the UW system said that they expected to eliminate race as a factor in most scholarships by the end of 2024. [Wisconsin State Journal, Wis Politics]

🌊 WI Lakes are Ice Free and Officially Open

• Lakes Mendota, Monona, and Wingra are declared ice-free as of Wednesday, with less than 50% ice cover remaining.
• This is only the second time in the 171-year history of charting Lake Mendota’s ice cover that the office declared it ice-free in February. The only time the lake opened earlier was on Feb. 27, 1998.
• Lake Mendota froze over on Jan. 15, and its 44-day freeze was the second-shortest on record. The record freeze was 21 days in the 2001-2002 winter. [Wisconsin State Journal]

🤨 Shirtless Senate Candidate Jumps Into Icy Madison Lake

• To “prove” he’s from Wisconsin, Eric Hovde, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, jumped into Madison’s icy waters Thursday to combat attacks from his opponents who say he’s a “soft Californian.”
• He also challenged his opponent to try and best him. “Alright Sen. Baldwin, why don't you get out here in this frozen lake and let's really see who's from Wisconsin,” he said in the video posted on X.
• Hovde was born and raised in Wisconsin, but is the CEO of Californian-based H Bancorp bank and owns a $7 million estate in Laguna Beach.
• Wisconsin Democratic Party spokesperson Arik Wolk responded in a statement that if Hovde thinks sitting in a lake is Wisconsin-enough, “he's going to be swimming a whole lot for the next eight months.” [CBS News]

Aldo Leopold Week Is Now!

Leopold Elementary School in Madison. Leopold Residence Hall at UW-Madison. The Leopold Nature Center in Monona. Look around Madison and you can see any number of tributes to one of Wisconsin’s most influential residents, Aldo Leopold, author of A Sand County Almanac.

Carrying that legacy forward today is the Aldo Leopold Foundation of Baraboo, started by his family in 1982. Their goal? To inspire an ethical relationship between people and nature.

This week, they’re hosting a series of free online talks from influential thinkers, writers, and doers in scientific and conservation circles, from novelist Diane Wilson to science journalist Ed Yong.