Democratic Gov. Tony Evers wants to hand the Milwaukee Brewers nearly $300 million from Wisconsins budget surplus to enact repairs and renovations at American Family Field.

The governors office announced Tuesday that his executive budget will include $290 million from the surplus for stadium repairs. In exchange for the money, the Brewers have agreed to extend their lease at the stadium by 13 years through 2043, the administration and the team said.

As governor, and also someone who happens to be a lifelong Brewers fan, Im so excited about the historic opportunity we have today to keep Major League Baseball here in Milwaukee for another twenty years and to usher in a new generation of Brewers fans in Wisconsin who can grow up rooting for the home team just like I did, Evers said in a statement.

The agreement is far from a done deal, however. Evers is set to release his full 2023-25 budget on Wednesday. Republicans on the Legislatures powerful finance committee will spend the next four months revising it before sending to the full Senate and Assembly for approval. From there, the spending plan goes back to Evers, who can rewrite it using his powerful partial veto powers.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Tuesday he was upset that Evers didnt consult Republicans or work with the Legislature on plans to fund the stadium. These are typical antics for him not being a leader, but rather dictating exactly what to do and how to do it, Vos said.

Vos said he hoped Democrats and Republicans could work together to keep the Brewers in Wisconsin.

The money for the stadium repairs would be a one-time cash payment from the state surplus, which currently stands at around $7 billion. But the proposal is sure to rekindle old arguments over whether privately owned sports teams deserve public handouts to continue operating especially the Brewers, who have benefited immensely from a sales tax that helped build the stadium.

Rick Schlesinger, the Brewers president of business operations, said in a statement that the stadium has had a $2.5 billion impact on the states economy since it opened in 2001 and contributes millions of dollars each year in tax revenue to the state.

The Milwaukee Brewers are committed to working with policymakers on both sides of the aisle to extend the life of American Family Field and help make Major League Baseball possible in Wisconsin for the next generation, Schlesinger said. As the smallest market as defined by the MLB, Milwaukee requires a premier ballpark to generate ticket sales and compete making maintenance of the ballpark all the more critical.

The stadium opened in 2001 as Miller Park, replacing the Milwaukees aging County Stadium. The construction price tag was about $392 million, funded largely through a 0.1% sales tax imposed in Milwaukee County and the four other counties surrounding the stadium.

Construction got off to a tough start. The tax was a lightning rod for criticism; Republican state Sen. George Petak was recalled from office in 1996 after he switched his vote from no to yes on the tax plan. And three construction workers were killed at the stadium in 1999 when a crane collapsed and struck their observation lift.

But the park ultimately got built. Known for its distinctive fantail retractable roof, the stadium became a destination for Wisconsin baseball fans as the Brewers experienced a resurgence in the late 2000s, advancing to their first playoff appearance in 26 years in 2008. The team has made five other trips to the playoffs since then, including two appearances in the National League Championship Series.

The tax was ultimately enacted that year and generated about $605 million before it expired in 2020. The stadium name changed to American Family Field in 2021 after the Brewers struck a 15-year naming rights deal with the insurance company.

The Southeast Wisconsin Professional Baseball Park District essentially serves as the Brewers landlord at the stadium. The Brewers lease calls for the district to cover repairs, but Evers office said the end of the sales tax has left the district short of funds, according to the governors office and the Brewers.

We oppose the return of the five-county tax, and we are prepared to commit to a lease extension for the Brewers to remain at American Family Field through at least 2042, the Brewers Schlesinger said.

Evers office said the $290 million payment will go to the district, which will invest the money and collect interest on it as it disburses funds to cover repairs.

Former Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, signed a bill in August 2015 to contribute $250 million in taxpayer dollars to help pay for the Fiserv Forum, the Milwaukee Bucks arena. Brown County residents approved a half-cent sales tax in 2000 to help pay for renovations at Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers. That tax expired in 2015 after generating about $310 million.

___

Associated Press writer Harm Venhuizen contributed to this report.

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More and more people in the U.S. are staying single longerand that will cost them in a society set up for couples and families. One significant example: Single people across the country pay just over $7,000 more per year than couples do to live in the typical one-bedroom, according to a new analysis by Zillow. 

Of course, the real difference varies by location and apartment. In New York, the difference is $19,500 per yearand rises to $24,000 for a one-bed in Manhattan. Meanwhile, the so-called singles tax is lowest in Detroit and Cleveland, at $4,483 and $4,387 respectively.

Zillows analysis divided the median rent in the 50 largest U.S. cities in half to find how much more a single person would pay compared to those splitting the cost. The company notes that singles can avoid this tax by splitting rent with other roommates.

Meanwhile, couples save around $14,000 collectively by living together, according to Zillows calculationeach would save the $7,000 theyd spend living on their ownand as much as $39,000 annually in New York.

Even though rent prices are starting to cool, they are still significantly higher than they were a year ago, says Amanda Pendleton, Zillow home trends expert. Renters considering going solo this year must decide how valuable living alone is to them, and if the cost is worth it.

The analysis comes as increasingly more people in the U.S. are living without a spouse or partner. In 2021, 37 million adults 18 and over lived alone, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

And housing costs are just one of many singles taxes that those who are unpartnered pay. Couples benefit from tax breaks, higher Social Security payments, and being able to split day-to-day expenses and bills. Unpartnered adults also have lower earnings than those who are partnered, on averagesingle men had median earnings of $35,600 in 2019, compared to $57,000 for those who are partneredand they are less likely to be employed. They are also more likely to live with their parents. 

All told, married couples 25 to 34 had net worths nearly nine times higher than singles in 2019, the Wall Street Journal reported, based on data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Married couples are also more likely to own homeswhich in turn helps build wealth.

And in this era of high inflation, that sting is even more pronounced. Even dating has gotten noticeably more expensive, with bar and restaurant tabs rising and entertainment options increasing ticket prices.

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President Joe Biden plans on Tuesday to name Federal Reserve Vice Chair Lael Brainard as the new director of his National Economic Council, making the Ph.D. economist a key point person for coordinating policy, talking with business leaders and negotiating with Congress.

Biden also plans to nominate longtime adviser Jared Bernstein to be chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, according to a government official familiar with the plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity because there has been no public announcement.

Brainard and Bernstein would be moving into top spots at a crucial juncture for the U.S. economy. Unemployment is at 3.4%, near a 54-year low, but inflation remains persistently high at 6.4% and has contributed to fears of a coming recession.

Brainard would be succeeding Brian Deese, who helped handle several key legislative wins for Biden, including coronavirus relief, infrastructure spending and investments in computer chip production.

Brainard, 61, holds a doctoral degree in economics from Harvard University. During the Clinton administration, she worked as a deputy director for the National Economic Council. She was also under secretary for international affairs at Treasury during Barack Obamas presidency. Brainard joined the Fed in 2014 as a governor and Biden nominated her to become vice chair.

She also forms half of an administration power couple, with her husband, Kurt Campbell, serving on the National Security Council as the administrations Asian czar.

Bernstein is already a member of the Council of Economic Advisers, where he would succeed current chair Cecilia Rouse, who is returning to Princeton University. With an interest in labor markets and income inequality, Bernstein worked as a vice presidential aide for Biden during Obamas presidency.

Brainards departure from the Fed comes at a fraught time, as the central bank seeks to balance its fight against inflation without going so far as to cause a worse recession than necessary. Brainard has been a leading dovish voice, meaning she typically supports lower interest rates to bolster employment. (Hawks are more likely to push for higher rates to combat inflation).

In a speech last month, Brainard argued that taming inflation might not require the job market pain, in the form of widespread layoffs, that other Fed officials, including Fed Chair Jerome Powell, have warned about. Instead, she said that companies may be forced to reduce prices and cut their profit margins as consumer demand slows, which would help bring down inflation.

However, President Biden has appointed three other members of the Feds governing board, so Brainards departure will not deprive the central bank of dovish voices.

Brainard has also supported tougher financial regulations than Powell. When Randal Quarles was the Feds top financial regulator appointed by President Donald Trump Brainard cast about 20 dissenting votes on regulatory issues.

She has also expressed support for the idea that the Fed could do more to push banks to consider the risks posed by climate change to their financial health. Climate activists warn that increased damage to homes, commercial buildings, and other property will impose greater financial losses on banks and should be considered when evaluating their safety and soundness.

Under Powell, who is not a trained economist, the Fed vice chair has typically been someone with a deep background in monetary economics, such as Richard Clarida, Brainards predecessor. Clarida was an economics professor at Columbia University and an adviser to PIMCO, a bond trading firm.

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The number of people with medical debt on their credit reports fell by 8.2 million or 17.9% between 2020 and 2022, according to a report Tuesday from the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

White House officials said in a separate draft report that the two-year drop likely stems from their policies. Among the programs they say contributed to less debt was an expansion of the Obama-era healthcare law that added 4.2 million people with some form of health insurance. Also, local governments are leveraging $16 million in coronavirus relief funds to wipe out $1.5 billion worth of medical debt.

There has also been a persistent effort by the CFPB to reduce medical debt. The major credit rating agencies said last year that they will no longer include in their reports medical debts under $500 or debts that were already repaid. The agencies will also extend the time it takes to add medical debt to reports from six months to one year, possibly giving families more time to repay before being penalized with lower credit scores.

White House officials said the decline in debt could reduce fears about medical bills that can prevent people from making needed doctor appointments and filling pharmaceutical prescriptions.

While economic measures such as the unemployment rate and inflation can swing up and down, the decline in medical debt shows that steady progress is being made. Some 13.5% of the 279 million people with credit reports had at least one medical debt, down from 16.4% in 2020 and 19.4% in 2014.

Still, unpaid medical bills account for more than half of all debt in collections, according to the White House report. As a result, medical debt exceeds credit cards, personal loans and utilities and phone bills combined.

There is also evidence that the decline predates the Biden presidency. The amount of medical debt on credit reports fell to $111 billion from $143 billion between 2018 and the first half of 2021, according to a March 2022 report by the CFPB.

But communities such as Chicago, New Orleans, Pittsburgh and Toledo, Ohio, are using $16 million in funds from the 2021 coronavirus relief to buy medical debt and forgive it. So far, the spending plans are eliminating $1.5 billion in medical debt, a ratio of about 100-to-1 for the expenditures by the local governments.

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State governments are still flush with cash from federal COVID-19 aid dollars and increased revenues. And more than half are considering using those budget surpluses to institute or accelerate tax cuts for residents.

At least 27 states are considering some kind of personal income tax cut, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), a left-leaning think tank. The proposals vary, from cutting existing top tax rates to accelerating tax cuts that have already been approved (Georgia, for example, is considering fast-tracking tax cuts that will take effect next year).

Still other states, including Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Vermont, and Wisconsin, are debating exempting some retirement income from being taxed. In North Dakota and Ohio, there are discussions about transitioning from graduated income taxes to flat rates. And at least a dozen states are proposing property tax cuts.

These tax cut proposals are a continuation of the income tax cuts and credits and rebates that many state governments instituted over the past two years.

States rainy day funds have never been better stocked, and many states are running large surpluses, writes the Tax Foundation.

Some statesincluding Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, and West Virginiaare even seeing movements to completely eliminate their state income tax. Currently, nine states have no personal income tax, including Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming.

Though the cuts have been heralded by the Tax Foundation, the ITEP finds them short-sighted. The organization notes that states with low income taxes make up the money elsewhere, often with increased excise and sales taxes, which hit low-income residents harder than wealthier taxpayers, and higher property taxes.

In fact, a report by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center found that in all 11 states that cut individual income tax rates in 2022, the largest direct benefits went to the highest earning households.

These cuts would put state finances in a precarious position and further erode public investments in education, transportation, and health, ITEP writes, noting that while state budgets might be doing well now, that wont always be the case. Cutting taxes because of a short-term windfall has long-term effects.

At some point, perhaps soon, the economy will turn, and states that passed bigger, permanent tax cuts will face tougher fiscal choices because of those tax cuts, Richard Auxier, senior policy associate at the Tax Policy Center, wrote.

Of course, while many state lawmakers are proposing tax cuts, many will remain just that.

Some states propose wealth taxes, expanded credits

On the other end of the spectrum, at least seven states are interested in instituting wealth taxes on their richest residents. In New York, for example, one proposal would levy an additional state income tax on the long-term capital gains of New Yorkers with state taxable income of at least $400,000 for individuals and $500,000 for couples.

At the same time, many states have also taken steps to expand or improve certain credits, like the Child Tax Credit (CTC).

The CTC was significantly expanded at the federal level in 2021, and with it came immediate reductions in child poverty and household food insecurity. When the expansion was not renewed last year at the federal level, several states created a version of the CTC on their own.

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Forensic experts have determined that Chilean poet Pablo Neruda died of poisoning nearly 50 years ago, a family member of the Nobel Prize winner said Monday.

The revelation by Rodolfo Reyes, a Neruda nephew, is the latest turn in one of the great debates of post-coup Chile. The long-stated official position has been that Neruda died of complications from prostate cancer, but the poets driver argued for decades that he was poisoned.

There was no confirmation of Reyes comments from forensic experts from Canada, Denmark and Chile who are scheduled to publicly release a report Wednesday on the cause of Nerudas death.

The public release of the groups finding has been delayed twice this year, first due to internet connectivity issues of one of the experts and then again because a judge said the panel had yet to reach a consensus.

International forensics experts several years ago rejected the official cause of death as cachexia, or weakness and wasting of the body due to chronic illness in this case cancer. But at that time they said they had not determined what did kill Neruda.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Reyes said forensic tests carried out in Danish and Canadian labs indicated a presence of a great quantity of Cloristridium botulinum, which is incompatible with human life. The powerful toxin can cause paralysis in the nervous system and death.

Reyes first revealed the information to the Spanish news agency EFE earlier Monday.

As a lawyer in the judicial case over his uncles death, Reyes said he has access to the forensic report, which was carried out after the same group of experts said in 2017 that there were indications of a toxin in the late poets bones and a molar.

The lab tests concluded that the toxin was administered when the poet was alive, Reyes said.

The report is set to be released almost 50 years after the death of the poet and Communist Party member and 12 years after the start of a judicial investigation into whether he was poisoned, as his driver Manuel Araya maintains.

Araya told AP earlier this month he was confident that the forensic findings would support his assertion the poet died after being given an injection in the stomach at the clinic where he was hospitalized. Araya said he first heard that version of events from a nurse.

Neruda, who was 69 and suffering from prostate cancer, died in the chaos that followed Chiles Sept. 11, 1973, coup that overthrew President Salvador Allende and put Gen. Augusto Pinochet in power.

Nerudas body was exhumed in 2013 to determine the cause of his death but those tests showed no toxic agents or poisons in his bone. His family and driver demanded further investigation.

In 2015, Chiles government said it was highly probable that a third party was responsible for Nerudas death. Neruda was reburied in his favorite home overlooking the Pacific Coast last year.

In 2017, a team of international scientists determined that Neruda did not die of cancer or malnutrition, rejecting the official cause of death but not saying what he did die of.

The fundamental conclusions are the invalidity of the death certificate when it comes to cachexia as a cause of death, Aurelio Luna, one of the panels experts, said at that time. We still cant exclude nor affirm the natural or violent cause of Pablo Nerudas death.

Neruda, who was best known for his love poems, was a friend of Allende, who killed himself rather than surrender to troops during the coup led by Pinochet.

Neruda was traumatized by the military takeover and the persecution and killing of his friends. He planned to go into exile, where he would have been an influential voice against the dictatorship.

But a day before his planned departure, he was taken by ambulance to a clinic in Chiles capital of Santiago where he had been treated for cancer and other ailments. Neruda officially died there Sept. 23, 1973, from natural causes.

But suspicions that the dictatorship had a hand in the death remained long after Chile returned to democracy in 1990.

The former Mexican ambassador to Chile at the time of the bloody military coup, Gonzalo Martínez Corbalá, told AP on two occasions that he saw Neruda the day before his death and that his body weight was close to 100 kilos (220 pounds). Martínez spoke to AP by phone in 2017, a few days before his death.

Araya told AP last month he still thinks that if Neruda hadnt been left alone in the clinic, they wouldnt have killed him.

He recalled that on Nerudas instructions, on Sunday, Sept. 23, the poets wife, Matilde Urrutia, and he were at the mansion to pick up the suitcases that would be taken to Mexico the following day. In the middle of the afternoon Neruda asked them to come back quickly. He died that same night.

During his life, Neruda accumulated dozens of prizes, including the 1971 Nobel Prize for Literature, but in recent years criticism has appeared from feminist groups over a rape he committed in the 1930s and which he recounted in his book I Confess That I Have Lived. He also is criticized for abandoning his only daughter, Malva Marina, because she was born with hydrocephalus.

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The millions of viewers who kicked back and watched HBOs hit series The Last of Us are unlikely to think the show is grounded in much reality.

However, the dramas writer has defended the premise that the world could be brought to its knees by a mere fungal infectionand as it turns out, the World Health Organization is worried about it too.

In October 2022, the WHO released the first ever list of fungal priority pathogens, as well as a series of stark warnings. The body outlined that fungal pathogens are becoming both more common and more resistant to treatment, with health professionals having just four classes of medicine available to combat them.

Diseases can be brought on by a range of fungi found everywhere from the great outdoors, to indoor surfaces, to inside the human body. They can develop into a raft of health problems including skin infections, lung conditions such as asthma or pneumonia, bloodstream infections, ringworm, meningitis or strains of tuberculosis.

And although many fungal infections are seen as minor everyday problemssuch as athletes foot or yeast infectionsother invasive forms pose a major risk to immunocompromised patients or those with severe underlying health conditions. Experts estimate that around two million people die of fungal infections every year.

Emerging from the shadows

While the world was busy battling COVID, fungal infections began emerging from the shadows in more treatment-resistant forms, Dr. Hanan Balkhy, the WHOs assistant director-general of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), said in an October news release.

As a result, the the organization has begun outlining the case for increasing research and development into these pathogens to establish how dangerous and drug-proof they are.

The WHO emphasized when it published its list of priority fungi that there currently isnt enough evidence or knowledge of these pathogens to fully understand the burden they could have on public health.

However, officials at the U.N. agency said countries could get a head start against potentially dangerous fungal infections by taking steps like strengthening their laboratory capacities and ensuring equitable access to existing treatments.

Why havent we heard about this before?

Fungal infections have long been hiding in plain sight and slipping through the cracks of public health bodies, experts told Fortune.

When we think of fungal infections we think of something a bit weird or embarrassing, something thats trivial and superficial, Dr. Neil Stone, a specialist in infectious diseases and University College London Hospitals fungal infections lead, said in a phone call. Theres been a legacy of neglect in looking at these diseases and its taken decades to get people to pay attention.

As well as masquerading behind a hum-drum title, these infections havent fallen under the remit of any specific public body to address, added David Denning, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Manchester.

Thats because these diseases span a vast range of practices and are also often misdiagnosed, he said, noting that the number of people contracting and dying of fungal infections is only increasing. The case numbers are going up because of a range of factors: longer life spans, climate change, travel, and resistance to drugs.

Drug resistance is a key issue, added UCLs Stone, because the limited arsenal medical professionals do have to fight fungal disease are often overused in both humans and animals.

How quickly will this be a problem?

However, there is some good news. Stone said its unlikely the rise in these infections will be anywhere near as explosive as the COVID pandemic.

He added that the coronavirus outbreak had proven how quickly the medical community can come together to troubleshoot when needed, but noted that developing better diagnosis streams and expanding a pitiful repertoire of drugs must be top priorities.

Moves to combat the rise of fungal infections will proceed at varying paces, explained Manchester Universitys Denning, who also serves as chief executive of Global Action for Fungal Infections (GAFFI).

There are things we can do quickly which have a big impact, he told Fortune. Rapid diagnostics is one of themwe can teach someone how to use a test really easily and they only cost about $4 each.

In the long term, training doctors in the field and linking clinical and laboratory engagement is essential, in order to cut down on misdiagnosis and establish which groups of patients are most susceptible to which disease, he added. From there it can be more easily collected and shared by public health bodies.

What does the public need to do?

Being aware that fungal diseases are more than just athletes foot is a good place to start, the experts said.

On top of this, there are a few groups of people who might need to chat to a health professional about their symptoms, added Professor Denning.

If youre immunocompromised, maybe you have a bad chest or bad skin, or youre a woman who suffers with reoccurring yeast infections, then next time you go to the doctor instead of getting a steroid cream or prescription, ask: Is this a fungal infection?' he said. The tests are very similar, theyre just not done as routinely. There just needs to be a general awareness of these diseases.

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