A GOP plan in response to COVID-19 in Wisconsin would give Republican state lawmakers more control over cuts to state spending on things like schools and health care.

Republican legislative leaders are drafting a COVID-19 response bill that would shift power away from the executive branch, according to the governor's office.

COVID-19 isn't the first deadly viral disease to have a big effect on Wisconsin. Steven Burg, a history professor at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, discusses the 1918 influenza pandemic and how the state responded to it more than a century ago.

Wisconsin communities along the Mississippi River are seeing some minor flooding, and local officials have discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic would affect preparations for a more serious flood along the river.