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The Barron County Sheriff’s Department is teaming up with other local officials to create a COVID-19 response team. Officials say the team plans for coronavirus response in Barron County. Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald said in a letter that the team is asking for the community to cooperate with a plan to safely reopen Barron County and its businesses. He says right now, there have been no issues in the community with compliance. The response team includes healthcare partners, public health officials,

Public health investigators are looking at nursing homes and meat packing plants as Wisconsin’s coronavirus numbers continue to grow. The state’s Department of Health Services yesterday reported 225 new coronavirus cases and four new deaths. Many of those new cases are in Brown County and could be tied or a meat packing plant there. The new cases yesterday are a jump as cases had been trending down over the past week. Still, here in our backyard we are not adding to

The suspect in a stabbing in Eau Claire is due back in court next week. Prosecutors yesterday filed formal charges against 30-year-old Taylor Simpson. Police say she stabbed a man outside the America’s Best Value Inn on West Clairemont earlier this month. Police arrested her on Monday. There is still no official motive for the crime.

Wisconsin’s temporary hospital at State Fair Park is sitting empty. N one of the 600 beds that were added as an insurance policy against the coronavirus have been used and most of the people tapped to staff the hospital are sitting idle. Still, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett says there is no reason to close it down. The mayor says it’s better to have the empty hospital and not need it, than need it and not have it. FEMA paid 24-million-dollars

A new study says the longer the coronavirus quarantine goes on, the worse things will get for the state’s businesses. Researchers at UW Oshkosh worked with the WEDC to ask businesses across the state how the virus is impacting them. Thirty five percent of businesses say they will never reopen if the shutdown lasts another three months. UW Oshkosh’s Jeffrey Sachse says that number could go up as more businesses are affected by the state’s Safer at Home order.

It is going to look a lot more like spring starting tomorrow. Golf courses across the state of Wisconsin will reopen tomorrow. There are new rules. No golf carts will be allowed, all tee times have to be scheduled ahead of time, and golfers will be spaced out so there is no bunching on the course. Golf courses in the state have been closed as part of Governor Evers’ Safer at Home order.

Carson Park, the Pablo Center, Bon Iver, The Wal-Mart House…These are things we all seem to know in Eau Claire. And one  of those things is about to disappear-It was  Irene Cardinal’s old house in Eau Claire that became known as Eau Claire’s Walmart house, Cardinal and her husband refused to sell the home near Eau Claire’s Walmart for decades. After they passed in 2018, the home went up for sale. The couple’s realtor says Kwik Trip recently bought it

Today is Earth Day.  Earth Day was founded 50 years ago in 1970 thanks to Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson.  Nelson was a native of Clear Lake who served in the U.S. Senate, the State Senate and as Wisconsin’s 35th governor.  His work on environmental issues earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995.

The Wisconsin Republican party is rescheduling its state convention.  The convention was originally set for next month in Green Bay.  It was postponed today until July 10th in part because of the coronavirus crisis and the court battle over lifting the governor’s stay at home order.

Nearly 150 coronavirus cases are being linked to a meat packing facility in Green Bay.  The Brown County Public Health Department says today 147 COVID-19 cases are connected to employees and people who had contact with employees of the JBS Beef Company.  On-site testing this week confirmed the cases.  The plant remains open for now. OSHA and the USDA will decide if it should close.