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Emergency crews at the Chippewa Valley Regional Airport say an emergency landing was a better safe than sorry kind of thing.  A passenger plane headed to Minneapolis landed in Eau Claire last night after the pilot reported a possible engine fire.  There was no fire, crews say it was just a faulty indicator.  No one on the plane was hurt during the emergency landing. 

Folks in western Wisconsin should soon be paying a bit less for electricity.  Xcel Energy yesterday said a new rate schedule will lower electric and natural gas bills in the state by about five-percent for the next two years.  Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission signed off on the new rates this month.  The agreement sets the price structure for 2020 and 2021. 

A western Wisconsin man who made pot cookies and then let his three-year-old eat the dough isn’t heading to jail.  A Chippewa Falls judge last week sentenced Daniel Sykora to two years probation in the case.  Police say Sykora’s child ate the pot-laced cookie dough, then ended up in the hospital.  He pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct charges.  

Some of the largest dairy farms in Wisconsin are worried they won’t be able to afford Governor Tony Evers’ new clean water fees.  Dairymen pleaded with lawmakers in Madison yesterday not to nearly double the state’s nearly 345 dollars a year CAFO fee.  The dairy farmers say with milk prices low and dairy farms going out of business, now is not the time to make their business more expensive.  Governor Evers wants the new fees as a way to cover the cost

Prosecutors and public defenders in Wisconsin are getting a raise in the next state budget.  Lawmakers in Madison yesterday voted to spend nearly 26-million-dollars to boost pay in the courtroom.  The hourly rate for public defenders will jump from 40 dollars-an-hour to 70 dollars-an-hour.  Legal advocates have complained for years that low pay has created a shortage of lawyers who will handle public defense cases, particularly in rural parts of the state.  

Senator Ron Johnson says he’s proud to co-sponsor a bill to stop robocall scammers.  The bill passed the Senate 97 to 1 today.  Johnson says scam robocalls aren’t just annoying, they use disgraceful tactics to prey on the most vulnerable.  Johnson says 38-million robocalls were made to Wisconsinites last year. 

It was just before 1AM on Sunday, May 26th when the Sheriff’s office responded to a report of a UTV crash with multiple injuries. It was further reported that the operator of the UTV was trapped under the UTV. First responders arrived and were able to remove the operator form the UTV. The investigation revealed that a UTV was traveling eastbound on 263rd Ave. east of STH 27 in the township of Lake Holcombe. The operator failed to negotiate a

A man staying at the Eau Claire Beacon House shelter is going to prison for a number of sex crimes.  A criminal complaint claims the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children got a tip that a Google account linked to Garry James uploaded child pornography and James allegedly admitted to sexually assaulting a girl multiple times starting when she was 13.  James was sentenced to four years in jail last Friday followed by six years of supervised release. 

A Minnesota woman has been found guilty of stealing thousands of dollars worth of items from area Walmarts, including here in our area.  Police say Tempestt Robinson and two other women were accused of posing as cashiers when they stole gift cards from stores in New Richmond, Hudson, and Eau Claire.  Robinson was found guilty on one count of theft last Friday.  She’ll be sentenced in July. 

The Wisconsin Democratic party will be picking a new leader for the 2020 cycle this weekend.  If you were paging through The Chippewa Herald, you likely read reports Vice Chairman David Bowen and former Move-On-dot-org leader Ben Wikler are both in the running for the position of chairman after Martha Lanning decided she won’t seek re-election.  The leader will be elected to a two-year term by a majority vote of the more than one-thousand delegates who will meet at the party’s convention