Home

There’s another Wisconsin lawmaker calling for legal action against the state’s election managers. State senator Patrick Testin yesterday said the legislature needs to consider taking the Wisconsin Elections Commission to court to force the Commission to abide by the state’s election laws. A legislative committee on Wednesday killed a rule from the Elections Commission that would allow local election clerks to change absentee ballots on their own. Yesterday, the Commission said that rule will stay in place until Commissioners vote to change it, regardless

There are more than 450 people in the hospital in Wisconsin with the coronavirus. The state’s Hospital Association yesterday said there are now 462 people in the hospital, including 61 in the ICU. That 462 number is up from this point last week. Wisconsin is still, however, a long way from its peak hospitalization point of over 22 hundred people from back in January.

 Public health officials in Madison say they are dealing with a unique variant of the virus that causes COVID-19. The state’s Department of Health Services confirmed the variant was found in wastewater yesterday. There is no evidence that the variant is making people sick. Public Health Madison & Dane County says the variant has also not been found anywhere else in the state, and has not been found in any people yet. They are planning more tests.

Sauk County’s Devil’s Lake State Park is getting a donation to promote education about the park.  This week the Devil’s Lake Concession Corporation donated one-million dollars to the park’s capital campaign to build an interpretive center.  The center will help visitors learn the history and culture of the park.  More information is available on the park’s website.

For the second year in a row Madison is named the best place to live in America.  Livability gives Madison a Liv Score of 725, beating Ann Arbor, Michigan by 39 points for the top spot.  Livability ranks cities in several different categories including the economy, housing, education, and others.  Waukesha also ranks high on the list at 12th.

 Milwaukee is working on a six-day shooting spree. Police say four more people were shot yesterday, two of them died. Milwaukee Police say that was a case where a man killed a woman, then shot himself a short time later. He died at the hospital. Yesterday’s shootings come after 28 people were shot between last Friday and Tuesday night.

Wisconsin’s governor says he’s not ready to sign-off on a new casino in Kenosha. Governor Evers yesterday said he’s ‘a long way’ from a decision on a proposed Hard Rock Casino for the Menominee Tribe. The tribe and Hard Rock announced a partnership yesterday, and local leaders in Bristol okayed a land sale for the casino earlier this week. Evers would have to sign-off on any new gambling compact with the tribe for the project in Kenosha.

A water rescue brings everyone in safely, but with some mild injuries to attend to. The Eau Claire Fire Department and the Eau Claire Police Department were dispatched to the Dewey Street bridge for a water rescue. It was reported that 4 tubers were clinging to a tree on the South side of the Eau Claire River upstream of the Dewey Street bridge. Police officers and fire personnel arrived to find 4 teenagers holding onto a tree in the river.

A carnival worker at the Northern Wisconsin State Fair remains in jail in Chippewa Falls in a sexual assault case. A judge on Tuesday set Craig McPherson’s bond at 50 thousand-dollars cash. Police say he assaulted a 14-year-old girl who was at the fair. Prosecutors say McPherson gave the girl and her 22-year-old sister a ride from the fair to a local gas station, and that’s when the assault happened. McPherson is originally from Georgia.

Eau Claire County is looking at an advisory referendum on marijuana this fall. The county board last night approved a plan that will ask voters if they think marijuana should be legalized in the state. The vote will not make marijuana legal in Wisconsin or Eau Claire, it will simply give elected leaders a sense of where people are on the issue.