A Trempealeau County farmer is recovering from serious injuries after a combine accident. It happened Wednesday evening in the town of Arcadia. According to the Trempealeau County Sheriffs Department, 48 yr old Christian Bezuidenhout was northbound on Oak Ridge Road, entered the ditch, and the combine overturned. Bezuidenhout was pinned under part of the combine and freed by the Arcadia Fire Department. He was airlifted from the scene; sheriff deputies say his injuries are serious.
A Western Wisconsin power company is eyeing a half-billion-dollar Powerline expansion. Xcel Energy yesterday said it wants to add a new 345-kilovolt transmission line that starts in Blair and runs to Owen or Sheldon. The utility says the new power lines will allow them to connect existing transmission lines and substations, and should improve power reliability in western Wisconsin. Wisconsin's Public Service Commission has to okay the plan, commissioners will hold a hearing sometime next year. If approved, Xcel is looking to start work around 2026. No one is saying just what the project will mean for people's power bills.
A Cochrane, Wis. man is accused of possessing child pornography. According to the Buffalo County Sheriff’s Office, on Tuesday, authorities searched 202 North Main Street in the Village of Cochrane after a CyberTip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children detected possible child pornography being downloaded from that location. During the search, multiple images of child sexual abuse material were found on a computer belonging to 62-year-old Mark Klevgard. Klevgard was taken into custody. A full examination of Klevgard’s computer will be performed by the Wisconsin Department of Justice, Division of Criminal Investigations. Klevgard is being held at the Buffalo County Jail.
Chippewa County's sheriff is going point-by-point, refuting the recent investigation that says he shared sexually explicit memes with a 911 dispatcher and isn't on the job. Sheriff Travis Hakes issued a three-page, 12-point response to the investigation yesterday. He talks about everything from those memes to selling coffee mugs, to the hours that a sheriff is supposed to work. Hakes has said the investigation into complaints about his behavior is politically motivated and poorly done. He says he did refuse to speak with a county attorney because that county attorney wanted to talk about things outside the scope of the investigation. Hakes continues to say he's done nothing wrong.
A man was detained after showing up with guns at the Wisconsin Capitol. According to an alert issued by State Capitol Police on Wednesday, 43-year-old Joshua ‘Taco’ Pleasnick approached the desk outside the governor's office at about two o'clock Wednesday. Pleasnick was shirtless and accompanied by a leashed dog, and he also had a holstered handgun. Pleasnick said he would not leave until he saw Governor Evers who was not in the building at the time. Pleasnick was arrested for openly carrying a gun inside the Capitol. After posting bail at the Dane County Jail, Pleasnick was back at the Capitol at around nine o'clock Wednesday night. The building was closed at that point, but Pleasnick was carrying a loaded assault rifle and again demanded to see the governor. Madison police said Pleasnick was taken into protective custody and hospitalized.
There continues to be talk about withholding pay raises at the University of Wisconsin in the spats over DEI. State Rep. Jerry O'Connor yesterday said he agrees with calls to freeze money across the UW System to encourage the university to shift diversity, equity, and inclusion money into the classrooms. Murphy says he wants to prompt the university to spend less money on administrative positions that he says don't show a return and don't educate kids. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has been talking for weeks about withholding money from the University over DEI. However, no one has said when a formal vote on a pay raise plan may come.
Wisconsin's assembly speaker says he doesn't want to impeach Wisconsin's election boss because he doesn't think she's on the job legally. Speaker Robin Voss told a Madison TV station yesterday that he believes the Wisconsin Senate removed Meagan Wolfe as elections administrator, and therefore there's no need to impeach her. Vos said he thinks Republicans will prevail in the case to remove Wolfe, and sees no need to take up an official impeachment. Wisconsin's Senate president on Wednesday asked Vos to impeach Wolfe, saying her refusal to leave could be corrupt conduct in office. Wolfe, for her part, is relying on a legal opinion from the state's attorney general that says she does not have to leave until her replacement is officially named.
Union employees at a Hormel Foods plant in Austin have reached a tentative agreement with the company on a new contract. United Food and Commercial Workers Local 663 announced the agreement yesterday. Workers had rejected earlier contract offers, saying the company failed to give workers higher pay and secure benefits following record profits. The agreement will apply to about 17-hundred meatpacking workers at the Austin plant over the next four years. A vote to ratify the new agreement is set for Monday.
Teens who want a driver’s license in Wisconsin will have to take a road test again starting next year. Wednesday, the state’s Division of Motor Vehicles announced the Road Test Waiver pilot program will end when 2023 ends. Starting next year, anyone under the age of 18 will need to complete an in-person road test at a DMV office to obtain their probationary license. Sixteen- and seventeen-year-old student drivers who have completed a driver education course, behind the wheel training, and 50 hours of supervised driving may still apply for the road test waiver before the end of the year. The waiver program began in May 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump remains close according to the latest Marquette Law School poll. The survey released Thursday has Trump receiving 51% and President Biden getting 48% among registered voters, while Biden had a 51-to-49 edge over Trump among those who say they are certain they will vote in the presidential election. Meanwhile, a hypothetical match between Biden and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has similar results. DeSantis has a 51% to 48% lead over Biden among registered voters, but Biden holds a slight lead among likely voters, with 51% compared to 48% for DeSantis.
Governor Tony Evers wants a legislative committee to act on child care and workforce development. It’s the latest move as the Democratic governor pushes the idea of using about a billion dollars of the state’s projected four billion dollar surplus to maintain pandemic-era child care funding, create paid family leave, and bolster UW System funding. In a letter to Fond du Lac Republican state Senator Dan Feyen, Evers requested Feyen’s committee hold a public hearing and executive session on the bills that were not passed by a special session called by Evers last month. Feyen said Wednesday the committee will take its time and exercise due diligence.
Senator Tammy Baldwin wants House Republicans to find a new Speaker sooner rather than later. The Wisconsin Democrat says Congress can't afford to wait with budget talks on a timer. Kevin McCarthy was ousted as Speaker of the House on Tuesday by a group of far-right Republicans who objected to the passage of a stopgap budget plan. The House won't be starting a formal discussion on a new speaker until at least next week.
The Powerball jackpot continues to grow. Lottery managers say no one won last night's one-point-two-billion-dollar jackpot, so Saturday's drawing will be worth one-point-four billion. No one has won the jackpot since July, when someone in California hit the billion-dollar grand prize. This is now the third-largest Powerball jackpot ever. The odds of winning remain the same, about one-in-292 million.
Another spotting of flamingos In Wisconsin. This time, the tropical birds were seen near the south end of Petenwell Lake north of Wisconsin Rapids. The flamingos first appeared last week on South Beach in Port Washington, then along the Wisconsin River near the Dells a few days later. The birds are believed to have landed in several spots around the Midwest recently after their flights were blown off course by Hurricane Idalia. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources says they hoped the flamingos would start flying south and not north.
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