Free Covid-19 Testing will be held again in Durand today at the Pepin County Highway Shop. Pepin County Health Officer Heidi Stewart says the testing times will be from 10-04. There will also be free testing on Thursdays during January and February.
Last week Representative Warren Petryk was once again named Chair of the Assembly Committee on Workforce Development for the upcoming legislative session. Petryk says a goal of the committee will be to find solutions to the workforce shortage that is holding back the full potential of local businesses and find innovative ways to help the state recover from the economic impact of the pandemic. Representative Petryk will also again serve as the Vice-Chair of the Aging and Long-Term Care Committee.
The Eau Claire County Sheriff’s Office says the high school student who was shot last Thursday afternoon has died of his injuries. James Sullivan was a freshman at Memorial High School. He died over the weekend. Investigators say two juveniles were in a private home in the town of Washington when Sullivan was shot. Memorial Principal Dave Oldenberg says counselors will be available this week and during the winter break. School district officials have referred to the shooting as “a tragic accident.” The second juvenile involved hasn’t been identified.
Congressman Ron Kind says a pending coronavirus stimulus package is a good start but needs to be better. Kind says this should only be a stopgap measure, and that Congress needs to come back to sign a better bill next year. Kind says the Senate should have passed the well-vetted and provisioned Heroes Act that was approved by the house this summer, rather than rolling out a poorly-understood bill less than a few hours before it was meant to be voted on.
Governor Tony Evers has sent Legislative Republicans plans for another COVID-19 relief bill, and wants them to vote on it before the end of the year. Evers is calling the bill a representation of compromises that both sides can agree on. The Governor would have liked to see more support for eviction moratoriums and help for people looking for work but says that action needs to be taken now. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos owns several rental properties and has expressed his opposition to any moratoriums. It is unlikely that a vote will happen, as incoming Senate President Devin LeMaheiu says he doesn't plan on calling a lame-duck session this year.
There's a more than a 50-percent chance parts of Western Wisconsin will see a white Christmas. The National Weather Service Twin Cities says the coldest air of the season so far is moving across the region Wednesday with northwest winds gusting 30-to-40-miles an hour. They say Eau Claire has a 56-percent chance for at least an inch of snow or more Wednesday into Thursday.
Leaders of the University of Wisconsin System are talking about some big goals for 2021. They want to get the second-semester classes started safely with a return to in-person instruction after the winter break. Regents President Andrew Peterson says he thinks students at the 13 public universities deserve to be praised for the ways they have dealt with the coronavirus pandemic. By the end of this month, more than a half-million COVID-19 tests will have been given to students, staff members, and the public at campuses statewide. The U-W System also has a major goal of having some of those campuses serve as vaccination hubs.
Austin police are calling a teenager a hero after he tried to stop an attack on his mother. He was stabbed to death. Five children were hiding upstairs in their home while their mother was arguing with 27-year-old Jaime Vaca last Tuesday. The teenager kicked in the bedroom door while Vaca was choking the mother. Vaca stopped when the boy intervened, grabbed a knife and stabbed him to death. Police haven’t released the teenager’s name or the name of his mother.
C-V-S Pharmacy will soon distribute COVID-19 vaccines to Wisconsin's long-term care facilities. Through a federal pharmacy partnership, C-V-S is administering the first doses of the Pfizer vaccine across 12-states this week. Starting the week of December 28th, Wisconsin is slated to begin vaccinations of the initial shot and the booster. C-V-S expects to finish vaccinations within four-weeks.
The U-S Senate has unanimously approved a five-year extension of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. The bill requires the president’s signature to go into effect. Funding for the mitigation of long-term environmental damages to the Great Lakes would grow from 300-million dollars to 475-million in 2026. The legislation focuses on problems like toxic pollution, invasive species, loss of wildlife habitat, and runoff that results in harmful algae blooms. Federal projects have been completed in nine states, including Wisconsin.
Officials at S-S-M Health in Madison say the arrival of Moderna’s vaccine for COVID-19 should help make sure every frontline worker gets vaccinated. The delivery is expected this week. The Food and Drug Administration approved Moderna’s vaccine in a Friday emergency ruling. The new vaccine is easier to handle because it doesn’t require the ultra-cold storage Pfizer’s vaccine needs. Wisconsin is scheduled to receive 100-thousand doses. Both S-S-M and the U-W Health System are serving as regional distribution hubs for the vaccines in Wisconsin.
In the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, Wisconsin spent at least 99-million dollars to frantically buy personal protective equipment. The Associated Press has analyzed the steps taken as the virus was spreading and governments were responding. Wisconsin officials were searching the entire country for supplies as they tried to build a stockpile of P-P-E and ventilators. Only about 10-million dollars was spent in this state and they paid exceedingly high prices because they were forced to compete with other states. In one instance, the state reportedly paid an ACE Hardware store in De Forest more than 19-thousand dollars for 21-hundred N-95 masks. That’s more than nine-dollars-a-mask for an item that normally sells for a little over a dollar each.
Taiwan-based technology giant Foxconn is said to be nearing agreement on a deal with the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. Foxconn is apparently willing to accept a reduction in tax credits “in exchange for a flexible business environment in Wisconsin.” The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Wisconsin State Journal report state officials have been pushing Foxconn to make changes to the contract which reflect the company’s construction of a smaller facility near Mount Pleasant. Foxconn wants the agreement to give it the flexibility to react to customer demands and market conditions, saying they dictate what the company manufactures at times.
MyPillow C-E-O Mike Lindell has called for President Donald Trump to declare martial law in Minnesota and six other states. Lindell’s Saturday night tweet to the president has been taken down. He wanted Trump to declare martial law so he could obtain the states’ ballots and, apparently, overturn the election results. Lindell actually re-tweeted the message from attorney Lin Wood, who has alleged the president’s defeat in last month’s election was brought on by a conspiracy and voter fraud. Wood and Lindell want martial law declared in Minnesota, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
The State Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could define how police are allowed to search and use cell phones as part of their investigations. George Burch was convicted in 2018 in the murder of Nichole VanderHeyden in Green Bay. Police caught Burch by connecting him to the case with the use of cell phone data that they had gathered from him while downloading his text messages several months before in an unrelated case. At issue is whether or not police should have retained that phone data past the point of the previous investigation. There's also a discussion to what extent police can actually search your phone when you give consent to only parts of the data on the device.
Minneapolis police report a woman’s baby has been returned after a Lyft driver took off Saturday night with the child still in his car. The mother called 9-1-1. Police are describing the incident as an accident and no arrests or charges have been reported. The Lyft driver returned to his customer when he noticed the child was still in the backseat. No names have been released.
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