Neighbors say a River Falls home was on fire when they helped two women inside escape shortly after it exploded. One victim was taken to Regions Hospital in St. Paul and the other to River Falls Area Hospital. Seventy-five-year-old Martha Gaustad died of the injuries she suffered in the explosion and her 42-year-old daughter, Kari, is hospitalized in stable condition. One neighbor said the older woman was found in the debris next to the house. He says it took a few moments to remove her oxygen tank and get her free. River Falls officials say there is no evidence of foul play being involved.
A winter storm will affect the WRDN listening area tonight. The National Weather Services says Rain, snow, and possibly some freezing rain will develop late tonight, mostly across southern and eastern Minnesota into western Wisconsin. Snow moves in tomorrow with 3-6 inches possible. After the storm, National Weather Service Meteorologist Nick Carlotta says it will get cold. A Winter Storm Watch has been issued for the entire WRDN Listening area for Thursday.
The pandemic has been hard on everyone, but especially older adults who may have limited time with family or have no family to talk to. According to Dunn County ADRC Director Loni Dodge, the center has set up the caring calls program to combat that loneliness. Call the Dunn County ADRC to volunteer and Dodge hopes to have the program up and running by March 1st.
The Eau Claire County Board has passed a mask ordinance on Tuesday. During a public comment period, many residents were opposed to the ordinance speaking to personal freedom and the legality of the county passing such an ordinance. County Corporate Counsel Tim Sullivan says the county does have the authority to pass such an ordinance under the home rule statute. The board voted 24-4 to pass the ordinance and like the passed city of Eau Claire mask ordinance, it will go into effect if the statewide mask mandate ends.
The Chippewa Falls School District is looking at eliminating up to 24 staff positions for the upcoming school year. The district is looking at lower enrollment numbers along with a projected budget deficit of $1.6 million in revenue. District administrators say the uncertainty of federal funding along with staffing being near 75% of the overall budget the staff cuts will be considered when writing the 2021-2022 budget. A special meeting of the school board has been called for on Thursday to discuss the possible cuts.
Former Shopko employees who lost their jobs when stores were closed should begin receiving their severance checks soon. The law firm handling the process says the checks will be mailed to members of the class on or before February 12th. A fund of 12-million dollars will be shared among about four-thousand former workers at the chain. Shopko closed the last of its stores in June 2019. The Ashwaubenon-based retailers had filed for bankruptcy the previous January.
Today, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) announces that Voyageurs International, Ltd., will refund a total of $636,500 to 335 Wisconsin consumers for payments made for the company’s 2020 European tour. The Colorado-based company canceled the trip on March 17, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of the cancellation, they withheld a $1,900 cancellation fee from each high school music student and adult chaperone who had prepaid for the trip. Voyageurs claimed that this fee was withheld due to non-refundable amounts paid to third-party vendors, as well as general operating costs of the business. After receiving complaints from consumers and conducting a thorough investigation, DATCP found that Voyageurs received substantial refunds from these third-party vendors but failed to pass these recouped fees on to their customers. Under the agreement, Voyageurs will issue the refund to DATCP. The agency will then contact affected students and their families beginning in May 2021 to arrange payments.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty has filed a lawsuit against the state Department of Natural Resources. WILL deputy counsel Anthony LoCoco said the agency needs to hold a gray wolf hunting or trapping season this winter. The suit filed in Jefferson County Circuit Court on behalf of Hunter Nation Inc., a Kansas-based hunting advocacy group, claims the DNR violated state law and the state constitution’s guarantee of a right to hunt. A DNR spokesperson had no comment.
A delay in a Marathon County homicide trial is likely when the parties meet next Tuesday for a scheduling conference. Henry West is facing 16 felony counts, including first-degree intentional homicide for the death of Pine Grove Cemetery manager Patty Grimm. West is accused of shooting and injuring two other people, then booby-trapping his Schofield apartment. West’s original attorney is out and a new attorney won’t take the case if the trial starts in three-and-a-half months. Prosecutors say West was a disgruntled former employee of the cemetery who had been evicted from his apartment two days before the October 2019 incident.
The State Supreme Court has denied an appeal from one of the girls convicted in the Slenderman stabbings. Attorneys for Morgan Geyser argued that the original judges in the case made a mistake by allowing Geyser and Anissa Weier to be brought immediately into adult court when they were charged in the case, and that police did not advise Morgan of her Miranda rights before she made statements to them following her arrest. Judges in the Second District said that overwhelming evidence outside of her statements would have led to Geyser's conviction anyways and that the crime of attempted murder was serious enough to be brought to adult court.
The Minnesota D-N-R says chronic wasting disease was detected in 22 wild deer taken during the 2020 hunting season and special hunts. All the positives were within current C-W-D disease management zones - 19 in the southeast zone and three in the south metro zone. The disease was not detected in the north-central disease management zone or the C-W-D surveillance areas in east-central and west-central Minnesota. A total of nearly 77-hundred samples were tested. The D-N-R's Erik Hildebrand said though C-W-D is detected in Minnesota's wild deer, our recent results show that the disease prevalence remains relatively low.
Published reports indicate lawyers connected to former President Donald Trump wrong the electoral college challenge filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton last year. The reports reveal that Paxton didn’t tell the U-S Supreme Court those attorneys drafted the lawsuit instead of his state office. Paxton also had used attorney Lawrence Joseph as outside counsel allegedly because his own solicitor general wouldn’t take the case. Joseph was connected to the Trump campaign. The lawsuit claimed electoral college voters in Wisconsin and three other states shouldn’t be counted due to voter fraud in those states. The Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
The National Science Foundation is once again ranking the University of Wisconsin-Madison as one of the nation’s top research universities. U-W-Madison was ranked eighth in the latest annual report. The school was ranked sixth among public universities. The Higher Education Research and Development Survey was released Monday. The university spent nearly one-point-three-billion dollars on research last year – about half of it coming from federal awards.
The badger statute outside the Wisconsin governor’s office at the State Capitol will be staying – at least for another two years. The U-S Navy has put plans to move the statue to a Virginia museum on hold. The U-S Naval Academy Museum loaned the statue to Wisconsin more than 30 years ago. Thousands of visitors have rubbed its nose for good luck. The museum asked that the statue be returned last year, but Wisconsin historians asked that the loan be extended. There are indications Wisconsin Congressman Mike Gallagher played a role in the decision.
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