The second suspect in the deaths of four Minnesotans found in an S-U-V in western Wisconsin is under arrest in Arizona. The Dunn County Sheriff's Office says 38-year-old Antoine Suggs turned himself in Friday to the Gilbert Police Department on a warrant. His father, 56-year-old Darren McWright Osbourne, was arrested Wednesday in St. Paul. Osbourne and Suggs are currently charged with four counts of hiding a corpse in Dunn County. They are accused in the fatal shootings of 26-year-old Matthew Pettus, 30-year-old Jasmine Sturm, and 35-year-old Loyace Foreman III, all of St. Paul, and 30-year-old Nitosha Lee Flug-Presley of Stillwater. Suggs was reportedly living in Arizona and would come back to Minnesota to visit Flug-Presley. All four victims were found in the abandoned vehicle with gunshot wounds to the head.
A 40-year-old Minnesota man died in a collision between a motorcycle and a truck Saturday afternoon in Wabasha County. The State Patrol says Joshua Peterson of Hayfield died when the motorcycle he was driving collided with a truck on County Road 14 in Highland Township. The driver of the truck was unharmed.
Two more schools in the U-W System have hit the 70 percent vaccination rate. That means students on the campuses in Eau Claire and Milwaukee are eligible for about a half-million dollars in scholarship money. U-W System President Tommy Thompson set up the “70 for 70” program to give students incentive to get their shots for COVID-19. A total of 70 scholarships worth seven thousand dollars are up for grabs.
The Wabasha County Board is meeting tomorrow. Items on the agenda include discussion and possible action on the 2022 property tax levy and the 2022 proposed budget and approve and hire a captain position in the Sheriff's Department. Tomorrow's meeting begins at 9am at the Wabasha County Board room at the Government Center.
The La Crosse Fire Department says crews rescued five people stranded in a canoe on the La Crosse River Saturday evening. No injuries were reported. The Incident happened near Red Cloud Park shortly before 8:00 p-m on the city’s northside between the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse campus and La Crosse Logan High School. The second water rescue of the summer was pulled off by using inflatable boats to bring the five people to shore. Just two months ago two people were rescued. They had been tubing down the La Crosse River when they were stranded on some logs.
A former La Crescent council member is accused of threatening to blow up the Houston County Courthouse and shoot people last month. Sheriff's deputies say 36-year-old Brian Krenz was arrested in California and is now in the Houston County Jail on multiple counts of terroristic threats, harassment, and disorderly conduct. Krenz allegedly called a court employee on August 5th and said he was going to shoot someone in the Houston County Attorney's Office and blow up the building. He also made threats of violence to a pair of local businesses and another county office. Bond was set at 100-thousand dollars. Frenz has a court hearing next Friday.
A boil water order in Winona ended over the weekend. The order was issued on Thursday after two water mains broke and the water utility was concerned about possible contamination. On Saturday the city lifted the order and said some Winona residents may experience discolored water, due to the flushing of water mains, but the water is safe to drink and the discoloration will fade over the next few days.
A Dane County judge is rejecting the lawsuit aimed at removing the chair of the state Natural Resources Board whose term ended last spring. Attorney General Josh Kaul filed the suit in August to force Fred Prehn from the board. Prehn's six-year team expired May 1st and he refuses to vacate the seat. Governor Tony Evers appointed Sandra Nass as board chair, but the Republican Senate has not confirmed her. Circuit Court Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn refused to issue an order forcing Prehn to step down. A-G Kaul says he plans to appeal the Dane County court ruling.
Wisconsin’s jobless rate is holding steady. The Department of Workforce Development reports the unemployment rate for August was three-point-nine percent. That’s exactly where it’s been for months. The agency says Wisconsin lost more than eight thousand jobs last month. The national unemployment rate is five-point-two percent.
The Milwaukee County clerk is declining a request from the head of the state Assembly’s investigation into the 2020 election. Clerk George Christenson says the request from former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman to save voter data from the county’s voting machines raises a lot of questions. For one, Christenson says clerks already save voter information for almost two years. Christenson also says the email that he got looks like it could be a scam or phishing attempt. Gableman is leading the investigation commissioned by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos.
One of two Sparta Area School District Board of Education members targeted for recall has ended the process by resigning. The resignation of Eric Solberg became effective Thursday. A group of parents started gathering signatures to recall Solberg and Nancy Sikorski after they voted to reinstate a mask mandate. When the four-to-two vote was taken on September 9th, people in the crowd started shouting, “Recall, recall, recall.” Solberg says he is stepping down because his primary responsibility is to his family, his health, and then his business. He had been elected to the board last year. Solberg says he had already discussed the matter with the board president and superintendent Amy Van Deuren.
Ten months after he was elected, a member of the Stillwater Area Board of Education has decided to resign. Matt Onken pointed to the current political divide to explain his move. In a statement, Onken wrote the situation in the district is beginning to impact his physical and mental health, as well as his work and home life. The resignation is effective Friday. He becomes the fourth member of that school board to resign in the last 14 months. Onken says he thought he could bring some calm to board meetings, but he finds himself struggling to maintain his composure.
A bill introduced in the Assembly would clear the way for the Wisconsin Elections Commission to move its offices to Wausau. State statutes currently require each commission office must be based in Madison. Assembly Bill 511 would require the elections commission to move its offices to Wausau no later than April 15th, 2023. The high cost of leased office space in downtown Madison is cited. State Representative David Steffen calls that a significant and unnecessary financial burden on taxpayers. He says the move would save 100 thousand dollars a year and would make the office more accessible. Candidates for political office visit the commission every election cycle and Wausau is more centrally located.
A popular Dane County truck stop abruptly closed last week. A note was left on the door, blaming Governor Evers and President Biden. Turns out, the owner of the Pine Cone really closed because he says his lease was up and he "got old and tired." He has also collected over 464-thousand dollars in COVID relief funds over the past year. Owner John McKay ended up recanting and took the note down. He tells the State Journal it was "a bad decision."
For the second time in two days, police were called back to Oshkosh West High School. A school resource officer asked for emergency assistance Thursday at 1:50 p-m. Responding officers were told the resource officers and several staff members were able to end a fight involving several students at the school. School leaders put the campus on “hold,” keeping other students in their classrooms for about 30 minutes. Additional officers are going to be at the school today (Friday) as a precaution. No arrests were announced in the Thursday disruption.
Enbridge Energy has been ordered to pay a hefty fine for failing to follow environmental laws. After it pierced an artesian aquifer the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources cited the Canadian company and fined it three-point-three million dollars Thursday. State investigators say the company didn’t follow the construction plans it submitted to the D-N-R earlier this year when it started work on the Clearbrook Terminal site. Enbridge had said trench construction would only go to a depth of eight-to-10 feet yet the trench was 18 feet deep with sheet piling installed as deep as 28 feet. That resulted in a puncture of the aquifer and uncontrolled groundwater flowing into the trench.
Minnesota's drought conditions may mute some of the brilliant colors as the leaves change this fall. The D-N-R's Jennifer Teegarden says there is some conflicting research that on one hand suggests a drought can actually enhance the colors, but other research suggests severe drought like we're experiencing will make those colors duller. She says the exception may be southeastern Minnesota where the drought conditions weren't as harsh this summer. Teegarden says recent rainfall and any additional precipitation may be too late to save the colors, but she says it will help the trees as they prepare themselves for winter.
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