One person is dead after a motorcycle accident in Oak Grove Township on Saturday. According to the Pierce County Sheriff's Department, 59yr old Ronald Bithell of Minneapolis was traveling northbound on Hwy 35 when he lost control of his motorcycle, crossed the centerline and entered into the west ditch, and was ejected from the motorcycle. Deputies attempted life-saving measures with no success. Bithell was pronounced dead at the scene.
Pepin County held a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house for the new highway shop in Arkansaw on Wednesday. Pepin County Board Chairman Tom Milliren says the shop was placed nearly in the exact center of the county to make it more efficient for crews working throughout the county. The county will now begin the process of tearing down and cleaning up the old shop in Durand to make way for a new Kwik Trip location.
An area business is expanding. Eau Galle Cheese Factory will begin operating the factory seven days a week. Eau Galle Cheese President and CEO Steve Bechel says the expansion was necessary because of the increase in retail food sales. Because of the seven-day-a-week operation of the plant, Bechel says Eau Galle Cheese will be needing approximately 1.5 million pounds of milk a week which is about 30 tanker loads. The company hopes to begin the 7 days a week operation in October.
The Durand City Council met last night. Mayor Patrick Milliren told the council of a meeting with members of the community to talk about some improvements to Memorial Park. Milliren says the improvements include changes to the bandshell and a Pavillion. The suggestions are going to be sent to committee for discussion. Milliren says there are some limitations to improvements to the park including the park size and the creek that runs underneath the park.
Wisconsin Congressman Ron Kind says officials at Fort McCoy are on top of a case of measles detected among Afghan refugees being housed there. Kind says "one person was detected with measles. And so they had to quarantine the immediate people around them. But so far all we know is just one measles case, and they're being monitored very closely." He was part of a delegation briefed at Fort McCoy on Tuesday. They also reported a handful of COVID cases among evacuees at the base and high rates of vaccination.
A 15-year-old boy is in trouble with the law for punching a Rochester police officer. Officers were called to a large fight near John Marshall High School Tuesday night and saw several juveniles running from the scene. Investigators say a 15-year-old punched a female officer in the face and was arrested on suspicion of fourth-degree assault on an officer, third-degree riot, and disorderly conduct. Four other teens were taken into custody pending rioting charges.
The head of Minnesota’s Department of Agriculture believes stigmas attached to mental health are fading. Commissioner Thom Petersen says farmer suicides are down in Minnesota while relationship issues are rising. Petersen says "I think we are making progress and)the stigma is slowly coming down that it’s okay to talk about mental health. " Peterson says farmers continue to face many stressors, but the state has some of the best resources in the country to handle and help them with mental health issues.
Authorities in northwest Wisconsin say they've recovered the body of a missing man from a lake near Siren. The Burnett County Sheriff's Office says crews located 49-year-old Jason Gilbertson of Hammond Wednesday. Deputies say Gilbertson went swimming in the Clam Lake Sunday afternoon and hadn't been seen since. The Burnett County Medical Examiner’s Office assisted with the recovery effort.
Wisconsin already has a nationwide reputation for drinking. The numbers suggest we’re buying even more booze as the COVID-19 pandemic won’t seem to end. State revenue from excise taxes on alcohol during the last fiscal year was up nearly 17 percent, falling just short of 74 million dollars. If confirmed by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue, that will be the largest percentage increase seen here in nearly five decades. Liquor store owners say people were buying alcohol in large volumes over the last year. Bottles were flying off the shelves – hard liquor, beer, and wine.
A conservative Republican congressman from Ohio says pictures of the crowd at last weekend’s Wisconsin Badgers football game show that Americans are ready to move on from COVID-19 safety protocols. Congressman Jim Jordan re-tweeted a video from Barstool Sports showing the home crowd during “Jump Around” with very few face coverings visible. In less than two hours, the congressman’s tweet was re-tweeted almost a thousand times and liked by five thousand people who saw it. The original tweet from Barstool Sports wasn’t about politics or the coronavirus. The university did have restrictions in place, but many of the 76 thousand football fans ignored the recommendations.
A Wisconsin law states people receiving Social Security disability payments can’t get state unemployment benefits at the same time. That’s at the center of a class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday. The suit alleges the Wisconsin unemployment system discriminates against people who are disabled. The end of federal unemployment assistance last weekend means more than 150 thousand Wisconsin workers who get S-S-D-I payments are automatically disqualified from receiving state benefits. The claim is that Wisconsin’s current practice is in violation of the federal Americans With Disabilities Act. When the law was passed eight years ago lawmakers said they were trying to stop fraud and “double-dippers.”
The chairperson of a legislative committee investigating last November’s presidential election in Wisconsin is calling for voting machine data to be saved. Republican State Representative Janel Brandtjen of Menomonee Falls urged members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission to stop the voting machine company E-S-and-S from updating the state’s voting machines. Brantjen claims the update could erase voting information. She and other Republicans want that data secured so they can check it for any evidence of voter fraud or election irregularities.
Former Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka is officially running for the Republican nomination for Minnesota governor. The G-O-P senator from the Brainerd lakes area criticized current Governor Tim Walz for his handling of the COVID pandemic. Gazelka said, "Tim Walz irresponsible shutdown, based on his lack of understanding of the scientific data closed hundreds of restaurants and small businesses across the state bankrupting many of them." D-F-L chair Ken Martin says "Gazelka's decision to hold a maskless superspreader event led to a COVID-19 outbreak among lawmakers and Senator Jerry Relph of St. Cloud died." Walz has not announced whether he will run for re-election in 2022.
Wisconsin’s 2021 cranberry crop is expected to be about average by the time the harvest kicks off in a month. The Wisconsin Cranberry Growers Association is estimating a total production of about five-and-a-half million barrels for this year’s crop. That’s slightly higher than the almost five million barrels projected by the U-S Cranberry Marketing Committee in its forecast issued last month. The head of the state association, Tom Lochner, says the continued warm weather in the weeks remaining before harvest could help with some additional growth.
Total attendance for the 2021 Minnesota State Fair is just over one-point-three million, substantially less than the record two-point-one million visitors in 2019. But General Manager Jerry Hammer it's an unfair comparison because 2019 was "like just the Everest of fairs, just so over-the-top. It was perfect every day." He called this year's fair during the pandemic "really extraordinary." Hammer says everyone involved did amazing work pulling everything together in a very short time under difficult and changing circumstances. Officials say a stormy opening weekend, more rain later in the fair, a labor shortage, and supply chain issues did not dampen the spirit of exhibitors, vendors, agriculturists, performers, volunteers, and the State Fair's one-point-three million guests.
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