One person was injured in a vehicle vs a pedestrian accident in Red Wing yesterday. According to the Minnesota State Patrol, a 76yr old woman was traveling northbound on Hwy 61 at Franklin Street when she struck the 18yr old woman who was in the crosswalk. The 18yr old was taken to St. Marys Hospital.
A River Falls man has been convicted of child sexual assault. After a three day trial, Wednesday afternoon a jury found Derek P. Johnson guilty. Johnson was charged in 2021 with sexually assaulting a girl three or four years earlier. The girl, who would have been nine at that time, said Johnson told her if she told anyone about the assault, he would do the same thing to her younger sister. She was two or three years old at the time. Johnson will be sentenced in April.
There are more layoffs coming in Eau Claire. American Phoenix announced earlier this week that it is laying off its entire third shift. The company said a 'reduction is mixing demand.' American Phoenix is not saying just how many people it is laying off, but said it will likely be less than 40. American Phoenix has about 200 people working at its Eau Claire facility. The layoffs there come after HSHS and Prevea announced more than 14-hundred layoffs, and after the software company Jamf announced plans to lay off about six percent of its workforce.
Marshfield Clinic is hoping to find some new employees with an Eau Claire job fair. The clinic was in town yesterday and will hold more interviews today. Marshfield's Heather Owker says they are looking for everyone from nurses to respiratory therapists, to imaging specialists. Interviews today will be at the Marshfield Clinic in Eau Claire from 9 a.m. til 3 p.m. The job fair, of course, comes after HSHS and Prevea announced last month that they will close their hospitals and clinics in the Chippewa Valley.
Five people are looking at charges after a deadly motorcycle wreck in Rice Lake. Prosecutors filed the charges this week. Investigators claim Tyler Baker was drunk when he crashed his motorcycle back in August. Four other people are charged with either lying to authorities or leaving the scene of the crash. The D.A. says Baker refused to do anything to help the person who ended-up dying in the crash. He's facing 25-years in prison if convicted.
Wisconsin lawmakers are considering a plan that would have convicted drunk drivers pay child support to the families of people whom they kill. Republican State Senator Jesse James says the idea behind Bentley's Law is to make sure that families are made whole after a tragic death. Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas, and Maine already have Bentley's Laws on the books. James says Wisconsin could become the next state to create a law that would require drunk drivers to pay child support if they kill a parent in a drunk driving crash.
One Wisconsin Democrat is already looking to change how much state money some local communities get. State Representative Sue Conley from Janesville wants to create a new shared revenue advisory council. She hopes the council can meet after each census, which means every 10 years, to see if there need to be adjustments to Wisconsin's shared revenue formula. Conley says cities like Janesvile are stuck with a large need for money, but low property values. Wisconsin lawmakers just reworked its shared revenue formula last spring to send more state money to local governments across the state.
Wisconsin is getting a million-and-a-half dollars for more vocational education. The DPI TODAY announced the grant money is ear-marked to boost career and technical education. No one is saying just how the money will be spent, or just how far it will go. State Superintendent Jill Underly said she hopes the grant will help break-down barriers. The money is promised for the next three years, but the DPI says the grant can be extended out to five.
The lack of snow this winter is hurting many Northwoods communities dependent on tourism. WXPR reports that several Northwoods communities have already lost over 6 million dollars in revenue in December and January because snowmobile trails haven't opened. Now chambers of commerce in seven counties are asking for state assistance to help keep businesses open. It's unclear when or how that assistance might make it up north, but leaders say they're worried that new businesses that don't have the capital base to make it through bad years might have to close their doors.
Wisconsin's election managers should have new rules for absentee ballots by the end of next week. The Wisconsin Elections Commission is looking to vote next week on how to abide by a judge's ruling that absentee ballot witness slips don't need a full address in order to be counted. The judge from Dane County ruled earlier this month that witness slips can be missing things like full zip codes or town names and still be counted as a valid ballot. Republicans at the Wisconsin Capitol worry an overly broad interpretation of the judge's ruling could open up an opportunity for fraud.
Five of Wisconsin's Republican congressmen are asking Judge Janet Protasiewicz to step away from the case that challenges the state's congressional maps. Congressman Glenn Grothman, Congressman Mike Gallagher, Congressman Bryan Steil, Congressman Tom Tiffany, and Congressman Scott Fitzgerald all joined a request from the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty yesterday in asking Protasiewicz to recuse herself. The liberal law firm, the Elias Law Group, is asking that the Wisconsin Supreme Court redraw Wisconsin's congressional map just like the court is redrawing the state's legislative maps. WILL and the congressmen say Protasiewicz has prejudged the case. Protasiewicz refused calls to step away from the legislative map case and isn't expected to change her mind on the congressional maps.
A proposed bill in the Wisconsin Legislature would require Wisconsin schools to teach a comprehensive sex education class. Democratic State Senator Melissa Agard introduced the Healthy Youth Act again, which requires all students have medically accurate and age-appropriate sex education. The Act was passed in 2009 initially but was repealed in 2011 by former Republican Governor Scott Walker. Abstinence became the preferred instruction method instead. Required classes would have to include a curriculum about puberty, pregnancy, body image, and communication between students and their guardians about sexuality. Alcohol, drug use, and the impact of social media on behavior and emotion would be other topics.
A retired Navy commander is running for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in Minnesota. Fifty-year-old Joe Fraser of Minnetrista is kicking off his campaign this week with a series of trips designed to introduce him to voters. Fraser spent 26 years working in naval intelligence and has worked in the business and banking sectors since leaving the Navy. He plans to make border security, inflation, and the national debt key issues in his campaign. Fraser also plans to make Senator Amy Klobuchar's three terms in office a campaign issue, saying this week that she's "a career politician whose biggest objective is just to continue to get re-elected."
Minnesota tourist officials are investing two million dollars to attract tourists and new residents to the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes. The campaign includes ads run on television, radio, and social media that will target communities in Chicago, Kansas City, Denver, and St. Louis. The initiative will launch in March. Last year, the Minnesota Legislature approved more than 25 million dollars in new funding for Explore Minnesota over the next two years.
No comments:
Post a Comment