The Journal Times is located at 212 Fourth Street in Racine. (Scott Anderson, Patch Staff )
RACINE, WI — The historical home of the Racine Journal Times daily newspaper is officially up for sale, as the longtime print publication lines up new office space apart from its longtime downtown fixture.
Mike Hetland, First Weber Realtor posted the listing on his professional Facebook page this Wednesday. In his post, Weber listed the Journal Times building at 212 Fourth Street for $899,000. The building is approximately 66,000 square feet, comes with an additional 10,000 feet of additional warehouse space at 320 Wisconsin Ave. and about 20 parking spots.
"Here is your chance to own/develop an iconic piece of Racine history," Hetland said.
The move is facilitated by the paper shifting its printing operation from its downtown Racine location to one in Munster Indiana. That move was announced in May, and resulted in a total of 39 layoffs.
New Listing!
Here is your chance to own/develop an iconic piece of Racine history.
212 4th Street- Racine
$899,000
The Historical Journal Times building in Downtown Racine with Root River views is now available. Approximately 66,000 sq ft of office space, conference rooms, large warehouse area with 40' ceilings and a loading dock. Plus, additional 10,000 sq ft (approx) of climate-controlled warehouse space at 320 Wisconsin Ave and approximately 20 parking spots. Imagine the p...
MADISON – A black security guard at a Wisconsin high school who was fired after he says he repeated a racial slur while telling a student who had called him that word not to use it has filed a grievance seeking his job back.
The Madison School District has a policy forbidding employees from saying racial slurs. But, Marlon Anderson, 48, says he was just trying to defend himself after a disruptive student unleashed a number of obscenities on him, including that slur.
West High Principal Karen Boran sent an email to families on Wednesday saying that racial slurs are not acceptable in schools, regardless of context or circumstance, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.
But Anderson told the State Journal, “We’re fighting this,” and the Madison teachers’ union filed a grievance with the district on his behalf.
“I just don’t understand getting fired for trying to defend yourself,” said Anderson, who worked for the district for 11 years. “As a black man, I have a right not to be called that word.”
Anderson said he was responding to a call on Oct. 9 about a disruptive male student who was being escorted by an assistant principal at West High. Anderson said the student pushed the principal’s hand off of himself, and the situation escalated, with the student, who is also black, calling Anderson obscenities including the slur.
Anderson said he told the student multiple times “do not call me that” and “do not call me that word,” and that Anderson repeated the slur during the confrontation while telling the teen not to use it.
During his time at East and West high schools, Anderson said he’s been called the slur by students “many times,” and that it has resulted in “restorative conversations” in which he explains the history, context and meaning of the slur.
Boran said the zero-tolerance approach on the use of racial slurs “has been applied consistently and will continue to be applied consistently.”
“I also want to ask for your partnership as we work to make our school climate the very best it can be for all of our students and our staff,” she said.
In a statement, interim Superintendent Jane Belmore said the expectation of staff to never use a racial slur “has been shared several times through communication and professional development.”
Last school year, there were at least seven cases in which a Madison School District staff member used a racial slur in front of students. All of those employees were either fired or resigned.
It’s not known whether the student faces disciplinary action.
Jess Przybylski of Chippewa Falls started using methamphetamine after the father of her children died in a car crash. Over a five-year period she lost custody of her two children, Zander, left, and Peyton, twice. After completing intensive treatment in 2016 as a condition of her sentence, she got her children back.(Photo: Parker Schorr/The Cap Times)
Jess Przybylski had never really dealt with loss. Then the father of her children was killed in a car crash. In 2011, her friends offered her methamphetamine to distract from the grief.
Soon after, Przybylski lost her job. Her two children were taken from her once, then once more when she was caught faking a drug test. A growing rap sheet eclipsed her college degree as she lost cars, relationships — and nearly her life.
“It was a one-time thing, and that was it,” Przybylski, who lives in Chippewa Falls in northwest Wisconsin, says of her meth addiction.
“It started out slow, but it was a pretty hard downward spiral for about five years. … It gets to be where it just takes over your life and it’s not fun anymore. It’s all you think about.”
Like other amphetamines, meth elevates dopamine levels in the brain, creating a rush. But it is significantly more powerful than stimulants like cocaine, says Timothy Easker, director of Chippewa County Department of Human Services.
Meth can keep individuals awake for days on end, causing psychosis and even organ failure.
The State Crime Laboratory handled 1,452 meth cases in 2018 — an increase of more than 450% since 2008. The number far exceeded the 1,055 heroin cases handled by the lab that year.
On Oct. 4, federal authorities in Madison announced that 16 people from Wisconsin and Minnesota were charged with state and federal counts of allegedly distributing meth in the Wausau area.
Unlike some Midwestern states, where police shut down hundreds of meth labs a year, in Wisconsin, the problem is more hidden. Much of the meth used here originates in Mexico and is transported to the Twin Cities, according to a 2016 analysis of methamphetamine use and trafficking compiled by federal and state law enforcement officials.
The drug can be in the form of powder, crystals or pills and can be smoked, snorted or injected.
Anheuser-Busch on Thursday accused brewing rival MillerCoors of misappropriating recipes and other trade secrets.(Photo: MillerCoors photo)
It started as a spat over corn syrup — and truth in advertising. Now we have accusations of corporate espionage.
The months-long battle between rival brewers MillerCoors and Anheuser-Busch, which already has generated a few hundred motions, exhibits and other court filings, continues to take new turns.
The latest: Anheuser-Busch claims MillerCoors, which operates a brewery in Milwaukee, stole its recipes and other trade secrets.
In a document filed Thursday in federal court in Madison, the brewer of Bud Light claims a MillerCoors brewmaster, Josh Edgar, tapped an Anheuser-Busch employee for information on ingredients for the company's beers.
And MillerCoors, according to Anheuser-Busch, ended up with photos of the recipes for Bud Light and Michelob Ultra — recipes AB said are "highly confidential, proprietary, and trade secret information."
Edgar is a former brewer at Anheuser-Busch's brewery in Cartersville, Georgia, and maintained relationships with people still there, the filing says. It says Edgar reached out to a current AB employee, texting back and forth about whether Bud Light contained enzymes, whether Busch beer used dextrose and other subjects
"Mr. Edgar specifically told this AB employee that he was being asked for this information by MillerCoors's senior management," the filing says.
The text exchanges occurred shortly before and after February's Super Bowl.
That, of course, is when Anheuser-Busch unveiled a multimillion-dollar ad campaign needling MillerCoors for using corn syrup in Miller Lite and Coors Light, touching off a court battle that continues to rage.
MillerCoors sued, alleging false advertising, and has carried the field so far.
In May, a U.S. district judge denied Anheuser-Busch's motion to dismiss the case and issued a preliminary injunction barring the brewer from using the words corn syrup in ads and on social media without providing more context. Early last month, the judge extended the preliminary ban to Anheuser-Busch's packaging.
Firing back, AB now says its rival should be barred from accessing or disclosing the "trade secret information" it allegedly misappropriated and should be ordered to immediately return it — as well as pay damages.
MillerCoors spokesman Adam Collins said by email Thursday that the firm "respects confidential information and takes any contrary allegations seriously."
"But if the ingredients are a secret," he added, "why did they spend tens of millions of dollars telling the entire world what’s in Bud Light? And why are the ingredients printed on Bud Light’s packaging in giant letters?
"As for their tired claims about corn syrup, the same residual elements they are talking about are also found in Bud Light and Michelob Ultra. If this is their argument, it’s no wonder they have lost three rulings in this case already."
In its filing, Anheuser-Busch said recipes provide much more information than the ingredients it lists publicly for its beers. The recipes specify such proprietary details as the types of barley and hops used in Bud Light and Michelob Ultra, how the ingredients are mixed and, in the case of hops, where they come from, the filing said.
"Hops give the unique flavor profile of each of these beers, and for this reason all hopping information is particularly sensitive," it said.
Anheuser-Busch also noted in its filing that corn syrup is among the ingredients listed for Miller Lite and Coors Light on the MillerCoors website. "Corn syrup sugars and byproducts are present in the finished Miller Lite and Coors Light beers," Anheuser-Busch said.
MillerCoors disputes that.
"Corn syrup is a brewing adjunct, serving the same basic function to feed yeast as rice does in Bud Light," Collins said Thursday. "It is consumed during the brewing process and corn syrup is not in the final beer."
This beer isn’t just scary levels of alcoholic, it’s actually illegal in several states.
Samuel Adams is bringing its Utopias beer back just in time for Halloween, but not everyone will be able to find the brew. Due to the drink’s high level of alcohol, it’s actually illegal in 15 states.
Sam Adams' Utopias beer reportedly has an ABV of 28 percent, much higher than the average beer. (Samuel Adams)
Utopias is described as a “barrel-aged extreme beer” and has a multiyear-long brewing process, Forbes reports. The 2019 brew is a blend of Sam Adams’ earlier extreme beers, which have reportedly been aged in wooden bourbon casks.
According to Forbes, Sam Adams’ only brewed 77 wooden casks of Utopias, which the outlet describes as having “distinct vanilla notes and subtle nutty and elegant dark fruit aromas.” The beer also claims to have an ABV (alcohol by volume) of 28 percent, significantly higher than the average beer (which is usually lower than 10 percent).
A spokesperson for Samuel Adams confirmed to Fox News that due to its high level of alcohol, this already hard-to-find beer is illegal in 15 states. This includes Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont and West Virginia.
Of course, this isn’t the first beer to face legal limitations.
In mid-August, a Utah based brewery lost an appeal against a ruling that banned its polygamy-themed beer in North Carolina. Wasatch Brewery hoped to bring Polygamy Porter to stores in the state, but were unable to convince the North Carolina Alcohol Beverage Control Commission to allow it.
Apparently, the state decided that the beer promoted polygamy, which is illegal.
Good morning everyone I hope everyone has had a good week. I have been so busy last month and this month it is like I do not have enough time in a day anymore. Here are your questions.
1) Have you ever gone to a house warming party?
2) If you have was it for a friend or family?
3) Do you remember the last time you have been to a house warming party?
4) What kind of a present did you give to the people for the house warming party?
One key to a longer life could be a quieter brain without too much neural activity, according to a new study that examined postmortem brain tissue from extremely long-lived people for clues about what made them different from people who died in their 60s and 70s.
"Use it or lose it" has dominated thinking on how to protect the aging brain, and extensive research shows there are many benefits to remaining physically and mentally active as people get older. But the study, published in the journal Nature, suggests more isn't always better. Excessive activity - at least at the level of brain cells - could be harmful.
"The completely shocking and puzzling thing about this new paper is . . . [brain activity] is what you think of as keeping you cognitively normal. There's the idea that you want to keep your brain active in later life," said Michael McConnell, a neuroscientist at the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, who was not involved in the study. "The thing that is super unexpected is . . . limiting neural activity is a good thing in healthy aging. It's very counterintuitive."
Then-officer Lee Coel was performing in a "shoot/don't shoot" exercise with the Punta Gorda Police Department in the summer of 2016 when he shot Mary Knowlton, who had volunteered to participate.
She was struck by the fatal bullet in front of about three dozen people, including Knowlton's husband of 55 years, who were at the citizen police academy watching the drill about police use of firearms.
Then-police chief Tom Lewis said at the time that the revolver Coel fired had been used in previous exercises. The gun was loaded with bullets instead of blanks.
He was investigated by internal affairs and retrained after an October 2015 arrest during which a man was mauled by his police dog for at least two minutes. The incident was caught on dashcam video and went viral.
He had also been asked to resign in 2013 from a previous job with the Miramar Police Department in Florida for "failure to satisfactorily complete agency field training program."
Mary Knowlton and her husband Gary KnowltonProvided by family
He wrote in his Punta Gorda application that he had been “found to have committed two simple policy violations" after he was hit with two “excessive use of force complaints” that were later deemed unfounded.
The family of Knowlton, a retired librarian and mother of two grown sons, received a more than $2 million settlement, approved by the Punta Gorda City Council.
Lewis, who had said he held himself "100 percent accountable” for the shooting, was charged with culpable negligence and found not guilty in 2017.
James Fetzer, a retired professor who lives in the village of Oregon, appears Tuesday with one of his attorneys in Dane County Circuit Court. Fetzer was found in June to have defamed the father of a victim of the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. A jury awarded his victim, Leonard Pozner, $450,000 in damages after his attorneys argued Fetzer's writing contributed to his post-traumatic stress disorder.
JOHN HART, STATE JOURNAL
A Dane County jury on Tuesday decided a village of Oregon conspiracy theorist must pay the father of a boy killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook shootings $450,000 for falsely claiming that the father circulated fabricated copies of his son’s death certificate.
It took the jury nearly four hours to decide on the amount James Fetzer must pay Leonard Pozner, whose son, Noah, 6, was the youngest victim of the Dec. 14, 2012, massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. The award follows Circuit Judge Frank Remington’s ruling in June that Fetzer defamed Pozner with four false statements about the death certificate. The statements appeared in a book Fetzer co-authored and edited, and in his blog.
In his own statement after the jury delivered its decision, Pozner thanked the jury “for recognizing the pain and terror that Mr. Fetzer has purposefully inflicted on me and on other victims of these horrific mass casualty events, like the Sandy Hook shooting,” and emphasized that his case was not about First Amendment protections.
“Mr. Fetzer has the right to believe that Sandy Hook never happened,” he said. “He has the right to express his ignorance. This award, however, further illustrates the difference between the right of people like Mr. Fetzer to be wrong and the right of victims like myself and my child to be free from defamation, free from harassment and free from the intentional infliction of terror.”
Fetzer called the damages amount “absurd” and said he would appeal.
Fetzer — a professor emeritus of philosophy from the University of Minnesota-Duluth and prolific conspiracy theorist on a range of events — claims the Sandy Hook massacre never happened but was instead an event staged by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as part of an Obama administration effort to enact tighter gun restrictions.
"It went around the internet like a virus,” she said. “This kind of alt-right fact that they want to believe is fact.”In closing arguments, Pozner attorney Genevieve Zimmerman called Fetzer’s claims in the 2015 book and 2018 blog post “alt-right opium.”
In videotaped testimony aired Monday and Tuesday, forensic psychiatrist Roy Lubit said Pozner had been recovering from the post-traumatic stress disorder he suffered as a result of the murder of his son.
City of Racine Municipal Judge & "Economic Terrorist"
OPEN LETTER TO CITY OF RACINE
MUNICIPAL COURT - JUDGE ROB WEBER
Judge Rob Weber
Municipal Court 800 Center Street Racine, WI 53403 10-17-2019
Subject: Court proceedings and trial - City of Racine vs. James McClain
Judge Weber,
I call to your attention the injustice your court caused upon James McClain by the outrageous $50,000 + judgment against McClain. You further engaged in tort acts against McClain by failing to provide documents, transcripts and notes of his hearings and trial within your court when McClain requested such files. I also point out that an officer within your court (Nhu Arn) threatened fellow citizen McClain with outrageous fines and penalties totaling greater than $312,000 in an attempt to force a settlement before trial. You run a shithole of a court !
I submit to you that you are part of a mob enterprise acting within the City of Racine to actively intimidate, harass and threaten fellow citizens using immoral and outrageous tactics to settle "civil" disputes with the city.
The $50,000 + dollar award against McClain was excessive, immoral and inexcusable. The excessive fines and penalties you assessed against McClain violated the 8th amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Your actions and judgment make you unfit as a judge.
You will be hereby referred to as a tyrant and economic terrorist, complicit with Nhu Arn and Scott Letteney.
I further suggest you remove the outright lie below from your court website.
“Welcome to the City of Racine Municipal Court. The Municipal Court provides a neutral setting for resolving alleged violations of the City’s ordinances.”
Only a bias, complicit and prejudice court
would allow the city attorney's office to engage in such egregious conduct within its court and assess such outrageous fines and penalties for such minor alleged building code violations. Watch Talking Racine James McClain's court case Episode 144
