Saturday, January 18, 2025
Woman in custody after allegedly claiming to have placed bomb at Racine County Jail
Journal Times Staff
RACINE — A 29-year-old woman was arrested Friday afternoon in connection to a bomb threat at the Racine County Jail.
A news release issued by Racine County Sheriff's Office states that at about 2:15 p.m. the woman "communicated to a Racine County employee that she had just placed a bomb within a publicly accessible area" of the jail.
The woman also reportedly told members of the public that "she was going to, 'blow up' the building and that there was a bomb inside the package she had left," according to the release.
RCSO contacted the Kenosha County Sheriff's Office bomb squad for assistance.
According to a news release from KCSO, technicians X-rayed the package and concluded that it was not an explosive device and did not pose a hazard.
KCSO's bomb squad is responsible for assisting on any explosive device call throughout Kenosha, Racine and Walworth counties, and is one of only six bomb squads in the state.
The woman was taken into custody at 2:50 p.m. and no else is believed to have been involved, according to RCSO.
Friday, January 17, 2025
Thursday, January 16, 2025
Proposed new criteria could reduce classified obesity population by 20%
The garbage truck Donald Trump rode while in Green Bay will be present for Inauguration Day
Rashad Alexander
That moment went viral, and it will now be revisited again on Monday, for Inauguration Day.
Three Trump-decaled trucks are expected to make an appearance Monday near the U.S. Capitol when Trump is sworn into office. One truck will be driven during the Inauguration's parade, while the other two will be on display.
The trucks are being provided by Loadmaster, a truck manufacturing company in Norway, Michigan, which is about 100 miles north of Green Bay.
Ethan Brisson, the sales and marketing manager for Loadmaster, confirmed the accommodations with the Press-Gazette, and recounted the day they were contacted to get a truck for the now elected president who he was headed to a campaign event at the Resch Center in Ashwaubenon.
"A guy that worked for a large waste hauler in Wisconsin contacted our office. He's very involved with the Wisconsin GOP," Brisson told the Press-Gazette. "My brother took the phone call and basically just brought a truck down there."
Days earlier at a Trump rally in New York, one speaker referred to Puerto Rico as a "floating island of garbage." President Joe Biden responded to that comment by appearing to refer to Trump supporters as "garbage."
The garbage truck was Trump's response.
The original truck, which will be in D.C., was then displayed in Indianapolis, because that was the location of the dealer who owned the truck. All three trucks are already in D.C. for the inauguration.
Brisson said his brother, Andrew, who is the vice president of Loadmaster, will drive the truck during the inauguration parade.
"It's a big thing for us. We're kind of a smaller company and it's a lot of press for us," Ethan Brisson said. "We're just trying to get our name out there."
During the speech, Trump wore an orange safety vest that was provided by Andrew Brison, who bought it from a local Fleet Farm. They had wanted the vest back as a memento, but Trump wore it on the plane leaving the Green Bay area that night.
Rashad Alexander can be reached at ralexander@gannett.com and 920-431-8214.
Wednesday, January 15, 2025
Tuesday, January 14, 2025
Monday, January 13, 2025
Wisconsin marijuana legalization faces familiar headwinds in new legislative session
Molly Beck
MADISON - Republican leaders of the state Legislature and the Democratic governor are again tackling the issue of marijuana legalization in the new legislative session but familiar divisions persist over an issue that has broad support in Wisconsin but not in the state Capitol.
Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu said in a Sunday interview his caucus would be open to considering legislation this session from the state Assembly to create a medical marijuana program in Wisconsin if Assembly leaders removed their previously proposed idea of establishing state-run dispensaries. But as of December, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said he still preferred the proposal.
The Senate leader's position is a starting point for renewed negotiations on the issue of legalizing marijuana use for medicinal purposes that has run into roadblocks in previous sessions largely due to Senate Republicans' opposition to the idea.
"There are members of our caucus who are supportive of medical marijuana. The challenge of the bill that the assembly introduced last (session) was state-run dispensaries," LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, said in an appearance on WISN's "UpFront" politics talk show. "Growing the size of government doesn't seem to be the best way to do it."
Wisconsin is among a shrinking minority of states that do not have a recreational or medical-use marijuana program. About half of states have legalized small amounts of marijuana for recreational use, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, including neighboring Minnesota, Illinois and Michigan.
"I really hope that we see some real interest from our Republican colleagues in working on this issue," Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer, a Democrat from Racine, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in December. "We know that both medical and recreational marijuana legalization are very popular."
The Marquette University Law School poll most recently asked about the subject in January last year and found 63% of respondents support legalizing marijuana. That level of support is similar to 2022 when Marquette asked the same question, but support reached as low as 42% in a 2014 poll.
In the January poll, 86% of those surveyed said medical marijuana should be legal in Wisconsin with a doctor's prescription. That's only the second time the question has been asked in the poll's history. In 2019, support for medical marijuana was at 83%.
A 2023 state analysis estimated Illinois collected $36 million in tax revenue from Wisconsin residents purchasing marijuana in the Land of Lincoln where cannabis is legal.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has included in three state budget proposals plans to legalize marijuana in Wisconsin, but Republican lawmakers who control the state Legislature have rejected the idea during the budget-writing process. LeMahieu said Sunday lawmakers would do the same while crafting the 2025-27 state budget by removing "all policy" from the budget proposal Evers gives them.
Vos said in December that he still prefers a medicinal marijuana model with state-run instead of private dispensaries — an idea that many Republicans dismissed last year — in order to avoid recreational legalization in Wisconsin.
"A red line for us is that we do not want, like it has in almost every other state, medical marijuana to lead to recreational marijuana," Vos said. "I think there is a legitimate, compassionate purpose for medicinal, I don't really see any reason for recreational."
A spokeswoman for Vos did not immediately react to LeMahieu's recent comments on the idea.
In December, Senate President Mary Felzkowski said there's "really one person that has seemed to be an obstacle to the medical marijuana bill passing" who "has some pretty strict ideas on how that bill should be drafted," referring to Vos.
Felzkowski, who has repeatedly proposed measures to legalize marijuana use for medicinal purposes, said "there were a lot of really good things" in the proposal from Vos and Assembly Republicans, but creating state-run dispensaries was a sticking point for Republicans in both chambers.
"We're hoping to have a conversation in early January to see if there isn't a way that we can come to a consensus between Assembly Republicans and Senate Republicans to negotiate a compromise, and maybe move a medical marijuana bill this session," Felzkowski said at the time.
But Vos told the Journal Sentinel he would "probably not" be willing to remove the state-run dispensaries idea from a future bill but is "open to listening" to other proposals that would still prevent opening the door to recreational marijuana.
Vos also told WISN-TV in December he may consider proposing legislation to an age restriction on legal THC products, including delta-8, that have similar effects as marijuana. In May, he told the Journal Sentinel he would support banning it altogether but did not expect Democrats to be on board.
Two Democrats told the Journal Sentinel they oppose banning delta-8 but raised concerns about the lack of oversight of the fast-growing industry. They noted hemp producers and processors are looking for the government to step up with regulations.
"(It's) not a very regulated industry. We don't really know what's in it, and that's not a good thing. So I hope that we are able to have a really rigorous conversation," Neubauer told the Journal Sentinel.
In his December interview with the Journal Sentinel, Vos said he hopes lawmakers can "at least try to find a consensus."
"This idea that you would have cannabis-infused drinks for sale in every convenience store and grocery stores across the state, I don't think that's right. But I certainly don't think it's right for kids," Vos said.
Hope Karnopp of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.
Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.
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