      |
MINOCQUA - Police in Minocqua want to find the people who spray-painted graffiti around town.
Police say two road signs in the Dam Road area of Minocqua were spray-painted. A bathroom near the Bearskin Trails also had graffiti.
The graffiti in each of those cases is almost identical. It has the letters N, W, and K spray-painted on.
WISCONSIN - A Common Cause in Wisconsin report shows fewer competitively close political districts in the state compared to just a few years ago.
The report shows that only one out of every 10 State Assembly and State Senate races were close enough to be considered competitive in the 2014 election.
Many political scientists only consider a race competitive if the final results fall within a spread of 10 percentage points (55 percent to 45 percent) or closer.
MILWAUKEE - Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says he will step into negotiations to finance a new downtown Milwaukee arena for the Bucks.
Walker told reporters Wednesday that he will participate in the negotiations in order to get a deal done quickly.
Walker said he would be personally involved in the talks Thursday in Milwaukee. He repeated that the city and county needed to play what he called "meaningful roles" to get a package that has a chance of passing through the legislature.
MADISON - Wisconsin Supreme Court justices have moved quickly to replace longtime Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson with Justice Patience Roggensack.
The move Wednesday came after results of a constitutional amendment removing seniority as the sole determinant of who is chief were certified and as a federal lawsuit seeking to delay implementation is pending.
Abrahamson's attorney Robert Peck says in a letter filed in a federal court that Abrahamson continues to believe she is still chief justice.
TOWN OF CRANMOOR - The Wood County Sheriff's Department says a man died after a logging accident in the Township of Cranmoor on Wednesday.
The Wood County Sheriff's Department received a call at 11:38 a.m. indicating that a tree had fallen on someone.
MEDFORD - Two trucks were damaged Wednesday morning after a gas leak fire in Taylor County, according to the Medford Police Department. The department says no one was hurt.
It happened in an alleyway around 9:30 a.m. on the 300 block between South Main and Second Street in Medford.
An environmental company was performing soil testing when they drilled into a gas line causing the gas leak and fire. Two trucks owned by the environmental company were damaged.
ANTIGO - Police in Antigo may blame warmer weather for seeing more stolen property lately. In the last few weeks, the Antigo Police Department has gotten more reports of stolen property, especially from cars and garages.
"We're seeing a lot of unlocked vehicles, a lot of unlocked garages," said Antigo Police Chief Eric Roller. "It makes things worse, because they're easy access for thieves to get into."
It may be tempting to leave cars unlocked in small northern Wisconsin communities like Antigo. But police officers want people to lock their cars. They also believe the public can make the biggest impact in stopping thefts.
ANTIGO - Only one person drives the electric car made by engineering students at Antigo High School. But when it's successful at competitions, the whole class takes pride.
Antigo students built the electric car from scratch. It needed plenty of planning, design, engineering, and building to come together.
"We have two batteries in the back that power pretty much everything. We have electrical going through," demonstrated Antigo High School senior Brandon Lowrie. "We have our acceleration. We have our brakes here. The brake system goes into the tire, just like a bike."
RHINELANDER - Last October, crews broke ground on an addition to the Rennes Health and Rehab Center in Rhinelander. It offers rehabilitative and skilled nursing services. This week, the new addition opened.
The addition has 23 new short term rehab and long term care beds. It also has an expanded dining room, and a lounge area.
The center can now accommodate 95 people.
MERCER - The Northwoods takes pride in being a place for people to learn more about nature.
The Iron County Land and Water Conservation Department shows the spirit of the north by teaching students about the unique environment we live in.
The entire eighth grade at Mercer enjoyed a day out on the lakes.
RHINELANDER - The Milwaukee Brewers own the worst record in Major League Baseball.
You could blame injuries to key players for their slow start.
Center fielder Carlos Gomez strained his hamstring in a game two weeks ago.
WAUSAU - A 15 year old Wausau teen charged in the stabbing death of a middle school boy will need to get a competency exam.
Prosecutors think Dylan Yang stabbed and killed 13 year old Isaiah Powell.
Yang was in Marathon County Court Wednesday.
MADISON - For now, the Wisconsin Supreme Court may not have a leader.
It's all because the results of the April 7th Wisconsin election were certified this morning.
That includes a constitutional amendment that gives justices of the state Supreme Court the ability to elect who will serve as chief justice.
MERRILL - A local athlete will head to Schaumburg, Illinois to play baseball in an independent minor league this summer.
Zach Wendorf, a left handed-pitcher from Merrill, has been working to fine-tune his arm for the season at the Riverside Athletic Club in Merrill.
Six-foot-five-inch, 250 pound, left-handed pitchers aren't too common in baseball.
TOMAHAWK - The School District of Tomahawk will search for a new district leader after unanimously accepting their superintendent's resignation Tuesday night.
Cheryl Baker has led the district after getting selected for the position in the summer of 2013. Now, the school board will likely turn to an outside organization to help find a new superintendent.
"The timing is such that trying to perform an effective search on our own, at this point and time, I have some real concerns about our ability to raise good qualified candidates," School District of Tomahawk Board Member Mark Schlegel said.
SUPERIOR - Authorities say an explosion and fire at a Superior oil refinery poses no danger to the public.
Superior Fire Chief Steve Panger says the explosion happened in an empty asphalt tank at the Calumet Oil Refinery just before 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, and the fire was contained to that tank. The fire burned residual material in the 30-foot-wide tank.
WDIO-TV reports the fire sent a plume of smoke that could be seen from nearby Duluth, Minnesota.
RHINELANDER - The middle school band at James Williams Middle School in Rhinelander got a pleasant surprise one day from an anonymous donor.
"They told me that we had been given $500 to spend specifically on music stands, and of course that was a wonderful surprise for me," said Band Director Adair Sexton.
The band's music stands are out of the 1970s, some even falling apart.
Stands can cost $40 or more a piece, and the students were excited when the new ones arrived.
MADISON - The Wisconsin Badgers football program likes to recruit players from Wisconsin and develop them into good football players.
One player from Medford has an opportunity to use that strategy to make an impact on the offensive line in 2015.
The offensive line only returns two starters.
WINCHESTER - Centuries ago, men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln walked through the woods with compasses and chain links. They helped plot the American wilderness as America's early land surveyors.
On a spring day in Vilas County, land surveyor Tony Jones' mission is similar in many ways.
"Today's quest is to locate the markers that define the state line between northern Wisconsin and the southern part of the U.P.," he says.
WAUSAU - The 41 year old Wausau man accused of having sex with a young girl will get a new lawyer.
Prosecutors say Christopher Burns pushed the child into a bathroom and forced her to have sex with him in October.
He faces two felonies for sexually assaulting a child.
PHELPS - Some Northwoods homes don't work well for people who use wheelchairs.
The Phelps community wanted to make sure that wasn't the case for D.J. Johnson.
A construction site accident left Johnson paralyzed from the waist down. While he's been in the hospital, volunteers have been renovating his home to make it wheelchair accessible.
LAC DU FLAMBEAU - Lac du Flambeau leaders will host their first Gathering of the Native Americans convention this Tuesday through Thursday at the Lake of the Torches. The event will address suicide prevention, drug use, and the overall health of the community.
It will run from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day.
MADISON - A seventh case of the deadly bird flu virus has been detected in Wisconsin.
The latest case, reported Tuesday by the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, was found in a 108,000-turkey flock in Barron County. It is the third reported case in Barron County.
All seven cases have been reported over a 15-day period beginning on April 13. About 1.3 million birds are affected.
CHICAGO - Federal investigators say the Chicago Transit Authority shares in the blame for an accident last year in which a commuter train operator fell asleep and crashed into a platform at the O'Hare airport station, sending the lead car barreling up an escalator.
The National Transportation Safety Board completed its investigation Tuesday and made nationwide safety recommendations, including that all U.S. transit agencies consider the effects of operator fatigue when preparing employee schedules. The board also pressed for transit agencies to install new control systems that automatically apply a train's brakes and prevent collisions if a driver fails to act.
WAUSAU - Eighty-one Wisconsin veterans are back home from the trip of a lifetime.
They all participated in the 19th Never Forgotten Honor Flight to Washington, DC.
The flight took place on the fifth anniversary of the first flight.
MADISON - Republicans have quietly introduced three bills that would require food stamp users to buy healthy food and applicants for state job training programs and unemployment benefits in certain fields to undergo drug screening.
Rep. Robert Brooks' bill would require food stamp users to use at least two-thirds of their monthly allotment to purchase nutritional foods.
They would be banned from purchasing crab, lobster or shrimp.
TOWN OF SKANAWAN - A pair of proposed gravel pit mines could significantly change one area in Lincoln County. The mine sites would cover approximately 125 acres in the Town of Skanawan, southeast of Tomahawk. Experts believe the area has an extremely rich deposit, but some people worry the project will hurt the environment and grow larger than what the county could approve.
Wally Horabik and his wife live on 20-plus acres along County Highway S in the Town of Skanawan. Horabik says he was raised in southern Wisconsin but wanted to live in the rural north someday.
"We always wanted to get out in the country," Horabik said. "That's where I was. We built the barn and we were going to get animals, and we did."
GREEN BAY - 70 people need a new place to stay after a fire at a Green Bay apartment complex.
All residents of the Sand and Sun apartments evacuated safely.
The fire broke out about 2:30 Tuesday morning.
MILWAUKEE - Police have arrested four protesters who sat in the middle of a downtown Milwaukee intersection during a demonstration calling for more diversity at Marquette University.
Those arrested were among several dozen demonstrators who gathered Monday. Milwaukee police say two women and two men were arrested.
Police say the four face possible charges of disorderly conduct.
RHINELANDER - Fields of an invasive plant called phragmites stand all along Wisconsin's Lake Michigan shore. Invasive species workers hope most of the plants stay away from the Northwoods.
Workers chopped down a stand of phragmites on Monday. It stood on Highway 8 just west of Rhinelander. It had been chemically treated in the fall. Hopefully, that will help control the spread of the species.
"There was a lot of hope that kind of drawing that center line from north to south, that we could stop some of that invasion spreading westward," said Oneida County Aquatic Invasive Species Coordinator Michele Sadauskas.
