Free Republic

A new report by the the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources says that 11 people were arrested for being armed and drunk during the state's 2009 nine-day deer hunting season. Five of them were repeat offenders. Game wardens also arrested 29 convicted felons carrying firearms -- a big increase compared to previous years. It's not illegal for felons to purchase hunting permits in Wisconsin, but they can't carry guns. On the bright side, hunters managed not to kill each other this year, although a handful of them shot themselves or each other one way or another. Wisconsin DNR says the...

CHILTON, Wis. (AP) -- Two Wisconsin women accused of seeking revenge on a cheating lover by gluing his penis to his stomach have reached plea deals. Forty-eight-year-old Therese Ziemann, of Menasha, was accused of doing the actual gluing.

Six area churches in the Wolf River Region have voted in recent weeks to sever ties with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Two other churches have votes coming up, said the Rev. John Justman, bishop of the East-Central Synod of the ELCA in Appleton. All eight of the churches are in either Waupaca or Oconto counties. Justman said he thinks several of the churches will eventually leave the ELCA. “It makes me sad — they’re all special, and they’ve been good partners,” he said. “And if they do leave, we will wish them well. There’ll be sad feelings, not...

Chocolate-covered bacon, anyone? Food on a stick means kabobs on the grill, ice cream bars on the run, caramel apples for Halloween. You know where we’re going with this, right? Fair-weather fans crave oddball food during this time of year, and that can mean collecting sticks during all meal courses. The lines don’t begin and end at the Pronto Pup stand. Food-on-a-stick menus are getting fatter, embracing cotton candy and hot dogs to deep-fried Oreos and chunks of cheese. Expect more than three dozen choices when the Wisconsin State Fair opens Aug. 6 in West Allis, and the most outrageous...

WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) -- A central Wisconsin man charged with killing his daughter by praying instead of taking her to a doctor read from the Bible while testifying Thursday that he couldn't seek medical help without disobeying God

Monona Ald. Doug Wood is trying to make his city more chicken-friendly."The first reaction is they sort of laugh," Wood said of his constituents when they hear about his draft ordinance to allow Monona residents to raise chickens. Even he thought the idea sounded funny at first. But, after a number of sustainable-living enthusiasts egged him on, he took stock of other urban chicken laws across the country — including Madison's, approved in 2004 — and decided one might fit well in Monona. The proposal will be presented to the City Council at their next meeting Monday. The most recent...

Just a stone's throw from UW-Madison's seat of power on top of Bascom Hill is a place that melds old scientific methods with modern research that you likely have not heard of — The Wisconsin State Herbarium.The herbarium in Birge Hall is a collection of 1.1 million dusty, dried plant specimens, taped or glued inside manila folders and tucked inside row upon row of huge, vertical metal file cabinets protected with insect traps. Boxes of overflowing specimens sit in the hallways. Now the herbarium staff is trying to get more people interested in the vast collection housed there. "In a...

Madison, WI is on the verge of setting an all-time December snowfall record, and it could happen Friday. With a forecast for up to nine inches of snow Friday, the record of 35 inches set in 2000 could be toppled by Friday night. Anything over seven inches the rest of 2007 at Dane County Regional Airport will break the mark since the current snowfall total for December is right about 28 inches. The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm watch for Friday for southern Wisconsin including Dane County because a low pressure system expected to develop in the...

Wisconsin beer? I don't drink much brew, but my friends do. The Packers? What's not to like about 10-1? Wisconsin's deer hunting? Oh, my oshgosh, bi'gosh. As a first-time Wisconsin deer hunter last weekend, I'm not sure what's happened to the state's grand tradition, but my gut instinct says it's a mess. A mess? Well, one's first clue might be that the 2007 Wisconsin deer season requires a 55-page booklet of rules and regulations. The bulk of those pages has to do with chronic wasting disease, dealing with it, controlling it, etc., etc.

On one hand, you have images of classrooms stripped as bare as jail cells and teachers fined $109 a day for daring to display the alphabet. On the other, you have the frightening specter of fire climbing the walls of a classroom. Middleton, WI fire officials have photographic evidence of what happens when classroom displays go up in flames: When a former Sauk Trail Elementary teacher left a candle burning in her room in January 2004, the papers hanging on the walls burned the hottest. The controversy in Middleton over new fire-code requirements for schools has generated protests from angry...

(But competition isn't the only thing that draws her) West Allis, WI - When friends and family laughed at Sheila Bethia's decision to enter her baked goods for judging at the Wisconsin State Fair, Bethia's retort was simple, "I'll enter every year until I don't get a ribbon - then I'll quit." Thirty years later, Bethia, 60, has yet to come home empty. With more than 200 ribbons and 30 years of State Fair experience, Bethia's enthusiasm for the fair is contagious, a fever likely to be caught by thousands of Wisconsin residents as the fair opens its 11-day run...

An anti-crime initiative that put Milwaukee police on patrol in some of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods this summer received credit on Monday for a nearly 22% drop in non-fatal shootings as well as a decrease in overall homicides during 2007. "With the effort put forth on this initiative, the bad guys are starting to get the message: If we catch you, you are definitely going to jail," Milwaukee

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- A state senator accidentally drove over his young granddaughter Friday, killing her, the senator said in a statement. Sen. Dave Hansen said he was leaving to attend a meeting when his granddaughter ran out of the house and got behind his car. Hansen said neither he nor his wife knew the girl had run outside. The girl, Elliana Zaidel, was to have turned 2 on Wednesday. Hansen said he is in deep shock and attending to the needs of his family. The accident happened at Hansen's home in Green Bay at about 8:40 a.m. The toddler...

The 23 month old granddaughter of State Senator (D) Dave Hansen has died after being hit by a car outside the home of the senator on Coppens Road in Green Bay. Hansen's office has confirmed the death of Ellie Zaidel, releasing a statement that reads in part, " Senator Hansen was leaving to attend a meeting at approximately 8:40, when his granddaughter unbeknownst to either him or her grandmother, ran out of the house and behind his car and was struck as he was backing out of the driveway."

Milwaukee Police say a 33-year-old man has a broken tooth and cuts all over his face after a group of teenagers pulled him from his car and beat him following Milwaukee's Juneteenth celebration. It happened after the festival ended in the 3000 block of north 1st Street which is a short distance from the actual festival. Police say hundreds of teenagers started kicking the man's car. Today's TMJ 4 video from the scene shows the teenagers damaging at least several cars. The man who was pulled from his car was treated and released from a local hospital. Meanwhile, a few...

MILWAUKEE (AP) - An 11-year-old girl was sexually assaulted by as many as 20 boys as a 16-year-old girl watched and told her what sex acts to perform, authorities say in the latest mob attack to rock Milwaukee and set off another round of civic soul-searching. "It almost leaves me speechless. It is just senseless acts of violence. It is inhumane. It is embarrassing to the city of Milwaukee and its people. ... There should be outrage," Barbara Nuell-Moore, director of the neighborhood-improvement group Project Respect. The 16-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy have been charged in juvenile court in...

(AP) MERRILL, Wis. Authorities say a man reportedly trying to reconnect electrical service to a home was hit with 14,400 volts of electricity. The Lincoln County Sheriff's Department says the 36-year-old man then fell 30 feet from a ladder into the back of a truck. The Wausau man is in critical condition Sunday at the burn unit of University of Wisconsin-Madison Hospital. Authorities believe that Saturday he was attempting to illegally connect electrical service at a home in the Town of Corning. Wisconsin Public Service Corporation had shut off power to the home earlier in the week due to nonpayment....

KENOSHA, WI (AP) -- It might sound like a chocoholic's dream, but stepping into a vat of bubbling hot chocolate became a two-hour nightmare for a 21-year-old man Friday morning. Donovan Garcia, an employee of a Kenosha company that supplies chocolate ingredients, said he was pushing the chocolate down into the vat at Debelis Corp. because it was stuck. But it became loose and he slid into the hopper, becoming trapped nearly chest-deep in the hot, thick, dark chocolate. The chocolate was 110 degrees, hotter than a hot tub, said Capt. Greg Sinnen of the Kenosha Fire Department. "It was...

The Madison Police Department and the Dane County Tavern League are getting parts of their wish lists answered in the city's response to a rise in robberies. In a joint press conference held Thursday by Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and Police Chief Noble Wray, the recent rise in crime was blamed on too many bars, too many drunks and too few cops. The plan, which is coming together with the budget this fall, answers Wray's persistent call for more officers and freezes the number of bars downtown, which is something the Tavern League has been endorsing for years. Barb Mercer, president...

Caring for 48 seized pit bull dogs has cost the Dane County Humane Society more than $50,000 so far, but expenses could increase 10 times that amount if court action against the dogs' owner drags on. Humane Society Board President Cathy Holmes told The Capital Times today that it's costing about $6,000 a week to house and feed the pit bulls at the society's facility, 5132 Voges Road, and there's no end in sight. "This case could take up to a year and half," Holmes said. "There's not much we can do." The pit bulls were seized June 14 from...