Advertisement 3 killed in 2 motorcycle crashes
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Three motorcyclists have died in two separate crashes in southeastern Wisconsin.
Two people on a motorcycle were killed Sunday night when they collided with a vehicle in the Waukesha County Town of Vernon.
Sheriff’s officials say both people were pronounced dead at the scene of the crash about 8 p.m. Neither victim was wearing a helmet.
Also Sunday, a 25-year-old man from Stone Bank died when his motorcycle crashed in Washington County about 2:30 p.m.
Authorities say the man was traveling on county Highway E with four other motorcyclists when he crashed on a curve. The man was wearing a helmet.
Information from: WTMJ-AM, http://www.620wtmj.com
Wis. Democrats vow strong push on new media
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin Democrats used their state convention to show off plans to use new forms of media to reach voters.
As the Democrats began to gather at a hotel in Green Bay on Friday, the party unveiled a Web ad that ridiculed the two Republican candidates for governor.
A camera crew interviewed party activists and shot footage to go up on YouTube. And of course, many of them constantly updated their Twitter feeds during the events.
Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate says increasing the party’s use of new forms of media is one of his top priorities.
He says the party must "make sure we’re taking advantage of every opportunity available to push our message."
Lion research continues in Black Hills
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A closer look at diet is the next phase in a study of mountain lions in the Black Hills, research that’s gone high-tech to learn more about an animal that few South Dakotans will ever see in the wild.
About 75 lions of both sexes and all ages now carry radio collars — that’s about one in four if the Game, Fish and Parks Department is on target with its estimate of 250 lions in the Black Hills.
About 270 have been collared during research that began in 1999 when it became obvious that the lions — also known as cougars or pumas — were at home in the Black Hills.
"You look at some of the other projects that have been done on cougars in the western United States and we’ve got a pretty phenomenal sample size ... it’s somewhat unheard of to have this many (collared) in one population," said John Kanta, regional game manager for the GF&P in Rapid City.
The collars — some that provide a lion’s up-to-the-minute GPS location — ultimately give the GF&P some sense of the size and health of the population by providing information on things like mortality, litter size and home range.
"The bigger the sample size we have, the better our information is," said Kanta.
The data are used in managing the population and recommending how many lions can be killed in the hunting season.
Wisconsin budget process done mostly in secret
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — For three minutes this spring, anyone from the public could show up at one of six hearings across the state to tell the Legislature’s budget-writing committee what they thought about the plan.
Then the doors shut.
Most of the real work of coming up with a two-year, $62.2 billion spending plan happened in secret, outside of public view.
And many of the parts that were public, like voting on changes that had been worked out by committee members in secret, were done late at night far after the time publicly stated for when the action was supposed to happen.
It didn’t get any better when the plan passed out of committee and went to Democrats in control of the Senate and Assembly. As they are allowed under state law, the caucus meetings where additional changes to the budget were debated were closed to the public.
Some of the biggest changes so far to the budget Gov. Jim Doyle introduced in February were added with no notice after secret discussions. Those included allowing illegal immigrants to get cards letting them to drive legally, imposing a new 75-cent fee on all phone users, and allowing oil companies to pass along costs of a new tax to customers at the pump, up to 4 cents a gallon.
If the public wanted a chance to see their elected officials on the budget committee in action, they had to have extremely flexible schedules.
