News 05.04.17
4 May 2017 News
A dairy group says the recent scare for nearly 60 Wisconsin dairy farms over a milk dispute with Canada shows the need for more capacity to meet a growing demand. Most of the farms desperately looking for new milk buyers found them before Monday’s deadline. The farmers were caught off guard after they were dropped by Grassland Dairy after Canada changed its dairy pricing policy to favor domestic milk. President of Pagel’s Ponderosa Dairy, John Pagel, says fortunately the industry “stepped up to the plate” so the farmers could find buyers, even though it was difficult.
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The state Assembly passes the last two pieces of a legislative package designed to fight opioid abuse. The first bill would allow involuntary commitment for addicts. The bill sets up the same process for them as for involuntary commitment of alcoholics. The other bill would ensure someone who suffers an overdose would be immune from probation or parole revocation if he enters a treatment program. District attorneys would have to offer a deferred prosecution that includes treatment if the person is subject to a possession charge. The bill’s provisions would last three years and one month. The Assembly passed the first bill on a voice vote Tuesday and the second moments later on a 97-0 vote. They now go to the Senate. The bills are part of an 11-bill package designed to curb opioid abuse. Both the Assembly and Senate have already passed nine measures.
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The plan was too “gouda” to fail. The Wisconsin Legislature agreed Tuesday to make cheese the official dairy product of the dairy-obsessed state, which produces more 3 billion pounds of cheese per year. That’s more than any other U.S. state. The state’s official animal is the badger, also the mascot of the University of Wisconsin. But its official domestic animal is the dairy cow, and milk is the official state beverage. The idea to give cheese its rightly place in state designations came from a fourth grade class in Mineral Point, a city in southwest Wisconsin that’s home to one of the state’s nearly 150 cheese plants. The Senate approved the measure Tuesday. The bill previously cleared the state Assembly, and Republican Gov. Scott Walker is expected to sign it.
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Local authorities say they spent more than $128,000 on overtime protecting their communities from a man they suspected would commit acts of violence with 18 firearms he stole from a Janesville gun store. Joseph Jakubowski was arrested in rural Vernon County April 14, ending fears over when and where he could possibly stage an attack. The Rock County Sheriff’s Office and police departments in Janesville and Beloit racked up the overtime costs. They don’t include those of the state and federal agencies that helped in the manhunt, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the state Division of Criminal Investigation and the FBI. Jakubowski is accused of stealing the weapons and sending a rambling, threatening manifesto to the White House before going on the run for 10 days.
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Democratic lawmakers have introduced a bill that would impose new regulations on deer farms in hopes of slowing chronic wasting disease. Under the bill from Reps. Dana Wachs and Nick Milroy, all deer farms would have to install electronic monitoring systems indicating when gates are open; non-whitetail deer farms would have to be fenced; fences would have to be inspected every two years; and all deer farms with CWD would have to double-fence or install electric fencing. The bill has little chance of passing given that Republicans control the state Assembly. A Department of Natural Resources advisory committee has suggested the agency require double- or electric fencing on CWD-positive farms in a new long-term CWD plan. Deer farmers have resisted tighter regulations and say double fencing is too expensive.
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