News 11.07.16
7 November 2016 News
House Speaker Paul Ryan and Mike Pence are set to share the stage at a Wisconsin rally to help incumbent Republican Sen. Ron Johnson in his tight re-election battle. Pence was to appear at the Saturday rally in Mukwonago, a southeastern Wisconsin village about 30 miles south of Milwaukee. Pence is coming as Johnson is making a late push to hold onto his seat in a close race against Democratic former Sen. Russ Feingold. Polls show the race to be about even. Pence’s appearance with Ryan comes after the Indiana governor refused to say whether in a National Review interview whether he would back Ryan as speaker. Ryan on Friday said he intends to seek the post again. Ryan has angered some conservatives by refusing to campaign with Trump.
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Wisconsin’s long campaign season is finally about to end. Voters will go to the polls Tuesday to cast their ballots for president, picking between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump. The businessman enters Election Day as the underdog. A Republican presidential candidate hasn’t taken the state since Ronald Reagan and the latest Marquette University Law School poll shows Clinton with a six-point lead and a 39-point lead among early voters. The other high-profile race is for U.S. Senate. Democrat Russ Feingold is trying to reclaim the seat he lost to Republican Ron Johnson in 2010. The Marquette poll shows that race is about even. Voters also will determine who takes an open congressional seat representing northeastern Wisconsin and which party will control the state Assembly and Senate.
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A state system to track prescription painkillers in Wisconsin to prevent abuse shows a nearly 10 percent drop in the number of opioid prescriptions written and filled compared to this time last year. Wisconsin Public Radio reports Wisconsin’s Controlled Substance Board recently published its first quarterly report on the prescription drug monitoring database, which was established in 2013. Gov. Scott Walker calls the findings “very encouraging.” The report does not say what percentage of doctors, dentists or pharmacists check the database, but officials say its use has steadily increased. Doctors will be required to check it next year. The Wisconsin Medical Society’s chief medical officer, Donn Dexter, says the organization is working to educate physicians on the database and get them ready for the mandates.
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A small fountain that usually doesn’t operate in a Janesville park is running again after being mostly dry since the 1990s. The fountain in Riverside Park has provided water for the past few weeks. It’s not gushing, but the well, which was drilled as a park amenity and public water source in the late 1930s, has water freely flowing. The fountain operates on its own because the 1,000-foot-deep aquifer that powers the well has no pump. Janesville parks director Cullen Slapak says the fountain’s operation is unpredictable. He says it won’t run if there isn’t enough pressure to force the groundwater out of the well’s pipe. The Friends of Riverside Park officials say they’ve had on-and-off discussions about restoring the fountain for the past decade, but that other projects needed immediate attention.
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The Department of Corrections has agreed to pay $300,000 in a settlement with an inmate at Wisconsin’s youth prison who waited nearly two hours for a nurse after a guard smashed his toes in a door. The state acknowledged no fault in the September settlement agreement, which was released Friday. While transferring an uncooperative teenage inmate to a new cell, a guard shoved the inmate into the room and slammed the door. The teen’s foot was caught against the jamb. It occurred in November 2015 at the troubled Lincoln Hills School for Boys. Records show it took an hour and 45 minutes for a nurse to arrive at the cell. A department spokesman says the state has since altered rules on medical responses, provided better training for staff and added body cameras.
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