News 06.06.17
6 June 2017 News
Authorities in eastern Wisconsin are searching for a 29-year-old inmate who escaped from prison. Oshkosh police say Dennis Tharp was reported missing by staff at the Winnebago Correctional Center around 6:30 p.m. Sunday. No one was injured in the escape. Police say Tharp is believed to be with a female and he has ties to the Milwaukee area. Tharp was serving time at the prison on drug and weapons charges. His tentative release date was scheduled for December 2019. Authorities say Tharp is not considered a threat to the public but anyone with information regarding his whereabouts is urged to call police. An investigation into Tharp’s escape is ongoing.
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A Democratic state lawmaker from Oshkosh says it may be in the state’s best interest to settle with the creditors of financially-troubled UW-Oshkosh Foundation. The private foundation doesn’t have enough cash to cover $14.5 million in debt. State representative Gordon Hintz says he agrees with Regent Michael Grebe who says a potential agreement would protect UW System assets if the foundation can’t pay back its loans. Sen. Steve Nass says use of taxpayer money would amount to a bailout of the foundation’s debts. The Department of Justice is negotiating the settlement on behalf of the UW System and Board of Regents. A UW spokeswoman says a settlement with the foundation would not affect the system’s lawsuit against former top officials at UW-Oshkosh which alleges they illegally transferred $11 million from the campus to the foundation.
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A Fond du Lac man convicted of driving drunk eleven times is sentenced to 4½ years in prison. Steven Johnson will also serve five years of supervision once he’s released from prison and perform 75 hours of community service. Despite 10 prior drunken driving convictions, police say Johnson had a valid drivers’ license when he was arrested Jan. 1 after a crash in downtown Appleton. A breath test showed Johnson had a blood alcohol level more than three times the legal limit.
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Crews have recovered the body of a third worker from the rubble of a corn mill that exploded in southern Wisconsin. Didion Milling says the body of packing machine operator Pawel Tordoff was retrieved Sunday afternoon. The company says Tordoff’s body was found on Friday, but that recovery was delayed until engineers determined it was safe to send crews into the site. The explosion occurred Wednesday at the plant in Cambria, about 45 miles northeast of Madison. The blast leveled most of the plant and sent 11 other people to hospitals. At least five remained hospitalized Sunday. Crews recovered forklift driver Robert Goodenow’s body late Thursday and found mill operator Duelle Block dead shortly after the explosion. The cause of the blast has not yet been determined.
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University of Wisconsin-Madison is receiving more applications from international students as nearly 40 percent of colleges across the country report receiving fewer such applications. Campus officials say the university received about 900 more applications to join its fall 2017 freshman class from overseas, an increase of 14 percent from the previous year. Enrollment deposits are also up by 5 percent. Many college admissions officers have feared a “Trump effect” of a growing sense of hostility toward outsiders and tighter restrictions on a popular visa program for foreign workers would make the U.S. less appealing to international students. UW-Madison officials attribute the admissions increases to joining the Common Application, an application process they say makes it easier for students to discover and apply to the university.
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The Legislature’s hunting committees are set to vote this week on a bill that would establish a woodchuck hunting and trapping season. Both the Assembly and Senate’s sporting heritage committees are scheduled to vote on the Republican-authored measure on Wednesday. The bill would remove woodchucks from the state’s protected species list and establish a hunting and trapping season for them that would run from July through December with no bag limits. The proposal’s authors, Rep. Andre Jacque and Sen. Tom Tiffany, say the creatures are plentiful and are destroying gardens and undermining building foundations with their burrowing. The Alliance for Animals, the Humane Society and the Sierra Club’s state chapter have all registered against the bill. The Wisconsin Wildlife Federation has registered in support.
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