• News tips, submissions
• Questions, comments
• Contact webmaster

• Pastor charged with embezzlement
• Healed eagle released over rivers
• UW-Madison student succumbs to meningitis
• State considers limiting access to online court records
• Powerball prize tops $100 million

A pastor in La Crosse is criminally charged with embezzling 200-thousand dollars from the Catholic Diocese and two parishes in nearby Crawford County. 59-year-old Reverend Robert Chukwu has dual citizenship in the U-S and Nigeria. And prosecutors said he gave cash to a nun, priests, a family, and a school in Nigeria from 2007-through-last year.

Chukwu also allegedly sent a 40-foot container to Nigeria with 100-thousand dollars worth of candle-sticks, artificial flowers, and more. He's free on a signature bond, but he cannot leave Wisconsin. A preliminary hearing is set for February 15th, when a Crawford County judge will decide if there's enough evidence to order a trial for felony embezzlement.

Authorities said Chukwu bought his merchandise on a debit card with insurance money from the heavy floods in southwest Wisconsin in 2007. Officials said he also made cash withdrawals from the debit card, and sent the money to Nigeria. Prosecutors said they found a large stack of money in Chukwu's parsonage. An accounting firm eventually discovered the missing cash from the diocese and Catholic churches in Gays Mills and Soldiers Grove. That's where Chukwu served before he was recently transferred to La Crosse.

The injured bald eagle found near Wascott last year has been released into the wild.

A motorcycle rider found the eagle on the side of the road six months ago. He wrapped it in his leather jacket and took it to the Duluth Zoo, which named the eagle Harley.

After recuperating for several months, Harley was released yesterday along the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers on the Minnesota-Wisconsin border. That's an area where many eagles spend the winter.

Harley is said to be completely recovered from his broken wing and lead poisoning. He had been helped by the University of Minnesota Raptor Center in St. Paul.

A memorial service was held Feb. 3 at U-W Madison for a student who died from bacterial meningitis. Neha Suri, 22, was ill for just over a week before she died yesterday at U-W Hospital.

She was a senior from Singapore who was majoring in political science and journalism. Suri wrote for the campus Daily Cardinal, and was an intern at the State Capitol.

Doctor Sarah Van Orman of University Health Services said the case does not cause a public health risk. Several people in close contact with Suri were given anti-biotics to keep them from getting sick.

The Assembly State Affairs Committee reached a 3-to-3 deadlock Feb. 3 on a bill to limit people's access to the state's online court records. Panel chairman Fred Kessler broke the tie by voting to send the measure onto the full Assembly.

The bill would remove pending cases from public view, as well as those not ending in a conviction. The online court records are viewed up to four million times a day.

Supporters of the bill say employers and landlords discriminate against those who are charged but never found guilty. Media and freedom-of-information groups oppose the bill. They say taxpayers deserve to know what their courts are doing and that the bill insults everyday people by assuming they have no sense of fairness.

All court records would still be available at courthouses; court officials, law enforcement and journalists would still have access to all the online data.

Meanwhile, players are buying tickets for another lotto game that starts this week in Wisconsin. Mega Millions is played like Powerball, but the drawings are on Tuesdays and Fridays. Jackpots begin at $12 million; a player in Texas won Friday's jackpot of $144 million.