Saturday State News Briefs: Confirmed case of mumps on Marquette campus

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MILWAUKEE - Marquette University officials say any student who was at the Union Sports annex between 3 and 11 p.m. last Tuesday should monitor their own health symptoms until the end of the month.

One student at the university has been diagnosed with a confirmed case of the mumps. The case is said to be isolated and the student lives off campus. Symptoms students should look for include swelling of the salivary glands in the cheek and jaw area, fever, fatigue, weakness or pain with chewing or swallowing.

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The parents of a 14 year old Milwaukee boy are in jail, accused of giving him the gun he used to kill 27 year old Dennis Smith Junior last month. Forty-two year old Jammie Lewis Yerks and 35 year old Chacette M. Buchanan are being held in the Milwaukee County Jail. Smith and the boy were reportedly arguing the morning of August 18th when Smith reportedly brandished a hand gun, then pushed the teenager twice. An onlooker called Yerks, who drove to the scene and handed a gun to Buchanan, who then passed it on to the boy. Witnesses say he fired several shops. An autopsy discovered nearly two dozen entrance and exit wounds. Two weeks after the fatal shooting, the three were arrested in Menasha.

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There wasn’t much change in the property taxes paid by Wisconsin residents last year, but the Wisconsin Taxpayer Alliance reports the news wasn’t nearly as good in Dane County. People living there had the highest bills in the state, up four and a half percent. The owner of a median home in Dane County paid a little over 48 hundred dollars in property taxes in 2011. Seventeen of the states 72 counties actually reduced property tax rates. Dane County was one of only five increasing those rates by more than three percent. The Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance reports median property taxes in Dane County, home of the state Capitol, have gone up by nearly 33 percent in the last decade.

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The Capitol singers were back in the rotunda yesterday – without a permit. No citations were handed out this time. Earlier in the week, about a dozen people were ticketed for singing and failing to have the permit new Capitol Police Chief David Erwin had said was necessary. They were cited for disrupting a Red Cross blood drive. State Representative Chris Taylor says she has spoken with Chief Erwin, but the status of the singers wasn’t clarified. Organizers of the sing-along say they will keep returning to the rotunda.

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The U.S. and Canada say they will increase efforts to reduce pollution around the Great Lakes, clean up contaminated sites and work to stop invasions by exotic species. The two countries have announced the renewal of a 40 year old environmental pact. The updated Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement means both nations will continue the initiative started when the lakes were poster children for ecological decay. The new version of the agreement includes language on recent challenges which have emerged like climate change, the loss of wildlife habitat and the assault by invasive species like the Asian carp.

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Biology teacher JoAnn Miller has been chosen Wisconsin’s High School Teacher of the Year. She was recognized at a school assembly yesterday, with the award presented by State Schools Superintendent Tony Evers. Miller credited her students and her parents, for giving her a sense of curiosity and a desire to learn. Miller will get three thousand dollars from the Herb Kohl Education Foundation. She is one of four Wisconsin Teachers of the Year named this week. Then, one of those four will be selected to represent Wisconsin for the National Teacher of the Year honor. Miller has been teaching in Oconto since 2006.

Tags: news, wisconsin, health