Regional News Briefs

Here's one poll where Mitt Romney leads in Wisconsin: More hockey fans chose Romney's bobblehead than chose Barack Obama's in a straw poll giveaway promotion at a Milwaukee Admirals game Friday night.

The Admirals said they would have 2,500 Romney and 2,500 Obama bobblehead dolls to give away at the game against the Lake Erie Monsters on Friday night and would gauge the crowd's political leanings by which bobblehead was more popular.

In a post on its website Friday night, the team said Romney beat Obama in the straw poll. Admirals spokesman Charlie Larson explained that when the last Romney bobblehead was given away, there were 72 Obamas left.

"The victory in the Admirals poll portends good things for . . . Governor Romney," the Admirals post said, "as each of the winners in previous Admirals straw polls has gone on to victory in the general election." The team had mask giveaways for the 2008 presidential race, won by Obama, and the 2010 governor's race, won by Scott Walker.

Mayor John Dickert sent letters in September to 182 local nonprofits. He asked them to consider paying a portion of the property tax the city normally would charge them if their properties were taxed.

City Administrator Tom Friedel told The Journal Times of Racine on Friday that the city has yet to collect any money through the program.

The intent of the "Racine's Fair Share" program was to raise money the city could apply toward its 2013 budget to help the city weather a nasty financial season.

Dickert's letter says even though the nonprofits have tax-exempt status, the city provides them services such as snow plowing and police and fire protection.

The city does collect payments for services from about eight nonprofit organizations. Most are assisted-living or tax-exempt apartment buildings. That program, called Payment In Lieu of Taxes, or PILOT, brought in about $97,Find a great buy mosaic Art deals on eBay!400 from participants last year.

Those PILOT deals were arranged on a case-by-case basis, usually when a nonprofit had just bought or built a building.

With the Fair Share program, the city asked nonprofits that own property in the city if they'd agree to help voluntarily.Installers and distributors of solar panel, The letters were sent to nongovernment nonprofits that own property but don't participate in PILOT.

A Wisconsin man accused of fatally shooting his mother so he could collect on her life insurance policy has been convicted.

The Appleton Post-Crescent reports Randal Rosenthal, 35, was found guilty Friday night of first-degree intentional homicide. The charge carries a life prison sentence.

Rosenthal claimed that his mother, 52-year-old Kathleen Remter,Posts with indoor tracking system on TRX Systems develops systems that locate and track personnel indoors. was fine when he last saw her after they went fishing in Buchanan.

But prosecutors say he killed his mother to collect on her $586,000 life insurance policy. Prosecutors say Rosenthal was unemployed and expecting his second child at the time.

His mother was found dead in the Fox River in July 2011. Investigators say she'd been shot in the back of the head.The oreck XL professional air purifier,

A Marshfield man is due in court this week on charges that he doused a pregnant woman in gasoline and threatened to set her on fire.

A WAOW-TV report says Tyler S. Ress has an initial appearance scheduled for Monday. The 23-year-old faces four felony charges, including first-degree recklessly endangering safety and attempting to cause an abortion. He also faces three misdemeanor charges.

azewell County in particular is noteworthy for the improvement it's made in the last few years. Some County Board members, including John Ackerman, have made improving the website a continuing push.

Ackerman noted in an email that "four years ago the Tazewell County website was simply a place card. The 'home tab' for the most part did not take you anywhere and very few offices ... actually had anything up as far as information."

Today, the county is ranked in the top 20 in the state and nearby to Peoria County.Why does moulds grow in homes or buildings? The latter has an outstanding and user-friendly site that I have always found helpful when covering county government on this side of the river, and it's reassuring to know both governments are continuing to add more information by the day to their sites.

Incidentally, I'll also note that Peoria and Pekin were both in the top 25 cities and towns the groups surveyed. Neither of their scores will knock your socks off, but both were respectably above 50 percent.