Thursday, 11.4
Less than a week after announcing it had fully committed to spending $810 million in federal dollars toward a high-speed rail line, Gov. Jim Doyle's office announces he's putting the brakes on it because of the election that shifted power to Republicans. Contractors say the move could force them to lay off employees or leave the state altogether.
The alternative rock band Garbage, one of Madison's claims to fame, confirms it is working on a new record after a five-year break.
Friday, 11.5
Andrew Cuomo, governor-elect of New York, sends a letter to Ray LaHood, U.S. Department of Transportation secretary, asking him to give New York the $810 million in federal funds allotted to Wisconsin for a high-speed rail project here. Illinois officials also gamely offer to take the money. Because who wouldn't want $810 million during a major recession to develop infrastructure? Oh, that's right...Wisconsin.
Saturday, 11.6
Someone fires multiple shots outside of Wiggie's Bar, 1901 Aberg Ave., but no one is injured. The City Attorney's Office, in response to this and other incidents, calls for an abatement plan at the bar, owned by Dane County Supv. David Wiganowsky.
Sunday, 11.7
A female student walking at UW-Whitewater is accosted by two men, pushed into a fence and called "gay." It's the second apparent crime directed against gays and lesbians at the campus this semester. "UW-Whitewater is a place that values all people," Chancellor Richard J. Telfer writes to students and faculty. "This incident goes against everything that we stand for as a campus."
Tuesday, 11.9
An explosion in a house in Sun Prairie kills 26-year-old John Manley and injures two other people. Officials say the explosion - which scattered debris a block away and forced the closure of a nearby school - was caused by a gas leak.
Michael Spiess, 23, of Madison is charged with seven counts of possession of child pornography, two counts of sexual exploitation of a child, and sexual assault of a child. Spiess was stopped for suspicion of drunk driving on Oct. 29, when police allegedly found him in possession of some 300,000 images on computer drives, including some that showed him in suggestive poses with possible victims. They also allegedly found children's underwear in his vehicle.
The trial of Curtis Forbes, 52, begins in Portage. He is accused of murdering his neighbor, Marilyn McIntyre, in 1980.
Wednesday, 11.10
Church bells ring around the Great Lakes to mark the 35th anniversary of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior. That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed when the gales of November came early.
Compiled (in part) from local media