Wisconsin
Wisconsin women’s basketball searches for answers after slow start leads to loss to Minnesota
Wisconsin women’s basketball plans bounce back after Minnesota loss
UW’s Serah Williams and Ronnie Porter spoke with reporters following a 59-50 loss to Minnesota about how the team plans to rebound from the defeat.
MADISON – This game of catch up isn’t working for the Wisconsin women’s basketball team.
For the second straight game, a slow start laid the foundation to a Big Ten loss. Tuesday in a New Year’s Eve late afternoon matinee at the Kohl Center the Badgers didn’t have a basket in the first quarter when they fell behind by as many as 21 points.
The result was an uphill climb for the final 30 minutes and in the end a 59-50 loss to Minnesota.
The recipe for defeat included 14 turnovers, seven in each half. Wisconsin also got out-worked on the boards and continued to struggle to get opportunities from three-point range.
As a result the Badgers (10-4 overall, 1-2 in the Big Ten) are searching for answers after getting off to the program’s best 12-game start in 15 years.
“It really starts in practice, everyone coming in hungry,” junior guard Ronnie Porter said. “Our last two games weren’t our best two games. Obviously you’ve seen from the beginning of the season until now a lot has changed and what we were good at we’re not doing now and it’s given us the results we’ve gotten these last two games.”
Wisconsin’s four-game winning streak over the Gophers snapped
Serah Williams, a 6-foot-4 junior forward, finished with 16 points on 7-for-15 shooting and grabbed 11 rebounds. Porter posted 13 points on 4-for-12 shooting, grabbing eight rebounds and dishing out four assists.
Minnesota (14-1, 2-1 Big Ten) never trailed. Three Gophers reached double figures including former Kettle Moraine standout Grace Grocholski, a 5-10 sophomore guard who finished with 12 points, went 2 for 5 from three-point range, and grabbed five rebounds.
Minnesota has played without standout Mara Braun (foot) but even without the 6-foot junior guard the Gophers had plenty of size inside and length across its lineup to make it difficult for Wisconsin to move the ball, get off passes cleanly and clean the boards as well as it would like.
“Honestly I think the biggest thing for us is we’ve killed people on the boards. We had four offensive rebounds (today)” Badgers coach Marisa Moseley said. “For us that is not our game. We’ve got to be able to go get second- and third-chance opportunities, getting to the free throw line.
“Starting down 19 points (after one quarter), you’re not going to win many games like that. I’ll take responsibility. We’ve got to have better starts,”
At Indiana, the Badgers trailed by as many as 15 points in the first quarter before an 11-0 run allowed them to cut the lead to four. The Hoosiers led by 19 at the half.
Tuesday Minnesota enjoyed runs of 10 and 13 straight points in the first quarter. Wisconsin settled into the game in the second quarter, but never enough to pull closer than 13 points. The halftime deficit was 17.
UW had a few chances in the fourth quarter to pull to within 10 but the outcome was never in jeopardy down the stretch.
Cutting turnovers, increasing three-pointers key to improving
As Wisconsin tries to get back on track, two areas will be key.
* Turnovers. Williams finished with six to lead the Badgers for the second straight game. Porter had four for the second straight contest.
Williams has been getting smothered in the paint, which has caused her to attempt a lot of passes through traffic.
“I just think I’ve got to be more patient with it and see the thing develop,” she said.
* Three-point shooting: At one point this season the Badgers had a run of four straight games with at least 20 three-point attempts. Thursday marked fourth straight game they didn’t reach that mark.
UW had 12 attempts against Indiana, six less than its season average, and was on track for that total in the first half Tuesday before going 3 for 11 in the second half when they were playing catch up.
“We know how good we are and how good we can be,” Porter said. “These games just show us what we need to work on. We play in one of the best conferences in the country so it’s just about how we respond and be as one while respond.”
Upcoming Big Ten schedule filled with challenges
Porter isn’t kidding about the Big Ten.
Up next is a trip to west coast to face Oregon on Saturday and Washington on Tuesday. After that comes two games against opponents ranked in the USA Today coaches poll – vs. No. 7 Maryland Jan. 11 and No. 9 Ohio State Jan. 16 – before back-to-back road games at Nebraska Jan. 20 and Minnesota Jan. 26.
“You can’t ride that rollar coaster and be so high then get so low,” Moseley said. “We’ve got to find that midpoint to say, how do we dissect this and how do we get better.
“We’ve got three months to figure this thing out. I told them that’s a lot of time and for us to continue to grow. We’ve made big leaps, but we obviously still have a long way to go to really become the team we want to become.”
Wisconsin
Insider: Wisconsin Man Charged With Possession Of Virtual Child Pornography
POLK COUNTY (DrydenWire) – An investigation by the Wisconsin Department of Justice, Division of Criminal Investigation, into multiple cybertips from Google about suspected child sexual abuse materials has resulted in felony charges for a Wisconsin Man.
Cody Struemke, age 27, of Amery, WI, is facing nearly a dozen charges for possessing child pornography, including Felony Possession of Virtual Child Pornography.
The criminal complaint against him alleges that Struemke saved a photo from Facebook of juveniles known to him, and digitally edited the photo to make it appear they were nude.
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Wisconsin
Wisconsin health professionals share tips to protect against respiratory illnesses
MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) -Respiratory illness season has begun in Wisconsin, with health professionals reporting increased flu cases and higher demand for medications and vaccines.
Over-the-counter medicines are flying off the shelves at Forward Pharmacy in McFarland, according to manager Tony Peterangelo.
“We’ve had to increase like how much of some of that stuff we’ve kept on hand,” Peterangelo said. “We had to make some special orders to really bulk up on some of it too.”
Upland Hills physician Benjamin Hecht said the respiratory illness season typically begins after Thanksgiving.
“As of right now, we are just starting in the last week or two to see some Influenza A. Last year was a pretty tough flu year for us, influenza in Wisconsin. It’s still to be seen how severe of a year this is going to be in 2025-26,” he said.
Respiratory viruses are hard to avoid according to the Upland Hills physician.
“You can wear masks and wash your hands a ton, but you’re going to get exposed to these viruses at some point,” Dr. Hecht said.
RSV poses concern for young children
Dr. Hecht said another concern this season is RSV, particularly for young children with developing immune systems.
“The kids that get this, especially the really young kids, that don’t have a mature immune system, they can get pretty sick from RSV. That’s a particularly scary one. If you’re in a position where you qualify to get that vaccination or perhaps your kids do, please consider that,” Dr. Hecht said.
Forward Pharmacy is meeting demand for vaccines, which Peterangelo said can help protect against viruses.
“All of that stuff reduces the need to scramble on the back end to get antibiotics and cough suppressants. It doesn’t completely reduce your risk, but it reduces it enough that your likelihood of getting that is down,” Peterangelo said.
The pharmacy has given out dozens of flu and covid shots in a day.
“I would say maybe in the 60 to 80 range,” Peterangelo said.
Dr. Hecht said influenza B will come later in the season. He recommends people with severe respiratory symptoms like breathing troubles to see a doctor.
“The big thing is just living a healthy lifestyle, staying well hydrated, getting good sleep, doing what you can with physical activity and exercise to make sure your immune system is in tip top shape,” Dr. Hecht said.
According to new CDC data, doctor visits for flu-like symptoms rose to more than 3% in the last two weeks. The majority of flu cases are caused by a mutated strain that causes more severe illness, particularly among older adults.
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Wisconsin
Former Trump aides appear in Wisconsin court over 2020 election fraud charges
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Two attorneys and an aide who all worked on President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign appeared in court Monday for a preliminary hearing in Wisconsin on felony forgery charges related to a fake elector scheme.
The Wisconsin case is moving forward even as others in the battleground states of Michigan and Georgia have faltered. A special prosecutor last year dropped a federal case alleging Trump conspired to overturn the 2020 election. Another case in Nevada is still alive.
The Wisconsin case was filed a year ago but has been tied up as the Trump aides have fought, unsuccessfully so far, to have the charges dismissed.
The hearing on Monday comes a week after Trump attorney Jim Troupis, one of the three who were charged, tried unsuccessfully to get the judge to step down in the case and have it moved to another county. Troupis, who the other two defendants joined in his motion, alleged that the judge did not write a previous order issued in August declining to dismiss the case. Instead, he accused the father of the judge’s law clerk, a retired judge, of actually writing the opinion.
Troupis, who served one year as a judge in the same county where he was charged, also alleged that all of the judges in Dane County are biased against him and he can’t get a fair trial.
Dane County Circuit Judge John Hyland said he and a staff attorney alone wrote the order. Hyland also said Troupis presented no evidence to back up his claims of bias and refused to step down or delay the hearing.
Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the allegations.
The same judge will determine at Monday’s hearing whether there’s enough evidence to proceed with the charges against the three.
The former Trump aides face 11 felony charges each related to their roles in the 2020 fake elector scheme. In addition to Troupis, the other defendants are Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney who advised Trump’s campaign, and Mike Roman, Trump’s director of Election Day operations in 2020.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice, headed by Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul, brought the felony forgery charges in 2024, alleging that the three defrauded the 10 Republican electors who cast their ballots for Trump in 2020.
Prosecutors contend the three lied to the Republicans about how the certificate they signed would be used as part of a plan to submit paperwork to then-Vice President Mike Pence, falsely claiming that Trump had won the battleground state that year.
The complaint said a majority of the 10 Republicans told investigators that they were needed to sign the elector certificate indicating Trump had won only to preserve his legal options if a court changed the outcome of the election in Wisconsin.
A majority of the electors told investigators that they did not believe their signatures on the elector certificate would be submitted to Congress without a court ruling, the complaint said. Also, a majority said they did not consent to having their signatures presented as if Trump had won without such a court ruling, the complaint said.
Federal prosecutors who investigated Trump’s conduct related to the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot said the fake electors scheme originated in Wisconsin.
The Trump associates have argued that no crime took place. But the judge in August rejected their arguments in allowing the case to proceed to Monday’s preliminary hearing.
Trump lost Wisconsin in 2020 but fought to have the defeat overturned. He won the state in both 2016 and 2024.
The state charges against the Trump attorneys and aide are the only ones in Wisconsin. None of the electors have been charged. The 10 Wisconsin electors, Chesebro and Troupis all settled a lawsuit that was brought against them seeking damages.
___
This story has been corrected to show that the attorneys who are charged formerly worked on Trump’s campaign, but are still practicing attorneys.
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