Wisconsin
Suspected Venezuelan gang member arrest may give Trump fodder in Wisconsin
The recent arrest of a suspected Venezuelan gang member in Wisconsin may give former President Donald Trump, who has long stoked fears of migrant crime, fodder at his upcoming rally in the state on Saturday.
Trump, the GOP presidential nominee in November’s election, is set to hold a rally Saturday afternoon in Mosinee, Wisconsin, which is about a three-and-a-half-hour drive northeast of Prairie du Chien where Alejandro Jose Coronel Zarate, a 26-year-old Venezuelan, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Thursday, following allegations of physical and sexual violence.
The Prairie du Chien Police Department wrote in a Facebook post on Friday that Zarate had allegedly been “physically and sexually violent” toward a woman in an altercation that also left a girl injured. Zarate was arrested and taken to the Crawford County Jail. ICE was notified and placed a detainer on Zarate.
Zarate is suspected of being affiliated with the transnational gang, Tren de Aragua, who are known for criminal activities including murder, kidnapping, extortion, as well as drug, weapons, and human trafficking.
He was booked into jail for domestic disorderly conduct, two counts of domestic battery, strangulation/suffocation, physical abuse to a child, disorderly conduct and two counts of second-degree sexual assault. Zarate also had warrants through Dane County, Wisconsin, for strangulation/suffocation, false imprisonment, battery and disorderly conduct.
Trump—who has amplified anti-migrant rhetoric since his first run for president during the 2016 election cycle when he called Mexican migrants “rapists” who are bringing in drugs and crime—may use Zarate’s arrest to back up his continued claims that migrants are dangerous criminals that the U.S. needs to keep out as his campaign has done before.
Meanwhile, the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute, said in a May 2024 article: “Numerous studies show that immigration is not linked to higher levels of crime, but rather the opposite…When looking specifically at the relationship between undocumented immigrants and crime, researchers come to similar conclusions.”
Newsweek reached out to Trump’s campaign via email for comment on Saturday afternoon.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
On July 24—three days after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, who is now the Democratic presidential nominee—Trump campaign senior adviser Danielle Alvarez blamed Harris for the massive influx of illegal immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border seen in recent years.
“Border Czar Harris owns the bloodbath at the southern border, including the rape, murder, and brutal assault of women like Rachel Morin and Laken Riley. Try as they might, Kamala and her allies can’t change reality: she is responsible for the flood of migrant crime and deadly fentanyl into our country, and Americans will hold her accountable when they vote for President Trump in November,” Alvarez said in a statement.
Laken Riley was a 22-year-old nursing student who was killed in Athens, Georgia, while on a run last February. The suspect in her murder, José Antonio Ibarra, is a Venezuelan illegal immigrant. Meanwhile, Rachel Morin, a 37-year-old mother of five from Maryland, was allegedly raped and murdered by 23-year-old undocumented migrant Victor Martinez Hernandez while out for a run in August of 2023.
In 2021, Biden tasked Harris with leading the administration’s diplomacy with Central American countries—El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras—to address the “root causes” of migration. However, she never was in charge of border security. While illegal immigration has gone up significantly under Biden, it also increased in Trump’s last months in office after hitting a low from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Laurel Burleson, a Dane County chef, thinks ugly apples make the best dishes.
One of her goals as a chef and restaurant owner is to save usable produce from the waste bin.
“I know how hard (Wisconsin farmers) work every day, making these products that are delicious and nutritious and for anything to get thrown away just because it’s not aesthetically perfect is just outrageous,” said Burleson, owner of Ugly Apple Cafe.
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The latest fruit monitoring report from the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows many parts of the state having great harvests, although northeastern Wisconsin orchards suffered from a cool spring. But most apple orchards are busy with the fall harvest. So what do you do with that abundance of apples?
Burleson shared some recipes and her philosophy on cooking with WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.”
This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Rob Ferrett: What do you like to do with apples apart from just eating them?
Laurel Burleson: One that I really like to do is making apple marmalade. That is shredding apples and preserving them in sugar so that they keep their structure. It’s kind of the opposite of making applesauce.
But we also make a lot of apple sauce and apple butter. That’s a good way to use a lot of apples all at once.
RF: What goes into making apple butter?
LB: Very basically you make applesauce, so just cook down your apples and blend them up. Then you take that applesauce and cook it extremely slowly, either in a slow cooker or in the oven. Cook it down until it’s dark and rich and more closely resembling a peanut butter than applesauce.
From there, you can put in whatever spices you want: cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, bay leaf. You just have to be careful because whatever you start with in the big batch will get super concentrated and reduced in your end product.
RF: With applesauce or apple butter, do we have to be fussy about the type of apples? Or can we mix and match?
LB: I like to mix and match, especially because the apple season starts really early. Some years you can get the first season apples in July.
They don’t hold very long and they’re very juicy, so they break down really easily, but they are very tart. I like to get some of those early season apples and make them into applesauce and freeze them and then when I have other sweeter varieties later I mix them and then reduce that all down into butter.
RF: You shared a savory recipe with us for pork chops with apple bacon cabbage. Tell us a little bit about this recipe.
LB: It’s really fun for the fall and even into the winter. You can kind of use any kind of variety of apple that’s a little bit tart and it’s OK if it breaks down and blends in because the cabbage is going to maintain its structure.
If the onions and apples melt away into a delicious sauce it’s just fine. But also, if you end up with some apple pieces, then it’s a nice little surprise like a little sweetness.
The Ugly Apple Cafe operates cafes inside the Dane County Courthouse and the City County Building in Madison and sells its products at the Monona Farmers Market.
While the Wisconsin Badgers struggle on the football field, sitting at a disappointing 2-2 through four weeks, some of the program’s former transfers continue to find success.
One of those players is tight end Riley Nowakowski, who transferred to Indiana this offseason after five years with the Badgers. The Milwaukee, Wisconsin, native originally walked on to the program as an unranked outside linebacker. After playing sparingly during his first few seasons with the Badgers, he flipped over to fullback in 2022, then out to tight end after Phil Longo arrived in 2023. Nowakowski totaled 18 receptions for 131 yards and a touchdown from 2023-24; his two years as a primary offensive contributor.
The former Badger is already making significant progress toward those totals, now just four games into his Indiana career. He has four catches for 72 yards and a touchdown, plus one carry for a one-yard score. The versatile fullback/tight end delivered the highlight play of his career during Indiana’s blowout win over Illinois on Saturday, taking a 1st-down screen pass 43 yards to the house.
Wisconsin, meanwhile, has received solid contributions from Montana State transfer tight end Lance Mason. The veteran has 14 catches for 177 yards and two touchdowns to date, leading the team in each of those respective categories.
While Mason has been one of the Badgers’ few bright spots through four weeks, it’s hard to ignore Nowakowski’s emergence as one of Indiana’s dependable offensive playmakers.
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Get ready for an overall warmer stretch of weather as we head into this upcoming workweek. After some fog lifts this morning, we’ll have plenty of sunshine today with highs in the mid to upper 70s along the lake and low 80s inland.
Tonight will be dry with lows in the low 60s lakeside and upper 50s inland.
Monday through Wednesday should be very similar, with upper 70s to near 80 near the lake and low to mid 80s inland with plenty of sun.
We’ll start to bring in chances of showers or a T’storm starting Thursday right on into the weekend.
WATCH: Southeast Wisconsin weather: Dry Today, Warm Workweek Ahead
Southeast Wisconsin weather: Dry Today, Warm Workweek Ahead
TODAY: Any fog lifting through the morning, then becoming mostly sunny.
High: 77 lakefront… 83 inland.
Wind: E 5-10 MPH.
TONIGHT: Mostly clear.
Low: 62.
Wind: ESE 3-8 MPH.
MONDAY: Mostly sunny.
Highs: 78 lakefront… 83 inland.
Wind: ESE 5-10 MPH.
TUES: Mostly sunny and warm.
High: 80 lakefront… 84 inland.
WEDS: Mostly sunny and warm.
High: 81 lakefront… 85 inland.
THUR: Partly cloudy with a chance of a shower
or T’storm.
High: 80.
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