Friday, April 25, 2025
Thursday, April 24, 2025
It's a boy: New baby camel born at Milwaukee County Zoo
Jim Higgins
A male camel calf was born April 20 at the Milwaukee County Zoo. The Zoo showcased its newest resident in a gender-reveal video posted on Facebook and X.
He weighed 99 pounds at birth.
The baby boy has not been named yet; the Zoo is still determining how it will name him.
After a checkup on April 21, the Zoo declared "mom and baby are doing well." He explored the outdoor camel habitat with his mom for the first time April 23, a Zoo publicist said in an email message.
This new Bactrian camel joins his sister Leilani, born May 20, 2023, at the Zoo to mother AJ (Addie-Jean) and father Stan. AJ also delivered calves in 2017, 2019 and 2021; they went on to live at other zoos.
From: https://www.jsonline.com/story/life/2025/04/24/new-male-camel-born-milwaukee-county-zoo/83247650007/
42-year-old pleads not guilty in child pornography case
Caroline Neal
RACINE — A 42-year-old Racine man facing more than 20 charges related to child pornography pleaded not guilty during an April 23 hearing.
In March, Edgar Cruz was charged with one count of possession of drug paraphernalia; one count of intentionally possessing a child sex doll; one count of sex offender fail/update information; and nine counts of possessing child pornography.
On April 16, Cruz was charged with 12 additional counts of possessing child pornography.
According to a criminal complaint, investigators with the Racine County Sheriff’s Office started looking into cyber tips that included Kik and Reddit accounts using a single IP address.
A warrant return on the Kik account reportedly revealed multiple images or videos of child pornography.
Investigators connected the tips to an address in the 800 block of Berkeley Drive, where they learned Cruz had previously lived.
They also learned that Cruz was currently being supervised by the state Department of Corrections, following a conviction of second-degree child sexual assault.
On March 3, investigators searched Cruz's current residence in the 1700 block of Grange Avenue, located near a school playground.
Previous Journal Times reporting indicates that during the search, RCSO investigators reportedly found an object believed to have been molded to resemble a small child. Cruz also reportedly said that his DNA would be on the object.
Wednesday, April 23, 2025
I wasn't expecting emotional reaction to Pope Francis' death. Yet it was there. | Opinion
Kristin Brey
Since putting down roots in Milwaukee and especially since becoming a mother, I’ve felt a deeper urge to live in service of others, to build community, to find shared meaning
When I woke up on Easter Monday, I certainly did not expect that the first piece of news would be that Pope Francis died overnight.
I took it as a good sign that he was feeling well enough to bless thousands of people on Easter Sunday and had even managed to summon the strength (and patience) to meet with Vice President JD Vance after successfully dodging him just a day prior.
So when I read the news of his passing, I wasn’t expecting any kind of emotional reaction. I was raised Catholic, but it’s been decades since I’ve identified as such.
And yet, there it was. A subtle twinge of something.
Not grief, and not guilt (despite the aforementioned Catholic upbringing). More like reverence, maybe even reflection on losing a spiritual leader who, in many ways, represented both the best parts of what Christianity instilled in me, and stirred a recent, cautious curiosity I’ve had about finding my way back to church.
Sunday Mass was non-negotiable part of growing up
Like so many of my fellow Wisconsinites, Catholic school and Mass on Sunday (or sometimes Saturday evening) was a non-negotiable foundation of my childhood. I spent many services squirming in a pew, mentally checking off each part of the service like mile markers on a long road trip and always quietly asking my parents if we could leave after Communion (which usually was only granted if the Packers were playing).
I never really felt “God” in those pews. I felt bored.
By the time I was in high school, other members of the congregation might have assumed my piety since I was often reciting the First Reading or singing in the choir. But that wasn’t me taking religion seriously. That was me taking any chance I got to perform on a stage very seriously.
Eventually, my parents’ insistence on attending every Sunday softened — especially after the Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigation of sexual abuse by Catholic priests. We became Christmas and Easter Catholics. Then, not even that. And with their detachment, any tether I had to the church disappeared altogether.
Because, as I got older, my issues with Catholicism became sharper and deeper — and more complex — than simply not “feeling anything.”
It was the hypocrisy. The performative rituals. The judgment. The sexual abuse. The inability to reconcile Catholic views with my personal politics. And simply the fact that the Vatican could sell just one piece of art and feed a staggering number of people in need and yet consistently makes the choice to not.
Catholicism that was preached not what I saw church practice
So much of what I’d been taught about Jesus at Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish in the 1990s — his compassion, humility, radical love — felt completely absent from the Church I saw in practice as an adult.
Then in 2013, there was a new Pope who, within months of his selection, answered a reporter’s question about gay priests with, “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?”
Now that was a different clerical tone than any Catholic kid had ever heard before.
Over the next 12 years, Pope Francis consistently made headlines as the living embodiment of everything I hoped Christianity could stand for. He reminded me of the Jesus I learned about in religion class as a child — the one who fed the hungry, cared for the sick, sheltered the homeless, loved fiercely, and, yes, even befriended prostitutes (although in fairness, I learned that one after Catholic school).
Pope Francis hosted lunches on his birthday for people living in poverty. He personally washed the feet of prisoners, immigrants, Muslims and women. He openly criticized both the “new tyranny” of unfettered capitalism and the “idolatry of money."
He condemned the greed of wealthy nations for creating the conditions of climate disaster. He relentlessly used the most powerful pulpit on Earth to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. He insisted priests could bless same sex couples and made the decision to invite a group of trans women to the Vatican for pasta, meatballs and tiramisu.
Pope Francis embodied love, humility and fearless inclusion
Everything I have learned, read, and shared about Pope Francis in the days since his death paints the picture of a man whose actions embodied love, humility, and fearless inclusion. He dedicated his life to transforming the Catholic Church into an institution characterized by compassion and an ethos defined by "welcoming the stranger."
He reminded me not of why I left the Church, but of what I always wanted it to be — and what I might still be longing for.
Since putting down roots in Milwaukee and especially since becoming a mother, I’ve felt a deeper urge to live in service of others, to build community, to find shared meaning. Maybe even reclaim some of that moral grounding that religion can offer. I wouldn’t say Pope Francis alone sparked this renewed curiosity to reconnect with a faith community, but he gave shape to it. He offered an example of what Christianity could be: tender, humble and radically kind.
As we mark his passing, I don’t mourn Pope Francis as a spiritual father. But I do mourn him as something even more rare: a quiet revolutionary, gently shaking an ancient institution and nudging it toward compassion. He was a bridge, not just between faith and doubt, but between the weight of tradition and the urgency of transformation.
For many of us who slipped away from the Church, he represented the kindness we were always looking for. The kindness many of us still strive to embody.
Even without the incense. Even without the pew.
Kristin Brey is the "My Take" columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
FBI investigating allegations Milwaukee County judge tried to help undocumented defendant avoid arrest
In an email to judges, Chief Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Carl Ashley said agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement came to the Milwaukee County Courthouse on April 18 with an arrest warrant. But his note made no mention of Dugan or a federal investigation into her conduct.
ICE spokesperson Alethea Smock declined to comment.
"We have no information to provide at this point," Smock said in an email.
FBI officials did not respond to calls or emails.
The Journal Sentinel reached out to Dugan by phone, at her courtroom and via email in recent days. In an April 22 email, Dugan said, "Nearly every fact regarding the 'tips' in your email is inaccurate."
Conservative talk show host Dan O'Donnell was the first to report on the most recent incident.
According to Ashley's April 18 email, ICE agents showed up at the courthouse in the morning and identified themselves to security. They then went to the sixth floor, where Dugan's courtroom is located.
"They were asked whether they had a warrant, and the agents presented the warrant as well as their identification," Ashley's email says. "They were asked to go to Chief Judge's office. They complied. … They presented a warrant, which we copied."
Ashley said the ICE agents were asked to wait until the court hearing had concluded. All of the agents' actions, he said, "were consistent with our draft policies, but we're still in the process of conferring on the draft."
Earlier this month, Ashley said the ICE arrests at the courthouse were not unprecedented. He then assured county officials that he was working on a policy that is both legally strong and permits access to the courthouse complex.
As of last week, a draft copy of the policy was circulated among judicial system partners and was to be released soon, according to Ashley.
Ashley's April 18 email does not mention the name of the defendant or whether the individual was ultimately arrested. Court records list only one case on Dugan's calendar for that date, but it was scheduled for 1:30 p.m., not when ICE arrived in the morning.
Early on April 21, Dugan wrote a one-sentence response to Ashley's email.
"As a point of clarification below, a warrant was not presented in the hallway on the 6th floor," Dugan wrote.
Questions raised about administrative warrant vs. judicial warrant
That prompted Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Marisabel Cabrera to say in a later email to the other judges that her understanding was that ICE agents had presented an administrative warrant, not a judicial warrant.
Margaret "Maggie" Daun, a talk show host and general counsel for Civic Media, said there is a significant difference between a judicial warrant and an administrative warrant.
"A judicial warrant is issued by a federal court based on probable cause and permits law enforcement to enter premises that are not public and search to seize property or arrest someone subject to the protections of the 4th Amendment," said Daun, who previously served as Milwaukee County's chief legal officer. "An ICE or administrative warrant is issued by an ICE official and is not required to meet the requirements of the 4th Amendment," which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.
Daun said people can refuse to allow agents to enter or search a property if they only have an "immigration" warrant and not a valid judicial warrant signed by a judge.
"You do not need to open the door or permit entry or a search when presented only with an ICE or so-called 'immigration' warrant," she said.
In her email, Cabrera raised concerns about how the chief judge is planning to respond to warrants from immigration officials under his draft policy.
"If the proposed protocol is to accept these warrants, I find it problematic," wrote Cabrera, who was elected in 2024. "In effect, the protocol seems to merely facilitate ICE arrests in a manner that is quiet and least disruptive to us. On the other hand, the protocol gives the illusion to the general public that steps are being taken in the courthouse to prevent ICE overreach."
Cabrera, a former immigration lawyer and Democratic lawmaker, said federal immigration agents have made "grave errors" in their arrests, made false allegations and blatantly violated the U.S. Constitution.
"I have serious concerns about publicly giving the appearance the protocol is somehow making it safe for folks to come to court when in fact they may still be arrested by ICE and deported to a brutal detention center in El Salvador," she wrote.
Cabrera said the public should be aware that they're assuming this risk when they come to the courthouse.
"I cannot in good conscience support a protocol that gives the impression that it was created to do something about how ICE conducts its business in the courthouse, where all the protocol does is to require ICE to check in with the Chief Judge first and then proceed as they wish."
Courthouse arrests raised concerns about access to justice system
Following the earlier arrests at the courthouse, county officials and stakeholders have expressed concerns about the impact ICE's presence has on immigrants' accessing the justice system and other services at the courthouse.
Darryl Morin, national president of the advocacy group Forward Latino, said he is still trying to get information about the incident, but he stressed the "significant difference between presenting an administrative warrant and a judicial warrant," which is signed by a judge.
He added that Republican and Democratic presidents in the past have strongly discouraged sending ICE agents to conduct immigration enforcement actions at "sensitive sites" like courthouses, churches, and schools. Sending ICE agents to courthouses, for example, is creating doubt and mistrust of the judicial system, "and, by extension, law enforcement and public safety," Morin said.
On April 22, state Rep. Bob Donovan, R-Greenfield, expressed outrage in a news release that Dugan may have helped an undocumented immigrant evade arrest from federal agents.
“In all my years of Milwaukee politics and public safety issues, working with cops, district attorneys, and judges, I have never seen a more irresponsible act by an officer of the court, let alone a judge, if true," said Donovan, a longtime Milwaukee alderman. "This borders on obstruction of justice and I hope the FBI continues a thorough investigation and, if warranted, prosecution to the fullest extent of the law."
Dugan is still hearing cases. Her docket is full the rest of this week, online court records show.
Dugan was elected to Branch 31 of the Circuit Court in 2016 by knocking off an appointee of Republican Gov. Scott Walker and primarily handles misdemeanor cases.
Before that, the University of Wisconsin law school graduate practiced at Legal Action of Wisconsin, Inc. and Legal Aid Society, Inc. as a litigation attorney and in law firm administrative positions.
Her current judicial term expires in 2028.
Alison Dirr of the Journal Sentinel contributed.
Free pet vaccination event set for May 3
Holly Gilvary
The Wisconsin Humane Society will host a large-scale pet vaccination event for cats and dogs from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 2200 Domanik Drive. The event’s rain date is scheduled for Saturday, May 10.
WHS has held similar events at parks in Milwaukee in ZIP codes with the city’s highest poverty rate to reduce barriers to accessing services for pets, according to City of Racine documents.
The Racine Common Council approved the request for the event at its April 2 meeting.
Woman charged in connection to Best Buy theft
Caroline Neal
MOUNT PLEASANT — A 50-year-old Chicago woman has been accused of participating in thefts at Best Buy locations across the country, including in Mount Pleasant.
Sylwia Rybicka was charged in connection to a Dec. 13, 2024, theft at Best Buy, 2710 Green Bay Road.
Rybicka faces one count of felony retail theft for intentionally taking merchandise whose value exceeds $500 but does not exceed $5,000, as party to a crime.
If convicted, the maximum penalty is a fine of up to $10,000, imprisonment of no more than three years and six months, or both.
According to a criminal complaint, a Best Buy representative reported that two people allegedly concealed three laptops and left without paying.
The value of the merchandise was about $2,200.
The Best Buy representative provided surveillance video to the Mount Pleasant Police Department, which forwarded the footage to US Customs and Border Control.
Investigators reportedly found similarities between one of the people on the video and Rybicka, according to the complaint, and MPPD reportedly confirmed the person on the video was Rybicka.
According to the complaint, Rybicka and others are accused of being involved in 15 attempted or successful thefts at Best Buy locations in Texas, Iowa, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, Louisiana and Indiana throughout 2024.
A warrant was issued for Rybicka’s arrest in January and was served March 24, according to online court records.
A court official set a cash bond of $2,500 for Rybicka on Wednesday and she is scheduled to have a preliminary hearing April 2.
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