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The Wisconsin Legislature's budget committee recently voted in favor of raising fees for state parks even higher than what Gov. Scott Walker had originally proposed, with Republican lawmakers overpowering Democrats in the 12-4 vote. Gov. Walker originally proposed a budget plan for the state which would have put an end to funding public parks with taxpayer dollars, requiring the parks to subsist entirely on individual fees and corporate sponsorships, according to the Green Bay Press Gazette. Walker's proposal would have raised annual entrance fees for state parks by $3 and camping fees for forest camping sites by $2, to make up for the lack of government funding. Wisconsin Joint Finance Committee member Sen. Toward Marklein, R-Spring Green, took Walker's plan one step further with a revi...

With summer weather arriving in New Jersey, officials in Atlantic City and along the Jersey Shore are making a pitch for re-centering the area as a major tourist spot. Mayor Don Guardian said last week that the city will host Jerry Seinfeld, Madonna, Bob Dylan, Boyz II Men, Ricky Martin, Wanda Sykes and other high-profile celebrities this summer, and that at least 84 headliner concerts have been planned. There might be one not-so-small interference with tourists’ inclination to enjoy the beach and splash around in the water, however: a 16-foot, 3,456-pound great white shark named Mary Lee spotted just 10 miles off the Jersey Coast. “Cape May might be just the ticket after a long swim,” read a post on the shark’s Twitter account (since being tagged by scientists off Cape Cod in September ...

Tuscumbia, AL is widely known for being the hometown of Helen Keller and the Alabama Music Hall of Fame. These days, however, Tuscumbia's residents are too concerned with flooding to think about their city's rich legacies. For Mattie Smith, who lives on Gail Street, the flooding is so severe that after a heavy rainfall, it looks like her house is surrounded by a moat. The floods have also forced Theresa Richards to replace the floor in her Madison Avenue home’s utility room several times. According to an April 28 Florence TimesDaily article, homes and yards all across the city are flooding -- and it's largely due to a rising number of business and housing developments, whose concrete surfaces give fewer opportunities for rainwater to seep into the ground. And solving the issue isn't a...

Thanks to California's historic -- and worrisome -- drought, it's no longer about who has the nicest or priciest home on the block, it's about who has the most sustainable setup. That's right, the Jones' have gone green. Sustainable and eco-friendly landscape designs are all the rage nowadays, but what if you actually got paid for creating one for your home? That's exactly what's happening to Sacramento homeowners who are incorporating water conservation into their home's landscaping. The city hopes the cash incentive will encourage homeowners to conserve water. Thanks to Sacramento's new River Friendly Landscape program, homeowners can receive a 50 cent per square foot rebate from the city if they replace their existing yards with drought resistant landscaping. Homeowners are also eligi...

A Chicago couple recently received a $325,000 settlement from the City Council after sewage water flooded their basement and destroyed their vintage vinyl collection in July 2012. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Joseph and Debbie Bruce's basement flooded during a city water main break, the result of city negligence. Joseph Bruce, an avid music lover and record store owner, lost more than 30,000 items from his collection of music-related items, including rare vintage vinyl records, posters, CDs, tapes and more during the flooding. When asked why the Bruces received so much money to recover from the damage of their basement water leaks, Corporation Counsel Stephen Patton called Bruce's record collection "unbelievable," appraising it at a value of more than $500,000. "Although we do no...

Kansas' Osawatomie State Hospital may be freezing admissions in the near future as they attempt to finish mandatory updates and renovations. Medicaid and Medicare funding are in jeopardy, as Federal regulators threaten to cut the hospital off if conditions do not improve. An inspection in October found the facility to be in unsafe condition and operating 25% over capacity. The Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services will be spending $3 million to make the required renovations. The jeopardized funding makes up approximately 25% of the hospital budget, so it is crucial that the obligatory remodeling is completed. Additionally, here are some last-minute things to do around the house before a new baby arrives! Specifically, the hospital will be updating the ceiling, beds, and bathr...

Police in Coral Gables, Florida are investigating a hit-and-run accident that has left a bicyclist dead. The yet-unidentified cyclist was found by a Coral Gables police officer less than a minute after the crash around 3:13 a.m. on March 26th. The officer stopped to administer aid, but the victim had already died. At first, it was not apparent that the death was the result of a crash, but the officer found a battered bicycle and a shoe four blocks from the cyclist's location. Marks on the ground near the bicycle indicated a vehicle's involvement. The cyclist was found with a backpack, but no identification. Police believe he was not a University of Miami student, due to his age. Kelly Denham, spokesperson for the Coral Gables Police Department, told the Miami Herald that the cyclist is n...

UPDATED 12/22/20 Portland is known for keeping things weird, but this year's Starlight Parade Grand Marshal takes weird to a whole new level. It's an anthropomorphic carpet, complete with plastic eyes, a seat belt, and a baseball cap. Portland airport PDX announced earlier this year that the iconic carpet would be removed and replaced. The carpet itself was teal with a pink and blue geometric pattern, and its replacement sparked nostalgia and mourning for many Portland residents, for whom the sight of the carpet meant that they were home. https://www.youtube.com/embed/yRKuBHFhz4o According to NCB affiliate KGW, the Portland Rose Festival Foundation announced that a rolled up and vaguely humanized rolled up section of the beloved PDX carpet will serve as the grand marshal for ...

The residents in Portland residential complex Morrison Park Apartments encountered quite an unpleasant surprise last week when the building's basement inexplicably became flooded with sewage -- about four inches of it, in fact. The apartment complex, located in the historic Whitmarsh Building at 623 S.W. Park Avenue, reportedly starting filling up with sewage sometime in the afternoon of Monday, March 9th. When emergency maintenance crews responded to the scene, they found that the building's 6,000-square-foot basement had been flooded with about 4,500 gallons of sewage. According to Linc Mann, the spokesman for the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services, the building's manager called in a private plumber to investigate the situation initially, and then proceeded to call the city's ma...

Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island are working together in order to gain cheaper renewable energy for their taxpayers. The West Hartford News reports that the three New England states have agreed to work together by issuing a joint request for proposals (RFP) for clean energy projects. Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection spokesman Dennis Schain said that the states released a draft for the RFP on Wednesday, March 4th. The draft will be reviewed until March 26th and a final draft will be released later in the spring. Schain mentioned diversifying New England's fuel mix and improving winter compatibility systems as other key priorities for the RFP. Issuing an RFP is "the way we can make the most efficient use of our resources to attract new clean energy pr...