Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Mario Costantini and his wife, Cathy, decided a rehearsal site for the Florentine Opera Company would be a good fit in the Riverwest neighborhood. Full Story »

Pandl's Restaurant in Bayside, a fixture on the North Shore since 1968, is closing, and the building will be converted into a synagogue and community center. Full Story »

City building officials locked and placarded a building at 2235-2237 N. King Drive where an illegal rave party took place over the weekend and ordered that the building remain vacant until the owner gets the required inspections and occupancy permit. Full Story »

Pfc. Amber Bahr of Random Lake heard someone yelling and ducked at the sound of gunfire, but she said she thought supervisors at Fort Hood were holding a drill last Thursday. She didn't know she was under live fire until she heard people screaming. In interviews aired Monday by NBC's "Today" and NBC Milwaukee affiliate WTMJ-TV (Channel 4), Bahr, 19, told of how she was shot in the back during ... Full Story »

Pandl's Restaurant in Bayside, a fixture on the North Shore since 1968, is closing. The restaurant announced Monday that it would close after brunch on Sunday. In an e-mail to customers, restaurant owners said, "We will miss you and the great honor it has been to serve the community." Full Story »

A vacant building at 2235-37 N. King Drive where an illegal rave took place over the weekend will be placarded by the Department of Neighborhood Services today at noon, Milwaukee police said Monday. The owner of the building, Paul Bachowski, was arrested by police and cited for a number of violations, including operating an unlicensed facility, said Anne E. Schwartz, Milwaukee police spokeswoman ... Full Story »

Madison — The U.S. Census Bureau is looking to hire 47,000 people for temporary jobs in Wisconsin next year. Most of the jobs, paying $11 to $15 an hour, involve going door-to-door to interview residents who don't respond to a questionnaire to be mailed prior to Census Day on April 1, 2010. The temporary employees will work in their own communities on evenings and weekends for about two to six ... Full Story »

At any given time, anywhere from 800 to 1,000 Milwaukee County children ages 12 and older are living under the supervision of the state-run Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare in foster homes, group homes or with relatives. A landmark 1998 study showed that Wisconsin teens who move out of foster care often end up homeless, get sent to prison or become the victims of violent crime. A follow-up ... Full Story »

Their stories started out the same. Both lost their mothers as infants. Neither knew his father growing up. Both were selling drugs by the time they were teenagers, uncontrollable wards of the child welfare system. For Ryan Banks, that system did nothing. For Darryl Sanders, it brought salvation. Full Story »

Fortunately, the law of gravity seems to apply to gas prices. The price of regular grade fuel in the Milwaukee area has dropped over the last 10 days after rising to levels that locals haven't seen since June. The average price of gas in the Milwaukee area Monday is about $2.64 per gallon, according to the price tracking Web site milwaukeegasprices.com. The local price was about $2.72 per gallon ... Full Story »

Amber Bahr of Random Lake said Monday that she thought supervisors were holding a training drill Thursday when an Army psychiatrist killed 13 of her fellow soldiers and shot her in the back. Bahr, 19, said Monday on NBC's "Today" that she's recovering. The bullet exited through her abdomen. One of Fort Hood's commanders hailed Bahr Friday for treating a wounded soldier without realizing that she ... Full Story »

A divided Milwaukee County Board worked late Monday night to try to craft a 2010 budget, after attempts to adopt a $20 wheel tax and a 4.4% tax levy increase failed. Full Story »

It wasn't easy, and it wasn't pretty. Diners at Bacchus on Sunday night ate with blindfolds on for a charitable event to benefit organizations that serve the blind and visually impaired. Full Story »

Federal and state regulators are planning to remove more than 4 million pounds of contaminated sediments from the Milwaukee River and Lincoln Creek at an estimated cost of $20.2 million. Full Story »

For the past seven months, two former Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops managers have been living out their dreams of running their own independent bookstores. But now, a third former co-worker is opening a store right between them - and, they contend, the new store isn't exactly playing fair. Full Story »

The video taken in the wee hours as a recent Sunday was turning to Monday lasted for 12 minutes and captured an array of unruly and lawless acts on S. 5th St., including a carjacking, multiple fights in the street and stopped cars blocking traffic. The tape, taken from surveillance cameras mounted on La Fuente Mexican restaurant, became exhibit A during a meeting last week called to discuss the ... Full Story »

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is a man of many competing demands - not all of them presidential. On Wednesday, he had yet another conversation with the White House political director about what it would take for Barrett to run for Wisconsin governor in 2010. Then it was on the road to two hours of parent-teacher conferences at Marquette University High School for his 17-year-old son, Tommy. Full Story »

Workers in protective suits equipped with hoses for fresh air will enter a 120-year-old brick sewer beneath Mitchell Park on Monday to begin removing a thick, jelly-like layer of soil and debris contaminated with toxic chemicals, Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District officials said. Federal environmental officials have agreed to a partial cleanup of polychlorinated biphenyls in the old brick ... Full Story »

U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold will give a free lecture at 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 14, in the fourth-floor Conference Center of the Golda Meir Library, 2311 E. Hartford Ave. Full Story »

City, farmers market bask in 71 degrees Only in Wisconsin would a record high temperature be recorded on the same day a new winter farmers market opened for the season. A high of 71 degrees was recorded at Mitchell International Airport on Saturday, breaking Milwaukee's record of 70 degrees for this date in 1945, according to meteorologist Scott Steele of WTMJ-TV (Channel 4). Full Story »

After nearly 15 years helping patients discharged from Milwaukee County's Mental Health Complex cope with life in the community, occupational therapist Kari Held faces an uncertain future and coping issues of her own. Full Story »

Earlier this year, a UW cancer specialist co-authored a medical article on TomoTherapy. The journal article said the author reported no potential conflicts of interest. But documents obtained from the university tell a different story. Full Story »

The only way President Barack Obama could have been any more indirect about his message on Wednesday in a speech at a middle school in Madison was by giving it in another state. He never mentioned Milwaukee, he barely mentioned Wisconsin. It might seem hard to be boring when you're talking about giving away billions of dollars to places that shake up their education systems, but Obama succeeded ... Full Story »

Recent headlines suggest the hype over President Barack Obama's $787 billion plan to stimulate a slumping economy may have been overblown. That's not surprising to me. Isn't hype always overblown? In local news, a Journal Sentinel review found a government stimulus job report that claimed more than 10,000 jobs were saved or created in Wisconsin was filled with errors that included double ... Full Story »

Life without soccer for Sergio Villagran would be miserable. Luckily for Sergio, he gets an equal dose of writing and soccer through a national program that made its way to Milwaukee five years ago and has expanded since. Full Story »