Waukesha
Paul Bucher, Waukesha County's district attorney since 1988, will run against incumbent Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager for Wisconsin's top law-enforcement position.
\The Wisconsin Department of Justice has many fine people but it's clear the agency needs a new mission and voice at the top,"" Bucher said in a statement. ""I feel compelled to run. The state's top law enforcement officer should be holding people accountable, not holding press conferences about self-described 'terrible choices.'""
Lautenschlager came under fire last year both for her drunken-driving arrest and for her personal use of a state-owned car.
Madison
The state's budget shortfall jumped $88 million above predictions made two months ago, according to a new report released by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau Tuesday.
The deficit is due largely to the Ho-Chunk tribe's unwillingness to pay $60 million that the state expected as part of the gaming compacts Gov. Jim Doyle announced in 2003. Those compacts were voided by the state Supreme Court last year. Before the court made its judgment, however, other Wisconsin tribes already had paid portions of gaming compacts.
The rest of the shortfall comes from tax and general appropriations estimates that were inaccurately estimated in the report from two months ago.
The state is holding ongoing negotiations of new gaming contracts, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported Tuesday.
Rockville, Md.
A high-ranking Prince George's County, Md., school administrator has been arrested in connection with a multimillion-dollar drug ring based in Virginia that distributed large amounts of cocaine and marijuana, law enforcement authorities said Tuesday.
Pamela Y. Hoffler-Riddick, an assistant superintendent in charge of 35 schools, was arrested at her home in Rockville, Md., at 6 a.m. Monday by U.S. customs officials, authorities said. She later appeared at U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Va., and was charged with five counts of money laundering. She was released without bond.
Hoffler-Riddick was one of more than 30 people named in a 267-page indictment that capped a two-year investigation led by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement with help from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Hoffler-Riddick, 43, is accused of using proceeds from the drug ring to pay off loans for a car and two homes.
