Chippewa Herald-Telegram from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin • 1

mm II II I A TUESDAY September 5, 2006 Volume 136, Issue 202 Chippewa Falls, Wis. 500 r4 WEATHER Wednesday: Mostly sunny. High of 80. Thursday: Partly cloudy. High in the low 80s.

Get current weather vvjn ill 1 Ji "A iyf. Sturgeon Fest royalty Ei0BV3icici' By MARK GUNDERMAN The Chippewa Herald A warrant has been issued for the arrest of a Chippewa Falls man on a charge of attempted first degree intentional homicide for allegedly strangling his 1 7-year-old girl- friend and threatening to kill her. Michael B. Bell, 20, 732 Wilson has not been apprehended as of this morning, according to Chippewa Falls acting Chief of Police Wayne Nehring. He has been charged with attempted murder, physical abuse of a child, substantial battery and domestic substantial battery in a criminal complaint and Bell arrest warrant filed Friday afternoon.

According to the complaint: Bell resided at the Wilson Street residence with his girlfriend and her brother, James L. Dcmski, 23. Early Thursday morning, Aug. 3 1 police responded to a report of an assault that took place in which both the girl and Demski were injured. The girl told police that Bell had come home from work at about 12:30 a.m.

Thursday and saw a not from her about a warrant out for his arrest from his probation agent. Bell allegedly became angry and accused the girl of calling the police on him. Bell took his work boot and stomped on the girl's face, she told police. Bell accused her of cheating on him, punched her in the face and said they were all going to die that night. He grabbed her by the throat and started choking her, and also head-butted her in the face, causing bleeding from her mouth.

Dcmski then entered the room in response to screams and tried to pull Bell off of his sister. Bell struck him in the face, breaking his nose. Bell ripped the girl's clothes as she tried to escape, but she was able to get away, ran next door and called the police. The girl was examined and treat-, ed at Sacred Heart Hospital. An investigating officer recommended a charge of attempted homicide based on the attempt to strangle the girl.

The assault of a victim under the age of 1 8 constitutes chjld abuse under Wisconsin law. SEE BELL, PAGE A2 OF man a Riding the float as the royalty of the 2006 Jim Falls Sturgeon Fest in Sunday's parade were, from left, princesses Kayla Basham and Kayla Nye and queen Kelli Spickler. For more photos from the parade, see page A10. Signs of doubt cloud terror war at www.chippewa.com IN TODAY'S PAPER! The Packers' youth movement doesn't scare the coaches. B1.

'I'Tiger Woods wins his fifth golf tourney in a row. B1. I 1 1 '( I i To subscribe, call 723-5515 TOMORROW Wednesday Republican candidates for sheriff decide a debate before Tuesday's primary isn't needed. In the Chippewa Herald PEOPLE LOS ANGELES Two years after "Frasier" ended its 1 1 -season run, David Hyde Pierce says he's in no rush to get back on another TV show at least while he can still sing and dance. Pierce has found a new home doing musical theater something he was only able to dabble in during hiatuses in the hit sitcom's run.

"I love doing4his. I don't envisage going back to television Pierce any time soon," Pierce told Associated Press Radio in a recent interview. "But I also know there's going to. come a time when I'm not going to have the energy to be able to do musicals." Pierce performed last year in the hit Broadway musical "Monty Python's Spamalot," inspired by the film comedy "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." tmmmmmmeaa PICTURE THIS STEVE IRWIN of the TV show "The Crocodile Hunter," holds a nine-foot female alligator In company with his wife Terrl In Australia, June 18, 1999. Steve Irwin, 'the Australian television personality and environmentalist known as the Crocodile Hunter, was killed Monday by a stingray barb during a diving expedition.

See Page A3. 1 MARK GUNDERMAN THE CHIPPEWA HERALD as the Bush administration maintains. Six in 10 polled think there will be more terrorism in this country because the U.S. went to war in Iraq. Rmm fm ityrvgty that the two warf arc separate.

"They've been successful in the war on terrorism as long as you distinguish between the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism," said Eva Washington, a semirctired nurse 7 think there a fatigue about the price of doing these activities' Robert Blendon Public opinion specialist from Washington, DC. "We allowed Iraq to become a home to terrorists by going over there." And they are divided about whether they are losing personal freedoms, according to polling done between Aug. 7-17 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. "I think there's a fatigue about the price of doing these activities," said Robert Blendon, a specialist in SEE TERROR, PAGE A2 Second of two parts. By WILL LESTER Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON Doubts about the war on terrorism are growing.

Most people worry that the cost in blood and money may be too high, and they don't think al-Qaida kingpin Osama bin Laden will ever be caught, an AP-Ipsos poll found. Five years after the attacks of Sept. 1 1 fully one-third of Americans think the terrorists may be winning, the poll suggests. Worries fed by the war in Iraq have spilled over into the broader campaign against terrorists who directly target the U.S. Half in the poll question whether the costs of the anti-terror campaign are too great, arid even more admit that thought has crossed their mind.

Those costs are already high: More than 2,600 U.S. troops dead in Iraq, more than 270 dead in Afghanistan and roughly 20,000 wounded in both countries. More than $430 billion for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other costs overseas, and more than $250 billion for domestic security. Increasing skepticism is not surprising to Lee Hamilton, co-chairman of the Sept. 1 1 commission.

"I think what you're seeing now is a pushback," said Hamilton, who noted he still considers the terror threat an urgent problem. "Since 91 1, the security folks have won all the arguments. People are beginning to see that security is a very expensive business. We're jiflrlTg rebalancing of th But that shift may be unrelated to any reduction in the threat. Bin Laden is believed to be hiding out somewhere in the mountains along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, the conflict in Iraq is edging toward civil war and terrorists are still attempting attacks, as evidenced by the alleged plot, recently foiled by the British, to blow up airliners in the sky.

The AP-Ipsos telephone polling of about 1 ,000 people found: Less than half, 46 percent, are confident that bin Laden will ever be caught down from 67 percent in December 2003. More than four in 10, 43 per- cent, say they're embarrassed by the U.S. image overseas. The big question for Karen Brown of Gainesville, is whether the U.S. efforts are making a difference.

"Things are moving very slow ly and not going very well," said Brown, a freelance writer in Northern Virginia. "There's Osama bin Laden still running free. We're deeper into Afghanistan and deeper into Iraq. I don't see any end to it." Not everyone agrees the war in Iraq is central to the war on terror, You say 'pop', I say 'soda' Researcher studies odd and familiar speech differences in among Wisconsin residents. By JOHN HARTZELL Associated Press Writer MILWAUKEE Jennifer Delahanty said it seemed normal to her as she grew up in Eau Claire to hear sayings such as, "Do yoa want to come with?" and "Come here once." "You're not aware the way you talk is different said the University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student in German social linguistics.

"But when I came to Madison and had contact with students from other parts of the country, I realized that it was." Delahanty, who is both researcher and subject in a study of Wisconsin speech that got under way this year, said those sentence structures Ire more common in German than English. It's just one of many peculiarities in spoken English in the state that are part of the Wisconsin Englishes Project study headed by Thomas Purnell, a UW-Madison assistant professor of linguistics, and Joe Salmons, direc tor of the school's Center for the Study of Upper Midwestern Cultures. Although there is a common belief that American speech patterns are becoming more homogeneous due to the impact of television, Salmons said, studies have shown that regional U.S. dialects are thriving and evolving. "People make a conscious decision on who to hang out with, dress like and talk like," he said.

Salmons said he grew up in North Carolina and his wife was from Wisconsin, and the differences in speech between the two regions was much in evidence at their wedding reception. "It was not quite as different as speaking Swahili and Japanese, but our families had some problem understanding one another," he said. Two rather distinct linguistic patterns are used in Wisconsin. One is called the northern cities shift, which is spoken by many from as far east as Upstate New York. In Wisconsin, it is spoken primarily by people in about the southeastern third of SEE SPEECH, PAGE A2 MARK GUNDERMAN THE CHIPPEWA HERALD; Mallard celebrates With her beloved Chippewa River in the background, Mallard Resort owner Bev Chartier addresses the crowd at the annual Labor Day weekend festival, which this year marked the 60th anniversary of Chartier's family ownership.

Chartier thanked the Mallard's customers for the years of support. if.