Green Bay News

GREEN BAY- If you’re looking for things to do with your kids this summer, the Children’s Museum of Green Bay has some ideas.

We spent the morning at the museum.

Click on the videos to learn more.

GREEN BAY – Thousands of people will lace up their shoes this Saturday the the Bellin Run!

FOX 11’s Emily Deem spent Thursday morning at the start/finish line to see how the final preps are going!

The Bellin Run is more than 30-years old.  Last year the event drew 18,215 walkers, runners and wheelchair participants.

You are still able to sign up for the event.

Click here for more information.

Jordy Nelson and Aaron Rodgers will lead the offense, while Clay Matthews and #1 pick Damarious Randall will lead the defense at Sunday’s Jordy Nelson Celebrity Softball Game Sunday at Fox Cities Stadium.

The Jordy Nelson Charity Softball game benefits Young Life, an organization for middle, high school and college students that pairs them with adults focused on the things that matter most to kids – fun, adventure and friendship. Founded in 1941, Young Life has more than 3,000 staff and 30,000 volunteers reaching more than 1,000,000 kids annually.

There are a limited number of $12 general admission grass seats remaining for the game. Fans may order tickets in one of the following ways: Over the phone at 800-WI-TIMBER or (920) 733-4152; in person at the Fox Cities Stadium Box Office; or through the Timber Rattlers website.

The schedule for the day of the event:

Parking Lot Open: 9 a.m.
Stadium Gates Open: 10 a.m.
Three-inning Sponsor Game: 11 a.m.
Home Run Derby: Noon
Jordy Nelson Charity Softball Game: 1 p.m.

Parking is $10 for cars and $20 for RV’s and buses. Tailgating is allowed either directly behind or in front of your vehicle, but can’t set up in a parking stall.

The full list of players scheduled to appear – and subject to change:
Andrew Quarless
Davante Adams
Jeff Janis
Myles White
Morgan Burnett
Micah Hyde
Nate Palmer
Sam Shields
Andy Mulumba
Scott Tolzien
Richard Rodgers
Aaron Rodgers
Clay Matthews
Sean Richardson
Casey Hayward
Sam Barrington
Chris Banjo
Damarious Randall
Josh Sitton
Garth Gerhart
Quinten Rollins
Carl Bradford
Letroy Guion
Josh Boyd
Mike Daniels
Mike Pennel
Kennard Backman
Mitchell Henry
Rajion Neal
Josh Francis
Joe Thomas
Javess Blue
Larry Pinkard
Matt Blanchard
Travis Manning
Kyle Sebetic
Tavarus Dantzler
John Crockett
T.J. Lang
Jayrone Elliot
Bruce Gatson
Mason Crosby
Tim Masthay

GREEN BAY- Heavy rain is expected Thursday night with 1 to 3 inches of rain by Friday afternoon.

A Flash Flood Watch is in effect for much of the area starting Thursday night.

A flash flood watch means that conditions may develop that can lead to flash flooding. Be prepared to move to higher ground should flooding occur.

It’ll be dry Thursday morning but clouds will increase and rain showers will begin to overspread the area this afternoon.

The high is 72.

Rain ends Friday afternoon and skies start to clear late in the day.

Click here for Director of Meteorology Pete Petoniak’s full forecast.

MILWAUKEE- The search continues Thursday for 69-year-old Curtis Smith.

Smith was last seen around 7 p.m. Wednesday near his home in Milwaukee.

Curtis is black, about 6 feet tall and weighing 200 pounds.

He was wearing a gray t-shirt with an American flag, blue jean shorts, long black socks and dark blue sippers.

He was slowly and hunched over.

It’s believed he suffers from dementia.

MENASHA – Menasha police will release their final report on the Trestle Trail shooting Thursday.

The shooting happened May 3rd on the Trestle Trail bridge near Fritse Park.

Jon Stoffel and his 11 year-old daughter Olivia, were killed, along with Adam Bentdahl of Appleton.

Jon Stoffel’s wife Erin survived the shooting.

Police say the shooter, Sergio Valencia del Toro, died by suicide.

KEWAUNEE COUNTY – A report released Wednesday says people in Kewaunee County are living in third world conditions. It puts the blame on the county’s industrial dairy farms and the Department of Natural Resources.

The 140-page report outlines hundreds of incidents involving 16 large dairy and beef farms in the county. Most involve manure spills, and excessive application.
However, farmers say they’ve done nothing wrong and are following state laws.

20-year Kewaunee residents, Scott and Deborah Kliment noticed a change near their house about a decade ago.

“The smell changed, it wasn’t your grandpa’s manure anymore,” said Deborah Kliment.

Kliment says the smell changed the same time family farms became mega farms. In 2012, she came home to find manure all over her property, inches away from her pond.

“If it was an isolated incident I would say you know what, stuff happens, but it’s not an isolated incident,” said Kliment. “There are things that are happening around here all the time.”

The group Socially Responsible Agricultural Project outlined similar incidents in its 140-page report. The report cites one 2013 study that found a third of the county’s wells tested as unsafe.

“We have people in our community who cannot drink their water, brush their teeth, wash dishes and are fearful of bathing in their water if they have an open cut,” said Lynn Utesch of Kewaunee CARES, a group that helped with the report.

The group claims the DNR is partly to blame, saying it doesn’t properly regulate the farms.

“What we found was a continuing pattern of very light slaps on the wrist,” said Scott Dye, a field coordinator for Socially Responsible Agricultural Project.

The DNR provided FOX 11 with a statement. In part, it reads “we are working with citizens and other stakeholders of Kewaunee County to develop proposed actions and potential solutions to reduce risk to public health and groundwater quality.”

“No farmer wants to pollute and indeed goes to great extremes to ensure that they are not polluting,” said Lee Kinnard of Kinnard Farms, Inc., one of the farms listed in the report.

Kinnard says large dairy farms like his are held to strict regulations. Kinnard hasn’t read the report, but says his farm is doing everything it can to protect its neighbors.

“Most of these family owned dairies voluntarily far exceed the regulations, just flat out because it’s the right thing to do,” said Kinnard.
The report also lists recommendations it would like the D-N-R and farms to consider.

The group behind the report says it also plans to update its findings every six months, hoping to see things improve.

PITTSBURGH (AP) – Charlie Morton scattered three hits in 7 1-3 innings to remain unbeaten in his return from hip surgery as the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Milwaukee Brewers 2-0 on Wednesday night.

Morton (4-0) struck out six and walked three to win his fourth straight start since coming off the disabled list last month. He didn’t allow a hit until Aramis Ramirez led off the fifth with a single up the middle.

Pedro Alvarez hit his 10th homer of the season. Jordy Mercer and Jung Ho Kang added three hits apiece for the Pirates. Mark Melancon worked a perfect ninth for his 19th save.

Kyle Lohse (3-7) dropped his third consecutive decision while falling to 0-3 against Pittsburgh this season. He gave up an RBI single to Starling Marte in the first and a 438-foot homer to Alvarez leading off the second.

Milwaukee right fielder Ryan Braun went 0 for 2 before leaving in the top of the sixth with dizziness.

GREEN BAY – A routine dental exam might seem simple.

But for many, the costs of even a routine cleaning can be a budget-buster.

And that can create a dilemma for dentists.

“It is difficult because you are torn between what a patient needs versus what is covered,” said Rebecca Swenson, a dentist with Affordable Dentures in Green Bay.

If you live in Brown County, there is a new plan that could help you gain access to affordable dental care.

“So many people have full time jobs, have insurance and everything but they don’t have a dental plan. So this is going to benefit all those people,” said Brown County Board Supervisor Bernie Ericson.

Ericson says the county is offering a dental discount program through the National Association of Counties.

Here’s how it works.

People pay a yearly fee for either individual or family plans. It’s not insurance, but the plan then provides people discounts on basic dental care, through dentists who agree to participate.

“Most senior citizens, when they get to be 65, Medicare doesn’t offer dental assistance. It’s a great plan, especially for seniors,” said Ericson.

But dentists say be cautious: discount programs may not cover everything at every dental office.

“It depends on the particulars of the plan and what the patient will need. But something is better than nothing,” said Swenson.

Dentists say a healthy mouth is too important not to invest in.

“You know, for some people, they think the mouth is separated from the body but really it’s not because poor oral hygiene, poor oral conditions, can affect the heart, kidneys, everything. It’s all connected,” said Swenson.

Ericson says hopefully the program will be an incentive for more people to have preventive care and perhaps avoid more costly procedures.
Information about the low-fee dental discount program can be found at http://www.nacohealth.org. Information sheets can also be picked up at all Brown County Library locations, as well as many Brown County office buildings.

WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) – One of the girls charged with trying to kill a friend to please a fictitious horror character will be given limited Internet access.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that a judge will allow 13-year-old Anissa Weier to have supervised access to educational programming recommended by teachers at the West Bend juvenile facility where she’s being held.

Weier and her 12-year-old friend, Morgan Geyser are accused of stabbing a classmate 19 times in May 2014 to gain favor with Slender Man, a character they believed could kill them. The classmate survived and is now 13.

Both Weier and Geyser are charged as adults.

BERLIN – A 12-year-old boy was killed in a utility terrain vehicle (UTV) crash Wednesday afternoon.

Emergency crews were called to the 600 block of Van Horn Street at 12:50 p.m.

The boy was pronounced dead at the scene.

The crash happened on private property.

The boy was a student at All Saints Catholic School in Berlin.

The school, N8566 Sth 49, will have counselors available Thursday from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and then again from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

 

IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — An American fighting with Kurdish forces against the Islamic State group in Syria has been killed in battle, authorities said Wednesday, making him likely the first U.S. citizen to die fighting alongside them against the extremists.

Keith Broomfield, who was from Massachusetts, died June 3 in a battle in a Syrian village named Qentere, near the border town Kobani, said Nasser Haji, an official with a group of Kurdish fighters known as the YPG. Broomfield had joined the YPG on Feb. 24 under the nom de guerre Gelhat Raman, said Haji, who didn’t elaborate on the circumstances of his death.

U.S. Department of State spokesman Jeff Rathke confirmed Broomfield’s death but declined to provide any details about the circumstances. He said the U.S. was providing consular assistance to his family.

A man who answered the door at a home in Bolton, Massachusetts, listed as owned by Broomfield’s family said the family would not be commenting. No one answered the door at a family-operated business, Broomfield Laboratories, in the town.

The fight against the Islamic State group has attracted dozens of Westerners, including Iraq war veterans who have made their way back to the Middle East to join Kurdish fighters, who have been most successful against the extremist group.

Many are spurred on by Kurdish social media campaigners and a sense of duty rooted in the 2003 U.S.-led military invasion of Iraq, where Islamic State fighters recently have rolled back gains U.S. troops had made. And while the U.S. and its coalition allies bomb the extremists from the air, Kurds say they hope more Westerners will join them on the ground to fight.

Previously, a British citizen, an Australian and a German woman were killed fighting with the Kurds.

Backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, Kurdish YPG fighters in Syria have successfully pushed back Islamic State group militants from Kobani and scores of nearby villages. More recently, they have closed in on the Islamic State-held town of Tal Abyad, near the Turkish border. The town is the Islamic State group’s main access point to Turkey from Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital in Syria.

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Lee reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Zeina Karam in Beirut and Salar Salim and photographer Steven Senne contributed to this report.

 

APPLETON –  Are you looking for something for your child to do during summer break? Appleton has different programs for kids at its parks.

There are a variety of daily events from movies, to beach days, to a dodge ball tournament. Most events are free.

Appleton, much like Green Bay, also offer free summer lunches.

The meals are funded through a federal grant.

Niki Wendt, Appleton Parks Department, says this is a great way for kids to spend the summer, “We have two leaders at each site that are there to welcome the kids and create that fun, enjoyable summer for them.”

For more information on participating parks and times, click here.

 

 

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – The author of a state budget provision that would allow people who lack bachelor’s degrees to teach without any specialized training says she will re-draft the proposal.

Sen. Mary Czaja said Wednesday that she would re-write the measure to require teachers in non-core subjects to possess at least a high school diploma and limit them to working part-time.

The Irma Republican also plans to tweak the language teachers who work in core subjects such as math and English with a degree but who lack training also would be limited to working part-time.

Czaja says the measure was originally intended to help rural schools find and retain teachers. Opponents maintain the move would hurt students.

APPLETON – Appleton police say a two-year investigation into a human trafficking operation in the Fox Valley has ended with three arrests so far.

Officials announced Wednesday the arrests of three Appleton residents: a 28-year-old man, a 39-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman.

Police say the three used force, fraud and coercion to recruit women into human trafficking and prostitution.

Investigators say more arrests could be made.

GREENVILLE – Mike and Margie Reetz got a jolt of excitement Wednesday morning, and it wasn’t from their routine cup of coffee.

“Well, this morning we were out, sitting in the living room having coffee,” said Mike, “and (Margie) looked out and said, ‘Mike! There’s a bear out there!’ That’s when it all started.”

The proud grandparents of eight naturally reached for the camera and iPad, called friends and family, and the Greenville Fire Department.

“Those guys were so excited, they said, ‘we’ll be right out!’”

The DNR says the bear in the Reetzes’ Clover Lane yard is likely a male yearling that was sent off by its mother for the summer as mating season begins.

Looking for food, it took out the couple’s oriole bird feeder filled with jelly, cleaned up the corn on the ground for the deer and washed it down with some water from the bird bath on their back deck, and eventually took off.

“And he was drinking water out of the bird bath right there,” said Margie.

“Yeah, he came up on the porch,” Mike said.

A black bear eats jelly out of an oriole feeder June 10, 2015, in the Greenville yard of Mike and Margie Reetz. (Photo courtesy Margie Reetz)

“Trying to get at that feeder that’s empty,” said Margie, pointing.

“Too bad he doesn’t eat cottonwood,” Mike joked.

The bear spotting isn’t new for the area; the Outagamie County Sheriff’s Department says there have been at least three reports that a bear – or bears – have been wandering around Greenville and nearby Appleton.

The department is urging people in the Greenville area to remove any possible food sources from their yards; that includes bird feeders and trash cans. The bear spotted on the Reetz’ property is off of Clover Lane in Greenville.

By the time FOX 11 Photojournalist Chris Bourassa and Reporter Bill Miston showed up to the Reetzes’, they thought the bear had left for good. They were wrong.

“He’s eating well,” said Mike, “I don’t want him to get too comfortable.”

“The uniqueness of it, we have ducks and turkeys and deer in our backyard and this is the very first time” in 41 years the couple has seen a bear on their property.

“Once was plenty,” Margie quickly added.

The Reetz have 10 acres of property, with several bird feeders and ponds. Now, as the couple removes the young bear’s smorgasbord, they can now check off seeing a black bear in their backyard off their bucket list.

“I thought we were lucky just to see a deer and their little fawns and everything,” said Margie.

“We enjoy it out here, because of the wildlife, and if I see a polar bear, however, I think Wisconsin will be getting a little too cold.”

• Click on the links to the left to watch more video and browse more photos of the bear

WINNEBAGO CO – Authorities say they aren’t sure just yet how long a large marijuana growth operation has been going on in Winnebago County.

Nearly 500 marijuana plants and more than 40 pounds of the drug were found in a home in the Town of Vinland.

Gerald Walters (Winnebago Co. Jail)

64-year-old Gerald Walters has been charged with manufacturing and delivering marijuana.

Deputies say the marijuana they found would be worth anywhere from a half million to $1.5 million on the street.

The Sheriff’s Department started the investigation last month after getting a tip from the Oneida County Drug Task Force.

Winnebago County Sheriff, John Matz, says Walters has no past criminal history, so he was not on the department’s radar before.

Matz told us this is the largest marijuana bust he’s seen, “I have not, not in Winnebago County and we are very concerned, but very relieved that we were able to put an end to this operation. He, the defendant, Mr. Walters, appeared to be very experienced in the trade, had quite a system going. We believe this was going on for quite some time.”

Matz says more arrests could be made in this case.

Walters has been released on bond.

 

 

 

 

Explore what life is like for everyday citizens who live in areas controlled by the Islamic State.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – An award-winning Wisconsin high school teacher is renewing her call to have Gov. Scott Walker stop telling her story.

Walker refers to Megan Sampson in the opening paragraphs in a Wednesday column in the Des Moines Register that touts his educational policies, including enactment of the 2011 law that ended collective bargaining for teachers.

Sampson was laid off in 2011 because of union seniority protections, a story Walker has told for years.

But Sampson says in an email to The Associated Press that “I do not enjoy being associated with Walker’s political campaign.” She says Walker “not have permission from me to use my story in this manner, and he still does not have my permission.”

The spokeswoman for Walker’s political committee did not immediately respond to an email.

DANNEMORA, N.Y. (AP) – The manhunt for two escaped killers expanded to campsites and boat slips in Vermont on Wednesday, and State Police said a female prison staff member being questioned may have had a role in helping the men.

At a news conference outside the maximum-security prison, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin said investigators learned that the inmates had talked before last weekend’s breakout about going to neighboring Vermont.

“New York was going to be hot. Vermont would be cooler, in terms of law enforcement,” Shumlin said on Day 5 of the search. He and other officials would not say how authorities obtained that information.

New York State Police Superintendent Joseph D’Amico also said that a prison employee – identified in news reports as Joyce Mitchell, a training supervisor at the prison tailor shop – had befriended the killers and “may have had some role in assisting them.”

He would not elaborate.

Mitchell’s son, Tobey Mitchell, 21, told NBC that his mother checked herself into a hospital with chest pains Saturday. He said she wouldn’t have helped the inmates escape.

Using power tools, David Sweat, 34, and Richard Matt, 48, cut through a steel wall, broke through bricks and crawled through a steam pipe before emerging through a manhole in the street outside the 3,000-inmate prison in a breakout discovered early Saturday.

Authorities suspect they had help from the inside in obtaining the power tools.

Unions representing guards and civilian staff at the prison said many have been questioned by investigators, but no one has been suspended, disciplined or charged.

Vermont authorities are patrolling Lake Champlain and areas alongside, Shumlin said. Cuomo urged the people of Vermont to be on the alert and report anything suspicious, warning: “Trust me, these men are nothing to be trifled with.”

State troopers and corrections officers in helmets and body armor also retraced their steps around the Clinton Correctional Facility, checking garage doors, sheds, windows and other structures in a house-to-house search for signs of a break-in or others clues to where the men might be hiding.

But at the late-afternoon news conference, D’Amico confessed: “I have no information on where they are or what they’re doing, to be honest with you.”

The killers’ mugshots have been put on more than 50 digital billboards in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, according to State Police, and a $100,000 reward has been posted. Law enforcement officials asked the public to report anything out of the ordinary.

“We don’t want them out searching the woods,” Sheriff David Favro said. “But if you’re sitting on your porch, get your binoculars out and see if you see something unusual.”

In Dannemora, Barbara McCasland said officers asked to search her home but she told them no. “I’m pretty battened down here. My windows are locked and everything,” she said.

As the manhunt dragged on, she said she was getting worried: “I wasn’t in the beginning, but seeing that they’ve been out there so long, I am a little nervous.”

Many in the prison town greeted the return of the searchers with a shrug. Many suspect Sweat and Matt are long gone and they are past any danger.

“I’m not worried about it,” Jackie Trombley said. Referring to the searchers swarming the area, she said: “We’ve got these guys down the road. They’re everywhere, so it really doesn’t bother me.”

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Virtanen reported from Albany, New York.