Green Bay News

ALLOUEZ – A new trail to link Webster Avenue with the Fox River Trail is under construction near Heritage Hill State Park.

The $225,000 project is expected to be completed by June 20, said Chris Clark, the Village’s Director of Parks, Recreation, & Forestry.

The trail is just south of the westbound Highway 172 ramps, and just north of the fence line for Heritage Hill State Park.

Also, a pedestrian crossing signal will be installed at Riverside Drive.

The crop gets its springtime start, May 28, 2015.

Governor Scott Walker announced Shawano County’s new coroner Thursday.

Brian Westfahl will take over as Shawano County’s coroner June 1, 2015.

Westfahl currently serves as Assistant Fire Chief and EMS Service Director in Pella, Wisconsin. Westfahl holds EMT certifications from Fox Valley Technical College, Clintonville, and Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. He also has certifications from NWTC in firefighting and electrical programs.

Westfahl is replacing former Shawano County coroner, Marcus Jesse, after he resigned from the position.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google’s next version of its Android operating system will boast new ways to fetch information, pay merchants and protect privacy on mobile devices as the Internet company duels with Apple in the quest to make their technology indispensable.

The upgrade will give Android’s personal assistant, Google Now, expanded powers of intuition that may be greeted as a great convenience to some and a tad too creepy for others.

Most of the renovations unveiled Thursday at Google’s annual developers’ conference won’t be available until late summer or early fall, around the same time that Apple is expected to release the latest overhaul of the iOS software that powers the iPhone and iPad.

The annual changes to Android and iOS are becoming increasingly important as people become more dependent on smartphones to manage their lives. Android holds about an 80 percent share of the worldwide smartphone market, with iOS a distant second at 16 percent, according to the research firm International Data Corp.

Both Google and Apple are vying to make their products even more ubiquitous by transplanting much of their mobile technology into automobiles and Internet-connected televisions and appliances. Google hopes to play a prominent role in the management of home security and appliances with a new operating system called Brillo that will interact with Android devices.

Here’s a closer look at some of the key features in the upcoming Android upgrade, currently known simply as “M”:

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NOW ON TAP

Google Now currently learns a user’s interests and habits by analyzing search requests and scanning emails so it can automatically present helpful information, such as the latest news about a favorite sports team or how long it will take to get to work.

With the M upgrade, users will be able to summon Google Now to scan whatever content might be on a mobile device’s screen so it can present pertinent information about the topic of a text, a song, a video clip or an article.

The new Android feature, called “Now on Tap,” will be activated by holding down the device’s home button or speaking, “OK Google,” into the microphone. That action will prompt Now on Tap to scan the screen in attempt to figure out how to be the most helpful. Or, if speaking, users can just say what they are seeking, such as “Who sings this?”

Google is hoping to provide Android users with what they need at the precise moment they need it without forcing them to hopscotch from one app to another.

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MOBILE PAYMENT DO-OVER

Android M will include an alternative to the mobile payment system that Apple introduced last fall. Google’s response, called Android Pay, will replace Google Wallet for making mobile purchases in stores and applications. Google Wallet, which came out in 2011, will still work for sending payments from one person to another.

Like Apple’s system, Android Pay can be used to store major credit and debit cards in smartphones that can be used to pay merchants equipped with terminals that work with the technology. Android Pay will also work on devices running on the KitKat version of Android released last year.

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PROTECTING PRIVACY

Android M will be compatible with fingerprint scanners so device users can verify their identities by pressing a button instead of entering a passcode. Apple’s iPhones began using a fingerprint reader in 2013.

Besides supporting fingerprint scanners, Android M will make it easier to users to prevent mobile applications from grabbing their personal information. Permission will only need to be granted to each app if the access is needed for a specific action. That means Android users won’t be asked to share information about their contact lists, photo rolls or locations until an app won’t work without it.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Park Service says an electrical problem is temporarily closing the Washington Monument.

The park service announced Thursday morning that there is an electrical problem associated with the monument’s elevator. A service contractor is on the scene, and officials say the monument will reopen as soon as possible.

Officials say there are no visitors inside the monument.

MADISON (AP) – A new analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau says a Republican-approved expansion of the private-school voucher program could cost up to $800 million over the next decade.

The estimate was prepared at the request of Assembly Democratic Minority Leader Peter Barca who released it publicly on Thursday.

The Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee last week voted to lift a 1,000-student enrollment cap on the statewide voucher program. Initially, vouchers would be available to only 1 percent of the district’s total enrollment, and after 10 years there would be no cap.

Barca calls the $800 million cost estimate “eye popping” and says it could spell the beginning of the end of public education.

Jim Bender, president of pro-voucher group School Choice Wisconsin, discounts the estimate calling it “just a guess.”

BOSTON (AP) — Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will be formally sentenced to death on June 24.

U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr. set the date on Thursday.

A jury determined earlier this month that Tsarnaev should get the death penalty in the 2013 attack. Three people were killed and more than 260 were injured when Tsarnaev and his brother placed two pressure-cooker bombs near the marathon finish line.

Prosecutors say at least 20 victims of the explosions have asked to speak at the sentencing hearing.

Tsarnaev will also be given the chance to speak if he so chooses.

O’Toole gave Tsarnaev’s lawyers until Aug. 17 to file any post-trial motions along with all supporting material.

A newly-discovered glitch in Apple’s software can cause iPhones to mysteriously shut down when they receive a certain text message.

Apple says it’s aware of the problem and is working on a fix. But some pranksters are sharing information about the glitch on social media and using it to crash other peoples’ phones.

The problem only occurs when the iPhone receives a message with a specific string of characters, including some Arabic characters, according to several tech blogs. When an iPhone isn’t being used, it typically shows a shortened version of the message on the phone’s lock screen. That shortened combination of characters apparently triggers the crash.

Affected phones will restart automatically. Owners can prevent the problem by using phone settings to turn off the message “previews” feature.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A one-year travel ban is expiring for five senior Taliban leaders held in U.S. detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, until they were released last year in exchange for U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, raising the possibility that the five can move freely around the world as early as Monday.

Under terms of the exchange in May 2014, the five detainees were sent to Qatar where officials there agreed to monitor their activities and prevent them from traveling out of the country. In return, Bergdahl was released to the U.S. military after being held captive by the Taliban for nearly five years after he walked away from his Army post in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials have discussed with the Qataris the possibility of extending the travel ban after it expires on June 1. But so far, the White House has not publicly announced any new agreement with Qatar, meaning the five could leave the tiny nation on the Arabian Peninsula at the end of the month.

“In Congress, we spent a lot of time debating whether the Qataris were going to adequately keep an eye on them in the course of the 12 months,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence committee. “My point all along was that I’m more worried about month No. 13 than the first 12.”

Schiff has been privy to the details of the still-secret memorandum of understanding the U.S. reached with Qatar that put the five under a 12-month watch following their release.

At least one of the five allegedly contacted militants during the past year while in Qatar. No details have been disclosed about that contact, but the White House confirmed that one was put under enhanced surveillance. Sen. John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said last week: “I know that at least one has had communication with the Taliban.”

One or more of the detainees had some members of the al-Qaida-affiliated Haqqani militant group travel to Qatar to meet with them earlier in the year, according to Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. That was an indication that the group was reaching out to communicate with the so-called Taliban Five, said Graham, who predicts all five will rejoin the fight.

Four of the five former detainees remain on the United Nations’ blacklist, which freezes their assets and has them under a separate travel ban. But the U.N. itself has acknowledged that its travel ban has been violated. In a report late last year, the U.N. sanctions committee stated: “Regrettably, the monitoring team continues to receive a steady — albeit officially unconfirmed — flow of media reports indicating that some listed individuals have become increasingly adept at circumventing the sanctions measures, the travel ban in particular.”

The State Department insists that U.S. officials work to mitigate the risk of former Guantanamo detainees returning to the fight, threatening Americans or jeopardizing U.S. national security. U.S. officials have noted in the past that the five Taliban leaders are middle-aged or older, were former officials in the Taliban government and probably wouldn’t be seen again on any battlefield, although they could continue to be active members of the Taliban.

Members of Congress have repeatedly expressed concern about what will happen after the travel ban expires. They have asked the Obama administration to try to persuade Qatar to extend the monitoring.

Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte wrote Defense Secretary Ash Carter in March, asking him to take any step necessary to make sure the five do not return to the battlefield in Afghanistan. And earlier this month, the 13 Republican members of the House Intelligence committee wrote President Barack Obama asking him to urge Qatar to extend travel restrictions on the former detainees indefinitely.

Many lawmakers from both parties were irate when the five Guantanamo detainees were swapped for Bergdahl, who recently was charged with desertion. They complained that the White House did not give Congress a 30-day notification of the transfer, which is required by law. The White House said it couldn’t wait 30 days because Bergdahl’s life was endangered.

MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Popular beaches along nearly 7 miles of Los Angeles-area coastline are off-limits to surfing and swimming after balls of tar washed ashore.

The beaches along south Santa Monica Bay appeared virtually free of oil Thursday morning after an overnight cleanup, but officials aren’t sure if more tar will show up.

Coast Guard and state officials say samples of tar and water will be analyzed to identify a source. Nothing has been ruled out, including last week’s coastal oil spill about 100 miles to the northwest in Santa Barbara County.

Game Warden Sau Garcia says no wildlife problems have been reported from the tar.

Lifeguards have chased out a handful of surfers, but beach life otherwise is normal for people exercising, playing volleyball, skating and riding bikes along the shore.

MIAMI (AP) — President Barack Obama said Thursday the deadly flooding in Texas and Oklahoma should serve as a reminder of the need to make the nation more resilient to the impact of natural disasters, adding that climate change is affecting both the pace and intensity of storms.

Making the first visit of his presidency to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Obama said that while the nation is better prepared than ever for the storms of today, “the best scientists in the world are telling us that extreme weather events, like hurricanes, are likely to become more powerful.”

“When you combine stronger storms with rising seas, that’s a recipe for more devastating floods,” he said.

Obama said that while the technology for forecasting storms has improved and there are better ways to disseminate warnings, the nation also must stay focused on “becoming more resilient to the impacts of a changing climate that are having significant effects on both the pace and intensity of some of these storms.”

Obama spoke one day after government weather forecasters predicted six to 11 storms this season, with three to six of them developing into hurricanes. That suggests this year’s hurricane season may be slower than average: From 1981 to 2010, the average has been 12 named storms, 6 hurricanes and three major hurricanes per year. The season starts Monday.

This week’s storms and floods in Texas and Oklahoma have left at least 21 people dead and at least 10 others missing. Obama said a lot of rebuilding would be needed, and the federal government would work to ensure that its response is quick and cuts through bureaucracy.

Obama added that while climate change didn’t cause 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, “it might have made it stronger,” pointing to higher sea levels in New York harbor that made the storm surge worse.

During his tour, Obama checked out giant screens showing maps of the Eastern Seaboard and asked questions about the science used to develop forecasts, warning and storm surge predictions.

In years past, Obama has been briefed in Washington on the hurricane season. His visit to Miami was designed to highlight tools developed by the federal government to help communities prepare for hurricanes and other emergencies. While in Florida, he also helped raise thousands of dollars for the Democratic Party at a pair of fundraisers in Miami’s Coconut Grove neighborhood.

The Miami Beach area, which has experienced high-tide flooding due to rising sea levels, is adjusting building codes and spending $400 million over five years to install pumping stations.

Obama said his administration was trying to work with Congress “to make sure that we are focused on resilience and the steps we can take to fortify our infrastructure in these communities.”

After the briefing, Obama remained at the National Hurricane Center to answer questions on Twitter, his first Q-and-A under the @POTUS handle he officially launched last week.

Obama responded to a wide variety of questions during the half-hour or so he spent at the computer keyboard, touching on climate change, Arctic drilling, a pending trade deal between the U.S. and Asia-Pacific countries, higher education, renewable energy, the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers and Chicago Bulls and more.

“The heart of the Cavs is Lebron,” Obama, an avid basketball fan, replied to one questioner. Lebron James returned to the Cavaliers, his former team, in 2014 and helped lead Cleveland into this year’s NBA Finals.

Obama also said he was sorry about Thursday’s firing of Bulls head coach Tom Thibodeau.

“Love Thibs and think he did a great job. Sorry to see him go but expect he will be snatched up soon by another team,” Obama said.

HOUSTON (AP) — The flooding, property damage and loss of life as torrential rains this week hit the Houston area should be no surprise.

“It happens fairly frequently,” said Sam Brody, director of Texas A&M University’s Center for Beaches and Shores. “Houston is the No. 1 city in America to be injured and die in a flood.”

The Harris County Flood Control District, the agency working in recent years with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on hundreds of millions of dollars in projects to ease the flooding impact, has been around since 1937, itself a product of catastrophic flooding two years earlier.

“Houston is so vulnerable,” Brody, who’s been studying the issue for 15 years, said Wednesday. “There’s very little topography. They’ve added hundreds of miles of pavement and can’t keep up with all the positive initiatives. … So we get these floods.”

Brody and two co-authors, in a 2011 book about flooding causes and consequences, used federal weather and health statistics to quantify fatalities in Texas and Houston, where most deaths over the years have occurred when motorists become trapped in flooded underpasses, he said.

Flood control efforts on Buffalo Bayou alone, one of several that meander throughout the nation’s fourth-largest city, have cost a half-billion dollars over the past decade. They’ve included bridge replacements, and the addition of detention ponds for rain runoff and green spaces that serve as parks in normal times.

Experts, however, say flood control has been offset by the population boom around Houston, one of the fastest-growing areas in the nation, and a Texas tradition of strong personal property and land use rights that mean fewer regulations.

“Houston may be doing things to try to improve … but there’s a long history of pre-existing stuff that is still there,” said Walter Peacock, an urban planning professor at Texas A&M and director of the school’s Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center.

“Think about every time you put in a road, a mall and you add concrete, you’ve lost the ability of rain to get into the soil and you’ve lost that permeability,” Peacock said. “It’s now impermeable. And therefore you get more runoff.”

The region’s serious flood history goes back nearly to Houston’s founding in 1836. That’s when two New York real estate brokers, brothers John and Augustus Allen, sold people on the idea of a establishing a town at the confluence of Buffalo and White Oak Bayous, or precisely where cars Tuesday were buried in water on an entrance to Interstate 45.

The Houston flood was recorded in 1843. The flood district’s 20th-century timeline shows three dozen floods of note.

“Bottom line is, we live on the Texas Gulf Coast and we have a lot of low-lying area, and we have to deal with that,” said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, the county’s top administrator.

This week’s flooding was labeled historic, but the devastation from Hurricane Ike in 2008, primarily a wind event, and Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 was exponentially worse.

Allison is the storm of recent record in Houston; it left behind $5 billion in damages and flooded wide swaths of the city, including downtown and the famed Texas Medical Center.

FEMA reported Allison dumped 32 trillion gallons of water. Early estimates for this week’s storm are about 162 billion gallons, with about 4,000 homes reporting damage. In Allison, 73,000 homes were damaged, plus 95,000 cars and trucks. Thirty people died in the Houston area, including 22 in Harris County. The death count Wednesday here was seven. About 2,500 cars were abandoned.

Even though Houston is 50 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, any flood control efforts are under the specter of possible rising sea levels that will bring “ongoing consequences” for rivers and canals, Peacock said.

New Orleans, no stranger to flooding, is seen as especially susceptible to rising sea levels. The Louisiana coast has been steadily eroding, losing 1,900 square miles since the 1930s, and making the area more vulnerable to storms such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005. In 2012, Louisiana officials announced an ambitious $50 billion, 50-year proposal to stop coastal land loss and build new levee systems to protect vulnerable cities.

Similarly, sea levels along hurricane-prone Florida’s coastline are rising faster than previously measured, according to federal estimates, and are blamed for increasingly frequent nuisance flooding from Jacksonville to Key West. As a result, environmental conservation projects aren’t keeping up with the accelerated pace of the sea level rise.

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Associated Press reporters Rebecca Santana in New Orleans and Jennifer Kay in Miami contributed to this story.

GREEN BAY – The Green Bay Packers opened Organized Team Activities (OTAs) Thursday at Clarke Hinkle Field.

The offense, defense and special teams units participated in a practice that was open to the public.

From veterans stars like Aaron Rodgers to undrafted free agents such as John Crockett, it’s the first chance for coaches to see how this year’s team will begin to mesh as a comprehensive unit.

Several question marks heading into the season revolve on the new offensive play calling under offensive coordinator Tom Clements and how the team will fill defensive voids left by the departures of Tramon Williams, Davon House and A.J. Hawk.

GREEN BAY – Leicht Memorial Park in Green Bay will alive with music this summer.

PMI Entertainment Group will kick off the seventh annual Leicht at Nite season on Thursday, July 16 with a free concert each week until August 20.

Gates open each night at 5:30 p.m. and concerts start at 6:15 p.m. and end around 10:00 p.m. Lawn chairs and blankets are encouraged, however no carry-ins of food or beverage is allowed.

Here’s the schedule:

• Thursday, July 16 – The Cougars (Rock – Classic 80’s to current)
• Thursday, July 23 – Unity (Reggae and Ska)
• Thursday, July 30 – The Presidents (Rock – classic 80’s & 90s’)
• Thursday, August 6 – Grand Union (Country)
• Thursday, August 20 – Johnny Wad (Rock – 80’s and 90’s)

For more information on the concert series, click here to visit the Leicht at Night website.

GREEN BAY – Free photos and live tracking on social media are among the new offerings at this year’s Bellin Run.

“We are tremendously excited about all that’s new for this year’s Bellin Run,” Executive Race Director Randy Van Straten said in a news release. “We’ve listened to what participants wanted, examined best practices and challenged ourselves to offer the best race-day experience possible. We think our runners and walkers will be thrilled.”

Here is a list of changes:

Free photos

The Bellin Run is partnering with GameFace Media to offer free race-day photos to all participants. Runners and walkers will be able to download race photos at no cost beginning 3-5 business days after the event. Photographers will be positioned throughout the course, and participants are reminded to make sure their race bibs are visible during the event. The bib numbers allow photographers to identify participants and organize race photos after the fact.

Follow runners on social media

The race-day results tent is a thing of the past as Bellin Run organizers are turning to real-time updates and results for participants and spectators. Runners, walkers and their fans can sign up to have real-time race updates and results texted to their mobile phones or posted automatically to Facebook or Twitter feeds. Starting Monday, they can go online to sign up for text alerts, social media posts and real-time online updates. Spectators and others can also sign up to follow a participant by texting his or her bib number to 38909 (U.S. numbers only; message and data rates may apply).

The Post Race section of the Bellin Run website will have a link to complete official results later on race day.

Bib chips replace shoe chips

The Bellin Run has discontinued its use of shoe-worn timing chips in favor of timing mechanisms built into participants’ race bibs. Organizers say the change was made for the convenience of runners and walkers, who will have one less thing to keep track of on race day.

Lower spaghetti dinner prices

This year’s dinner is $6 for adults, $3 for children 12 and under, and free for anyone under age 2. The menu includes salad, garlic toast, spaghetti with marinara or meat sauce, buttered bowtie noodles, baby carrots, apple slices, cookies, water and Pepsi products.

The spaghetti dinner takes place from 4:30-8 p.m. Friday, June 12 in Astor Park. Click here for more information on Friday’s events.

Medical QR codes

Each 10K participant will have a RunnersHealth Medical QR Code on the front of his or her race bib. This code is unique to every participant and will be used by first responders on the course, staff at the first aid stations and medical tent personnel to identify participants should they need medical assistance. Participants have received an email inviting them to complete their secure profile that will be accessed only in case of illness, injury or incapacitation. Runners and walkers are encouraged to enter their emergency contacts and information about allergies, medications and medical conditions as an added safety measure.

Wisconsin 10K championship site

The 2015 Bellin Run will serve as the Wisconsin USA Track & Field (USATF) 10K Championship. The top competitor in the open male, open female, masters (over 40) male and masters (over 40) female divisions will receive an award.

The 39th annual Bellin Run 10K is set for 8 a.m. June 13.

DULUTH, Minn. (AP) – Construction has started on the Twin Ports’ largest project to improve freight transportation in decades.

Wisconsin Public Radio reports representatives of Congress, the U.S. Department of Transportation and Duluth Seaway Port Authority broke ground on the $17.7 million construction project Wednesday.

They are expanding cargo docks at the port’s Garfield Pier as part of redevelopment of the 28-acre site. They also plan to remove past contamination and dredge around 60,000 yards of sediment.

It’s being funded with a $10 million federal grant along with $2.75 million from the Minnesota Port Development Assistance Program and around $990,000 from Minnesota’s Contamination Cleanup Grant program. The port authority is investing more than $3.9 million.

The first phase will double cargo capacity and is set to finish in the fall.

PORT WASHINGTON (AP) – A prosecutor has presented a bloodstained T-shirt and sweater along with a sliced coat all worn by a man who says he was stabbed by TV actor Dustin Diamond in a Wisconsin barroom scuffle.

Twenty-five-year-old Casey Smet took the stand Thursday as Diamond’s trial entered its second day. Smet says Diamond, who played Screech in the 1990s series “Saved by the Bell,” stabbed him on Christmas Day when the two fought at a bar in Port Washington.

The 38-year-old Diamond is charged with a felony count of second-degree recklessly endangering safety and two misdemeanors – disorderly conduct and carrying a concealed weapon.

Diamond and his girlfriend, Amanda Schutz, have pleaded not guilty, and defense attorneys maintain that video footage of the two men fighting is murky.

See profiles of the 14 soccer officials and sports marketing executives that were indicted by the Justice Department relating to the FIFA scandal.

EXETER, N.H. (AP) — The Republican presidential race has another contender.

Former New York Gov. George Pataki announced his candidacy Thursday — first on YouTube, then at an event in New Hampshire. The 9/11-era governor served three terms in his Democratic state.

Pataki told supporters an intrusive government is jeopardizing freedoms. He said: “It is to preserve and protect those freedoms that I announce I’m a candidate for president of the United States.”

Pataki is an underdog in a GOP field with better-known rivals. He’s been out of public office since 2006.

The low-key Republican moderate flirted with presidential runs in 2008 and 2012 but stopped short. He hopes to reignite the unity that emerged after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Pataki served three terms as governor after defeating Mario Cuomo in 1994.

PORTAGE (AP) – Gov. Scott Walker says allowing local taxes set to expire in Milwaukee County to continue and be used to help pay for a $500 million new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks is not a tax increase.

Walker commented Thursday following a ground breaking in Portage about the ongoing negotiations to finance a new arena for the NBA team to keep it in Milwaukee.

Walker says he thinks an agreement is close and he’s hopeful to have it announced by the end of the week.

Walker says whatever final deal is reached will not raise taxes statewide and whether to increase them in Milwaukee County will be up to local officials. He says no new tax is being discussed, and he doesn’t consider extending an existing tax as an increase.