Green Bay News

GOLETA, California (AP) — Officials from Plains All American Pipeline say they hope the broken section of a pipeline that spilled oil along the California Coast can be removed for investigation by Tuesday.

The company on Monday downgraded the amount of oil that may have spilled. The new estimate of the worst-case volume of oil released is 101,000 gallons (382,300 liters). That’s about 4,200 gallons (15,900 liters) less than previously thought.

Plains All American is still measuring the spill as it cleans up along the Santa Barbara County coastline and recovers oil from the pipeline.

Oil blackened area beaches and created a 10-square-mile (26-square-kilometer) slick in the ocean after the onshore pipeline ruptured May 19.

Officials say one sea lion, nine pelicans and untold numbers of fish have been killed.

Two public beaches are closed until at least June 4.

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Police briefly evacuated hundreds of workers and tourists from the U.S. Capitol and its adjacent visitors’ center on Tuesday in a problem officials tentatively blamed on a faulty exhaust fan in a visitor center kitchen.

“There are no signs of smoke or fire,” said Kimberly Schneider, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Capitol Police. Within an hour after alarms had sounded, employees returned to the building and tourists were readmitted shortly after that.

In an email to congressional workers from Capitol Police, officials said two alarms were triggered in the visitor center, which they said was apparently caused by “a known problem with environmental controls with the kitchen exhaust fan.” It provided no additional detail.

Lawmakers are in recess this week for the weeklong Memorial Day break.

The evacuation occurred two days after a bomb squad destroyed a pressure cooker found in an unattended, “suspicious” vehicle on the National Mall near the Capitol and the vehicle’s owner was arrested. Almost six weeks earlier, a Florida man was arrested after he flew his gyrocopter through restricted air space and onto the Capitol grounds.

In Tuesday’s incident, police cleared the East Lawn and closed First Street between the Capitol and the Library of Congress until the buildings were reopened.

Fink Arthur, a 28-year-old tourist from Freiborg, Germany, said he was with a tour guide and initially was told it was probably just a test, but the then guide led people out of the building.

Denise Grandits of Buffalo, New York, said she and 70 eighth-graders were touring the Capitol and heard the alarms. She said the guide escorted them out of the building.

“We just walked. It was pretty calm,” she said.

According to the police email, officials initially thought one of the two alarms that were triggered was in the Capitol and they began evacuating that building.

In a moment of confusion, police advised people in the Capitol a short time later that they could remain inside because the alarms were not coming from that building. They reversed themselves again minutes later and resumed evacuating the Capitol.

The email said once officials determined both alarms were in the visitor center, they decided to continue emptying the Capitol “to ensure staff and members did not receive conflicting information.”

 

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The National Weather Service says a tornado with winds of 110 mph damaged several buildings in Kenner.

The tornado was part of a line of severe thunderstorms that moved across Louisiana late Monday night and early Tuesday morning.

The weather service say the EF-1 tornado — one of the weakest designations — damaged the roofs of the Rivertown Theaters for the Performing Arts, the Southeast Telecom, Inc. building and a fire station across the street. No one was injured.

As residents clean up, power companies are working to restore electricity to homes and businesses.

At midmorning Tuesday, Entergy reports that just over 7,000 customers are without power in the New Orleans metro area. Southwestern Electric Power Company reports that about 13,000 customers have no power in the Shreveport area.

 

DETROIT (AP) – Wildlife officials have confirmed Michigan’s first case of chronic wasting disease in a wild deer and first of any cases in several years.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources announced Tuesday that tests found the contagious and fatal disease that attacks the brains of infected deer and elk in a white-tailed female deer in Ingham County’s Meridian Township. Chronic wasting disease hasn’t appeared in Michigan since one infected white-tailed deer was detected in 2008 at a Kent County breeding farm.

Officials say they will require mandatory testing of deer killed in the surrounding area during hunting season and implement a deer and elk feeding and hunting ban in Ingham, Shiawassee and Clinton counties.

The DNR says the disease has been detected in deer, elk or moose in 23 states, including Wisconsin.

MADISON (AP) – The state lawmaker who authored a measure that would allow private, home-schooled and online charter students to participate in public school district athletics and activities says he drafted the proposal to give children more options.

Rep. Bob Kulp, a Stratford Republican, said Tuesday that his children and other home-schooled children in the state wanted to play on public school sports teams. Kulp says state residents pay taxes that benefit public schools and students in other schools should benefit from their athletic programs and activities.

Opponents say the measure inserted into the state budget would create additional regulation for home-schooled students and would drain dollars from public school districts.

The budget is subject to approval in both the Senate and Assembly, then moves to Gov. Scott Walker for his consideration.

Overnight heavy rains on Memorial Day caused major flooding in parts of central Texas, May 26, 2015.

QUINCY, Ill. (AP) – A western Illinois couple recently celebrated the birth of their 100th grandchild.

Leo and Ruth Zanger of Quincy have 53 grandchildren, 46 great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild. The birth of great-grandson Jaxton Leo on April 8 made the number 100.

Leo Zanger tells The Quincy Herald-Whig that “the good Lord has just kept sending them.” He says his family “could start our own town.” Ruth Zanger says “there’s always room for one more.”

The Zangers have been married 59 years and have 12 children. The youngest, 31-year-old Joe, was already an uncle 10 times when he was born.

Most of the family lives in the Quincy area. When they get together they rent a church hall and it takes 50 pounds of ham or ten turkeys to feed everyone.

CIUDAD ACUNA (AP) — The body of a baby carried away by a tornado was found Tuesday in the northern Mexico border city of Ciudad Acuna as the death toll from the sudden, devastating storm hit 14.

City spokesman Edgar Gonzalez said searchers found the body amid the rubble of shattered houses. It had been carried off by the force of the tornado, apparently from a car. Earlier reports suggested the child had been in a baby carrier.

Gonzalez said four people from one family are still missing, a day after the twister injured about 300 people, destroyed 800 homes and damaged about 4,000.

Some of the homes were reduced to mounds of cinderblock and rubble, making the search more difficult.

Gerardo Aguinaja and his sister, Perla Isabel, stood in front of a concrete slab where the family’s home and taco business had once stood.

The house had been flattened by the storm, and bulldozers were sent in Tuesday to clear off the rubble and allow the family to rescue any salvageable possessions. Gerardo was able to find only his stepfather’s wallet and a pair of mismatched shoes, all the family had left.

“I don’t have papers, I don’t have anything. There are a lot of people who lost everything,” said Perla Isabel Aguinaja. “We have no place to live.”

Their stepfather, Edgar Gerardo Gonzalez, 37, their mother, Alma Isabel, and Perla’s 5-year-old son, Bryan, were in the house when the twister hit.

Alma Isabel and Bryan hid under a bed as the home collapsed around them. She survived with back injuries and bruises, and Bryan suffered gashes to his head. Both are out of danger. But the stepfather was standing at the back of the house, leaning against a wall that fell on him, injuring him more seriously. Despite his wounds, the stepfather managed to dig himself out, rescue his wife and the boy and take them to a neighbor’s house.

Four adjacent houses also were flattened. In three, the only things left standing were the bathrooms, precisely the place where Mexican authorities advise people to take shelter in storms.

The tornado tossed cars like matchsticks, leaving many leaning against the facades of houses. President Enrique Pena Nieto arrived Monday to survey the damage and help coordinate rescue efforts. Bulldozers and cranes worked throughout the affected area, clearing rubble, fallen light posts and crumpled cars.

Questions began to center on the lack of any warning system, though tornados are infrequent in Mexico.

The last major tornado struck the nearby border city of Piedras Negras, across from Eagle Pass, Texas, to the southeast of Ciudad Acuna, in 2007, killing three people.

Coahuila state Gov. Ruben Moriera said the twister hit too suddenly — it touched ground for a matter of seconds — to give much warning.

“There were no alerts, not from the American side nor from here. There was no time for that, it was terribly rapid,” Moriera said late Monday.

Perla Isabel, who wasn’t home when the twister hit, said nobody saw it coming. “We never thought something like this would happen,” she said.

___

Associated Press writer Mark Stevenson contributed to this report from Mexico City.

 

BROWN COUNTY – If you own property in Brown County, you can now get alerts about fraud involving your land records.

Register of Deeds Cathy Williquette Lindsay says the Property Fraud Alert system is now available in the county. Those who register can receive an email or phone call when a document is recorded under their name. It can include notice of fraudulent liens or mortgages being filed.

County officials caution that the system cannot prevent fraud; it only provides an early warning that a fraud has been committed.

The service and database are managed by Fidlar Technologies, which provides the software for Brown County land records.

To sign up, click here or call 1-800-728-3858.

MADISON (AP) – The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents has chosen UW-Whitewater Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Beverly A. Kopper to run the school as chancellor.

The regents approved Kopper’s appointment on Tuesday. She’s set to start her new job on July 1. She will replace Richard Telfer, who announced in November that he plans to retire as of June 30.

Kopper has served as provost and vice chancellor of academic affairs at UW-Whitewater since 2010. She served as interim chancellor at the school in January and February of last year.

She’ll make $238,000 per year as chancellor.

Authorities say a drug investigation led them to a room at the Marinette Inn the night of May 25, 2015.

NEW YORK (AP) — They’re not Hollywood stars, they’re not TV personalities and they don’t play in a rock band, but their pay packages are in the same league.

Six of the 10 highest-paid CEOs last year worked in the media industry, according to a study carried out by executive compensation data firm Equilar and The Associated Press.

The best-paid chief executive of a large American company was David Zaslav, head of Discovery Communications, the pay-TV channel operator that is home to “Shark Week.” His total compensation more than quadrupled to $156.1 million in 2014 after he extended his contract.

Les Moonves, of CBS, held on to second place in the rankings, despite a drop in pay from a year earlier. His pay package totaled $54.4 million.

The remaining four CEOs, from entertainment giants Viacom, Walt Disney, Comcast and Time Warner, have ranked among the nation’s highest-paid executives for at least four years, according to the Equilar/AP pay study.

One reason for the high level of pay in the industry is that its CEOs are dealing with well-paid individuals.

“The talent, the actors and directors and writers, they’re being paid a lot of money,” said Steven Kaplan, a professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. “In industries where the talent makes a lot of money, the CEO makes a lot of money as well.”

Pay packages for CEOs overall grew for the fifth straight year in 2014, driven by a rising stock market that pushed up the value of executive stock awards. Median compensation for the heads of Standard & Poor’s 500 companies rose to a record $10.6 million, up from $10.5 million the year before, according to the Equilar/AP pay study.

Peer pressure is another factor driving up executive compensation. The board members responsible for setting CEO pay typically consider what the heads of similar companies are making. If pay for one goes up, it will likely go up for others.

For the chieftains of media, there are also other factors boosting pay.

Several work at companies where a few major shareholders control the vote.

The media magnate Sumner Redstone controls almost 80 percent of the voting stock at CBS and Viacom. Because of his large holdings, Redstone can easily override the concerns of other investors about the level of CEO pay. Discovery’s voting stock is heavily influenced by the brothers Si and Donald Newhouse and John Malone, another influential investor in the media industry.

At Comcast, which owns NBC and Universal Studios, CEO and Chairman Brian Roberts controls a third of his company’s voting stock. That means he has substantial influence on the pay that he is awarded.

Comcast had no comment when contacted by the AP for this story.

All of the media executives have tried, with varying degrees of success, to maximize the value of their company’s entertainment brands online and on mobile devices.

For example, Moonves at CBS launched the series “Under the Dome” — based on the Stephen King novel — both on the network and on the Amazon Prime streaming service. Besides reaching online customers, the move helped offset production costs. The company, whose shows also include “NCIS” and “The Good Wife,” has attracted 100,000 customers to “CBS All Access,” an online subscription platform that costs $6 a month. Time Warner, under CEO Jeffrey Bewkes, launched HBO Now, which streams shows to computers, tablets and smartphones for $15 a month.

At Disney, CEO Bob Iger has bolstered revenues through canny acquisitions.

The purchase of Marvel in 2009 is reaping dividends with blockbuster superhero movies. “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” pulled in almost $190 million in its opening weekend, making it the second-biggest U.S. movie opening ever. Disney’s purchase of LucasFilms in 2012 means it also owns the highly lucrative “Star Wars” franchise, with the next installment scheduled for release in December.

Disney spokesman David Jefferson said in an email that Iger’s pay award “reflected the company’s outstanding financial performance,” and cited its record earnings. He also said that during Iger’s tenure Disney has returned more than $51 billion to stockholders through share buybacks and dividends.

Media stocks have climbed strongly the past five years. An index of media companies in the S&P 500 index has risen 193 percent compared with a gain of 95 percent for the broader S&P 500.

Discovery’s stock price has climbed almost fivefold since it started trading as a public company in September 2008.

Zaslav, who has led Discovery since 2007, saw his compensation rise last year after he negotiated a new contract that will keep him at the company until 2019. Last year’s pay package included $145 million in stock and options awards, $6 million in cash bonuses, $3 million in base salary, and $1.9 million in perks.

The company has pushed its channels overseas where pay TV penetration is growing faster than in the U.S. Last year, Discovery also grabbed a controlling stake in Eurosport International, making a bet on live sports. The move into European sports has set the stage for renewed growth overseas.

Zaslav has done a terrific job, said Chris Marangi, portfolio manager at GAMCO Investors Inc., which holds more than $150 million in Discovery stock.

The CEO has returned cash to shareholders and increased viewership largely through company-owned reality TV shows like “Say Yes to the Dress” and “Deadliest Catch.”

“He’s a dynamic leader at the helm of a company in a very fast-changing industry,” Marangi said.

Even though Discovery’s stock has slumped over the last 18 months, it is still up 243 percent since Zaslav took the helm in 2007. That compares with a gain of 49 percent for the S&P 500 over the same time.

Discovery declined to comment for this story when contacted by the AP.

The pay package of Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman’s reflects “solid financial results, execution on key operational goals and a return of $3.9 billion to stockholders through stock buybacks and dividends,” company spokesman Jeremy Zweig said in an email.

Top executives are getting paid more because much of their compensation comes from bonuses linked to their company’s financial and stock performance. Only a small part of their pay comes from their base salary.

Structuring pay this way is intended to align the executives’ interests to that of the company and to encourage long-term strategies.

Because corporate earnings have grown consistently, with a near six-year expansion of the economy, executives have met or beaten their earnings targets generally.

Earnings-per-share for the average S&P 500 company rose 7.7 percent in 2014, according to data from S&P Capital IQ. Revenue-per-share climbed 4 percent.

“There should be a strong link between pay and performance. The markets were up in 2014 so it makes sense that (compensation) was going in the same direction,” said Bess Joffe, managing director of corporate governance at TIAA-CREF, an asset management company. “We would also expect, in a downturn, for the compensation numbers to fall.”

The gap between pay for CEOs and that of the average worker narrowed slightly last year, because average wages crept up more than CEO pay did.

A chief executive made about 205 times the average worker’s wage, compared with 257 times the year before, according to AP calculations using earnings statistics from The Labor Department. That gap was still much wider than six years before, during the recession, when executives earned 181 times the average worker’s pay.

The notion that every CEO is a visionary in the mold of Steve Jobs, who led Apple, or Bill Gates, who co-founded Microsoft, is challenged by some.

“There are superstar CEOs that definitely are the driving force of the company, but while they are out there, they are rare,” said Charles Elson, a corporate governance expert at the University of Delaware.

Elson says that boards should look at overall levels of pay within their own company, rather than benchmarking pay against CEOs working in the same industry. He also says companies are paying too much to retain their chief executives when there is little evidence they’ll move to competitors.

For the annual CEO pay study, Equilar assessed data from 338 companies that filed proxy statements with regulators between Jan. 1 and April 30, 2015. To calculate a CEO’s pay package, Equilar and the AP looked at salary, stock and option awards, perks and bonuses.

The study only includes chief executives who have been at the helm of their company for at least two years. Because of these criteria, there are some notable omissions from the list.

Among other findings:

— The industry with the biggest pay increase was basic materials, which includes oil, mining and chemical companies. Median pay at these companies rose by 15 percent last year. Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson was the highest paid, making $28.4 million last year.

— Female CEOs again had a median pay package worth more than their male counterparts. Last year, women chief executives earned $15.9 million compared with the median salary for male CEOs of $10.4 million. The number of female CEOs included in the study rose to 17 from 12 in the previous year. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was the highest paid, earning $42.1 million, which placed her fifth among CEOs in the survey.

— Richard Hayne, the CEO and co-founder of Urban Outfitters, received the biggest pay bump. His compensation soared 682 percent to $535,636. Most of the increase came from his performance cash bonus, which jumped to $500,000 from $35,000 a year earlier. Hayne returned to lead the company in 2012 after an absence of five years.

___

Nakashima reported from Los Angeles.

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Some of the emails released by the State Department that were hosted on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s personal email server.

TOWN OF TWO RIVERS – One man was killed in a crash in Manitowoc County Tuesday.

The coroner’s office says the crash happened on Woodland Drive, north of Highway 310, in the early morning. A 25-year-old man was killed when a single vehicle rolled over.

Investigators say they don’t think alcohol was involved, but are waiting for toxicology tests to confirm.

The man’s name has not been released.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Amtrak said Tuesday it will install video cameras inside locomotive cabs to record the actions of train engineers, a move that follows a deadly derailment earlier this month in which investigators are searching for clues to the train engineer’s actions before the crash.

The engineer, Brendan Bostian, suffered a head injury in the accident and has told investigators he can’t remember what happened. Northeast Regional train 188 accelerated to a speed of 106 miles per hour in the last minute before entering a curve where it derailed. The speed limit for the curve is 50 mph. The crash left eight people dead and about 200 injured.

The train was equipped with a “black box” data recorder and an outward-facing camera focused on the track ahead, but neither of those devices reveals what was happening inside the cab.

The National Transportation Safety Board has been recommending that the Federal Railroad Administration require passenger and freight train cabs to have audio recorders since the late 1990s. They revised that recommendation five years ago to include inward-facing sound and video recorders.

Railroad administration officials say they support use of the cameras. In the past year, the agency has told the NTSB that it intends to propose regulations requiring the cameras. However, no regulations have been proposed and it typically takes federal agencies many months, if not years, to move from proposals to final regulations.

Cameras will first be installed in 70 new Amtrak locomotives that will power all Northeast Regional and long-distance trains between Washington, New York and Boston, as well as Keystone Service between New York, Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Joseph Boardman, the railroad’s president and CEO, told reporters in a telephone briefing that about 38 of the locomotives will be equipped with the cameras before the end of the year, and the rest by sometime this spring.

Amtrak is developing a plan for installation of cameras in the rest of its locomotive fleet, including Acela Express locomotives, but no time table has been set for those installations. The railroad has about 300 locomotives nationwide.

MADISON (AP) – Milwaukee leaders and the president of the Milwaukee Bucks all say they are close to reaching a deal to pay for a new $500 million arena for the NBA team.

They said Tuesday following a closed-door meeting in Gov. Scott Walker’s Capitol conference room that they were optimistic a deal can be reached by Friday.

Talks have been ongoing for months to come up with a plan to pay for the arena that’s part of a $1 billion entertainment district in downtown Milwaukee. Without a new stadium by 2017, the NBA has said it will buy back the team and relocate it.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett says “I remain optimistic, but there’s still work to be done.”

Bucks president Peter Feigin says everyone is trying to reach a deal.

DETROIT (AP) – The Detroit Lions and the MGM Grand Detroit casino-hotel plan to build an exclusive premium area for fans at Ford Field.

They announced Tuesday that the MGM Grand Detroit Tunnel Club will be located adjacent to the Lions locker room and will accommodate more than 100 fans and guests from MGM Grand Detroit during home games and other stadium events.

As part of the plans, the lower bowl in the west end zone is being extended to include field-level seating for Tunnel Club members. Those in the area, which will include bleacher-style seating, will get a close-up view of Lions player leaving and entering the locker room.

Season memberships for the Tunnel Club will be available for purchase through the team’s premium seating department.

Photos submitted to ReportIt, May 24-30, 2015.

MARINETTE – Crews were called to a suspected meth lab in Marinette Monday night.

Officials say an ongoing investigation led them to a room at the Marinette Inn, 1450 Marinette Ave. Hazardous materials crews and paramedics were also on scene.

FOX 11’s Bill Miston is following up on this story and will have a full report tonight on FOX 11 News at Five.

Fox Valley Association co-champs Kaukauna and Hortonville each received No. 1 seeds in Division 1 for the softball postseason, which starts Tuesday.

Kimberly and Bay Port each received No. 2 seeds, respectively. If the seeds play out as seeded Bay Port would meet Hortonville in a sectional final, while FVA rivals Kimberly and Kaukauna would also meet with a trip to state on the line.

Kimberly is the defending Division 1 champ, while Hortonville reached the state tournament last season.

Postseason softball brackets

In Division 2, the Bay Conference dominated the top seeds with conference champ Luxemburg-Casco, Marinette and New London each getting top spots, respectively.

In Division 3, Oconto, Laconia, Algoma and Chilton received top seeds, respectively. Laconia was the state runner-up last season.

In Division 4, Coleman was the lone school from the FOX 11 viewing area to corral a No. 1 seed.

The state tournament is June 11-13 at Goodman Diamond in Madison.