Green Bay News

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders will propose more than $1 billion in drought-relief spending for California as it copes with a fourth dry year, according to a legislative staffer who has been briefed on the package.

The staffer told The Associated Press that the vast majority of the package to be announced Thursday accelerates spending that voters have already approved for water and flood projects, including last year’s $7.5 billion bond measure.

The person was not authorized to speak to the media and talked on condition of anonymity.

The announcement comes one year after Brown signed a $687 million drought-relief package, most of which went to accelerate water infrastructure projects. A third of that funding has still not been allocated and the Department of Water Resources has not yet recommended how the money should be spent.

The package would provide some funding for immediate aid to communities facing dire water shortages and unemployment. It includes money for emergency drinking water, food aid for the hardest-hit counties, fish and wildlife protections and groundwater management.

Evan Westrup, a spokesman for the governor, declined to provide any details about the proposal. Spokespeople for Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins and Senate President Pro Tem de Leon also declined to comment on the drought-relief legislation before it was announced.

The legislation will need majority approval from the state Legislature which is controlled by Democrats. Republican leaders have not been briefed on the plan, according to their spokespeople.

Such spending is normally approved as part of budget negotiations that last through June. Although the plan being announced is labeled as emergency legislation, much of the funding has been available to the state for years. Some of the projects that will benefit could take more than a year before there is a noticeable increase in water supplies.

The water in the Sierra Nevada snowpack — California’s largest water source — is far below normal. Winter is normally California’s rainy season, but it’s drawing to an end without significant storms to replenish reservoirs.

Continuing dry conditions drove state water regulators to ramp up mandatory water restrictions on California residents. Under rules approved Tuesday by the State Water Resources Control Board, Californians can’t water their lawns daily and must ask for water when dining at restaurants.

The last drought relief-package provided 100,000 households with boxes from food banks and rental assistance to 2,000 farm workers, according to figures provided in September by the Department of Social Services and the Department of Housing and Community Development.

The state water department used funding to award local water agencies $221 million in October for a variety of projects that ranged from boosting water recycling to creating new wells and fixing leaks.

The state is expected to award another $250 million by fall.

ZURICH (AP) – The final match of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar will be played on Dec. 18, the country’s national holiday.

FIFA spokesman Walter De Gregorio confirmed the date Thursday, but did not say when the tournament would start. He says the governing body’s executive committee prefers a 28-day tournament – starting Nov. 21.

De Gregorio says the executive committee could confirm the kickoff date on Friday.

By rejecting UEFA’s preferred Dec. 23 final, the FIFA executive committee helped protect the English Premier League’s traditional Dec. 26 program.

A 28-day World Cup, four days fewer than usual, cuts the time clubs must release players to national teams.

Qatar bid to stage the tournament in the traditional June-July slot when it was chosen as host in December 2010.

OMRO – Friday is the first day of spring on the astronomical calendar. The new season sometimes brings flooding for parts of Northeast Wisconsin.

The National Weather Service in Ashwaubenon has recorded 30 inches of snow through the winter – 16 inches below normal measurements for this time of the year. As most of that snow gradually melted away, rivers in our area haven’t risen dramatically.

But Roy Eckberg, a meteorologist with the NWS, says there’s a low flooding risk right now.

“River levels at this point are running near normal due to snow melt, and we’re not expecting any significant flooding over the next couple weeks,” said Eckberg.

Eckberg says long-range forecasts show that trend could continue – but it could change quickly.

“At this juncture, looking out into the spring and summer, it appears that the drier than normal conditions should prevail, but it does take just one storm to make significant issues along rivers,” he said.

FOX 11’s Andrew LaCombe will have a complete story tonight on FOX 11 News at Five.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – A new union contract for about 360 members of the Wisconsin state patrol that included an average 17 percent pay increase has been rejected.

A special committee of legislative leaders voted down the deal Thursday. All Democrats were in support, with Republicans against.

Voting down the deal reached over a year ago now sends the troopers and Gov. Scott Walker’s administration back to negotiations. Walker’s administration had recommended approval of the contract, but Republican lawmakers say the 17 percent raise is too high.

Democrats support it as a way to help deal with difficulties recruiting and retaining troopers. There are 34 vacancies currently.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald says his members would likely support a 3 percent raise not 7 percent.

PHOENIX (AP) — The Milwaukee Brewers have exercised their 2016 option on manager Ron Roenicke.

Roenicke replaced Ken Macha after the 2010 season and has led the Brewers to a 335-313 record. Milwaukee won the NL Central in his first season, then finished third and dropped to fourth in 2013.

Milwaukee started 20-7 last season and led the division for five months, then lost 22 of its last 31 games and finished third at 82-80.

The team’s decision was announced Thursday.

ALLOUEZ – Kwik Trip is planning to build a gas station, convenience store & car wash on Webster Avenue – on the land which used to house the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay’s Chancery building.

An Allouez Plan Commission agenda for Monday has an item for a planned development district on three parcels of land at 1910 S. Webster.

The Chancery – or Bishop’s house – was razed in September 2010.

FOX 11 left messages with Kwik Trip and the diocese to learn more about the plans.

Allouez administrator Brad Lange said this is the first of several steps the village would have to take before granting final approval. The meeting is at 6:30 p.m. at the village hall.

Lange believe that Kwik Trip would purchase the property from the Diocese. In contrast, the banks on either side of this location lease land from the church.

For the organizations that give standardized tests, it’s a common — and common-sense — security measure.

But to the growing number of critics of the exams, the practice of monitoring students’ social media accounts against leaks of test questions is evidence that the tests and the companies that create them are too invasive.

The debate exploded last week in New Jersey when a school administrator emailed some colleagues about her district’s experience. In the email, Watchung Hills Regional High School District Superintendent Elizabeth Jewett said the state Education Department contacted her district at a testing company’s request at 10 p.m. one night last week with news of a possible test breach. A student apparently had posted a photo of a question from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers test, or PARCC, on Twitter.

The state Education Department, she said in her note, was informed of the issue by Pearson, the London-based company that oversees the test developed by PARCC. It is being given in a dozen states this month.

“The DOE wanted us to issue discipline to the student,” she wrote.

But, Jewett said in the March 10 email to leaders of other schools that was obtained by education blogger Bob Braun, it turned out that the student was merely complaining about a test question; there was no photo of the item itself. She said the student’s tweet was removed.

Jewett released a statement confirming that the email was hers and asserting it was accurate, but she did not return an email seeking more details. The district also said she would not comment further.

PARCC, intended to measure how well students are learning what’s required by the national Common Core curriculum standards, has many critics. Some students scattered across the country are protesting the exam and some parents organized through social media networks are boycotting it.

Their objections include that the exam itself is inappropriate, that it’s part of a culture of testing that is taking away from real learning at school and that it’s generally dehumanizing. They say the testing is more about consequences — as factors in determining which teachers could be fired; which schools may be closed for performing badly — than it is about learning. They also say they worry about the privacy of students’ data.

At a legislative hearing on Thursday, the state Education Department said it would do a review to make sure students’ privacy isn’t compromised. Still, one lawmaker said he would introduce legislation to address the monitoring of social media.

“I just find this to be unacceptable,” said Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan, the Democrat who is chairman of the Assembly’s education committee.

In the testing world, there’s nothing ominous about the monitoring. Pearson referred a reporter to a statement on its website that the company notifies education departments to any possible breaches.

“Copyright and test security are not new issues in testing. What’s different is the social media aspect,” said Luci Willits, deputy executive director of Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, which is giving Common Core-measuring exams in 18 states this spring. “You wouldn’t approve of a student taking copies of the test and handing it out to friends or posting it on the locker.”

Willits said her group uses student workers to do hashtag searches online to see if anyone is posting the test itself. Last year, when 4 million students took a trial run version of that test, she said about 75 breaches were discovered.

But the New Jersey incident gave opponents more not to like.

Save Our Schools NJ is calling for an investigation. “Posting a snarky comment about a stupid question hardly warrants the Department of Ed calling a superintendent,” said Susan Cauldwell, an organizer of the parents group.

Randi Weingarten, national president of the American Federation for Teachers union, started a petition drive this week calling for Pearson to stop monitoring students’ social media accounts.

In an interview, Weingarten compared the alleged snooping to tactics in the Soviet Union. “It’s creepy for parents, creepy for students and creepy for teachers,” she said.

New Jersey Assistant Education Commissioner Bari Erlichson said monitoring should be expected. “We should work to ensure that students and parents understand that statements that are posted publicly online are not private,” she said.

Melissa Tomlinson, a middle school math specialist in New Jersey’s Buena Township, said her objection was what the test company asked the state to follow up on.

“It was not a test question,” she said. “It was not the big security breach that Pearson implied it to be.”

Take an interactive look at the experience of various potential candidates for the presidency.

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) – The radical Islamic State Group claimed responsibility Thursday for the attack on a famed Tunis museum that left 23 people dead, scores of tourists wounded and upended the country’s struggling tourism industry.

Defying the extremists, hundreds of Tunisians rallied Thursday at the National Bardo Museum, stepping around trails of blood and broken glass to proclaim their solidarity with the victims and with Tunisia’s fledgling democracy. One person carried a sign saying “Tunisia is bloodied but still standing.”

Tunisian security forces, meanwhile, arrested nine people, the president’s office said, adding that five of them were directly connected to Wednesday’s attack on the Bardo by two gunmen who were later slain by police. The other four suspects who were arrested in central Tunisia were part of a cell supporting those involved in the attack, the statement said.

Prime Minister Habib Essid told France’s RTL radio that Tunisia was working with other countries to learn more about the slain attackers, identified as Yassine Laabidi and Hatem Khachnaoui. He said Laabidi had been flagged to the intelligence agency, although not for “anything special.”

Wednesday’s attack was the worst at a tourist site in Tunisia in more than a decade and prompted a leading Italian cruise ship line to announce it was canceling all stops in Tunisia indefinitely.

The deaths of tourists will create oceans of trouble for the country’s tourism industry, which brings throngs of foreigners every year to Tunisia’s Mediterranean beaches, desert oases and ancient Roman ruins – and which had just started to recover after years of slump. Two major cruise ships whose passengers had been among the victims left the port of Tunis early Thursday.

Razor wire ringed the museum entrance Thursday and security forces guarded major thoroughfares in Tunis, the capital.

Culture Minister Latifa Lakhdar gave a defiant press conference in the museum, where blood trails still stained the ground after tourists were gunned down amid the Roman-era mosaics.

“They are targeting knowledge. They are targeting science. They are targeting reason. They are targeting history. They are targeting memory, because all these things mean nothing in their eyes,” she told reporters. “There is only their reactionary, very backward and sclerotic ideology.”

Later in the afternoon, authorities opened the gates of the museum for a rally in defiance of the bloodshed. About 500 people held a moment of silence amid the shattered glass before singing the national anthem.

Participants included black-robed judges and lawyers, families with children and teenagers swathed in the red-and-white Tunisian flag. Many also carried bouquets of flowers for the victims.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in an audio and written statement on jihadi forums and described the museum housing Roman artifacts as a “den of infidels and vice” and celebrated the two attackers as “knights” armed with assault rifles and grenades.

The statement said the attack was just “the first drop of rain” and promised further strikes.

Tunisia has faced scattered extremist violence for the past few years, and a disproportionately large number of Tunisians have joined Islamic State fighters in Syria and Iraq.

According to survivors and witnesses, two or more gunmen attacked the museum wielding assault rifles and began gunning down tourists in front of a row of about 10 buses. The attackers then charged inside to take hostages before being killed in a firefight with security forces.

A Spanish man and a pregnant Spanish woman who survived hid in the museum all night in fear. Spain’s foreign minister said police searched all night for the pair, Juan Carlos Sanchez and Cristina Rubio, who were retrieved safely Thursday morning by security forces.

The Health Ministry said the death toll rose Thursday to 23 people, including 20 foreign tourists, with almost 50 people wounded. Three Tunisians were killed, including two attackers. All the injuries came from bullet wounds and several victims were brought in without identification.

Dr. Samar Samoud of the health ministry said six of the dead remained unidentified. She listed the rest of the foreign victims as three Japanese women, three French citizens, a retired Spanish couple, an Australian man, a Colombian woman, a British woman, a Polish man, a Belgian woman and an Italian citizen.

The Spanish couple who died was celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary and it was the first time they had travelled outside Spain, the Spanish foreign minister said. Their two children were flying to Tunis along with a terror attack counselor to retrieve their parents’ bodies.

One victim, identified in Japanese media as 66-year-old Machiyo Narusawa, was among a group of 70 Japanese tourists, mostly retirees who traveled from Tokyo.

A Tunisian translator for some Polish tourists, Abdelwaheb Khedimi, told TVN24 that he was standing across the street from the museum gate when he saw two men run through the gate, produce automatic weapons and start firing in the direction of 10 tour buses in the museum’s parking lot.

“It was a total shock,” Khedimi said.

A Polish military plane arrived in Tunis on Thursday morning to bring back Polish tourists who want to return home. Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski said some people from Poland were still missing and Polish prosecutors say they will open their own investigation.

The Costa Crociere cruise line announced Thursday it has decided to cancel all upcoming stops in Tunisian ports following the attack and will find alternate ports of call, which are still being defined.

“The security of our guests and crew is Costa Crociere’s priority and a necessary condition for calm and pleasant vacations,” the company said.

Tunisian legislator Bochra Belhaj Hmida, of the secular majority party Nida Tunis, told the AP that about 2,000 suspected terrorists are believed to be in Tunisia, many of whom joined extremists in Iraq or Syria then returned home.

“They are in a situation of being lone wolves, where each of them is free to do the actions they want,” she said.

Tunisians overthrew their dictator in 2011 and kicked off the Arab Spring revolutions that spread across the region. While the uprising built a new democracy, the North African country has also struggled with economic problems and extremism, though violence had not previously targeted tourist sites.

“This new act of barbarity sounds an alarm,” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said. “It announces that the world has changed.”

___

Associated Press reporters Maggie Michael in Cairo, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, Nicole Winfield in Rome, Jeff Schaeffer in Tunis, Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Harold Heckle in Madrid and Lori Hinnant in Paris contributed to this report.

MADISON (AP) – The Republican leader of the Wisconsin state Senate says he is looking at alternatives to Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to help pay for a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks basketball team.

Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said Thursday that Walker’s plan calling for issuing $220 million in bonds is “pretty much dead.” Fitzgerald says he is talking with Milwaukee city and county leaders about other options that may or may not include state borrowing.

Fitzgerald says he believes a deal can be reached that doesn’t include state borrowing, but he’ll do “whatever gets the deal done.”

Republicans who control the Legislature have been outspoken in their concerns over having the state borrow as much as Walker wanted to pay for a new arena.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (AP) — Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said Thursday that 2018 is the “right time” to retire, but acknowledged that next season could be his last as he appeals NCAA sanctions for academic and benefits violations.

Speaking two hours before the start of the main games in the NCAA Tournament, Boeheim said some of the NCAA’s allegations laid out in a scathing report earlier this month are inaccurate. He called the penalties “unduly harsh.”

“This is far from a program where student-athletes freely committed academic fraud,” Boeheim said.

Boeheim said his plan discussed with the university’s chancellor is to retire after three more seasons, but that he will take things year by year and next season could be his last.

“There was no way I would ever run away from an investigation in progress,” Boeheim said. “I had no plans to coach this long. This investigation has made it imperative.”

Boeheim said retiring after his team reached the Final Four in 2012 would have been ideal, but the timing wasn’t right.

“I love coaching, and you can coach as long as you can be effective. I thought I was effective this year. I don’t think I was as good as I would have liked to have been, but I think I was effective,” Boeheim said. “If I’m not effective at the end of next year, I won’t coach after next year. The three-year thing is the outside.”

Boeheim said he has told recruits he will be here next season but has no firm plans beyond that.

The NCAA punished Boeheim and Syracuse for academic, benefits and other violations that officials said showed the university had lost control of the athletic department.

“I’ll take the punishment,” Boeheim said. “Today what’s important is to handle what I have to do here. I am 70 years old. It’s obvious there’s a time frame for me as head coach. I feel that three years is right for me. Three years is probably longer than I was planning.”

The violations have blemished the final chapter of Boeheim’s decorated career, but his lengthy exit plan and support from Syracuse officials throughout the investigation showed how powerful he has become as the face of the university.

Boeheim built his reputation over five decades as a player and a coach, revered for wins and delivering a national title to a struggling city in 2003.

“Given all these developments, it’s right for the program (for me to stay),” Boeheim said. I’ve told every recruit I’m going to coach next year. If anybody’s concerned about recruiting, I don’t think that’s an issue.”

Boeheim is already suspended for the first half of the next Atlantic Coast Conference season, a total of nine games. Syracuse will also have three scholarships taken away for four seasons and all wins vacated in which an ineligible player participated during five seasons between 2004 and 2012. The total wins removed from records could be as high as 108, depending on what happens in the appeal process. Syracuse has already vacated 24 wins.

The school’s athletic director is also stepping aside, immediately taking another marketing position with the school.

Longtime assistant coach Mike Hopkins, a former Orange star player, is in line to succeed Boeheim.

In its report, the NCAA placed Syracuse on probation for five years, saying athletic department officials interfered with academics to make sure star players stayed eligible.

Support staff routinely accessed and sent emails from student-athletes’ accounts and corresponded directly with professors and included attached course work to maintain the required grades for the student-athletes to remain eligible, the report said.

Basketball staff also encouraged students to develop relationships with a booster, which led to more than $8,000 in improper payments to five athletes for volunteering at a local YMCA, the report said. Additionally, the booster gave money to basketball staff for appearances or assistance at YMCA events, payments that weren’t reported to the school as outside income or supplemental pay, as NCAA rules require.

“The behavior in this case, which placed the desire to achieve success on the basketball court over academic integrity, demonstrated clearly misplaced institutional priorities,” the NCAA said in its report.

Punishment also includes financial penalties and recruiting restrictions for two years.

MANITOWOC COUNTY – Someone shot and severed a fiber optic cable and now authorities are offering a reward to find the culprit.

Sheriff’s deputies say the shooting happened Sunday on Cleveland Rd. west of Dairyland Dr. in the Cleveland area. A .22-caliber rifle was used and authorities found several shell casings along a road shoulder nearby. Investigators also say a small, dark-colored pickup truck was seen in the area.

The Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office is offering a reward through the Crime Stoppers program of up to $500 for information leading to the arrest of the person or people responsible. Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (920) 683-4466.

Find current flood conditions for bodies of water in Northeast Wisconsin.

MADISON (AP) – Wisconsin added jobs at half the national average, ranking it 38th in private-sector job growth for the 12-month period that ended in September, according to figures released Thursday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The state has lagged the national average since July 2011, bad numbers for Gov. Scott Walker as he talks about his record while ramping up for an expected presidential bid. Walker, who took office in January 2011, has called the quarterly jobs numbers the “gold standard” by which his accomplishments should be measured.

Walker was in South Carolina on Thursday and Friday for a series of stops related to his likely presidential campaign. His spokeswoman did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

The latest jobs number, based on a survey of nearly every employer in the state, were down from the previous quarterly report in which Wisconsin ranked 32nd in job growth.

The numbers show that private-sector jobs grew 1.16 percent in Wisconsin during the 12-month period, while the national growth rate was twice as high at 2.3 percent. Wisconsin added 27,491 private-sector jobs during the most recent period.

Less reliable monthly data also released Thursday shows Wisconsin’s unemployment rate dropped to 4.8 percent in February. That is the lowest since July 2008. The national unemployment rate was 5.5 percent.

The monthly report, put out by Walker’s Department of Workforce Development, is based on information from only about 3.5 percent of employers and is subject to significant revisions. The report showed the state added 13,600 private-sector jobs between January and February.

Because those numbers can fluctuate so wildly, Walker has said his performance should be judged based on the more reliable quarterly figures.

Walker last week signed a right-to-work law, which he and supporters said would help increase jobs in the state. But critics say the fact that Wisconsin lags other states in job creation shows Walker’s policies, including the 2011 law that nearly eliminated collective bargaining for most public workers, are hindering the state’s growth.

• Click here for the full report

If you got that warm-‘n-fuzzy feeling the weekend Lehigh beat Duke or the year N.C. State socked Phi Slama Jama or the time Butler almost did it, you are not alone.

The science shows, again and again, that we can’t resist pulling for the teams called the Anteaters (that’s UC Irvine). Or for the UABs of the world to upend the UCLAs. For the time-tested crowd pleaser, the No. 12 seed, and for anyone else with the label ‘underdog’ when March Madness rolls around.

About a dozen studies over the past 25 years have shown, in one way or another, that we, as sports fans, are inexorably drawn to the team with the odds stacked against it.

“It’s the prominent narrative in sports,” said Nadav Goldschmied of University of San Diego, who collaborated on one of the studies.

This penchant runs counter to almost everything else we’re wired to think. Scientific studies show people want to be associated with success and that our self-esteem grows when we’re part of the “in” crowd. Walk one well-dressed job candidate through the door, then follow him up with a schlub, and the studies show the majority of us favor the person who appears more attractive, almost regardless of their credentials.

But take that same dynamic into a sporting contest, where it’s a scraggly No. 14 seed against a polished No. 3, and the perceptions change.

One of Goldschmied’s studies had people watch a basketball game between two relatively unknown European teams after reading different write-ups about the rivalry. One group was led to believe Team A had won the last 15 meetings; the other was led to believe Team B had won all those games. Who they rooted for tilted based on who they considered the underdog.

Furthermore, in both cases, the team perceived as the underdog was viewed as the team giving more effort with less ability.

“That’s just the story we tell ourselves,” Goldschmied said. “We don’t have to look too deep to figure it out.”

One minor detail: It’s not always true.

Another study conducted by an Ohio State professor showed that groups that felt they had more to lose actually tried harder, which basically tears apart the whole theory that the Lafayettes, Eastern Washingtons and Belmonts of the world will be laying more on the line this week than Kentucky, Kansas and Wisconsin.

In this study, college students were asked to perform a simple task, and were told a group of students from another specific college was doing the same work.

In the studies where one of the competing schools was listed appreciably higher in the U.S. News and World Report college rankings, the students from that school completed about 30 percent more of the task — in short, they worked harder — than when they were competing against a college ranked better or equal to theirs.

Conclusion: “The motivation gains were there when students felt their group’s superior status was threatened,” said the study’s co-author, Robert Lount of Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business.

“We came at it from a completely different angle, which was, we know we like to avoid losing more than we appreciate the joy of winning,” Lount said. “If you think of your own team as favored, the team may work especially hard to make sure it comes out on top.”

For all our love of underdogs, there are a few exceptions.

If a person has a specific rooting interest in a team — say the college they graduated from — they tend to favor that team, even if the team isn’t the underdog.

It helps explain a study that found when big-conference teams are seeded better in games against mid-majors in the tournament, the Vegas point spread for the big-conference teams is inflated by an average of about two points a game.

“You look at the power conferences, and you see their following is much stronger than those of the smaller schools,” said the study’s co-author, Jim Lackritz, a statistics expert at San Diego State. “People put their money where their hearts are and that drives the line up.”

All of which could serve as good advice for people picking against point spreads over the next few weeks.

The majority of us, though, will fill out brackets — no point spreads involved — based on feel and feeling. Many will pay scant attention to the fact that double-digit seeds have won a mere 41 of 172 games during the opening week — less than 24 percent — over the past five years.

Seems like more, doesn’t it?

Well, we’re wired to remember it that way.

Quick quiz: Who won the fight at the end of the first “Rocky” movie?

Answer: Apollo Creed.

But in a study Goldschmied is currently conducting, he said a majority of those asked answered “Rocky.”

“We will bend our memory,” Goldschmied said. “We have forced our memory to change just to fit the underdog story. It’s because of the underdog mode in all of us.”

BROWN COUNTY – It seems some drivers did a little too much celebrating on St. Patrick’s Day.

The Brown County OWI Task Force says it pulled over 57 drivers on Tuesday night. Of those, nine people were picked up for drunken driving and 13 for driving after their license had been revoked.

The nine drunken driving stops were nearly twice the average of 5.08 caught in a typical OWI Task Force deployment, authorities say.

In all, officers gave 45 tickets and 49 warnings.

APPLETON- The 5th graders at St. Francis Xavier Middle School are working on Stations of the Cross for Easter.

Click on the video to learn more.

MADISON (AP) – Madison Police Chief Mike Koval has criticized City Council members for remaining silent while members of the community denounce his department.

Koval says in a letter that the collective silence of the council is deafening.

The Wisconsin State Journal reports the letter follows a Tuesday council meeting at which citizens weighed in harshly on the March 6 shooting death of Tony Robinson, an unarmed black 19-year-old, by Officer Matt Kenny, who is white.

Koval says his letter reflected frustration not just with the format of Tuesday’s meeting, which he called “a kangaroo court,” but with a general lack of support from the council.

The officer was responding to reports of Robinson running in traffic and battering people. Police say Robinson punched Kenny in the head before Kenny shot him.

GREEN BAY – Looking for a fun place to follow your bracket?  Chef Ken Hall says Vince Lombardi’s Legendary Sports Bar and Grill is the place to be!  They have 14 reasons why as part of a special menu for March Madness.  It’s 14 specialty burgers with names such as Buzzer Beater and Bracket Buster.

Chef Ken prepared two of them on the weather deck during Good Day Wisconsin.  The Big East includes two mini pizzas!  The Big 10 Burger is a half pound burger with cheddar cheese, avocado and deep fried bacon!

For more March Madness fun at Vince Lombardi’s, be sure to follow them on Facebook.

Vince Lombardi’s Legendary Sports Bar and Grill 2020 Airport Dr Green Bay, Wisconsin (920) 429-3185

 

GREEN BAY- On this St.Patrick’s Day, we wanted to learn more about shamrocks.

Kaitlyn Schelter from Green Bay Floral and Greenhouse joined Good Day Wisconsin.

Kaitlyn shared tips on caring for shamrocks.

Click on the video to learn more.