Green Bay News

GREEN BAY – The search for a missing Green Bay man was called off at 7:51 p.m. Thursday.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice issued a Silver Alert for 68-year-old Philip Jeanquart late Tuesday night.

Green Bay Police are not releasing details on his condition.

We will have more information as it becomes available.

Wisconsin’s Silver Alert system is a statewide missing person alert system, specifically for people with Alzheimer’s, dementia or other cognitive impairments.

APPLETON – Keeping your neighborhood, and your neighbors, safe and connected.

More people are turning to a private, social network called Nextdoor to do just that.

“People are taking advantage of it as neighbors,” said Tom Werth.

Tom Werth runs a Nextdoor site for his Appleton neighborhood.

“It’s just a way of getting information out there,” Werth explained.

Nextdoor is available on the Web and mobile devices, and it’s free to use.

“Every single member that joins Nextdoor has to verify their address so that they live where they say that they do,” said Jen Burke, Nextdoor Communications Manager.

Video, provided by Nextdoor, shows how people can use the network get to know one another, ask questions, and exchange information.

“It’s a little bit more private in some ways than a Facebook would be. It targets the neighborhood, and for neighborhood needs it’s a great resource,” Werth said.

Werth added Nextdoor is also a place to share crime and safety information.

“Neighborhoods get on it right away and let other neighbors know that, hey, there’s somebody sneaking around. There’s a weird car in the neighborhood,” said Werth.

According to Werth, the Appleton Police Department does contribute infromation he can then post on his neighborhood’s Nextdoor website, however local law enforcement has not yet signed on with the service.

“Obviously we have our Facebook page and Twitter accounts, those are our two primary social media accounts, but we do have a total of 7 social media platforms,” said Sgt. Dave Lund.

Lund says adding another tool, like Nextdoor, would require resources the department doesn’t have.

“We certainly wouldn’t discourage someone from doing that. It really just supplements those things that we’re already doing within the community,” Lund said.

Nextdoor says the goal is to get people to connect not only virtually but also face to face.

“We really consider it a great icebreaker to get neighbors talking and then they’re more likely to connect offline as well,” Burke said.

According to Nextdoor, more than 60 Green Bay and Fox Valley area neighborhoods are using the social network and smartphone app.

You can find out more about Nextdoor by clicking here.

ASHWAUBENON – Take it easy Eagles fans, the band added a tour stop in Green Bay this coming June.

The Eagles will play at the Resch Center Sunday, June 7 as part of their “History of the Eagles” tour, which kicked off in July of 2013.

Tickets go sale Saturday, March 21 at 11:00 a.m. at LiveNation.com, TicketStarOnline.com or Resch Center Box Office. Advanced tickets will go on sale to American Express cardmembers beginning Monday, March 16 at 10:00 a.m. through Friday, March 20 at 10:00 p.m.

Ticket prices will be announced when they go on sale.

The Eagles last performed in Green Bay in 2008.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A state legislator aims to eliminate daylight saving time in Michigan, the standard that calls for clocks to be moved forward an hour in spring and back an hour in fall.

Ann Arbor Democratic Rep. Jeff Irwin introduced legislation Wednesday that would direct the state to follow the standard time of the zone in which it is located.

Irwin cites “well-documented” accidents and heart attacks in the days after the spring shift. He also says daylight saving time is supposed to save energy, but evidence from Indiana’s 2006 changeover found an increase in electricity usage.

The Alaska Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to eliminate daylight saving time in the state. The bill passed 16-4 and now goes to Alaska’s House.

MENASHA – Repairs are on track for a local recreation area.

The Fox Cities Trestle Trail connects the City and Town of Menasha over Little Lake Butte des Morts.

The improvements are part of a larger trail-expansion plan.

For the past decade, the trestle has served as a gateway across the lake.

Jonathan Lo and Mainu Thao hiked the boardwalk Thursday morning.

“We’re just enjoying a walk. Jogging, getting back in shape a little bit,” said Jonathan Lo, Appleton.

“It’s nice. It’s close to my home. And I really like the view, so, it’s good,” said Mainu Thao, Menasha.

Parts of the converted railroad bridge need repair. Menasha Parks and Recreation Director Brian Tungate says about 50 of the more than 500 wooden posts will have to go.

“The posts themselves are part of the railing system of the trail and some of those treated timbers have warped, and have cracked, started to rot out a little bit,” said Brian Tungate, Menasha Parks and Recreation Director.

Tungate says some aluminum guard rails and cables will be replaced as well.

The City and Town of Menasha will split the estimated $22,000 bill.

And it’s more than just maintenance. Park officials say plans are in the works to expand the trail system to other communities as well.

“We would like to ultimately create a loop around the lower portion of Little Lake Butte des Morts. It will be about a three and a half mile loop, and will entail building a couple new pedestrian bridges that would connect Neenah to Menasha,” said Tungate.

The cost of that project could be as high as $3.4 million. A public meeting on that plan is scheduled for March 17.

Meanwhile people using the trestle say improvements will be welcomed.

“That’s the age we’re living in. On top of that, I’m from out of town. I look for it. I went to the visitors center to find this. This is one of the reasons we come back, is because of what you have here,” said Steve Redmer, La Crosse.

Work on the trestle should begin next week, and should only take a few days.

Park leaders estimate 300,000 visitors use the trestle each year.

Many communities around the state already have rules on where registered sex offenders can live. Those requirements change from city to city.

One Republican lawmaker says he is working on creating common statewide rules, but some argue residency restrictions do more harm than good.

In Bellevue, registered sex offenders can’t move into a home within 2,500 feet of schools, parks and other places where children gather.

“We care most about what’s for public safety of our community,” said village administrator Angela Goral. “We felt we need to do what’s in the best interest of our community and our residents.”

A measure being drafted by State Rep. Joel Kleefisch, R-Oconomowoc, would create a similar rule across Wisconsin.

Kleefisch was not available for an interview Thursday, but one of his aides said the new legislation would be limited to the more violent registered sex offenders.

The size of the buffer zone would likely be at least 1,000 feet, and the restrictions may only be applied to areas around schools and childcare centers – not parks.

A similar bill failed in the Legislature five years ago, and there is still some opposition to a new statewide measure.

The mayor of the Milwaukee County community of Franklin worries his city’s buffer zone of 2,000 feet would be weakened.

“Each community needs to determine where sex offenders’ residences can be effectively managed and permit it,” said Steve Olson.

More opposition comes from a national organization that advocates for treatment for sexual abusers. It says research proves there’s no need for residency bans at all.

“The one size fits all response to policy has not helped contribute to community safety,” said Maia Christopher, the executive director of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers.

Some area communities are open to a statewide policy even though they already have their own.

“We are very much open to having a conversation with our neighboring municipalities, but we need to do what’s best for our neighborhoods and our residents,” said Goral.

Kleefisch’s aide says they’ll work to balance all concerns and unveil the legislation in a couple of weeks, and discussions so far have included the state Department of Corrections and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.

TOMAH, Wis. (AP) – Wisconsin veterans are set to discuss problems they’ve had at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Tomah.

Veterans and employees at the Tomah hospital are expected to speak at a town hall meeting Thursday.

The hospital is under investigation for allegations of painkiller overprescribing practices and retaliatory behavior. The VA, the VA Office of the Inspector General and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration launched separate probes.

A VA report Tuesday said patients at the hospital have a higher likelihood of receiving high doses of narcotics including benzodiazepines and opioids than those at other VA hospitals. The report also found a culture of fear among employees that compromised patient care.

A 35-year-old Marine died of an overdose in the hospital’s inpatient care unit in August.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The latest in a string of baffling missteps by the Secret Service prompted fresh questions Thursday about whether the Obama administration has done enough to root out deep-seated problems plaguing the agency – and President Barack Obama’s decision to put an insider in charge despite his administration’s own review that called for exactly the opposite.

The White House said Obama still has full confidence in recently appointed Director Joseph Clancy, despite a new investigation into two agents accused of driving into White House security barrier after a night of drinking. While declining to discuss the investigation, Obama’s aides described Clancy – who wasn’t even told about the incident for several days – as the right man to fix problems.

“Nobody has higher standards for the Secret Service than Director Clancy,” said White House spokesman Eric Schultz.

Yet lawmakers charged with overseeing the agency were aghast and wondered how – after intense national scrutiny and a rotating cast of directors – the Secret Service still hasn’t corrected problems involving behavior of its agents. In a rare move, the top Republican and Democrat on the House’s oversight panel joined forces to say that while many of the agency’s top leaders have already been replaced, “this incident begs the question of whether that is enough.”

“Clearly this incident is a major wake-up call,” the Democrat, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, said later in an interview.

The two senior agents – including Mark Connolly, the No. 2 on Obama’s security detail – had been with other agents drinking at a bar last week when they returned to the White House in a government car, a U.S. official said. Secret Service officers on duty at the time saw the agents’ car make contact with a metal security barrier.

In a stroke of irony, the agents had been attending a retirement party for the Secret Service’s spokesman, Ed Donovan, whose job for many years involved answering questions from the press after other embarrassing incidents.

Obama knew both agents personally. The two have been reassigned to nonsupervisory, non-operational jobs while the investigation proceeds, a second official said. The officials weren’t authorized to comment on an ongoing investigation and requested anonymity.

The Secret Service’s response to the incident, first disclosed by the Washington Post, has also come under scrutiny amid a report by that newspaper that a supervisor on the scene directed officers not to perform a field sobriety test on the two agents, and to let them go home. Cummings, whose staff was not told of the incident until shortly before it became public, said that raised serious questions about whether Secret Service agents believe they can follow their own set of rules.

“The bottom line is the Secret Service has to be overhauled,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “What happened the other day shows we have a ways to go and that the overhaul is needed soon and very deeply.”

“Really, this is not just trivial,” added Schumer, D-N.Y.

Yet with Obama standing by Clancy, it remained unclear what additional steps could or would be taken to bring the struggling agency in line.

When former Director Mark Sullivan resigned in 2013, the year after a drinking-and-prostitution scandal in Columbia rocked the agency, Obama tapped longtime Secret Service agent Julia Pierson to take over amid hopes she would change the male-dominated culture. Less than two years later, Pierson resigned abruptly and under pressure in the wake of security breaches.

First, a man with a knife who scaled the White House fence made it far inside the mansion before agents stopped him. Then, as lawmakers started asking questions about Obama’s security, it came to light that the Secret Service earlier had improperly allowed Obama to share an elevator in Atlanta with an armed, private guard – and failed to tell him about it after the fact.

Amid a public uproar, the Obama administration launched an internal investigation and also commissioned an outside report that described serious problems. That four-member panel of former senior government officials concluded the agency was too insular – and recommended that Obama bring in an outsider to whip the agency into shape.

Obama ignored that recommendation and brought in Clancy – a retired agent who once ran Obama’s security detail – as interim director, then named him to the full post in February.

“Director Clancy has shown a commitment to addressing the issues” raised by the incident, Schultz said. “That includes implementing structural reforms.”

The storied Secret Service, despite its reputation as the world’s leading protective agency, has a long history of alcohol-related incidents.

In 2012, an officer from the uniformed division was arrested after being found drunk and passed out on a Miami street corner about 12 hours after a presidential visit. Two years later an agent was involved in a drunken incident during a trip to the Netherlands. And that same year two agents in Florida were involved in a traffic accident that reportedly involved alcohol.

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Associated Press writer Andrew Taylor contributed to this report.

ISLE OF PALMS, S.C. (AP) – A rare 475-pound endangered leatherback sea turtle found stranded on a South Carolina beach has been released into the ocean after five days of treatment at the South Carolina Aquarium.

The turtle, named Yawkey, was released Thursday on a wind-swept beach at the Isle of Palms northeast of Charleston.

Staffers from the aquarium and the state Department of Natural Resources carried the turtle to the surf in a box. The sides of the box were flipped down and, after a minute or two of hesitation, Yawkey moved into the surf as a group of about 75 people cheered.

Aquarium workers who treated Yawkey with antibiotics and fluids said it was important to get the turtle back to the ocean quickly because leatherbacks don’t do well in captivity.

BETHESDA, Md. (AP) – An American health worker who contracted Ebola while volunteering in Africa will be admitted to a secure treatment center at the National Institutes of Health.

The NIH announced Thursday that the patient is expected to arrive Friday at its hospital in Bethesda. The patient’s name, age and gender have not been released.

Officials say the patient will be transported to the United States in isolation on a chartered plane. The patient had been volunteering at an Ebola treatment center in Sierra Leone.

The NIH has one of the few containment facilities nationwide that are set up to treat Ebola patients. Previously, an American nurse was treated there after she contracted Ebola while caring for a patient in a Dallas hospital. The nurse, Nina Pham, survived and is Ebola-free.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – A legislative committee has approved a Republican bill that would restrict John Doe investigations.

The state Senate’s judiciary committee passed the measure on a 3-2 vote Thursday, clearing the way for a full vote in the Senate. A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said it’s uncertain when the body might vote.

John Doe investigations are similar to secret grand jury probes. The bill would prohibit using the process to investigate political crimes.

Prosecutors have used the process to investigate Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s former aides and his 2012 recall campaign. The recall investigation is on hold while the state Supreme Court decides whether it’s valid.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, a Rochester Republican, says he doesn’t want to vote on the bill until the high court decides that case.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – The state Senate’s judiciary committee has approved a Republican bill that would eliminate Wisconsin’s decades-old two-day waiting period for handgun purchases.

The Republican-controlled panel passed the measure 3-2, clearing the way for a full Senate vote. It’s unclear when or if that might happen. Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald’s spokeswoman says Senate Republicans haven’t discussed the measure.

The waiting period was enacted in the mid-1970s. The bill’s chief sponsor, Van Wanggaard of Racine, says it was meant to allow time for background checks but the checks can be done far more quickly now with computers and law-abiding citizens shouldn’t have to wait for their guns.

Democrats say the waiting period was meant as a cooling-off period and the bill would allow angry people to get guns quickly.

OSHKOSH – A new decorative arch will soon come to the ground of the Oshkosh Public Museum.

The arch is in honor of Edgar Sawyer who donated his home to the city for the museum back in 1922.

The focal point of the arch will say, “for the benefit of the public”, which were Sawyer’s exact words when he donated the home.

Museum Director, Brad Larson says Sawyer’s generosity has made a huge impact on the city of Oshkosh throughout the years, “Mr. Sawyer’s gift was actually the start of the public museum. If he had not gifted his home to the museum, more than likely this museum would never have developed and it shows what the generosity of one person can do and what impact the generosity of one person can have on a community generation after generation.”

The arch’s decorative scrollwork will accompany the Tiffany-designed elements throughout the mansion.

The approximate cost of the project is between $15,000 and $40,000 and will be completed by 2016.

APPLETON – Hortonville’s former village administrator has been ordered to stand trial on child porn charges.

Patrick Vaile, 60, faces 16 felony counts. Last month, investigators said they found more than 150 images of child pornography on Vaile’s computer and a flash drive. Court documents show Vaile admitted to viewing and saving images of nude children, typically between 12 and 16 years old.

Vaile resigned from his job the same day he was charged.

Vaile is due back in court to enter a plea April 27.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Fueled by higher stock and home values, Americans’ net worth reached a record high in the final three months of 2014.

Household wealth rose 1.9 percent during the October-December quarter to nearly $83 trillion, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. Stock and mutual fund portfolios gained $742 billion, while the value of Americans’ homes rose $356 billion.

The typical household didn’t benefit much, though. Most of the wealth remains concentrated among richer families. The wealthiest 10 percent of U.S. households own about 80 percent of stocks.

Still, greater wealth could help lift spending and economic growth. Higher stock and home values can make people feel more financially secure and more willing to spend, and consumer spending fuels about 70 percent of the economy.

The Fed’s figures aren’t adjusted for population growth or inflation. Household wealth, or net worth, reflects the value of homes, stocks and other assets minus mortgages, credit cards and other debts

U.S. corporations are also seeing sharp improvements in their finances, the Fed report showed. Businesses amassed $2 trillion in cash by the end of last year- a record high – up from less than $1.9 trillion three months earlier.

Cash-rich corporations could spend more on investments in machinery, computers and other equipment. That would make workers more productive and accelerate economic growth.

They could also use some of their cash to raise pay at a time when many employees have been stuck with stagnant wages. Some economists have criticized publicly traded companies for spending heavily on repurchasing their own shares, which boosts profits and serves shareholders rather than employees.

Businesses are also taking advantage of low interest rates by taking on more debt, which typically signals confidence in the economy and future growth. Business debt rose 7.2 percent in the fourth quarter, the sharpest quarterly increase in more than six years.

During the Great Recession, which officially ended in June 2009, Americans’ net worth plummeted as stock and home values sank. Household wealth tumbled to $55 trillion in the first quarter of 2009 from a pre-recession peak of $67.9 trillion. Wealth didn’t surpass that peak until the third quarter of 2012.

An early arrival of mild temperatures took its toll on the FOX 11 Ice Desk, which collapsed March 12, 2015.

ISIL or ISIS wants you and your children.

There’s great concern stateside ISIL has ramped-up efforts to lure your children to join them in their barbaric quest for the “final battle”.  This may sound exaggerated. But consider the facts.

Law officials say three American males, one 19, apparently tried flying abroad to join ISIS. A 17-year-old Virginia high-school student has been charged with helping recruit for ISIS. Three British girls actually made-it to Syria to join ISIS.

Bill Brainiff is a terrorism researcher for Study of Terrorism and Research to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland. Braniff says the allure for these children comes in many forms over social media; in a language they understand. They do it in the name of ideology.

“They’re purifying Islam by force. They’re not compromising on Islam or on Gods law in their minds,” says Braniff. “They’re willing to risk and dare and be brash and bold.”

Children and adolescents who have joined ISIS are known as “Cubs of the Caliphate.”

And those “cubs” can find themselves seriously deceived when it’s too late. ISIS actually promises that if you join in their “mission”, you are doing great humanitarian work. It’s a trademark method that has earned ISIS much success in attracting young people to their twisted cause.

ISIS also has a well-oiled social media machine targeting America’s young people. They are pulling out all stops in using videos, social media; even video games so that disenfranchised American kids and adolescents can join ISIS in ‘a greater cause.’

ISIS uses platforms like Twitter, WhatsApp and Facebook to reach their young target audience. Their methods include using extremely popular hash tags to disseminate their message to attract youngsters growing up in the digital age.

The major recruiting target of late has been young women; seen as potential brides for the ISIS militant fighters.

There are reports the U.S. intelligence community is doing its best to fend off roughly 90,000 tweets a day. Many of those tweets make it into the heads of American kids who have a certain type of void to fill in their lives.

Dr. Avram Mack is a child Psychiatrist at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington D.C. As shocking as this story is to most of us, Dr. Mack is not at all surprised. “It’s not surprising that there are individuals who have an interest in being part of this group and then having the means to carry it out,” Mack claims.

ISIS has already proven it can release top quality videos and feature a slick ability to show the world its uncanny brutality.

Experts say ISIS can appeal to young girls and boys as they endure the angst of adolescence. They could be spiritual implications as well and a strong desire to break the ennui of western life.

ISIS provides a utopian promise of an unearthly heavenly eternity which terrorist experts say poisons young minds with an adventure while they serve ISIS here on earth.

Experts say however once the young person arrives with a certain degree of spiritual satisfaction in their impressionable minds, that utopian promise turns into a disgraceful lie.

“The best way to be a Muslim is to be a martyr,” says Braniff. “This isn’t the main event. The main event is heaven.”

GENEVA (AP) – The World Health Organization marked a grim milestone Thursday in the biggest-ever Ebola outbreak, estimating that the virus had killed over 10,000 people, mostly in the West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Fifteen other Ebola deaths also occurred in Mali, Nigeria and the United States.

When Ebola was first detected in March 2014 in Guinea’s forest, officials assumed the deadly virus could quickly be stamped out, just as it had in more than two dozen previous outbreaks, mostly in central and eastern Africa.  But health officials now acknowledge they were too slow to respond to this emergency, allowing Ebola to cross porous borders in a region where broken health systems were unable to stop its spread.

A huge global response – including soldiers sent by Britain, the U.S. and other nations – has slowed the deaths from Ebola dramatically, especially Liberia, but the virus appears stubbornly entrenched in parts of Guinea and Sierra Leone.

A look at the Ebola outbreak:

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WORLD HEALTH EMERGENCY

WHO declared Ebola an international health emergency in August – but critics have slammed the agency for waiting until there were nearly 1,000 deaths to do so. WHO recently announced it was forming an independent expert panel to assess its response. Ebola cases also emerged elsewhere in Africa, including Nigeria, Senegal and Mali, and small outbreaks were later identified in the U.S. and Spain.

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WHERE THINGS STAND: LIBERIA

Liberia, once the hardest-hit country in the Ebola outbreak, released its last Ebola patient on March 5. It has now begun a 42-day countdown and if no new cases are found in that period, it will be declared Ebola-free according to WHO standards. To mark the epidemic’s downturn, Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf re-opened the country’s borders with neighboring countries. Ambulances in Liberia have also been dispatched to help stop Ebola in Sierra Leone and the government recently bought a 25-acre plot of land outside the capital to bury Ebola victims

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WHERE THINGS STAND: GUINEA AND SIERRA LEONE

Both Guinea and Sierra Leone are still reporting dozens of new cases every week and the number of Ebola deaths taking place outside of hospitals remains high, suggesting that people are wary of seeking help or are hiding cases. In both countries there are still regular attacks against Western aid workers and officials are unable to track where the Ebola virus is spreading.

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TRACKING THE TRANSMISSION

Dr. Bruce Aylward, who is leading WHO’s Ebola response, said scientists have sometimes been tracking the wrong people when looking for potential Ebola cases.

“It’s like one of those bank robber movies where the car comes out and everyone follows the wrong car,” he said.

He noted that West Africa’s upcoming rainy season – beginning in April – may make it difficult to get into remote areas. He said last year’s rainy season was when Ebola began to explode, but experts are still not sure why.

“We don’t know if the rainy season in some way affected behavior in the way people moved or how the virus spread,” Aylward said. “But I don’t want to do that natural experiment.”

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A LEAP AHEAD FOR VACCINES

The outbreak has had one silver lining – it has sped up the development of Ebola vaccines and treatments, something researchers have been working on for years.

WHO and its partners have already started testing two experimental shots, including a recently launched large-scale study to see if a vaccine can help protect people already exposed to the lethal virus but who haven’t yet developed the disease. Even though the vaccine may come too late to make a difference to this Ebola outbreak, it could prove invaluable later.

“If we (have) a vaccine stockpile for the future, we might be able to prevent (future outbreaks) from turning into what has happened in West Africa,” said Sebastian Funk, an infectious diseases expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

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Jonathan Paye-Layleh in Monrovia, Liberia, contributed to this report.

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — The roof of a five-story cement factory under construction in Bangladesh collapsed Thursday, killing at least four workers and trapping many others, an official said.

About 150 workers were on duty when the collapse occurred in Mongla in Bagerhat district, fire official Mizanur Rahman said.

He said at least 40 people were rescued from under the debris and up to 40 others were feared trapped. Many of the survivors were hospitalized with injuries, Rahman said.

The cause of the collapse was still under investigation.

Survivors said 50-60 people were working on the roof while others were on the ground floor when the collapse occurred, local government administrator M. Jahangir Alam said. It was not clear how many were directly affected by the collapse.

The seaside factory, about 135 kilometers (85 miles) southwest of Dhaka, is owned by an army welfare organization, the United News of Bangladesh news agency reported.

In April 2013, a building housing garment factories collapsed in Dhaka, killing more than 1,100 people. Engineering surveys show that many Bangladesh factories violate building codes by using substandard materials or adding extra floors that the building foundations can’t support.

WARNER ROBINS, Ga. (AP) – Gate guards at an Air Force base in central Georgia have been ordered to stop telling visitors to “have a blessed day.”

In an email to The Associated Press, Robins Air Force Base spokesman Roland Leach confirmed Thursday that the order has been given.

A man who identified himself as an active duty military member posted on the Military Religious Freedom Foundation website that Robins personnel have told him to have a blessed day more than a dozen times in the past two weeks.

The organization’s president, Mikey Weinstein, said on the group’s website that he spoke with base officials and was told that staff would no longer use the greeting. Weinstein said base officials told him that gate guards will now say “have a nice day” instead.