Green Bay News

WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. trade deficit in December jumped to the highest level in more than two years as exports fell and Americans bought a record amount of imports – a potentially worrisome development that could weigh on overall economic growth.

The deficit jumped 17.1 percent to $46.6 billion in December, resulting in the biggest imbalance since November 2012, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. The widening trade gap reflected a drop in exports, which retreated 0.8 percent to $194.9 billion. Meanwhile, imports soared 2.2 percent to $241.4 billion.

Economists were split on the implications of the bigger-than-expected December trade deficit. The government estimated last week that the overall economy grew at a moderate 2.6 percent rate in the final three months of 2014 after turning in a sizzling 5 percent growth rate in the July-September period.

Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Markets, said he believed much of the December trade data was already reflected in the first GDP report released last week.

But Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, said she thought the trade gap numbers, along with weaker growth in business stockpiles, could trim as much as a 0.5 percentage point from the government’s estimate. Michael Feroli, an economist at JPMorgan, also took a dim view of the results. He is trimming his estimate of fourth quarter growth to just 2 percent, although he still expects a rebound to 3 percent growth in the current January-March quarter.

“This is not good news for the final measure of economic growth,” Lee said in a research note.

The deficit for 2014 overall increased to $505 billion, up 6 percent from the 2013 deficit of $476.4 billion, the Commerce Department said. Economists expect the deficit to widen further in 2015 as strong growth in the United States boosts imports, while weak growth overseas and a rising dollar continue to depress exports.

The widening trade deficit comes at a time when the Obama administration is hoping to finally get Congress to approve the fast-track authority it needs to wrap up a major 12-nation trade agreement with Japan and other Pacific Rim countries known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The administration sees the trade deal as one of the areas where he may be able to find common ground with Republicans, who now for the first time in Obama’s presidency control both houses of Congress.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker said that U.S. exports had set a record for a fifth consecutive year – a fact that the administration plans to use to secure votes for the trade deal.

“These trade agreements will support the growth of jobs and the growth of middle class economics,” she said in an interview.

But critics hoping to block the administration’s trade efforts in Congress pointed to the record level of imports and rising deficits with economic powers such as China and South Korea as proof that the U.S. push for liberalized trade is costing U.S. jobs.

“This abysmal data shows how the past agreements that serve as the template for the trade deals President Obama is now pushing destroy more middle class jobs and further suppress wages,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.

She cited the deficit with South Korea, which hit a record of $25.1 billion last year and has soared since the U.S. implemented a free trade agreement with that country in 2012.

The politically sensitive deficit with China set another record last year, rising 23.9 percent to $342.6 billion. The trade gap with China is America’s biggest deficit since China surpassed Japan in that category in 2000.

Those deficits are creating pressure on Congress and the Obama administration to take tougher actions against what critics see as China’s unfair trade practices. U.S. manufacturers contend that China is manipulating its currency to keep it artificially low against the dollar as a way to make American products more expensive in China’s market and Chinese products cheaper in the United States.

The $505 billion deficit for the year was the largest imbalance since a $537.6 billion deficit in 2012.

The economy expanded 2.4 percent in 2014, with trade trimming growth by 0.2 percentage point. Many economists believe growth in 2015 will hover slightly above 3 percent, giving the country the best growth in a decade

The trade deficit would have been even larger last year if it weren’t for the energy boom in the United States. Higher production at home has been lowering America’s reliance on foreign oil. For the year, petroleum imports fell 9.6 percent to $334.1 billion, the lowest level for imports since 2009. U.S. petroleum exports jumped 5.9 percent to a record $45.7 billion.

For 2014, the deficit with the European Union climbed 12.5 percent to a record $141.1 billion, as growth in imports outpaced U.S. export sales to Europe.

The U.S. deficit with Mexico fell to $53.8 billion, the lowest since 2009. The United States ran a record surplus of $34.4 billion with the countries of South and Central America.

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Dozens of Jordanian fighter jets bombed Islamic State targets on Thursday, including training centers and weapons storage sites, the military said, pledging to keep up the attacks until the militants are defeated.

Jordan has said it would respond harshly to the killing of a captive Jordanian fighter pilot by the militants. Video released earlier this week showed the pilot being burned to death in a cage, setting off a wave of anger in Jordan and the region.

State TV showed footage of Thursday’s strikes, including one that set off a large ball of fire after impact. It showed two pilots scribbling messages in chalk on the missiles.

“For you, the enemies of Islam,” read one message.

A Jordanian Air Force fighter jet flies over the village of Ai as Jordanian King Abdullah II visits to offer his condolences to the tribe of the slain Jordanian pilot, Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh at their home village near Karak, Jordan, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2015. Jordan’s king vowed to wage a “harsh” war against the Islamic State group after the militants burned a captive Jordanian pilot in a cage and released a video of the killing. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

The military said all targets were destroyed. The announcement did not say whether the strikes where carried out against Islamic State positions in Syria or Iraq. The IS militants control about one-third of each country.

Jordan joined the U.S.-led military alliance against the Islamic State group in September, but up to now is believed to have only bombed sites in Syria.

The statement, read on state TV, was entitled, “This is the beginning and you will get to know the Jordanians” — an apparent warning to IS. It said the strikes will continue “until we eliminate them.”

Jordan’s King Abdullah II was paying a condolence visit to the family of the pilot, Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, in southern Jordan when the fighter jets roared overhead.

The king pointed upward, toward the planes, as he sat next to the pilot’s father, Safi al-Kaseasbeh.

Al-Kaseasbeh told the assembled mourners that the planes had returned from strikes over Raqqa, the de facto capital of the militants’ self-declared caliphate. His son had been captured near Raqqa when his F-16 fighter plane went down in December.

Earlier this week, Islamic State displayed the video of the killing of the pilot on outdoor screens in Raqqa, to chants of “God is Great” from some in the audience, according to another video posted by the militants.

Also Thursday, Jordan released an influential jihadi cleric, Abu Mohammed al-Maqdesi, who was detained in October after speaking out against Jordan’s participation in the anti-IS coalition, according to his lawyer, Moussa al-Abdallat.

Jordan’s Islamic militants are split between supporters of Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, the branch of al-Qaida in Syria.

Last year, al-Maqdesi had criticized Islamic State militants for attacking fellow Muslims. However, after Jordan joined the military coalition, he called on his website for Muslim unity against a “crusader war,” a reference to coalition airstrikes.

 

No people or animals were hurt in a Feb. 5, 2015 fire at Green Acres Organic Farm in Greenville.

NEW YORK (AP) — An Australian woman won the annual race up the Empire State Building’s stairs for the sixth time, a record for the women’s event.

Suzy Walsham dashed up 1,576 steps to the 86th-floor observatory in the Empire State Building Run-Up on Wednesday night in 12 minutes and 30 seconds.

The men’s race was won by German runner Christian Riedel, a first-time winner who came in at 10 minutes and 16 seconds.

The 38th annual tower climb was organized by NYCRUNS.

The participants came from around the world and were led by the elite women’s and men’s groups. The general field followed, with staggered, seconds-apart start times for racers to avoid a crush of people all trying to get into the stairwell at the same time.

Last year, Walsham won the women’s event in 11 minutes and 57 seconds and Thorbjorn Ludvigsen, of Norway, won the men’s race in 10 minutes and 6 seconds.

The course records are 9 minutes and 33 seconds for the men, set by Australian Paul Crake in 2003, and 11 minutes and 23 seconds for the women, set by Austrian Andrea Mayr in 2006.

German Thomas Dold holds the record for most men’s victories, with seven.

The Empire State Building Run-Up is one of the most well-known tower climbs in the world.

 

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) – An Alaska man who attempted to walk 50 miles between two villages at 35 below zero was found in good shape 4 miles from his goal by searchers called by his family.

Lawrence James, 52, wore heavy winter gear and carried water and a .22-caliber rifle. He walked nonstop for 15 hours and told searchers he didn’t get cold on the long stroll between Birch Creek and Fort Yukon, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.

James left Birch Creek at about 7 p.m. Monday and spoke to Fort Yukon Police Officer Michael Ivie on Tuesday when he was found.

“When I asked him why he did it, he said that a cousin of his did it a few years back and he thought he’d try to see if he could do it,” Ivie said. “I told him, ‘more power to you, buddy,’ but that’s not something I think I’d want to try.”

James’ family alerted Alaska State Troopers and village law enforcement in part because he was not completely sober.

“He had been drinking,” Ivie said. “Not a whole lot, he wasn’t drunk. He had a couple of drinks. He said if he had to do it all over again, he would have probably picked a different time. He said his last drink kind of gave him that urge, that oomph.”

The cold temperatures clinched the decision to search, Ivie said.

“Our issue is that it was minus-30 or below, and he was by himself, and he was only carrying a little .22 rifle,” Ivie said. “There were all sorts of possibilities that might have happened. He could have been trampled by a moose or (attacked by) wolves.”

The rifle would not be effective against a moose or predator, Ivey said, but said James “could have shot a couple of ptarmigans to eat.”

James felt fine during his walk, he told Ivie, but acknowledged his legs were hurting after 15 hours.

“That’s understandable, he’d just walked 50 miles,” Ivie said.

Submitted Feb. 5, 2015, with the caption:

“Fire at Randy Strey’s, Greenville”

PALATINE, Ill. (AP) – Health officials say five children under age 1 who attend the same suburban Chicago day care have been diagnosed with measles.

The Illinois and Cook County health department said Thursday that lab tests confirmed measles in two children who attend KinderCare Learning Center in Palatine. Test results are pending for the other three children but they’ve been diagnosed based on clinical criteria.

Officials say it’s not clear if the cases are linked to the outbreak that started at Disneyland in December or to one other suburban Chicago case confirmed last month.

Everyone affiliated with the day care has been notified and anyone not vaccinated for measles has been instructed to stay home and away from unvaccinated individuals for 21 days.

A KinderCare spokeswoman says the facility has been thoroughly cleaned.

MADISON (AP) – Wisconsin has hit an all-time high in seat belt use, but the state is still behind the national average.

Roughly 85 percent of drivers and passengers used seat belts last year in Wisconsin, Post-Crescent Media reports. That’s up from 82.4 percent in 2013.

But the national average of seat belt use is 87 percent, and states neighboring Wisconsin all have rates topping 90 percent. Wisconsin ranks 35th nationally in seat belt use, according to David Pabst, director of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation’s bureau of safety.

Preliminary data released in January also showed Wisconsin had the fewest traffic deaths in more than seven decades last year. The state Department of Transportation said there were 491 traffic fatalities in 2014.

Officials say a higher rate of seat belt use could have saved more lives.

“The seat belt doesn’t prevent a crash, but it limits the possibilities of severe injuries,” said Capt. Todd Christie with the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Department. “If you make the decision to not buckle up, you basically diminish the safety features built into that vehicle.”

Other factors can affect the number of traffic deaths, officials say, including alcohol use among drivers. Data from alcohol-related crashes isn’t available for 2014, but deaths in those accidents fell 47 percent from 2003 to 2013.

Deaths among motorcyclists also fell to 74 in 2014, the lowest number since 2001.

UPDATE: COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – University of South Carolina: No longer a threat on campus after public health school shooting.

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – The University of South Carolina said shots were fired at its new School of Public Health in a busy section of downtown Columbia on Thursday afternoon.

The school issued two alerts on the shooting via its emergency system and Twitter directing people to seek shelter and remain indoors.

There was no immediate word on injuries or suspects.

Student Hayden Dunn, a senior from Myrtle Beach, said he was in the building about 1 p.m., getting in an elevator to change classes, when a police officer also got inside. Dunn said the officer asked whether anyone had heard gunshots, but they hadn’t. Dunn said he went to class, then an alarm sounded five minutes later, and people rushed outside. Another office told him shots had been fired, he said.

“Otherwise, you wouldn’t have known anything happened,” Dunn said.

Some roads were blocked in the immediate area Thursday, but students still walked around campus, along with some vehicles that drove where they could.

A school spokesman would not immediately comment on the shooting, which happened a couple of blocks from the Statehouse and two blocks from the university’s basketball arena. The street is one of the city’s busiest. Sirens could be heard as more police officers arrived at the public health building.

DALLAS (AP) — With a trial set to begin next week for the man accused in the fatal shootings of famed Navy SEAL sniper Chris Kyle and a friend of Kyle’s, court officials in Texas are set to begin the process of screening potential jurors.

Candidates are to begin reporting Thursday to district court in the small town of Stephenville, about 80 miles southwest of Fort Worth. They’ll be deciding the case of former Marine Eddie Ray Routh, 27, who’s charged with capital murder in the killings two years ago at a gun range outside of Stephenville.

Here are some details about how the process to select the jury will work:

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THE TIMELINE

About 500 people are expected to report to court to get information on juror qualifications and potential exemptions on Thursday and Friday. Four sessions will be held over the course of the two days to accommodate all of the potential jurors. Erath County District Clerk Wanda Pringle said she does not yet know whether attorneys on those days will choose to give potential jurors a questionnaire containing questions specifically related the Routh case. Jury selection is set for Monday and Tuesday. Opening statements are expected Wednesday.

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A LARGE POOL

Pringle says that instead of a typical jury pool of 175, about 800 were summoned. Of them, about 300 have been eliminated, including people who are exempt and others whose summons were mailed to the wrong address.

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INTEREST IN THE TRIAL

The trial is expected to garner international attention. The court has already issued an extensive list of rules related to media coverage and police have issued information on road closures when the trial starts. The Oscar-nominated movie “American Sniper,” based on Kyle’s memoir of the same name starring Bradley Cooper, was recently released. Kyle served four tours in Iraq before retiring from the military in 2009.

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THE DEFENDANT

Routh, who struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder after leaving the Marines in 2010, had served as a small arms technician in the Iraq war and was deployed to earthquake-ravaged Haiti on a relief mission. Kyle took Routh to the shooting range at a luxury resort in the rolling countryside outside of Stephenville after Routh’s mother asked if Kyle could help her son. Routh’s attorney has said he’ll pursue an insanity defense.

WASHINGTON (AP) — From food safety to tobacco regulation and politically charged drug approvals, Margaret Hamburg reset the course of the embattled Food and Drug Administration.

After nearly six years as FDA commissioner, Hamburg announced her resignation Thursday in an email to staff. She said the agency’s chief scientist, Stephen Ostroff, will serve as acting head of FDA.

She is among the longest-serving commissioners to head the agency and helped oversee the creation of a new food safety system, innovations in how drugs are reviewed and new tobacco regulations.

President Barack Obama named Hamburg to the post in 2009 following a series of high-profile safety problems at the agency ranging from contaminated blood thinners to salmonella-tainted peanut butter that required one of the largest food recalls in U.S. history.

“What she offered was stability, accomplishment, effectiveness and restoring some of that prestige that it had lost,” said Steven Grossman, a former FDA official who now heads Alliance for a Stronger FDA, which advocates for increased FDA funding. “I think that she leaves the place in so much better shape in terms of almost any dimension you can think of.”

Still, agency critics sometimes questioned Hamburg’s judgment. Politicians, law enforcement officials and anti- addiction groups have all criticized the agency for not doing more to combat the epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse, linked to over 17,000 U.S. deaths annually. Hamburg defended the agency’s ongoing approval of powerful new opioid drugs, saying they are an important option for patients with chronic pain.

Public Citizen, a frequent critic of drug companies, said in a statement that the FDA “has grown even more cozy with the industries that it regulates” under Hamburg’s tenure.

An agency that regulates one-fourth of the U.S. economy, the FDA’s chief is subject to scrutiny from an array of outside forces, including consumer and health advocates, multinational corporations, politicians and medical professionals. Hamburg stayed on the job longer than her three predecessors combined.

Under Hamburg’s tenure, the FDA was more active on food policy than it had been since nutrition labeling rules were first written in the early 1990s. The agency has worked to put new food safety rules in place, phased out artery-clogging trans fats from the food supply, proposed updates to nutrition facts on the backs of food packaging and required restaurants and retailers to label calories on menus.

The agency also won authority to regulate the tobacco industry for the first time, focusing on how cigarettes are marketed. The agency has banned flavored cigarettes except for menthol; removed labels such as “light,” ”mild” and “low-tar” from cigarette packs; and increased the size of warning labels on smokeless tobacco.

In her goodbye note to staffers, Hamburg emphasized the importance of science in these decisions and other reforms aimed at speeding up drug reviews and overseeing specialty pharmacies.

“At the heart of all of these accomplishments is a strong commitment to science as the foundation of our regulatory decision-making and of our integrity as an agency,” Hamburg said.

She took control of the agency at a time when its reputation had been battered by accusations that officials were allowing politics to influence medical decisions. A federal judge ruled that in 2006 the agency deliberately delayed making a decision on the Plan B morning-after pill at the behest of the Bush administration.

The same contraceptive became a political liability under Hamburg when the FDA attempted to approve its sale over-the-counter for teenagers. But at the eleventh hour the head of the department of Health and Human Services intervened and overruled FDA, deciding that young girls shouldn’t be able to buy the pill on their own. Hamburg stood by her agency’s decision and the drug was approved for non-prescription use in 2013.

In another high-stakes drug controversy, Hamburg personally made the decision to revoke the blockbuster drug Avastin’s approval to treat advanced breast cancer, based on evidence that it did not actually help patients.

Hamburg, 59, is a doctor and former New York City health commissioner. The daughter of two physicians, she is known as a bioterrorism expert who has also studied neuroscience and AIDS research.

News of Hamburg’s departure comes just a week after the agency announced that Robert Califf, a prominent cardiologist from Duke University, would take on the agency’s No. 2 leadership position. Califf was considered for Hamburg’s job and many FDA observers say he could eventually replace her.

Hamburg’s successor will inherit some of her unfinished priorities, like the update on nutrition facts labels proposed last year and voluntary standards for sodium levels in packaged foods that Hamburg promised in 2010 but never delivered. The food safety rules have yet to be finalized.

Hamburg has at times had to push the White House to move on her priorities as the industries have pushed back.

David Kessler, FDA commissioner from 1990 to 1997, says Hamburg “deserves enormous credit for pushing the issues as far as she did.”

Still, he said, her legacy isn’t complete.

“It could be a very strong legacy for this administration, but they need to complete this work,” Kessler said.

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Associated Press writer Michael Felberbaum contributed to this report from Richmond, Virginia.

 

GREEN BAY – The Wisconsin DOT is asking residents living near the Mason Street exit of US 41 to be patient with nighttime noise and lighting while crews instal 600 feet of noise walls.

The installation will start Monday night, Feb. 9. Work will continue nightly through Thursday, Feb. 19, excluding Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.

More noise wall installation can be expected later this year and into 2016.

Noise wall installation is done at night for the safety of workers and drivers.

You can log onto www.us41wisconsin.gov for details of all WisDOT projects.

VALHALLA, N.Y. (AP) — An investigation into what caused a fiery crash that killed a motorist and five rail riders is focusing on how a mother of three described by friends as safety conscious ended up between two crossing gates in her SUV as a commuter train barreled toward her.

“The big question everyone wants to know is: Why was this vehicle in the crossing?” Robert Sumwalt, a National Transportation Safety Board vice chairman, told reporters in suburban New York a day after the deadliest accident in the 32-year history of Metro-North Railroad, one of the nation’s busiest commuter railroads.

NTSB investigators were working Thursday to examine the tracks, interview the crew and find out whether Ellen Brody’s Mercedes SUV had a data recorder of its own.

Service on the Harlem Line resumed Thursday with delays, as trains slowed down through the crash site area.

Brody, 49, was driving home from her jewelry-store job Tuesday night when a witness said she got out of her vehicle to check after a guardrail came down on top of it. She then got back into the car, driving forward onto the tracks just before she was struck by the train, motorist Rick Hope told The Journal News.

“She wasn’t in a hurry at all, but she had to have known that a train was coming,” Hope told the newspaper, adding he backed up and motioned for her to do the same.

The crash happened in the dark in an area where the tracks are straight but drivers exiting or entering the adjacent Taconic Parkway had to turn and cross them. Traffic also was backed up because of an accident on the parkway.

Investigators had no evidence the crossing gates weren’t working properly, but their examination was just beginning, Sumwalt said.

Brody was a mother of three grown daughters and an active, outgoing member of her synagogue. She was “not risky when it came to her safety or others,” said family friend Paul Feiner, the town supervisor in Greenburgh.

The crash was so powerful that the electrified third rail came up and pierced the train and the SUV, and the SUV was pushed about 1,000 feet, Sumwalt said. The blaze consumed the SUV and the train’s first car.

Sumwalt said the NTSB would also examine the adequacy of the train’s exits and the intensity of the fire, which investigators believe was sparked by the SUV’s gas tank.

In the first car, a man whose own hands were burned elbowed open the emergency exit latch, allowing some of the train’s roughly 700 passengers to escape, passenger Christopher Gross said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

The train’s engineer tried to rescue people until the smoke and flames got so severe that he had to escape, Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino said.

While officials did not immediately release any victims’ names, employers and family members confirmed that the dead included Walter Liedtke, a curator of European paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Eric Vandercar, 53, a senior managing director at Mesirow Financial, Aditya Tomar, 41, who worked in asset management at JPMorgan, Robert Dirks, 36, a research scientist at D.E. Shaw Research in Manhattan, Joseph Nadol, an executive with JPMorgan Chase & Co.

It was not the first deadly crash at the site: A Metro-North train hit a truck, killing its driver, at the same Commerce Street crossing in 1984, according to Federal Railroad Administration records.

Every day, trains travel across more than 212,000 highway-grade rail crossings in the U.S. There are an average of 230 to 250 deaths a year at such crossings, down over 50 percent from two decades ago, FRA figures show.

Risky driver behavior or poor judgment accounts for 94 percent of grade crossing accidents, according to a 2004 government report.

Metro-North is the nation’s second-busiest commuter railroad, after the Long Island Rail Road, serving about 280,000 riders a day.

Late last year, the NTSB issued rulings on five Metro-North accidents in New York and Connecticut in 2013 and 2014, repeatedly finding fault with the railroad.

Among the accidents was a 2013 derailment in the Bronx that killed four people, the railroad’s first passenger fatalities. The NTSB said the engineer had fallen asleep at the controls because of a severe, undiagnosed case of sleep apnea.

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Associated Press writers Kiley Armstrong, Ula Ilnytzky and Meghan Barr in New York; Joan Lowy in Washington; and Michael Kunzelman in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, contributed to this report.

Polling data released in the last week says Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has leads over potential 2016 Republican presidential candidates in Iowa and New Hampshire – the states scheduled to hold the first 2016 nomination contests.

In New Hampshire, an NH1 Pulse Poll released Wednesday shows Walker has support from 21.2 percent of people who say they’re likely to vote in next year’s Republican presidential primary.

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush is in second place with 14.14 percent. The poll surveyed 1,012 registered Republicans or independents who lean towards the GOP.

An NH1 Pulse Poll conducted two weeks earlier showed Mitt Romney as the leader with 29 percent of support. Gov. Walker was at 8 percent. Romney announced last Friday that he wouldn’t run for the White House for a third time.

Walker says he plans to speak to New Hampshire Republicans next month.

A Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll released Jan. 31 has Walker leading several other potential contenders with support from 15 percent of likely Republican caucus participants. The same poll showed Walker with 4 percent of support in October.

In the latest poll, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul was second with 14 percent. The poll surveyed 402 people.

The survey was taken before Romney’s announcement. Romney had support from 13 percent.

Walker spoke at the Iowa Freedom Summit just days before the poll was given.

That poll also shows Hillary Clinton remains the 2016 front-runner for Democrats – she had support from 56 percent of the 401 people who consider themselves likely Iowa Democratic caucus-goers.

Walker says he won’t announce his decision about running for president until he signs the next state budget, which will likely happen in June.

“As of today, I am not a candidate for president,” Walker said Wednesday afternoon in Oconomowoc.

However, the two-term governor recently launched a national political organization that can raise money, and he’s hired several experienced political advisers to help with a potential campaign.

Iowa Republicans will participate in caucuses on Feb. 1, 2016, and New Hampshire holds its primary nine days later.

FOX 11’s Andrew LaCombe will have more reaction from Gov. Walker, national Democrats and an experience pollster tonight on FOX 11 News at Five.

WATERTOWN (AP) – Gov. Scott Walker says he’s open to adding more money for public schools, the University of Wisconsin and roads as long as property taxes are still cut.

Walker told reporters Thursday that he suspects those are the three areas that the Legislature will want to add more money from what he proposed in the state budget. He says how much gets added will depend on how rosy new spring revenue estimates are.

Republicans who control the Legislature have targeted all three of those areas for changes from what Walker proposed.

Walker is calling for a $300 million cut to UW, borrowing $1.3 billion to pay for roads and holding K-12 state aid flat over two years.

Walker says he’s willing to work with the Legislature on all three.

WATERTOWN (AP) – Gov. Scott Walker says his plan to require SeniorCare participants to first sign up for Medicare Part D isn’t about changing benefits, it’s about getting the federal government to pay for part of the costs.

Walker resurrected the plan in his budget released this week. The Legislature rejected the idea in 2011 under bipartisan opposition.

Walker said Thursday that his plan would keep the structure of SeniorCare in place and not eliminate or affect benefits people receive. The proposal would save the state $15 million over two years.

His argument on SeniorCare comes at the same time he defends rejecting federal money to pay for expansion of Medicaid, arguing that the federal government can’t be relied on to fulfill its obligations.

APPLETON – Appleton should build a new parking ramp to replace two aging downtown ramps, a consultant’s study says.

A $68,000 study by Walker Parking Consultants recommends a new mixed-use parking ramp to replace the city-owned Blue Ramp behind City Center Plaza and the YMCA-owned Soldiers Square Ramp. Both ramps are close to 50 years old and will need to be torn down in the next five years because they will be unfit for use, city leaders say.

Walker Parking, which is based in Elgin, Illinois, says a new ramp, with retail space on the ground floor, would cost about $10 million and could be paid for through a public/private partnership, but owned by the city. The new ramp, built near the current Soldiers Square Ramp, would have 575 spaces; the Blue and Soldiers Square ramps have 851 spaces total.

The study considered 9,178 total parking spaces in a 56-block area. Of those spaces, 54% are owned by the city and the other 46% are privately owned.

It also considered various scenarios for a library in a new location, which has been proposed, or a library expansion at the current site; as well as a proposed new exhibition center near the Radisson Paper Valley Hotel. The study said the Red and Green ramps could handle parking needs for the exhibition center. An additional 200-400 spaces near the current Blue Ramp could be needed if the library expands at its current location or if another organization takes over that space.

According to the study, at any one time, there is a surplus of 2,400 available parking spaces in the downtown area, though there are often localized shortages.

The study also recommends new technology to allow parking to be paid for with credit cards and smartphones; different pricing to encourage long-term parking in ramps and shorter-term parking on the street; allowing free on-street parking to begin at 6 p.m. instead of 9 p.m. Additionally, it recommends Lawrence University expand its parking lot at the Lawrence Memorial Chapel by 50 spaces.

• Click here to read the full study

The city Municipal Services Committee is scheduled to discuss the study at its meeting Tuesday night.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pope Francis will address a joint meeting of Congress on Sept. 24. He’ll be the first Pontiff to do so.

House Speaker John Boehner made the announcement at a news conference, then issued a statement expressing gratitude that the pope had accepted his invitation to appear before a joint meeting of the House and Senate.

The pope is scheduled to make his first papal visit to the United States this fall, with other stops in New York and Philadelphia.

WATERTOWN (AP) – Gov. Scott Walker says it was not his intention to order that the University of Wisconsin’s mission statement be altered to remove the central tenet of the Wisconsin Idea.

Walker on Thursday said it was a “mistake someone made” to assume that his desire to add career readiness to the mission statement meant to also delete references to public service and seeking a broader truth. But Walker says no one will be disciplined for it, calling it a “matter of confusion.”

Orders Walker’s administration gave to bill drafters show that they were instructed to delete existing language calling for extending knowledge, searching for truth and stimulating society.

The move generated a backlash and Walker says he’s going to fix the language to keep the Wisconsin Idea intact.

MADISON (AP) – Records show Gov. Scott Walker’s administration clearly ordered the rewriting of the University of Wisconsin System’s mission statement in the state budget.

The Associated Press reviewed the administration’s drafting instructions to the Legislative Reference Bureau on Thursday. A Dec. 30 email ordered the bureau to write that the system’s mission is to meet the state’s workforce needs and to drop existing language calling for extending knowledge, searching for truth and stimulating society.

The move generated a backlash after the administration released Walker’s budget earlier this week. On Wednesday the governor abruptly backed off the language, calling it a drafting error and promising the original mission statement would stand.

A Walker spokeswoman didn’t immediately return an email message Thursday morning seeking details on what error was made.