News 8.10.17
10 August 2017 News
The cause of a fire that displaced 14 people in Ripon is determined to be from discarded smoking materials. District Fire Chief Tim Saul says that the smoking materials were on an outside second story balcony at Valley Crest Apartments in a plastic container. The fire broke out at 560 North Douglas Street Monday at 5 p.m. Firefighters say the fire spread from the balcony to the roof. Eight apartment units sustained damage. One person was taken to the hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation. The Red Cross is helping 14 people who were displaced by the fire.
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Federal investigators say the pilot of a seaplane that crashed on Lake Winnebago in eastern Wisconsin last month, killing himself and a passenger, tried to take off for Minnesota despite warnings about rough water. The plane crashed July 27 while trying to take off from the Experimental Aircraft Association’s seaplane base near Oshkosh during the group’s annual convention. The crash killed the pilot, 84-year-old Ray Johnson, of Marshall, Minnesota, and 71-year-old Diane Linker, of Sauk Rapids, Minnesota. A second passenger survived. The National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary report Monday doesn’t pinpoint a cause. But it says the pilot was taken onto the lake by boat after personnel expressed concern about the high waves. But Johnson still asked for the seaplane to be refueled to fly to Marshall in southwestern Minnesota.
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Some international students are spending summer at their American colleges instead of returning home because they worried about potential travel troubles, even if they aren’t from majority Muslim countries in the government’s travel ban rules. At least a few schools have showed support for such students by offering practical help with housing, jobs or meals, including Adelphi University in New York, Lawrence University in Wisconsin, and Ohio University. Many more schools around the country pointed foreign students to support services and legal resources that could help with travel questions. A Supreme Court ruling on the travel ban exempted many travelers who have a “bona fide relationship” with an entity in the U.S., such as university students. But educators who work with and advocate for international students say many remain concerned.
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U.S. health officials say more people have contracted salmonella by eating papayas from a farm in southern Mexico. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 109 people in 16 states have caught the illness from eating papayas traced to the Carica de Campeche farm in Campeche, Mexico. Nearly half of the cases have been in New York and New Jersey, which had 36 and 26, respectively. Virginia has had 11 cases, Pennsylvania has had seven and Maryland has had six. Connecticut and Minnesota have each reported four cases, and Massachusetts has had three. Iowa, Kentucky, North Carolina and Oklahoma have each reported two cases, while Delaware, Louisiana, Michigan and Wisconsin have had one each. One death, in New York City, has been blamed on the outbreak. Those sickened can experience diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain and fever. The illness can be more severe when contracted by young children, older adults and people with weakened immune systems.
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Wisconsin legislators expect to begin voting next week on Gov. Scott Walker’s $3 billion incentives bill for Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn. Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke, a Republican, says the Assembly’s jobs committee expects to take up the bill early next week with a floor session planned for Aug. 17. Passage would move it to the state Senate. Democrats have said legislators should slow down and more closely examine the bill’s potential impacts. Walker’s bill would exempt construction materials from the state and local sales tax and hand the company up to $2.85 billion in tax credits based on the number of jobs generated. It also exempts the company from a host of environmental regulations and borrows $252 million to rebuild Interstate 94 near the plant site.
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