News 07.11.16
11 July 2016 News
Environmentalists are challenging the findings in a new state Department of Natural Resources draft report that sand mining doesn’t produce fine dust that can lodge in human lungs. The DNR released a draft of possible updates to its strategic sand mining analysis for public comment this past week. The draft says health impacts from sand mines shouldn’t be an issue. Midwest Environmental Advocates maintains the DNR has no evidence to support such an assertion
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A new legislative committee plans to study whether schools are collecting too much data on students and how to keep the information safe from hackers. The Legislative Council Study on Student Data panel’s goal is to make recommendations for bills in the upcoming 2017-18 legislative session that would limit the amount of data collected on students and improve data security. The committee’s chairman, Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt, says concerns are growing about how much student data is being collected and sold by outside vendors such as the ACT, although he didn’t offer any specific incidents where data security had been breached.
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A Fond du lac man accused of severely beating a Fond du Lac couple near downtown Fond du Lac has been bound over for trial. Thirty nine year old Steven Bird waived his preliminary hearing Friday and pleaded not guilty to charges of recklessly endangering safety with a dangerous weapon and aggravated battery. The incident happened June 19th near Marr and 6th Streets. Police say Bird was swinging a bottle repeatedly striking a man and woman in the head. The man received a broken jaw and head lacerations and the woman was treated for cuts to her head and face. Police say all three had been at the Main Pub on South Main Street earlier in the evening. Police are reviewing a home surveillance video that captured the beating.
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A Beaver Dam native was one of the officers injured in the Dallas ambush that killed five police officers. Twenty three year old Gretchen Rocha, received minor injuries during Thursday night’s shooting spree in Dallas. Her father Craig Bayer, who lives in Fox Lake, said his daughter received shrapnel injuries and was treated at a hospital. Rocha posted on her Facebook account Friday: “Thanks everyone. I was only shot at and suffered minor shrapnel wounds and grazings. May you all stay safe…” Rocha received a criminal justice degree from Madison Area Technical College in 2015. She graduated from the police academy in Dallas June 11. Rocha served as an intern with the Madison Police Department in 2013.
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A Wisconsin businessman is set to plead guilty to fraudulently obtaining bank loans in a deal with federal prosecutors. The Wisconsin State Journal reports that Paul Piikkila’s deal calls for him to acknowledge committing conspiracy to defraud his employer, Horicon Bank, of more than $700,000. Piikkila, of Appleton, also agreed to testify in the case, which also involves De Pere businessman Ron Van Den Heuvel. Van Den Heuvel has pleaded not guilty to a 13-count indictment.
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A Wisconsin legislator plans to introduce a bill to make targeting law enforcement officers a hate crime in the wake of the Dallas shooting that killed five officers. Rep. David Steffen, a Howard Republican, says in a news release he’ll be holding a news conference today to unveil the “Blue Lives Matter” initiative, modeled on a similar bill in Louisiana.
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Authorities say a 26-year-old woman from Green Bay has drowned while tubing on the Peshtigo River in northeastern Wisconsin. Marinette County authorities received a 911 call Saturday afternoon about a woman missing from a group of tubers who were floating on the river near the Village of Crivitz. Emergency responders went to the scene and tried to find her. A Crivitz resident who was helping in the search found the woman in the river just after 7 p.m. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
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Fond du Lac residents gathered in downtown Fond du Lac Saturday to show unity for peace and their support for law enforcement. About 20 Fond du Lac residents gathered in downtown Fond du Lac Saturday. Walking with police officers on Main Street in a show of unity in the wake of the shootings in Minnesota, Louisiana and Dallas shooting spree Thursday night that killed five police officers. Fond du Lac police chief Bill Lamb says the violence that has erupted across the country has to stop. “What’s obvious is that our country is very broken right now and we have a lot of healing we need to do,” Lamb told WFDL news. “Regardless of where anybody stands on the issues one thing we can all agree on, I hope, is that violence can’t be a part of the solution.” Other unity walks were held around the state Friday including one in Oshkosh.
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