Hanky-panky closes beach; Giffords endorses candidate; learning etiquette
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Odd and interesting news from the Midwest.
- By JAMES NORD Associated Press
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PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — A bill that would give insurance companies tax credits for contributions to help lower-income students in South Dakota attend private schools is headed to Gov. Dennis Daugaard after passing Tuesday through the state Legislature.
The House voted 45 to 23 to approve the bill after using a procedural move to revive it. The measure had passed through the Senate, but had stalled in a House committee.
Daugaard has said that he would consider the measure if it is neutral to the state's budget.
Supporters say the measure would give parents the opportunity to make a choice about where they want their children to go to school. Such programs have been "very successful" in other states, said House Republican leader Brian Gosch, the main House sponsor of the measure.
"This could provide a family that could not afford to go to private school the ability," Republican Rep. Kris Langer said.
Students would be eligible for the scholarships under the bill if their families in the year before entering the program made up to 150 percent of the income standard used to qualify for free or reduced-price lunch at school. Supporters say the proposal wouldn't drain state dollars because the average scholarship amount would have to be lower than what the state would spend on a child attending public school.
The proposal would allow insurance companies to get an 80 percent tax credit for total contributions to a grant organization that would provide the scholarships. The total amount of credits would be capped at $2 million each budget year.
The measure would allow insurance companies to do something that would be good advertising for them, Gosch said.
Democratic Rep. Karen Soli, who opposed the measure, said the bill is "rather insulting" to public schools who are committed to educating all students.
"These public schools have need of every penny of state support we can give them to help them do this essential task," Soli said.
- By RYAN J. FOLEY Associated Press
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IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A trooper with the Iowa State Patrol has resigned after being arrested following a drunken, late-night disturbance in which the former college football player repeatedly pounded on a female neighbor's door, according to public documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Following his arrest, Cedar Rapids-based trooper Patrick Steinbach received special treatment at the Iowa County Jail, where the booking officer did not take his mug shot, require him to wear a jumpsuit or have him fill out a standard form answering questions about his intoxication and medical history. The booking took three hours — "an extraordinary amount of time" compared to the typical hour, Sheriff Rob Rotter said Tuesday.
Rotter said the booking officer is no longer employed after an internal review found numerous policy violations. He declined to identify the officer or say whether he resigned or was fired.
"He was just being incredibly nice and friendly to him and maybe being more of a friend than a booking officer," Rotter said. "The performance of that employee was incompatible with our policies and procedures. It was brought to the attention of that employee and a change was made."
A resident of Williamsburg, Iowa, called 911 on Dec. 20 to report an unknown man outside her home, pounding on the door and refusing requests to leave. A responding officer found Steinbach, a 6-foot-8, 300-pound former Iowa State lineman, in his truck trying to back out of the driveway.
The homeowner and her mother were inside, Williamsburg Police Chief Ray Garringer said.
"They weren't aware of who was out there," he said. "They were concerned that somebody was pounding on their door wanting in at 10 o'clock at night."
The officer smelled alcohol inside Steinbach's vehicle and saw glass bottles behind the driver's seat. Steinbach, 28, admitted he had been drinking and failed a field sobriety test, a criminal complaint says. A preliminary breath test showed Steinbach's blood alcohol level was over the limit, but Garringer declined to say how much.
Steinbach, who lives a mile from where he was arrested, refused to take a follow-up breath test after he was transported to the county jail in Marengo. He's pleaded not guilty to operating while intoxicated and is scheduled to go on trial next month. Steinbach's attorney, Daniel Rothman, declined comment Tuesday.
Iowa County Attorney Tim McMeen said he removed himself from the prosecution because he had worked on "tons of cases" with Steinbach, who'd been a trooper five years. The Iowa attorney general's office is handling the case.
Garringer said his department handled Steinbach "like we would anyone else." He declined to release video of the arrest while the case is pending.
Steinbach had been scheduled to work the day after the arrest at Post 11 in Cedar Rapids, where troopers patrol six counties in eastern Iowa. Instead, the Iowa Department of Public Safety placed him on administrative leave. He was allowed to collect his paycheck for seven weeks — $7,500 total — before resigning Feb. 8.
The department never filed disciplinary charges against Steinbach with a state board, where officers can challenge terminations or disciplinary actions that cut their pay.
Rotter said Steinbach — who was on Iowa State's roster in 2006 and 2007 — was known to the booking officer because he had transported suspects to the jail previously. Rotter began investigating the handling of Steinbach's booking within days after discovering irregularities.
"It was a very well-handled OWI case and certainly a difficult one given the circumstances," Rotter said. "It's just unfortunate that we had the problem that we had here at the jail. I take responsibility for that."
- By PAM ADAMS (Peoria) Journal Star
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By PAM ADAMS
(Peoria) Journal Star
PEORIA HEIGHTS, Ill. (AP) — Deaunte Berry says chicken is a finger food at his house. So he wasn't sure what to do when he got to the last morsel of Salt's popular apple-brined, bone-in chicken breast.
He looked around to see if any of his classmates from Quest Charter Academy picked up the chicken with their hands. They didn't seem to know either, except for another classmate who grabbed the bone when he thought no one was looking.
"I wasn't sure I wanted to look to him as an example," Berry said.
Berry's first visit to a "classy" restaurant, as he called it, doubled as an etiquette seminar. He already had learned what not to do.
The 38 students in Quest's senior class, its first, were treated to a three-course meal and a lesson in table manners Feb. 23, courtesy of Quest board member Rogers Turner and Travis Mohlenbrink, owner of the Peoria Heights restaurant.
"The life-skills piece of this experience will impact everything they do," said Turner, who has organized similar sessions for teens at St. Paul Baptist Church in Peoria and for a high school when he lived in Tulsa, Okla.
Related content Etiquette lessons for Quest Charter Academy students The goal is to expose them to social skills that will be beneficial during college and job interviews, Turner said.
The first tip, Turner told them, is order a salad during a college or job interview.
"If you do it right, you're going to do all the talking."
Once Turner broke the ice with a few other tips, such as the proper handshake and which fork to begin with at a dinner party — start with the outside utensil — the students loosened up and bombarded him with questions:
It is rude not to try food? Yes.
If you're allergic to something, is there a proper way to excuse yourself from eating it? Just say you're allergic.
Which one is the salad fork? For this particular dinner, it's the one farthest from the plate.
Berry and his tablemates said they learned not to place their elbows on the table and where to place the napkin.
They couldn't learn all there is to learn about proper etiquette in an hour, Turner told them. "There are colleges that spend a whole semester on this kind of thing. I just don't want you in a situation where you don't know what to do."
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Source: (Peoria) Journal Star, http://bit.ly/20W0hke
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Information from: Journal Star, http://pjstar.com
This is an AP-Illinois Exchange story offered by the (Peoria) Journal Star.
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DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — While Iowa lawmakers continue their debate on whether to make medical marijuana sales legal, families are quietly buying cannabis extract from at least two out-of-state companies.
The Des Moines Register (http://dmreg.co/1Tqbr1F ) reports that law enforcement agencies are aware of the shipments and haven't prevented them, even though their legality is debatable.
A Colorado organization has sent a total of 52 shipments of its cannabis oil through FedEx to more than two dozen Iowa residents. A California company is also shipping such oil to Iowa residents through UPS Inc., but it wouldn't say how many customers it has in the state.
The distributors say their oil isn't technically marijuana because it contains nearly none of the chemical that makes recreational users high. Federal officials disagree but haven't punished people involved in the sales.
Davenport residents Felicia and Mike Haakenson are among those who have purchased the oil in this way. They give it to their 4-year-old daughter, Kaitlyn, who has epilepsy. They say the cannabis oil they've shipped in from the California company has helped her seizures, physical movements and speech.
Mike Haakenson said the couple asked legislators, the attorney general's office and the state health department if the was legal to ship the oil in from out of state, but they never received a clear answer.
Geoff Greenwood, spokesman for Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, said last week that his office isn't in a position to advise Iowa residents on the matter.
"No one's making a ruling on it," Mike Haakenson said. "They don't want to deal with it."
Mike Haakenson said he doesn't expect to be arrested because such a move would reflect poorly on authorities. But he still wishes federal and state laws more clearly gave people the right to medical marijuana.
The Legislature passed a law in 2014 that allows people with severe epilepsy to possess cannabis oil but doesn't include a legal way for Iowa residents to distribute or produce the extract.
The Haakensons were denied a permit to possess the oil for Kaitlyn because her neurologist is in Minnesota.
"If you don't have an Iowa neurologist who supports it, you're pretty much out of luck," Felicia Haakenson said.
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Information from: The Des Moines Register, http://www.desmoinesregister.com
- By TODD RICHMOND Associated Press
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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin authorities decided Tuesday to shut down a popular nude beach immediately, saying sex and drugs on the property are driving people to avoid the area and they can't afford to continue policing the property so intensely.
The DNR has owned the beach on the Wisconsin River just outside Mazomanie since the late 1940s. Over the decades, the beach has grown into a popular destination spot for nudists from around the country, largely because a long line of prosecutors in liberal Dane County have said naked people must cause a disturbance to warrant charges. The DNR has estimated as many as 70,000 people have visited the spot some summers.
But DNR officials say the beachgoers have been engaging in sexual trysts and drug use for years. The agency closed off the woods around the beach in 2007 in hopes of eliminating cover for sex and in 2013 closed the beach down on weekdays. But it hasn't worked.
Last year DNR personnel cited three people for disorderly conduct, 18 for being in a closed area, one for possession of glass on the beach, one for open intoxicants, one for operating while intoxicated, one for a seat belt violation and two for miscellaneous violations, according to agency statistics.
Brian Hefty, DNR natural resources area supervisor, said in a news release announcing the closure that the activity has driven other people who might enjoy the property to avoid it. Policing the beach has consumed too much of wardens and rangers' time and resources, he added. In the past two years the agency has spent nearly $45,000 on law enforcement at the beach, DNR spokesman George Althoff said.
The closure order went into effect on Tuesday.
Hefty stressed that the DNR hopes to improve the property by constructing a changing building, shelters, picnic tables, grills, hiking trails and a carry-in canoe landing. Those changes should attract a much broader range of outdoor lovers, he said.
A man who answered the phone at the Oshkosh-based Naturist Action Committee, which advocates for nudist recreation on public lands, said he hadn't heard of the DNR's move and abruptly hung up without giving his name. A follow-up call wasn't answered.
Friends of Mazo Beach, a group NAC formed to protect nudists' rights to use the beach, didn't immediately return email and voicemail messages Tuesday afternoon.
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Follow Todd Richmond on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trichmond1
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ST. LOUIS (AP) — Police say an 89-year-old man has died after falling into a pile of burning leaves in the St. Louis area.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (http://bit.ly/1OXUYK7 ) reports that Albert Grewe was in his back yard when he fell Monday morning.
St. Louis County Police say they believe Grewe's death in the Mehlville area was an accident. It was not clear what caused the man's fall.
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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com
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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is endorsing former Gov. Ted Strickland in his race for the U.S. Senate, while Democratic primary opponent P.G. Sittenfeld has landed the backing of Star Wars actor Mark Hamill.
Both endorsements came Tuesday, a week before Strickland, Sittenfeld and Cincinnati occupational therapist Kelli Prather vie for the Democratic nomination and a chance to face incumbent GOP Sen. Rob Portman in November.
Anti-gun violence advocate Giffords, shot during a 2011 event in her congressional district, joined husband Mark Kelly, a retired NASA astronaut, in calling Strickland the best candidate to "protect the rights of law-abiding gun owners like us" while standing up to the powerful gun lobby.
Hamill, who plays sci-fi hero Luke Skywalker, released a YouTube video predicting Sittenfeld would be "a very forceful senator" supporting gun safety.
- JULIE CARR SMYTH AP Statehouse Correspondent
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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — An Alabama bank is seeking nearly $2 million in unpaid debt from former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder as the Perry County Republican attempts a Statehouse comeback, an Associated Press review has found.
The once-powerful Householder is disputing the 2014 judgment for $1,893,151 that favored Union Bank over Flat Rock, Alabama-based D&E Mining, LLC, a coal-mining business in which he was an investor.
Householder said he sold his interest in D&E several years ago and disputes that he is the party responsible for the outstanding debt. The ex-speaker said he hopes the issue is resolved soon.
"Unfortunately, sometimes when you're involved in business, as much as you try to settle differences, sometimes you have to wind up in litigation, and that's where we're at right now," Householder, who is making a bid for his old House seat in the March 15 primary, told the AP. "We're trying to resolve it and we have been trying to resolve it for a number of years."
Householder declined to name those he believes are responsible, citing the active lawsuit.
Mark Sheriff, a Columbus attorney representing the bank, confirmed that the case is still open. He said Householder is fighting efforts by the bank to move its collections effort from Alabama to Ohio, among other things.
Court records show the dispute dates to 2013, when the bank sued D&E, Householder and others for the unpaid portion of a $2.4 million loan to D&E, which had been guaranteed through the federal recovery act passed in response to the national recession. Householder was the personal guarantor on the debt.
The loan was part of $452 million in federal loan assistance that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced in 2010 supporting the U.S. Department of Agriculture's "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" initiative, according to an agency press release.
USDA spokesman David Sandretti said that, under the program, the bank loans the money and the federal government guarantees a significant portion of it should the business default.
The 56-year-old Householder left Columbus a decade ago. He was first speaker come to power in a new era of term limits, when Statehouse leaders no longer had the luxury to amass power over decades but had to move quickly, and sometimes more forcefully, to advance their agendas.
That history has raised concern that Householder and his allies could attempt to seize power from current leadership if he returns to the House.
Possible evidence of Householder's aspirations: A super PAC, Buckeyes for a Better Ohio, has cropped up and is producing ads in support of his House race in southeast Ohio. Householder says a leadership takeover is nowhere in his plans, and last week said he was unaware of the super PAC.
At the time Householder departed, he was under federal investigation over allegations of money laundering and irregular campaign practices. After a two-year investigation, the U.S. Justice Department declined to prosecute.
Householder says he's seeking a Statehouse return to complete unfinished business for his district. He faces Coshocton City Council President Cliff Biggers and Randal Almendinger, a township trustee in Licking County, for the Republican nomination.
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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Some members of Ohio's state Board of Education are concerned about survey results indicating poorer outcomes for districts that administered state tests online instead of on paper.
The survey of hundreds of districts by an administrator at Amherst schools in northern Ohio determined that school systems which tested online received F grades on a key state report card measure nine times as often as those that used paper and pencil.
Districts using online tests also had five times fewer A grades for a value-added measure of academic growth, according to the survey.
"The disparity is so huge," said board member Mary Rose Oakar of Cleveland.
More than 420 districts responded to the survey by Michael Molnar, Amherst's director of educational services. Of the 428 that participated, 89 districts gave tests on paper, 260 gave it online and 79 did a combination.
Amherst used a combination of online and paper testing. Molnar undertook the survey after schools in the district received three Fs and a D on its value-added measures on the 2014-15 tests.
"I'm not against online testing. I'm not against comparing districts," Molnar said. "I'm against apples-to-oranges comparisons."
Districts at all income levels chose between paper and online at roughly the same percentages, Molnar said. He says one theory for the discrepancy involves online glitches during testing that teachers and officials reported statewide last spring.
Many superintendents who committed to giving this year's tests online now say they want to change back to paper, said board member Roslyn Painter-Goffi of Strongsville.
The Department of Education disputes the notion that different test formats led to different results.
The multi-state testing partnership Ohio used had an advisory committee of experts that reviewed scores and grades across all states using its exams, said Jim Wright, the department's testing director.
While some test questions favored students taking paper tests, others favored those taking exams online, Wright said.
Ohio had its own advisory committee look at results from the state's science and social studies tests, which were given by another test provider, Wright said. The committee will look at scores this year and make sure the tests don't favor any method of taking them, he said.
Many schools are unsure of the grades' reliability, said Senate Education Chairman Peggy Lehner. "The last thing we want to do is judge a school based on the test they took," she said.
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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Transportation officials are attributing a sharp increase in the number of traffic deaths in Wisconsin this year to low gas prices and warmer weather.
In January and February, 79 people were killed on state roads, compared with 60 people during the same period last year, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (http://bit.ly/1Swzzyn ) reported. The five-year average is 64 people killed over the two-month period.
February is usually one of the months with the fewest traffic fatalities, but Feb. 19 to 21 was a particularly deadly weekend in which 11 people were killed, including a triple fatality crash in Columbia County.
Experts believe more people were traveling that weekend because of unseasonably mild weather and historically low gas prices.
"Generally we have horrendous weather in February," said David Pabst, director of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Safety. "That particular weekend would have been good weather and more people were out and about. We ended up with a triple fatality and a couple of multiple fatalities."
El Niño has been blamed for causing temperatures to rise above their normal levels this winter.
In February, the average temperature in Milwaukee was nearly 3 degrees above normal, while the average temperature in Madison was nearly 4 degrees above normal.
Motorists tend to drive more slowly when there's ice and snow on the roads, and even though lots of accidents happen as a result of winter weather, they're often minor and don't lead to serious injury or death.
The number of "vehicle miles traveled" has continued to increase as the economy continues to recover and gas prices remain low, according to Pabst. Many states, not just Wisconsin, have experienced an increase in traffic fatalities.
"It's good for everyone that gas prices are down, but people are driving more, they're going out and enjoying themselves," Pabst said.
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Information from: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, http://www.jsonline.com
- By KYLE POTTER Associated Press
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ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota House Speaker Kurt Daudt said Tuesday he received no preferential treatment when two credit card debt judgments against him were wiped away last year, and he insisted he has repaid in full the thousands of dollars in debt he racked up.
Minnesota Public Radio News first reported the three lawsuits against the Crown Republican, including a case involving more than $9,000 in outstanding credit card debt that was recently settled before a hearing scheduled for Monday. But the radio station revealed connections in two other cases between a law firm representing the bank and that firm's lobbying presence at Capitol that raised the specter of a powerful lawmaker receiving light treatment.
The two cases, surrounding a combined $3,800 in outstanding debt, were vacated last spring at the request of the bank's lawyers at Messerli and Kramer with little explanation. After the judge agreed to wipe away the payments, the law firm asked that the cases be dismissed with prejudice, meaning it wouldn't be allowed to pursue further legal action and agreed to pay for its own court costs.
In addition to its debt collection operation, Messerli and Kramer employs lobbyists to represent big hitters in Minnesota business, including the Minnesota Twins, Target, Best Buy and a push for a Major League Soccer stadium in St. Paul.
Daudt said Tuesday he was never approached by Messerli and Kramer lawyers or lobbyists, and brushed off any suggestion that the conclusion of his credit troubles was politically linked.
"I know that I received no special treatment because I paid every dollar fully," he said in St. Paul. "Many Minnesotans are hurting and haven't had the opportunity to recover from the recession. I, as a legislator, am not immune to those sorts of financial struggles."
The speaker attributed his troubles to being laid off from a second job but wouldn't get into specifics. He said he was let go from a job in 2011 or 2012 and would only describe it as "in the automobile industry," though he's previously been described as a former car salesman. Daudt currently lists his sole profession as a legislator, for which he makes $43,596 a year — more than most Minnesota lawmakers because of his top position.
Daudt was hounded by calls earlier Tuesday to address the circumstances of his financial troubles and the mysterious manner in which they were resolved.
"It's in the public's interest that he disclose the nature of the settlement he reached on his debt with a law firm with significant lobbying ties at the Capitol," House Minority Leader Paul Thissen, the chamber's top Democrat, said in a statement.
Daudt only said he would consider releasing the terms of the settlement in his latest credit card court battle. Daudt and his attorney had tried to have that case dismissed on a technicality, arguing it wasn't valid because court papers were delivered to his mother's house, on which he owns the mortgage.
It's unclear who paid for his legal fees. Daudt's spokeswoman pointed to campaign finance forms showing the House Republican Campaign Committee, the main campaign arm for the House GOP, paid attorney Reid LeBeau nearly $21,000 last year. Later Tuesday, Daudt said he personally had paid the attorney, who regularly works for the campaign committee on election matters.
- By ROB EARNSHAW The Times
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By ROB EARNSHAW
The Times
VALPARAISO, Ind. (AP) — Parkview Elementary School kindergartners are getting a lesson in Spanish thanks to legislation that created a Dual Language Immersion pilot program grant.
Parkview was one of five Indiana schools in the state awarded the grant.
"Our kindergarten students are making outstanding progress," Parkview Principal Anne Wodetzki said. "There is so much you can learn from a dual language program. It's not only language, it's about culture and diversity. What a gift in today's global society."
The Department of Education awarded a total of $422,532 in grants, which were funded by the state during the 2015 legislative session. They provide funds to school corporations that establish dual language immersion programs in Mandarin, Spanish, French or any other language approved by the Indiana Department of Education.
Parkview received $82,817, which covers planning, instructional materials -- chosen by the school -- staff development training and to hire an additional faculty member, if needed, to run the program or to take over duties of a current teacher instructing the language class.
"Programs like this are exceptionally beneficial to students as they provide students with the opportunity to acquire language skills at a young age," said Indiana Department of Education spokeswoman Samantha Hart. "In a two-way immersion program like what Valparaiso is working toward, both native English-speaking children and English learner students benefit from having instruction in their home language as well as another that will lead them toward multilingual proficiency as young adults."
Parkview kindergarten teacher Kristin Nguyen is teaching the Spanish program. She said they are using a lot of gestures, visuals and repetition in the class.
"We're teaching the math standards in Spanish," she said.
Nguyen, a native Spanish speaker, said students will learn concepts, shapes and numbers and will know the days of the week in Spanish. She said students have picked the language up quickly and have not been overwhelmed.
Parkview has to re-apply for the grant next year, and the school may accept interested inter-transfer students from other Valpo elementary schools.
Wodetzki said she would like to expand the program by one grade every year, eventually offering it to all elementary grades. She said there are other teachers at Parkview who speak Spanish, so the program could expand for a couple of years with staff.
If interest in the program continues, school officials would need to look to hire Spanish-speaking teachers as others retire. Transferring teachers to Parkview from other schools in the future is also a possibility to allow the program to expand.
One reason Nguyen believes Parkview was selected for the grant is because she speaks Spanish. There is a shortage of foreign language teachers in the state — a topic Superintendent E. Ric Frataccia brought up at a School Board meeting in the fall.
Indiana has seen more than a 30 percent decline overall in the number of people entering its schools of education, and a similar decline over the last six years in the number of people receiving initial practitioner teaching licenses, according to Hart.
"This teacher shortage impacts all areas of our state and every curriculum area," she said, "though some have seen a greater decline than others."
Wodetzki said there is a shortage of foreign-language teachers, but they are working with other grant recipient schools coordinate efforts to attract more qualified teachers from both the United States and abroad.
Hart said to address the teacher shortage, state schools Superintendent Glenda Ritz created a Blue Ribbon Commission made up of educators and other education stakeholders, to develop strategies to recruit and retain educators in classrooms.
"Superintendent Ritz is committed to implementing the strategies that do not require legislative action and will continue to work with the Legislature to develop legislation to put into law those recommendations that do require legislative action," she said.
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Source: The (Munster) Times, http://bit.ly/1QyY6hB
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Information from: The Times, http://www.thetimesonline.com
This is an AP-Indiana Exchange story offered by The (Munster) Times.
- By GEORGE HUNTER The Detroit News
- Updated
DETROIT (AP) — Terry Duerod spent a moment in the sun and years in the heat.
He was a bench player on the 1980-81 NBA champion Celtics before becoming a Detroit firefighter, a position he's held for 27 years.
He's set to retire from his second career in July, when he turns 60, because of the department's mandatory retirement policy, The Detroit News (http://detne.ws/1SBEz5m ) reported.
As his career winds down, the man who poured champagne on Celtics legend Larry Bird and helped pour water on burning houses in Detroit is wondering what to do next.
"I guess I'll just sit back and chill for a while," said the Royal Oak native, who's assigned to Engine 55 at Joy Road and Southfield on the city's northwest side. "I haven't done that in a long time."
From Highland Park High, which he led to a state championship in 1975, to the University of Detroit, where he set a school record with 303 baskets in 1979, to a four-year NBA career, to his years driving rigs to Detroit fires, the man known during his playing days as "Sweet Doo" said he's learned the value of teamwork.
"You rely on your guys, and they rely on you," he said. "It's the same in the NBA as it is on the job."
Duerod, a 1993 inductee into the Titan Hall of Fame, was honored Feb. 11 with the school's John Conti Letterman of Distinction Award, given to former varsity athletes who distinguish themselves in the community.
"Terry is one of the best players to play for Detroit," athletic director Robert C. Vowels Jr. said in a written statement. "When you take a look at his playing career and now as a professional serving the community as a firefighter, he exemplifies what this award is all about."
Duerod credits legendary Titans coach Dick Vitale with preparing him for the NBA — and life.
"He was a stern coach, but he taught you how to deal with things," Duerod said. "He always stressed how to live your life the right way: Get your education. Be a good person. He was a great motivator."
Sgt. Roberto Romero, who worked with Duerod at Engine 8, said the competitive spirit that carried him to the NBA never dwindled.
"He's one of the best (fire engine operators) I've ever ran with," he said. "He's really competitive, which is probably why he's so good at what he does. Nobody will beat him to a fire, that's for sure."
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During Duerod's sophomore year, Vitale left the Titans to became coach of the Pistons. When the 6-foot-2 guard graduated in 1979, he was reunited with his former coach after the Pistons drafted him in the third round (48th overall).
He averaged 9.3 points his rookie year, but Vitale was fired 12 games into the season, and Duerod was left unprotected in the 1980 expansion draft. He was picked up by the Mavericks.
The Mavericks released him after 18 games, and the Celtics signed him as a free agent. It was a fortuitous move: In Boston, he became a fan favorite and earned a championship ring. When he entered games, Celtic fans would chant, "Dooooo."
"That was a special feeling, to have fans chanting for me like that," he said. "I'll never forget it.
"Bird, (Kevin) McHale, (Robert) Parish, (Nate) Tiny Archibald — they were all great guys. Larry (Bird) was a jokester. Those are relationships I'll cherish the rest of my life."
Duerod got into four games in the 1981 NBA Finals, finishing with six points and one steal as the Celtics beat the Rockets in six games.
He played another season with the Celtics before being cut. The Warriors signed him, but released him after five games, ending his 143-game career.
"After I got waived, I ended up going overseas to play," he said. "I went to Italy and the Philippines. Basketball wasn't as popular overseas then like it is now, and this was before the big money.
"In the NBA, the minimum back then was only about $30,000, and you made even less overseas. So when my career ended, I needed to find a job."
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He took the test to become a firefighter and was hired in 1989. Most of his career has been driving fire trucks.
Despite his former notoriety, Duerod says he's able to fool fellow firefighters during pickup basketball games.
"When I first start playing with some of these young guys, they don't know who I am, and I don't say anything," Duerod said. "Their friends will finally tell them, 'Don't you know who you're playing with? He was in the NBA.' "
Duerod plays on the fire department's basketball team.
"We won 11 championships," he said. "The big rivalry was between us and the cops. They wanted to beat us so bad, but they couldn't until we got old."
Duerod, who lives in Westland with his wife of 34 years, Rosemary, said he'll miss the camaraderie of the firehouse.
"When you stay with these guys for days at a time, you become like family," Duerod said. "You get to know people's personalities. It's really an experience.
"I had a great run. I can really say my life has been exciting. I was in the NBA. I traveled the world and had fun. And I've had a long career on the fire department with a great bunch of guys. What else could I ask for?"
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Information from: The Detroit News, http://detnews.com/
This is an AP Member Exchange shared by The Detroit News
- By BILL SALISBURY St. Paul Pioneer Press
- Updated
By BILL SALISBURY
St. Paul Pioneer Press
DENNISON, Minn. (AP) — It was not in Jeff Flaten's job description 15 months ago when he was elected mayor of Dennison, Minnesota.
Every day, including weekends and holidays, Flaten drives to a sewer lift station on the west edge of the tiny Goodhue County town, pries opens a manhole-size steel lid and climbs 15 feet down a ladder in a metal tube to make sure the village's two wastewater pumps are working.
The task landed in the mayor's lap when the city's longtime sewer and water system operator retired, the St. Paul Pioneer Press (http://bit.ly/1XYKEsj ) reported. Flaten hasn't been able to hire a replacement, because not only is the work unpleasant but the lift station, built in 1962, also fails to meet federal safety standards.
"It's obsolete and essentially dangerous," he said.
Flaten, 49, a state corrections officer with a college degree in sociology, didn't know anything about operating a sewer pump before he was elected. On a couple of occasions, he said, he's had to restart the pumps by hand. About once a week, he also has to clean out a screen that catches debris before it clogs the pumps.
"Somebody's got to do it. If the poop's not moving, then it's going to back up in the sewer mains," he said.
Flaten has asked Gov. Mark Dayton and the Minnesota Legislature for $726,000 this year to build an above-ground lift station. The city, population 190, proposes to chip in another $48,000, funded in part with a new $25 monthly water fee on residents, to complete the project.
Dennison simply can't afford to pay for the project on its own, Flaten said. "The city is already up to its eyeballs in debt," its property taxes are higher than neighboring cities and another fee increase might drive people away.
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The village is one of hundreds of small cities in rural Minnesota with diminutive tax bases that are struggling to find money to replace aging wastewater, stormwater and drinking water systems or upgrade them to meet changing environmental standards.
Their plight isn't as hazardous as that in Flint, Michigan, where high lead levels in drinking water pose a serious health threat. But it reflects a growing national concern over government's role in providing safe, clean and affordable water.
Here are four more small towns seeking state help:
(asterisk) Afton, population 2,953, in Washington County, doesn't have a municipal sewer system, so about 100 homes and businesses in the city's Old Village rely on private septic systems that pose a pollution threat, as many are in the St. Croix River flood plain. The city is getting final state approvals and taking construction bids for a municipal sewer collection system and wastewater treatment plant. City administrator Ron Moorse expects the system to be operational by the fall at a cost of more than $4 million, with the state picking up about half the tab.
(asterisk) Chisholm, Buhl, Kinney and Great Scott Township, combined population 6,745, in St. Louis County. Less than two years after opening a $28 million Central Iron Range Sanitary Sewer District wastewater treatment plant, operators were told the plant failed to meet strict new federal mercury discharge limits for facilities releasing water into the Great Lakes basin. So the district is now adding a mercury removal facility. Price tag: more than $4 million. Local officials have asked the state to foot at least half the bill. "Without the grant money, we just wouldn't be able to do it," said sewer district executive director Norm Miranda.
(asterisk) Mountain Lake, population 2,134, in Cottonwood County. The city used to have a problem with stormwater infiltrating its sanitary sewer lines and overloading its treatment plant, forcing the city to pump sewage into its namesake lake. It spent $12 million from 2012 to 2014 to fix its sewer lines. Now, the city wants a state grant to help pay for a $13.4 million project to rehabilitate and expand its old and overloaded stabilization pond system.
(asterisk) Winnebago, population 1,394, in Faribault County has an aging sanitary sewer system with numerous maintenance problems, including storm- and groundwater seeping into leaky sewer mains, which has caused backups into basements and overflows into the Blue Earth River. "We've had whole potatoes from gardens end up at the wastewater plant," said city administrator Chris Ziegler. The city is seeking $3.7 million from the state for a $6.6 million project that would separate its sanitary sewer and stormwater systems.
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Last month, Dayton proposed a $220 million plan to upgrade sewer and water systems and protect groundwater across the state. About 60 percent of the state aid for water projects money would go to rural communities.
His plan would increase state aid for municipal sewer and water projects from an average of $160 million to $300 million a year and enable the Minnesota Public Facilities Authority, which provides grants and loans to local governments, to fund up to 80 projects a year, compared with fewer than 50 now, said Jeff Freeman, the authority's executive director.
But that would just be a down payment on meeting cities' needs. The Pollution Control Agency and the state Health Department have 567 local projects totaling $1.7 billion on their priority lists for funding for sewer and water system construction over the next five years.
Based on a survey of Minnesota cities, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates the state will need $11 billion in sewer and water improvements over the next 20 years.
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Republican and Democratic-Farmer-Labor members of the House and Senate bonding committees seem to be warming up to Dayton's request for more money for municipal water projects — even though Republicans contend the $1.4 billion price tag on the governor's overall bonding bill was too high.
House Capital Investment Committee Chairman Paul Torkelson, R-Hanska, said he hasn't heard any opposition to helping cities, especially small towns, upgrade their sewer and water systems.
"I think there's generally good support from the people I've talked to so far," he said. "I will give the governor's proposal very serious consideration. The only concern I have is that we invest the money wisely."
Torkelson, a farmer, is one of the Republicans who clashed with Dayton over contentious parts of his plan to require vegetative buffer strips to help protect lakes and streams from agricultural runoff and erosion.
"It's nice to find some common ground with the governor," he said. "I hope we can go forward and work together on this."
Senate Capital Investment Committee Chairman LeRoy Stumpf, DFL-Plummer, said his panel's tours of water projects last fall convinced him "the need is there."
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Some lawmakers, however, question whether new PCA water discharge regulations are driving up water treatment costs unnecessarily.
In recent years, the agency has adopted new phosphorus standards for discharges into lakes and rivers to prevent algae growth that causes what Katrina Kessler, PCA's water assessment section manager, called "green and slimy water conditions."
But Sens. Scott Newman, R-Hutchinson, and David Tomassoni, DFL-Chisholm, said the PCA's new standards are forcing many small towns that have borrowed money to construct new sewage treatment plants in recent years to go deeper in debt to upgrade their systems. They want the PCA to prove that the benefits of the new regulations outweigh the costs.
The PCA "can't change the standards, because they are based on science," Kessler said, but the agency can be flexible in how it works with cities to meet the standards. It could, for example, help cities get state grants and loans, set longer compliance schedules or find alternative ways to reduce phosphorus discharges.
Thirty-three cities have requested state funds to upgrade wastewater treatment plants to meet new discharge limits, she said. The total cost of those projects is around $210 million, while Minnesota cities have identified $4.2 billion worth of projects to meet all sewage treatment needs.
"So the amount of money needed to meet discharge limits based on new standards is only a fraction of the overall need," Kessler said.
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Information from: St. Paul Pioneer Press, http://www.twincities.com
This is an AP Member Exchange shared by the St. Paul Pioneer Press
- By JAMES NORD Associated Press
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — A bill that would give insurance companies tax credits for contributions to help lower-income students in South Dakota attend private schools is headed to Gov. Dennis Daugaard after passing Tuesday through the state Legislature.
The House voted 45 to 23 to approve the bill after using a procedural move to revive it. The measure had passed through the Senate, but had stalled in a House committee.
Daugaard has said that he would consider the measure if it is neutral to the state's budget.
Supporters say the measure would give parents the opportunity to make a choice about where they want their children to go to school. Such programs have been "very successful" in other states, said House Republican leader Brian Gosch, the main House sponsor of the measure.
"This could provide a family that could not afford to go to private school the ability," Republican Rep. Kris Langer said.
Students would be eligible for the scholarships under the bill if their families in the year before entering the program made up to 150 percent of the income standard used to qualify for free or reduced-price lunch at school. Supporters say the proposal wouldn't drain state dollars because the average scholarship amount would have to be lower than what the state would spend on a child attending public school.
The proposal would allow insurance companies to get an 80 percent tax credit for total contributions to a grant organization that would provide the scholarships. The total amount of credits would be capped at $2 million each budget year.
The measure would allow insurance companies to do something that would be good advertising for them, Gosch said.
Democratic Rep. Karen Soli, who opposed the measure, said the bill is "rather insulting" to public schools who are committed to educating all students.
"These public schools have need of every penny of state support we can give them to help them do this essential task," Soli said.
- By RYAN J. FOLEY Associated Press
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — A trooper with the Iowa State Patrol has resigned after being arrested following a drunken, late-night disturbance in which the former college football player repeatedly pounded on a female neighbor's door, according to public documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Following his arrest, Cedar Rapids-based trooper Patrick Steinbach received special treatment at the Iowa County Jail, where the booking officer did not take his mug shot, require him to wear a jumpsuit or have him fill out a standard form answering questions about his intoxication and medical history. The booking took three hours — "an extraordinary amount of time" compared to the typical hour, Sheriff Rob Rotter said Tuesday.
Rotter said the booking officer is no longer employed after an internal review found numerous policy violations. He declined to identify the officer or say whether he resigned or was fired.
"He was just being incredibly nice and friendly to him and maybe being more of a friend than a booking officer," Rotter said. "The performance of that employee was incompatible with our policies and procedures. It was brought to the attention of that employee and a change was made."
A resident of Williamsburg, Iowa, called 911 on Dec. 20 to report an unknown man outside her home, pounding on the door and refusing requests to leave. A responding officer found Steinbach, a 6-foot-8, 300-pound former Iowa State lineman, in his truck trying to back out of the driveway.
The homeowner and her mother were inside, Williamsburg Police Chief Ray Garringer said.
"They weren't aware of who was out there," he said. "They were concerned that somebody was pounding on their door wanting in at 10 o'clock at night."
The officer smelled alcohol inside Steinbach's vehicle and saw glass bottles behind the driver's seat. Steinbach, 28, admitted he had been drinking and failed a field sobriety test, a criminal complaint says. A preliminary breath test showed Steinbach's blood alcohol level was over the limit, but Garringer declined to say how much.
Steinbach, who lives a mile from where he was arrested, refused to take a follow-up breath test after he was transported to the county jail in Marengo. He's pleaded not guilty to operating while intoxicated and is scheduled to go on trial next month. Steinbach's attorney, Daniel Rothman, declined comment Tuesday.
Iowa County Attorney Tim McMeen said he removed himself from the prosecution because he had worked on "tons of cases" with Steinbach, who'd been a trooper five years. The Iowa attorney general's office is handling the case.
Garringer said his department handled Steinbach "like we would anyone else." He declined to release video of the arrest while the case is pending.
Steinbach had been scheduled to work the day after the arrest at Post 11 in Cedar Rapids, where troopers patrol six counties in eastern Iowa. Instead, the Iowa Department of Public Safety placed him on administrative leave. He was allowed to collect his paycheck for seven weeks — $7,500 total — before resigning Feb. 8.
The department never filed disciplinary charges against Steinbach with a state board, where officers can challenge terminations or disciplinary actions that cut their pay.
Rotter said Steinbach — who was on Iowa State's roster in 2006 and 2007 — was known to the booking officer because he had transported suspects to the jail previously. Rotter began investigating the handling of Steinbach's booking within days after discovering irregularities.
"It was a very well-handled OWI case and certainly a difficult one given the circumstances," Rotter said. "It's just unfortunate that we had the problem that we had here at the jail. I take responsibility for that."
- By PAM ADAMS (Peoria) Journal Star
By PAM ADAMS
(Peoria) Journal Star
PEORIA HEIGHTS, Ill. (AP) — Deaunte Berry says chicken is a finger food at his house. So he wasn't sure what to do when he got to the last morsel of Salt's popular apple-brined, bone-in chicken breast.
He looked around to see if any of his classmates from Quest Charter Academy picked up the chicken with their hands. They didn't seem to know either, except for another classmate who grabbed the bone when he thought no one was looking.
"I wasn't sure I wanted to look to him as an example," Berry said.
Berry's first visit to a "classy" restaurant, as he called it, doubled as an etiquette seminar. He already had learned what not to do.
The 38 students in Quest's senior class, its first, were treated to a three-course meal and a lesson in table manners Feb. 23, courtesy of Quest board member Rogers Turner and Travis Mohlenbrink, owner of the Peoria Heights restaurant.
"The life-skills piece of this experience will impact everything they do," said Turner, who has organized similar sessions for teens at St. Paul Baptist Church in Peoria and for a high school when he lived in Tulsa, Okla.
Related content Etiquette lessons for Quest Charter Academy students The goal is to expose them to social skills that will be beneficial during college and job interviews, Turner said.
The first tip, Turner told them, is order a salad during a college or job interview.
"If you do it right, you're going to do all the talking."
Once Turner broke the ice with a few other tips, such as the proper handshake and which fork to begin with at a dinner party — start with the outside utensil — the students loosened up and bombarded him with questions:
It is rude not to try food? Yes.
If you're allergic to something, is there a proper way to excuse yourself from eating it? Just say you're allergic.
Which one is the salad fork? For this particular dinner, it's the one farthest from the plate.
Berry and his tablemates said they learned not to place their elbows on the table and where to place the napkin.
They couldn't learn all there is to learn about proper etiquette in an hour, Turner told them. "There are colleges that spend a whole semester on this kind of thing. I just don't want you in a situation where you don't know what to do."
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Source: (Peoria) Journal Star, http://bit.ly/20W0hke
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Information from: Journal Star, http://pjstar.com
This is an AP-Illinois Exchange story offered by the (Peoria) Journal Star.
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — While Iowa lawmakers continue their debate on whether to make medical marijuana sales legal, families are quietly buying cannabis extract from at least two out-of-state companies.
The Des Moines Register (http://dmreg.co/1Tqbr1F ) reports that law enforcement agencies are aware of the shipments and haven't prevented them, even though their legality is debatable.
A Colorado organization has sent a total of 52 shipments of its cannabis oil through FedEx to more than two dozen Iowa residents. A California company is also shipping such oil to Iowa residents through UPS Inc., but it wouldn't say how many customers it has in the state.
The distributors say their oil isn't technically marijuana because it contains nearly none of the chemical that makes recreational users high. Federal officials disagree but haven't punished people involved in the sales.
Davenport residents Felicia and Mike Haakenson are among those who have purchased the oil in this way. They give it to their 4-year-old daughter, Kaitlyn, who has epilepsy. They say the cannabis oil they've shipped in from the California company has helped her seizures, physical movements and speech.
Mike Haakenson said the couple asked legislators, the attorney general's office and the state health department if the was legal to ship the oil in from out of state, but they never received a clear answer.
Geoff Greenwood, spokesman for Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, said last week that his office isn't in a position to advise Iowa residents on the matter.
"No one's making a ruling on it," Mike Haakenson said. "They don't want to deal with it."
Mike Haakenson said he doesn't expect to be arrested because such a move would reflect poorly on authorities. But he still wishes federal and state laws more clearly gave people the right to medical marijuana.
The Legislature passed a law in 2014 that allows people with severe epilepsy to possess cannabis oil but doesn't include a legal way for Iowa residents to distribute or produce the extract.
The Haakensons were denied a permit to possess the oil for Kaitlyn because her neurologist is in Minnesota.
"If you don't have an Iowa neurologist who supports it, you're pretty much out of luck," Felicia Haakenson said.
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Information from: The Des Moines Register, http://www.desmoinesregister.com
- By TODD RICHMOND Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin authorities decided Tuesday to shut down a popular nude beach immediately, saying sex and drugs on the property are driving people to avoid the area and they can't afford to continue policing the property so intensely.
The DNR has owned the beach on the Wisconsin River just outside Mazomanie since the late 1940s. Over the decades, the beach has grown into a popular destination spot for nudists from around the country, largely because a long line of prosecutors in liberal Dane County have said naked people must cause a disturbance to warrant charges. The DNR has estimated as many as 70,000 people have visited the spot some summers.
But DNR officials say the beachgoers have been engaging in sexual trysts and drug use for years. The agency closed off the woods around the beach in 2007 in hopes of eliminating cover for sex and in 2013 closed the beach down on weekdays. But it hasn't worked.
Last year DNR personnel cited three people for disorderly conduct, 18 for being in a closed area, one for possession of glass on the beach, one for open intoxicants, one for operating while intoxicated, one for a seat belt violation and two for miscellaneous violations, according to agency statistics.
Brian Hefty, DNR natural resources area supervisor, said in a news release announcing the closure that the activity has driven other people who might enjoy the property to avoid it. Policing the beach has consumed too much of wardens and rangers' time and resources, he added. In the past two years the agency has spent nearly $45,000 on law enforcement at the beach, DNR spokesman George Althoff said.
The closure order went into effect on Tuesday.
Hefty stressed that the DNR hopes to improve the property by constructing a changing building, shelters, picnic tables, grills, hiking trails and a carry-in canoe landing. Those changes should attract a much broader range of outdoor lovers, he said.
A man who answered the phone at the Oshkosh-based Naturist Action Committee, which advocates for nudist recreation on public lands, said he hadn't heard of the DNR's move and abruptly hung up without giving his name. A follow-up call wasn't answered.
Friends of Mazo Beach, a group NAC formed to protect nudists' rights to use the beach, didn't immediately return email and voicemail messages Tuesday afternoon.
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Follow Todd Richmond on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trichmond1
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Police say an 89-year-old man has died after falling into a pile of burning leaves in the St. Louis area.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (http://bit.ly/1OXUYK7 ) reports that Albert Grewe was in his back yard when he fell Monday morning.
St. Louis County Police say they believe Grewe's death in the Mehlville area was an accident. It was not clear what caused the man's fall.
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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is endorsing former Gov. Ted Strickland in his race for the U.S. Senate, while Democratic primary opponent P.G. Sittenfeld has landed the backing of Star Wars actor Mark Hamill.
Both endorsements came Tuesday, a week before Strickland, Sittenfeld and Cincinnati occupational therapist Kelli Prather vie for the Democratic nomination and a chance to face incumbent GOP Sen. Rob Portman in November.
Anti-gun violence advocate Giffords, shot during a 2011 event in her congressional district, joined husband Mark Kelly, a retired NASA astronaut, in calling Strickland the best candidate to "protect the rights of law-abiding gun owners like us" while standing up to the powerful gun lobby.
Hamill, who plays sci-fi hero Luke Skywalker, released a YouTube video predicting Sittenfeld would be "a very forceful senator" supporting gun safety.
- JULIE CARR SMYTH AP Statehouse Correspondent
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — An Alabama bank is seeking nearly $2 million in unpaid debt from former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder as the Perry County Republican attempts a Statehouse comeback, an Associated Press review has found.
The once-powerful Householder is disputing the 2014 judgment for $1,893,151 that favored Union Bank over Flat Rock, Alabama-based D&E Mining, LLC, a coal-mining business in which he was an investor.
Householder said he sold his interest in D&E several years ago and disputes that he is the party responsible for the outstanding debt. The ex-speaker said he hopes the issue is resolved soon.
"Unfortunately, sometimes when you're involved in business, as much as you try to settle differences, sometimes you have to wind up in litigation, and that's where we're at right now," Householder, who is making a bid for his old House seat in the March 15 primary, told the AP. "We're trying to resolve it and we have been trying to resolve it for a number of years."
Householder declined to name those he believes are responsible, citing the active lawsuit.
Mark Sheriff, a Columbus attorney representing the bank, confirmed that the case is still open. He said Householder is fighting efforts by the bank to move its collections effort from Alabama to Ohio, among other things.
Court records show the dispute dates to 2013, when the bank sued D&E, Householder and others for the unpaid portion of a $2.4 million loan to D&E, which had been guaranteed through the federal recovery act passed in response to the national recession. Householder was the personal guarantor on the debt.
The loan was part of $452 million in federal loan assistance that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced in 2010 supporting the U.S. Department of Agriculture's "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" initiative, according to an agency press release.
USDA spokesman David Sandretti said that, under the program, the bank loans the money and the federal government guarantees a significant portion of it should the business default.
The 56-year-old Householder left Columbus a decade ago. He was first speaker come to power in a new era of term limits, when Statehouse leaders no longer had the luxury to amass power over decades but had to move quickly, and sometimes more forcefully, to advance their agendas.
That history has raised concern that Householder and his allies could attempt to seize power from current leadership if he returns to the House.
Possible evidence of Householder's aspirations: A super PAC, Buckeyes for a Better Ohio, has cropped up and is producing ads in support of his House race in southeast Ohio. Householder says a leadership takeover is nowhere in his plans, and last week said he was unaware of the super PAC.
At the time Householder departed, he was under federal investigation over allegations of money laundering and irregular campaign practices. After a two-year investigation, the U.S. Justice Department declined to prosecute.
Householder says he's seeking a Statehouse return to complete unfinished business for his district. He faces Coshocton City Council President Cliff Biggers and Randal Almendinger, a township trustee in Licking County, for the Republican nomination.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Some members of Ohio's state Board of Education are concerned about survey results indicating poorer outcomes for districts that administered state tests online instead of on paper.
The survey of hundreds of districts by an administrator at Amherst schools in northern Ohio determined that school systems which tested online received F grades on a key state report card measure nine times as often as those that used paper and pencil.
Districts using online tests also had five times fewer A grades for a value-added measure of academic growth, according to the survey.
"The disparity is so huge," said board member Mary Rose Oakar of Cleveland.
More than 420 districts responded to the survey by Michael Molnar, Amherst's director of educational services. Of the 428 that participated, 89 districts gave tests on paper, 260 gave it online and 79 did a combination.
Amherst used a combination of online and paper testing. Molnar undertook the survey after schools in the district received three Fs and a D on its value-added measures on the 2014-15 tests.
"I'm not against online testing. I'm not against comparing districts," Molnar said. "I'm against apples-to-oranges comparisons."
Districts at all income levels chose between paper and online at roughly the same percentages, Molnar said. He says one theory for the discrepancy involves online glitches during testing that teachers and officials reported statewide last spring.
Many superintendents who committed to giving this year's tests online now say they want to change back to paper, said board member Roslyn Painter-Goffi of Strongsville.
The Department of Education disputes the notion that different test formats led to different results.
The multi-state testing partnership Ohio used had an advisory committee of experts that reviewed scores and grades across all states using its exams, said Jim Wright, the department's testing director.
While some test questions favored students taking paper tests, others favored those taking exams online, Wright said.
Ohio had its own advisory committee look at results from the state's science and social studies tests, which were given by another test provider, Wright said. The committee will look at scores this year and make sure the tests don't favor any method of taking them, he said.
Many schools are unsure of the grades' reliability, said Senate Education Chairman Peggy Lehner. "The last thing we want to do is judge a school based on the test they took," she said.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Transportation officials are attributing a sharp increase in the number of traffic deaths in Wisconsin this year to low gas prices and warmer weather.
In January and February, 79 people were killed on state roads, compared with 60 people during the same period last year, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (http://bit.ly/1Swzzyn ) reported. The five-year average is 64 people killed over the two-month period.
February is usually one of the months with the fewest traffic fatalities, but Feb. 19 to 21 was a particularly deadly weekend in which 11 people were killed, including a triple fatality crash in Columbia County.
Experts believe more people were traveling that weekend because of unseasonably mild weather and historically low gas prices.
"Generally we have horrendous weather in February," said David Pabst, director of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Safety. "That particular weekend would have been good weather and more people were out and about. We ended up with a triple fatality and a couple of multiple fatalities."
El Niño has been blamed for causing temperatures to rise above their normal levels this winter.
In February, the average temperature in Milwaukee was nearly 3 degrees above normal, while the average temperature in Madison was nearly 4 degrees above normal.
Motorists tend to drive more slowly when there's ice and snow on the roads, and even though lots of accidents happen as a result of winter weather, they're often minor and don't lead to serious injury or death.
The number of "vehicle miles traveled" has continued to increase as the economy continues to recover and gas prices remain low, according to Pabst. Many states, not just Wisconsin, have experienced an increase in traffic fatalities.
"It's good for everyone that gas prices are down, but people are driving more, they're going out and enjoying themselves," Pabst said.
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Information from: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, http://www.jsonline.com
- By KYLE POTTER Associated Press
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota House Speaker Kurt Daudt said Tuesday he received no preferential treatment when two credit card debt judgments against him were wiped away last year, and he insisted he has repaid in full the thousands of dollars in debt he racked up.
Minnesota Public Radio News first reported the three lawsuits against the Crown Republican, including a case involving more than $9,000 in outstanding credit card debt that was recently settled before a hearing scheduled for Monday. But the radio station revealed connections in two other cases between a law firm representing the bank and that firm's lobbying presence at Capitol that raised the specter of a powerful lawmaker receiving light treatment.
The two cases, surrounding a combined $3,800 in outstanding debt, were vacated last spring at the request of the bank's lawyers at Messerli and Kramer with little explanation. After the judge agreed to wipe away the payments, the law firm asked that the cases be dismissed with prejudice, meaning it wouldn't be allowed to pursue further legal action and agreed to pay for its own court costs.
In addition to its debt collection operation, Messerli and Kramer employs lobbyists to represent big hitters in Minnesota business, including the Minnesota Twins, Target, Best Buy and a push for a Major League Soccer stadium in St. Paul.
Daudt said Tuesday he was never approached by Messerli and Kramer lawyers or lobbyists, and brushed off any suggestion that the conclusion of his credit troubles was politically linked.
"I know that I received no special treatment because I paid every dollar fully," he said in St. Paul. "Many Minnesotans are hurting and haven't had the opportunity to recover from the recession. I, as a legislator, am not immune to those sorts of financial struggles."
The speaker attributed his troubles to being laid off from a second job but wouldn't get into specifics. He said he was let go from a job in 2011 or 2012 and would only describe it as "in the automobile industry," though he's previously been described as a former car salesman. Daudt currently lists his sole profession as a legislator, for which he makes $43,596 a year — more than most Minnesota lawmakers because of his top position.
Daudt was hounded by calls earlier Tuesday to address the circumstances of his financial troubles and the mysterious manner in which they were resolved.
"It's in the public's interest that he disclose the nature of the settlement he reached on his debt with a law firm with significant lobbying ties at the Capitol," House Minority Leader Paul Thissen, the chamber's top Democrat, said in a statement.
Daudt only said he would consider releasing the terms of the settlement in his latest credit card court battle. Daudt and his attorney had tried to have that case dismissed on a technicality, arguing it wasn't valid because court papers were delivered to his mother's house, on which he owns the mortgage.
It's unclear who paid for his legal fees. Daudt's spokeswoman pointed to campaign finance forms showing the House Republican Campaign Committee, the main campaign arm for the House GOP, paid attorney Reid LeBeau nearly $21,000 last year. Later Tuesday, Daudt said he personally had paid the attorney, who regularly works for the campaign committee on election matters.
- By ROB EARNSHAW The Times
By ROB EARNSHAW
The Times
VALPARAISO, Ind. (AP) — Parkview Elementary School kindergartners are getting a lesson in Spanish thanks to legislation that created a Dual Language Immersion pilot program grant.
Parkview was one of five Indiana schools in the state awarded the grant.
"Our kindergarten students are making outstanding progress," Parkview Principal Anne Wodetzki said. "There is so much you can learn from a dual language program. It's not only language, it's about culture and diversity. What a gift in today's global society."
The Department of Education awarded a total of $422,532 in grants, which were funded by the state during the 2015 legislative session. They provide funds to school corporations that establish dual language immersion programs in Mandarin, Spanish, French or any other language approved by the Indiana Department of Education.
Parkview received $82,817, which covers planning, instructional materials -- chosen by the school -- staff development training and to hire an additional faculty member, if needed, to run the program or to take over duties of a current teacher instructing the language class.
"Programs like this are exceptionally beneficial to students as they provide students with the opportunity to acquire language skills at a young age," said Indiana Department of Education spokeswoman Samantha Hart. "In a two-way immersion program like what Valparaiso is working toward, both native English-speaking children and English learner students benefit from having instruction in their home language as well as another that will lead them toward multilingual proficiency as young adults."
Parkview kindergarten teacher Kristin Nguyen is teaching the Spanish program. She said they are using a lot of gestures, visuals and repetition in the class.
"We're teaching the math standards in Spanish," she said.
Nguyen, a native Spanish speaker, said students will learn concepts, shapes and numbers and will know the days of the week in Spanish. She said students have picked the language up quickly and have not been overwhelmed.
Parkview has to re-apply for the grant next year, and the school may accept interested inter-transfer students from other Valpo elementary schools.
Wodetzki said she would like to expand the program by one grade every year, eventually offering it to all elementary grades. She said there are other teachers at Parkview who speak Spanish, so the program could expand for a couple of years with staff.
If interest in the program continues, school officials would need to look to hire Spanish-speaking teachers as others retire. Transferring teachers to Parkview from other schools in the future is also a possibility to allow the program to expand.
One reason Nguyen believes Parkview was selected for the grant is because she speaks Spanish. There is a shortage of foreign language teachers in the state — a topic Superintendent E. Ric Frataccia brought up at a School Board meeting in the fall.
Indiana has seen more than a 30 percent decline overall in the number of people entering its schools of education, and a similar decline over the last six years in the number of people receiving initial practitioner teaching licenses, according to Hart.
"This teacher shortage impacts all areas of our state and every curriculum area," she said, "though some have seen a greater decline than others."
Wodetzki said there is a shortage of foreign-language teachers, but they are working with other grant recipient schools coordinate efforts to attract more qualified teachers from both the United States and abroad.
Hart said to address the teacher shortage, state schools Superintendent Glenda Ritz created a Blue Ribbon Commission made up of educators and other education stakeholders, to develop strategies to recruit and retain educators in classrooms.
"Superintendent Ritz is committed to implementing the strategies that do not require legislative action and will continue to work with the Legislature to develop legislation to put into law those recommendations that do require legislative action," she said.
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Source: The (Munster) Times, http://bit.ly/1QyY6hB
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Information from: The Times, http://www.thetimesonline.com
This is an AP-Indiana Exchange story offered by The (Munster) Times.
- By GEORGE HUNTER The Detroit News
DETROIT (AP) — Terry Duerod spent a moment in the sun and years in the heat.
He was a bench player on the 1980-81 NBA champion Celtics before becoming a Detroit firefighter, a position he's held for 27 years.
He's set to retire from his second career in July, when he turns 60, because of the department's mandatory retirement policy, The Detroit News (http://detne.ws/1SBEz5m ) reported.
As his career winds down, the man who poured champagne on Celtics legend Larry Bird and helped pour water on burning houses in Detroit is wondering what to do next.
"I guess I'll just sit back and chill for a while," said the Royal Oak native, who's assigned to Engine 55 at Joy Road and Southfield on the city's northwest side. "I haven't done that in a long time."
From Highland Park High, which he led to a state championship in 1975, to the University of Detroit, where he set a school record with 303 baskets in 1979, to a four-year NBA career, to his years driving rigs to Detroit fires, the man known during his playing days as "Sweet Doo" said he's learned the value of teamwork.
"You rely on your guys, and they rely on you," he said. "It's the same in the NBA as it is on the job."
Duerod, a 1993 inductee into the Titan Hall of Fame, was honored Feb. 11 with the school's John Conti Letterman of Distinction Award, given to former varsity athletes who distinguish themselves in the community.
"Terry is one of the best players to play for Detroit," athletic director Robert C. Vowels Jr. said in a written statement. "When you take a look at his playing career and now as a professional serving the community as a firefighter, he exemplifies what this award is all about."
Duerod credits legendary Titans coach Dick Vitale with preparing him for the NBA — and life.
"He was a stern coach, but he taught you how to deal with things," Duerod said. "He always stressed how to live your life the right way: Get your education. Be a good person. He was a great motivator."
Sgt. Roberto Romero, who worked with Duerod at Engine 8, said the competitive spirit that carried him to the NBA never dwindled.
"He's one of the best (fire engine operators) I've ever ran with," he said. "He's really competitive, which is probably why he's so good at what he does. Nobody will beat him to a fire, that's for sure."
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During Duerod's sophomore year, Vitale left the Titans to became coach of the Pistons. When the 6-foot-2 guard graduated in 1979, he was reunited with his former coach after the Pistons drafted him in the third round (48th overall).
He averaged 9.3 points his rookie year, but Vitale was fired 12 games into the season, and Duerod was left unprotected in the 1980 expansion draft. He was picked up by the Mavericks.
The Mavericks released him after 18 games, and the Celtics signed him as a free agent. It was a fortuitous move: In Boston, he became a fan favorite and earned a championship ring. When he entered games, Celtic fans would chant, "Dooooo."
"That was a special feeling, to have fans chanting for me like that," he said. "I'll never forget it.
"Bird, (Kevin) McHale, (Robert) Parish, (Nate) Tiny Archibald — they were all great guys. Larry (Bird) was a jokester. Those are relationships I'll cherish the rest of my life."
Duerod got into four games in the 1981 NBA Finals, finishing with six points and one steal as the Celtics beat the Rockets in six games.
He played another season with the Celtics before being cut. The Warriors signed him, but released him after five games, ending his 143-game career.
"After I got waived, I ended up going overseas to play," he said. "I went to Italy and the Philippines. Basketball wasn't as popular overseas then like it is now, and this was before the big money.
"In the NBA, the minimum back then was only about $30,000, and you made even less overseas. So when my career ended, I needed to find a job."
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He took the test to become a firefighter and was hired in 1989. Most of his career has been driving fire trucks.
Despite his former notoriety, Duerod says he's able to fool fellow firefighters during pickup basketball games.
"When I first start playing with some of these young guys, they don't know who I am, and I don't say anything," Duerod said. "Their friends will finally tell them, 'Don't you know who you're playing with? He was in the NBA.' "
Duerod plays on the fire department's basketball team.
"We won 11 championships," he said. "The big rivalry was between us and the cops. They wanted to beat us so bad, but they couldn't until we got old."
Duerod, who lives in Westland with his wife of 34 years, Rosemary, said he'll miss the camaraderie of the firehouse.
"When you stay with these guys for days at a time, you become like family," Duerod said. "You get to know people's personalities. It's really an experience.
"I had a great run. I can really say my life has been exciting. I was in the NBA. I traveled the world and had fun. And I've had a long career on the fire department with a great bunch of guys. What else could I ask for?"
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Information from: The Detroit News, http://detnews.com/
This is an AP Member Exchange shared by The Detroit News
- By BILL SALISBURY St. Paul Pioneer Press
By BILL SALISBURY
St. Paul Pioneer Press
DENNISON, Minn. (AP) — It was not in Jeff Flaten's job description 15 months ago when he was elected mayor of Dennison, Minnesota.
Every day, including weekends and holidays, Flaten drives to a sewer lift station on the west edge of the tiny Goodhue County town, pries opens a manhole-size steel lid and climbs 15 feet down a ladder in a metal tube to make sure the village's two wastewater pumps are working.
The task landed in the mayor's lap when the city's longtime sewer and water system operator retired, the St. Paul Pioneer Press (http://bit.ly/1XYKEsj ) reported. Flaten hasn't been able to hire a replacement, because not only is the work unpleasant but the lift station, built in 1962, also fails to meet federal safety standards.
"It's obsolete and essentially dangerous," he said.
Flaten, 49, a state corrections officer with a college degree in sociology, didn't know anything about operating a sewer pump before he was elected. On a couple of occasions, he said, he's had to restart the pumps by hand. About once a week, he also has to clean out a screen that catches debris before it clogs the pumps.
"Somebody's got to do it. If the poop's not moving, then it's going to back up in the sewer mains," he said.
Flaten has asked Gov. Mark Dayton and the Minnesota Legislature for $726,000 this year to build an above-ground lift station. The city, population 190, proposes to chip in another $48,000, funded in part with a new $25 monthly water fee on residents, to complete the project.
Dennison simply can't afford to pay for the project on its own, Flaten said. "The city is already up to its eyeballs in debt," its property taxes are higher than neighboring cities and another fee increase might drive people away.
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The village is one of hundreds of small cities in rural Minnesota with diminutive tax bases that are struggling to find money to replace aging wastewater, stormwater and drinking water systems or upgrade them to meet changing environmental standards.
Their plight isn't as hazardous as that in Flint, Michigan, where high lead levels in drinking water pose a serious health threat. But it reflects a growing national concern over government's role in providing safe, clean and affordable water.
Here are four more small towns seeking state help:
(asterisk) Afton, population 2,953, in Washington County, doesn't have a municipal sewer system, so about 100 homes and businesses in the city's Old Village rely on private septic systems that pose a pollution threat, as many are in the St. Croix River flood plain. The city is getting final state approvals and taking construction bids for a municipal sewer collection system and wastewater treatment plant. City administrator Ron Moorse expects the system to be operational by the fall at a cost of more than $4 million, with the state picking up about half the tab.
(asterisk) Chisholm, Buhl, Kinney and Great Scott Township, combined population 6,745, in St. Louis County. Less than two years after opening a $28 million Central Iron Range Sanitary Sewer District wastewater treatment plant, operators were told the plant failed to meet strict new federal mercury discharge limits for facilities releasing water into the Great Lakes basin. So the district is now adding a mercury removal facility. Price tag: more than $4 million. Local officials have asked the state to foot at least half the bill. "Without the grant money, we just wouldn't be able to do it," said sewer district executive director Norm Miranda.
(asterisk) Mountain Lake, population 2,134, in Cottonwood County. The city used to have a problem with stormwater infiltrating its sanitary sewer lines and overloading its treatment plant, forcing the city to pump sewage into its namesake lake. It spent $12 million from 2012 to 2014 to fix its sewer lines. Now, the city wants a state grant to help pay for a $13.4 million project to rehabilitate and expand its old and overloaded stabilization pond system.
(asterisk) Winnebago, population 1,394, in Faribault County has an aging sanitary sewer system with numerous maintenance problems, including storm- and groundwater seeping into leaky sewer mains, which has caused backups into basements and overflows into the Blue Earth River. "We've had whole potatoes from gardens end up at the wastewater plant," said city administrator Chris Ziegler. The city is seeking $3.7 million from the state for a $6.6 million project that would separate its sanitary sewer and stormwater systems.
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Last month, Dayton proposed a $220 million plan to upgrade sewer and water systems and protect groundwater across the state. About 60 percent of the state aid for water projects money would go to rural communities.
His plan would increase state aid for municipal sewer and water projects from an average of $160 million to $300 million a year and enable the Minnesota Public Facilities Authority, which provides grants and loans to local governments, to fund up to 80 projects a year, compared with fewer than 50 now, said Jeff Freeman, the authority's executive director.
But that would just be a down payment on meeting cities' needs. The Pollution Control Agency and the state Health Department have 567 local projects totaling $1.7 billion on their priority lists for funding for sewer and water system construction over the next five years.
Based on a survey of Minnesota cities, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates the state will need $11 billion in sewer and water improvements over the next 20 years.
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Republican and Democratic-Farmer-Labor members of the House and Senate bonding committees seem to be warming up to Dayton's request for more money for municipal water projects — even though Republicans contend the $1.4 billion price tag on the governor's overall bonding bill was too high.
House Capital Investment Committee Chairman Paul Torkelson, R-Hanska, said he hasn't heard any opposition to helping cities, especially small towns, upgrade their sewer and water systems.
"I think there's generally good support from the people I've talked to so far," he said. "I will give the governor's proposal very serious consideration. The only concern I have is that we invest the money wisely."
Torkelson, a farmer, is one of the Republicans who clashed with Dayton over contentious parts of his plan to require vegetative buffer strips to help protect lakes and streams from agricultural runoff and erosion.
"It's nice to find some common ground with the governor," he said. "I hope we can go forward and work together on this."
Senate Capital Investment Committee Chairman LeRoy Stumpf, DFL-Plummer, said his panel's tours of water projects last fall convinced him "the need is there."
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Some lawmakers, however, question whether new PCA water discharge regulations are driving up water treatment costs unnecessarily.
In recent years, the agency has adopted new phosphorus standards for discharges into lakes and rivers to prevent algae growth that causes what Katrina Kessler, PCA's water assessment section manager, called "green and slimy water conditions."
But Sens. Scott Newman, R-Hutchinson, and David Tomassoni, DFL-Chisholm, said the PCA's new standards are forcing many small towns that have borrowed money to construct new sewage treatment plants in recent years to go deeper in debt to upgrade their systems. They want the PCA to prove that the benefits of the new regulations outweigh the costs.
The PCA "can't change the standards, because they are based on science," Kessler said, but the agency can be flexible in how it works with cities to meet the standards. It could, for example, help cities get state grants and loans, set longer compliance schedules or find alternative ways to reduce phosphorus discharges.
Thirty-three cities have requested state funds to upgrade wastewater treatment plants to meet new discharge limits, she said. The total cost of those projects is around $210 million, while Minnesota cities have identified $4.2 billion worth of projects to meet all sewage treatment needs.
"So the amount of money needed to meet discharge limits based on new standards is only a fraction of the overall need," Kessler said.
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Information from: St. Paul Pioneer Press, http://www.twincities.com
This is an AP Member Exchange shared by the St. Paul Pioneer Press
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