The Stillwater Veterans Memorial committee is working on a $200,000 expansion that will add 500 pavers to the 1,500 engraved pavers already on site memorializing local veterans.

“It’s not quite full, but we’re planning this expansion now because, two years from now, we anticipate we will have filled up all the existing space,” said John Kraemer, the memorial committee’s board chairman.

The Stillwater Veterans Memorial features a 53-foot steel spire, Wall of Honor and engraved pavers. (Courtesy of the Stillwater Veterans Memorial)

The Stillwater City Council approved plans for the second phase of the expansion at the memorial, located at Third and Pine streets, earlier this year, and the committee is working to raise the necessary funds. The first expansion was done about 10 years ago, he said.

The memorial, which includes a 53-foot steel spire and a Wall of Honor, is amid several parking lots across from the Washington County Historic Courthouse. The second phase of the expansion can be done because the city now has additional parking spaces available in an adjacent parking lot to the north of the site, Kraemer said.

The Stillwater Veterans Memorial, dedicated in 2004, features a walkway from Pine Street that leads to a circular overlook area where the spire is located. The Wall of Honor includes the names of veterans from Stillwater area schools who died serving their country. The names date back to the Civil and Spanish-American wars.

The memorial expansion will “ensure an ongoing legacy of honor and respect for all who have served, are serving, and will serve,” said Kraemer, a retired financial planner from Stillwater and a Vietnam-era veteran of the Air National Guard’s 148th Fighter Wing in Duluth.

Plans also call for new walkways and additional landscaped areas, including shrubbery on both sides to separate the memorial site from the surrounding parking areas, he said. “We’re trying to make the memorial a little more intimate,” he said. “We want to create a larger public space for gathering and contemplation.”

The enhanced symmetry of the site will ensure all memorial pavers will have “equal access,” he said. “That’s certainly our objective.”

Dine Here, Dance Here fundraiser

A fundraiser for the Stillwater Veterans Memorial will be held May 17 in downtown Stillwater. “Dine Her, Dance Here” includes a full day of free music, including live bands and a DJ – all with a 1970s disco theme, said organizer Rachael Kozlowski.

There also will be a white-line dining experience on the Chestnut Street Plaza near the Stillwater Lift Bridge; tickets are $129 per person.

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The price of the dinner includes passed appetizers, salad, bread, dual entrée, dessert, two raffle tickets, two drink tickets and gratuity, Kozlowski said. Drinks from Lift Bridge Brewing, Domacin Wine Bar and Proper Bartender, will be served.

Tickets for VIP tables that will seat eight people also are being sold; those include preferred seating, charcuterie board, two bottles of wine, plus an additional raffle ticket and drink ticket per guest.

Reservations are encouraged as seating is limited; the reservation deadline is Sunday.

For more information, look for “Dine Here Dance Here” on Facebook.

By JOSH FUNK

The Trump administration on Thursday announced an ambitious three-year plan to replace the United State’s aging air traffic control system.

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Officials did not provide an exact cost estimate but said it would require billions of dollars to put in place. They said a $12.5 billion budget proposal that a House committee drafted last week represents a solid “down payment” on the plan, which was developed after the deadly midair collision over Washington, D.C., in January.

Here are some of the key numbers of improvements in the plan:

Thousands of internet connections

The plan calls for installing 4,600 high-speed network connections for data and communications across the air traffic control system at airports and radar control centers and other facilities across the country.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said there is a desperate need to upgrade the Federal Aviation Administration’s communications network because part of it still operates on outdated copper wires.

Some of the shortcomings of the current system have been on display at the Newark, New Jersey, airport over the past two weeks. The air traffic control center in Philadelphia that directs planes in and out of Newark lost its radar signal for between 30 and 90 seconds on April 28, meaning air traffic controllers couldn’t tell where planes were temporarily.

The FAA subsequently slowed down traffic at the Newark airport, which forced airlines to cancel or delay hundreds of flights, leaving travelers stranded. It appears that the source of the problem was a breakdown in the lines carrying radar data from a facility in New York to the air traffic controllers in Philadelphia.

The FAA is already working on replacing those lines with fiber optic ones and training more controllers to improve the situation in Newark.

Duffy said that fiber optic lines will be the priority in the upgrades nationwide, but in some cases the government may look at satellite or cellular technology. Duffy said he is “agnostic” about whether Elon Musk’s Starlink or any other company should get the contracts and will let the bidding process play out.

Hundreds of new radar systems

The plan calls for replacing 618 radar systems countrywide.

Duffy said many of the existing radar systems at airports date back to the 1980s or even 1970s, so they need to be replaced.

When repairs are needed, some of the antiquated components can be hard to find, so Duffy said the government sometimes resorts to buying parts on eBay to maintain its systems.

6 new control centers

The plan proposes creating six new air traffic control centers, a significant number since one hasn’t been built since the 1960s. Duffy said the goal would be to consolidate hard-to-staff facilities whenever possible.

15 new towers

The FAA would build 15 new towers combined with Terminal Radar Approach Control facilities at airports across the country.

25,000 radios

The FAA relies on aging radio equipment to allow air traffic controllers to talk to pilots. Some of those radios are more than 30 years old.

Newer digital equipment should be more reliable and offer more clarity than the old radios, as well as make the system more secure.

Broad support

The plan to modernize the nation’s air traffic control system has drawn support from 55 groups across the aviation industry. The new Modern Skies Coalition includes major unions, trade groups, airplane manufacturers and other associations.

Representatives of those groups attended the plan’s announcement Thursday.

200 new ground location systems

Only about 44 of the most complex airports currently have high-tech systems installed to help controllers keep track of where planes are on the ground.

Two hundred more airports would get these systems, allowing controllers to accurately track planes’ positions instead of just using binoculars from the tower window.

But even after these upgrades, 200 more airports would remain without these ground systems that help keep taxiing planes from running into each other.

Following the announcement of Pope Leo XIV, born Robert Prevost in Chicago, as the new head of the Catholic Church, local Catholic leaders expressed joy and support — and a bit of surprise about his Midwestern roots.

“I never thought I would see an American pope,” Bernard Hebda, the archbishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, said in a news conference Thursday. “How exciting is that?”

Hebda said he and Prevost had previously corresponded by mail but had never met in person. Most of the letters they shared, Hebda said, were archdiocese status updates during the time Prevost oversaw the Dicastery for Bishops, the church body that’s in charge of selecting new bishops and is involved in managing relations between dioceses and the Vatican.

Kevin Kenney, an auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese, graduated from the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago a few years after Prevost did, but the two men never met there, he said.

Kenney became a bishop in 2024, during Prevost’s time leading the Dicastery, so it’s likely that Prevost was the one who, upon the body’s recommendation, brought Kenney’s name to Pope Francis for papal approval.

“I am surprised that the Cardinals elected an American but overwhelmed with joy,” Kenney wrote in an email Thursday. “I am sure he had a big role in my becoming bishop so I look forward to meeting him someday.”

Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona–Rochester, also from Chicago, traveled to Rome to witness the new pope’s first appearance. In a video posted to his Facebook page Thursday evening, he noted that he and Prevost had met a couple times at church synods over the years.

“He’s a quietly competent person,” Barron said in the video. “Not a flashy personality; a man of great intelligence, prayerfulness, obviously.”

Chris Mulcahey, a spokesperson for the Minnesota Catholic Conference, said he’s not aware of personal connections to Prevost among other bishops around the state.

The new pope’s Midwestern upbringing could help him connect to American Catholics in ways that are distinct from previous popes, Hebda said.

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“To have a pope, for example, who understands Catholic schools or the struggles parents go through to make sure our kids can get a good education,” Hebda said. “Just recognizing the experiences he’s had that would be very similar to Catholics in our archdiocese. Somebody who has the same experience of the American church and the way in which our church is so multicultural.”

It is unknown whether Prevost has ever visited Minnesota. To date, no sitting pope has ever visited the state. Before becoming Pope Pius XII, then-Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli briefly stopped in St. Paul on a national tour in 1936.

The new pope, who spent much of his career as a pastor and later bishop in Peru, is a White Sox fan, his brother told a local TV station in Chicago.

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that he is naming Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, a former county prosecutor and elected judge, to be the top federal prosecutor for the nation’s capital after abandoning his first pick for the job.

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Pirro, who joined Fox News in 2006, co-hosts the network’s show “The Five” on weekday evenings. She was elected as a judge in New York’s Westchester County Court in 1990 before serving three terms as the county’s elected district attorney.

Trump tapped Pirro to at least temporarily lead the nation’s largest U.S. Attorney’s office after pulling his nomination of conservative activist Ed Martin Jr. for the position. Trump withdrew Martin from consideration after a key Republican senator said he could not support Martin for the job due to his defense of rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“He’s a terrific person, and he wasn’t getting the support from people that I thought,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday. He later added: “But we have somebody else that will be great.”

Broadcaster Jeanine Pirro attends the Paley Center for Media’s 2024 Paley Honors at Cipriani 42nd Street on Thursday, June 13, 2024, in New York. (Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)

Pirro is the latest in a string of Trump appointments coming from Fox News — a list that includes Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who co-hosted “Fox & Friends Weekend.”

Martin has served as acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia since Trump’s first week in office. But his hopes of keeping the job faded amid questions about his qualifications and background. Martin had never served as a prosecutor or tried a case before taking office in January.