Electric bikes and scooters have changed how we get around, whether for a daily commute, riding the trails or hauling cargo.

Modern e-bikes have transformed from heavy, clunky novelties into sleek, high-tech and efficient machines. The change is similar to the classic General Motors’ rebranding of the Oldsmobile cars in the late 1980s.

The new e-bikes and e-scooters also bring confusion and the increasing possibility of injury.

Despite all the talk about a new courthouse in Shawano County, until supervisors actually vote to borrow funds, there are no guarantees the project will happen.

That day is coming soon.

Carol Wirth, president and owner of Wisconsin Public Finance Professionals LLC, outlined the steps to take over the next months that will kick off the estimated $121 million building project.

One person is dead after a crash involving a vehicle versus pedestrian accident July 23 in the Town of Little River.

The Oconto County Sheriff’s Department Emergency Dispatch Center was notified just after 2 p.m. about the crash near the 7000 block of Hillcrest Road.

On a Thursday in early July, more than 1,000 kids flooded the halls of Pulaski Community Middle School.

Heaps of backpacks were piled in corners of classrooms and hallways. Bikes crowded the racks outside. At lunchtime, lines of children snaked around the building as they waited for hamburgers.

Summer school is a phrase usually wielded as a threat to keep students on task in the classroom.

Not in Pulaski.

“Your county has a lot of orange barrels and cones.”

Tony Kemnitz, of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, made that understatement of the year when he summarized the road construction projects underway in Shawano County this summer.

Kemnitz spoke at the July 21 meeting of the Shawano County Highway Safety Commission.

First he addressed the state Highway 29 project from County Road J to the area of Spruce Road.

To alleviate traffic congestion on a major state highway and ensure residents along Fairgrounds Road maintain access to their driveways, a new traffic route will be established for the Menominee Nation Contest Powwow.

The new traffic route will be in effect July 31, Aug. 1 and Aug. 2.