Green Bay News

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans wanted to know what Scott Walker tells voters about a would-be president who lacks a college degree. So they asked the GOP Wisconsin governor about it Tuesday, and they say he passed the quiz with flying colors.

The potential presidential candidate met privately at Republican Party headquarters with dozens of GOP lawmakers. Fellow Republican Wisconsinite Rep. Paul Ryan, among those who sponsored the gathering, said most hadn’t met Walker before and wanted to “kick his tires.”

Attendees say he spoke about topics ranging from foreign affairs to immigration, and took some questions. One of which came from Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, who wanted to know how he handles the question about his failure to graduate from Marquette University.

“He said 70 percent of the country is with him,” said Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., who happens to be a college professor.

That number was a reference to Census Bureau figures showing that around 71 percent of Americans age 18 and up do not have a college degree.

Some lawmakers said Walker’s lack of a degree might help voters relate to him. They say he told them he left college to take a job and hopes people will judge him by his more recent accomplishments, such as being Wisconsin governor.

Walker’s lack of a degree has been highlighted during his fight this year to cut the University of Wisconsin’s budget. He has said the university system could make up the cuts if professors taught extra classes, leading professors to say Walker doesn’t understand how much time they spend meeting with students and doing research outside class.

 

 

WAUPACA – One man was arrested in a ongoing heroin investigation by the Waupaca County Sheriff’s Office on Monday.

28-year-old Nicholas Schulke appeared in court Tuesday afternoon. He’s charged with three counts of manufacturing/delivering heroin and one count of maintaining a drug trafficking place.

Deputies say drug investigators with the Waupaca County Sheriff’s Office had purchased heroin from Schulke on three separate occasions since February 2015.

Investigators say Schulke would go to Milwaukee several times a week to buy various quantities of heroin. Schulke would sell a portion of the heroin and keep the other portion for himself to use.

Officials say they expect more arrests during the ongoing investigation.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft will not appeal the $1 million fine and loss of two draft choices the NFL penalized the team for its role in the use of deflated footballs in the AFC championship game.

Kraft said Tuesday at the owners meetings that he was putting the league before his franchise because “at no time should the agenda of one team outweigh the collective good of the 32.”

The Patriots will lose a first-round draft pick next year and a fourth-rounder in 2017.

“When the discipline came out, I felt it was way over the top,” Kraft said, adding that if he had made his decision last week, it might have been a different one.

But after further consideration, he cited “believing in the strength of the (NFL) partnership and the 32 teams” for dropping any appeal plans.

Kraft also recognized the powers given to Commissioner Roger Goodell.

“I do have respect for the commissioner and believe he is doing what he perceives to be in the best interest of the 32,” Kraft added.

Star quarterback Tom Brady has been suspended for the first four games of the 2015 season by the NFL, and Kraft’s decision not to appeal his team’s punishment does not affect Brady’s appeal, which already has been filed by the players’ union.

Kraft would not take any questions about his decision nor about Brady’s appeal.

MADISON (AP) – State agriculture officials have lifted a quarantine zone around a Juneau County farm that had poultry infected with bird flu.

The approximate 6-mile quarantine zone around the farm was lifted after no new cases of bird flu were found in the county since the original detection in April affecting a flock of backyard birds. That flock was destroyed.

The Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection says the movement of poultry is still banned in Juneau, Barron, Chippewa and Jefferson counties until the end of the month.

State veterinarian Dr. Paul McGraw says there are no current plans to cancel bird exhibitions at any local, county or state fairs.

OCONOMOWOC (AP) – Investigators in Oconomowoc say the death of a 50-year-old man found shot in the basement of his home is apparently a homicide.

Police Chief David Beguhn says Stanley Van Wagner’s wife found his body Sunday evening. He had been shot three times with a handgun.

Authorities believe Van Wagner was shot in another room of the home and his body moved to the basement. Beguhn says they believe the assailant is someone known to the victim.

No one has been arrested.

WACO, Texas (AP) — A deadly weekend shootout involving rival motorcycle gangs apparently began with a parking dispute and someone running over a gang member’s foot, police said Tuesday.

Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said an uninvited group appeared for the meeting of a loose confederation of biker gangs held Sunday at a restaurant.

One man was injured when a vehicle struck his foot. That caused a dispute that continued inside the restaurant, where fighting and then shooting began, before the melee spilled back outside, Swanton said.

The shootout left nine people dead and 18 wounded.

Of the 18 injured, seven remain hospitalized. Swanton described their conditions as stable.

He said the investigation is being hampered by witnesses who “are not being honest with us.”

Authorities warned weeks ago of growing animosity between rival motorcycle gangs, a feud that erupted into violence this week at the shootout at a crowded Waco restaurant.

In a memo dated May 1, the Texas Department of Public Safety cautioned authorities about increasing violence between the Bandidos and the Cossacks, Dallas TV station WFAA reported Monday. The county sheriff has said all nine people who were killed in the shootout were part of those two groups.

About 170 bikers have been charged with engaging in organized crime.

The DPS Joint Information Center bulletin said the tension could stem from Cossacks refusing to pay Bandidos dues for operating in Texas and for wearing a patch on their vest that claimed Texas as their turf without the Bandidos’ approval.

“Traditionally, the Bandidos have been the dominant motorcycle club in Texas, and no other club is allowed to wear the Texas bar without their consent,” the bulletin said, according to WFAA.

The bulletin said the FBI had received information that Bandidos had discussed “going to war with Cossacks.” It also outlined several recent incidents between the two groups, including one instance in March when about 10 Cossacks forced a Bandido to pull over along Interstate 35 near Waco and attacked him with “chains, batons and metal pipes before stealing his motorcycle,” WFAA reported.

That same day, a group of Bandidos confronted a Cossack member fueling up at a truck stop in Palo Pinto County, west of Fort Worth, the bulletin said. When the Cossack member refused to remove the Texas patch from his vest, the Bandidos hit him in the head with a hammer and stole it.

There are other documented instances of violence between the groups.

Last March, two members of the Bandidos were indicted in connection with the stabbing of two Cossacks at an Abilene steakhouse in March 2014.

And in December, three Bandidos were arrested for a shooting at a Fort Worth motorcycle bar that left one dead and two others wounded. Fort Worth police said the victims were known members of a criminal motorcycle gang.

The Bandidos “constitute a growing criminal threat,” the Justice Department said in a report on outlaw motorcycle gangs. The report said the Bandidos are involved in transporting and distributing cocaine and marijuana and in the production and distribution of methamphetamine.

McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara, whose office is involved in the investigation, said the nine dead were members of the Bandidos and Cossacks. However, Waco police spokesman Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton has repeatedly declined to identify which gangs were involved in a fight that began with punches then grew to include chains, knives and then guns.

Five gangs from across Texas had gathered at Twin Peaks to in part settle differences over turf, Swanton has said.

The Confederation of Clubs, a network of motorcycle clubs, had a scheduled regional meeting at the restaurant, according to their website.

On Monday, about 170 gang members were charged with engaging in organized crime. McLennan County Justice of the Peace W.H. Peterson set bond at $1 million for each suspect.

He defended the high amount, citing the violence that quickly unfolded in a shopping market busy with a lunchtime crowd.

Police and the restaurant operators were aware of Sunday’s meeting in advance, and 18 Waco officers in addition to state troopers were outside the restaurant when the fight began, Swanton said. Police have acknowledged firing on armed bikers, but it was unclear how many of the dead were shot by gang members and how many were shot by officers.

NEW YORK (AP) — KFC is bringing back Colonel Sanders as the fried chicken chain seeks to refresh its image.

Sanders, who founded KFC, will be played by “Saturday Night Live” alumnus Darrell Hammond in TV commercials. The real Col. Harland Sanders died nearly 35 years ago, and KFC hasn’t featured him in TV ads for about 20 years.

KFC also plans to redesign its restaurants. The new restaurants will have light fixtures shaped like chicken buckets and quotes from Col. Sanders hanging on the wall.

The resurrection of Col. Sanders comes a couple of weeks after rival McDonald’s said it would bring back its classic character, the Hamburglar, to TV ads.

KFC is owned by is Louisville, Kentucky-based Yum Brands Inc., which also owns Taco Bell and Pizza Hut.

NEW LONDON – Police have released a sketch and a further description of a man suspected of robbing a pharmacy at gunpoint.

Surveillance image of an armed robbery suspect in New London, May 13, 2015. (New London Police Dept.)

The robbery happened around 2:30 p.m. last Wednesday at Jernegan’s Health Mart Pharmacy, 1301 S. Mill St., New London. Witnesses say the man pointed a gun at the employees and demanded prescription pills and money. The man got away with a small amount of prescription pills but did not get any money.

The robber was described as a white man, at least 45 years old. He was between 6-foot and 6-foot-2 and weighed between 190-210 pounds. He had blue eyes and a flat-top haircut. He was described as having a big nose and a “rough and heavy-looking” face. He wore a black ski jacket with a hood that extended beyond his face and wrapped around his chin area, dark blue carpenter jeans and white tennis shoes. He did not speak quickly, police say.

Surveillance image of an armed robbery suspect in New London, May 13, 2015. (New London Police Dept.)

The robber’s gun was described as a smaller caliber handgun, not a .45. It was silver and black – but not shiny – with black trim and a black grip. It was a semiautomatic model.

The robber’s vehicle was described as a beat-up black Dodge pickup truck, from the 1995-2000 model years. It had a short box with no cap and a black bumper. The wheel well on the passenger side was rotted out.

Anyone with information is asked to call New London police at (920) 982-8505.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Legislature’s budget-writing committee plans to vote on expanding the state’s private-school voucher program.

Gov. Scott Walker has proposed doing away with the 1,000-student enrollment cap for the statewide program that began two years ago. But in doing that, Walker’s plan would lower the amount of the taxpayer-funded voucher that students receive for their private-school education.

Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has proposed a different funding approach that would keep the vouchers at the same level. The money would come out of aid from the public school district that is losing the student to a private school.

An estimate by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau says that would cost public schools about $48 million over the next two years.

The Joint Finance Committee was to vote on the issue Tuesday.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal prohibiting the state superintendent from forcing local school districts to adopt Common Core academic standards is up for a vote in the Legislature’s budget committee.

The Joint Finance Committee was scheduled to act on the proposal Tuesday.

Wisconsin public schools are not required to adopt the Common Core standards, but the state Department of Public Instruction says all have done so for English and math except for Germantown. State-mandated standardized tests are tied to the standards.

Walker’s budget would make clear that schools don’t need to use Common Core standards. He’s also called for new standardized tests.

State Superintendent Tony Evers adopted the Common Core standards in 2010, but Walker’s proposal would prohibit him from advocating for or promoting the standards to school districts.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Legislature’s finance committee is set to decide whether to reduce prison tower staffing during the middle of the night.

Gov. Scott Walker’s budget calls for saving about $6.2 million over the next two fiscal years by reducing third-shift tower staffing by 60 positions. Department of Corrections officials say anyone currently filling those positions would be moved into other vacancies.

DOC officials say there’s been only two inmate escape attempts during third shift over the last 20 years. They say they can maintain third-shift security using technology and perimeter patrols instead of fully staffing the towers.

The finance committee is expected to vote Tuesday on whether to keep the provision in the budget, tweak it or delete it.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Legislature’s finance committee is expected to consider Gov. Scott Walker’s budget plan to offer state workers $2,000 a year to opt out of taking state-subsidized health insurance.

According to data cited in a Legislative Fiscal Bureau report, the state would spend about $6.6 million annually on the payments. According to numbers from an actuary the report cites, the state could lose as much as $3.3 million or save as much as $18 million depending on the number of employees who take the deal.

The Joint Finance Committee is scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to keep the plan in the budget, tweak it or delete it.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Whether to increase funding for Wisconsin’s public schools is to be debated by the Legislature’s budget committee.

The Joint Finance Committee was scheduled to take votes Tuesday on portions of Gov. Scott Walker’s budget related to both public school funding and expanding the private-school voucher program.

Republicans say they plan to plug the $127 million cut in public school aid Walker had in the first year of his budget. Committee co-chair Rep. John Nygren says his goal is to increase funding by $75 per student in the second year.

That means school funding would be flat next school year, but go up the next.

The debate comes as Walker prepares for a likely run for president in which he’s touting his record of growing the statewide private school voucher program.

MADISON (AP) – A liberal advocacy group has filed a lawsuit against Gov. Scott Walker, saying he is illegally withholding records related to his proposal to rewrite the mission statement of the University of Wisconsin known as the “Wisconsin Idea.”

The Center for Media and Democracy filed the lawsuit Tuesday in Dane County Circuit Court. The group was the first to report in February that Walker’s budget would rewrite the “Wisconsin Idea” to focus on career readiness and drop references to public service and seeking a broader truth.

Walker called it a mistake and dropped the proposal.

The Center requested records from Walker’s office related to the creation of the proposal, but Walker refused to turn some over.

A spokeswoman for Walker’s office and the Department of Justice had no immediate comment.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to create an alternative track for people with real-life experience to get licensed to teach in Wisconsin schools is up for a committee vote.

The budget-writing Joint Finance Committee was scheduled to take up the idea on Tuesday.

Walker has defended the proposal as making more people available to teach in high-demand areas, or in rural parts of the state where it’s more difficult to find licensed teachers.

Critics have said Walker’s plan is faulty because it doesn’t require those being licensed to have any instruction in effective teaching.

But Walker says he’s trying to give a route for professionals who want to teach to take a competency test that would get them licensed and in schools quickly.

MADISON (AP) – A state insurance board has voted to add deductibles and increase out-of-pocket payments in state employees’ health care plans, a measure that could cost workers $85 million over the next two years.

The state Department of Employee Trust Fund’s Group Insurance Board approved the measure on a 9-2 vote Tuesday. Gov. Scott Walker proposed the measure in his budget and the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee was slated to vote on it later Tuesday.

The majority of Wisconsin state employees don’t pay a deductible for health insurance. Under the proposal they would pay $250 annually. That amount would double for families.

Annual maximum out-of-pocket payments would also increase from the current $500 to $1,000. Families covered by the program currently pay a maximum $1,000. That would increase to $2,000.

BOSTON (AP) – Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will be formally sentenced to death next month after at least 20 victims describe the impact the terror attack had on their lives.

Judge George O’Toole Jr. said during a status conference in federal court Tuesday that Tsarnaev’s formal sentencing hearing will be held in June. He did not immediately set an exact date.

A jury last week determined that Tsarnaev should get the death penalty in the 2013 attack. Three people were killed and more than 260 were injured when Tsarnaev and his brother placed two pressure-cooker bombs near the marathon finish line.

The jury rejected the defense claim that Tsarnaev, then 19, was “a good kid” who was led down the path to terrorism by Tamerlan Tsarnaev, his 26-year-old brother.

The defense suggested Tamerlan Tsarnaev engineered the attack to punish the U.S. for its wars in Muslim countries. Prosecutors noted Dzhokhar Tsarnaev scrawled a message on the day of his arrest that read, “Stop killing our innocent people and we will stop.”

About 20 victims have asked to speak at the sentencing hearing, prosecutor William Weinreb told the judge. He said it was unclear whether that number will grow. Tsarnaev will also be given the opportunity to speak.

O’Toole granted a request to give Tsarnaev’s lawyers 90 days to file post-trial motions, including an expected request for a new trial.

Tsarnaev was not in the courtroom for the status conference. His likely appeal of the death sentence would take years.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Railroad unions are urging Amtrak to put a second engineer in locomotives in the wake of a deadly derailment last week in Philadelphia.

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and SMART Transportation say two engineers would serve as a check and balance on each other.

Engineer Brandon Bostian was alone in the locomotive of Train 188 when it derailed May 12, killing eight people and injuring about 200.

Investigators are looking into why the train was going more than double the 50 mph limit around a sharp curve.

The unions say Amtrak hasn’t had a second crew member in the cab of Northeast Corridor trains since 1983, after Congress ended the requirement.

Also Tuesday, a lawyer for the lead conductor on the train says his client suffered a broken neck and broken back.

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — The lawyer for the lead conductor on the Amtrak train that crashed in Philadelphia last week says his client suffered a broken neck, broken back and other serious injuries.

Emilio Fonseca, of Kearny, has sued Amtrak, claiming negligence and carelessness on the part of the rail carrier. Eight people were killed in the May 12 derailment and more than 200 injured.

Attorney Bruce Nagel says that Fonseca was in the first car of the train at the time of the derailment. He was in a bathroom at the time, which likely saved his life.

Nagel said Fonseca managed to get out of the train and remembers standing in a field, telling people to watch out for electrical wires.

Nagel said Fonseca hasn’t spoken with investigators yet, and could be hospitalized for several more weeks.

NEW YORK (AP) — The company whose name has long been synonymous with telephones is looking for new ways to reach out and touch someone.

AT&T, which had a popular “Reach Out and Touch Someone” slogan in the 1980s, now wants to be on your TV, car and even trashcan.

AT&T Inc. is spending $48.5 billion to buy satellite TV provider DirecTV as it looks for new ways to package access — wireless and wired — with traditional and online video.

It’s also revamping its stores to showcase other services, including the ability to unlock your home’s front doors through an app to let in contractors. It’s equipping cars with data connections for diagnostic, roadside assistance and entertainment systems. It’s even putting data sensors into inanimate objects such as parking meters and water pipes to build smarter cities.

And last year, the company adopted “Mobilizing Your World” as its slogan to reflect a desire to be part of your entire life, not just on phones.

“We don’t view ourselves as a phone company anymore,” said Ralph de la Vega, the company’s longtime mobile chief who took on greater responsibilities beyond phones after a company reorganization.

Driving the transformation is a slowdown in the U.S. phone business, given that most Americans already have cellphones. And although people have been using their cellphones more heavily, especially to watch video, that hasn’t translated into a corresponding increase in revenue, largely because of price competition.

All phone companies have been looking beyond phones for growth, but none of them has been as aggressive as AT&T, the second-largest U.S. wireless carrier. No. 1 carrier Verizon announced a $4.4 billion bid last week to buy AOL for its advertising and video services, but AT&T’s DirecTV bid is 11 times that amount. The deal, which AT&T hopes to complete within weeks, would make AT&T the leading traditional TV provider in the U.S., surpassing Comcast, and push AT&T farther into Latin America, where DirecTV is strong.

“As the U.S. industry has gotten more competitive, they’ve made some steps to diversify,” said Jon Atkin, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets. “Verizon has a little bit less product diversity, and certainly less geographic diversity — if you want to call it, greater focus.”

AT&T’s transition has been years in the making as wireless supplanted landline phones. But the move beyond phones — wireless or otherwise — is accelerating with the impending DirecTV purchase and a growth in car models with connectivity built in.

Of course, the phone isn’t going away. AT&T typically gets more monthly revenue for smartphone service (up to $40) than a tablet, wristwatch or car connection ($10 each).

These emerging businesses represent ways to get that same phone customer to pay more:

— With DirecTV, AT&T will be able to package video in new ways. AT&T already provides traditional TV services to 6 million households in 21 states through fixed-wire lines. DirecTV would add more than 20 million households nationwide, and the combined 26 million would exceed Comcast’s 22 million for TV.

AT&T wants to add wireless to packages now made of TV, Internet and wired phone lines. And it wants to distribute video content to more places, including phones and the backseats of cars.

“We believe that going forward, when people start making decisions around mobile services, it’s going to be around what I can do with those services. Can I watch video that’s important when I’m on the go or wherever I am?” said John Stankey, AT&T’s chief strategy officer.

— Cars, meanwhile, contributed to more than half of the 1.2 million wireless service connections that AT&T added in the first quarter. These are primarily car manufacturers needing data connections for diagnostic systems and consumer-facing services such as OnStar navigation and roadside assistance.

AT&T has partnerships with eight car manufacturers, including General Motors, Ford and BMW, and expects to be the data-service provider for half of the new wireless-connected passenger vehicles this year.

While AT&T sells data connections to car manufacturers — in some cases, to resell to drivers as part of OnStar and the like — AT&T is also targeting consumers directly with the promise of backseat entertainment and other benefits. (It hasn’t said how many have subscribed, though the business appears small for now.)

— With AT&T’s Digital Life home-automation and security services, people can unlock doors, turn off lights and check security cameras remotely through an app.

— And AT&T is making a big push for business and government customers. After selling them wireless and wired phone connections, it’s selling them new ways to use those connections, such as vehicle tracking and mobile timecards for payroll.

But why stop at employees? AT&T is also selling new types of wireless connections for water pipes to warn of leaks and garbage cans to say when they are full. AT&T might get a cut of any savings when garbage trucks don’t have to drive to nearly empty cans.

AT&T is also developing systems that analyze traffic patterns, so traffic can be rerouted before congestion forms. A car skidding on a patch of ice might even warn other vehicles behind it, without any human intervention.

Some of these projects are in research labs, while others have real customers in trials and smaller deployments.

Jefferies analyst Mike McCormack said that other than DirecTV, many of these initiatives won’t produce much revenue. Take cars: It’s one thing to include data capabilities; it’s another to get people to pay another monthly fee.

Nonetheless, it’s revenue AT&T didn’t have before.

“We are going to be touching the customers in every aspect of their lives, whether it be the car, the home, the smartphone,” said Glenn Lurie, who heads AT&T Mobility. “It really puts us in a position to grow.”