Green Bay News

GRANTSBURG, Wis. (AP) – A federal worker safety agency is proposing a $193,000 fine against a Wisconsin dairy co-op after a man died in a grain bin in November.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Monday announced it was citing Burnett Dairy Cooperative for safety violations.

The agency says the 52-year-old worker was trying to unclog a sump at a Grantsburg feed mill when he was engulfed in corn and died in the grain bin.

Inspectors found that Burnett Dairy did not follow safety standards for entering grain bins, failed to deactivate a drag conveyor and allowed the worker to be in the bin while corn was moving.

Burnett Dairy says it plans to challenge the citations. The co-op contends that the worker was trained and was wearing appropriate safety equipment.

Two interchange ramps on Interstate 41 in the Fox Valley are expected to close later this week, while another is closing next week.

The state Department of Transportation says the ramp to I-41 southbound from College Avenue and the off-ramp from I-41 northbound to College Avenue in Grand Chute should reopen Thursday night. They’ve been closed since last Monday.

Meanwhile, in Neenah, the ramp from Highway II to I-41 northbound is set to closed Monday night. Plans call for the ramp to be closed for five weeks.

Roads and skies are expected to be busy this Memorial Day weekend.

AAA predicts 37.2 million Americans will travel at least 50 miles between May 21 and May 25. That would be a 4.7 percent increase over last year and the highest Memorial Day travel volume in 10 years – the highest growth rate since Independence Day 2012. Of those, 33 million are expected to drive to their destinations.

While travel by personal vehicle and airlines is expected to increase, travel by other methods is expected to be down. AAA says about 1.64 million Americans will travel by train, bus or cruise ship, a 3.6 percent drop from last year.

In Wisconsin, AAA is forecasting 780,804 will be on the move, a 4.9 percent increase from 2014. Of those, 662,645 are expected to drive and 38,112 are expected to fly.

“A strong employment market and low gas prices have driven consumer confidence to new highs and boosted Americans’ disposable income,” Nick Jarmusz, director of public affairs for AAA Wisconsin, said in a news release.

Driving will be cheaper, as gas prices average $2.55 per gallon across Wisconsin, down more than a dollar from $3.60 at this time last year.

Across the country, AAA says the average household has spent $400 less on gas so far this year, compared to the same period in 2014.

Car-rental and lodging costs are higher on average this year, but airfare is down.

WAUPACA – Online gaming can be fun, but it also comes with a risk. That’s why Waupaca Police are pointing to the risks because of a shooting scare Sunday.

“Obviously ‘swatting’ is a serious issue that is using up resources and time with our department, and departments all across the United States,” said Waupaca Police Det. Sgt. Brian Hoelzel, regarding what was described to dispatchers in the call to Waupaca County’s non-emergency line shortly before 4:00 p.m.

“The call came in that a woman was shot in the leg and the person was still on the phone and they were upstairs and they indicated that the person was still in the residence and the phone went dead,” Hoelzel said.

Hoelzel says a handful of city and county officers quickly responded to a home in the 700 block of Eighth Street.

“They were able to set up a perimeter and within about five minutes, they were able to determine that that was a hoax call because the people inside the residence were looking out the windows, and they were able to motion to them to come outside.”

Waupaca police say a 17-year-old boy at the residence was playing an Xbox game online with a stranger. The person told the teen he was going to be “swatting him” – or calling in an emergency that isn’t actually happening.

Police say the teen and the family are cooperating with authorities. Hoelzel says a forensic exam will be done on the gaming system to see what – or if – any information can be retrieved, to track down who made the call. He says it’s not known why the person made the call in the first place.

“It’s our job to keep the community safe and that’s what we want to do.”

Part of that is through education. Hoelzel says parents should come to know what terms like ‘swatting’ or ‘doxxing’ are. Doxxing (or doxing) is the revealing of personal information like addresses, phone numbers.

Police say if you or your kids are threatened with being ‘swatted’ or ‘doxxed’ – and it happens – to contact local police immediately.

“Communication – whether it’s young adults or it’s with their children, as to the different things that are going on with technology, and talking to them about what ‘swatting’ or ‘doxxing’ is because obviously it’s very serious with the resources that’s being used.”

Resources – like police, fire and EMS – that are then unavailable for real emergencies.

GREEN BAY – It might still be spring, but the Green Bay Packers are preparing for some end-of-summer events.

The team’s annual shareholders meeting at Lambeau Field is set for July 28. A formal notice is expected to go out in mid-June. The organization recommends shareholders make their annual votes online.

• Click here for more information

Last year’s meeting attracted nearly 15,000 team owners to the stadium.

Meanwhile, the Packers and Bellin Health have announced Back to Football events to coincide with training camp.

The sixth annual 5K Run/Walk at Lambeau Field is scheduled for Aug. 1. The route takes runners through the Lambeau Field neighborhood, inside the stadium and finishing at a Packers “G” logo painted on turf in the stadium parking lot.

A Packers 1K Kids run is also being held July 31. Following the run is Movie Night at Lambeau Field, which is free and open to the public.

• Click here for more information on the 5K Run/Walk at Lambeau Field and Packers 1K Kids Run

Proceeds from the runs benefit the American Red Cross, Volunteer Center of Green Bay and Big Brothers Big Sisters.

BROWN COUNTY – A reward in the case of a missing town of Pittsfield woman has once again increased.

Victoria Prokopovitz’s family is offering $13,000 for information leading to her location. The 60-year-old was last seen at her home at 5118 Kunesh Rd. on April 25, 2013. She left behind her purse, which included her ID, cellphone and money.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Brown County Sheriff’s Investigative Division at (920) 448-4230 or the Crime Stoppers hotline at (920) 432-7867, or send a text message with the keyword GBTIP to 274637.

The reward expires on Aug. 9. It’s the fifth time the reward has been increased since a $1,000 reward was first offered last year.

NEW YORK (AP) – Olive Garden’s plan to win back customers? Take the breadsticks it’s known for and make sandwiches out of them.

The restaurant chain owned by Darden Restaurants Inc. says it plans to use its breadsticks for chicken parmigiana and meatball sandwiches starting June 1.

The addition of the breadstick sandwiches are just the latest attempt to revamp Olive Garden’s menu and marketing after sales at established locations have declined for the past three of its fiscal years. Justin Sikora, a Darden representative, said the breadsticks used for the sandwiches will be a bit shorter and wider than the regular breadsticks.

As with all other dishes, the company says the sandwiches come with unlimited breadsticks.

Olive Garden’s unlimited breadsticks gained attention last year during a dispute with an investor, Starboard Value. Among other criticisms, Starboard said Darden wasn’t being disciplined in its distribution of breadsticks to customers. It also said the quality of the breadsticks seemed to have declined and compared them to hot dog buns.

Shortly after, Starboard won its bid to take control of Darden’s board.

On Sunday, Starboard CEO Jeff Smith said during an interview on “Wall Street Week” that “it might surprise people that I actually like the breadsticks,” and mentioned the plans to introduce breadstick sandwiches.

Smith also stressed that Starboard’s criticism about the breadsticks was that Olive Garden wasn’t following its own policy for how many breadsticks are placed on tables at a time.

As for the quality of the breadsticks, Sikora said the recipe for them hasn’t changed. Sikora said the breadstick sandwiches are an example of the Olive Garden building on its most popular offerings.

The sandwiches will be available only on the chain’s lunch menu. The meatball sandwich will cost $6.99 and the chicken parmigiana will cost $7.99, Sikora said.

(SBG) The White House is in denial in response to one of many claims by veteran reporter Seymour Hersh, trying to poke holes in the story of how the U.S. found and killed Osama bin Laden.

“No air cover, no protection, no security, no trouble. Are you kidding me?” says Seymour Hersh, author of “The Killing of Osama bin Laden.

Among the accusations:

– The compound wasn’t a hideout, bin Laden was being held there by Pakistanis & funded by the Saudi’s who didn’t want one of their own, caught.

– A former Pakistani officer tipped the U.S. in hopes of getting reward money.

– With the cat out of the bag, Pakistan agreed to let U.S. teams go into the building and kill him.

Hersh claims, as part of the deal, the U.S. would claim that bin Laden was actually killed in a drone strike in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“Everybody in Pakistan is protected, the generals who helped us are protected. What happened is the president decided that night to go public,” Hersh said.

All, he says, because the U.S. couldn’t cover up for the Black Hawk helicopter that crashed during the raid.

“If there is any validity to his claim, it would just simply be that the intelligence organizations share information all the time,” said Dr. Tyrone Powers, former FBI agent.

But Dr. Powers says the report comes with a large grain of salt, “What Seymour Hersh usually does is take a bit of information and then embellish it.”

In the 20-page article, Hersh refutes much of what the U.S. government has claimed, including that bin Laden was burried at sea.

But as you can hear, he has plenty of critics, now clearly including the White House.

CLEVELAND (AP) – Cleveland is asking the Ohio Supreme Court to reconsider its ruling that the city’s system for taxing professional athletes is unconstitutional.

The court ruled April 30 that Cleveland’s method of taxing athletes based on the number of games played violates players’ due process rights. A unanimous court ruled the city should base municipal taxes on days spent in the city as a percentage of an entire season of games, practices and team-related activities. The court said former Chicago Bears linebacker Hunter Hillenmeyer, who filed the suit, is due a partial refund from Cleveland.

Justices didn’t consider an argument by the NFL, NBA and NHL that professional athletes shouldn’t be excluded from an Ohio law that disallows taxing anyone performing services 12 days or fewer per year.

Click here to learn more about an organization that supports foster parents in Wisconsin.

DE PERE – A parent with a child on a swing is a sweet and familiar image, but in this case, the parent is a foster parent.

And the little girl is one of about 8,000 in the state who is in need of help.

“My parents were foster parents. So when I was young, there was always a baby in the house. It’s something I’ve always thought of doing,” said Cheri Salmon, foster parent of De Pere.

Cheri Salmon and her husband have been foster parents for two and a half years.

In that time, they’ve helped two children. The little girl is now their third.

“My passion is helping kids that have been abused or neglected. And when I can see that change, and let them know that they’re safe and in a safe environment and I love them just like my own kids and do for them just as I do for my own, once they feel that, it’s a great feeling,” said Salmon.

“We help all 72 counties recruit more foster families. So we build the awareness campaign,” said Oriana Carey, of the Wisconsin Coalition for Children, Youth, and Families.

Carey is the CEO for the Coalition for Children, Youth, and Families in Wisconsin. The group provides information to the public about foster care and adoption.

“What we want to make sure we do for all county human service agencies is to make sure we have enough families, so they can make good matches,” said Carey.

Carey says in Wisconsin, there are about 5,000 foster care homes across the state. Those homes care for about 8,000 children. Some homes have more than one child.

She says the statistics have been steady for a while, but recently, the number of children needing help has been growing.

“We have now in 2014 and 2015 started to see a surge again, and it’s been quite some time since we’ve seen that,” said Carey.

“So here’s a picture that we got taken of the kids a couple of Christmas’ ago,” said Salmon.

For Cheri and her family, the decision to take in a foster child was not a light one. She says it’s a big change. But it’s one that has brought them closer as a family, and taught her own children a lesson of compassion and understanding.

“And there’s a great need for loving homes that can keep these kids safe. To me it’s, if not me, who else?  Who else is going to do this? Somebody has to help keep our community be strong and help the kids,” said Salmon.

If you’d like more information on being a foster parent, click here.

The Ripon College baseball team will open its NCAA Division III tournament against UW-Whitewater on Wednesday at UW-La Crosse.

Ripon (23-14), which has won 13 of its last 15 games, is the No. 8 seed in a eight-team bracket while UW-Whitewater (33-9) is No. 1. Game time Wednesday is 1:15 p.m.

Ripon’s second game in the double-elimination tournament will be Thursday at either 10 a.m. or 4:30 p.m. against either St. John’s (Minn.) or Coe College.

The Division III World Series is May 22-27 at Fox Cities Stadium.

NCAA Division III baseball brackets

MADISON (AP) – The state Democratic Party has paid for a series of billboards demanding Republican Gov. Scott Walker return to Wisconsin.

Walker, a likely 2016 presidential candidate, has been visiting early primary states such as Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire. He’s currently in Israel meeting with Israeli and Palestinian entrepreneurs and touring strategic and historical sites. He’s due back on Thursday.

Democratic Party Chairman Mike Tate announced Monday that the party has paid for billboards in Milwaukee and Green Bay that call on Walker to return to Wisconsin, accept federal money to expand Medicaid – a move the governor has steadfastly refused and get back to work for the state.

.@ScottWalker needs to come back to WI & do his job. Our middle class is paying the price for his political ambitions pic.twitter.com/AVWXJhMM06

— Democratic Party WI (@WisDems) May 11, 2015

Walker spokeswoman Laurel Patrick didn’t immediately return an email seeking comment.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) – For the first time in their 5-month-old lives, conjoined twins Carter and Conner squirmed in separate cribs.

The Jacksonville boys who shared a liver and small intestine were successfully separated Thursday after a 12-hour operation by three surgeons, five anesthesiologists and 12 other staffers.

For parents Michelle Brantley and Bryan Mirabal, the upheaval in their lives was quickly joined by the fear and hope of having the twins successfully separated.

After the operation, they were all smiles.

“It was so awesome, walking up to the bed for the first time, and then it registered that I was just looking at Carter,”Mirabal said. “And then I thought, ‘I have another baby over here too!'”

Five months into her pregnancy, Brantley’s doctor delivered the news: Her twins were fused at the belly and lower chest.

“It was very overwhelming, upsetting and very sad,” she said. “We prayed a lot and had family and support and we got through it.”

On the day of Brantley’s delivery, reality set it.

“It was like, there they are. It was very scary,” Mirabal said.

Soon, doctors told the couple their boys would have a good chance of surviving separation surgery – Connor and Carter shared organs that can be separated.

The boys shared a liver, bile ducts and part of their small intestine. If they shared a heart or brain, fewer options were available, said Dr. Daniel Robie, chief of pediatric general surgery at Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville.

“We separate them and then reconstruct them so that they each have organs that are going to function normally,” Robie said.

Still, there were obstacles. The doctors worried about too much blood loss while separating the liver, Robie said.

So the surgeons and their teams spent months preparing. They went through dry runs and created medical illustrations of the conjoined areas for study.

The twins were in critical but stable condition Monday, according to the hospital. They’ll be in the hospital for at least another month.

Weary but in good spirits, Brantley and Mirabal say they’re starting to think about all the routine things new parents do. They are engaged and say the ordeal brought them closer together.

“We are starting to change around the house, getting cribs set up,” said Mirabal, 26, who works as a house painter. “We hadn’t started setting anything up because of what we were told could happen (in surgery).”

Brantley said they are going to celebrate birthdays and have a party each year to honor the date of the boys’ separation.

“I’m keeping some of the conjoined clothes people have made them so I can show it to them when they’re older,” she said.

NEW YORK (AP) – If a small Frappuccino seems like too much of an indulgence, Starbucks is now selling a more petite version of the sugary coffee drink.

The Seattle-based coffee chain says it will start selling a “Mini Frappuccino” starting Monday through July 6. The new size is just 10 ounces, compared with 12 ounces for the company’s “tall” or small size.

Starbucks isn’t the only chain trying to tempt people with more modest serving sizes. Sonic offers ice cream shakes in a “mini” size and recently ran a limited-time offer for mini hot dogs and mini fried chicken sandwiches. Coke has also been playing up its mini cans, which are 7.5 ounces, compared with 12 ounces for a regular can.

Katie Seawell, senior vice president of category brand management at Starbucks, said the Mini Frappuccino helped lift overall store sales in the select regions where it was tested last year. Without providing specifics, she said it attracted new customers and got existing customers to come back more frequently.

Seawell declined to say whether Starbucks plans to make the “mini” a permanent offering.

The calories in a Mini Frappuccino vary depending on the flavor.

For the regular coffee with no whipped cream, Starbucks says it’ll have 120 calories and 24 grams of sugar. That’s compared with 180 calories and 36 grams of sugar for a small (tall) and 240 calories and 50 grams of sugar for a medium (grande).

A large (venti) Frappuccino has 350 calories and 69 grams of sugar.

Starbucks says the “mini” should cost about 20 to 30 cents less than a small.

A new museum explores the history of soda bottling in Shawano.

GREEN BAY — According to an NFL source, the Packers are going to release second-year defensive lineman Luther Robinson. The team has not yet announced the move.

Robinson, a 6’3, 301 pound defensive lineman out of Miami, came to Green Bay as a tryout player during the team’s rookie camp last season. He earned a roster spot and a place on the practice squad before getting promoted to the active roster just hours before the Week 5 home game against Minnesota. In that game, Robinson tipped a Christian Ponder pass at the line of scrimmage which Julius Peppers intercepted and returned for a touchdown.

Robinson appeared in 5 games during the regular season last year. The former Miami Hurricane ended last season on injured reserve with a calf injury.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — It is not just the Saudi king who will be skipping the Camp David summit of U.S. and allied Arab leaders. Most Gulf heads of state won’t be there.

The absences will put a damper on talks that are designed to reassure key Arab allies, and almost certainly reflect dissatisfaction among leaders of the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council with Washington’s handling of Iran and what they expect to get out of the meeting.

Rulers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Oman never publicly announced they would attend the summit — so officially at least, there was no reversal of plans.

However, White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters in Washington on Monday that Saudi King Salman had formally accepted the invitation to meet with President Barack Obama ahead of the summit.

Late on Sunday, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir announced that newly installed Salman will not be attending. The ostensible reason was because the upcoming summit on Thursday coincides with a humanitarian cease-fire in the conflict in Yemen, where a Saudi-led coalition is fighting Shiite rebels known as Houthis.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who is also interior minister, will lead the Saudi delegation and the king’s son, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is defense minister, will also attend.

Obama had planned to meet Salman one-on-one a day before the gathering of leaders at the presidential retreat but the White House did not take the Saudi king’s decision to skip the summit as a sign of any substantial disagreement with the United States.

The king, who took power in January after his brother King Abdullah died, has not traveled abroad since his ascension to the throne.

The tiny island kingdom of Bahrain said separately that its delegation would be headed by the country’s crown prince, Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa.

Bahrain, whose leadership has close ties to the Saudis, is an important military ally of the U.S. It is the longstanding host to the Navy’s 5th Fleet, which is responsible for operations around the Arabian Peninsula and northern Indian Ocean, and is Washington’s main naval counterbalance to Iran.

At the summit, leaders of Gulf nations will be looking for assurances that they have Obama’s support at a time when the region feels under siege from Islamic extremists and by Iran’s rising influence. The Gulf states worry the nuclear pact taking shape with the U.S., Iran and other nations may embolden Tehran to act more aggressively in the region.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed similar concerns, saying the emerging deal will leave too much of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure intact while giving it quick relief from economic sanctions.

Netanyahu has been an outspoken critic of the deal, raising tensions with the White House. U.S. attempts to reassure Israel that the deal will have strong safeguards have done little to ease its concerns. Netanyahu has claimed that moderate Sunni Arab countries see “eye to eye” with Israel on the matter, though he has not elaborated.

Abdulkhaleq Abdullah, a professor of political science at Emirates University, said Gulf leaders were staying away from the Camp David gathering to signal their displeasure over the nuclear talks.

“I don’t think they have a deep respect, a deep trust for Obama and his promises. There is a fundamental difference between his vision of post-nuclear-deal Iran and their vision,” he said. “They think Iran is a destabilizing force and will remain so, probably even more, if the sanctions are lifted. … They’re just not seeing things eye to eye.”

The sultan of Oman, Qaboos bin Said, is among those staying away. The sultanate will be represented instead by the deputy prime minister, Sayyid Fahd bin Mahmoud Al Said, and other officials, the country’s official news agency announced.

The sultan’s absence comes as little surprise. The long-serving monarch, whose country maintains cordial relations with Iran and has served as a go-between for Tehran and Washington, returned home in March after spending several months in Germany being treated for an undisclosed illness.

Health issues will also keep the president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, from attending. He suffered a stroke in January last year and has not been seen publicly since.

The influential Abu Dhabi crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, will lead the Emirati delegation. The president’s half-brother, he held talks with Obama at the White House last month.

Abdullah, the Emirati professor, said the Gulf ties with the United States remain strong, but they have been strained during Obama’s tenure.

He said Obama is seen within the region as impersonal compared to his predecessors. He also noted that recent comments to The New York Times in which Obama warned that dissatisfaction at home was perhaps a bigger threat than Iran came across as unnecessary “lecturing.”

“You just pre-empted the whole meeting with this kind of statement,” he said.

Among those who will be at the summit is the Kuwaiti emir, Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah. He arrived at Andrews Air Force Base on Monday, the official Kuwait News Agency reported.

Also, Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, is scheduled to depart Monday to take part in the meeting.

___

AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Secretary of State John Kerry is heading to Russia to meet with President Vladimir Putin on his first visit to the country since relations between Washington and Moscow plummeted to post-Cold War lows amid disagreements over Ukraine and Syria.

The State Department said Kerry would meet Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday at the Black Sea resort of Sochi. But in a sign of the considerable strains, the Kremlin said Putin’s attendance had yet to be confirmed.

“This trip is part of our ongoing effort to maintain direct lines of communication with senior Russian officials and to ensure U.S. views are clearly conveyed,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement.

In addition to Ukraine and Syria, she said the talks would also focus on the ongoing nuclear negotiations between Iran and the group of nations known as the P5+1 – Russia, the United States, Germany, Britain, France and China.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest acknowledged the “complicated” relationship between the former foes, but insisted they could continue cooperating on “interests that benefit the citizens of both our countries.”

The short trip to Sochi will be only Kerry’s second to Russia since taking office. He first visited Moscow in May 2013 and had meetings with Putin and Lavrov before the Ukraine crisis erupted and Russia annexed the Ukrainian territory of Crimea in early 2014.

The meeting will occur amid tensions that Moscow squarely laid on Washington’s doorstep in a statement released Monday by the Foreign Ministry. While saying it hoped Kerry’s visit will “normalize bilateral relations on which global stability largely depends,” it also blamed the United States for provoking the Ukrainian crisis by isolating Russia and prompting its allies to follow suit.

“We emphatically raise the issue of the need to resolve the problems created by Washington in our bilateral agenda,” the statement said.

Ukraine has served as the main source of discord in dialogue between Moscow and Washington.

The western-backed government in Kiev continues to be embroiled in a sporadic conflict between government and separatist rebel forces in its eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk despite a cease-fire agreement sealed in mid-February.

Western nations have accused Russia of supporting the separatists with arms and manpower – a claim that Moscow has denied.

Underscoring the animosity, the Russian foreign ministry on Monday blamed the United States for the unrest in Ukraine and said Washington was trying to isolate Russia on the international arena.

Moscow has bristled at Washington’s pledge to provide Ukraine with military assistance in the form of hardware and training.

In late April, troops from the United States and Ukraine kicked off joint training exercises intended to help bolster Ukraine’s defenses. The exercises, dubbed “Fearless Guardian-2015,” sparked outrage from Russia, which described them as a potential cause of destabilization.

During a visit to Moscow on Sunday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Russia to use its influence to persuade separatists in Ukraine to abide by the oft-violated cease-fire.

Ukraine says more than 8,000 people have died in the conflict that began in April 2014.

Russia has stuck firmly to the line that the Ukrainian government retains the bulk of responsibility for bringing about a settlement.

“We will use all the influence we have on the leadership in Donetsk and Luhansk to ensure the process proceeds at the required pace and attains the necessary level,” Putin told Merkel on Sunday.

Diplomats in Moscow and Washington remain at odds over a range of other international issues.

Russia last month announced it would lift a five-year ban on delivery of the S-300 air defense missile system to Iran, drawing a hasty rebuke from the United States.

The White House said the missile system would give the Islamic republic’s military a strong deterrent against any air attack. The Kremlin argues that the S-300 is a purely defensive system that will not jeopardize the security of Israel or any other countries in the Middle East.

On Syria, Russia has defied a chorus of international condemnation to remain fast to the embattled government of President Bashar Assad.

Following his stop in Sochi, Kerry will travel on to Antalya, Turkey, where he will attend a meeting of NATO foreign ministers on Wednesday. Kerry will return to Washington that same day to attend meetings between President Barack Obama and top officials of the Gulf Arab states, who are concerned by the possibility of a nuclear deal with Iran.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is dismissing as untrue an article alleging that President Barack Obama misled the public about how the U.S. killed Osama bin Laden.

Spokesman Josh Earnest says journalist Seymour Hersh’s piece in the London Review of Books is “riddled with inaccuracies and outright falsehoods.”

Earnest noted former CIA deputy director Michael Morell’s reaction to the article — that he stopped reading because every sentence was wrong.

Hersh attributes his information to a retired general of the Pakistani intelligence service and several unidentified sources in the U.S. and Pakistan. He says bin Laden was secretly kept as a prisoner by the Pakistanis and that they helped the U.S. stage the raid on his compound.

The Obama administration says the Pakistanis didn’t know about the raid in advance.