Green Bay News

NEW YORK (AP) – An NFL investigation released Wednesday said that New England Patriots employees likely deflated footballs used in the AFC Championship and that quarterback Tom Brady was probably “at least generally aware” of the rules violations.

The NFL began investigating after the Patriots defeated the Colts 45-7 on January 18. The Colts complained that several footballs were under inflated and the NFL confirmed that 11 of the 12 footballs were under the limit. The investigation started as the Patriots were preparing for the Super Bowl – which they won two weeks later.

Footballs with less pressure can be easier to grip and catch. Some quarterbacks prefer footballs that have less air.

The NFL requires balls to be inflated between 12.5 and 13.5 pounds per square inch, and each team is responsible for the balls it uses on offense.

Brady said he prefers footballs inflated to 12.5 pounds per square inch. On many occasions, Brady said he never asked for balls to be deflated outside of the rules.

The NFL report said “it was more than probable” that Jim McNally, the officials locker room attendant, and John Jastremski, an equipment assistant for the Patriots, were involved in “a deliberate effort to release air” from the footballs after they were examined by the referee.

The report includes text messages between McNally and Jastremski that imply Brady was requesting footballs deflated below 12.5 pounds per square inch.

The 243-page report said league investigators found no evidence that coach Bill Belichick and team management knew of the practice.

• Click here to read the full report

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California water regulators adopted sweeping, unprecedented restrictions on how people, governments and businesses can use water amid the state’s ongoing drought, hoping to push reluctant residents to deeper conservation.

The State Water Resources Control Board approved rules Tuesday that force cities to limit watering on public property, encourage homeowners to let their lawns die and impose mandatory water-savings targets for the hundreds of local agencies and cities that supply water to California customers.

Gov. Jerry Brown sought the more stringent regulations, arguing that voluntary conservation efforts have so far not yielded the water savings needed amid a four-year drought. He ordered water agencies to cut urban water use by 25 percent from levels in 2013, the year before he declared a drought emergency.

“It is better to prepare now than face much more painful cuts should it not rain in the fall,” board Chairwoman Felicia Marcus said Tuesday as the panel voted 5-0 to approve the new rules.

Although the rules are called mandatory, it’s still unclear what punishment the state water board and local agencies will impose for those that don’t meet the targets. Board officials said they expect dramatic water savings as soon as June and are willing to add restrictions and penalties for agencies that lag.

But the board lacks staff to oversee each of the hundreds of water agencies, which range dramatically in size and scope. Some local agencies that are tasked with achieving savings do not have the resources to issue tickets to those who waste water, and many others have chosen not to do so.

Despite the dire warnings, it’s also still not clear that Californians have grasped the seriousness of the drought or the need for conservation. Data released by the board Tuesday showed that Californians conserved little water in March, and local officials were not aggressive in cracking down on waste.

A survey of local water departments showed water use fell less than 4 percent in March compared with the same month in 2013. Overall savings have been only about 9 percent since last summer.

Under the new rules, each city is ordered to cut water use by as much as 36 percent compared with 2013. Some local water departments have called the proposal unrealistic and unfair, arguing that achieving steep cuts could cause higher water bills and declining property values, and dissuade projects to develop drought-proof water technology such as desalination and sewage recycling.

Representatives of San Diego-area water agencies have been especially critical of the water targets, noting that the region has slashed consumption and agencies have spent $3.5 billion to prepare for dry periods after facing severe cuts in earlier droughts.

“San Diego has lived the horror of what the state is going through right now,” Mark Weston, the board chairman of the San Diego County Water Authority, told state regulators Tuesday.

After a 10-hour hearing that included more than 5 hours of public testimony, the water board again on Tuesday rejected calls to create easier targets for communities in drier areas or for cities that have been conserving since before the drought.

An economic analysis of the water board’s proposal commissioned by the board estimated that private water utilities and local water departments would lose a total of about $1 billion in revenue through lost water sales if they meet the board’s targets, meaning they are likely to raise prices to make up the difference.

Residents and businesses use less than a fifth of the water withdrawn from the state’s surface and groundwater supplies. Farms in the state’s agricultural heartland have had deliveries from government reservoir systems slashed and some have been ordered to stop diverting water that is normally available to them from streams and rivers.

Brown said last week he would push for legislation boosting authorizing fines of up to $10,000 for extreme wasters of water, but he needs legislative approval to do so, and no bill has been introduced. Another tool — tiered pricing, in which the price rises as water use goes up — is in question after a court struck down water rates designed to encourage conservation in San Juan Capistrano in Orange County.

Dick Koltz, a rancher who was active with the resurgence of the Brown County Fair, died Tuesday. He was 74.

Koltz and his wife, Rita, operated the Rock K Ranch in Greenleaf for 50 years, according to the ranch’s website.

Funeral arrangements are being pending at Nickel Funeral Home.

In 2003, after several years of lagging attendance, Koltz was one of those instrumental in reinventing the Brown County Fair into its current format. Boosted by an appearance by Keith Urban, attendance jumped from 12,000 to 30,000.

Koltz was fair president from 2003-09, and remained on the board of directors, according to current fair president Steve Corrigan.

“Dick was tremendous asset to the community,” Corrigan said. “He had a lot of integrity. The fair was really close to his heart because of the family connections. We are going to miss him.”

The Koltzes had 11 children and 28 grandchildren.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis pulled off some trick moves in St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday.

He had great instructors: The Harlem Globetrotters.

The basketball troupe met with the pope during his weekly general audience.

They presented a framed No. 90 jersey backed with “Pope Francis,” and encouraged him to play with them.

With teammates Hi-Lite Bruton, Ant Atkinson, and Big Easy Lofton looking on, Flight Time Lang got a red, white, and blue ball spinning on his own finger, then took the pope’s right index finger and let a smiling Francis try it himself.

The Globetrotters are touring Italy.

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) – An oil train derailed and caught fire early Wednesday in a rural area of central North Dakota, prompting the evacuation of a nearby town where about three dozen people live.

No injuries were reported in the accident, which happened about 7:30 a.m. near Heimdal, about 115 miles northeast of Bismarck. The residents who left were staying with family and friends, Wells County Emergency Manager Tammy Roehrich said.

Ten tanker cars on the BNSF Railway train caught fire, creating thick black smoke, state Emergency Services spokeswoman Cecily Fong said.

“The engine and cars that aren’t burning have been decoupled and moved to safety,” she said.

Firefighters from four area communities responded to the fire, and regional hazardous materials teams from Grand Forks and Devils Lake were sent to the scene, Fong said. A team of 10 investigators from the Federal Railroad Administration was expected to arrive on the scene by mid-day Wednesday, said spokesman Kevin Thompson.

It was unclear how many cars were part of the train or how many derailed. There was no immediate word on the cause of the wreck or on the source of the oil the train was carrying. A statement from BNSF did not cite the source, and officials did not immediately return calls from The Associated Press.

Since 2006, the U.S. and Canada have seen at least 24 oil train accidents involving a fire, derailment or significant amount of fuel spilled, according to federal accident records reviewed by the AP. The derailment Wednesday was the fifth this year and comes less than a week after the Department of Transportation announced a rule to toughen construction standards for tens of thousands of tank cars that haul oil and other flammable liquids.

FRA Administrator Sarah Feinberg said in a statement that the accident was “yet another reminder” of the need for changes that have been resisted by the oil industry, which says it will take years to get the unsafe tank cars replaced or off the tracks.

BNSF said the tank cars that derailed were constructed under a 2011 voluntary rail industry standard intended to make them tougher than older cars that were long known to pose a safety risk. But the new cars have proved equally dangerous. The five major oil train accidents so far this year in the U.S. and Canada all involved the newer cars, each of which can hold about 30,000 gallons of fuel.

Roughly 22,000 of the cars are in service hauling crude oil and must be retrofitted or replaced by 2020 under the new federal rule. Cars hauling ethanol, another fuel involved in multiple accidents, have a longer timeline for replacement.

It was not immediately known if the oil had been processed under the state’s new rules that were meant to reduce the volatility of North Dakota crude by stripping out gases that can easily ignite, Thompson said. North Dakota officials have said the rules would make the volatility of treated oil comparable to gasoline. Critics have said the state’s requirements were too lax and insufficient to prevent major fires.

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Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

BALTIMORE (AP) – The mayor called on federal investigators Wednesday to look into whether this city’s beleaguered police department uses a pattern of excessive force or discriminatory policing.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said even though complaints of excessive force and lawsuits alleging misconduct are down over the last few years, “we all know that Baltimore continues to have a fractured relationship between the police and the community.”

Baltimore saw days of unrest after Freddie Gray, a black man, was taken into custody and suffered critical injuries. He died a week later. Protesters threw bottles and bricks at police during a riot on April 27, injuring nearly 100 officers. More than 200 people were arrested, and about 170 cars and 250 businesses were burned.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan declared a state of emergency and called in 3,000 National Guardsmen and 1,000 officers from around the state and country. Hogan rescinded the state of emergency Wednesday and said all of the troops and state police had been pulled out. He said $20 million from state’s Rainy Day Fund will help pay for last week’s response.

He said the federal investigation was “probably a step in the right direction.”

The mayor’s request came a day after new Attorney General Loretta Lynch visited the city and pledged to improve the police department, telling faith and community leaders “we’re here to hold your hands and provide support.”

Justice Department spokeswoman Dena Iverson said in a statement that Lynch had received the mayor’s request and “is actively considering that option in light of what she heard from law enforcement, city officials, and community, faith and youth leaders.”

A Baltimore Police Department spokesman had no immediate response. An email and text message was not immediately returned.

At her news conference, the mayor also said officers would have body cameras by the end of the year.

The Justice Department is already investigating whether Gray’s civil rights were violated, and six officers face charges in the arrest and death, ranging from assault to second-degree murder.

The new investigation the mayor called for is similar to one was done in Ferguson, Missouri, following the shooting of an unarmed, black 18-year-old man by a white police officer.

Such wide-ranging investigations look for patterns of discrimination within a police department. They can examine how officers use force and search and arrest suspects.

Baltimore City Council President Jack Young has been calling for such an investigation since October, his spokesman Lester Davis said.

“The only way we’re going to get the kind of lasting and meaningful reforms that are going to produce results is through a full-scale civil-rights investigation,” Davis said.

At the time the Ferguson inquiry was announced in September, it was described as part of a broader Justice Department effort to investigate troubled police departments and, when pervasive problems are found, direct changes to be made. The department said then it has investigated 20 police departments for a variety of systemic misconduct in the past five years, more than twice the number of cases opened in the previous five years.

The investigations can sometimes result in a settlement known as a consent decree, in which the department agrees to make specific changes, and an outside monitor is appointed to make sure the police force complies with the agreement.

The Justice Department reached a court-supervised agreement in 2012 with the New Orleans Police Department that required the agency to overhaul its policies and procedures for use of force, training, interrogations, searches and arrests, recruitment and supervision. In April, it issued a harshly critical report of the police department in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that faulted the agency for a pattern of excessive force and called for an overhaul of its internal affairs unit.

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Associated Press writers Brian Witte and Juliet Linderman in Baltimore, and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.

MENASHA (AP) – A Menasha man who randomly shot and killed three people and wounded another before taking his own life was irrational and suffered from depression, his former fiancee said Tuesday.

Police say Haylie Peterson and Sergio Valencia del Toro argued Sunday evening a couple of hours before he headed to the Fox Cities Trestle Trail bridge and fatally shot Jon Stoffel, his 11-year-old daughter, Olivia, and Adam Bentdahl.

Stoffel’s wife, Erin, was wounded in the shooting and is hospitalized in serious condition.

Valencia del Toro then turned the gun on himself and died at a hospital Sunday night.

Peterson, 24, said she had expressed concern to Valencia del Toro about his depression that evening, but that she then went out, leaving him at the house they shared in Menasha, so they could both cool off.

“I left because we agreed we both needed time to process our emotions,” she told Post-Crescent Media Tuesday.

Peterson said when she returned home later Sunday evening, Valencia del Toro was gone and weapons were missing from the house. She said she went to the east end of the bridge after learning about the commotion there.

“I sensed it,” Peterson said. “I just had a bad feeling and went down there. I can’t explain it.”

She said she saw medical personnel carry Valencia del Toro off the bridge on a stretcher. When she recognized him, she cried out and fell to the ground, she said.

Peterson released a statement Tuesday on behalf of her family and Valencia del Toro’s family expressing sympathy for the family and friends of the Stoffels and Bentdahl.

“We mourn and grieve with you and for all affected by this,” the statement said.

A police investigation continues.

Valencia del Toro was a second-semester freshman at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

TOWN OF RIPON – Authorities say a 45-year-old man from the Ripon area is scheduled to appear in Fond du Lac County Court at 11:00 Wednesday.

Authorities took the man into custody after a man’s body was found in a home last weekend.

The Fond du Lac County sheriff’s office says Ripon police asked for help with a welfare check around 6 p.m. Saturday. Officers entered a home in the Town of Ripon and found the body of a 45-year-old man.

Authorities say the man had been dead for several months.

The case has been referred to the Fond du Lac County district attorney’s office.

FOX 11’s Laura Smith is working on this story and will have a full report tonight on FOX 11 News at 5.

PORTAGE (AP) – A prison guard at the Columbia Correctional Institution is recovering after being stabbed in the neck and head.

Columbia County sheriff’s investigators say the 26-year-old guard was attacked by an inmate Tuesday afternoon, but was able to fight back and subdue the prisoner with the help of other officers.

Sheriff’s Lt. Roger Brandner tells the Portage Daily Register the attack took place in a day room. An inmate from Milwaukee had armed himself with a sharp pencil. The guard was treated at a Portage hospital. Brandner says investigators believe the inmate was trying to kill the guard and are recommending charges of attempted first-degree intentional homicide.

Officials say the attack is the latest in a number of security issues at the prison in less than a year. An inmate is charged with killing his cellmate in February.

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) – Runaway growth of algae in Lake Erie since the early 2000s has made the shallowest of the Great Lakes even more vulnerable to an invasion by greedy Asian carp, federal scientists said Wednesday.

A newly released U.S. Geological Survey report said satellite imagery taken from 2002 through 2011 showed an abundance of green and blue-green algae in the lake. In some places, the amount doubled or even quadrupled during the observation period.

Algal blooms are a preferred food for bighead and silver carp, the voracious filter feeders that have gobbled huge volumes of tiny aquatic plants and animals as they’ve moved up the Mississippi River and many of its tributaries in recent decades.

Officials are trying to prevent them from reaching the Great Lakes, where it’s feared they would destabilize food chains and out-compete existing species that support a $7 billion sport fishing industry. Lake Erie has larger populations of sport fish such as perch and walleye than the other Great Lakes.

“Remote sensing imagery shows that Lake Erie has huge areas of available food that are often several times more concentrated than necessary for Asian carp growth, particularly in the western basin,” said Karl Anderson, one of the USGS researchers who produced the report.

The findings are further evidence of the harmful nature of Lake Erie’s runaway algae problem, caused largely by high levels of phosphorus and other nutrients.

Phosphorus had so degraded Erie by the 1970s that some declared it dead. The problem improved significantly with laws requiring steep reductions in phosphorus content in detergents and releases from wastewater treatment plants and factories, but the algae plague returned in the late 1990s and has steadily worsened. A bloom in summer of 2011 was the largest on record, coating a 1,930-square-mile surface area with greenish slime.

An outbreak of cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, prompted do-not-drink orders for two days last August that affected about 400,000 residents of northwestern Ohio and southeastern Michigan.

The USGS study found that Lake Erie’s abundant algae and warm temperatures between 2008 and 2012 were enough to enable a 9-pound silver carp to gain between 19 percent and 57 percent of its body weight in a year, while an 11-pound bighead carp could gain 20 to 81 percent of its body weight during the same period.

MADISON (AP) – There will be no additional tax revenue over the next two years to help reduce Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed cuts to K-12 schools and the University of Wisconsin System, state lawmakers learned Wednesday.

The eagerly awaited update to projected tax collections, which policymakers had hoped would include at least enough money to plug a $127 million cut that Walker has proposed for public schools next year, contained no such windfall.

“We believe that the current estimates for the three-year period are still reasonable and should not be adjusted,” wrote Bob Lang, director of the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

• Click here to read the memo

As recently as Tuesday, Republican co-chairs of the Legislature’s budget committee said they were hoping for improved projections so money could be spent on K-12 schools and to reduce Walker’s $300 million cut to the University of Wisconsin System. Republicans have also said they want to reduce Walker’s $1.3 billion in borrowing to pay for roads.

But Wednesday’s news means the Legislature will face even harder decisions in the coming weeks as the Joint Finance Committee makes changes to Walker’s budget, first proposed in February. The committee is hoping to complete its work by the end of the month, with the Senate and Assembly voting on the budget in June. Walker, who has been traveling extensively in advance of a likely presidential bid, has said he wants to wait until the budget is done before announcing his intentions for the White House.

But his budget proposal has met with strong bipartisan opposition in the Legislature as well as among the public.

Now they will have to chart a different path.

Neither Republican legislative leaders nor Walker immediately responded to requests for comment Wednesday.

Lang said in his memo that in January his office predicted that tax collections would increase 3.7 percent this fiscal year compared to last, but had only gone up 3.3 percent through April. While the numbers are expected to improve once all tax processing is completed, Lang cautioned that any additional revenue will likely be offset by reduced growth rates in the next two years.

Democrats were quick to seize on the report, blaming both Walker and Republicans who have been in control of the Statehouse for five years.

“These weak revenue projections are another indication of the harm that three rounds of Republican budgeting, as well as their anemic economic development efforts, has done to our state,” said Democratic Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, of Kenosha.

APPLETON – The Fox River Environmental Education Alliance (FREEA) is hosting a “Day of Service” to help clean up certain areas in the Fox Valley.

The group has enlisted the help of a local musician, Cory Chisel, who is now part of the organization’s Board of Directors.

Chisel joined Good Day Wisconsin live from the Chapel in Appleton to perform “Songbird.”

GREEN BAY – If you can’t get enough superhero action from the silver screen, or even on the small screen, you might want to head to your local library.  Chad Robinson of the Brown County Central Library picked four selections he says will give you some superhero-sized thrills!

 1.Tigerman by Nick Harkaway

2. After the Golden Age by Carrie Vaughn

3. Turbulence by Samit Basu

4. Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman

You can find this list and previous Good Day Reads list by clicking here.

MILWAUKEE (AP) – Investigators working to identify human remains found in Jefferson County are collecting dental records from the family of a missing Milwaukee woman.

Pathologists say the remains found last Friday along a dead end road near Sullivan are female. The family of Kelly Dwyer has been working with authorities who are trying to make identification.

WISN-TV reports an autopsy shows no obvious signs of trauma to the skeletal remains. Surveillance cameras recorded Dwyer going into her boyfriend’s lakefront apartment 19 months ago. But, she was never seen leaving.

STURGEON BAY – Here’s a recipe we think Mom will really love.  Sharon Peterson of 136 Restaurant & Wine Bar in Sturgeon Bay says her Croissant Bread Pudding is one of the most popular items on their menu. She serves it for breakfast, or for dessert later in the day.  We stopped by her kitchen to watch her prepare this recipe that calls for Door County dried cherries.

Croissant Bread Pudding

4 extra large whole eggs
10 extra large egg yolks
6 cups 1/2 & 1/2
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 tbs vanilla
1 tbs Gran Marnier
1 tbs Cognac
8 stale croissants
2 cups dried cherries

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees
2. Whisk together eggs and cognac until completely blended. You can use blender or mixer
3. Slice croissants in half horizontally. If croissants are not stale, dry the halves in oven on a sheet pan for about 5 minutes & let cool.
4. In a glass 9×13 pan, layer the croissant bottoms on the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle dried cherries over croissant bottoms. Place croissant tops on top of bottoms & cherries.
5. Pour the custard mixture over the top of the croissants in the pan. Let soak for 10 minutes while pressing down gently.
6. Place the 9×13 pan into a larger one. Fill larger pan with 1 inch of boiling water. Cover larger pan with heavy duty aluminum foil. Make sure that the foil is tented (elevated) off the top of the bread pudding by several inches. Cut 5-6 holes in the aluminum foil for steam to escape.
7. Bake for 45 minutes.
8. Take off foil & bake for 20-40 minutes more until center of pudding is set & no longer has any liquid “oozing” out of the center. Internal temperature should reach 150-155 degrees.
9. If water in larger pan dries out, add more to larger pan until custard is done.

Brandy Cream Sauce

2 cups sugar
2 tbs corn starch
2 cups whole milk
1 stick salted butter cut into 8 slices
1/4 cup reduced brandy – place 1/2 cup brandy in saucepan over high heat until reduced to 1/4 cup

1. Combine sugar & cornstarch in saucepan. Whisk to blend well.
2. Slowly whisk in milk
3. Place over medium heat, while whisking continually
4. Allow to boil
5. Continue to allow to boil, while whisking for 3-5 minutes until thickened
6. Remove from heat & whisk in butter, whisking until butter is melted
7. Whisk in reduced brandy until desired taste.
8. I sometimes add a tbs of Gran Marnier that has not been reduced for extra flavor.

136 RESTAURANT & WINE BAR
136 N 3rd Ave
Sturgeon Bay

(920) 746-1100

SUAMICO -The NEW Zoo wants to help make Mother’s Day special for families across Northeast Wisconsin, so it’s offering free admission to all mothers on Sunday.

Neil Anderson joined us Wednesday morning to tell us that zookeepers have been working to introduce two bears for several years.

Now they’re getting along just fine for the several hours they get to spend together.

We also learned how the zoo is being proactive about preventing the spread of bird flu.

BARRON, Wis. (AP) – A teacher in the Cumberland School District is due in Barron County Circuit Court on accusations of having inappropriate contact with a female student.

The 25-year-old female teacher taught fifth-grade and has been placed on leave by the Cumberland district. Investigators say the student is 17 years old.

A court appearance is scheduled Wednesday morning.

COLUMBIA COUNTY – The owners of a dog in Central Wisconsin are trying to figure out why someone would poison him.

It happened over the weekend in Arlington. The dog’s owners believe raw meat was mixed with rat poison, and then put it in a bowl in the backyard.

Tim Rittmeyer says he found the green mixture Friday when he got home from work.

The five-year-old Golden Retriever, named Gander, started having seizures and other problems.

“It came to the point where he was really weak he couldn’t control his hips he was running into walls running into things he doesn’t normally run into,” said Ali Registad, Gander’s other owner.

The dog was put to sleep on Sunday.

The Columbia County Sheriff’s department says it has persons of interest. Investigators say it is a serious crime that could lead to a felony charge.

PARIS (AP) – French air accident investigators say that the co-pilot on Germanwings Flight 4525 tried a controlled descent on another flight that morning.

The BEA investigation agency said in a report Wednesday that co-pilot Andreas Lubitz repeatedly set the plane into a descent, then brought it back up again on a flight on the same A320 jet from Duesseldorf to Barcelona.

The report says the pilot appeared to have left the cockpit during that flight as well.

Prosecutors say Lubitz intentionally crashed the plane on its return flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf on March 24, killing all 150 on board.

APPLETON – A group is Making a Difference in the Fox Valley.

The Fox River Environmental Education Alliance (FREEA) in Appleton is a site of restoration, which is being funded by US Fish & Wildlife Services.

FOX 11’s Emily Deem spent Wednesday morning at the site to learn more about the projects taking place.

Click here to learn more about FREEA.