Green Bay News

GREEN BAY – A Fond du Lac hospice nurse stranded at a Mt. Everest climbing camp for days after an earthquake rocked south Asian region is slowly making his way back home. But it could be at least one week before he’s back in Wisconsin.

Andy Land, 53, called FOX 11’s Bill Miston late Thursday evening (about 8:00 a.m. Central Time) from a hilltop about 20 miles from Everest Base Camp.

• Click here to listen to the full interview
  

Land left for Nepal last month and was on his way up the mountain when Saturday’s earthquake struck. The 7.8 magnitude tremor and aftershocks have claimed at least 3,700 lives in the small south Asian country.

The tremor and subsequent aftershocks destroyed the normally dangerous Khumbu Icefall route to base camp, stranding Land and about 100 climbers on the mountain for several days.

He was by helicopter Monday to base camp where he came face to face with the devastation caused by an avalanche that swept through the campsite, killing 19 people.

FOX 11’s Bill Miston is working on this story and will have more from Land on FOX 11 News at Five.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Day-old presidential contender Bernie Sanders said Thursday that questions about the Clinton Foundation’s activities are fair game in the race for the Democratic nomination, and noted that Hillary Rodham Clinton has yet to take a position on contentious trade legislation and the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline.

At a news conference with the U.S. Capitol as a backdrop, the independent senator from Vermont said creating “an economy that works for all of our people” would be at the center of his campaign for the Democratic nomination. “The wealthiest people in the country and the largest corporations” must stop shipping jobs overseas and start paying their fair share of taxes, he said.

He spoke not long after filing papers for his launch and as his team came out with a new website. It says, “A political revolution is coming,” and has a disclaimer that it is “paid for by Bernie 2016, not the billionaires.”

Sanders said he remains a political independent, but drew a tweeted welcome to the race from Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, head of the Democratic National Committee. “Sanders has clearly demonstrated his commitment to the values we all share as members of the Democratic Party,” she posted.

And Clinton tweeted: “I agree with Bernie. Focus must be on helping America’s middle class. GOP would hold them back. I welcome him to the race.”

He is the first major challenger to enter the race against Clinton, who launched her own bid for president earlier this month and is the heavily favored, early front-runner in the Democratic contest. Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb are potential contenders, and ex-Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee recently said he intends to run.

On economic issues, Sanders’ campaign platform coincides with positions taken by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., a fierce critic of large corporations, who has declined calls to enter the presidential race. He hopes to turn a lingering sense of economic insecurity on the part of millions of Americans into votes in primaries and caucuses that begin early next year.

Once known as a socialist mayor of Burlington, Vt., Sanders is a native of Brooklyn with an accent to match. The 73-year-old veteran lawmaker said he has never run a negative television commercial, implying he won’t this time, either. Yet he said, “We’re in this race to win,” and pledged a vigorous debate on the issues with Clinton, a former first lady, senator and secretary of state.

Drawing a contrast with his rival — if politely — he said he opposed the Iraq war while in the Senate, a conflict that she voted to authorize as a New York senator.

He also said he is helping lead opposition to legislation that would strengthen President Barack Obama’s hand in future trade talks, including a proposed 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership. He added he opposed legislation to permit construction of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline that cleared Congress and was vetoed earlier in the year by Obama.

“We don’t know what Hillary’s stances are on all of the issues,” Sanders added.

Clinton has supported previous trade deals, and the issue emerged as a key point of contention eight years ago when she and Obama both sought the presidency. She’s expressed skepticism recently about the emerging Pacific agreement, saying it must protect U.S. workers, but has not taken a firm position on the deal and spoke in its favor when in Obama’s Cabinet.

Sanders said questions about the Clinton Foundation are legitimate for the campaign ahead. The global charitable effort was set up by former President Bill Clinton after he left office. Critics have recently raised questions about possible connections between donations made by foreign governments and policies Hillary Clinton pursued while serving as secretary of state.

In addition, the acting head of the foundation said recently the organization expects to refile some of its past tax returns to correct errors.

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Associated Press writer Dave Gram in Burlington, Vermont, contributed to this story.

OSHKOSH – To ensure people are prepared for a critical disaster, multiple agencies in Winnebago County are hosting a communications exercise event.

The Wisconsin Emergency Management, Winnebago County Emergency Management and Sheriff’s Office, and the Wisconsin National Guard will put on the SIMCOM-Vital Connection event at the Sunnyview Expo Center, May 5-7.

The exercise is designed to display and test mobile emergency communications from more than 30 federal, state, tribal, and local governments and volunteer agencies. This year’s event will focus on testing data sharing, radio frequency bridging and patching, and network failures.

• May 5 – Training and Staging – 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
• May 6 – Exercise Day – 8:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
• May 7 – Advanced Exercise – 8:30 a.m – Noon

This is the second year that SIMCOM is hosted by Winnebago County. It is the first year the event will be held over a three day period.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – U.S. Senator Ron Johnson says he has subpoenaed the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Office of the Inspector General for information on an embattled medical center in Tomah.

Johnson said in a statement Thursday he sent for the documents on behalf of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee as it investigates reports of opiate overprescribing and retaliatory behavior at the hospital.

The facility is at the center of multiple probes. The VA, the VA Office of the Inspector General and the Drug Enforcement Administration have investigations in effect.

The VA in March reported that patients at the hospital were more likely than those at other hospitals to receive high doses of painkillers. The report also said there was an atmosphere of fear among staff that affected patient care.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The Ohio Supreme Court has found unconstitutional the method that Cleveland uses for taxing professional athletes who work for short periods of time in the city.

The court said Thursday the city unfairly imposed a 2 percent income tax on ex-Chicago Bears linebacker Hunter Hillenmeyer based on games played in the city as a percentage of total games played.

The court says Hillenmeyer is due a partial refund under the method most cities use where athletes are taxed based on games played as a percentage of the season.

The court also says retired Indianapolis Colts center Jeff Saturday shouldn’t have been taxed at all by Cleveland during the 2008 season because he was injured and not in the city for the days he was taxed.

MADISON (AP) – Republicans are moving a bill through the Wisconsin Legislature that would prohibit drivers from using cellphones in construction zones.

The measure would ban drivers from using phones that require the use of their hands in construction zones when workers are present. Violators would face forfeitures ranging from $20 to $40 for a first offense and $50 to $100 for a second or subsequent offense within a year.

The Senate’s transportation committee held a brief hearing on the bill Thursday. Sen. Jerry Petrowski, a Marathon Republican who chairs the committee and one of the bill’s chief authors, acknowledged during the hearing that enforcement would be difficult but the bill would at least send a message that driving while using a cellphone is dangerous.

MADISON (AP) – The state Senate’s transportation committee has approved a bill that would clear the way for a 70 mph speed limit.

Under the bill, the state Department of Transportation would decide where to raise the limit from 65 mph to 70 mph. Republicans amended the measure this week to prohibit the agency from raising the limit on four-lane roads with at-grade access.

The committee approved the proposal unanimously Thursday, setting the stage for a Senate vote. If the bill passes that house it would go to the Assembly.

That chamber passed the bill in March but legislators have since added the at-grade prohibition. Both houses must pass an identical bill before it can go to Gov. Scott Walker for his signature.

MADISON (AP) – Police say a Madison high school coach accused of sexually assaulting a minor has surrendered to authorities.

Officials say the 43-year-old man fled from officers Tuesday, but turned himself in Thursday morning. The Madison Metropolitan School District says the coach has been suspended from the city’s recreation program while police investigate. The suspect was also a part-time employee at the Boys & Girls Club of Dane County. The organization has also suspended the coach.

Police are recommending charges of second-degree sexual assault of a child, engaging in repeated acts of sexual assault involving the same child and exposing a child to harmful materials.

MADISON (AP) – Newly released emails show Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman made the motion to replace longtime Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson with Justice Patience Roggensack.

The emails exchanged between the justices were released Thursday to The Associated Press by Justice Ann Walsh Bradley in response to an open records request.

They show that Gableman made the motion to make Roggensack chief justice during a closed meeting Tuesday attended by all seven justices. After election results were certified Wednesday morning allowing justices to choose who serves as chief, justices began acting on Gableman’s motion.

The emails show Abrahamson objected to the motion as not timely.

Abrahamson has filed a federal lawsuit arguing she can’t be removed as chief justice until her term ends in four years.

OSHKOSH – Police have released surveillance images of a second person and a car believed to have been involved in two recent crimes.

Oshkosh police say around 11:15 p.m. April 19, a male and female got out of a red vehicle, possibly a Chevrolet Cobalt or Pontiac Grand Am, at Walmart, 351 S. Washburn St. The male left the store around 1:15 a.m. carrying a laptop computer and ran toward S. Washburn St. The female stayed in the story until about 4:15 a.m., when she got into the car and drove off toward Fleet Farm, 177 N. Washburn St.

Surveillance images show the male at Fleet Farm around 1:30 a.m. and leaving around 4:30 a.m.

• Click here to see the surveillance images

The male is described as white, with a medium build and dark hair. He was wearing a sweatshirt, blue jeans and white athletic shoes. The female was described as white. She had darker hair with blond highlights underneath and toward the ends of her hair.

Anyone with information is asked to call Det. Paul Frey at (920) 236-5267. Anonymous tips can be left with Winnebago County Wide Crime Stoppers by phone at (920) 231-8477, by sending a text message with the keyword IGOTYA to 274637 or online.

DETROIT (AP) — A postal worker says he couldn’t eat or sleep for three days because of something in a container of flour.

What was keeping him up? A $1 million lottery ticket.

Fred Morgan of Detroit had five winning numbers in the April 17 Mega Millions game. He knew he had won the next day. But he told lottery officials that he stashed the ticket in flour and a few other places while he and his wife considered what to do with the windfall.

Morgan says nobody would “check for anything valuable in the flour.” He says he’s retiring early after 31 years as a mail carrier.

WARWICK, R.I. (AP) — A Rhode Island woman thought a pipe burst when she returned home to find water pouring from her garage ceiling. But the culprit turned out to be an unusual houseguest that dropped in.

WLNE-TV reports Nancy Page went upstairs to find the source of the running water and discovered a wild turkey had crashed through a bathroom window and somehow turned on the sink. Page says she immediately realized it was a turkey, which left behind its own mess.

Police and a Department of Environmental Management officer caught the turkey and released it.

Page was forced to throw out the bathroom sink. She says it had been running for two to three hours. Page estimates the turkey caused thousands of dollars in water damage to her Warwick home.

MADISON (AP) – A Wisconsin district attorney says the Department of Veterans Affairs has moved too slowly in its investigation of interstate drug distribution.

Sheboygan County District Attorney Joe DeCecco in a letter Thursday said a California VA facility lagged in its probe of a veteran who dealt VA-prescribed opiates through the U.S. Postal Service.

DeCecco said the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the Division of Criminal investigation launched a probe in 2013 after they were notified that the man shipped packages of marijuana to Sheboygan County. He said the VA prescribed the supplier, a military veteran, as many as 600 oxycodone pills a month. An inspector in California said he wouldn’t conclude his investigation for a year.

A spokeswoman from the VA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

BALTIMORE (AP) – Baltimore police have completed their investigation into the death of Freddie Gray and turned over their findings to prosecutors – one day earlier than the department’s self-imposed deadline, the commissioner said Thursday morning.

Authorities have said the state’s attorney’s office will review the information, consider charges and decide how to move forward in the death of Gray, who was stopped by police April 12. He suffered spinal injuries while in custody and died a week later.

In his announcement at a news conference, Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts did not give details of the report or take questions. He said the department dedicated more than 30 detectives to working on the case and report.

“I understand the frustration; I understand the sense of urgency. … That is why we have finished it a day ahead of time,” Batts said.

Batts also said police would continue to work on the case at the direction of the state’s attorney.

At the same news conference, Deputy Commissioner Kevin Davis reviewed the timeline of Gray’s time in custody and his death. Gray was arrested after he made eye contact with officers and ran. After a chase, officers pinned him down and handcuffed him. They loaded him into a van and put leg cuffs on him when officers said he became “irate” in the wagon.

Davis said Thursday that police discovered a new stop the van made with Gray in it, but they did not say what happened. Davis said the stop was found through footage from a privately owned camera.

At a later stop at the tail end of Gray’s ride, police put another man in the van. He told investigators that Gray was “was still moving around, that he was kicking and making noises” up until the van arrived at the police station. Batts said the man also said the driver did not speed, make sudden stops of “drive erratically.”

Somewhere along the way, Gray suffered a fatal spinal injury. He was eventually taken to a hospital. He died a week later.

The six officers involved were suspended with pay amid the criminal investigation

On Wednesday, rumors circulated that some kind of “verdict” will be rendered when police handed their report to prosecutors. But Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and other officials worked to dispel that notion.

“It became very clear … that people misunderstood,” Rawlings-Blake said.

Hassan Murphy, a lawyer for Gray’s family, underscored their comments, saying, “This family wants justice and they want justice that comes at the right time and not too soon.”

Said Rawlings-Blake: “Whatever time the state’s attorney’s office needs to make that determination, the family wants to get it right.”

In widespread protests Wednesday night – not only in Baltimore, but in several cities including Boston, New York and Washington, D.C. – it was clear that tensions over the case are far from subsiding.

While the demonstrations were mostly peaceful, police made numerous arrests, including 16 in Baltimore and at least 60 in New York.

Gray’s death was the latest in a series of high-profile cases around the country in which black men have died as the result of encounters with police.

Similar protests have erupted over the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York last year, and the death earlier this month in South Carolina of Walter Scott. Scott was fatally shot in the back by a white police officer who has since been charged with murder.

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Associated Press writers Ben Nuckols, Juliet Linderman, Matthew Barakat, Tom Foreman Jr., Jessica Gresko, Brian Witte and Jeff Horwitz contributed to this report.

FOND DU LAC – Fire crews put out a grass fire near Highway 45 in Fond du Lac Thursday morning.

Fond du Lac fire chief Peter O’Leary said the fire was mostly contained around 9:30 a.m. Crews were putting out any hotspots at that point.

The situation appeared to be escalating at one point and multiple departments were called in. The department’s Twitter page shows some of the images and video of the fire.

O’Leary says there is high brush on both sides of Highway 45 and even higher brush by some nearby railroad tracks.

With winds picking up, crews were concerned the fire could jump the highway and ended up shutting it down to traffic.

The Canadian National railroad line was also shut down.

Firefighters were able to contain the fire before it spread out of control. O’Leary says several acres of marsh land burned.

O’Leary says he believes it was a cigarette that may have sparked the blaze.

Both the railroad line and Highway 45 have reopened.

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

Find out more about the event to be held in September.

MADISON (AP) – The attorney for longtime Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson says no legal action is planned this week in reaction to a vote to replace her as leader of the state’s highest court.

Abrahamson attorney Robert Peck said in an email Thursday that Abrahamson does not plan to ask for any emergency action in federal court where her lawsuit is pending.

Abrahamson argues a constitutional amendment allowing the justices to decide who is chief can’t be implemented until after her term ends in four years. But four justices on Wednesday voted to elect Justice Patience Roggensack as chief justice.

Peck said in a letter to the court that Abrahamson believes she is still chief justice, despite the vote.

A court hearing is planned for May 15.

MILWAUKEE (AP) – The Democratic leader of the state Assembly says Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed merger of the state’s chief economic development agency with one that hands out low-interest housing loans should be “put on ice.”

Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca on Thursday called for the proposed merger to be paused so there could be more study about the idea. Walker proposed merging the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation and the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority in his budget.

But now Republican lawmakers are moving ahead with the idea in a separate bill, a move that will draw more scrutiny and likely take longer than including it in the budget.

The merger was to be discussed by Walker and the two boards at a joint meeting later Thursday.

MILWAUKEE (AP) – Wisconsin regulators are considering a $9 billion transaction that combines Wisconsin Energy Corp. and Integrys Energy Group.

Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission is among a number of federal and state agencies that must approve the acquisition that creates WEC Energy Group, which will serve more than 4.3 million gas and electric customers across Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota.

The transaction combines Wisconsin Energy’s We Energies with Integrys’ electric and gas utilities – Green Bay-based Wisconsin Public Service Corp., Peoples Gas, North Shore Gas, Minnesota Energy Resources and Michigan Gas Utilities.

Thursday’s vote in Wisconsin follows approvals from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and Michigan’s Public Service Commission.

Votes are expected in Minnesota next month and by July in Illinois, where the deal has been scrutinized for its effect on natural gas customers in Chicago.

KOHLER (AP) – The man who leads the company that bears his name in Kohler is ending his 43-year tenure as its chief executive.

Herbert Kohler will turn over the title of CEO at the Kohler Co. to his son, David Kohler, who is currently its president. Kohler directors have elected the 76-year-old Kohler as board chairman.

The privately-held company is a leader in kitchen and bath products and its hospitality and real estate group includes championship golf courses. One of the courses, Whistling Straits, will host the PGA Championship in August.

Sheboygan Press Media reports the 48-year-old David Kohler says he’s committed to reducing the company’s environmental footprint, developing more plumbing product options that conserve water and supporting environmental awareness and education causes.