Green Bay News

MADISON — After a successful 2014 pilot program, deer and bear hunters in Wisconsin will be able to electronically register their harvest during 2015 hunting seasons.

Electronic registration will provide additional convenience and reduced cost for hunters and will also give the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources instantaneous access to harvest data. Electronic registration is currently in use for Wisconsin’s turkey and goose hunting seasons, and agencies in other states have reported high hunter satisfaction through electronic registration for deer and other big game.

While walk-in registration was the only option available for many hunters in the past, all deer and bear will be registered electronically in 2015. In-person registration is expected to continue to be available in many locations throughout Wisconsin, and will also use the new system.

“We are encouraging local businesses to volunteer their services as a registration station to help give hunters an opportunity to continue their traditions,” said Kevin Wallenfang, DNR deer ecologist. “Any business can offer registration services if they are willing to provide a phone or computer for public use, or assist a hunter with registration. We have worked with stakeholders and will continue to offer on our website a list of businesses that will offer in-person registration with the new system.”

In 2014, 14,000 hunters were selected to register deer by telephone or online and test a new electronic registration system. Those hunters registered more than 10,000 deer electronically during the archery, crossbow, muzzleloader, and gun deer seasons.

“We received feedback from a number of hunters, and overall, most users found both the telephone and online systems easy to use and very convenient,” said Wallenfang. “We’ve used many of their suggestions to make our system even more user-friendly in 2015.”

Improvements for the 2015 deer season include a shortened and much simpler carcass tag confirmation number. In addition, a more efficient keypad-based phone menu will replace the voice-activated system used in 2014. With help from Wisconsin hunters, the electronic registration process has been further streamlined to allow hunters to register their deer with ease.

According to Dave MacFarland, DNR bear ecologist, while bear hunters will also be required to use electronic registration, they will still need to submit a tooth from a harvested bear.

“While the transition to electronic registration will provide some unique challenges, we hope to make it as simple as possible for hunters,” said MacFarland. “Historically, we have seen nearly 100 percent compliance in the submission of bear samples–continued partnerships with Wisconsin’s bear hunters will help keep this track record of success going under the new registration system.”

Hunters who successfully drew a bear permit in 2015 will receive further instructions and sampling materials by mail this summer.

To register electronically, hunters will simply need to go online or call the registration system and provide the same basic harvest information as in the past. Upon successful registration, each hunter will receive a confirmation number – this will need to be written on the carcass tag attached to the animal.

Both deer and bear hunters will be required to register their animal by 5 p.m. the day after harvest. Regardless of the method used, registration for both deer and bear remains mandatory for all hunters.

People who would like to receive email updates and other information regarding deer and bear hunting and season structure in Wisconsin, can go to the DNR website, dnr.wi.gov, and click on the email icon near the bottom of the page for “subscribe for updates for DNR topics.” Follow the prompts and select “white-tailed deer” or “black bear” within the “hunting” list.

For more information regarding deer and bear hunting in Wisconsin, search the DNR website, dnr.wi.gov, for keywords “deer” and “bear” respectively. To learn more about electronic registration, search keywords “electronic registration.”

For more information contact: Kevin Wallenfang, DNR deer ecologist, 608-261-7589; Dave MacFarland, DNR bear ecologist, 715-365-8917.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Verne Gagne, one of professional wrestling’s most celebrated performers and promoters, has died. He was 89.

Gagne died Monday at his daughter’s home in the Twin Cities area, according to longtime friend Gene Okerlund, a pro wrestling announcer who was inducted into the World Wrestling Entertainment Hall of Fame with Gagne in 2006. Gagne had Alzheimer’s disease.

“Verne was one of the pioneers,” said Okerlund, 72. “He put (pro wrestling) on the map in the early days when no one had seen it before.”

Gagne won several regional championships after turning pro in 1950 before heading to the newly formed American Wrestling Association, based in Minneapolis, in 1960, the WWE said.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Gagne became a promoter and eventually the sole owner of the AWA. He remained an active competitor until the early 1980s, holding the AWA World Heavyweight Championship title 10 times between 1960 and 1981.

The AWA “cranked out” a lot of stars, Okerlund said, including Hulk Hogan, Mad Dog Vachon and Nick Bockwinkel. It also was the breeding ground for future WWE stars, such as Jesse “The Body” Ventura, Bobby “The Brain” Heenan and Pat Patterson, according to the WWE.

“He was a taskmaster without a question,” Okerlund said. “He demanded a lot out of people and he got a lot out of people.”

Gagne was a three-sport high school athlete from Robbinsdale, Minnesota, and won multiple state championships in wrestling. He played football and wrestled at University of Minnesota, but left after a year to join the Marines at the end of World War II. When he returned to finish college, he collected four Big Ten wrestling championships, two NCAA wrestling championships and the 1949 AAU Wrestling Championship.

Gagne had been living with his daughter following a confrontation in the memory care unit of a Bloomington care center. Helmut Gutmann died in February 2009 of complications from a broken hip after he clashed with Gagne and was thrown to the floor. No charges were filed. Both men had dementia and could not recall what happened, officials said.

Gagne is survived by his four children. His wife, Mary, died in 2002.

MADISON (WISC-TV) – A Madison UPS delivery driver says he hasn’t been involved in any type of traffic incident whatsoever in 29 years.

Howard Koller says he drives between 100 to 110 miles per day, delivering packages from point A to point B.

Over the span of his 29-year career, Koller says he’s probably driven about three quarter of a million miles without a single traffic ticket, ding or dent.

Koller credits defensive, safe driving and, of course, luck.

Dave Delozier has the story.

MADISON (AP) – A seventh case of the deadly bird flu virus has been detected in Wisconsin.

The latest case as reported Tuesday by the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection is in a 108,000 turkey flock in Barron County. That is the third reported case in Barron County.

All seven cases have been reported over a 15-day period beginning on April 13. About 1.3 million birds are affected.

There are two outbreaks in Jefferson County, and one each in Chippewa and Juneau counties.

The virus is lethal to birds, but is not expected to be a risk to people or the food supply.

A ban on poultry movement to shows, exhibitions and swap meets in the four affected counties remains in effect.

MADISON (AP) – Gov. Scott Walker is encouraging Wisconsin’s hospitals to hire veterans as well as people with disabilities.

Walker made the pitch Tuesday during a speech to more than 1,000 people at the Wisconsin Hospital Association’s Advocacy Day event in Madison.

Walker says as the state’s unemployment rate drops, it becomes harder to fill vacant positions. He says hospitals should do the patriotic thing and hire veterans, who he says are loyal workers.

Walker also says hospitals would be well-served to hire people with mental and physical disabilities.

He says, “We can’t afford to have anybody on the sidelines.”

Walker spoke to the group after returning from spending the weekend in Iowa and Monday in Boston, where he was making meeting with donors and voters in advance of his expected presidential campaign.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Democratic lawmakers are asking Gov. Scott Walker to veto a bill that opponents argue doesn’t do enough to regulate ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft.

The veto request Tuesday comes after two Madison women reported incidents of unwanted sexual contact over the weekend by Uber drivers.

Eleven Dane County Democrats are requesting that Walker veto the bill that passed both the Assembly and Senate on bipartisan votes earlier this month.

The letter notes that the Madison Police Department asked Uber for information about the drivers in both incidents, but the company said it couldn’t provide that without a warrant or subpoena.

The lawmakers say the bill is flawed by not allowing for more local oversight of the companies.

Walker’s spokeswoman Laurel Patrick didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Robo calls, social media ads, personal letters from the CEO and even a smartphone app are among ways auto companies are trying to convince more customers to get repairs done on cars recalled for serious safety defects.

The unusual steps were discussed at a forum Tuesday held by government safety regulators who are frustrated over what they say is an unacceptably low rate of recall repairs.

In some recalls for problems as serious as air bags that can spew shrapnel into drivers or fuel tanks that can rupture in a rear-end crash, completion rates are below 15 percent, six months or more after the recalls were announced.

Those recalls involve millions of vehicles, challenging automakers to find replacement parts and the cars’ owners. Regulators at times have fined automakers for dragging their feet, while concerned car owners are left waiting for repairs and worrying about their safety.

On average, automakers fix three out of four cars covered by a recall in 18 months. Mark Rosekind, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chief since December, wants to get that repair rate to 100 percent. So Tuesday he asked auto companies and safety advocates for their recommendations.

General Motors, once fined by NHTSA for moving too slowly to recall small cars with faulty ignition switches, was praised for using new methods to reach owners.

GM said that as of early April, 70 percent of the U.S. small-car owners had been in for the service, 14 months after the recalls began. The switches, which can slip out of the run position by surprise and cause an engine to stall, are linked to at least 90 deaths.

GM started the recall slowly because its parts supplier had to equip factories to make switches for 2.6 million cars like the Chevrolet Cobalt.

But GM customer relations executive Julie Heisel said it boosted the rate by going beyond the usual recall letter, adding emails, human and automated telephone calls and social media. For example, the company checked its database of small-car owners against people using Facebook, AOL and other social media sites, she said.

“When someone goes on one of those websites and there’s a match, we push an ad to that consumer” about the recalls, she said.

One Ford official said the company is developing an app to make it easier for cars to be repaired, while a Chevrolet dealer said he opened Saturdays for service and offered free oil changes.

But reluctant owners are just part of the issue. In the past three years, 17 million vehicles have been recalled because air bag inflators from Takata Corp. or Japan can explode with too much force, blowing apart a metal canister.

Honda, Takata’s largest customer, said it has fixed 19 percent of the recalled inflators. Some of the recalls date to 2013. The issue: Getting replacement parts to Honda and nine other automakers that use the inflators. Honda and Takata have lined up other suppliers to make inflators, and Takata says it has increased production.

Meanwhile, Honda owners are being turned away by dealers, leaving some afraid to drive their vehicles.

Lynn Jones-Finn, a retired child welfare worker from Berkeley, California, has been driving her 2001 Honda Civic for years without incident. She received a recall notice March 31 and contacted her dealer in mid-April, only to be told parts wouldn’t be available for at least three weeks.

“I’m disappointed in Honda because I trusted Honda,” she said. “I’m not happy they’re not moving to fix it when they say it could kill me.”

The dealer has since offered her a loaner car, which she plans to use.

NHTSA, Takata and the auto industry are trying to pinpoint what’s causing the inflator problems.

Takata has been fined $14,000 per day by NHTSA since Feb. 20 for allegedly dumping documents on the agency without the legally required explanation of what’s in them. The fines are approaching $1 million.

Rosekind said Takata is being “a little bit more forthcoming,” but “it’s still not sufficient.” NHTSA likely will take further action on Takata soon, he said.

In another big recall, Fiat Chrysler said recently it has fixed only a fraction of 1.56 million older Jeeps with gas tanks behind the rear axle.  The tanks are vulnerable to puncture in a rear-end crash. The company is installing trailer hitches to protect the tanks in low-speed crashes.

NHTSA may reopen its investigation into the Jeeps.

“Here’s an opportunity to do whatever we need to do as aggressively as we need to do it to save lives,” Rosekind said after the gathering. A NHTSA work group will come up with Jeep recommendations in a few weeks.

Chrysler maintains the Jeeps are safe.

Rosekind is meeting with GM CEO Mary Barra and other CEOs in Detroit this week to discuss changing the industry’s safety culture, he said. Rosekind said he’ll deliver a message that if problems persist that call for enforcement, “We’re going to use every tool available.”

____

Krisher reported from Detroit.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) – Walt Disney World must rehire three performers who were fired when they refused to wear soiled spandex unitards as part of their costumes for the “Festival of the Lion King” show, an arbitrator ruled Monday.

The workers said their clean unitards became wet and soiled while hanging from a rack where sweaty costumes that had been rained on were pushed up against them. Disney managers said that the two sets of costumes on the racks never touched and that the performers were given other options.

The arbitrator ruled that the performers were dismissed without just cause and that Disney violated language in a collective bargaining agreement guaranteeing that all costumes be clean.

The agreement “states unconditionally that all wardrobe shall be clean and dry, without reference to the existence, or not, of actual danger,” Arbitrator Robert Moberly wrote.

Disney said the workers carried out an unauthorized work stoppage when they refused to put on the wet unitards last June, forcing the cancellation of an evening show.

Disney spokeswoman Jacquee Wahler said Tuesday that the company will comply with the ruling.

The clean-costume provision was added to the agreement more than a decade ago after incidents of rashes, scabies and other infections.

Union official Donna-Lynne Dalton said Tuesday that she pushed for the provision after she got ringworm years ago from tights she wore as a member of the harem in the “Aladdin’s Royal Caravan” parade.

“Overall, in theory, the company had a mentality that costumes were cleaned for performers, but, randomly, it wasn’t happening,” said Dalton, who is now the secretary-treasurer of the Service Trades Council Union. “There were various incidents of workers coming to work and saying, ‘This costume isn’t clean.'”

MILWAUKEE (AP) – A Milwaukee police officer who was fired for improper procedure in the lead-up to a fatal shooting has 10 days to file an appeal in circuit court to try to get his job back.

Chief Edward Flynn fired Christopher Manney for inappropriately frisking the mentally ill Dontre Hamilton in a downtown park last April. Manney had gone to check on Hamilton’s welfare, but it turned into a confrontation in which Hamilton allegedly grabbed Manney’s baton and hit him.

A panel of fire and police commissioners upheld Flynn’s decision last month. The written decision was filed with the panel’s board chairman Tuesday, which triggers the 10-day period for Manney to file a court appeal.

Manney’s attorney has previously indicated he would appeal but he didn’t immediately return a call Tuesday.

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A nurse died after falling from a hoist on a medical helicopter while rescuing a woman from a hiking trail in Austin, emergency personnel said Tuesday.

Kristin McLain, 46, became detached from the hoist Monday night as the rescued hiker was lifted to the EC-145 helicopter from the Barton Creek Greenbelt where she had taken a fall, according to a STAR Flight news release.

McLain died at the scene. STAR Flight did not release any information about why or how far she fell. The company uses four helicopters for rescues and emergency transport in Travis County.

Lisa Block, a spokeswoman for Travis County Emergency Services, had few details on the circumstances of McLain’s death. She said the hoist is an arm that extends off the helicopter that allows rescuers to direct a carrier to a patient and that “typically a rescuer will go with that carrier.”

The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the accident. The AP left a message with the NTSB seeking comment.

“Safety comes first with STAR Flight,” Block said. “So of course we will be looking at everything that happened, all of our equipment, the processes to see what needs to be improved. That will also be part of the investigation. Right now our thoughts are with the family and her friends.”

Block said the company has voluntarily ceased operations but could not say how long the fleet would be grounded.

STAR Flight did not identify the rescued woman but said she was taken to University Medical Center-Brackenridge in Austin with non-life-threatening injuries.

McLain had worked for STAR Flight for seven years, was single and originally from Colorado, Block said.

“A lot of times STAR Flight will go to community groups and talk about what they do. She was always smiling and telling people about what she does. She was very passionate about her job,” Block said.

SPRINGDALE, Arkansas (AP) — Tyson Foods says it wants to stop using human antibiotics in its U.S. chicken houses by September 2017 and that it will explore doing the same in its beef, pork and turkey operations.

The move comes as restaurants demand more natural produce and amid concerns that widespread antibiotic use can lead to drug-resistant germs.

McDonald’s, for instance, said in March it wants suppliers to stop using human antibiotics in poultry within two years. Panera and Chipotle already say their chicken is antibiotic-free.

Tyson said in March it would work with McDonald’s to meet the new requirements, plus begin looking at ways to reduce antibiotic use in cattle, hogs and turkeys.

The Arkansas-based company said it would also back research into disease prevention and antibiotic alternatives.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – A Wisconsin lawmaker says she wants to double the state’s minimum wage, calling the matter a civil rights issue.

At a Tuesday press conference at the Capitol, Rep. Melissa Sargent, a Madison Democrat, introduced a bill that would increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour. The current minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.

Sargent said the state’s minimum wage is “unlivable” and forces employees to sacrifice health care and other needs to survive.

Supporters held signs that said “fight for 15″ and cheered.

The bill faces long odds. Republicans control Assembly and Senate chambers.

Spokeswomen for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) – As National Guard troops responded to rioting in Baltimore, President Barack Obama said Tuesday there have been too many troubling police interactions with black citizens across American in what he called “a slow-rolling crisis.” But he said there was no excuse for rioters to engage in senseless violence.

Obama said those in Baltimore who stole from businesses and burned buildings and cars should be treated as criminals. “They aren’t protesting, they aren’t making a statement, they’re stealing,” Obama said.

The president at a White House press conference with the Japanese prime minister the day after violence broke out 40 miles north after the funeral for Freddie Gray, a black man who died in Baltimore police custody under mysterious circumstances. At least 15 police officers were hurt and nearly 200 people were arrested in Monday’s disturbance.

“There’s no excuse for the kind of violence that we saw yesterday,” Obama said. “It is counterproductive. When individuals get crowbars and start prying open doors to loot, they’re not protesting, they’re not making a statement, they’re stealing.”

Obama said the case should prompt some “soul searching” in America about communities where young men are more likely to end up in jail or dead than completing school. He said solutions should involve early education, criminal justice reform and job training.

Obama said officials should not just pay attention to these communities “when a CVS burns” or when “a young man gets shot or has his spine snapped.”

At one point Obama apologized to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for taking nearly 15 minutes of their news conference to discuss it. “I felt pretty strongly about it,” he said.

Obama said rioters distracted from days of peaceful protests focused on legitimate concerns “over the possibility that our laws were not applied evenly in the case of Mr. Gray and that accountability needs to exist.”

“We have seen too many instances of what appears to be police officers interacting with individuals, primarily African-American, often poor, in ways that raise troubling questions. It comes up, it seems like, once a week now,” Obama said. He said it’s not new, but there’s new awareness as a result of cameras and social media.

Obama said he can’t force police departments across the country to retrain their officers, but he can work with them and help pay for body cameras to improve accountability.

“In those environments, if we think that we’re just going to send the police to do the dirty work of containing the problems that arise there, without as a nation and as a society saying what can we do to change those communities, to help lift up those communities and give those kids opportunity, then we’re not going to solve this problem,” he said. “And we’ll go through the same cycles of periodic conflicts between the police and communities and the occasional riots in the streets. And everybody will feign concern until it goes away and then we go about our business as usual.”

GREEN BAY – Organizers of the Cellcom Green Bay Marathon are looking for volunteers to help run the 16th annual event May 15-17.

Opportunities include, packet assembly, expo staff, greeters, start and finish line crews, food test staff, course security, clean-up, information booth and more.

For a full list of volunteer openings, click here.

An optional volunteer orientation will be held on Thursday, May 14 at the Green Bay Distillery at 5:30 p.m. The orientation will give volunteers a chance to pick up their t-shirts and ask questions they have on their volunteer assignment.

If you would like to volunteer, you can register online here.

Volunteer coordinator for the Cellcom Green Bay Marathon, Samantha Shefchik, says it takes more than 2,000 volunteers to put on the event.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The National Football League is giving up its tax-exempt status, which Commissioner Roger Goodell called a “distraction.”

In a letter to team owners, Goodell says the league office and its management council will file tax returns as taxable entities for the 2015 fiscal year. Goodell says the NFL has been tax-exempt since 1942, though all 32 teams pay taxes on their income.

Goodell says the change will not alter the function or operation of the league, since all the teams already pay taxes.

“As you know, the effects of the tax exempt status of the league office have been mischaracterized repeatedly in recent years,” Goodell said in the letter to owners. “The fact is that the business of the NFL has never been tax exempt.”

Some members of Congress have criticized the NFL, which generates billions in revenue, for being tax-exempt.

Team owners gave the league’s finance committee and management council the authority to change the tax status at league meetings in March, Goodell said.

“As a result, the committees decided to eliminate this distraction,” Goodell wrote.

Goodell forwarded the letter to the owners to Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., and Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich. Ryan chairs the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee and Levin is the ranking Democrat.

MADISON (AP) – Wisconsin Supreme Court justices disagree about whether there will be a chief justice on the court shortly after 9 a.m. on Wednesday.

That’s when the state elections board is scheduled to certify results of the April 7 election. Voters approved a constitutional amendment giving justices the power to select who is chief justice, rather than have it go automatically to the most senior member.

Longtime Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson argues in a federal lawsuit she filed that the change shouldn’t be applied until after her current term ends in four years.

But five other justices contend that once the vote is certified on Wednesday, there is no chief justice until a new one is selected.

Abrahamson was seated as chief justice Tuesday at the court’s public hearing on rule changes.

GREEN BAY – A man charged with firing shots after a drug deal went bad was ordered Tuesday to stand trial.

Benjamin Hubbard waived a preliminary hearing on three counts, including attempted first-degree intentional homicide, according to online court records.

His arraignment is scheduled for June 12.

No one was injured in the March 30 incident in the 300 block of 12th Avenue, on Green Bay’s west side. Hubbard allegedy fired several shots at man he was trying to sell marijuana to, but missed.

The new restaurant will replace Curly’s Pub in the Lambeau Field Atrium.

APPLETON (AP) – A man accused of stabbing his father in the face is charged with attempted homicide in Outagamie County.

A criminal complaint says 22-year-old Andrew Johnson set fire to their Oneida house after stabbing his father March 21. Johnson is also charged with reckless endangerment, arson and aggravated battery.

Investigators say Johnson and his father argued before the stabbing took place outside the home. His father and uncle went back in the house and locked the doors after police were called. The complaint says Johnson then grabbed a gas container and threw it at the house, which started to burn.

The state public defender’s office in Appleton declined to say which attorney was assigned to Johnson.

BALTIMORE (AP) – The Baltimore Orioles postponed a second straight game against the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday after a night of rioting near Camden Yards.

Public schools were shut, and Baltimore’s mayor imposed a 10 p.m.-to-5 a.m. curfew.

The Orioles called off the game after consulting with Major League Baseball, and state and local officials.

No makeup dates were announced. The White Sox were in town for a three-game series that had been slated to start Monday, and it was their only planned visit on the schedule.

Monday’s game was postponed around 40 minutes before the scheduled 7:05 p.m. start. The decision came after riots broke out following the funeral of Freddie Gray, who died April 19 of spinal cord and other injuries sustained while in police custody. Tuesday’s game, also scheduled for 7:05, was called off shortly after 11 a.m.

Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred was in Baltimore on Monday for a trip that was planned long ago. He took part in the decision to postpone Monday’s game.

“All I want to say about that is we are looking at every possible alternative in terms of completing the schedule in a timely way and making sure the games are played in a security situation that is safe for the fans,” he said Monday night. “We are going to look at every alternative at this point.”

That included the possibility of moving the series to Nationals Park in Washington.

Such a move would not be unprecedented.

In 1992, the Dodgers had four games postponed in Los Angeles following the Rodney King verdict.

In 1967, the Orioles and Tigers had a game postponed because of riots in Detroit. The next two games were shifted to Baltimore.

The uneasy situation also caused the Baltimore Ravens to cancel an NFL draft party for fans at M&T Bank Stadium on Tuesday night.

The team said the decision was made “out of respect to the curfew.”