Green Bay News

MADISON (AP) – Spot a dead deer on the side of the road?

Gov. Scott Walker doesn’t want the state Department of Natural Resources paying to clean it up.

Walker’s budget would delete $700,000 in funding a year for DNR to pay for disposal of deer carcasses along state highways. The Legislature’s budget committee was slated to debate it on Wednesday.

Under Walker’s proposal, responsibility for carting off the dead deer would fall to whatever other government agency is in charge of the roadway. Or they may be left uncollected.

The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau cautions that “dead and decaying deer on the roadside are unsightly and can dampen Wisconsin’s reputation as a tourist destination.”

Last year, 23,800 dead deer were collected from Wisconsin highways.

WAUSAU (AP) – Donors have contributed approaching $300,000 for a Wisconsin family of eight children who lost their father when a deer struck his van.

By Tuesday morning, more than 3,700 people had contributed to the Rogan family’s fundraising site.

• Click here to see the fundraiser

Michael Rogan was driving his pregnant wife, Niki, and the children to the hospital for the birth of their eighth child last Friday when a deer struck their van windshield on a rural highway in Marathon County. The 42-year-old father was killed. Niki and the children, ages 2 to 15, suffered minor injuries.

All were taken to a hospital, where Michael Rogan was pronounced dead. His wife gave birth to a healthy boy hours later.

Relatives and friends say the contributions will allow Niki Rogan to continue to home-school her children.

FOND DU LAC – A shoplifter who allegedly fled a store Saturday and assaulted a store employee was charged Tuesday.

Patricia Bushey, 32, faces four counts, including one felony of retail theft. An initial appearance is scheduled for today.

According to police, she fled the Kohl’s Department Store on W. Johnson Street with a large amount of merchandise – and after assaulting a store loss-prevention officer in the parking lot.

Bushey also allegedly failed to stop for officers, resulting in two misdemeanor counts.

BOSTON (AP) – The life-or-death phase in the trial of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev opened Tuesday with a prosecutor telling the jurors they will come to know the four people killed and “why their lives mattered.”

With enlarged photographs of the victims behind her, prosecutor Nadine Pellegrini said: “They were all beautiful, and they’re all now gone.” She described the killings as “unbearable, indescribable, inexcusable and senseless.”

“They had time to be scared and frightened,” she told the jury that will decide whether the 21-year-old Tsarnaev should get the death penalty or life in prison. “They had no time to say goodbye. That is the very essence of terror.”

The prosecutor concluded her opening statement by showing the jury a photo of Tsarnaev in his jail cell, giving the finger to the video surveillance camera. It was three months after the bombings.

“He had one more message to send,” Pellegrini said.

Martin Richard, an 8-year-old Boston boy; Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Boston University graduate student from China; and Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager from Bedford, were killed in the 2013 bombing near the finish line. More than 260 others were wounded, including many who lost limbs.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier was killed days later, shot in the head inside his cruiser, as Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, made their getaway.

“You know how they died, now you need to know how they lived,” the prosecutor said. “You need to know and to understand why their lives mattered.”

Tsarnaev was convicted earlier this month of all 30 charges against him during the trial’s guilt-or-innocence phase. The penalty phase is expected to last about a month.

Tsarnaev’s lawyers, who will make the case for mercy once the prosecution has put on its witnesses, are expected to portray Tamerlan as the mastermind of the bombing. They say Tsarnaev does not deserve the death penalty because he was a 19-year-old who fell under the influence of his domineering brother.

The 12-member jury must be unanimous for Tsarnaev to receive a death sentence; otherwise, the sentence will automatically be life behind bars.

Prosecutors contend Tsarnaev was a full partner with his brother in the bombing and deserves the ultimate punishment. They are expected to call people who lost legs or loved ones in the attack to describe the effect on their lives.

About a dozen people protesting against the death penalty demonstrated outside the federal courthouse Tuesday morning.

Earlier this week, the parents of 8-year-old Martin Richard urged prosecutors in a front-page letter in The Boston Globe to take the death penalty off the table.

Also, Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downes, a newlywed couple severely wounded in the bombing, said life in prison would be the best outcome to assure that Tsarnaev “disappears from our collective consciousness as soon as possible.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate leaders announced a deal Tuesday to move forward on a stalled human trafficking bill, clearing the way for a vote on President Barack Obama’s attorney general nominee within days.

The deal unveiled on the Senate floor aimed to solve a dispute over abortion that had stalled the once-popular trafficking bill for weeks. Attorney General-designate Loretta Lynch was caught in the crossfire, infuriating Democrats, because Republican leaders decided to hold off on her confirmation vote until the trafficking bill was resolved.

“I’m glad we can say there is a bipartisan proposal that will allow us to complete action on this important legislation so we can provide help to the victims who desperately need it,” said Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. He said he anticipated a vote on Lynch, who will become the nation’s first black female attorney general, “in the next day or so.”

“Let’s get out of this quickly,” said Democratic Leader Harry Reid. “Let’s get Loretta Lynch confirmed.”

Lynch was nominated last fall and Democrats have become increasingly agitated about the delays in confirming her to replace Eric Holder, even though they controlled the Senate for part of that time and failed to call her nomination up for a vote. Obama on Friday called the delays “embarrassing.”

The trafficking deal aims to address Democratic concerns that the legislation would expand existing prohibitions on spending federal funds for abortions. The legislation envisions a new victims fund made up of fees paid by sex criminals, and Democrats asserted that applying abortion spending prohibitions to that new source of non-taxpayer funds was an expansion they could not accept.

Republicans had to be satisfied that abortion spending prohibitions were not curtailed.

The final language, agreed to by Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., solves the problem by establishing two sources of money for the new victims’ fund. Money collected from the fines assessed on criminal perpetrators would be used for services such as legal aid, but not health or medical services, and therefore language on abortion would not be relevant. Money already appropriated by Congress for Community Health Centers — and already subject to abortion spending restrictions — would be available for health and medical services.

SHAWANO – Two people were arrested in an Internet sex sting in Shawano County.

Sheriff’s officials say the two traveled to Shawano County after they set up encounters with what they thought was a 15-year-old girl. Instead, sheriff’s deputies met the two, a 52-year-old man from Townsend and a 24-year-old from Green Bay. The information from the sheriff’s department did not specify whether the 24-year-old was a man or a woman.

The sheriff’s department is recommending charges of using a computer to facilitate a child sex crime against both.

MILWAUKEE (AP) – A Milwaukee father is accused of shooting his teenage daughter with a BB gun as discipline for bad grades.

A criminal complaint filed in Milwaukee County says the 29-year-old father recently forced the 13-year-old girl to bend over in the living room and shot her three times in the backside. The complaint says the girl told investigators that when she headed for her room, her father shot her once more, striking her in the left inner thigh. She says the BB shots caused her to bleed and left marks.

WISN-TV reports the father is free on bond following a court appearance on child abuse charges Monday. He was ordered not to possess any weapons. The girl is now living with her mother.

MADISON (AP) – A new study shows poverty rose slightly in Wisconsin from 2012 to 2013, despite some job gains.

The report released Tuesday by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers says the Wisconsin Poverty Measure rose to 10.9 percent in 2013, up from 10.2 percent in 2012. That measure was roughly 2.5 percentage points lower than the official Wisconsin poverty rate from the federal government.

Urban Institute senior fellow Julia Isaacs, an author of the report, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that researchers didn’t expect poverty go up in light of job gains. She said much of the growth is in low-wage jobs, and that the end of a payroll tax cut meant more money came out of workers’ paychecks.

The Wisconsin Poverty Measure takes into account family income as well as food assistance and refundable tax credits, while the official federal poverty measure is based on pretax cash income.

Researchers at UW-Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty, which produced the report, say good jobs are the best way to lift people out of poverty. But the alternate measure is meant to look at how assistance programs can keep people out of poverty.

“Poverty is measured by the economy and how the safety net is doing,” Isaacs said. “It is good to look at both.”

In the Great Recession, Isaacs said an expansion of the earned income tax credit and nutritional assistance helped prevent people from falling into poverty. The poverty rate declined in 2012 as jobs were added, she said, but job gains didn’t prevent a poverty increase in 2013.

The child poverty rate under the Wisconsin Poverty Measure rose to 11.8 percent in 2013 from 11 percent in 2012, while the elderly poverty rate jumped to 9 percent from 6.2 percent.

Milwaukee and La Crosse counties were the only ones to be above the statewide poverty rate.

GREEN BAY – Before you toss out that plastic container, check to see if you can now toss it in your recycling bin!  The Tri-County Recycling Facility has added new materials that can now be recycled.  Mark Walter of the Brown County Port and Resource Recovery Department joined us on Good Day Wisconsin to talk about the updated recycling guide.

New materials now accepted:

Cartons
Deli, Bakery & Produce Containers and Lids
Dairy Tubs & Lids

Rinse empty containers and drop them in your curbside collection bin.

Here’s a link to the new guide:

http://browncountyrecycling.org/media/78889/trifoldbrochure.pdf

For more information visit: www.browncountyrecycling.org

GREEN BAY – Perhaps you read the book with your book club, well now you can meet the author! Writer Christina Baker Kline will be participating in the 8th annual Fox Cities Book Festival this week.  Kline is the author of the New York Times bestseller “Orphan Train.”  The book chronicles a young girl’s journey from the East Coast to the farmlands of the Midwest. So called “Orphan Trains” ran regularly to take abandoned children to an uncertain future during the Depression Era.

Kline will be making several appearances during the book festival.

You can meet Kline today at 11 at UW-Fox Valley.

UW Fox Valley – Perry Hall
1478 Midway Road
Menasha, WI

Click here for a look at the rest of her schedule.

LIVE STREAM!  If you are unable to attend Christina’s presentation at UWFox, you can tune in to this live stream link.
 

MAPLE GROVE, Minn. (AP) – A Minnesota bar near the Wisconsin border is accused of selling a popular Wisconsin beer, even though it’s not licensed to do so.

The sale of Spotted Cow made by a New Glarus, Wisconsin brewer in Minnesota is a felony criminal offense. A search warrant filed in Hennepin County says an employee of Maple Tavern in the Twin Cities suburb of Maple Grove made beer runs to a liquor store in Hudson, Wisconsin to buy some Spotted Cow. The Star Tribune says investigators went to the tavern and ordered a glass of Spotted Cow beer, then busted the bar.

Neither the tavern nor the bar’s manager are licensed to transport alcohol to Minnesota. Another manager, Brandon Hlavka, says it was a mistake to bring the beer to Maple Tavern, but it was with the best of intentions.

MADISON (AP) – A federal judge plans to hold the first hearing in a lawsuit filed by Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson challenging the timing of a constitutional amendment approved by voters two weeks ago.

U.S. District Judge James Peterson scheduled a hearing Tuesday. It is likely to be mostly procedural, with Peterson telling attorneys they should be prepared to set deadlines for filing arguments and a schedule for proceeding.

The constitutional amendment would allow the seven justices on the Supreme Court to decide who they want to serve as chief justice, rather than have it go to the most senior member.

Abrahamson does not want that change to take effect until her current term ends in four years.

The court’s conservative majority is expected to vote her out.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – Poultry producers and scientists have been hoping warmer weather would knock down a virulent strain of bird flu that has hammered the Midwest, but the virus recently took its biggest toll yet, hitting a farm in Iowa that held nearly 10 percent of the state’s egg-laying chickens. Here are some questions and answers about the outbreak:

WHAT’S THE LATEST?

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Monday that the deadly H5N2 bird flu virus was found at a farm in northwest Iowa’s Osceola County. The confirmation means up to 5.3 million hens there must be destroyed in a state that produces one in every five eggs consumed in the country. Seven other Midwestern states have been hit by the virus, dooming nearly 7.8 million turkeys and chickens since March.

WHAT’S THE OUTLOOK?

U.S. Department of Agriculture officials say the virus could be a problem for several years. The USDA’s chief veterinary officer, Dr. John Clifford, also said last week that while new cases should drop to close to zero once the weather warms up and kills off the virus, there’s “very likely” to be a resurgence this fall when the wild waterfowl that are natural carriers of avian influenza fly south for the winter.

WHAT KIND OF FLU IS THIS, EXACTLY?

H5N2 is a highly contagious virus that kills commercial poultry quickly once it gets into a barn. But the risk to the public is considered low, and infected birds are kept out of the food supply.

WHERE IS THIS TURNING UP, AND IN WHAT KINDS OF BIRDS?

Only two egg operations have been hit – the one in Iowa and one in Wisconsin. Except for a couple of backyard flocks, all the other cases in the Midwest have been at commercial turkey farms. Minnesota has had 28 turkey farms hit, far more than any other state. Officials say that’s because Minnesota is the top turkey-producing state, and its thousands of lakes and ponds are attractive to migrating ducks and other waterfowl. H5N2 and other highly pathogenic strains have also been found since late last year among wild birds, backyard flocks and commercial farms in some western states and British Columbia.

AREN’T MOST COMMERCIAL POULTRY BARNS SHUT TIGHT TO KEEP DISEASES OUT?

They are. Poultry farms with good biosecurity strictly limit who’s allowed in. Workers often have to shower on their way in and out, wear protective coveralls and step in disinfectant to kill viruses on their boots. Equipment coming in and out is typically sanitized. But the system doesn’t always work. Experts say it requires everyone to do everything right all the time. Plus rodents and wild birds that sneak into a barn can bring in the virus.

SO WHAT HAPPENS TO THESE TURKEYS WHEN BIRD FLU ARRIVES?

They die, and quickly. Less severe symptoms can be similar to colds and flu in humans, or a flock turning quiet. Vaccines have been used around the world to protect flocks against various bird flu strains ahead of time, but this strain is new to North America. Once an infection is confirmed at a farm, all surviving birds on the property are typically killed to prevent it from spreading. These flocks are usually killed by pumping a water-based foam into the barn, following guidelines from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The foam suffocates the birds within minutes.

OH. SO WHAT DO THEY DO WITH ALL THESE DEAD BIRDS?

They compost them – usually right in the same barn where they died. Composting is a widely used and approved method throughout the industry to dispose of dead birds. Studies show that properly done, the heat generated by composting is enough to kill flu viruses and other pathogens commonly present in poultry such as salmonella. The compost then can be safely spread as fertilizer.

DO THESE OUTBREAKS WIPE OUT AFFECTED FARMS?

An outbreak that kills tens of thousands of birds certainly can cost a farm dearly. The government doesn’t compensate producers for birds that die of the disease itself, but it does reimburse them for birds that have to be euthanized as a precaution. That gives farmers an incentive to report suspected outbreaks and deal with them swiftly.

SO DOES THIS MEAN I’LL BE PAYING MORE FOR TURKEY, EGGS AND CHICKEN?

Probably not in the near term. The toll nationwide represents just a small part of U.S. production. Hormel Foods Corp., which owns Jennie-O, said Monday that it will sell less turkey this year because of the outbreaks but that it can’t comment now on how retail prices or the holiday season will be affected. But don’t worry about Thanksgiving yet. Turkey prices around the holidays often have nothing to do with the costs of production. Retailers often sell turkeys at a loss just to draw in customers who’ll stock up on stuffing mix, cranberries, sweet potatoes, pies and other traditional favorites.

BAYFIELD, Wis. (AP) – The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore plans to use thousands of dollars generated through a new fee for visiting the ice caves this winter to cover the cost of additional staff and equipment.

Officials are calling the fee sustainable after it brought $140,000 in revenue, a portion of which was shared with the National Park Service. But the Apostle Islands were left with $134,700 and will use the money to hire temporary employees to prepare for next season and for other visitor services.

The park instituted a $5 fee for visitors age 16 and over as a cost-recovery measure after 138,000 people visited the ice caves within a two-month period last year.

WDIO-TV reports the caves attracted 37,800 visitors this year even though they were only accessible for nine days.

GREEN BAY- A storm system spinning to our northeast will continue to influence our weather through Wednesday night.

Expect cloudy skies Tuesday with scattered showers, mainly between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Highs will be near 47 (normal is 57) and winds will be brisk out of the west at 15 to 25 mph gusting to 30 mph.

Wednesday will be much of the same with clouds and rain showers, although it will be even cooler with highs near 44.

JANESVILLE, Wis. (AP) – Crews are working to clean up a train derailment and spill in Janesville.

Police say four train cars slipped off the tracks on the city’s south side Monday about 9 p.m. and spilled a load of corn.

The spill caused some traffic detours, but no one was hurt.

MADISON (AP) – The state Senate is set to take up a Republican bill that would eliminate Wisconsin’s decades-old 48-hour waiting period for handgun purchases.

The waiting period was enacted in the mid-1970s. The bill’s chief sponsor, Sen. Van Wanggaard, a Racine Republican, says the waiting period was meant to allow time for background checks but the checks now can be done far more quickly with computers and law-abiding citizens shouldn’t have to wait for their guns.

Minority Democrats say eliminating the waiting period would allow angry people to get their hands on guns quickly.

The Senate is set to take up the measure during a floor session Tuesday. Approval would send the proposal to the state Assembly. Republican Gov. Scott Walker, a likely 2016 presidential candidate, supports the bill.

The NFL will release its 2015 schedule later Tuesday.

The Green Bay Packers know who they will play and where, just not when.

The team will play the following teams at home: Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, Minnesota Vikings, St. Louis Rams, Seattle Seahawks, Dallas Cowboys, Kansas City Chiefs and San Diego Chargers.

The Pack will play the following teams on the road: Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, Minnesota Vikings, Arizona Cardinals, San Francisco 49ers, Carolina Panthers, Denver Broncos and Oakland Raiders.

The schedule is expected to be released around 7 p.m. Keep an eye on fox11online.com for updates.

GRAND CHUTE – It’s time to start planning your spring and summer.

Bubolz Nature Preserve has upcoming spring events and summer programs to look forward to.

The Survivor challenge will also take place May 15-16. Participants will have to “survive” 23 hours while competing in 12 challenges that will test your skills and knowledge of the outdoors. All of the proceeds will support the Environmental Education programs at the preserve.

FOX 11’s Pauleen Le spent the morning checking out all of the upcoming events.

For more information and a list of the events at Bubolz Nature Preserve, click here.

CHICAGO — Jimmy Butler set a playoff career-high for the second straight game with 31 points, and the Chicago Bulls beat the Milwaukee Bucks 91-82 on Monday night to take a 2-0 lead in their first-round series.

After scoring 25 points in Game 1, Butler trumped that with another terrific performance. He was at his best down the stretch, scoring 14 points in the fourth quarter.

Chicago’s Derrick Rose scored all of his 15 points in the second half after dominating in the series opener.

Pau Gasol added 11 points and 16 rebounds and Mike Dunleavy Jr. scored 12 points as the third-seeded Bulls grabbed a commanding lead in the series.

Game 3 is Thursday at Milwaukee.

Khris Middleton led the sixth-seeded Bucks with 22 points, and Michael Carter-Williams scored 12.