Green Bay News

Finalists chosen for Packers Ticket Takeover contest

Mon, 04/20/2015 - 12:52pm

GREEN BAY – The top five finalists have been chosen to have their fan photo featured on a 2015 Packers home game ticket.

The third annual Packers Ticket Takeover contest narrowed thousands of photo entries down to five.

Now it’s up to fans to decide the winner.

Fans can vote once a day, every day, until May 1.

To see the top five finalists and to vote for your favorite, click here.

The winner of the contest will have their photo printed on a home game ticket and receive 2 tickets to that game.

 

Baldwin’s former state director files ethics complaint

Mon, 04/20/2015 - 12:47pm

MADISON (AP) – A former state director for U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin has filed an ethics complaint against the Wisconsin Democrat saying Baldwin placed blame about problems at a Department of Veterans Affairs medical center on her.

Marquette Baylor, who was fired in January, in the complaint filed Monday said Baldwin used her as a scapegoat in the office’s mishandling of reports of overprescribing of narcotics and retaliatory behavior at the hospital.

Baldwin in February said Baylor was terminated due to long term performance issues that weren’t exclusive to her dealing with concerns about the hospital. Baldwin later admitted responsibility for her staff’s mishandling of reports.

Baldwin didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson also received reports of wrongdoing at the Tomah VA hospital but didn’t immediately respond.

Desisa wins 119th Boston Marathon; Rotich takes women’s race

Mon, 04/20/2015 - 11:28am

BOSTON (AP) – Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia won his second Boston Marathon on Monday, two years after he donated the medal from his first title to the city in the memory of bombing victims.

Kenya’s Carolina Rotich won the women’s race in an unofficial 2 hours, 24 minutes, 55 seconds, outsprinting Mare Dibaba down Boylston Street to win by 4 seconds.

Caroline Rotich, of Kenya, breaks the tape to win the women’s division of the Boston Marathon, Monday, April 20, 2015 in Boston. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

When Desisa won the 2013 race, there wasn’t much time to celebrate. Hours after he crossed the finish line, two bombs exploded on Boylston Street and turned his victory into an afterthought. As the city mourned the three killed and 260 wounded in the explosions, he returned to Boston to donate the medal.

Now Desisa has a Boston title he can enjoy.

He won in an unofficial time of 2:09:17.

Yemane Adhane Tsegay was 31 seconds back, followed by Kenya’s Wilson Chebet. Dathan Ritzenhein of Rockford, Michigan, was the first American, in seventh.

Defending champion Meb Keflezighi of San Diego was one spot behind him a year after he became the first American men’s champion since 1983, galvanizing the city behind him as a symbol of patriotism and resilience.

Two years after the explosions, the race took a tentative step back toward normal.

Rotich pulled away from Ethiopians Dibaba and Buzunesh Deba for her first Boston victory. She finished fourth here in 2011.

American Desiree Linden was fourth Monday.

Republican Dorow to run for state Senate

Mon, 04/20/2015 - 11:25am

MADISON (AP) – A former Waukesha police officer who now helps train current and prospective law enforcement officers is running for the Wisconsin state Senate.

Republican Brian Dorow announced his candidacy on Monday. He joins state Rep. Chris Kapenga, of Delafield, in running to replace Sen. Paul Farrow. He will be vacating his seat this summer after being elected as Waukesha County executive.

Dorow had considered running for county executive but did not. He previously ran for the state Assembly in 2010 but came in second to Kapenga.

Dorow is associate dean at Waukesha County Technical College.

Gov. Scott Walker will have to call a special election once Farrow resigns from his Senate seat.

The Senate district in Waukesha County is heavily Republican. The Senate is currently controlled by Republicans 19-14.

Interactive: Migrant tragedies at sea

Mon, 04/20/2015 - 11:22am

An in-depth look at migrant tragedies at sea, in the wake of a capsized boat off the coast of Libya that left hundreds missing.

EU foreign ministers to meet after latest migrant tragedy

Mon, 04/20/2015 - 11:12am

MILAN (AP) — Rescue crews searched Monday for survivors and bodies from what could be the Mediterranean’s deadliest migrant tragedy ever as hundreds more migrants took to the sea undeterred and European Union leaders said they would hold an emergency summit Thursday to address the crisis.

If reports of at least 700 dead are confirmed, the weekend shipwreck near the Libyan coast would bring to well over 1,000 the number of migrants who have died or disappeared during the perilous Mediterranean crossing in the last week. More than 400 are feared dead in another sinking and more than 10,000 others were rescued.

Libya is a transit point for migrants fleeing conflict, repression and poverty in countries such as Eritrea, Niger, Syria, Iraq and Somalia, and increased instability there and improving weather are prompting more people to attempt the dangerous crossing.

Italian Premier Matteo Renzi said Monday afternoon that Italian and Maltese ships were responding to two more migrant emergencies near the Libyan coast. In a separate incident, at least three people including a child were killed and 93 rescued when a wooden boat carrying dozens of migrants who had departed from Turkey ran aground off the eastern Aegean island of Rhodes. Dramatic video from a local news operation showed migrants clinging to a piece of wreckage and rescuers helping them ashore.

One survivor of the weekend sinking, identified as a 32-year-old Bangladeshi, has put the number of people on board the smugglers’ boat at as many as 950, though Giovanni Salvi, the Italian prosecutor handling the case, said that number should be treated with caution and that the Coast Guard has estimated 700 people were on board.

Salvi said the boat had three levels, with migrants locked in the hull and on the second level. Hundreds more were on the upper deck.

The survivor was flown by helicopter to Catania, in Sicily, where he was interviewed by prosecutors. He was being treated in a hospital.

“He is pretty well now and he is reporting that there were really many, many persons including children on the boat. So it’s confirming the terrible news,” said Carlotta Sami, a U.N. refugee agency spokeswoman.

Both Salvi and international agencies stressed that the information provided to prosecutors still needs to be confirmed.

Also Monday, the International Organization for Migration said its Rome office had received a distress call from international waters in the Mediterranean about three boats in need of help. The group says the caller reported 300 people on his sinking boat, with about 20 fatalities. No details were available about the other boats or their location and it wasn’t clear if any were the boats Renzi mentioned.

Earlier in the day, the Italian coast guard ship Gregoretti brought the bodies of 24 victims from the weekend shipwreck to Malta, where they will be buried.

All were adult men, according to the Maltese Army. Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said that survivors spoke of “haunting experiences.”

The Maltese Army said that items recovered from the site of the tragedy included a diary, which has been passed on to Italian authorities for investigation.

Italian coast guard Capt. Gian Luigi Bove told reporters in Malta his vessel was about 80 kilometers (50 miles) away from the latest shipwreck when the distress call came in early Sunday.

Bove said the Italian vessel arrived at the shipwreck at around 2 a.m. Sunday and found two survivors along with bodies floating in the sea. The survivors were taken on board. He said there was no sign of the smuggler’s boat, an indication that it may have already sunk.

Bove said the survivors were from sub-Saharan Africa and language issues were impeding the investigation.

Renzi told private Italian radio RTL he would ask his EU counterparts on Monday to confront instability in Libya more decisively than in the past, but he ruled out ground troops.

“At this moment to intervene with international forces on the ground is a risk that is absolutely excessive,” Renzi said. “We cannot think about sending tens of thousands of men without a strategy, on a wave of emotion.”

Renzi said he would ask his European counterparts to participate in a joint operation targeting smugglers. He said that Italy has so far arrested nearly 1,000, but needs help.

Renzi met in Washington last week with President Barack Obama, who also pledged to help on Libya.

EU foreign ministers are meeting in Luxembourg Monday focusing on the migration crisis and the role of the conflict in Libya fueling the influx. The EU’s top migration official, Dimitris Avramopoulos, has canceled a trip to the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla to attend.

Fighting in Libya has escalated to its worst levels since the 2011 civil war that ended with the overthrow and killing of longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Rebel groups that fought against him kept their weapons and militias mushroomed in number. The country now has rival governments — the internationally recognized one in the eastern city of Tobruk, and an Islamist-backed one in the capital, Tripoli. The two sides have been negotiating in Morocco to end the fighting.

Malta and Italy are closest to the Libyan coast, and have received the brunt of a migrant tide that carried 219,000 people from Africa to Europe last year. Some 3,500 died or went missing along the way, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said in a statement Sunday.

Mired in economic crisis and a facing a surging anti-foreigner electorate in many nations, there is little appetite across European governments to take in more poor migrants, however desperate their plight.

Czech Foreign Minister Lubomir Zaoralek said sending more ships to rescue migrants could actually make the problem worse.

“If we make the work of traffickers easier and accept refugees that have gone overboard, this will make it an even better business for them,” he said on Czech television. “We need to find a way to prevent people from setting out on such ships.”

___

Elena Becatoros in Athens, Stephen Calleja in Malta, Lorne Cooke in Brussels and Raf Casert in Luxembourg contributed.

6 from Minnesota charged with trying to join Islamic State

Mon, 04/20/2015 - 11:05am

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Six Minnesota men have been charged with terrorism in a criminal complaint unsealed Monday, the latest Westerners accused of traveling or attempting to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State group.

The six, whom authorities described as friends who met secretly to plan their travels, are accused of conspiracy to provide material support and attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. The complaint says the men planned to reach Syria by flying to nearby countries from Minneapolis, San Diego or New York City, and lied to federal investigators when they were stopped.

Charged are Mohamed Abdihamid Farah, 21; Adnan Abdihamid Farah, 19; Abdurahman Yasin Daud, 21; Zacharia Yusuf Abdurahman, 19; Hanad Mustafe Musse, 19; and Guled Ali Omar, 20.

“These were focused men who were intent on joining a terrorist organization,” Minnesota U.S. Attorney Andy Luger said at a news conference Monday.

The six were arrested Sunday in Minneapolis and San Diego and are scheduled to make initial appearances in federal court on Monday.

They are the latest people from Minnesota to be charged in an investigation stretching back months into the recruitment of Westerners by IS. Authorities said earlier that a handful of Minnesota residents have traveled to Syria to fight with militants in the past year, and at least one has died.

Three of those charged in the newest complaint — Mohamed Farah, Abdurahman and Musse — were stopped at a New York City airport in November along with 19-year-old Hamza Ahmed, but they were not charged until now.

Ahmed was indicted on charges of lying to the FBI during a terrorism investigation, conspiring to provide material support to IS, and attempting to provide material support. He has pleaded not guilty.

Despite being stopped already, Luger said, the three others continued to try to get to Syria to join IS “by any means possible.”

The complaint describes several interactions some of the men had with Abdi Nur, a Minnesota man charged previously with conspiracy to provide support to a terror organization. The complaint says Nur, “from his locale in Syria, recruits individuals and provides assistance to those who want to leave Minnesota to fight abroad.”

The complaint relies in part on material from a confidential informant who had himself conspired to join IS before he changed his mind and went to authorities. Some of the informant’s conversations with the six men were recorded.

The Minneapolis area is home to the largest concentration of Somali immigrants in the U.S. Since 2007, more than 22 young Somali men have also traveled from Minnesota to Somalia to join the militant group al-Shabab.

Omar’s older brother, Ahmed Ali Omar, was among those who joined al-Shabab, leaving Minnesota in December 2007, according to the complaint. Ahmed Omar remains a fugitive. It also said when agents went to the younger Omar’s house after he was stopped in San Diego in November, another brother, Mohamed Ali Omar, threatened them.

Father killed in crash on the way to birth of 8th child

Mon, 04/20/2015 - 11:00am

MILWAUKEE (AP) – A father driving his pregnant wife and children to the hospital for the birth of the couple’s eighth child died when a deer struck the family’s van in central Wisconsin.

Sheriff’s officials in Marathon County say a vehicle struck a deer on Highway 97 in the Town of Cleveland early Friday and threw the animal into the windshield of a van driven by 42-year-old Michael Rogan. Sheriff’s Lt. Ted Knoeck says Rogan died at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Marshfield.

Rogan’s wife, Niki, and seven children suffered minor injuries in the crash and were taken to the same hospital. Niki Rogan gave birth to a boy hours later.

Longtime friends of the couple, Dominic and Cecilia Gruetzmacher, say Niki Rogan homeschools her children, ranging in age from the newborn to 15 years old.

Clear post-ice Lake Michigan shows off submerged shipwrecks

Mon, 04/20/2015 - 10:55am

LELAND, Mich. (AP) — The clear blue, post-winter waters of northern Lake Michigan have disclosed some of their hidden history to a U.S. Coast Guard crew, which took a series of photographs of shipwrecks lying on the lake bottom in the waters off the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

The Grand Rapids Press reports that the Traverse City-based helicopter was a on a routine patrol when the crew spotted the wrecks and got pictures of them.

The shallow waters of the lake off the Leelanau Peninsula near Leland are the site of many 19th and early 20th century shipwrecks. The area is known as the Manitou Passage, between the mainland of the northwestern Lower Peninsula and North and South Manitou Islands.

The Coast Guard crew posted six photos of the shipwrecks on its Facebook page. They were taken on Friday.

Among the wrecks that the crew photographs include the Rising Sun, which foundered in 1917.

“This 133 foot long wooden steamer stranded just north of Pyramid Point,” the Coast Guard said. “She went to pieces and her wreckage now rests in 6 to 12 feet of water.”

Another was the James McBride, a 121-foot brig that ran around in 1857.

“Her remains lie in 5 to 15 feet of water near Sleeping Bear Point,” the Coast Guard said. “The McBride encountered a gale and was driven ashore near Sleeping Bear Dune.”

The U.S Park Service, which manages the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, announced last month that the wreckage of the Jennie & Annie was now visible again on the beach halfway between North and South Bar lakes. The schooner grounded off Empire in 1872. The shipwreck is visible every few years.

Factors that include beach erosion, wind, waves and variable lake levels mean that various wreck fragments periodically become visible along the dunes shoreline.

The wrecks are considered public property and cannot legally be disturbed.

ESPN expresses concern about Verizon’s new TV packages

Mon, 04/20/2015 - 10:39am

NEW YORK (AP) — ESPN is expressing concern that new television packages being offered by Verizon do not comply with its existing agreements.

Verizon launched FiOS Custom TV on Sunday. The base package, which costs about $55, has more than 35 channels — such as AMC, CNN and Food Network — plus two additional themed channel packs. The offer does not include internet service.

But the base package of 35 channels does not include ESPN or ESPN2. Those channels are available through a sports themed channel pack.

ESPN says “our contracts clearly provide that neither ESPN nor ESPN2 may be distributed in a separate sports package.”

FiOS Custom TV currently has seven channel packs to choose from. Aside from sports, there are genres such as children and lifestyle.

Customers can add more channel packs – which include about 10-17 channels on average – for $10 each. They may also swap out channel packs after 30 days.

Other packages include Double Play, which has TV and Internet, and Triple Play, which includes TV, Internet and phone service. Double Play packages range from about $65 to $85 a month. Triple Play is priced between about $75 and $95 a month.

ESPN said in a statement that Verizon’s new packages “would not be authorized by our existing agreements.”

ESPN is owned by The Walt Disney Co.

Verizon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Disney’s stock gained $1.19 to $107.88 in Monday morning trading. Verizon shares rose 22 cents to $49.12.

Man charged in fight over whether Jordan or LeBron is better

Mon, 04/20/2015 - 10:07am

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — Police say an argument over whether Michael Jordan or LeBron James is a better basketball player ended in a Pennsylvania man’s arrest on aggravated assault and other charges.

The Centre Daily Times reports that 22-year-old Daniel Mondelice was first arrested early Saturday after fighting with another man over whether Air Jordan or King James reigns supreme.

He was released on bond and told not to return to the apartment. But police were called again Saturday night when Mondelice became argumentative and refused to leave.

Online court records show Mondelice remained jailed Monday and was unable to post bail. A defense attorney wasn’t listed.

It wasn’t clear whether Mondelice was on the side of the Chicago Bulls Hall of Famer or the Cleveland Cavaliers superstar.

Chemistry Ph.D. student illustrates her thesis in comic book

Mon, 04/20/2015 - 10:03am

MADISON (AP) — Late last spring, a doctoral student worked late into the night. As she doodled, her chemistry thesis took on a life of its own, transforming into a comic book.

Veronica Berns, 28, was working on her Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Berns said she long struggled to explain her work to her parents and friends. The self-described comic book fan said she began drafting her thesis on quasicrystals — a subset of crystals that diverge from the usual structural characteristics of crystals. Berns quickly concluded that she would be best able to describe the oddball compounds with illustrations.

“They’re not very well-polished illustrations. That’s on purpose,” Berns said. “I wanted it to be like I’m explaining on the back of an envelope.”

And on many occasions, it was on the back of an envelope or on a napkin that she doodled sketches of the chemical bonds to better show her parents what she was working on in the lab. Jody Berns, Veronica’s mother, said their family has a history of doodling and has shared comics for years.

Berns surprised her family with her comic book “Atomic Size Matters” at her graduation last year. The book depicts cartoons of Berns wearing various costumes and uses humor as well as simple comparisons to describe elaborate chemistry.

“We’re just really proud that she can take something so complex and put it into a fun visual explanation that everyone can enjoy,” Jody Berns said.

Veronica Berns’ professor Danny Fredrickson said Berns was the first of his students to construct her thesis in an artistic way. He said often it is difficult for scientists to explain what they do with proper context.

“If it’s worth doing, we should be able to explain it,” Fredrickson said.

And he said Berns managed to accomplish that.

Berns said he hopes other scientists will find ways to illustrate what they’re doing in the lab. She now lives in Chicago and works as a chemist. Berns also writes a blog in which she uses comics to explain the work of Nobel Prize winning scientists.

Berns started a Kickstarter fundraising campaign to finance printing a small batch of the books. She said she wanted to raise $5,965 to cover the costs of professional printing. The website says she has raised more than $14,000.

New evidence gets tested in 1982 killing of Edgerton woman

Mon, 04/20/2015 - 9:56am

MADISON (AP) – Detectives in Dane County are hopeful that new evidence in a 32-year-old homicide case will help them finally solve it.

In August 1982, Barbara Nelson, 34, was found dead in a cornfield three miles from Elkhorn five days after she was abducted from the Mini Stop and Shop in Albion. Nelson, who was married and had a 3-year-old daughter, had been shot twice and her face and head were badly beaten.

The Janesville Gazette reports evidence in the case was recently sent to a lab for examination. Dane County Sheriff’s Office Detective Coy Bethel said new DNA techniques could bring more details to light.

Coy hopes to get results back in a few months, but did not say what’s being tested. It’s evidence that couldn’t be tested before, he said.

“Right now we are really hopeful that there are DNA results, more hopeful than we sometimes have been,” he said

Bethel said authorities have persons of interest in Nelson’s death. A suspect has never been named publicly.

“We’re pursuing leads that it was somebody local,” Bethel said.

Authorities say people likely spotted Nelson several times as well as two men who had abducted her. Sketches of the men and an old green or blue pickup were made.

A teacher driving home possibly saw Nelson and her abductors the day after she went missing, the newspaper says. The teacher saw a pickup stopped along a road east of Elkhorn and a person get pushed into its cab. One man got in the driver seat and another person climbed into the truck.

Tomah teen critically injured in jump from moving van

Mon, 04/20/2015 - 9:54am

TOMAH (AP) – Monroe County sheriff’s officials say a teenage girl suffered critical injuries when she jumped from a moving van.

Authorities say the 16-year-old opened the van door on county Highway A in the town of Wilton Sunday afternoon and jumped.

Sheriff Scott Perkins tells WKBT-TV the driver of the van tried to help the girl until first responders arrived. She was airlifted to Gundersen Health System.

Cheryl gets a Monday Morning Makeover

Mon, 04/20/2015 - 9:15am

Appleton-Cheryl is the latest person to get a Monday Morning Makeover.

Salon CTI in Appleton gave Cheryl her new look.

Click on the video above to check out her transformation.

High court rejects Wisconsin appeal over tribal night hunts

Mon, 04/20/2015 - 8:58am

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal from Wisconsin officials who want to keep in place a decades-old ruling that bars Chippewa tribes from hunting deer at night.

The justices did not comment on their decision to let stand an appeals court ruling that orders a federal judge to reconsider the ban.

The Chippewa have pushed for years for a night hunt in northern Wisconsin in large swath of the state that the tribes handed over to the federal government in the 19th century. U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled in 1991 that night hunting was too dangerous.

Last year, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered her to re-open that ruling, noting that that Oregon, Washington, Minnesota and Michigan allow tribal night hunts. The appeals court said the deer hunting has grown much safer over the past 20 years and said hunting at night was not likely to pose serious safety problems.

The Chippewa renewed their push for night hunting in 2012 after state lawmakers angered the tribes by allowing hunters to kill wolves at night. The Chippewa consider the wolf a spiritual brother. The wolf-hunting program ended after one season.

The tribes also pointed out that the state Department of Natural Resources had begun to allow night deer hunting to slow chronic wasting disease, protect crops from deer depredation and prevent car-deer accidents.

But Crabb ruled that the tribes failed to show that circumstances had changed enough to reopen her 1991 decision.

High speed chase in Waupaca County

Mon, 04/20/2015 - 7:37am

WAUPACA COUNTY- A driver is facing several charges after a high speed chase in Waupaca County.

Officials say it happened around 8:30 a.m. Sunday in the Town of Little Wolf.

A call came into dispatch about a person driving all over Highway 22. The caller said a passenger came out of the passenger side window and sat on the door while the vehicle was going about 70 mph.

Officials say once a deputy got behind the vehicle, the person took off, reaching speeds of more than 110 mph.

The suspect ended up in a ditch and hit a stop sign.

The driver was taken into custody and faces several charges, including OWI, recklessly endangering safety and fleeing an officer.

We don’t know if the passenger is facing any charges.

Son of Wausaukee shooting victim granted prison leave for funeral

Mon, 04/20/2015 - 6:25am

PRAIRIE DU CHIEN, Wis. (AP) – Wisconsin corrections officials made a rare exception for a medium-security prison inmate who was granted temporary leave for his father’s funeral.

Department of Corrections’ policy allows for such a leave only for minimum-security prisoners. In this case, the father of the inmate, Thomas Christ was fatally shot near Wausaukee by a bank robbery who later killed state Trooper Trevor Casper and then committed suicide.

Corrections spokeswoman Joy Staab tells the State Journal that Timothy Christ has a record of “absolute compliance” during his time at Prairie du Chien Correctional Institution. Staab says the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the death of Christ’s father also played a role in his temporary release March 31st. The 31-year-old Christ is serving a 21-year sentence for four felonies, including homicide by intoxicated use of a vehicle.

A small victory for fliers: summer domestic fares fall $2.01

Mon, 04/20/2015 - 5:43am

After years of steadily-rising airfare, travelers this summer can expect a tiny bit of relief – $2.01 in savings to be exact.

The average roundtrip domestic ticket this summer, including taxes, now stands at $454, down less than a percent from last summer. Vacationers to Europe will fare better with the average ticket down 3 percent to $1,619, about $50 less than last summer.

Not all travelers will get to save.

Flights to Hawaii, Florida and New Orleans are cheaper, but travelers heading to New York, Denver and San Francisco can expect to pay more.

Even in Europe, it depends on the destination. Overall fares are down but it will cost more this summer to fly to cities like Amsterdam; London; Budapest, Hungary; Lisbon, Portugal; Frankfurt, Germany or Reykjavik, Iceland.

Prices are coming down because airlines are now saving billions of dollars thanks to lower fuel prices and because more seats have been crammed into planes, spreading out costs over more passengers. European economic troubles are also keeping some seats empty as business travelers stay home.

The generally good news about fares comes in a report released Monday by the Airlines Reporting Corp., which processes ticket transactions for airlines and travel agencies such as Expedia, American Express and Carlson Wagonlit. The study looks at 4.1 million tickets purchased before March 31 this year and last year for travel between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

Airfare during the first three months of this year was also lower, down 3.7 percent domestically and 8.9 percent internationally.

Even with the moderate relief this summer, prices are still higher than just a few years ago. The average domestic roundtrip ticket is still $13, or 3 percent, higher than it was in 2012. European trips are $60, or 3.9 percent, more expensive.

Travelers can thank lower oil prices and more seats on planes for keeping this summer’s airfare in check.

Airlines at the start of the year paid $2.13 for each gallon of jet fuel, down 30 percent from last year’s $3.03, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. With U.S. airlines burning through 42 million gallons of fuel a day, that 90-cent savings adds up quickly: $14.7 billion for the entire year if prices remain at these levels.

Travelers are only seeing a sliver of those savings. The rest of the money is being used to upgrade airplanes and airports, pay employee bonuses and reward shareholders as airlines continue to post record profits.

European economic woes are also keeping some business travelers home, helping lower fares for vacationers. Fares are down to airports in Spain, Italy and France. However, cities in Germany and England, whose economies are stronger, are still higher this summer compared to last year.

Part of the savings is also linked to airlines adding extra seats on certain routes.

One of the best bargains to Europe right now is between New York and Milan, Italy. That’s because four airlines fly that traditional business route nonstop each day including Dubai-based Emirates Airline. Starting in June, Emirates will fly the world’s largest jet, the Airbus A380, carrying 489 people between the two cities. That’s 129 more passengers a day than it currently carries, helping to bring down prices.

The same situation is true for Hawaii.

There are 5 percent more seats between Hawaii and the rest of the country this summer, compared to last. That’s helping to lower ticket prices to most airports there by about 10 percent.

Spring classes at Brown County UW-Extension

Mon, 04/20/2015 - 5:39am

GREEN BAY – The Brown County UW-Extension has some upcoming classes to get people exciting about spring planting and eating healthy.

Asparagus Fest takes place April 25. Visitors will have an opportunity to learn different ways to learn how to prepare Asparagus and the health benefits from the vegetable.

There will also be a class on sustainable lawn care held on April 29.

FOX 11’s Pauleen Le spent the morning checking out the classes.

For more information and a list of upcoming classes, click here.

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