Green Bay News

Bay Port pitcher Bailey Smaney talks about her team’s 8-0 win over Ashwaubenon on Thursday.

GREEN BAY – A rally of mobile culinary proportions took place in Green Bay Friday afternoon as a part of the statewide Young Professionals week.

Nine vendors, including six food vendors, trucks and musicians filled the parking lot of the Neville Public Museum, serving up various types of fare.

The event is one of the last this week, organized by the Green Bay Chamber of Commerce, to promote activities for Young Professionals and the community alike.

“Saw it on Facebook and a bunch of us at work – we figured – what better way on a Friday to come out and to enjoy a beautiful day and get out of the office for a little bit?” said UW-Green Bay employee, Jason Mathwig.

Brian Johnson from the Green Bay Chamber, said “We initially thought, let’s get a couple trucks and a few friends, and it quickly spread – virally – through Facebook and other outlets and here we are, several thousand people, if not more.”

Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt says he is looking into making the food truck rally a weekly Friday event this summer.

Information on arrested police on firearms-related charges across the country, with conviction rates, injury and death totals and other data.

MADISON (AP) – Republicans on the Legislature’s finance committee have tacked provisions onto Gov. Scott Walker’s budget that would call for state officials to deduct the costs of replacing lost food stamp cards from their holders’ accounts.

According to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the state replaced about 130,000 lost or stolen cards between March 2014 and February. Each card costs about $3.50 to replace. The bureau estimates that the committee’s move would reduce the costs for replacement cards by about $455,000 annually.

The committee approved the move on a 12-4 vote. All four Democrats on the panel voted against it but didn’t voice any arguments.

CHICAGO (AP) – Cardinal Francis George, a vigorous defender of Roman Catholic orthodoxy who led the U.S. bishops’ fight against Obamacare and played a key role in the church’s response to the clergy sex abuse scandal, has died. He was 78.

George, who retired as Chicago archbishop in the fall of 2014, died Friday morning after a long fight with cancer, according to the Archdiocese of Chicago. He announced in December 2014 that doctors had determined their treatment for the cancer found on his kidney had failed.

“Let us heed his example and be a little more brave, a little more steadfast and a lot more loving. This is the surest way to honor his life and celebrate his return to the presence of God,” Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich said during a news conference, describing his predecessor as “a man of great courage.”

Appointed to Chicago in 1997 by Pope John Paul II, George became a leading figure of his era in many of the most important events in the American church.

He oversaw the contentious new English-language translation of the Roman Missal, one of the biggest changes in Catholic worship in generations. In 2002, at the height of the abuse crisis, he led a group of U.S. bishops who persuaded resistant Vatican officials they should more quickly oust guilty priests – a policy at the core of reforms meant to restore trust in church leaders.

And in his three years as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, George spearheaded opposition to the Affordable Care Act, arguing President Barack Obama’s health insurance plan would use taxpayer money for funding abortion. In 2012, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago joined dozens of dioceses and Catholic nonprofits in suing the Obama administration over the requirement that employers provide health insurance that covers contraception.

“I don’t believe the bishops have been more politically active in recent years, but it is true that our political activity is more adversarial as the law no longer permits the exceptions that used to safeguard believers whose conscience will not permit them to approve of what has become lawful,” George told the Jesuit magazine America, in an October 2014 interview.

The first Chicago native to become the city’s archbishop, George grew up in a working class neighborhood on Chicago’s northwest side. A five-month bout with polio at age 13 left him with a lifelong limp. He was initially rejected from a high school seminary because he was disabled, but went on to become an intellectual leader within the church.

He earned two doctorates, spoke Italian, Spanish, French and other languages, and wrote several books. A member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, he eventually helped lead the religious order as vicar general based in Rome. In 1990, he was appointed Bishop of Yakima, Wash., then archbishop of Portland, Ore., before being assigned to Chicago.

George’s appointment to the Archdiocese of Chicago, the third-largest diocese in the U.S. with 2.2 million parishioners, underscored the shift under John Paul toward upholding orthodoxy and drawing a more definitive line about what could be considered truly Catholic.

George had succeeded Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, a beloved figure of national standing who advocated a “seamless garment” of life that gave equal weight to social justice teachings and opposition to abortion. By contrast, George prioritized upholding doctrine and preserving tradition, leading disgruntled priests to at first dub him “Francis the Corrector.” George declared liberal Catholicism an “exhausted project,” arguing it failed to pass on “the faith in its integrity” on marriage, the priesthood and other issues. “It no longer gives life,” George wrote in 2004, in the Catholic magazine Commonweal. He said fighting abortion should be the primary concern of all Catholics.

In September 2014, the pendulum seemed to swing back when Pope Francis appointed Cupich as George’s successor. Cupich has a record of taking a less confrontational approach on divisive social issues and works to build ties with those who disagree with church teaching. In George’s brief time leading the archdiocese during Francis’ pontificate, the cardinal said he struggled to understand the new pope’s approach, calling the pontiff’s messages “a bit jumbled at times.”

“I’m sure he’s not confused himself. It’s confusing for a lot of people including myself at times. For someone who appreciates clarity, I would like to get a few things clear so I can cooperate,” George said in an October 2014 interview with The Chicago Tribune.

As cardinal, George could be startling blunt when he believed the church was under threat. When a proposed route meant the Chicago Gay Pride Parade would pass a parish around Sunday Mass, George warned the procession could “morph into the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism.” He later apologized. Addressing what he considered increasing hostility toward Christianity, he said, “I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square.” He later said he was not making a prediction, but describing a worst-case scenario in a commentary that concluded the church would survive despite these travails.

“I don’t want to hurt anybody,” George told the Tribune. “But if you say, ‘Unless you agree with me I’ll be hurt,’ well, that’s not a just demand.”

Despite his leadership in confronting clergy sex abuse, George faced a 2006 crisis over his own actions, when the Rev. Daniel McCormack, a local priest, was left in a parish for several months despite abuse allegations against him. McCormack eventually pleaded guilty to molesting five children. George apologized for not acting sooner. Thousands of documents released toward the end of George’s tenure as part of a settlement with victims revealed the cardinal went against his advisers in one case to delay removing an accused priest, and tried to win early release from a Wisconsin prison for a priest convicted of molesting a child, although the cardinal later reversed his stand to the parole board.

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Rachel Zoll reported from New York. Associated Press writers Jason Keyser and Tammy Webber contributed to this report from Chicago.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Google is about to change the way its influential search engine recommends websites on smartphones in a shift that’s expected to sway where millions of people shop, eat and find information.

The revised formula, scheduled to be released Tuesday, will favor websites that Google defines as “mobile-friendly.” Websites that don’t fit the description will be demoted in Google’s search results on smartphones while those meeting the criteria will be more likely to appear at the top of the rankings – a prized position that can translate into more visitors and money.

Although Google’s new formula won’t affect searches on desktop and laptop computers, it will have a huge influence on how and where people spend their money, given that more people are relying on their smartphones to compare products in stores and look for restaurants. That’s why Google’s new rating system is being billed by some search experts as “Mobile-geddon.”

“Some sites are going to be in for a big surprise when they find a drastic change in the amount of people visiting them from mobile devices,” said Itai Sadan, CEO of website-building service Duda.

It’s probably the most significant change that Google Inc. has ever made to its mobile search rankings, according to Matt McGee, editor-in-chief for Search Engine Land, a trade publication that follows every tweak that the company makes to its closely guarded algorithms.

Here are a few things to know about what’s happening and why Google is doing it.

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MAKING MOBILE FRIENDS

To stay in Google’s good graces, websites must be designed so they load quickly on mobile devices. Content must also be easily accessible by scrolling up and down – without having to also swipe to the left or right. It also helps if all buttons for making purchases or taking other actions on the website can be easily seen and touched on smaller screens.

If a website has been designed only with PC users in mind, the graphics take longer to load on smartphones and the columns of text don’t all fit on the smaller screens, to the aggravation of someone trying to read it.

Google has been urging websites to cater to mobile device for years, mainly because that is where people are increasingly searching for information.

The number of mobile searches in the U.S. is rising by about 5 percent while inquiries on PCs are dipping slightly, according to research firm comScore Inc. In the final three months of last year, 29 percent of all U.S. search requests – about 18.5 billion – were made on mobile devices, comScore estimated. Google processes the bulk of searches – two-thirds in the U.S. and even more in many other countries.

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BRACING FOR CHANGE

To minimize complaints, the company disclosed its plans nearly two months ago. It also created a step-by-step guide (http://bit.ly/1GyC0Id ) and a tool to test compliance with the new standards (http://bit.ly/1EVi9R3 ).

Google has faced uproar over past changes to its search formula. Two of the bigger revisions, done in 2011 and 2012, focused on an attempt to weed out misleading websites and other digital rubbish. Although that goal sounds reasonable, many websites still complained that Google’s changes unfairly demoted them in the rankings, making their content more difficult to find.

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STILL CAUGHT OFF GUARD

While most major merchants and big companies already have websites likely to meet Google’s mobile standard, the new formula threatens to hurt millions of small businesses that haven’t had the money or incentive to adapt their sites for smartphones.

“A lot of small sites haven’t really had a reason to be mobile friendly until now, and it’s not going to be easy for them to make the changes,” McGee said.

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BURYING HELPFUL CONTENT

Google’s search formula weighs a variety of factors to determine the rankings of its results. One of the most important considerations has always been whether a site contains the most pertinent information sought by a search request.

But new pecking order in Google’s mobile search may relegate some sites to the back pages of the search results, even if their content is more relevant to a search request than other sites that happen to be easier to access on smartphones.

That will be an unfortunate consequence, but also justifiable because a person might not even bother to look at sites that take a long time to open or difficult to read on mobile devices, Gartner analyst Whit Andrews said.

“Availability is part of relevancy,” Andrews said. “A lot of people aren’t going to think something is relevant if they can’t get it to appear on their iPhone.”

MADISON (AP) – The Legislature’s budget committee has approved provisions in Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s budget that would phase out a 112-year-old program that provides local governments with property insurance.

Local governments pay into a fund that covers property losses. The governor’s administration contends governments can obtain insurance from private companies. Walker’s budget prohibits the fund from issuing any new policies beginning July 1 and prohibits any existing policy from being renewed after Dec. 31.

The Joint Finance Committee voted unanimously to approve the provisions Friday. They delayed the fund’s end by two years, however, setting Jan. 1, 2018, as the last day for renewing existing policies and July 1, 2019, as the last date for filing claims.

Minority Democrats on the committee warned that cash-strapped schools won’t be able to obtain insurance.

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. (AP) — An upstate New York woman has taken on the post-winter pothole problem in her hometown by filling in the eyesores with pansies.

Elaine Santore fills a pothole in the middle of North Center St. with pansies in Schenectady, N.Y, on April 13, 2015. Santore decided to take it to another step by dumping dirt and pansies into potholes located on two streets. She decided to plant the flowers to make a statement about the problem and to make people smile after what she called “a horrible winter.” (Marc M. Schultz/The Daily Gazette via AP)

After months of severe weather left the streets of Schenectady pocked with pavement craters and city public works crews scrambling to fix them, some residents began filling in the holes themselves.

Elaine Santore decided to take it a step further by dumping dirt and pansies into potholes on two streets. She told The Daily Gazette of Schenectady that she decided to plant the flowers to make a statement about the problem and to make people smile after what she called “a horrible winter.”

Of the 10 holes she filled with flowers over three days starting Monday, Santore told The Associated Press on Friday that she believed all have now been fixed by city crews. When she drove past on her way to work, most of the holes had been patched over with blacktop, she said.

“I knew something would happen to them,” she said. “Either people would take the flowers or they would be filled in.”

Santore, the director of a local not-for-profit organization that helps retirees remain in their homes, said she wanted to do something different to address her city’s annual pothole problem, one that has been particularly widespread thanks to a harsh winter.

“The winter was so hard on everybody and so depressing,” she said. “I wanted to do something creative to solve a problem we have every year and bring a smile to people’s faces.”

 

Get the latest news and current location of operations in the Fox River Cleanup project.

FAIRDALE, IL – Survivors are starting their road to recovery after last week’s tornado in Illinois.

That tornado killed two people.

Families are planning out what they’ll need during their recovery process. Organizations on site include the Secretary of State’s Office, issuing new ID’s and other legal documents lost in the tornado.

And the Red Cross is now helping residents file any paperwork they may need in the process.

Charlotte Hazel, from the Red Cross, said, “They leave with free financial opportunities, free gift cards or debit cards, their information about building permits.”

Comfort dogs are also on hand, to help provide some relief during the stressful process.

GREEN BAY – Wisconsin Public Service is asking for permission to raise electric and natural gas rates.

The utility has filed a request with the state Public Service Commission to raise the rates for 2016. WPS says, if approved, an average residential gas bill would go up $1.54 a month, and an average residential electric bill would go up $7.62 a month.

• The utility says the cost of producing and distributing electricity have gone up because of:
• Construction costs of a new emissions control project at a plant near Wausau
• The cost to move electricity from place to place
• The cost of converting overhead electric lines to underground, increasing reliability in places which typically see wind and storm damage
• Upgrades to the Fox Energy Center near Wrightstown
• The costs of improving customer-service processes
• Inflation

WPS says the costs of distributing natural gas have gone up because of:

• The end of a pilot program that aimed to keep natural gas rates stable during winters of varying temperatures
• Increased operating and maintenance costs

WPS says the electric rate increase request – about 9.4 percent – would be its first increase of more than 3 percent in eight years. It is likely the final rates will not increase as much as the initial request, the utility says.

Green Bay-based WPS serves more than 445,000 electric customers and 323,000 natural gas customers in Northeast Wisconsin and Upper Michigan.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — California health authorities declared an end Friday to a large measles outbreak in the U.S. that started at Disneyland and triggered a broader debate about vaccinations.

Disease detectives for months raced to contain the highly contagious disease, which surfaced at Disney theme parks in December and spread to a half-dozen U.S. states, Mexico and Canada.

The outbreak sickened 147 people in the U.S., including 131 in California. There were no deaths.

Officials at the California Department of Public Health said no new infections have been reported for the past 42 days — or two incubation periods — meaning the outbreak is over in the U.S.

But it is still active in the Canadian province of Quebec, where 159 people were sickened. Most belong to a tight-knit religious community with a low vaccination rate.

Many who fell ill in the Disneyland episode were not immunized against measles. Some cited personal reasons for refusing shots, and others were too young to get the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine.

Doctors said the outbreak could have been worse if it weren’t for the aggressive public health response, which included tracking down people potentially exposed to measles-stricken patients and isolating them until they were no longer contagious.

“It’s a lot of work, and it’s very expensive,” said Dr. James Cherry, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who had no role in the measles investigation.

While the Disneyland measles outbreak has ended, there are other measles cases circulating around the U.S.

Public health officials don’t know who sparked the Disneyland outbreak but believe it was someone who caught the virus overseas and visited Disneyland while contagious.

 

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) – ESPN suspended reporter Britt McHenry on Thursday after a video surfaced of her insulting a towing company clerk’s intelligence, job and appearance.

ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz said in a statement that McHenry has been suspended for a week.

McHenry, a Washington-based reporter for the sports network since March 2014, turned to Twitter to apologize

In an intense and stressful moment, I allowed my emotions to get the best of me and said some insulting and (cont) http://t.co/Wx37XF2QtM

— Britt McHenry (@BrittMcHenry) April 16, 2015

The Associated Press attempted to contact the towing company, but calls were picked up and abruptly disconnected.

In a Twitter exchange with ARLnow.com earlier this month, McHenry said her vehicle was towed from the lot in front of the Arlington restaurant where she ate dinner.

The edited video posted this week to video sharing site LiveLeak claims to show McHenry berating the clerk on April 5 with gems like: “Maybe if I was missing some teeth, they would hire me, huh?”

McHenry tells the woman she is “in the news” and will sue the company. At one point a woman off-screen warns McHenry she is being recorded. McHenry then looks up wide-eyed into the camera, before the video cuts to another insult in which McHenry disparages the clerk’s education and weight.

TOWN OF MUKWA – The Spring spawning run continues along the Wolf River in Shiocton.

There was plenty of sturgeon activity Friday morning at Bamboo Bend.

Fish could be seen along the river banks, and D.N.R. crews were processing fish as well.

But what does it take to manage these prehistoric giants?

Some of the sturgeon can live 100 years or more, making it a challenge to track the progress of the species over the years.

But the D.N.R. is countering with experience of its own, with three biologists with almost a century of sturgeon sense under their belts.

On the shores of the Wolf River near New London, crews are netting and tagging as many sturgeon as they can.

“We’re seeing more and more bigger males almost every year. It seems they’re getting older and older,” said Ron Bruch, Retired D.N.R. Sturgeon Biologist.

Bruch was the sturgeon biologist for 30 years.

“I get real twitchy this time of year. Because it’s April and the sturgeon are running up the river. I can never get it out of my blood. I was taught by this big fellow sitting back there, Dan Folz, who was my predecessor. He can’t get it out of his blood either,” said Bruch.

“I tagged my first fish in 1959,” said Dan Folz, Retired D.N.R. Sturgeon Biologist.

At 80 years young, Folz is considered a pioneer in sturgeon management.

“The population is actually much better now. It’s increased eons over what we had years ago,” said Folz.

Folz passed down his experience to Bruch, and then to Ryan Koenigs, eight years ago.

“We have a very close relationship. We jokingly have our sturgeon family. Where Dan is my grandfather, and Ron is my father. Ron is my mentor, and he is really like a second father to me,” said Ryan Koenigs, D.N.R. Sturgeon Biologist.

And like many families, a discussion over which gloves work best can become spirited.

“If you had canvas gloves on, you wouldn’t be slipping like that. Ron doesn’t have any problem,” said Folz.

“Because he’s not doing anything,” said Koenigs.

Kidding aside, the sturgeon are tagged and tracked for a lifetime. But the fish can live to be a century or more.

Bruch says that longevity suits this crew just fine.

“90 years experience working sturgeon between the three of us,” he said.

“I’ll probably spend my whole career, the next 20-30 years benefiting from the work that Ron and Dan did before me,” said Koenigs.

The three will probably finish this season’s work in a week or so.

The next time they may all be together is next February for spearing season.

MADISON (AP) – The leaders of the Legislature’s budget committee decided Friday not to consider approving language in Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s budget that would eliminate a 71-year-old state board that regulates for-profit colleges and investigates student complaints.

The proposed budget would get rid of the Educational Approval Board. A new Department of Financial Institutions and Professional Standards would authorize for-profits only if they need such approval to collect federal aid and state consumer protection officials would field complaints.

Walker’s administration says eliminating the board would reduce the financial and regulatory burden on for-profit schools. Critics contend that the move would create a free-for-all that would ultimately hurt students.

“This puts the credibility of all schools at the mercy of the fly-by-night, or profit-first schools,” Jerry Kablacka, president of the Diesel Truck Driver Training School in Sun Prairie, said in a March letter to state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau. “Transferring duties that are performed by EAB to a bureaucracy unfamiliar with the business of proprietary schools will do nothing but increase costs to taxpayers and dilutes accountability.”

The Legislature’s Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee was scheduled Friday to approve the proposal, revise it or remove it from budget. Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, one of the committee’s co-chairs, mentioned quickly to reporters as the committee’s pre-session news conference wrapped up that the panel wouldn’t address the language. He said the issue may be better addressed through a stand-alone Republican bill that’s moving through the Assembly right now. He didn’t elaborate as he hurried to the hearing room to start the day’s session.

If the committee does nothing with the elimination language it will stay in the budget. Nygren aide Caroline Krause said in an email that the committee will take up the language “at a later date.”

For-profit colleges offer training in areas such as auto repair and nursing and have been popular with nontraditional students. However, the industry has some of the highest student loan default rates and lowest graduation rates in higher education, and some veterans advocates say the schools aggressively recruit veterans in hopes of getting their federal G.I. Bill money. The Obama administration has fought for years to improve outcomes and end aggressive recruiting at the colleges.

For-profit colleges contend that they provide opportunities to students who have been left out of higher education.

Created in 1944, the seven-member Educational Approval Board approves and oversees for-profit colleges in Wisconsin as well as out-of-state nonprofit colleges operating here. It currently oversees 252 institutions, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

The board charges initial approval fees ranging from $2,000 for one non-degree program to $5,100 dollars for one doctoral program. Annual renewal costs $500 plus a second payment of $1.31 per each $1,000 of revenue in 2014-15.

The board also issues permits for college recruiters who work off the school’s premises, investigates student complaints, mandates schools have admissions, dismissal, tuition policies and program outlines and maintains a fund built with fees collected from schools to help students following a school’s unexpected closure or refusal to issue a refund. Schools pay 50 cents per $1,000 of their adjusted gross annual revenue if the fund drops below $1 million. The account currently stands at $1.4 million; the fund has paid out $383,900 since August as a result of the closure of Anthem College in Brookfield.

The board’s director, David Dies, said the budget language perplexes him and that he doesn’t understand the Walker administration’s argument that the board imposes a financial burden on schools, noting that for every $1,000 of revenue Wisconsin students give the schools the board takes only about $1.70.

“We’re entirely program-revenue funded. There’s no cost to taxpayers,” he said.

The board’s regulatory requirements are designed to prevent problems. Once those mandates are gone, state consumer protection officials can expect a deluge of complaints, he added.

“The vast majority of institutions recognize the value of the EAB’s oversight,” Dies said. “They recognize what happens when you create this vacuum and just throw out the rulebook.”

Walker’s spokeswoman, Laurel Patrick, said eliminating the board advances the governor’s goal of streamlining government.

She insisted the plan would relieve the financial burden on for-profit schools, pointing out the board can charge them up to $5,100 for authorizing a doctoral program now. The two agencies taking over for the board would have the authority to expand regulations as necessary, she added.

MADISON (AP) – The Dane County District Attorney says he has received all of the state’s reports in the fatal police shooting of an unarmed biracial teen and will provide two days’ notice before releasing his decision on whether to file charges against the white police officer.

Ismael Ozanne said Friday he received the last reports form the Division of Criminal Investigation this week and met a second time with the Medical Examiner’s office. Ozanne says he will give at least 48 hours’ notice before releasing his decision.

Tony Robinson, an unarmed biracial 19 year old was fatally shot by a white police officer last month, prompting the investigation by the state’s Division of Criminal Investigation. The division shared its report with Ozanne last month.

Ozanne will decide whether to file charges.

MADISON (AP) – The Legislature’s finance committee has added language to the state budget establishing oversight for police that acquire excess military equipment.

Police agencies across Wisconsin have acquired all manner of military equipment through a federal program that allows the military to transfer excess equipment to law enforcement entities, including armored vehicles and assault rifles.

The committee voted unanimously Friday to add language to the budget that would require the appropriate state or local entity to approve acquiring weapons and machines through the program. Those entities, which aren’t defined, would have to craft policies on appropriate use. Police would have to create reports whenever they use the equipment.

Rep. Dale Knudsen, a Hudson Republican, said he fears introducing military equipment into a police confrontation with criminals could make things worse.

MADISON (AP) – The University of Wisconsin’s flagship campus in Madison would have to eliminate about 400 positions, close and merge programs and reduce academic offerings and services if Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed budget cut passes, Chancellor Rebecca Blank said Friday.

Blank posted a plan on her school Web page for how UW-Madison would cope with Walker’s proposed cuts, noting that even though the final amount isn’t known, the school had to consider how to deal with what could be a $96 million budget hole next year.

The plan comes a week after regents approved a tuition raise for out-of-state undergraduates and some graduate students, two days after a university-commissioned report said UW-Madison contributed $15 billion to the state’s economy, and a day after a poll found deep opposition to Walker’s budget cuts.

Walker wants to cut state funding to the UW System by $300 million over the next two years, a reduction of about 13 percent in state support but only about 2.5 percent of the university system’s total budget. At the same time, Walker is calling for a two-year tuition freeze and a decoupling of the UW System from state oversight and laws.

Both the cut and the plan to give the university more autonomy are drawing deep opposition in the Republican-controlled Legislature. Lawmakers have said they hope to reduce the size of the cut after new tax collection forecasts come out in May, and the autonomy plan appears to be all but dead.

Walker has said he would be willing to go along with the Legislature if it can find a way to reduce the $300 million cut. A Marquette University Law School poll released Thursday found that 70 percent of respondents were opposed to Walker’s proposed reduction.

Blank said Friday that even though the final amount of the cut is not known, UW-Madison had to move ahead with a plan for how to deal with what could be a $96 million budget hole next year.

Campus-wide, Blank said about 400 positions would be eliminated. The majority of those positions are currently vacant, but an exact number of how many people may actually be laid off isn’t yet known, said Darrell Bazzell, chief financial officer for UW-Madison.

Republican Sen. Steve Nass, of Whitewater, issued a statement accusing Blank of inflaming the passions of students and faculty against the governor and Legislature. He said Blank was being “overtly political” by not including more details about the number of current employees who may face layoffs.

Nass, a longtime critic of the university, called on Blank to first cut administrators with six-figure salaries.

Job eliminations will likely lead to larger classes and fewer course offerings, Blank said.

Several programs across the campus will be ended or restructured, Blank said, including those in agriculture, the arts and information technology. There will also be fewer support services, such as information technology, for students, faculty and staff, Blank said. Less will be spent on maintaining buildings and facilities, she said.

Blank said the athletics department and other parts of UW-Madison are being asked to make greater financial contributions to the campus as whole. UW-Madison has about 43,000 students and about 21,800 faculty and staff members.

The start of the sturgeon spawning season this spring, reminds us of the importance of the sturgeon to Native American cultures.

In this Flashback Friday segment from 1993, Kyra Phillips takes us to the Menominee Reservation for a traditional sturgeon ceremony.

These penetrating sounds of the Menominee mystic drums haven’t been heard for more than 100 years… today broke a traditional silence and brought back the Menominee tribal celebration for the coming of spring.

“We can’t lose our traditions.”

As the Menominee dance step by step to the tribal beats, this sound is said to call the sturgeon to the reservation’s waters… tribal elder Steve Askinette performs the sturgeon ceremony by burning tobacco and water to attract the sturgeon for catch.

Then, once the sturgeon is caught, it’s prepared for a ceremonial feast… the spiritual significance of the sturgeon, is that it comes from the water, which symbolized where all life begins and the determination of each Menominee Indian’s destiny.

“What you’re seeing now is valued culture.”

Bringing back a cultural pride and teaching the younger generation to carry it on.

GRAND CHUTE – The Wisconsin State Patrol in investigating a traffic crash involving one of the town’s police vans.

The crash happened at 10:23 p.m. Wednesday at Casaloma Drive and Highway 15, according to Sgt. Dan Diederich.

While the investigation is not complete, the initial indications are that the unidentified driver of the town’s van was at fault, he said.

An ambulance was called to the scene but neither driver was transported to the hospital.