Green Bay News

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) – A 20-year-old man accused of planning a suicide attack at Fort Riley was arrested Friday while trying to arm what he thought was a 1,000-pound bomb near the Kansas military base as part of a plot to support the Islamic State group, federal prosecutors said.

John T. Booker, of Topeka, was scheduled to appear in federal court in Topeka later Friday. Prosecutors allege he told an FBI informant that he wanted to kill Americans and engage in violent jihad on behalf of the terrorist group, believing the attack was justified because the Quran “says to kill your enemies wherever they are,” according to court documents.

The FBI said there was no breach at Fort Riley, which is about 100 miles west of Kansas City. Court documents don’t indicate whether Booker has an attorney, and he didn’t have a publicly listed phone number.

Booker was recruited to join the Army in February 2014, but came to the attention of federal investigators after posting messages on Facebook. The FBI said a post on March 19, 2014, read: “Getting ready to be killed in jihad is a HUGE adrenaline rush! I am so nervous. NOT because I’m scared to die but I am eager to meet my lord.” His enlistment was terminated a few days later at the request of the Army Criminal Investigation Command, according to the Army.

Prosecutors allege Booker started meeting with the FBI informant that October. He allegedly told the informant he wanted to make a video threatening Americans and warning them to get their relatives and friends to quit the military. He said his intent was to “scare this country” and to tell the people that, “we will be coming after American soldiers in the streets … we will be picking them off one by one,” according to the court documents.

Booker is charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, attempting to damage property by means of an explosive, and attempting to provide material support to the terrorist group. If convicted, he could face life in prison.

The FBI has focused attention in the last year on individuals who profess allegiance to the Islamic State and who either make plans to fight alongside jihadists in Syria or commit acts of violence in the United States.

U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said Booker was arrested near Manhattan, a city that borders Fort Riley base.

“We face a continued threat from individuals within our own borders who may be motivated by a variety of reasons,” Grissom said during a news conference Friday morning. “Anyone who tries to harm this nation and its people will be brought to justice.”

Grissom declined to take questions during the news conference. His spokesman didn’t immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press asking about Booker’s religious background and when he may have become radicalized.

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Associated Press writers Bill Draper in Kansas City and Roxana Hegeman in Wichita contributed to this report.

BOSTON (AP) – The second phase of the trial of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will begin on April 21, after the second anniversary of the attack and the day after this year’s race.

U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr. granted a request Friday from Tsarnaev’s lawyers to give the defense additional time to resolve logistical issues with potential witnesses.

Tsarnaev, 21, was convicted by a federal jury Wednesday in the 2013 attack, which killed three people and injured more than 260. The jury convicted him on all 30 counts, including 17 that make him eligible for the death penalty.

During the second stage – known as the penalty phase – the same jury will hear additional evidence and be asked to decide whether he receives the death penalty or is sentenced to life in prison.

The delay means the trial won’t be held on two sensitive dates: April 15, the second anniversary of the attack; and April 20, this year’s marathon.

O’Toole said in his written order that it is not uncommon to have a recess between phases in capital cases.

During the first phase of the trial, Tsarnaev’s lawyer bluntly admitted that he participated in the bombings but said his older brother, Tamerlan, was the mastermind who enlisted his then-19-year-old brother to help him.

Prosecutors said Tsarnaev was an equal partner in the plan with Tamerlan. Each brother planted one of the two pressure-cooker bombs used in the attack near the finish line of the marathon.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed four days after the bombings when he was shot during a gunbattle with police and run over by his brother during a chaotic getaway attempt.

NASHVILLE – Gov. Scott Walker will head to Europe later Friday on another taxpayer funded trade mission. But first, the likely Republican presidential candidate will speak at the National Rifle Association annual meeting.

Other high-profile Republicans like Jeb Bush, Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz are also speaking at the Friday afternoon event.

Walker has been in Tennessee since Thursday, when he met with state Republican lawmakers.

The governor’s weeklong trip will feature private meetings with business and government representatives in Germany, France and Spain.

FOX 11’s Andrew LaCombe will have a complete story on the governor’s remarks in Tennessee tonight on FOX 11 News at Five.

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) — A top Army commander says he hopes that Purple Hearts awarded to dozens of survivors and relatives of soldiers who died in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting gives them closure.

The ceremony Friday took place on the sprawling Texas military post where an Army psychiatrist opened fire on unarmed soldiers and killed 13 people. Many of the medal recipients felt the honor was long overdue.

Army Lt. General Sean MacFarland acknowledged that it was likely painful for them to return to the scene of the deadliest mass shooting on a U.S. military base.

The gunman, Nidal Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, was convicted in 2013 and sentenced to death.

A Fort Hood police officer who shot Hasan to help end the rampage was given the Defense of Freedom medal.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Authorities say a man accused of killing a Census Bureau guard before leading police on a car chase through Maryland and Washington has been charged with armed kidnapping and assault on a police officer.

The Metropolitan Police Department said Ronald Anderson was charged Friday. He turned 48 Thursday, the day of the crime spree and chase. The chase ended with an exchange of gunfire that left him and an officer wounded.

The department says Anderson remains hospitalized but did not comment on his condition. The wounded officer is recovering.

The guard who was shot, Lawrence Buckner, died at a hospital in Cheverly, Maryland, after the shooting. The woman who was allegedly kidnapped was found safe.

The FBI says the shooting was not terrorism-related. Police Chief Cathy Lanier said it’s believed to be domestic in nature.

PANAMA CITY (AP) — President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro plan their first substantial, in-person discussion Saturday, a historic encounter as they work to restore diplomatic ties after more than half a century of estrangement between their countries.

Details of their meeting were still being worked out Friday, said Obama foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes. The two leaders spoke by phone Wednesday for only the second time, ahead of their arrival in Panama City only minutes apart Thursday evening for the Summit of the Americas.

Obama and Castro exchanged a brief handshake in 2013 during Nelson Mandela’s funeral in South Africa, but haven’t held any substantive in-person meetings. They also planned to be among the leaders attending opening events of the summit Friday evening at Panama Viejo, home to archaeological ruins dating to the 1500s. But Rhodes said their meeting on the sidelines would come on the summit’s second and final day.

“We don’t have a formal meeting scheduled at a certain time, but we anticipate they will have a discussion tomorrow,” Rhodes told reporters Friday.

Obama and Castro, brother of longtime former Cuban President Fidel Castro, first spoke in a December phone call as both announced their intent to restore diplomatic relations between their countries, a move that sent shockwaves through Latin America.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez led into the presidential meeting with a private discussion in Panama City that the State Department described as lengthy and productive. The Cuban government said the nearly three-hour talks were “respectful and constructive.”

The flurry of diplomacy was likely to reinvigorate ongoing efforts by the U.S. and Cuba to start their relationship anew after five decades of American presidents either isolating or working to overthrow Fidel Castro’s government. Obama is preparing to announce a decision about removing Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, a major impediment to warmer ties as far as Havana is concerned.

The U.S. has long since stopped actively accusing Cuba of supporting terrorism, and Obama has hinted at his willingness to take Cuba off the list ever since he and Castro announced a thaw in relations in December. Yet Obama has stopped short of the formal decision amid indications that the White House was reluctant to grant Cuba’s request until other thorny issues — such as restrictions on U.S. diplomats in Havana — were resolved.

“We don’t want to be imprisoned by the past,” Obama said Thursday in Jamaica, the first stop on his trip. “When something doesn’t work for 50 years, you don’t just keep on doing it. You try something new.”

Four months ago, Obama and Castro began a painstaking process that has brought to the surface difficult issues that have long fed in to the U.S.-Cuban estrangement. Hopes of reopening embassies in Havana and Washington before the summit failed to materialize. The U.S. is still pushing Cuba to allow more freedom of movement for its diplomats, while Cuba wants relief from a sanctions regime that only Congress can fully lift.

In a nod to lingering U.S. concerns about human rights and political freedoms, Obama was making a point to attend a forum bringing together both dissidents and members of the Cuban political establishment while in Panama.

Obama also made a quick unannounced tour of the Panama Canal, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The president, wearing sunglasses with his jacket slung over his shoulder on a cloudy, steamy morning, walked over a pedestrian walkway that spanned the greenish-tinted water below. No ships came through while he was there, apparently for security reasons, although U.S. Secret Service gun boats were positioned in the water.

Later, Obama and Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela stood over the shoulders of the CEOs of Boeing and Copa Airlines as they signed a deal for the Panamanian airline to purchase 61 of the U.S. airplane giant’s 737 aircraft. The companies called it the largest commercial deal between a U.S. and Panamanian company in history.

Obama says it means 12,000 jobs in the United States. White House spokesman Josh Earnest followed up with a bigger number — 40,000 U.S. jobs that he said will be not just at Boeing, but engine maker General Electric and other businesses involved in the supply chain.

The sale is a significant one for Chicago-based Boeing but by no means its largest for the new 737-MAX jets, which have a list price of $106.9 million to $113.3 million, although airlines often negotiate steep discounts. The largest single 737-MAX order has come from Indonesia’s Lion Air, which is seeking 201 although many aviation analysts suspect the airline won’t ultimately take delivery of all.

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Associated Press writers Andrea Rodriguez, Joshua Goodman and Jim Kuhnhenn in Panama City and AP Airlines Writer Scott Mayerowitz in New York contributed to this report.

Two people died after tornadoes struck a six-county swath of the state, injuring about a dozen other people and sweeping homes off their foundations, April 9, 2015.

DETROIT (AP) — Fourteen months after General Motors started recalling more than 2 million small cars with faulty ignition switches worldwide, the company says it has repaired about 70 percent of the vehicles that are still on the road.

The figures, which the company says are current as of Thursday, show that the switch replacements are now running at about the same pace as the average recall in the U.S. for a similar time frame.

GM has fixed 1.6 million of the roughly 2.3 million recalled cars worldwide that are registered and still in use, spokesman Alan Adler said Friday. In the U.S., the completion rate is almost 71 percent. The average completion rate 1 1/2 years after a recall begins is 75 percent, according to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

GM started recalling the cars in February of last year, and acknowledged that it knew of the deadly problem for more than a decade, yet waited years to take recall action. The switches can slip out of the run position and cause the engines to stall, knocking out air bags and power steering and brakes. This has led to crashes that caused at least 80 deaths and nearly 150 injuries in the U.S. alone.

GM was fined $35 million by the government for delays in reporting the problem as required by law.

In the months after the recalls began, GM was criticized by customers and members of Congress for a low completion rate, which the company blamed on a lack of parts. The switches, in cars such as the 2005 to 2010 Chevrolet Cobalt, were not being produced at the time in large numbers, so parts supplier Delphi Corp. had to crank up assembly lines. It took several months for the switches to start arriving in great numbers at dealerships, which weren’t fully supplied until October.

GM then used telephone calls from dealers, Facebook messages and personal letters from CEO Mary Barra in an effort to get people to take their cars to dealers for repairs.

Also Friday, GM drew some rare praise from new NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind. At a speech in New York, Rosekind lauded the company for putting in place procedures to make sure dealers don’t sell new cars unless recall repairs have been made. Such sales of new cars would violate federal laws, but used cars can legally be sold with open recalls.

After a Chevrolet dealer near Philadelphia was fined $50,000 last fall by NHTSA for selling new vehicles without making recall fixes, GM checked its dealer network and made changes in its computer inventory to prevent the problem from happening again, Rosekind said.

Now the systems notify dealers if they have a car on their lot with an unrepaired recall and tell them how much GM will pay to get the problem fixed, he said. The system also won’t let dealers submit requests for company rebates and other incentives until the recall work is done, he said.

“All other manufacturers and dealers should embrace the proactive approach that GM is taking,” Rosekind said.

In March, ABC News bought a new pickup truck with unfixed recall repairs from a New Jersey Chevrolet dealer, even though reporters were told by the salesman that the truck had no recalls.

Company spokeswoman Ryndee Carney said GM’s system that blocks incentives is being put in place this month. It would prevent dealers from selling cars and trucks that need recall repairs, she said. Incentives can sometimes be in the thousands of dollars, so it makes no sense for dealers to sell vehicles without them.

“Until you go in and let us know you completed the recall repair, you won’t be able to see if that vehicle qualifies for any sales incentives,” she said.

Click here for more information on the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington D.C.

WASHINGTON ISLAND – An 80-year-old timber gate located on a hill north of the ranger station on Rock Island is coming down.

The Wisconsin DNR says they will be taking the gate down due to safety concerns.

The gate was built by Chester Thordarson who owned the majority of Rock Island before the DNR purchased it in 1965.

The iconic rustic gate was built to protect Thordarson’s plants from deer.

TOWN OF PIEHL (AP) – A 17-year-old northern Wisconsin girl accused of killing her mother and stepfather will soon be extradited from Indiana.

The Oneida County sheriff’s officials said Friday Ashlee Martinson has agreed to return to Wisconsin where she’s charged with fatally stabbing 40-year-old Jennifer Ayers and shooting 37-year-old Thomas Ayers on March 8 at the family’s home in the Town of Piehl.

Martinson is also accused of locking her three younger sisters, ages 2, 8 and 9, in a room before fleeing to Indiana with a 22-year-old man. Investigators have not publicly talked about what may have motivated the crime, but say it appears the defendant acted alone.

The Oneida County Sheriff’s Department has 30 days to arrange Martinson’s transportation to Wisconsin from Boone County, Indiana.

MADISON (AP) – Wisconsin’s pension fund managers and those who work directly with the state’s investments will share nearly $12 million in bonuses this year because of strong returns.

The state investment board announced the bonuses on Friday.

The board on Wednesday approved the $11.9 million in bonuses to 142 of its 150 employees. The bonuses are down 10.4 percent from the $13.3 million awarded last year.

Exact amounts for employees were to be finalized on April 15.

The bonuses were based on investment performance above market returns over the past five years, the board said in announcing the pay-outs.

Investments have grown $1.4 billion above-market returns the past five years, which benefits 590,000 participants in the Wisconsin Retirement System.

KOHLER (AP) – Wisconsin-based Kohler Co. has scored wins in a legal battle over property taxes against the small village of the same name where it’s headquartered.

Sheboygan Press Media reports Kohler Co. filed lawsuits against the village of Kohler saying the company overpaid in property taxes. The company disputes valuations on its American Club, Blackwolf Run, Riverbend and the Inn on Woodlake properties.

A judge ruled in one lawsuit that the village must pay back Kohler Co. more than $605,000 in property taxes for the 2012 tax year, while another judge in a separate suit said the village must reassess property for the 2011 tax year. A third lawsuit is pending over the 2013 tax year.

An attorney for the village declined to comment on “ongoing litigation.”

NEW YORK (AP) — The Apple Watch is making its debut today, with customers trying them on in stores, from Shanghai to London and San Francisco.

Apple has started taking orders on its website and the Apple Store app. Currently, that’s the only way Apple is selling the watch. Even those visiting retail stores will have to order online — either at home or at a Web terminal inside the store.

The retail stores are meant for customers who aren’t sure which watch case, band or size they want — or aren’t sure they even want one. Customers are encouraged to make an appointment online, though Apples says walk-ins will be accepted — just expect a wait.

In central Shanghai, potential buyers stood in lines two to five people long over their lunch hour at an Apple store. One customer describes it as “beautifully made” and says he’ll buy a sport version, which starts at $349.

There have been similar lines in Tokyo and London, where one man looking for a present for his wife says he’s “not 100 percent convinced,” especially with the high price tag on the luxury edition, which can cost as much as $17,000.

A 22-year-old Milwaukee man was arrested on Interstate 41 in Washington County Thursday afternoon after allegedly kidnapping his girlfriend, her child and two adult friends in Kimberly.

Fox Valley Metro police say they were called to the 400 block of Marcella St. in Kimberly just after 2:30 p.m. A woman had called 911 and made a reference to “choking.” When officers got there, neighbors said several people had left.

Just after 4 p.m., officers learned that the victim was calling and texting a family member, saying she and the others had been kidnapped. She said a gun may have been involved. The victim told the relative they were traveling on I-41 near Fond du Lac. The relative then relayed the information to police.

The State Patrol and Fond du Lac Co. Sheriff’s Office eventually stopped the vehicle, with four adults and a child inside. Emergency crews checked out the woman at the scene, but she did not go to the hospital.

No gun was found; police determined that a window on the vehicle had been broken by a glass bottle.

The suspect is expected in Outagamie County court this afternoon. FOX 11’s Laura Smith is working on this story and will have a full report tonight on FOX 11 News at Five.

MADISON – Sheboygan native Sam Dekker says he will skip his senior year at the University of Wisconsin and enter the NBA Draft.

The UW basketball program posted on Twitter Friday a letter from Dekker to fans.

He writes, “(a)fter lots of thoughts and prayers, I’ve decided that it is in my best interest to enter the NBA Draft at this time. It is difficult to leave Madison and the only state I’ve called home, but I’m excited for the next chapter of my life.

“The privilege of playing in front of a sold out Kohl Center or looking around the sea of red that filled Lucas Oil Stadium (at the Final Four in Indianapolis) last weekend are things that most college basketball players never get to experience and I never took that for granted. Badgers fans are the greatest in the world.”

Read the full letter:

A letter from Sam @Dekker #Badgers pic.twitter.com/cuZmmYbe0x

— Wisconsin Basketball (@BadgerMBB) April 10, 2015

Dekker averaged 13.9 points and 5.5 rebounds per game in the 2014-2015 season and helped the Badgers to a school-record 36 wins, Big Ten regular season and tournament championships, and Monday’s national championship game against Duke. He reached double-figure scoring in 27 of the final 31 games of the season. He appeared in 113 games, making 81 starts in his career with the Badgers.

Dekker became well known to basketball fans in the state when he hit a last-minute three-pointer to win the 2012 WIAA Division 5 state championship while playing for Sheboygan Lutheran High School.

The draft will be held June 25 in New York.

FAIRDALE, Ill. (AP) — Crews searched for missing residents Friday morning after at least one tornado brought chaos to a tiny northern Illinois town, killing one person, injuring roughly a dozen more and sweeping homes off their foundations, as a large storm system rumbled across much of the country.

One woman was killed and about 11 others were taken to hospitals after at least one twister hit Fairdale around 7 p.m. Thursday. Crews combed through each structure twice and were gearing up for a third search with equipment and by hand Friday morning.

Police and fire officials said at a Friday morning news conference that they weren’t sure many people were still unaccounted for in the community of roughly 150 people.

“We’re hoping our search will be fruitless, in the sense that we won’t find anybody,” Sycamore Fire Chief Peter Polarek said.

The deceased was identified Friday as 67-year-old Geraldine M. Schultz. Authorities said those hospitalized did not have life-threatening injuries.

About 15 to 20 homes were destroyed in Fairdale, according to DeKalb County Sheriff Roger A. Scott. Matthew Knott, division chief for the Rockford Fire Department, told The Associated Press that just about every building in the town about 80 miles northwest of Chicago “sustained damage of some sort.”

All homes were evacuated as a safety precaution and power was out across the area. The Red Cross and Salvation Army established a shelter at a local high school.

Trees, power lines and debris from severely damaged homes and other buildings lays strewn across roads. Some in the rural farming village were barely standing and many have shifted off their foundations. Roofs are missing. Metal siding from barns is wrapped around trees.

Matt Friedlein, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said Friday that at least two tornadoes swept through six north-central Illinois counties, and that damage survey teams would visit the area to determine how long they stayed on the ground, their strength and the extent of the damage.

Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner was traveling Friday morning to survey damage in the region, county authorities said.

After raking Illinois, Thursday’s storm and cold front headed northeast, dumping snow in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and sweeping across the Ohio Valley overnight, Friedlein said. The system was headed into the Appalachian region Friday morning with the potential for severe thunderstorms but “not anywhere near the threat” that it packed in the Midwest, he said.

Kirkland Community Fire District Chief Chad Connell said he watched the tornado move toward Fairdale from his porch.

“I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” he said.

Some 20 additional homes were severely damaged or destroyed in Ogle County, adjacent to DeKalb, Sheriff Brian VanVickle said, adding no deaths or significant injuries were reported there.

VanVickle said 12 people were trapped in the storm cellar beneath a restaurant that collapsed in the storm in Rochelle, about 20 miles southwest of Fairdale.

One of those rescued from the Grubsteakers restaurant, Raymond Kramer, 81, told Chicago’s WLS-TV they were trapped for 90 minutes before emergency crews were able to rescue them, unscathed.

“No sooner did we get down there, when it hit the building and laid a whole metal wall on top of the doors where we went into the storm cellar,” Kramer said. “When the tornado hit, we all got a dust bath. Everyone in there got shattered with dust and debris falling out of the rafters.”

The severe weather, the region’s first widespread bout, forced the cancellation of more than 850 flights at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on Thursday and dozens of others at the city’s Midway International Airport. The outlook was much improved Friday, although about 90 flights at the city’s two airports were cancelled and dozens of delays were expected.

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Associated Press writer Sara Burnett in Fairdale, and Herb McCann, Don Babwin, Tammy Webber and Sophia Tareen in Chicago contributed to this report.

MADISON (AP) – The University of Wisconsin System regents have approved raising tuition for out-of-state undergraduate and graduate students at most of the system’s four-year schools starting next year.

The regents approved the increases during a meeting at UW-Waukesha on Friday. Plans call for raising tuition by hundreds of dollars at schools in La Crosse, Milwaukee, Parkside, Platteville, River Falls, Stevens Point, Stout and Whitewater this fall. Tuition for nonresident students and graduate students in a number of programs at UW-Madison will go up by thousands of dollars by 2016.

The increases are designed to help the schools absorb $300 million in system cuts Gov. Scott Walker has included in his 2015-17 state budget proposal as well as align the schools more closely with prices at competing universities around the country.

MADISON (AP) – Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker “absolutely” expects to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his first visit to Israel next month, the Republican said as he prepared to depart for a western European trade mission.

The likely presidential candidate told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday that the Netanyahu meeting in mid-May is not yet confirmed, but that it’s his “hope and expectation” it will happen.

A spokeswoman for Walker’s political group, Our American Revival, said Walker’s schedule for Israel remained in flux.

Walker met with British Prime Minister David Cameron during a trade mission to London in February. Walker departs Friday for visits to Germany, France and Spain.

Walker originally planned for his Israel trip to be a taxpayer-funded trade mission, but he determined that was impossible because the “overwhelming majority” of those who wanted to meet with him in Israel had a political interest. His political arm is footing the bill.

Walker said his goal is to meet with Netanyahu and other members of the Israeli government to get an understanding of the issues facing the Middle East.

Walker has recently hired foreign policy experts to help bolster his credentials, and the Israel trip will be his third trip overseas in four months as he prepares for a likely White House bid.

Photos of weather that hit Northeast Wisconsin overnight on April 9-10, 2015.