Green Bay News

MILWAUKEE — After all those years as commissioner, Bud Selig was back at the ballpark on opening day.

The 80-year-old Selig threw out the ceremonial first ball Monday at Miller Park before the Milwaukee Brewers hosted the Colorado Rockies.

Selig headed Major League Baseball from 1998 until his retirement in January, when Rob Manfred took over. Selig is now commissioner emeritus.

Selig said he’s been teaching classes at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Marquette University in Milwaukee since leaving office. He’s also working on a book.

“I have a class coming up on Wednesday and as commissioner emeritus I also have work to do. It’s been busy,” he said.

Selig formerly owned the Brewers and has spent five decades in baseball.

“As I start my book, you think back and it has been an amazing 51 years,” Selig said.

AMBERG – People across the Northwoods were digging out Monday morning.

Some areas saw six inches of heavy, wet snow.

And that made for sloppy travel, making it seem like Winter was alive and well.

“I was looking for a little bit of snow on the ground. Maybe a dusting. Started stepping in the driveway into six inches of pretty wet heavy snow,” said Tom Oldenburg, Driftwood Sport & Fuel owner.

Oldenburg had to shovel his way into work at Driftwood Sport and Fuel in Amberg.

“I got my plow put away for the year, so you can see my nice fancy plow with the handle on it right up against the shed. It’s what we clear it up with,” he said.

Just down the road at Mathis Ace Hardware, potting soil sits under a frozen blanket of slush.

Bob Mathis says the snow in Amberg “had” melted days ago. Rakes and lawn mowers are on display, but he still sold at least one shovel.

“I went upstairs and found them one. We put them away last week. We said we don’t need snow shovels. I guess we were wrong,” said Bob Mathis, Mathis Ace Hardware Owner.

Plow trucks kept the main roads clear, but side streets were slushy.

“They’re just pretty much dealing with it. They’ve been just slowing down, and enjoying it,” said Oldenburg.

And so was the Jon Larsen family. He and his two boys scouted fishing spots along the Pike River nearby.

“It’s a fresh snow, so it’s kind of easy to walk through. It’s kind of nice, I guess the kids were enjoying it. We were throwing snowballs, eating snow, just having fun,” said Jon Larsen, Sobieski.

People in the Amberg area say they’ve seen snow storms in the area even in May.

Oldenburg says the latest one won’t last very long.

“It’s melting faster than I can shovel it, so we’ll let it melt,” he said.

The snow also helps with the fire danger.

Counties across the Northwoods were listed as “LOW” on Monday.

Wisconsin Badgers fan excitement builds as the men’s basketball team sets to play Duke University in the NCAA Championship game, April 6, 2015.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Facing deep skepticism on multiple fronts, President Barack Obama ramped up lobbying Monday for a framework nuclear deal with Iran, one of the toughest sells of his presidency. Yet critics from Jerusalem to Washington warned they won’t sit idly by while Obama and world leaders pursue a final accord that would leave much of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure intact.

The White House deployed Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz – a nuclear physicist – to offer a scientific defense of a deal that Moniz said would block all Iranian pathways to a nuclear weapon. He described the emerging deal as a “forever agreement,” disputing skeptics who contend it would merely delay Iran’s progress toward a bomb.

“This is not built upon trust,” Moniz said, describing a set of intrusive inspections that would tip off the global community if Iran attempts to cheat. “This is built upon hardnosed requirements in terms of limitations on what they do, at various timescales, and on the access and transparency.”

Under the agreement, Moniz said, Iran would agree – in perpetuity – to a beefed-up level of inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Other elements of the inspection regimen, such as those dealing with storage and mining of nuclear materials, would end sooner. And Moniz acknowledged that over time, some restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities might be eased if the world gains confidence that its program is being operated for purely peaceful purposes.

Skeptics of Obama’s diplomatic outreach to Iran were undeterred.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., just back from the Middle East, questioned why Iran would be allowed to retain more than 6,000 centrifuges – despite Obama’s earlier suggestion that he was pursuing a deal that would end Iran’s nuclear program, not simply shrink it.

“The parameters of the interim deal, in essence, establish an internationally recognized, 10-year nuclear research and development program,” McConnell said.

The strongest international criticism has come from Israel, where leaders consider the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran a threat to their nation’s survival. Israel’s minister for strategic affairs, Yuval Steinitz, said military action against Iran’s nuclear program remains an option. He said Israel would spend the coming months lobbying for stronger language in the final agreement.

In Washington, members of Congress from both parties have raised concerns about the pace at which U.S. and international sanctions on Iran would be lifted in exchange for rolling back its nuclear program.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Iran continues to press publicly for a deal that would lift all sanctions immediately. The U.S. and its negotiating partners – Russia, China, France, the U.K. and Germany – have been pushing for phased-in sanctions relief. But the fact that such a key matter was left unsettled in the framework deal has fueled further doubts about the negotiations, which are supposed to be concluded by June 30.

Lawmakers are pushing to give Congress a say in whether the agreement should stand. Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., is pressing legislation that would not only let lawmakers vote to approve or reject the bill, but would also prevent Obama from using his own authority to temporarily waive existing U.S. sanctions while Congress debates the deal.

The Foreign Relations panel plans to vote on the measure next week. With support assured from nearly all Republicans, the bill would need only a handful of defecting Democrats to support the bill to override a promised veto from Obama. A number of Democrats have indicated concerns, raising the prospect of the first veto override of Obama’s presidency.

Obama, in a weekend interview, suggested he might be open to another way for Congress to register its views on the deal without encroaching on his prerogative to conduct foreign policy. That led to speculation that Obama might support proposals for Congress to take a nonbinding resolution. But Earnest said the White House opposes any and all votes by Congress – other than an eventual vote to fully lift the sanctions Congress has slapped on Iran.

The Obama administration sought to persuade lawmakers, foreign leaders and advocacy groups to embrace or at least stomach the deal. More than a dozen top officials fanned out to brief concerned parties in personal phone calls, the White House said, including Obama’s chief of staff, national security adviser, U.N. ambassador and secretaries of State and Treasury.

Another intended audience for Obama’s lobbying campaign: Arab allie

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – Just days after becoming the world’s oldest documented person, 116-year-old Gertrude Weaver has died in Arkansas.

The Williams Funeral Home confirms that Weaver died Monday at the Silver Oaks Health and Rehabilitation Center in Camden, about 100 miles southwest of Little Rock.

Weaver became the oldest person in the world after the death of a 117-year-old Japanese woman last week, according to records kept by the Los Angeles-based Gerontology Research Group. Weaver was born on July 4, 1898.

Weaver told reporters last week that the key to her longevity was being kind to everyone and eating her own cooking.

She also said she hoped President Barack Obama would come to her 117th birthday party in July.

An interactive looks at the developments leading to the murder trial of former New England Patriots Aaron Hernandez.

MADISON (AP) – Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel has appealed a federal judge’s ruling striking down a law that required doctors performing abortions to first obtain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.

The Republican Schimel filed notice of the appeal of U.S. District Judge William Conley’s decision Monday.

Conley on March 20 blocked enforcement of the 2013 law, ruling that any benefits to women’s health from the requirement were “substantially outweighed” by restricting women’s access to abortion.

Planned Parenthood and Affiliated Medical Services brought the lawsuit.

Gov. Scott Walker signed the bill into law after the Republican-controlled Legislature passed it two years ago. Walker has said he believes the law will ultimately survive legal challenges.

Courts have put similar restrictions on hold in five other states.

LITTLE CHUTE – Police are asking for the public’s help tracking down a vehicle that was involved in a recent hit-and-run.

Fox Valley Metro police say the crash happened last Tuesday in the 1000 block of Rosehill Rd. in Little Chute. Evidence at the scene indicates the vehicle was an Audi, although police don’t know the color, model or year of the vehicle. It would have damage on the front, near the fog light on the driver’s side.

Anyone with information is asked to call Officer Aaron Wanserski at (920) 788-7505. Anonymous tips can be left with Crime Stoppers at (920) 788-9090 or by email at [email protected].

FALL RIVER, Mass. (AP) – Lawyers for former New England Patriots star tight end Aaron Hernandez rested their case in his murder trial on Monday after calling just three witnesses.

Hernandez has pleaded not guilty to murder in the June 17, 2013, killing of Odin Lloyd, who was shot six times at an industrial park less than a mile from Hernandez’s home in North Attleborough. Lloyd was dating the sister of Hernandez’s fiancee. At the time of the killing, Hernandez had a $40 million contract with the Patriots.

The first witness was a professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, who testified about the effects of the drug PCP, saying that it can cause people to become suddenly violent days after using it. Hernandez’s cousin testified that she saw his two co-defendants, Ernest Wallace and Carlos Ortiz, smoking PCP the weekend of the crime. Both men have pleaded not guilty and will be tried later.

But prosecutor Patrick Bomberg went after the testimony, showing surveillance video of Ortiz, Wallace and Hernandez from Hernandez’s home before and immediately after the killing. In the videos, the men do not appear to be acting strangely.

“This is essentially three minutes after the murder, you’d expect to see something lingering of PCP psychosis or intoxication,” Bomberg said, asking if Greenblatt could detect such behavior.

“You just can’t tell,” Greenblatt replied.

After the defense rested, prosecutors called a rebuttal witness to testify about PCP. That witness, Dr. Martin Brecher, a psychiatrist who wrote a paper reviewing cases of PCP over decades, said it was wrong to associate the drug and violence.

After the prosecutor finished questioning Brecher, the judge called for a recess and sent the jury out of the room.

Testimony earlier Monday by the other witnesses related to DNA on a shell casing found inside a silver Nissan Altima that was rented by Hernandez, which prosecutors say he used to drive Lloyd to his death. When police found the shell casing in a trash bin at a rental car agency, it was stuck to chewed blue bubble gum that also was found in the Nissan. In testing, Hernandez’s DNA was found on the shell casing. The defense has argued it got there from the bubble gum.

While they spent less than a day putting on a defense, Hernandez’s lawyers vigorously cross-examined many of the prosecution’s 131 witnesses, some for hours, during the more than 2-month-long trial. They questioned why Hernandez would put his life and career on the line to kill a man they said was a friend. They also attacked what they painted as sloppy police work.

Prosecutors have not explained to jurors a possible motive for the killing, they had no witnesses to the shooting and never found the murder weapon. But they presented hundreds of pieces of evidence, including surveillance videos from inside Hernandez’s home that showed him holding a black object that appeared to be a gun less than 10 minutes after Lloyd’s killing. A joint found near Lloyd’s body had DNA from both men on it.

Cellphone records also showed the men communicating with Lloyd that night. Surveillance video along the way showed Hernandez driving the Nissan shortly before Lloyd’s sister saw him get into a silver car, a moment captured on a neighbor’s security camera. Soon after, a toll booth camera caught the Nissan leaving Boston, while Lloyd’s phone pinged several cell towers before stopping in North Attleborough for good.

Closing arguments are set for Tuesday or Wednesday. After that, the 15 jurors will be given instructions, then three of those will be randomly selected as alternate jurors.

Eighteen jurors began the trial in January, but three were dismissed, including one who is accused of misrepresenting her answers during screening in a bid to get onto the jury.

LA CROSSE, Wis. (AP) – A La Crosse student who’s battling a blood infection that could compromise her heart has had her prom dress paid off by her mother’s co-workers.

The La Crosse Tribune reports that 17-year-old Kristen Meyers went to a store in downtown La Crosse on March 28 to make another payment on the dress. But she was handed an envelope with a note that said the dress costing more than $500 had been paid off.

Also included in the envelope was $260 for dinner or accessories for the Logan High School junior.

“I just started crying,” Meyers said. “Most of the people who donated didn’t even know me personally. It was unbelievable how people stepped up.”

Meyers’ mother, Lisa Meyers, said the teen was born with heart disease and has had heart surgery twice. She was susceptible to infections because of the disease, and she was hospitalized multiple times this year before doctors found a blood infection.

Meyers is receiving medications intravenously 24 hours a day, and doctors think she’ll beat the infection by prom May 9.

Lisa Meyers works at Ballweg Midwest Toyota in downtown La Crosse. More than 25 of her co-workers donated to help out her daughter, said co-worker Val Wilson.

“We were blindsided,” Lisa Meyers said. “I still can’t even talk about it because it makes me cry my eyes out.”

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Nine University of Wisconsin System schools plan to ask regents this week for permission to dramatically raise tuition for graduate and non-resident students to help offset $300 million in cuts Gov. Scott Walker has proposed in his state budget.

The schools include UW-Madison, UW-La Crosse, UW-Milwaukee, UW-Parkside, UW-Platteville, UW-River Falls, UW-Stevens Point, UW -Stout and UW-Whitewater. The increases vary by school. UW-Madison’s plan, for example, calls for raising undergraduate non-residents’ tuition nearly 40 percent by 2018-19.

The regents are set to take up the requests at a meeting Thursday in Waukesha.

The Legislature has imposed a two-year freeze on resident undergraduate tuition. Walker’s budget would extend that freeze for another two years.

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) – A judge in North Carolina has ruled the man accused of killing three Muslim college students can face a death penalty trial.

Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson Jr. ruled Monday in a hearing where a prosecutor described some of the evidence against Craig Stephen Hicks.

Hicks is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the Feb. 10 killings of 23-year-old Deah Shaddy Barakat; his wife, 21-year-old Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha; and her sister, 19-year-old Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha.

Police say the 46-year-old Hicks appears to have been motivated by a long-running dispute over parking spaces at the Chapel Hill condominium complex where he lived in the same building as Barakat and his wife.

The victims’ families are adamant they were targeted because they were Muslims and have pushed for hate-crime charges.

KIMBERLY – An employee was treated for facial burns after an explosion happened at Butch’s Pizza in Kimberly Monday morning.

Police say at 11:47 a.m. they were called to Butch’s Pizza, located at 510 W. Kimberly Avenue, for a report of a small explosion.

Police say the Kimberly Fire Department and WE Energies determined the explosion happened while the employee was trying to light the pilot light of a pizza oven when a mechanical problem with the oven caused gas to build up, causing the explosion.

The employee was transported to the hospital for non-life-threatening facial burns.

The fire department and WE Energies turned off the gas oven until it can be inspected and repaired.

NEW YORK (AP) – A brain-scanning technique might one day help identify people with a disease linked to concussions in football and other sports, an illness now diagnosed only after death, a small study suggests.

Scans of 14 retired football players at risk for the condition, called CTE, revealed deposits of abnormal protein in a pattern resembling that found at autopsy in the disease.

CTE stands for chronic traumatic encephalopathy. It causes progressive brain degeneration in athletes and others who’ve had repeated concussions and other blows to the head. Symptoms include memory loss, confusion, aggression, depression and progressive dementia.

No cure is known. But the brain-scanning approach raises the possibility of detecting the disease early on, when the chances would be greatest for success of experimental treatments, study authors said.

It might also shed light on the disease and help athletes with decisions on retirement, said a study author, Dr. Julian Bailes, co-director of the NorthShore Neurological Institute in Evanston, Illinois.

He and others present the results in a paper released Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Joseph Maroon of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, who was not involved in the study, called the results “a major step forward in detecting CTE prior to death.”

Like the authors, he said the results set the stage for bigger studies to investigate the technique’s usefulness.

The study of 14 retired professional football players included one with dementia, one without obvious symptoms and 12 with a mental functioning deficit called mild cognitive impairment. All had a history of repeated concussions and other blows to the head.

For the study, they were injected with a substance that binds to deposits of an abnormal protein found in CTE and makes them visible on a PET scan. The resulting PET images differed from results with 28 healthy people and 24 people with Alzheimer’s disease, a condition that can resemble CTE in its symptoms.

Maroon said the technique could offer a more definitive answer if scientists can find a binding substance that hones in more specifically on the abnormal protein.

MADISON (AP) – Republican state Sen. Rob Cowles says he wants all 49 policy provisions included in Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal removed before the two-year spending plan is debated by the Legislature.

Cowles, of Allouez, on Monday released a memo he requested from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau listing all the proposals in Walker’s budget that primarily relate to policy and not the state’s finances.

Cowles says all of the issues should be introduced as separate legislation. Including policy items in the budget has been a longstanding practice by both Republican and Democratic governors as a way to ease passage of sometimes controversial ideas.

Some of the policy items in Walker’s budget identified by the Fiscal Bureau include making the Natural Resources Board advisory only and creating a charter school oversight board.

CORBIN, Ky. (AP) — Two thousand miles might seem like a long way to go for fried chicken.

Two men from Canada who took their sons on a journey to the original home of Kentucky Fried Chicken say it’s a trip they’ll never forget.

The Times-Tribune report this was the third trip to the Harland Sanders Cafe and Museum for Brian Lufty, one of the fathers who piled the four sons into a van for the 34-hour pilgrimage from Montreal, Quebec. His tales of earlier visits inspired the trip.

The friends left on Thursday, travelling to Col. Sanders’ birthplace and burial place before arriving at the Corbin restaurant Saturday afternoon.

For three of the sons, it was the first time they had tasted KFC.

Lufty’s son Jesse said it was “delicious!”

The Milwaukee Brewers began their 2015 season by hosting the Colorado Rockies April 6.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis on Monday again pressed the international community to do something about the killing of Christians in several parts of the world and not “look the other way.”

He has been increasingly vocal about the fate of Christians being targeted by Islamic extremists in parts of the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

Addressing pilgrims and tourists in St. Peter’s Square, Francis praised those who were “sensitizing public opinion about the persecution of Christians in the world.”

While not suggesting any particular course of action, he urged “concrete participation and tangible help in defense and protection of our brothers and our sisters, who are persecuted, exiled, slain, beheaded, solely for being Christian.”

The pope was building on his Good Friday denunciation of what he then called “complicit silence” about the targeting of Christians.

“They are our martyrs of today, and they are many. We can say that they are more numerous than in the first centuries,” Francis said.

“I hope that the international community doesn’t stand mute and inert before such unacceptable crimes, which constitute a worrisome erosion of the most elementary human rights. I truly hope that the international community doesn’t look the other way,” the pontiff said, speaking from a window of the Apostolic Palace.

The advance of Islamic State group fighters has forced members of ancient Christian communities to flee their homes in Iraq.

Francis has been keen on ensuring these Christians feel the Vatican’s concern.

On Easter, a Vatican cardinal, Fernando Filoni, celebrated Mass in a Kurdish area of Iraq, and a day earlier, led prayers in a tent in a refugee camp in Irbil.

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Follow Frances D’Emilio on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/fdemilio

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Kenya launched airstrikes against Islamic militants in Somalia following an extremist attack on a Kenyan college that killed 148 people, a military spokesman said Monday.

Some relatives of those who died in the attack on the college gathered at a funeral home in Nairobi to view their loved ones. They prayed under an awning together and were led into the funeral home after an employee read out their names. Many emerged in tears.

Kenyan army troops on Monday walked through Garissa University College in the northeastern town of Garissa where the bloodiest attack by al-Shabab on Kenyan soil occurred on Thursday. Shoes were scattered around and washed clothing still hung from a clothesline next to a dormitory.

Kenya’s warplanes targeted the Gedo region of Somalia on Sunday afternoon and early Monday, said Col. David Obonyo of the Kenyan military. Gedo is directly across Kenya’s border in western Somalia.

The planes bombarded the camps on Sunday but then noticed movement Monday and bombed again, said Obonyo.

The camps, which were used to store arms and for logistical support, were destroyed but it was not possible to determine the number of casualties because of poor visibility from the air, he said.

“This is part of continuing operations, not just in response to Garissa,” said Obonyo.

“The planes were hovering around for a few minutes then started bombing the area,” said Hawa Yusuf, a resident of Gabdon village, near Beledhawa town which is close to Somalia’s border with Kenya.

“We don’t know if there were any causalities,” she said by phone.

“The planes struck a grassland where nomads often take their animals for grazing,” said Ali Hussein, another resident of Gabdon.

“We are not aware of any military camps located there. They dropped bombs on the whole area,” he said. Al-Shabab fighters often use shrubby areas to conceal their fighters and transport.

Al-Shabab, which is based in Somalia, claimed responsibility for the college attack Thursday in Garissa, saying it was in reprisal for Kenya having sent troops into Somalia in 2011 to attack al-Shabab after gunmen carried out cross-border raids and kidnappings. Now those attacks in Kenya have increased, with civilians often being targeted.

Kenya’s troops in Somalia are part of an African Union force and are also shoring up the beleaguered Somali government. Kenya has carried out airstrikes before.

Four al-Shabab attackers were killed on Thursday to end the siege and their bullet-ridden bodies were later displayed in Garissa.

One of the attackers killed was a Kenyan, a law school graduate and a son of a government official in Mandera County, which borders Somalia.

Five people have been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the Garissa attack and one of them is a Tanzanian who was found hiding under a bed in the school, according to a police officer. Contradicting an earlier government statement, the Tanzanian was not armed with grenades, according to the police officer who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.

A leading member of parliament, Aden Duale, said work must be done to prevent Kenyan youths from becoming followers of extremism.

“Some of our youth have fallen victim to this evil ideology of al-Shabab,” he said. “We will embark on an immediate, massive and sustained campaign to win back the hearts and the minds of our youth within our constituencies and the countries as whole. We recognize that some of our religious institutions have had some role in radicalization and propagation of this ideology.”

He also called for the closure of the Dadaab Refugee Camp, which houses nearly 500,000 who have fled Somalia.

The camp is the center for the “the training, the coordination, the assembling of terror networks,” claimed Duale, the majority leader in parliament. “These refugees, we want them relocated across the border . They have been with us for 20 years. I think time has come when the national security of our people becomes first.”

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AP writer Abdi Guled contributed to this report from Mogadishu, Somalia.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Former NFL star Darren Sharper is scheduled to make his first appearance in U.S. District Court in New Orleans to face federal charges that he drugged women in order to rape them.

A member of the Saints team that won the Super Bowl in 2010, Sharper was set to appear Monday afternoon before a federal magistrate judge. Proceedings in state court, where he faces aggravated rape charges, are set for Tuesday. Sharper already has pleaded guilty or no-contest in three states.

Sharper, 39, was a safety who had nine interceptions during the Saints’ 2009 season, which ended with a Super Bowl victory in February 2010. He retired after the 2010 season and was working as an analyst for the NFL Network before being fired when the rape allegations surfaced.

He was arrested on suspicion of rape in Los Angeles in January of 2014. Formal charges were filed the following month there, followed by charges in the other states, culminating in December with state and federal grand jury charges in New Orleans.

The federal indictment charged Sharper and another man with distributing the drugs alprazolam, diazepam and zolpidem — more commonly known by the brand names Xanax, Valium and Ambien, respectively — with the intent to commit rape.

The two Louisiana state counts of aggravated rape stemmed from accusations that he sexually assaulted two drug-impaired women at his apartment in September 2013.

Sharper was selected All-Pro six times and chosen for the Pro Bowl five times during a career that included stints with the Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings. He played in two Super Bowls, one with the Packers as a rookie and the 2010 game Saints victory.