Green Bay News

Photos of a spring snowfall in our area, March 25, 2015.

Statements from public officials on the March 24, 2015 death of Wisconsin State Trooper Trevor Casper:

Gov. Scott Walker: “Trooper Trevor Casper was killed while bravely serving his community and doing his duty to keep our citizens safe.  Tonette and I are praying for Trooper Casper’s family and our thoughts are with them and the broader law enforcement community at this difficult time.”

Wisconsin Dept. of Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb: “At the Wisconsin Department of Transportation we are grieving the loss of Trooper Trevor Casper. Trooper Casper was among the group of brave men and women in the Division of State Patrol who put themselves in dangerous situations each day as they work to keep the people of Wisconsin safe. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family.”

Kiel Police Dept.: “Last night Wisconsin State Patrol Trooper Trevor Casper of Kiel was killed in the line of duty. All of us here at Kiel P.D. mourn his loss and pray for peace and comfort for his family. We are truly at a loss for words and have very heavy hearts. Rest in Peace Trevor.”

U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-6th District): “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family of Wisconsin State Trooper Trevor Casper, as they mourn the loss of his life, which was tragically lost in the line of duty Tuesday night. Trooper Casper put his life on the line every day, and he worked tirelessly to protect the people of Wisconsin. Wisconsin grieves this loss and thanks Trooper Casper for his sacrifice.”

State Sen. Rick Gudex (R-Fond du Lac): “My thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends of Wisconsin State Trooper Trevor Casper and the entire Law Enforcement and Public Safety community. These brave men and women put their lives on the line day and night to protect us, and we cannot forget their sacrifice. I also want to thank all of the Law Enforcement agencies and first responders that assisted last evening in Fond du Lac. As the Fond du Lac and Kiel communities grieve, please remember to keep our entire Law Enforcement community in your thoughts as they handle this difficult situation.”

Notre Dame has confirmed to FOX 11 that Tom Van Deurzen stepped down as head coach of its boys basketball team.

Van Deurzen is resigning and is relocating to Madison to accept a new job.

Van Deurzen spent three seasons with the Tritons, compiling a 33-36 record, which included a 2-3 postseason record. His best season was 2012-13, when Notre Dame was 14-10. The following two seasons the Tritons were 11-11 and 8-15, respectively.

Notre Dame was 6-10 this past season in the Fox River Classic Conference and its season ended with a regional loss to Luxemburg-Casco.

Follow Doug Ritchay on Twitter @dougritchay

GREEN BAY – Gordon Lightfoot’s concert at the Meyer Theatre has been rescheduled.

The singer is set to perform in Green Bay on Nov. 3. He was originally scheduled to perform on March 18, but had to cancel, saying he was recovering from food poisoning.

Tickets for the March 18 concert will be honored at the Nov. 3 show, promoters say. To request a refund, tickets must be returned to the Ticket Star box office at the Resch Center either in-person or by mail:

Ticket Star
PO Box 10567
Green Bay, WI 54307

Tickets are $50 & $55 and available at www.meyertheatre.org, the Ticket Star box office in the Resch Center or by phone 1-800-895-0071.

SEYNE-LES-ALPES, France (AP) – 1 p.m. (1200 GMT, 8 a.m. EDT)

France’s aviation investigation bureau has released photos of the badly mangled voice data recorder from the Germanwings flight that crashed into an Alpine mountainside.

The images show the metal black box – which is actually a bright orange-red – twisted, dented and scarred by the impact of the crash.

The cockpit voice recorder was recovered on Tuesday and French officials say they are working to pull its data.

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12:50 p.m. (1150 GMT, 7:50 a.m. EDT)

Germanwings’ chief executive says the airline’s current information is that 72 Germans, 35 Spanish citizens and two Americans were on board the flight that crashed in southern France.

Thomas Winkelmann told reporters in Cologne on Wednesday that the list isn’t yet final because the company is still trying to contact relatives of 27 victims.

There were two victims each from Australia, Argentina, Iran and Venezuela. One victim each came from Britain, the Netherlands, Colombia, Mexico, Japan, Denmark, Belgium and Israel.

Winkelmann says in some cases victims’ nationality isn’t entirely clear, in part because of dual citizenship.

Spain’s government said they had identified 49 Spanish victims, while Britain says it believes there were at least three Britons on board.

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12:40 p.m. (1140 GMT, 7:40 a.m. EDT)

Spain’s government says it has identified 49 Spanish victims of the Germanwings crash based on information from families and the flight list.

Interior Minister official Francisco Martinez says that the figure was provisional and could change.

Police in Barcelona say they have taken DNA samples from relatives of Spanish victims of the Germanwings crash to help with identification.

A spokeswoman said Wednesday they had taken 48 samples. She said more samples would be taken.

The samples, which will be sent to French authorities, were taken at Barcelona’s El Prat airport and at hotels where the families are being looked after.

-By Associated Press writers Ciara Jorge Sainz in Madrid.

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12:20 p.m. (1120 GMT, 7:20 a.m. EDT)

Executives, pilots and employees of German airline Lufthansa have held a moment of silence at company headquarters for the 150 people who died in the Germanwings crash.

The Airbus A320 flown by Lufthansa’s low-cost division crashed on Tuesday in the Alps in southern France.

Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr, himself a pilot, observed the ceremony Wednesday at the company’s main base. He said it was “a very emotional moment, to stand there with so many colleagues in uniform.”

He said the company’s first priority was helping the relatives of those who died.

He said it was “inexplicable for us, how an airplane in good mechanical condition, with two experienced, Lufthansa-trained pilots, could encounter such a tragedy from cruising altitude.”

One of the plane’s black boxes has been recovered, and authorities are investigating.

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12:15 p.m. (1115 GMT, 7:15 a.m. EDT)

Germany’s top security official says there is no evidence at this stage that foul play was involved in the plane crash in southern France.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told reporters in Berlin on Wednesday that “according to the latest information there is no hard evidence that the crash was intentionally brought about by third parties.”

He says that authorities are nevertheless investigating all possible causes for the crash of a Germanwings flight from Barcelona to Spain on Tuesday in which 144 passengers and six crew members died.

De Maiziere appealed to media to refrain from speculation about the causes of the crash.

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12:05 p.m. (1105 GMT, 7:05 a.m. EDT)

France’s air force says it scrambled a Mirage fighter jet to the area when the Germanwings flight lost radar contact, but arrived too late to help.

An air force spokesman said Wednesday that the Mirage 2000 took off minutes after it became clear that there was a problem and went to the A320’s last known location, but arrived after it crashed in the Alps on Tuesday.

The spokesman said that the Mirage didn’t locate the site of the crash. Helicopters later found the debris scattered across a mountainside. The spokesman wasn’t authorized to be publicly named according to military policy.

-By Associated Press writer Sylvie Corbet in Paris.

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12 p.m. (1100 GMT, 7 a.m. EDT)

The principal of the German high school where 16 students and two teachers died in the Germanwings crash says “nothing will be the way it was at our school anymore.”

Ulrich Wessel, principal of the Joseph Koenig High School, said Wednesday that when the first call came about the crash, he hoped that the students had missed the plane.

But the regional governor informed local officials that they were on the passenger list.

Wessel says one of the teachers who was on the plane had been married for less than six months.

He said: “It is a tragedy that makes one speechless and we will have to learn to deal with it.”

Wessel added: “I was asked yesterday how many students there are at the high school in Haltern, and I said 1,283 without thinking – then had to say afterward, unfortunately 16 fewer since yesterday. And I find that so terrible.”

The students had been on a week-long exchange program in Spain.

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11:50 a.m. (1050 GMT, 6:50 a.m. EDT)

In Spain, flags flew at half-staff on government buildings and a minute of silence was held at legislative and government buildings across the country in memory of the Germanwings crash victims. Spain’s national parliament canceled its normal Wednesday session out of respect.

Barcelona’s Liceu opera house held two minutes of silence at noon in homage to two opera singers – Oleg Bryjak and Maria Radner – who took the flight after performing at the theater last weekend.

In the small northeastern town of Llinars del Valles, parents and children attended a memorial service at the Giola Institute for the 16 German high school students and their two teachers who had been on an exchange program there for a week before boarding the plane. A minute of silence was held at the town hall at midday.

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11:40 a.m. (1040 GMT, 6:40 a.m. EDT)

A French prosecutor says a joint investigative team will seek details about the Germanwings plane that crashed.

Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin says French, Spanish and German authorities would formally request information Wednesday about the plane’s maintenance and the conditions of its flight.

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11:25 a.m. (1025 GMT, 6:25 a.m. EDT)

Britain’s foreign secretary says the government believes that at least three Britons have died in the Germanwings disaster.

Philip Hammond also said Wednesday morning that “we can’t rule out the possibility that there could be further British people involved.”

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10:10 a.m. (0910 GMT, 5:10 a.m. EDT)

Students at the main high school in the western German town of Haltern are gathering by an ever-growing memorial of candles and flowers, weeping and hugging as they mourn the loss of 16 classmates and two teachers who died in a crash in the French Alps.

Lara Beer says her best friend, Paula, was aboard the aircraft.

Wiping tears from her eyes, the 14-year-old Beer says she was waiting for the train her friend was supposed to be on, but went home when she saw Paula wasn’t on it.

She says: “That’s when my parents told me Paula was dead.”

School classes have been cancelled but students are being encouraged to come in to talk with counsellors and friends. The crash of the Germanwings flight from Barcelona to Duesseldorf killed 150 people.

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10 a.m. (0900 GMT, 5 a.m. EDT)

A Spanish school says a second group of about 30 German exchange students is in the Spanish town of Llinars del Valles, where 16 high schoolers stayed for a week before boarding a plane that crashed in the Alps.

An administrator for the Institut Ginebro says the students are from the Hamburg area and are scheduled to leave Llinars del Valles within hours, but that teachers are considering delaying the departure in the wake of the crash. That’s a different school than the one the students killed Tuesday had been attending.

The administrator spoke on condition of anonymity Wednesday because she was not authorized to speak publicly.

-By Associated Press writer Joseph Wilson in Llinars del Valle.

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9:30 a.m. (0830 GMT, 4:30 a.m. EDT)

France’s transport minister says work is beginning on retrieving vital data from the cockpit voice recorder recovered from the crash site of the Germanwings flight that went down on an Alpine mountainside, killing 150 people.

Alain Vidalies told Europe 1 radio that the initial focus for the black box investigators will be “on the human voices, the conversations,” followed by the cockpit sounds.

Vidalies said no causes had been fully ruled out but “with what is already known the hypothesis of an intruder or an attack is unlikely.”

Lufthansa and Germanwings staff around the world will hold a minute of silence at 10.53 am (0953 GMT) Wednesday, Lufthansa said. That marks the time at which Germanwings has said contact with the plane was lost. Six Germanwings crew are among the dead.

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8:55 a.m. (0755 GMT, 3:55 a.m. EDT)

The mayor of a town close to the site of the plane crash in the French Alps that killed 150 says bereaved families are expected to begin arriving in the town Wednesday morning.

Francis Hermitte, mayor of Seyne-Les-Alpes, says said local families are offering to host the families because of a shortage of rooms to rent. Leaders of France, Germany and Spain will also meet with them in a makeshift chapel set up in a gymnasium, Hermitte said.

Marion Cotterill, head of civil protection there, says the priority is to welcome families humanely. “We offer a hot drink, a smile, a warm regard, or psychological counseling if asked for.”

Interior Ministry spokesman Paul-Henry Brandet says overnight rain and snow in the crash zone has made the rocky ravine slippery, increasing the difficulty of reaching the steep and remote area.

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8:50 a.m. (0750 GMT; 3:50 a.m. EDT)

An Israeli citizen who lived in Spain was among the victims of the French plane crash, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

Eyal Baum was 39 and lived in Barcelona with his wife, his sister, Liat Baum, told Army Radio.

“He was amazing, with a winning smile. Whoever met him fell in love with him from the first moment,” Baum said, crying.

“The thought of what he went through in those moments is very difficult.”

The crash Tuesday of the Germanwings Airbus 320 killed 150 people. There were no survivors.

A delegation from the ultra-Orthodox Jewish movement Chabad is traveling to the crash site to help in rescue efforts, Chabad Rabbi Eliyahu Attia told Army Radio.

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8:00 a.m. (0700 GMT, 3:00 a.m. EDT)

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve says the black box recovered from the crash site has been damaged but is believed to be “useable.” He says it is the voice and cockpit sound recorder.

Cazeneuve told RTL radio on Wednesday that investigators were working to pull information from the black box voice recorder.

Although officials have been firm that no cause has been ruled out, Cazeneuve said terrorism is not considered likely.

Segolene Royal, another top French official, says the seconds between 10:30 a.m. and 10:31 a.m. are considered vital to the investigation into the crash. She says the pilot stopped responding after 10:31.

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7:25 a.m. (0625 GMT, 2:25 a.m. EDT)

Pierre-Henry Brandet, spokesman for France’s Interior Ministry, says investigators are working to recover information from the black box retrieved from the scene of the crash. Brandet told French network iTele that recovery crews are expected to reach the site where the Germanwings went down sometimes Wednesday morning.

He said no causes had been ruled out in the crash that killed 150 on board

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6:30 a.m. (0530 GMT, 1:30 a.m. EDT)

Helicopter operations have resumed over mountainsides in the French Alps where a German jetliner crashed, killing all 150 people on board.

Under overcast skies, with temperatures just above freezing, helicopters resumed flights Wednesday over a widely scattered debris field.

A black box has been recovered from the scene. The Airbus A320 operated by Germanwings, a budget subsidiary of Lufthansa, was less than an hour from landing in Duesseldorf on a flight from Barcelona Tuesday when it unexpectedly went into a rapid descent. The pilots did not send out a distress call and had lost radio contact with their control center, France’s aviation authority said.

 

8:05 a.m. Update:

WPS says power has been restored to everyone except 110 customers.

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7:15 a.m. Update:

We just spoke with WPS officials, they tell us a transformer failed. It could be weather related.

The outage is on the city’s west side. In the area of Bond and Military.

WPS officials believe the power will be restored around 10 a.m.
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GREEN BAY- About 5,000 people in the Green Bay area are without power right now.

We are contacting Wisconsin Public Service to see what is causing the outage.

FOND DU LAC- We are learning more details in the shooting death of a Wisconsin State Trooper.

According to The Wisconsin Professional Police Association Facebook’s page, State Trooper Trevor Casper was killed Tuesday night in Fond du Lac.

FOX 11’S Alex Ronallo is live in Fond du Lac. Click here for her latest report.

Click here for a timeline of the events leading up to the shooting.

NEW YORK (AP) – H.J. Heinz Co. is buying Kraft Foods Group Inc., creating what the companies say will be the third-largest food and beverage company in North America.

The deal was engineered by Heinz’s owner, the Brazilian investment firm 3G Capital, and billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.

Kraft shareholders will receive stock in the combined company and a special cash dividend of approximately $10 billion, or $16.50 per share.

Current Heinz shareholders will own 51 percent of the combined company, with Kraft shareholders owning a 49 percent stake.

The combined company’s brands will include Kraft, Heinz, Oscar Mayer and others.

Both companies’ boards have unanimously approved the deal, which is targeted to close in the second half of the year. It still needs approval from Kraft shareholders.

Most of Northeast Wisconsin is under a Winter Weather Advisory.

FOX 11’s Pauleen Le will be live in the FOX 11 Storm Chaser all morning long on Good Day Wisconsin.

Click on the video for her reports.

A Winter Weather Advisory is in effect in our area this morning. A mix of rain, sleet and freezing rain is changing to snow and will impact your morning drive.

Snow accumulations of 1 to 3 inches are expected by 9 a.m.

Areas north and west of Green Bay and the Fox Cities may pick up 2 to 4 inches of snow. The snow will be on top of an icy coating in untreated areas which will result in hazardous driving and slippery sidewalks and parking lots. Allow yourself extra time and slow down as you head out today.

Late this afternoon, we may see a rain shower as temperatures top out near 43 with west and southwest winds at 10 to 20 mph.

An additional patch of light snow may work through the area on Thursday morning. Thursday’s high tops out near 38.

Keep it tuned to Good Day Wisconsin, Director of Meteorology Pete Petoniak will have the latest.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup olive or canola oil
4 tablespoons strawberry or raspberry balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
Salt and pepper
9 to 12 ounces fresh spinach
2 to 3 cups sliced strawberries
1/3 cups sliced toasted almonds or pecan halves
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese

Directions:

In a jar with a tight-fitting lid add vinegar, honey, oil and a pinch of salt and pepper. Put on lid and shake well until the dressing starts to thicken a bit. To serve, put the spinach in a large bowl. Toss with enough of the vinaigrette to coat the spinach. Sprinkle with strawberries, cheese, and almonds. Extra dressing keeps in the fridge for a week.

SEYNE-LES-ALPES, France (AP) – A cockpit voice recorder badly damaged when a German jetliner smashed into an Alpine mountainside and a crucial two-minute span when the pilot lost contact are vital clues into what caused the plane to go down, killing all 150 people on board, officials said Wednesday.

Helicopters surveying the scattered debris lifted off at daybreak, hours ahead of the expected arrival of bereaved families and the French, German and Spanish leaders. The flight from Spain to Germany went into an unexplained eight-minute dive ahead of crashing Tuesday morning.

Crews were making their way slowly to the remote crash site through fresh snow and rain, threading their way to the craggy ravine. On Tuesday, the cockpit voice recorder was retrieved from the site, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.

“The black box is damaged and must be reconstituted in the coming hours in order to be useable,” Cazeneuve told RTL radio.

Key to the investigation is what happened in the minute after 10:30, said Segolene Royal, France’s energy minister. From then, controllers were unable to make contact with the plane.

The voice recorder takes audio feeds from four microphones within the cockpit and records all the conversations between the pilots, air traffic controllers as well as any noises heard in the cockpit. The flight data recorder, which Cazeneuve said had not been retrieved yet, captures 25 hours’ worth of information on the position and condition of almost every major part in a plane.

Royal and Cazeneuve both emphasized that terrorism is considered unlikely.

Victims included two babies, two opera singers, an Australian mother and her adult son vacationing together, and 16 German high school students and their teachers returning from an exchange trip to Spain.

The Airbus A320 operated by Germanwings, a budget subsidiary of Lufthansa, was less than an hour from landing in Duesseldorf on a flight from Barcelona when it unexpectedly went into a rapid 8-minute descent on Tuesday. The pilots sent out no distress call and had lost radio contact with their control center, France’s aviation authority said.

Germanwings said 144 passengers and six crew members were on board.

BROWN COUNTY – Members of the Joint Finance Committee aren’t the only lawmakers listening to concerns about the budget. While the committee has been holding listening sessions across the state, representatives are doing the same thing in their own districts.

There were between 50 and 75 people at two separate listening sessions in Brown County. It was a Democratic listening session Tuesday at Green Bay West High School and a Republican listening session the night before at the Howard Village Hall. While it was two different political party hosts, the same budget complaints were voiced at each event.

“It’s just very important people are heard about these changes because they just don’t make sense to me,” said Pat Hickey of Green Bay.

Area lawmakers set the sessions up, partly for anyone who wasn’t able to attend one of the four Joint Finance Committee hearings across the state. The one hearing in our area was last week in Brillion.

“Not just the Joint Finance Committee, but all the members need to talk to their people back home, and then try to make changes based on that input,” said State Rep. Jim Steineke, a Kaukauna Republican and the Assembly’s majority leader.

Some people who were able to speak in Brillion, also chose to attend local sessions.

“They’re asking us our opinion and I think we should take the opportunity to give it to them and to help educate them on the facts,” said Laurie Ropson of the Aging and Disability Resource Center.

22 people spoke at Monday’s Republican hearing. About double that signed up to speak at Tuesday’s Democratic hearing.
Funding for the UW-System, public schools, and changes to the DNR were among the topics. However, the overwhelming topic at both sessions was the proposed regionalization of Aging and Disability Resource Centers.

“Please don’t close them and do not privatize them,” said Lynda Hansen of Howard. “They’re far more than a single line item in a state budget.”

Lawmakers from both sides say they plan to address the concerns. They say the input from the listening sessions will be added to what they’ve already been hearing from constituents.

“We’ve gotten over 150 letters already in my office in regards to the budget and they are still coming in as we speak,” said State Rep. Amanda Stuck, an Appleton Democrat.

BENJINA, Indonesia (AP) – The Burmese slaves sat on the floor and stared through the rusty bars of their locked cage, hidden on a tiny tropical island thousands of miles from home.

Just a few yards away, other workers loaded cargo ships with slave-caught seafood that clouds the supply networks of major supermarkets, restaurants and even pet stores in the United States.

But the eight imprisoned men were considered flight risks – laborers who might dare run away. They lived on a few bites of rice and curry a day in a space barely big enough to lie down, stuck until the next trawler forces them back to sea.

“All I did was tell my captain I couldn’t take it anymore, that I wanted to go home,” said Kyaw Naing, his dark eyes pleading into an Associated Press video camera sneaked in by a sympathetic worker. “The next time we docked,” he said nervously out of earshot of a nearby guard, “I was locked up.”

Here, in the Indonesian island village of Benjina and the surrounding waters, hundreds of trapped men represent one of the most desperate links criss-crossing between companies and countries in the seafood industry. This intricate web of connections separates the fish we eat from the men who catch it, and obscures a brutal truth: Your seafood may come from slaves.

The men the AP interviewed on Benjina were mostly from Myanmar, also known as Burma, one of the poorest countries in the world. They were brought to Indonesia through Thailand and forced to fish. Their catch was then shipped back to Thailand, where it entered the global stream of commerce.

Tainted fish can wind up in the supply chains of some of America’s major grocery stores, such as Kroger, Albertsons and Safeway; the nation’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart; and the biggest food distributor, Sysco. It can find its way into the supply chains of some of the most popular brands of canned pet food, including Fancy Feast, Meow Mix and Iams. It can turn up as calamari at fine dining restaurants, as imitation crab in a California sushi roll or as packages of frozen snapper relabeled with store brands that land on our dinner tables.

In a year-long investigation, the AP talked to more than 40 current and former slaves in Benjina. The AP documented the journey of a single large shipment of slave-caught seafood from the Indonesian village, tracking it by satellite to a gritty Thai harbor. Upon its arrival, AP journalists followed trucks that loaded and drove the seafood over four nights to dozens of factories, cold storage plants and the country’s biggest fish market.

The tainted seafood mixes in with other fish at a number of sites in Thailand, including processing plants. U.S. Customs records show that several of those Thai factories ship to America. They also sell to Europe and Asia, but the AP traced shipments to the U.S., where trade records are public.

By this time, it is nearly impossible to tell where a specific fish caught by a slave ends up. However, entire supply chains are muddied, and money is trickling down the line to companies that benefit from slave labor.

The major corporations contacted would not speak on the record but issued statements that strongly condemned labor abuses. All said they were taking steps to prevent forced labor, such as working with human rights groups to hold subcontractors accountable.

Several independent seafood distributors who did comment described the costly and exhaustive steps taken to ensure their supplies are clean. They said the discovery of slaves underscores how hard it is to monitor what goes on halfway around the world.

Santa Monica Seafood, a large independent importer that sells to restaurants, markets and direct from its store, has been a leader in improving international fisheries, and sends buyers around the world to inspect vendors.

“The supply chain is quite cloudy, especially when it comes from offshore,” said Logan Kock, vice president for responsible sourcing, who acknowledged that the industry recognizes and is working to address the problem. “Is it possible a little of this stuff is leaking through? Yeah, it is possible. We are all aware of it.”

The slaves interviewed by the AP had no idea where the fish they caught was headed. They knew only that it was so valuable, they were not allowed to eat it.

They said the captains on their fishing boats forced them to drink unclean water and work 20- to 22-hour shifts with no days off. Almost all said they were kicked, whipped with toxic stingray tails or otherwise beaten if they complained or tried to rest. They were paid little or nothing, as they hauled in heavy nets with squid, shrimp, snapper, grouper and other fish.

Some shouted for help over the deck of their trawler in the port to reporters, as bright fluorescent lights silhouetted their faces in the darkness.

“I want to go home. We all do,” one man called out in Burmese, a cry repeated by others. The AP is not using the names of some men for their safety. “Our parents haven’t heard from us for a long time. I’m sure they think we are dead.”

Another glanced fearfully over his shoulder toward the captain’s quarters, and then yelled: “It’s torture. When we get beaten, we can’t do anything back. … I think our lives are in the hands of the Lord of Death.”

In the worst cases, numerous men reported maimings or even deaths on their boats.

“If Americans and Europeans are eating this fish, they should remember us,” said Hlaing Min, 30, a runaway slave from Benjina.  “There must be a mountain of bones under the sea. … The bones of the people could be an island, it’s that many.”

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For Burmese slaves, Benjina is the end of the world.

Roughly 3,500 people live in the town that straddles two small islands separated by a five-minute boat ride. Part of the Maluku chain, formerly known as the Spice Islands, the area is about 400 miles north of Australia, and hosts small kangaroos and rare birds of paradise with dazzling bright feathers.

Benjina is impossible to reach by boat for several months of the year, when monsoon rains churn the Arafura Sea. It is further cut off by a lack of Internet access. Before a cell tower was finally installed last month, villagers would climb nearby hills each evening in the hope of finding a signal strong enough to send a text. An old landing strip has not been used in years.

The small harbor is occupied by Pusaka Benjina Resources, whose five-story office compound stands out and includes the cage with the slaves. The company is the only fishing operation on Benjina officially registered in Indonesia, and is listed as the owner of more than 90 trawlers. However, the captains are Thai, and the Indonesian government is reviewing to see if the boats are really Thai-owned. Pusaka Benjina did not respond to phone calls and a letter, and did not speak to a reporter who waited for two hours in the company’s Jakarta office.

On the dock in Benjina, former slaves unload boats for food and pocket money. Many are men who were abandoned by their captains – sometimes five, 10 or even 20 years ago – and remain stranded.

In the deeply forested island interiors, new runaways forage for food and collect rainwater, living in constant fear of being found by hired slave catchers.

And just off a beach covered in sharp coral, a graveyard swallowed by the jungle entombs dozens of fishermen. They are buried under fake Thai names given to them when they were tricked or sold onto their ships, forever covering up evidence of their captors’ abuse, their friends say.

“I always thought if there was an entrance there had to be an exit,” said Tun Lin Maung, a slave abandoned on Benjina, as other men nodded or looked at the ground.  “Now I know that’s not true.”

The Arafura Sea provides some of the world’s richest and most diverse fishing grounds, teeming with mackerel, tuna, squid and many other species.

Although it is Indonesian territory, it draws many illegal fishing fleets, including from Thailand. The trade that results affects the United States and other countries.

The U.S. counts Thailand as one of its top seafood suppliers, and buys about 20 percent of the country’s $7 billion annual exports in the industry. Last year, the State Department blacklisted Thailand for failing to meet minimum standards in fighting human trafficking, placing the country in the ranks of North Korea, Syria and Iran. However, there were no additional sanctions.

Thailand’s seafood industry is largely run off the backs of migrant laborers, said Kendra Krieder, a State Department analyst who focuses on supply chains. The treatment of some of these workers falls under the U.S. government’s definition of slavery, which includes forcing people to keep working even if they once signed up for the jobs, or trafficking them into situations where they are exploited.

“In the most extreme cases, you’re talking about someone kidnapped or tricked into working on a boat, physically beaten, chained,” said Krieder. “These situations would be called modern slavery by any measure.”

The Thai government says it is cleaning up the problem. On the bustling floor of North America’s largest seafood show in Boston earlier this month, an official for the Department of Fisheries laid out a plan to address labor abuse, including new laws that mandate wages, sick leave and shifts of no more than 14 hours. However, Kamonpan Awaiwanont stopped short when presented details about the men in Benjina.

“This is still happening now?” he asked. He paused. “We are trying to solve it. This is ongoing.”

The Thai government also promises a new national registry of illegal migrant workers, including more than 100,000 flooding the seafood industry. However, policing has now become even harder because decades of illegal fishing have depleted stocks close to home, pushing the boats farther and deeper into foreign waters.

The Indonesian government has called a temporary ban on most fishing, aiming to clear out foreign poachers who take billions of dollars of seafood from the country’s waters. As a result, more than 50 boats are now docked in Benjina, leaving up to 1,000 more slaves stranded onshore and waiting to see what will happen next.

Indonesian officials are trying to enforce laws that ban cargo ships from picking up fish from boats at sea. This practice forces men to stay on the water for months or sometimes years at a time, essentially creating floating prisons.

Susi Pudjiastuti, the new Fisheries Minister, said she has heard of different fishing companies putting men in cells. She added that she believes the trawlers on Benjina may really have Thai owners, despite the Indonesian paperwork, reflecting a common practice of faking or duplicating licenses.

She said she is deeply disturbed about the abuse on Benjina and other islands.

“I’m very sad. I lose my eating appetite. I lose my sleep,” she said. “They are building up an empire on slavery, on stealing, on fish(ing) out, on massive environmental destruction for a plate of seafood.”

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The story of slavery in the Thai seafood industry started decades ago with the same push-and-pull that shapes economic immigration worldwide – the hope of escaping grinding poverty to find a better life somewhere else.

In recent years, as the export business has expanded, it has become more difficult to convince young Burmese or Cambodian migrants and impoverished Thais – all of whom were found on Benjina – to accept the dangerous jobs. Agents have become more desperate and ruthless, recruiting children and the disabled, lying about wages and even drugging and kidnapping migrants, according to a former broker who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution.

The broker said agents then sell the slaves, usually to Thai captains of fishing boats or the companies that own them. Each slave typically costs around $1,000, according to Patima Tungpuchayakul, manager of the Thai-based nonprofit Labor Rights Promotion Network Foundation. The men are later told they have to work off the “debt” with wages that don’t come for months or years, or at all.

“The employers are probably more worried about the fish than the workers’ lives,” she said. “They get a lot of money from this type of business.”

Illegal Thai boats are falsely registered to fish in Indonesia through graft, sometimes with the help of government authorities. Praporn Ekouru, a Thai former member of Parliament, admitted to the AP that he had bribed Indonesian officials to go into their waters, and complained that the Indonesian government’s crackdown is hurting business.

“In the past, we sent Thai boats to fish in Indonesian waters by changing their flags,” said Praporn, who is also chairman of the Songkhla Fisheries Association in southern Thailand. “We had to pay bribes of millions of baht per year, or about 200,000 baht ($6,100) per month. … The officials are not receiving money anymore because this order came from the government.”

Illegal workers are given false documents, because Thai boats cannot hire undocumented crew. One of the slaves in Benjina, Maung Soe, said he was given a fake seafarer book belonging to a Thai national, accepted in Indonesia as an informal travel permit. He rushed back to his boat to dig up a crinkled copy.

“That’s not my name, not my signature,” he said angrily, pointing at the worn piece of paper. “The only thing on here that is real is my photograph.”

Soe said he had agreed to work on a fishing boat only if it stayed in Thai waters, because he had heard Indonesia was a place from which workers never came back.

“They tricked me,” he said. “They lied to me. … They created fake papers and put me on the boat, and now here I am in Indonesia.”

The slaves said the level of abuse on the fishing boats depends on individual captains and assistants. Aung Naing Win, who left a wife and two children behind in Myanmar two years ago, said some fishermen were so depressed that they simply threw themselves into the water. Win, 40, said his most painful task was working without proper clothing in the ship’s giant freezer, where temperatures drop to 39 degrees below zero.

“It was so cold, our hands were burning,” he said. “No one really cared if anyone died.”

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The shipment the AP tracked from the port of Benjina carried fish from smaller trawlers; AP journalists talked to slaves on more than a dozen of them.

A crane hoisted the seafood onto a refrigerated cargo ship called the Silver Sea Line, with an immense hold as big as 50 semi-trucks. At this point, by United Nations and U.S. standards, every fish in that hold is considered associated with slavery.

The ship belongs to the Silver Sea Reefer Co., which is registered in Thailand and has at least nine refrigerated cargo boats. The company said it is not involved with the fishermen.

“We only carry the shipment and we are hired in general by clients,” said owner Panya Luangsomboon. “We’re separated from the fishing boats.”

The AP followed the Silver Sea Line by satellite over 15 days to Samut Sakhon. When it arrived, workers on the dock packed the seafood over four nights onto more than 150 trucks, which then delivered their loads around the city.

One truck bore the name and bird logo of Kingfisher Holdings Ltd., which supplies frozen and canned seafood around the world.  Another truck went to Mahachai Marine Foods Co., a cold storage business that also supplies to Kingfisher and other exporters, according to Kawin Ngernanek, whose family runs it.

“Yes, yes, yes, yes,” said Kawin, who also serves as spokesman for the Thai Overseas Fisheries Association. “Kingfisher buys several types of products.”

When asked about abusive labor practices, Kingfisher did not answer repeated requests for comment. Mahachai manager Narongdet Prasertsri responded, “I have no idea about it at all.”

Every month, Kingfisher and its subsidiary KF Foods Ltd. sends about 100 metric tons of seafood from Thailand to America, according to U.S. Customs Bills of Lading. These shipments have gone to Santa Monica Seafood, Stavis Seafoods – located on Boston’s historic Fish Pier – and other distributors.

Richard Stavis, whose grandfather started the dealership in 1929, shook his head when told about the slaves whose catch may end up at businesses he buys from. He said his company visits processors and fisheries, requires notarized certification of legal practices and uses third-party audits.

“The truth is, these are the kind of things that keep you up at night,” he said. “That’s the sort of thing I want to stop. … There are companies like ours that care and are working as hard as they can.”

Wholesalers like Stavis sell packages of fish, branded and unbranded, that can end up on supermarket shelves with a private label or house brand. Stavis’ customers also include Sysco, the largest food distributor in the U.S.; there is no clear way to know which particular fish was sold to them.

Sysco declined an interview, but the company’s code of conduct says it “will not knowingly work with any supplier that uses forced, bonded, indentured or slave labor.”

Gavin Gibbons, a spokesman for National Fisheries Institute, which represents about 75 percent of the U.S. seafood industry, said the reports of abuse were “disturbing” and “disheartening.” ”But these type of things flourish in the shadows,” he said.

A similar pattern repeats itself with other shipments and other companies, as the supply chain splinters off in many directions in Samut Sakhon. It is in this Thai port that slave-caught seafood starts to lose its history.

The AP followed another truck to Niwat Co., which sells to Thai Union Manufacturing Co., according to part owner Prasert Luangsomboon. Weeks later, when confronted about forced labor in their supply chain, Niwat referred several requests for comment to Luangsomboon, who could not be reached for further comment.

Thai Union Manufacturing is a subsidiary of Thai Union Frozen Products PCL., the country’s largest seafood corporation, with $3.5 billion in annual sales. This parent company, known simply as Thai Union, owns Chicken of the Sea and is buying Bumble Bee, although the AP did not observe any tuna fisheries. In September, it became the country’s first business to be certified by Dow Jones for sustainable practices, after meeting environmental and social reviews.

Thai Union said it condemns human rights violations, but multiple stakeholders must be part of the solution. “We all have to admit that it is difficult to ensure the Thai seafood industry’s supply chain is 100 percent clean,” CEO Thiraphong Chansiri said in an emailed statement.

Thai Union ships thousands of cans of cat food to the U.S., including household brands like Fancy Feast, Meow Mix and Iams. These end up on shelves of major grocery chains, such as Kroger, Safeway and Albertsons, as well as pet stores; again, however, it’s impossible to tell if a particular can of cat food might have slave-caught fish.

Thai Union says its direct clients include Wal-Mart, which declined an interview but said in an email statement: “We care about the men and women in our supply chain, and we are concerned about the ethical recruitment of workers.”

Wal-Mart described its work with several non-profits to end forced labor in Thailand, including Project Issara, and referred the AP to Lisa Rende Taylor, its director. She noted that slave-caught seafood can slip into supply chains undetected at several points, such as when it is traded between boats or mingles with clean fish at processing plants. She also confirmed that seafood sold at the Talay Thai market – to where the AP followed several trucks – can enter international supply chains.

“Transactions throughout Thai seafood supply chains are often not well-documented, making it difficult to estimate exactly how much seafood available on supermarket shelves around the world is tainted by human trafficking and forced labor,” she said.

Poj Aramwattananont, president of an industry group that represents Thai Union, Kingfisher and others, said Thais are not “jungle people” and know that human trafficking is wrong. However, he acknowledged that Thai companies cannot always track down the origins of their fish.

“We don’t know where the fish come from when we buy from Indonesia,” said Poj of the Thai Frozen Foods Association. “We have no record. We don’t know if that fish is good or bad.”

______

The seafood the slaves on Benjina catch may travel around the world, but their own lives often end right here, in this island village.

A crude cemetery holds more than graves strangled by tall grasses and jungle vines, where small wooden markers are neatly labelled, some with the falsified names of slaves and boats. Only their friends remember where they were laid to rest.

In the past, former slave Hla Phyo said, supervisors on ships simply tossed bodies into the sea to be devoured by sharks. But after authorities and companies started demanding that every man be accounted for on the roster upon return, captains began stowing corpses alongside the fish in ship freezers until they arrived back in Benjina, the slaves said.

Lifting his knees as he stepped over the thick brush, Phyo searched for two grave markers overrun by weeds – friends he helped bury.

It’s been five years since he himself escaped the sea and struggled to survive on the island. Every night, his mind drifts back to his mother in Myanmar. He knows she must be getting old now, and he desperately wants to return to her. Standing among so many anonymous tombs stacked on top of each other, hopelessness overwhelms him.

“I’m starting to feel like I will be in Indonesia forever,” he said, wiping a tear away. “I remember thinking when I was digging, the only thing that awaits us here is death.”

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Esther Htusan contributed to this report from Benjina, Indonesia. Mason reported from Samut Sakhon, Thailand; Mendoza reported from Boston, Mass.

BARABOO, Wis. (AP) – A 19-year-old Wisconsin Dells man is accused of punching a doctor and a nurse during a disturbance at a hospital last week.

Sterling Cloud faces felony battery charges in Sauk County. He also is charged with resisting an officer and disorderly conduct, both misdemeanors.

The Baraboo News Republic reports police were called to the emergency room at Reedsburg Area Medical Center on Wednesday around 2:30 a.m. on a report of an out-of-control patient.

Cloud reportedly had struck one of the nurses. When approached by the officers, he allegedly shouted at them.

According to the complaint, Cloud allegedly punched a doctor who tried to treat him. Officers handcuffed Cloud to the bed but then decided to take him to jail.

Cloud has been released on a $1,000 signature bond.

WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) – A 17-year-old Wausau girl has been ordered to spend 30 days in juvenile detention for an SUV crash that killed two 12-year-old girls last summer.

WAOW-TV reports the girl was found delinquent on two counts of homicide by negligent operation of a vehicle.

The girl, then 16, was driving an SUV when it went out of control on state Highway 52 last August. Killed were Deserae Landowski of Wausau and Reighlee Stevenson of Oshkosh.

Another passenger suffered permanent nerve damage and has problems walking.

Investigators say the girl did not have a driver’s license when she headed to Eau Claire Dells with nine passengers for a day of swimming.

The girl told the judge she was sorry for what happened. She received the maximum punishment in juvenile court.

MANITOWOC – Manitowoc’s mayor is looking for public input about what the lakefront city needs to focus on now, and in the future; specifically downtown and the semi-demolished Mirro plant.

The first of four, informal, public meetings was held Tuesday morning at Manitowoc City Hall.

Mayor Justin Nickels says the meetings are to gauge the public’s thoughts on possible plans – and potential costs – of the city removing the crumbling Mirro plant, and making further enhancements to the downtown.

Longtime resident and business owner Tina Zigmunt says if it takes the city to invest in making the downtown more hospitable for business and tourism, then she’s okay with the plan.

“I feel a lot of people don’t shop locally, as much as they should,” said Zigmunt, her pet salon sits near 14th and Washington Streets in the downtown. “There’s shops closing all the time.”

In the eleven years Zigmunt’s been sprucing up her four-legged client’s dogged looks, she says the nearby, hulking, semi-demolished Mirro plant hasn’t helped downtown business. The plant was closed in 2003.

“It looks horrible, nobody wants to come downtown and see it, and to shop here, I think it would benefit our town if we would get rid of it,” said Zigmunt.

At a meeting at City Hall Tuesday morning, about two dozen people waited to get the answer to the massive question on the city’s skyline.

One of the plant’s four massive buildings has been demolished. However, Nickels says it’s not likely the rest of the buildings will be removed in the near – or distant future.

“It’s owned by an LLC, purchased for $200, so the city does not even own it.”

Nickels says the property owner, Niagara Worldwide, faces multiple citations regarding blight or site safety. But all liability is on the owner – not the city.

“Frankly, should the city bite the bullet, quit looking in the rear view mirror, and do something about this? On the city’s dime? Or continue to work with the owner and see what can be done,” said Nickels to the group, made up of longtime residents and several downtown business owners.

Other topics discussed were potential downtown redevelopment projects, like a new riverfront park, providing matching grants for building facade improvements, and even a new downtown festival.

“I think we need that. But you get some people, ‘Everything’s got to go down, down, down,’ and that’s not realistic,” said Tom Sitkiewitz. “You got to support this stuff; otherwise it’s going to go away.”

“If (businesses) don’t get any help from the city, our downtown, you might as well bulldoze the whole downtown, because it looks bad.”

Nickels says the city is the only entity that can step in to drive development.

“I have no doubt in my mind that if the city invests in downtown, or the Mirro building, that the private investments won’t follow, because they will,” said Nickels.

Nickels says the city has about $40,000 to spend on smaller downtown district improvements in the current budget. However, demolishing the Mirro plant could take between $2-3 million, or more – if the city were to take ownership.

Calls to the current owner of the Mirro property, Eric Spirtas, went unreturned.

Two more public meetings are scheduled for Wednesday at 10:30 a.m.; the second – and final meeting – at 4:30 p.m.

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DE PERE – Many fishermen took to the chilly waters of the Fox River in De Pere Tuesday.

The spring walleye run is underway, and some anglers even had some luck.

Wes Rose, and Jeff Hoven drove six and a half hours from Iowa to fish the Fox River in De Pere.

They call their three-and-a-half-day effort a success.

“How many walleyes? We keep track on a clicker right here. And I think I told Jeff that when we quit this morning, I think we ended up, we caught 144,” said Wes Rose, Graettinger, Iowa.

The Fox Point Boat Launch in De Pere opened last week. Tom Havlovitz hasn’t had much luck.

“It’s been kind of slow, but I’ve been picking up a few. No legals yet, which they have to be 28 inches but I’m getting a few,” said Tom Havlovitz, De Pere.

Just upriver at Voyageur Park, Adam Lemerond enjoyed his day off from work.

“I was originally going for a walleye, but I caught a whitefish instead,” said Adam Lemerond, Green Bay.

The walleye spawning run attracts dozens of boaters to the area. The Fox River in the Green Bay area is typically the first place to fish open water.

“Saturday and Sunday were bumper to bumper, but the fishing was still good. A lot more pressure on the weekend, but the fishing was good,” said Jeff Hoven, Matlock, Iowa.

There will be wardens on the water as well. The Department of Natural Resources is one of several agencies patrolling the part of the river through Green Bay.

“People are moving around all over. Some are trolling, some are anchored, some are drifting, and we want to avoid a collision at all cost,” said Darren Kuhn, D.N.R. Conservation Warden.

Kuhn says PCB cleanup is scheduled to resume next week.

“Barges are starting to be placed. Equipment, and pipe is starting to be laid. There’s all sorts of construction stuff going on,” he said.

Meanwhile anglers say there are a few more weeks of good fishing.

“Get a little more water temperature, it’s going to get better,” said Rose.

Wardens say people should wear their life jackets while out on the water.

And you should make sure your fishing licenses, and boat registrations are up-to-date.

FOND DU LAC – Police are investigating a bank robbery at Hometown Bank in Fond du Lac.

Police were called to the bank, located at 245 N. Peters Avenue, at 4:25 p.m. Tuesday.

Officers were told that a man entered the bank and presented a note to the teller saying this was a robbery and to hand him over money.

The man took an undisclosed amount of cash and left the bank. No one was injured.

The suspect is described as a white man, between the ages of 35-50-years-old, almost 6 feet tall and weighing between 175-185 pounds. Police say he has a mole or growth on his right cheek. He was wearing a black or dark grey colored hoodie with dark sunglasses and a dark colored winter hat.

Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the Fond du Lac Police Department at (920) 906-5555 or the Crime Alert number at (920) 322-3740.