Green Bay News

POUND – Fire crews battled a barn fire in the Village of Pound Tuesday afternoon.

Officials say no one was injured in the fire and no animals were inside the barn.

A witness said the fire is near 17th street.

The cause of the fire is unknown.

 

 

APPLETON – Thanks to donations pouring in from the community, We Care Meals will be able to continue their tradition and offer a free Easter meal.

The meal was cancelled earlier this week because organizers say there was a lack of funding.

The meal will be at the Camelot in Appleton.

We Care Meals has been serving a free meal on Easter and Christmas since the mid-80s.

 

MARINETTE COUNTY – Deputies in Marinette County are looking for a man they say was involved in a bank robbery in the Village of Wausaukee.

Officials say it happened Tuesday afternoon at 1:47 p.m.

Deputies say the man is described as white, more than 6 feet tall, thin build, between 20-30-years-old, wearing blue jeans, grey shoes, grey sweatshirt, orange reflective/mirrored glasses and a ball cap with black front, white back and orange lettering.

Deputies believe the man is armed and dangerous and may have accomplices.

If you have any information regarding the suspect, please contact Marinette County Dispatch at 715-732-7627.

A look at the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and information about the country’s ethnic makeup.

MADISON (AP) – A Wisconsin state senator says he brought a concealed gun to a committee hearing.

Van Wanggaard, a Racine Republican and a former police officer, is chairman of the Senate judiciary committee. He was running a public hearing in the state Capitol on Tuesday on a bill he wrote that would let off-duty and retired police officers carry concealed weapons on school property when he announced he had a gun on him.

Wanggaard said retired police officers always feel the need to protect society and he has passed annual marksmanship tests that enable him to carry as an officially retired officer.

He did not display the weapon. His aide, Scott Kelly, says Wanggaard usually carries a gun on his hip but he didn’t know what type.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel is telling a federal appeals court that he does not want the state’s voter identification law to take effect until after the April 7 election.

Schimel said Tuesday in a court filing that he does not object to the request by the American Civil Liberties Union to hold off on enforcing the photo ID requirement until April 8.

Schimel had said Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to the law that he didn’t want the photo ID requirement to take effect immediately. Schimel agrees with opponents of the law that it can’t be enacted before the election because people have already begun voting by absentee ballot.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – The authors of a bill that would outlaw using GPS to track someone without their consent are telling a legislative committee the proposal would protect people’s privacy.

Rep. Adam Neylon and Sen. Jerry Petrowski, both Republicans, told the state Senate’s judiciary committee that legislators must watch how technology is used and their bill will help prevent stalking.

Thomas Fischer, vice president of the Professional Association of Wisconsin Licensed Investigators, told the committee the bill would drive private investigators out of business.

The measure would make placing a GPS device on another person’s vehicle without permission a misdemeanor punishable by up to nine months in jail and $10,000 in fines. The proposal carves out exceptions for police, parents and business owners tracking their vehicles.

The Assembly passed the bill in February.

In two weeks, voters across Wisconsin will decide the future of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. There are two issues on the ballot.

Voters will decide whether to change the way the chief justice is selected for the court. A constitutional amendment on the ballot would let the justices elect their chief. Currently, the justice with the most seniority is given the position.

There are also two candidates vying for a seat on the court. Justice Ann Walsh Bradley is seeking her third term. She is facing Rock County Judge James Daley. Both candidates have spent more than 20 years on the bench.

Bradley was elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 1995. Before that, she spent 10 years as a circuit court judge in Marathon County. She was re-elected to the high court in 2005 and is seeking a third 10-year term.

Daley has been a circuit court judge in Rock County since 1989, when he was first appointed by then-Gov. Tommy Thompson. The candidates each sat down with FOX 11’s Robert Hornacek for an interview on CW 14 Focus.

“Our only agenda on the court has to be to the Constitution and to the people of this state,” Bradley said on the show.

When asked what shapes his judicial philosophy, Daley replied, “The Constitution and the rule of law, very frankly.”

On the show, Bradley addressed an incident that happened back in 2011 when she accused fellow Justice David Prosser of putting his hands around her neck during an argument over Act 10. Bradley says the court isn’t as divided as it was then.

“That was a difficult time. And we’ve had difficult challenges on the court,” Bradley said. “But all seven of us, Robert, are committed to making sure that we are the court the people of Wisconsin expect and deserve.”

Daley says there’s too much divisiveness on the court.

“I will have a stabilizing effect. I’m truly an independent voice. I’m not on either side of the issue,” Daley said.

But during the campaign, Bradley has criticized Daley for his ties to the Republican Party. Daley describes himself as a conservative but says his political opinions do not determine his decisions.

“I will not use my personal beliefs, my personal political outlook or beliefs and I will never use a hidden agenda to change the law of Wisconsin to meet my goals as a partisan political goal. I will never do that. That is just wrong for me,” Daley said.

Daley counters by accusing Bradley of being an activist judge.

“When I hear that I think of former United States Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and her response to that label. She said, ‘you know, that just means they don’t like the bottom line of your decision,'” Bradley said.

If the past is any indication, Daley may have a difficult road ahead of him.  A sitting justice has only been defeated five times in the last 160 years.

If you’d like to see more of Robert’s interviews with the candidates tune in to a special edition of CW 14 Focus this Sunday at 10 a.m. on CW 14.

OSHKOSH –  It’s a show anyone in the farming community can enjoy.

Tuesday marks the official start of the 55th annual Wisconsin Public Service (WPS) Farm Show in Oshkosh.

The annual show attracts about 20,000 visitors and features a wide range of agricultural services. Visitors from all over Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois and Canada are expected to attend.

Demonstrations of the latest farm technologies and equipment are always a big hit for farmers of all ages.

WPS Farm Show manager, Rob Juneau, says the event is a great asset for farmers, “Every exhibitor here has the latest technology that helps farmers be more efficient and more productive and to say in business and to compete with the world market that we are in today.”

The event takes place at the EAA Convention Grounds in Oshkosh.

Admission to the event is free, and there is a $3.00 fee for parking.

For more information on the event, click here.

 

 

SUAMICO – Summer is right around the corner and Brown County is helping residents find ways to fight the “boredom blues” this summer season.

Tuesday Brown County Executive Troy Streckenbach unveiled the Summer Passport 2015 Program.

The passports are free and filled with activities, such as visiting the NEW Zoo in Suamico, to inspire residents to get actively involved in county activities.

Streckenbach says this is a great way to help encourage families to live a more active lifestyle, “We look at motivating families to move and get physically active this Summer. We are motivating families to learn and to help educate on how to live a healthy lifestyle and we are motivating them to play together and to spend quality family time together.”

Participants will have the opportunity to win monthly prizes after completing activities on their checklists.

For more information on the program, click here.

 

ASHWAUBENON – A new name among the other legendary streets that surround Lambeau Field in Ashwaubenon.

Part of Potts Avenue has officially been changed to Mike McCarthy Way Tuesday.

It will intersect with Bart Starr Drive and Holmgren Way and is parallel to Lombardi Avenue.

An official sign ceremony took place in July, where McCarthy said it was an honor that wouldn’t have been possible without his family, players, and team’s general manager.

From left, Green Bay Mayor Jim Schmitt, Brown Co. Executive Troy Streckenbach, Ashwaubenon Village President Mike Aubinger, Packers coach Mike McCarthy’s daughter Alex, McCarthy and Packers President/CEO Mark Murphy pose with a Mike McCarthy Way street sign. The photo followed a July 23, 2014, ceremony commemorating the renaming of a stretch of road in Ashwaubenon in honor of McCarthy. (WLUK/Brooke Zauner)

The world is watching Yemen go from bad to worse.  America withdrew the remaining U.S. Special Forces from a Yemeni base, where they waged a drone war against Al Qaeda.

Now the country is in free-fall; on the brink of civil war. The U.N. held an emergency session over the weekend to address the problem.

Still, this has dealt yet another blow to the White House and its strategy on counterterrorism. A mere 7 months ago, President Barack Obama used Yemen as an example of peace and stability; an “anti-terror model” for an otherwise volatile region.

But weeks after Mr. Obama’s comments, the impoverished nation unraveled. That’s when Houthi rebels financed by Iran forced the U.S. backed president and his cabinet to evacuate the capital city of Sana’a.

This weekend, the Houthis battled Sunni jihadists who staged bombing raids Friday, killing more than 130-people.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.

Dr. Bill Braniff, who researches terrorism at the University of Maryland remembers Mr. Obama’s speech last September. “It’s very hard to have a simple message when you’re trying to do complex things in an unstable international environment”

The Houthis now control the western half of Yemen; taking the nation’s third largest city. They’re now marching toward the port city of Aden.

What went so wrong so fast in Yemen? Or did the white house simply overlook events in Yemen already taking shape?

“It’s easy to second-guess now,” says Senator Ben Cardin. ‘But we knew the situation in Yemen was very tenuous. We never felt very comfortable about the security arrangements there.”

Last month, the U.S. embassy in Yemen was evacuated. U.S. marines and staffers left their vehicles and weapons behind. That compound was also a key center to U.S. intelligence gathering.

Terrorism expert Gary LaFree says it’s unsettling to know we’ve lost even more intelligence. “There are big consequences when you abandon an embassy in that particular part  in the world intelligence in that part of the world is greatly diminished.”

Just a scant 7 months later, President Barack Obama’s September “model”, is now descending into chaos.

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE-TV) – A photo has captured the attention of people from around the world, including the mayor of Louisville, Kentucky.

The picture shows a Louisville police officer helping a woman finish a 10k after she started having trouble breathing.

Her determination to keep going and the officer’s helping hand, allowed Asia Ford to finish the race.

Both of them were honored Monday for their act of inspiration.

Cedra Mayfield has the story.

 

MADISON — Wisconsin running back Corey Clement was taking a break at spring practice when a former teammate leaned over with a question.

Melvin Gordon is still trying to make Clement better even if the runner-up for this year’s Heisman Award is no longer a Badger.

“He’s picking my brain, too, just like (when) he was out here a while ago. He said … ‘What down front is that?'” Clement said. “He’s always going to be Melvin. He’s always going to be competing with me on or off the field.”

Come fall, the bulk of the carries will likely belong to Clement. First, he has to get used to yet another new position coach.

The change was a necessity after Paul Chryst became head coach after Gary Andersen left in December following two seasons in Madison to take the same job at Oregon State. Thomas Hammock coached running backs during Andersen’s first year; Thomas Brown was the position coach in 2014 during Gordon’s record-setting season.

Clement ran for 949 yards and nine touchdowns on 147 carries last season, which would be a pretty good year at most other schools. At Wisconsin, he ran in the shadow of Gordon, who had 2,587 yards and 29 touchdowns on 343 carries.

Gordon announced he was bypassing his senior season on Dec. 10, the same day that Andersen left the Badgers.

Now John Settle, who was with Chryst at Pittsburgh, has rejoined Chryst at Camp Randall Stadium. For Clement, that means getting used to new terminology and a new leader in the running backs room.

Clement said that he is happy studying under the detail-oriented Settle. Still, Clement likened the beginning of spring to having to start over again.

“I understand it’s a business. A lot of guys are going to be in and out of this job,” Clement said after a recent practice. “Hopefully, this is my last coach that I stick with, for sure.”

Having Chryst as head coach has made the transition easier in Madison. Before his three-year stint at Pitt, Chryst coordinated potent offenses at Wisconsin.

In his previous go-around with the Badgers in 2011, Chryst’s offense featured quarterback Russell Wilson and running back Montee Ball. Settle is also familiar with Wisconsin, having served as the running backs coach from 2006-10 while Chryst was coordinator.

Ball, John Clay and James White were among Settle’s protégés in Madison. Settle also had stints as an assistant in the NFL with Carolina and Cleveland.

“I’ve been in this offense a long time. I’m able to give him pointers, help him along,” Settle said of Clement. “He’s talented enough where you don’t have to do a lot of pointing.”

But Clement has had to do a lot of learning.

“It’s crazy, confusing, foreign,” he said. “But you know it’s all fun, getting to learn the new terminology.”

Early on, Settle has been focused on getting his backs to recognize fronts – just like the question Gordon has asked.

Chryst has said he likes what he sees so far in Clement, especially his work ethic. For Clement, spring ball also means focusing on little things that might be taken for granted with a holdover staff, such as how plays are called and kinds of cadences preferred in snap counts.

Settle indicated that the Badgers won’t ease Clement’s workload this spring despite his status as the new No. 1 back in a run-oriented offense. But the coaching staff would be “smart with him,” he said.

“Right now, I know that he’s our guy and we have to take care of the guys that you’re counting on in the fall,” Settle said. “We’ll do enough with him to get (him) comfortable.”

A passenger jet carrying 150 people crashed March 24, 2015, in the French Alps as it flew from Barcelona to Duesseldorf.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The government is revising its definition of what it means to farm, meaning some people who receive farm subsidies but don’t do any of the work would receive less government cash.

Congress asked the Agriculture Department last year to create a new definition for what it means to be “actively engaged” in farming, the criteria for some subsidies. USDA proposed Tuesday that farm managers put in 500 hours of substantial management work annually or 25 percent of the time necessary for the success of the farming operation to qualify.

Congress exempted family owned entities, which make up some of the country’s largest farms, as part of a provision directing USDA to issue the new rules.

USDA says as many as 1,400 operations could lose eligibility under the rules.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The IRS says federal workers and retirees owed more than $3.5 billion in unpaid taxes last year.

That’s a $200 million increase from the year before.

In data released Tuesday, the IRS said almost 305,000 federal workers and retirees owed back taxes, down from 318,000 the year before.

The delinquency rate among federal workers was 3.1 percent. Among executive departments, workers at the Department of Housing and Urban Development had the highest delinquency rate, at 4.7 percent.

Workers at the Treasury Department, which includes the IRS, had the lowest delinquency rate, at 1.2 percent.

Compared with the general public, federal workers are more likely to pay their taxes.

The IRS estimates that the delinquency rate for the general public is between 8 percent and 9 percent.

MADISON (AP) – The two candidates for Wisconsin Supreme Court continue to spar over partisan influences in the race for a 10-year term on the state’s highest court.

Justice Ann Walsh Bradley and Rock County Circuit Judge James Daley met Tuesday at a candidate forum hosted by the Dane County Bar Association.

The race is officially nonpartisan, but Daley has accepted a $7,000 in-kind contribution from the Wisconsin Republican Party and is speaking at GOP events around the state. Bradley says she “strongly believes” that political parties should stay out of judicial races.

Daley says he’s not going to apologize for accepting a legal donation from the GOP. He says he speaks with people who have a similar conservative philosophy.

The election is April 7.

TULSA, Okla. (AP) – Punching far above their weight, starry-eyed Tulsans have tried for years to demonstrate to fellow Oklahomans and outsiders alike that the state’s second-largest city was more funky and less in a funk.

With a re-energized downtown and a welcome mat for a much younger generation of business owners and urban dwellers, this meat-and-potatoes Midwestern city of about 400,000 is hitting a stride.

“Seems like there’s a huge portion of people happy to have an Urban Outfitters and Fuddruckers, then there’s a small population section that’s starving for authenticity,” says Brian Franklin, owner of DoubleShot Coffee Co. and an unofficial poster boy for Tulsa’s hipster revolution. Franklin’s straight-up, perhaps fussy, shop rules became the model for a sketch on the comedy show “Portlandia” after actress Carrie Brownstein visited.

Brian Franklin, owner of DoubleShot Coffee Co., measures the right amount of coffee beans to be hand-roasted at his shop on Thursday, March 19, 2015 in Tulsa, Okla. Franklin’s shop is part of the unique businesses, cafes and art galleries that have popped up all over the city in recent years. With a re-energized downtown and a welcome mat for a much younger generation of business owners and urban dwellers, this meat-and-potatoes Midwestern city of about 400,000 is hitting a stride. (AP Photo/Justin Juozapavicius)

Brownstein wasn’t available for an interview, but explained in a 2013 interview with Splitsider that she’s found hidden Portlandias in places she visits, like Tulsa.

“All over Tulsa are little pockets of collectives and boutiques and artisan bakeries … I feel like that is popping up in so many cities, especially in places like Birmingham or Tulsa, where there was a time where those downtown areas were somewhat abandoned and people moved to the suburbs,” she said.

Tulsa’s pop culture cred is a long way from where things in this city were a few years ago – a period that saw lots of soaring, big-concept ideas go horribly, and embarrassingly, awry.

Leaders campaigned to land one of four retiring NASA space shuttles a few years ago, but lost out to much larger cities. Two years ago, straight-faced boosters wanted to assemble a bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics, $3.5 billion price tag and all.

And, perhaps most memorably, thousands of spectators watched in 2007 as crews hoisted a 1957 Plymouth Belvedere out of its concrete tomb below the courthouse lawn, only to find that the time capsule on wheels was a rusted, muck-caked mess. The gimmick didn’t take into account that 50 years of Oklahoma weather could wreak havoc on anything, even Miss Belvedere.

In the time since the rust-bucket incident, Tulsa’s slowly fashioned a downtown with a new arena, ballpark and epicenter of thriving nightlife called the Brady Arts District, a once-rundown swath of concrete and abandoned warehouses carpeted with weeds and syringes that was aching for a second act.

Brady’s success is a Valentine to Tulsa’s creative class: hole-in-the-wall bistros, art galleries and studio space, the national Woody Guthrie Center, legendary music venues like Cain’s Ballroom and Soundpony and a trendy gay nightclub, among many others. The revival that’s taking place in Brady is part of the reason The New York Times dubbed Tulsa one of the 52 places to go in 2015.

“My downtown’s an exciting place,” says Natasha Ball, whose family’s lived in the Tulsa area since before statehood. “There are teenage kids going into Cain’s and doing a poetry slam about the Tulsa Race Riot.” The riot was a 1921 attack by whites on a wealthy black community in which some 300 African-Americans were believed killed.

Way before blogs were considered a thing, Ball started one in 2005, showcasing adventures that could be had in her beloved city if folks would just walk that extra half-block or get over misplaced fears and park in a supposedly sketchy part of town. “TashaDoesTulsa” soon became required reading for plugged-in locals during its seven-year run.

For Franklin – sipping an Americano out of a piece of Navajo pottery at his shop, which calls itself “the white buffalo of coffee” –  hip isn’t found by bolting to seemingly greener pastures in other places around the country, it’s “stay in town and be cool and make something.”

And Tulsa has put that rusted Belvedere in the rear-view mirror.

DETROIT (AP) – The bodies of two children have been found inside a freezer at a low-income apartment complex on Detroit’s east side and their mother is being questioned by police.

Detroit police initially said an adult woman’s body was found about 10:45 a.m. Tuesday by 36th District Court officers carrying out an eviction at the Martin Luther King Apartments.

Officer Jennifer Moreno says it was later determined there were two bodies – one male and the other female. They are described as pre-teens or teens.

Their names were not immediately released. Autopsies will be performed by the Wayne County medical examiner’s office to determine how they died.

WXYZ-TV reports that two other children, ages 11 and 17, have been taken from the home and placed with protective services.