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WASHINGTON (AP) — Afghanistan’s president thanked U.S. troops and taxpayers for their sacrifices in nearly 14 years of war, kicking off his visit to Washington with a stop at the Pentagon. He pledged that his impoverished country will not remain a burden to the West.

“We do not now ask what the United States can do for us,” Ashraf Ghani said in remarks meant to bolster the Obama administration’s conviction that Ghani is a reliable partner worth supporting over the long term.

“We want to say what Afghanistan will do for itself and for the world,” he added. “And that means we are going to put our house in order.”

Ghani’s relationship with Washington stands in stark contrast to that of his predecessor, Hamid Karzai, whose antagonism toward the U.S. culminated in a refusal to sign security agreements with Washington and NATO before leaving office last year. Ghani signed the pacts within days of becoming president in September, and has since enjoyed a close relationship with American diplomats and military leaders.

Ghani and his chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, were welcomed by Defense Secretary Ash Carter at a ceremony in the Pentagon’s center courtyard.

It was a poignant setting for the start of Ghani’s visit. On Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked an American Airlines jetliner and flew it into the Pentagon, killing all aboard and 125 people in the building. The U.S. responded to the attacks on Washington and New York’s World Trade Center by invading Afghanistan a month later, beginning the longest war in American history.

After the ceremonial welcoming, Ghani and Abdullah headed to the Camp David presidential retreat for closed door meetings with Carter and Secretary of State John Kerry. Later in the week Ghani is to meet with President Barack Obama at the White House and address a joint meeting of Congress.

On their arrival at Camp David, Kerry said they were meeting in seclusion to discuss Afghanistan’s future. Ghani emphasized what he called a new phase of the U.S.-Afghan relationship.

“It’s time for Afghanistan to reciprocate the gift that the United States has so generously provided over the years,” he said. “Reciprocating the gift means owning our problems, solving them and asking of ourselves what we must do for ourselves and for the region.”

At the Pentagon ceremony, Carter praised Ghani as a committed leader who knows that “Afghanistan’s future is ultimately for the Afghans to grab hold of and for Afghans to decide.”

Those themes emphasized by Carter and Ghani — that Kabul’s new leaders are more reliable and appreciative of U.S. assistance, and that the U.S. alone cannot solve Afghanistan’s problems — are central to the administration’s approach to carrying out President Barack Obama’s pledge to end the war.

Obama has promised to remove the remaining U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of his presidency. But deficiencies in the Afghan security forces, heavy casualties in the ranks of the Afghan army and police, a fragile new government and fears that Islamic State fighters could gain a foothold in Afghanistan have combined to persuade Obama to slow the withdrawal.

Instead of trimming the current U.S. force of 9,800 to 5,500 by the end of this year, U.S. officials say the administration now might keep many of them there well into 2016. Obama has said that after that, the U.S. would only maintain an embassy-based security force in Kabul of perhaps 1,000 troops.

Ghani needs a firm commitment of American support in his fight against the Taliban and other insurgent groups, including an Islamic State affiliate, which he fears is finding a foothold in Afghanistan.

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AP Radio correspondent Sagar Meghani contributed to this report.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A section of scaffolding collapsed at a high-rise construction project in downtown Raleigh, killing three people and sending another to a hospital, officials said Monday.

Jeffrey Hammerstein, the district chief at Wake County EMS, said three people were confirmed dead in the accident at the glass and steel building, where movable scaffolding peeled away from the 11-story glass and steel building into a parking lot below. All four were involved in the construction project, Hammerstein said.

Authorities were working to identify those who died.

State Department of Labor spokesman Neal O’Briant said Monday that his agency is investigating the cause. Officials had closed off a wide area around the scene.

A group of men in hard hats and yellow vests, some of which said Associated Scaffolding on them, were talking to an official near the edge of the police line. A woman who answered the phone at the company’s Durham headquarters declined to give her name and said the company had no comment.

According to the state Department of Labor, the construction industry accounts for the bulk of workplace fatalities in the state, with 19 deaths reported in 2014.

MADISON (AP) – Gov. Scott Walker says the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision not to hear a challenge to the state’s voter identification law is “great news for Wisconsin voters.”

He and other Republicans who backed the law cheered the court’s decision Monday not to hear the case, which clears the way for the law to be implemented. Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel says it’s too close to have it be in effect for the April 7 election.

Walker calls voter ID a “common sense reform that protects the integrity of our voting process, making it easy to vote and hard to cheat.”

But League of Women Voters of Wisconsin executive director Andrea Kaminski says, “The last thing we need is laws that erect barriers for people who have been good voters for decades.”

MADISON (AP) – The head of elections in Wisconsin says he anticipates that there will be special elections later this year where photo identification will be required for people to vote.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday decided not to hear a challenge to the state’s voter ID law, allowing it to be enforced. Attorney General Brad Schimel says it’s too soon to the April 7 election to enforce it then.

Voters casting absentee ballots for that election will not need to show photo IDs.

Government Accountability Board director Kevin Kennedy says he expects there to be special elections later this year where the IDs will be required. The next statewide election where it will be in place is the spring primary on Feb. 16.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Opponents to a constitutional amendment on the April 7 ballot changing on the chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court is selected are urging rejection of the measure.

Representatives from Democracy 2020, a coalition of more than 20 groups opposed to the amendment, held a news conference Monday.

The amendment would allow for justices on the Supreme Court to choose who serves as chief, rather than have it go automatically to the most senior member. Supporters say it’s just bringing Wisconsin in line with 22 other states that have a peer-selection process.

Former Democratic Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager calls it a “partisan power grab” by conservatives.

People for the American Way regional coordinator Scott Foval says his group plans an aggressive outreach effort to get people to vote against it.

NEENAH – Trinity Lutheran Church in Neenah is celebrating 150 years throughout 2015.

And the festivities kicked off Sunday. The Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary Choir performed at worship services. For 82 years, the Seminary Chorus has performed all over the United States and in Canada.

Throughout the year, the church will hold events open to the public to celebrate 150 years.

The church’s pastor says he is excited to celebrate the milestone.

“God, we feel, has been very gracious to us in giving us an opportunity to share our message that we have for the 150 years we have been here,” pastor Tony McKenzie said.

The next event is an open house with Trinity’s choral and musician groups on April 19.

PHOENIX (AP) – Former NFL All-Pro safety Darren Sharper was sentenced to nine years in federal prison Monday immediately after he pleaded guilty to sexual assault in Arizona, marking the first change of plea of the day for the former safety accused of drugging and assaulting women in four states.

Sharper admitted sexually assaulting one woman and trying to attack another in suburban Phoenix in 2013. It is very unusual to sentence defendants immediately after a guilty plea, which normally can take weeks or months.

Sharper appeared in a Phoenix courtroom by video-conferencing from Los Angeles. He also is expected to change his plea on similar allegations in that city, where he has been jailed since February 2014 after pleading not guilty to drugging and raping two women there in 2013.

Similar hearings will follow in Las Vegas this week and in New Orleans in the next month. In each state, he’s accused of drugging and sexually assaulting women when they were unconscious or otherwise unable to resist or consent.

Sharper’s attorney announced Friday that the former player reached plea agreements with prosecutors in all the cases against him.

The 39-year-old retired from the NFL in 2011 after winning a Super Bowl with the New Orleans Saints. He had a 14-year career with three teams, including eight years with the Green Bay Packers, and later worked as an analyst for the NFL network.

The alleged sexual assaults all happened since Sharper’s retirement as a player.

In Arizona, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Warren Granville said that Sharper will serve his time in federal custody and that the Louisiana case will be resolved through a federal court.

Sharper admitted sexually assaulting one victim and trying to assault another in Arizona, though police say he drugged and sexually assaulted three women at an apartment in Tempe in November 2013.

Prosecutor Yigael Cohen on Monday cited a letter in which one of the victims says she suffered emotional harm as a result of the attack and that she didn’t have the ability to resist.

Authorities say a search of the Tempe apartment turned up a shot glass with a white residue that turned out to be zolpidem, and California investigators discovered that Sharper had a prescription for the drug.

Sharper’s attorneys said last year that their client did not make the drinks that authorities say he used to drug the women.

One of the women told police she had not had any alcohol that night until Sharper insisted she drink a shot. Another young woman said she had been drugged, then went to bed, locked her door and was not attacked.

The next day, one of the women confronted Sharper, who denied wrongdoing, according to police reports.

The reports said Sharper was in Arizona to visit a woman who lived at the apartment. The two had met about a year earlier in Las Vegas.

Prosecutors in Nevada, where Sharper is scheduled to change his plea Tuesday, said the former player is expected to plead guilty to one felony charge of attempted sexual assault, with the expectation that he will face between 38 months and eight years in prison, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson told The Associated Press.

The company that made bats for a who’s who of baseball greats, including Babe Ruth and Ted Williams, announced a deal Monday to sell its Louisville Slugger brand to rival Wilson Sporting Goods Co. for $70 million.

Hillerich & Bradsby Co. has made the iconic bats for more than 130 years, supplying the bats with the recognizable oval logo for generations of baseball players — from the sandlots to the big leagues.

Wilson’s deal to acquire the global brand, sales and innovation rights of Louisville Slugger still requires approval by H&B shareholders, according to the joint announcement Monday.

Under terms of the agreement, H&B will become Wilson’s exclusive manufacturing partner for wood bats. H&B will continue to manufacture wood bats at its factory in Louisville, Kentucky.

Wilson Sporting Goods is a division of Finnish sports equipment maker Amer Sports Corp. The Helsinki-based company said the deal is expected to be completed in the second half of this year.

H&B also will maintain ownership and continue to operate the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory and Gift Shop, a popular tourist destination.

H&B said its Bionic Gloves division and Powerbilt golf brand are not part of the deal.

H&B has made Louisville Slugger bats since 1884. H&B CEO John A. Hillerich IV said the decision to sell the brand was difficult, but says the company believes it needs to pursue a new business model.

“We recognized from our first conversation with Wilson that they would be a great partner and steward of the brand our family created and so many have nurtured for 131 years,” he said in a statement.

Mike Dowse, president of Wilson Sporting Goods Co., said expanding the company’s baseball and softball business globally is a key part of its business strategy.

“We believe Louisville Slugger will enrich our company significantly, enhance our baseball and softball product offering at all levels of the game, and ensure we are delivering only the best performance products to athletes of every age,” he said.

Wilson said it will market and sell Louisville Slugger-branded products through its baseball and softball business unit. The company currently manufactures and sells gloves, bats, uniforms, apparel, protective gear, accessories and player development equipment and training tools through its Wilson, DeMarini and ATEC brands. Like its DeMarini brand, Wilson will market and sell Louisville Slugger as a stand-alone brand.

Last year, Amer’s net sales totaled €2.3 billion ($2.5 billion). It employs 7,600 people worldwide.

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AP writer Matti Huuhtanen contributed to this report from Helsinki.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) – Michigan has been selected as the first Midwest state to partner with Google on making photos of travel destinations available through Google Maps.

Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, Travel Michigan Vice President David West and Steve Silverman from Google Maps announced the partnership Monday at the Michigan Tourism Conference in Grand Rapids.

The partnership between Google and Pure Michigan will make attractions such as Mackinac Island, Sleeping Bear Dunes and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore viewable online through Google Street View with 360 degree imagery.

More than 44,000 panoramic photos were taken last fall by members of the Pure Michigan team and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. The images were captured using Google Trekker, a backpack system with a camera on top.

PORT GIBSON, Miss. (AP) — The FBI is consulting with its behavioral analysis unit as it continues investigating the hanging death of a black man in Mississippi.

Jason Pack, supervisory special agent for the FBI’s Jackson, Mississippi, office, said Monday that it could be days before investigators receive an autopsy report for 54-year-old Otis Byrd. The report is expected to show whether Byrd was killed or committed suicide.

Officials have said 30 state, local and federal investigators are on the case.

Meanwhile, about a dozen people gathered Monday in downtown Port Gibson to show support for Byrd’s family. They called on authorities to thoroughly investigate the death.

Byrd’s body was found Thursday, hanging by a bedsheet tied to a tree in a rural area outside Port Gibson.

NEW YORK (AP) – OPEC and lower global oil prices delivered a one-two punch to the drillers in North Dakota and Texas who brought the U.S. one of the biggest booms in the history of the global oil industry.

Now they are fighting back.

Companies are leaning on new techniques and technology to get more oil out of every well they drill, and furiously cutting costs in an effort to keep U.S. oil competitive with much lower-cost oil flowing out of the Middle East, Russia and elsewhere.

“Everybody gets a little more imaginative, because they need to,” says Hans-Christian Freitag, vice president of technology for the drilling services company Baker Hughes.

Spurred by rising global oil prices U.S. drillers learned to tap crude trapped in shale starting in the middle of last decade and brought about a surprising boom that made the U.S. the biggest oil and gas producer in the world. The increase alone in daily U.S. production since 2008 – nearly 4.5 million barrels per day – is more than any OPEC country produces other than Saudi Arabia.

But as oil flowed out and revenue poured in, costs weren’t the main concern. Drilling in shale, also known as “tight rock,” is expensive because the rock must be fractured with high-pressure water and chemicals to get oil to flow. It became more expensive as the drilling frenzy pushed up costs for labor, material, equipment and services. In a dash to get to oil quickly, drillers didn’t always take the time to use the best technology to analyze each well.

When oil collapsed from $100 to below $50, once-profitable projects turned into money losers. OPEC added to the pressure by keeping production high, saying it didn’t want to lose customers to U.S. shale drillers. OPEC nations can still make good profits at low oil prices because their crude costs $10 or less per barrel to produce.

Now drillers and service companies are laying off tens of thousands of workers, smaller companies are looking for larger, more stable companies to buy them, and fears are rising of widespread loan defaults. OPEC said in a recent report that it expects U.S. production to begin to fall later this year, echoing the prediction of the U.S. Energy Department.

To compete, drillers have to find ways to get more oil out of each well, pushing down the cost for each barrel. Experts estimate that shale drillers pull up just 5 percent to 8 percent of the oil in place.

“We’re leaving behind a large amount of hydrocarbons, and that’s quite unacceptable,” Freitag says. “It requires different thinking now.”

Engineers have adapted some of the best sensor technology and mathematical models, developed first for deep offshore drilling, to see into the rock better. As they drill, they use imaging technology to find natural cracks in the rock that they can then use as a target when they fracture the rock, to leverage natural highways for oil and gas.

After they fracture the rock, they can map the new cracks. That way they can know how close they can drill another well to target more oil without sapping production from the first well. EOG Resources, one of the pioneers of shale oil drilling, has reduced the space between wells in an area called the Leonard Shale, in Texas, to 560 feet from 1,030 in 2012.

Drillers are finding they can back into wells drilled only a few years ago to re-frack them or inject specially tailored fluids to get oil flowing again. That can return a well in some cases to peak output, without the expense of drilling a new well.

The companies are also getting much faster.

Exxon says it has cut the time it takes to drill a well in North Dakota’s Bakken formation by one-third over the past four years. It has also cut by half the cost of fracturing the rock and preparing the well for production. Exxon will run 13 rigs in the Bakken this year, the same number it did last year, despite the low prices.

Companies will save money in the coming months because service companies, rig operators and other suppliers to the industry will lower rates to keep business. Oil companies have been telling investors in recent weeks they expect to see cost reductions of 10 percent to 40 percent, depending on location and type of service.

Drillers are also focusing on the wells in the parts of formations that they know to be the most prolific, and cutting back drilling in places where they aren’t quite sure what’s below. That reduces overall spending without dramatically decreasing production.

U.S. shale drillers will never push costs as low as OPEC countries. But the U.S. industry may be able to survive – or even thrive – if drillers can learn to quickly adapt.

“There is a significant portion of this that is competitive on a global basis,” said Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson at an annual investor meeting earlier this month. “North American tight oil supply is more resilient than some people think it is.”

Calling all Gleeks! How much do you know about FOX’s hit series?

Photos submitted to ReportIt, March 22-28, 2015.

The ACLU filed an emergency motion asking that voter ID remain blocked through the April 7 election because there isn’t enough time to implement it.

MADISON (AP) – The Director of State Courts in Wisconsin says medical malpractice claims hit a record low last year.

The number of medical malpractice lawsuits fell to 84 last year from 140 in 2013. In 1999, there were 294 suits filed.

The state Medical Mediation Panels got 118 complaints last year, the fewest in their history. Plaintiffs must file with the panels before they can sue.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports the state-managed insurance fund for doctors and hospitals topped $1.2 billion last year and has nearly doubled since 2009.

Last year, the newspaper reported that the drop in malpractice lawsuits is due to state laws that limit who can file suits and the amount they can collect. Non-economic damages are limited to $750,000 in Wisconsin.

Wendy is getting a makeover on Good Day Wisconsin!

It’s all part of our Monday Morning Makeover. Take a look at how our friends at salon CTI transform her look!

MADISON (AP) – The American Civil Liberties Union is asking a federal appeals court to block implementation of Wisconsin’s voter identification law for an election that’s less than two weeks away.

The law had been put on hold by the U.S. Supreme Court while it decided whether to hear a challenge to the voter ID requirement. The Supreme Court on Monday decided not to take the case with no comment.

That led to the ACLU filing its emergency motion asking the federal appeals court to block enforcement of the law for the April 7 election. The ACLU argues there’s not enough time to implement the law, given that absentee ballots have already been sent and early in-person voting began Monday.

A spokesman for the state elections board had no immediate comment.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court on Monday turned away a challenge to Wisconsin’s voter identification law, after having blocked the state from requiring photo IDs in November’s general election.

The justices’ action means the state is free to impose the voter ID requirement in future elections, and is further evidence that the court put the law on hold last year only because the election was close at hand and absentee ballots already had been mailed with no notification of the need to present photo IDs.

The court did not comment on its order.

Wisconsin was one of four states in which a dispute over voting rules reached the Supreme Court last fall. The other states were North Carolina, Ohio and Texas. Of the four states, only Wisconsin’s new rules were blocked.

Wisconsin’s photo ID law has been a political flashpoint since Republican legislators passed it in 2011. The GOP argues the mandate is a common sense step toward reducing election fraud. Democrats maintain no widespread fraud exists and that the law is really an attempt to keep Democratic constituents who may lack ID, such as the poor, minorities and the elderly, from voting.

The law was in effect for the February 2012 primary but subsequent legal challenges put it on hold and it hasn’t been in place for any election since.

The ACLU and allied groups persuaded a federal judge in Milwaukee to declare the law unconstitutional last year. But the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago later ruled that the law did not violate the Constitution.

The Supreme Court refused to disturb that ruling on Monday.

LA CROSSE, Wis. (AP) – It’s a return to winter-like weather for parts of Wisconsin.

The National Weather Service measured at least 10 inches of new snow in Crawford County with about 7 inches in Buffalo County and lesser amounts elsewhere in Wisconsin.

Caledonia, Prairie du Chien, North Crawford, and Viroqua schools are among those closed Monday while others are starting 2 hours late.

The accumulating snow is quite a contrast to a week ago when high temperatures were in the 50s under blue skies.

PLEASANT PRAIRIE, Wis. (AP) – Authorities have confirmed the Pleasant Prairie couple involved in an animal cruelty case was found dead after a fire at their farm.

Paula and David White each faced multiple felony and misdemeanor animal treatment charges after authorities found dozens of dead horses on their property.

Deliberations began Wednesday in their trial, and the jury found the couple guilty Thursday afternoon. The Whites, who are both in their 60s, didn’t come to court for the verdicts.

A fire broke out at their farm early Thursday morning, and firefighters discovered two bodies in the ruins.

The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office on Saturday identified the bodies found at the scene as the Whites.

Police say investigations into the cause of the fire and the cause of their deaths are ongoing.