Green Bay News

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Wisconsin’s attorney general says a report on the shooting of an unarmed 19-year-old man by a Madison police officer should be sent to a prosecutor in about two weeks.

Attorney General Brad Schimel is updating the investigation into the death of Tony Robinson. Robinson, a biracial man, was shot and killed by a white officer Friday night after police said Robinson assaulted the officer.

Schimel is encouraging the public to be patient before judging what happened. He says he appreciates that Robinson’s family has urged that protests be peaceful.

David Matthews, head of the state agency leading the investigation, said agents have done at least 60 interviews and filed more than 100 reports. He said they’re looking at everything Robinson, Officer Matt Kenny and witnesses were doing that day.

GREEN BAY – Matthew Moore and Katie Heller were charged Thursday with first-degree intentional homicide for the 2012 murder of Thomas Wick at Wick’s Howard home.

Both were expected to make initial court appearances in Brown County circuit court Thursday.

The two were arrested two weeks ago, but were not charged at two previous court appearances.

Moore faces five counts, including the homicide count and three counts of perjury. Heller faces similar charges, including being party to first-degree intentional homicide and three perjury counts.

Prosecutors said the 30-year-old Allouez man allegedly killed Wick because he owed Wick money.

Wick was found in the basement of his 240 Hidden Creek Trail home in Howard on Feb. 27, 2012. Brown County sheriff’s deputies said he was shot to death. Investigators say a friend arrived that morning to help Wick remodel his basement and that’s when he found Wick lying on the floor dead. Police believe Wick had been lying there for several hours.

Wick owned Bayside Electric, a residential and commercial electrical company.

Fox 11’s Ben Krumholz is in court and will have more on Fox 11 News at Five.

MADISON – Taking a Wisconsin vacation can relieve even a stressed-out coach of a high-profile basketball team. That’s the message of a new TV ad from the Wisconsin Department of Tourism featuring University of Wisconsin men’s basketball coach Bo Ryan. It was directed by Wisconsin natives David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams, the team behind the classic comedy “Airplane!”

The ad begins with Ryan pulling his hair out in the heat of an argument with a referee. A Travel Wisconsin Superhero flies in to save Ryan from the pressure of the game and transport him to destinations such as Wisconsin Dells and the Northwoods.

“It’s always fun to go outside your comfort zone, and working with the Department of Tourism to shoot this commercial was just that,” Ryan said in a news release. “I’m proud to live in this state, I love its people and I’m so happy to promote Wisconsin tourism.”

The Department of Tourism says its summer campaign includes radio, billboard and print ads as well as social media efforts.

BARNSTABLE, Mass. (AP) — A Michigan couple has completed a quest to visit all 3,108 counties in the lower 48 states — closing out the task with their trip to Nantucket.

Jennifer and Jonathan Riehl completed their journey this week when they boarded a ferry to the island.

The Riehls, of Hancock, Michigan, have done it all in the same vehicle — a green 1999 Dodge Intrepid with more than 540,000 miles.

They tell the Cape Cod Times they have had their share of adventures, including encounters with bears and extreme weather, including an avalanche, a landslide, and blizzards.

They started in 2006 with small trips, and Jennifer Riehl, a research scientist, and her husband, an engineering instructor, now typically drive about 50,000 miles a year.

Their next goal is to finish visiting Alaska’s boroughs, and start on Hawaii.

NEW YORK (AP) — Let it go (on)!

The Walt Disney Co. on Thursday announced plans to make a sequel to the animated mega-hit “Frozen.” Bob Iger, Walt Disney Co. chief executive, and John Lasseter, head of Walt Disney Animation Studios, joined in officially announcing “Frozen 2″ at the company’s annual shareholders meeting in San Francisco.

The sequel had been widely expected for a film that has become a juggernaut for Disney. Since its release in November 2013, “Frozen” has made nearly $1.3 billion globally at the box office, generated a massive merchandising revenue stream and won the Academy Award for best animated feature.

Disney didn’t announce any details on the sequel’s plot or a release date, but said directors Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck will be returning.

“We enjoyed making Frozen Fever so much and being back in that world with those characters,” said Lasseter. “Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck have come up with a great idea for a sequel and you will be hearing a lot more about it and we’re taking you back to Arendelle.”

Though a sequel was always only a matter of time, fans have waited eagerly for the announcement. Most big box-office hits generate sequel announcements within weeks of opening.

But any delay in a “Frozen” sequel has been easily assuaged by the film’s unabated popularity. “Frozen” is by far the biggest grossing animated film ever, and its soundtrack, led by Idina Menzel’s “Let it Go,” remains ubiquitous. A “Frozen” short is to play in front of Disney’s latest release, the live-action “Cinderella,” which opens in theaters Friday.

Josh Gad, the voice of the snowman Olaf, was on hand for the announcement Thursday and will be returning for the sequel. But no other returning characters were announced.

At the shareholders meeting, Disney also announced a release date for “Star Wars: Episode VIII”: May 26, 2017. Rian Johnson (“Looper”) is confirmed to write and direct.

NORMAN, Okla. (AP) – The Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity said Thursday it was investigating racism allegations at universities in Louisiana and Texas after hearing that young men at two schools sang or knew of the same racist chant caught on video in Oklahoma last weekend.

Spokesman Brandon Weghorst said the chapter at the University of Texas at Austin was being “fully cooperative” and that a probe at Louisiana Tech in Ruston was in its early stages. He said no new allegations had been substantiated.

A nine-second video recorded last weekend caught members of the fraternity’s University of Oklahoma chapter singing a song that used a derogatory term for black people and referenced lynching. University president David Boren ordered the SAE house shuttered and expelled two students identified as ringleaders.

“We had no idea of this type of behavior was going on underground,” Weghorst said Thursday.

“This is the type of stuff (the chant), it goes underground and it goes under the radar,” he said. “It’s dangerous because – if we don’t know about it, we can’t stop it.”

The board of trustees and alumni of the University of Oklahoma’s SAE chapter released a statement Wednesday night acknowledging the chant surfaced at the chapter “three to four years ago and was not immediately and totally stopped. It should have been.”

At the University of Texas in Austin, the president of the local SAE had previously issued a statement denying that his chapter had ever performed a similar chant. Luke Cone said he could “speak on the behalf of my fraternity brothers that we are all profoundly distressed” about the language in the video.

The SAE chapter at Louisiana Tech did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Thursday.

A group of black University of Oklahoma students formed following a fatal police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, last summer linked to the racist video on Sunday, saying the community needed to be aware. The video, in which the singers said black men would never be admitted to Sigma Alpha Epsilon, was the subject of a number of rallies, including a student-led one before dawn on Monday and a Wednesday night town hall-style forum.

“Just the students coming together has been a positive for me,” said Alexis Hall, a 20-year-old junior from Houston and a spokeswoman for the group Unheard. “I think this is sparking a university-wide movement of: ‘Hey, we need to start making some changes. We’re going to improve things and make it better for all of our students.'”

Among the group’s grievances are low numbers of black faculty and administrators, poor retention rates among black students and a lack of programs aimed at supporting black students.

OU President David Boren, who booted the two freshmen for creating a hostile learning environment, said he appreciated Unheard’s involvement.

“They met with me. They had some very positive suggestions,” Boren said. He said their proposals included greater representation of black students at the university’s orientation camp and on various committees, to ensure that “the whole range of diversity of our campus is represented.”

Boren announced the creation of a new position – vice president for the university community. He said Thursday he would meet with the university’s football captains – the team refused to practice in protest – and said his vice president of student affairs, Clarke Stroud, would investigate each individual officer of the fraternity to determine their level of responsibility and to make recommendations on appropriate disciplinary action.

A Dallas-area advocacy group, the Next Generation Action Network, protested Wednesday at the family home of Parker Rice, who has apologized for participating in the chant, calling it a “horrible mistake” and “a devastating lesson.” About 20 demonstrators marched in front of his North Dallas home chanting, “Racism is taught,” and, “Racism is a choice.”

Meanwhile, the parents of another student in the video, Levi Pettit, released a statement saying he too had “made a horrible mistake, and will live with the consequences forever.” Pettit also is from the Dallas area.

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Associated Press reporter Teresa Crawford contributed from Chicago.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Fake IRS agents have targeted more than 366,000 people with harassing phone calls demanding payments and threatening jail in the largest scam of its kind in the history of the agency, a federal investigator said Thursday.

More than 3,000 people have fallen for the ruse since 2013, said Timothy Camus, a Treasury deputy inspector general for tax administration. They were conned out of a total of $15.5 million.

The scam has claimed victims in almost every state, Camus said. One unidentified victim lost more than $500,000.

“The criminals do not discriminate. They are calling people everywhere, of all income levels and backgrounds,” Camus told the Senate Finance Committee at a hearing. “The callers often warned the victims that if they hung up, local police would come to their homes to arrest them.”

The scam is so widespread that investigators believe there is more than one group of perpetrators, including some overseas.

Camus said even he received a call from one of the scammers at his home on a Saturday. He said he had a stern message for the caller: “Your day will come.”

Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., said he got a similar call, but realized it wasn’t a real IRS agent.

“It was a very convincing, convincing phone call,” Isakson said.

So far, two people in Florida have been arrested, Camus said. They were accused of being part of a scam that involved people in call centers in India contacting U.S. taxpayers and pretending to be IRS agents.

“These criminal acts are perpetrated by thieves hiding behind telephone lines and computers, preying on honest taxpayers and robbing the Treasury of tens of billions of dollars every year,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. “Taxpayers must be more aware of the risks and better protected from attack and these criminals must be found and brought to justice.”

The IRS and the inspector general’s office started warning taxpayers about the scam a year ago, and it has since ballooned. This year, it tops the IRS list of “Dirty Dozen” tax scams.

Tax scams often increase during tax filing season, and with millions of Americans preparing their returns ahead of the April 15 deadline, the IRS is seeing many cases of identity theft and refund fraud.

In recent years the IRS has stepped up efforts to detect large numbers of tax refunds going to the same address or bank account. Using computer filters, the agency identified more than 517,000 suspicious returns and blocked $3.1 billion in fraudulent returns, as of October 2014, Camus said in his testimony.

In 2012, the IRS started working more closely with U.S. attorneys’ offices around the country to combat tax refund fraud by people using stole identities, said Caroline Ciraolo, acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s tax division. Since then, the tax division has opened nearly 1,000 investigations and brought prosecutions against more than 1,400 people, Ciraolo told the Senate Finance Committee hearing.

“Given the sophistication of this criminal activity and the fact that a lot of it comes from overseas, this looks to me like an emerging type of organized crime,” said Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Finance Committee.

The inspector general’s office started receiving complaints about the telephone scam in 2013. Immigrants were the primary target early on, the IG’s office said. But the scam has since become more widespread.

As part of the telephone scam, fake IRS agents call taxpayers, claim they owe taxes, and demand payment using a prepaid debit card or a wire transfer. Those who refuse are threatened with arrest, deportation or loss of a business or driver’s license, Camus said.

The callers can manipulate caller ID to make it look like they are calling from an IRS phone number. They might even know the last four digits of the taxpayer’s Social Security number, Camus said.

They request prepaid debit cards because they are harder to trace than bank cards. Prepaid debit cards are different from bank cards because they are not connected to a bank account. Instead, consumers buy the cards at stores, and use them just like a bank card, until the money runs out or they add more.

Real IRS agents usually contact people first by mail, Camus said. And they never demand payment by debit card, credit card or wire transfer.

“Our message is simple,” Camus said. “If someone calls unexpectedly claiming to be from the IRS with aggressive threats if you do not pay immediately, it is a scam artist calling. The IRS does not initiate contact with taxpayers by telephone. If you do owe money to the IRS, chances are you have already received some form of a notice or correspondence from the IRS in your mailbox.”

MADISON (AP) – Gov. Scott Walker plans a dozen stops during his first visit to New Hampshire this weekend.

Walker arrives in the early presidential voting state on Friday and is headlining a state Republican Party event on Saturday.

Walker’s political committee Our American Revival says he plans to meet with Republican leaders, grassroots activists, state lawmakers and members of the New Hampshire business community.

Walker has planned meetings with former Gov. John H. Sununu, Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas, and former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown.

Next week Walker heads to South Carolina for a two-day swing that will take him to four cities. That is also his first trip there as he takes steps toward a likely presidential run.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) — NASA is sending four identical spacecraft on a billion-dollar mission to study the explosive give-and-take of the Earth and sun’s magnetic fields.

Liftoff of the unmanned Atlas rocket — and NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale spacecraft — was set for 10:44 p.m. (0344 GMT) Thursday. Forecasters put the odds of good weather at 70 percent.

The quartet will be launched into an oblong orbit stretching tens of thousands of miles (kilometers) into the magnetosphere — nearly halfway to the moon at one point. They will fly in pyramid formation, between 6 miles (10 kilometers) and 250 miles (400 kilometers) apart, to provide 3-D views of magnetic reconnection on the smallest of scales.

Magnetic reconnection is what happens when magnetic fields like those around Earth and the sun come together, break apart, then come together again, releasing vast energy. This repeated process drives the aurora, as well as solar storms that can disrupt communications and power on Earth. Data from this two-year mission should help scientists better understand so-called space weather.

Each observatory resembles a giant octagonal wheel, stretching more than 11 feet (3 meters) across and 4 feet (1 meter) high, and weighing 3,000 pounds (1,300 kilograms) apiece. They’re numbered and stacked like tires on top of the rocket, with No. 4 popping free first more than an hour after liftoff, followed every five minutes by another.

Once the long, sensor-laden booms are extended a few days into the flight, each spacecraft could span a baseball field.

Principal investigator Jim Burch from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio said measurements will be made down to the electron scale, significantly smaller than previous heliophysics missions. In all, there are 100 science sensors.

The findings from the $1.1 billion mission will be useful in understanding magnetic reconnection throughout the universe. Closer to home, space weather scientists along with everyone on Earth hopefully will benefit.

“We’re not setting out here to solve space weather,” Burch said. “We’re setting out to learn the fundamental features of magnetic reconnection because that’s what drives space weather.”

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A foreign intelligence operative suspected of helping three British schoolgirls join the Islamic State group in Syria has been detained, Turkey’s foreign minister said Thursday.

Mevlut Cavusoglu said the suspect helped the teenagers even though he or she worked for the intelligence agency of a country that is part of the U.S.-led coalition fighting IS. Cavusoglu didn’t identify the country, but said it wasn’t the U.S. or a European Union member.

Cavusoglu, who was interviewed on A Haber television, said he had shared the information with his British counterpart.

“Do you know who the person who helped the girls turned out to be?” Cavusoglu said. “Someone who works for the intelligence service of a country that is part of the coalition.”

He didn’t provide further details on the suspect’s detention.

A Turkish government official told The Associated Press that the suspect has been detained for more than a week. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of rules that bar officials from speaking to journalists without prior authorization.

In London, the Foreign Office said it was aware that an arrest had been made by Turkish police and said the girls’ families had been informed.

It said it was in close cooperation with the Turkish authorities and that Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond was in regular contact with Cavusoglu.

“As soon as the U.K. received this information it was acted upon appropriately,” the Foreign Office added, without elaborating.

The three girls — identified by British authorities as Shamima Begum, 15, Kadiza Sultana, 16, and Amira Abase, 15 — traveled from the U.K. to Turkey last month, from where they are believed to have crossed into Syria. Their journey highlighted the difficulty of halting the radicalization of young Muslims.

There has been tension between Turkey and Britain over who was to blame for the teenagers being able to sneak into Syria to join the extremist group, with Turkey accusing Britain of failing to notify authorities in time to prevent them from crossing the border. The girls had boarded a flight for Istanbul on Feb. 17.

Earlier this month, a Turkish television station obtained video showing the teenagers at an Istanbul bus terminal before they boarded a bus to a city near Turkey’s border with Syria.

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Desmond Butler reported from Istanbul.

HENRYVILLE, Ind. (AP) — A bus carrying members of a college bowling team crashed Thursday morning along a southern Indiana highway while en route to a tournament in Tennessee, injuring numerous students, officials said.

Indiana Tech spokesman Brian Englehart said the bus was carrying 16 members of the Fort Wayne school’s men and women’s bowling teams and members of the coaching staff to a tournament in Smyrna, Tennessee.

State Police Cpl. Carey Huls said the bus swerved to the left while traveling in Interstate 65’s southbound lanes before swerving to the right and overturning. The accident happened just north of Henryville, about 20 miles north of Louisville, Kentucky.

“We don’t know the cause but the bus did drive off the left side of the roadway and crossed back over both lanes before going off the right side of the road. It went over the embankment and overturned, and then it rolled into some trees,” Huls said.

Video showed the white bus on its side in a grassy area off the highway with debris strewn about.

Englehart said all of the bowling team members are undergraduate students and the school was notifying their parents about the crash. He said school officials did not immediately know the extent of the injuries and had not determined how many and which coaching staff were aboard the bus.

Huls said eight people who apparently suffered minor injuries were taken to the Scott County Hospital, and the most seriously hurt were taken to University of Louisville Hospital, and most of those were airlifted. Huls said it’s unclear how many were people taken to the Louisville hospital.

Clark County coroner Terry Conway said there were no fatalities at the crash scene.

Huls said in addition to 16 members of the bowling team, the team’s coach and his wife were passengers on the bus, along with the driver.

“There could have been more on board, but at this point everybody’s scattered to different hospitals,” Huls said.

A Clark County sheriff’s office dispatcher said six medical helicopters were called to the scene. Ground ambulances also were there.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence said in a statement that “our hearts go out to the Hoosiers impacted by this morning’s bus crash.” He urged “all Hoosiers to hold these men and women in their thoughts and prayers.”

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – A national group representing university professors is opposing Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to give the University of Wisconsin System more autonomy from state oversight and laws.

The American Association of University Professors issued a statement Wednesday in opposition to the plan, which is also running into roadblocks with Republicans who control the Legislature.

Walker also wants to cut UW’s budget by $300 million, something that’s drawing bipartisan opposition.

The AAUP calls Walker’s UW plan a “radical assault on one of the nation’s premiere institutions of public higher education.”

It says the plan could “profoundly undermine tenure, due process, and shared governance in the university system.”

Under the plan, the UW Board of Regents would be given the power to govern the university.

Walker included it in his two-year state budget.

NEW YORK (AP) – Big East Sixth Man of the Year Josh Hart scored 20 points off the bench, and fourth-ranked Villanova ensured it would stick around at the Big East Tournament a bit longer this time with an 84-49 rout of Marquette in the quarterfinals Thursday.

The Wildcats (30-2) lost in the quarters on a last-second shot as the No. 1 seed to Seton Hall last year. This one was over much earlier as Villanova made 17 of 29 3-point attempts to win its 13th straight.

After the Golden Eagles pulled within 18-16 midway through the first half, Hart scored 11 straight points on three 3-pointers and a layup to spark a 17-0 run. Hart hit another 3 with 11 seconds left in the half to send the Wildcats into the locker room with a 39-21 lead.

Hart made his first six field goals and first five 3-point attempts before finally missing more than four minutes into the second half.

Ninth-seeded Marquette (13-19) had crushed Seton Hall 78-56 on Wednesday night, but Villanova shut down nearly everything that had worked so well in that game. Matt Carlino, who tied a Big East Tournament record with eight 3-pointers a day earlier, missed all five of his shots in the first half. With a defender draped over him all afternoon long, Carlino finished with just five points after scoring 26 against the Pirates.

Derrick Wilson, who had 14 assists and just two turnovers Wednesday, committed nine turnovers. He led Marquette with 11 points and nine assists.

The Wildcats, seeking to lock up a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, essentially have six starters when it comes to production and minutes. Hart just happens to begin games on the bench. Darrun Hilliard leads the way with 14.2 points per game, then five players average between 9.3 and 10.7.

Hilliard had 13 points and eight assists Thursday.

TIP-INS

Villanova: The Wildcats matched the most wins in school history. The 2008-09 Final Four squad went 30-8. … Villanova has defeated Marquette in six straight meetings.

Marquette: After shooting 56.9 percent and committing just 11 turnovers Wednesday, the Golden Eagles shot 39.1 percent from the floor and turned the ball over 22 times.

UP NEXT

Villanova faces St. John’s or Providence in the semifinals Friday.

Marquette finishes 13-19 in its first season under coach Steve Wojciechowski.

(Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

DALLAS (AP) – A federal jury has ordered the NFL to pay nearly $76,000 to fans affected by the 2011 Super Bowl seating mess in Texas.

Under Thursday’s verdict in Dallas, the NFL must pay the money to some of the seven fans who sued. The jury said the NFL breached its contract with some ticket holders but did not commit fraud.

The plaintiffs complained they had tickets but ended up with no seats or seats with obstructed views at the $1.2 billion stadium in Arlington, home of the Cowboys.

About 1,250 temporary seats were deemed unsafe hours before kickoff. That forced about 850 ticket holders to move to new seats and 400 others to standing-room areas. The NFL has said it fully compensated displaced fans.

NEW YORK (AP) — The anniversary of a gas explosion that leveled two buildings and killed eight people was marked Thursday by a solemn ceremony attended by Mayor Bill de Blasio and dozens of the victims’ family members.

Many of the 50 or so relatives carried a single white rose. Nearby, a fence that encloses the barren, icy lot in East Harlem where the buildings once stood was adorned with plastic and real flowers and pictures of some of those lost.

The blast also injured dozens of people and left many homeless for months.

“Our whole city was rocked by this tragedy,” de Blasio said. “For so many families, their world changed in just an instant.”

The ceremony — which included schoolchildren singing “Tomorrow” from “Annie” — evoked poignant memories for Angel Vargas of the Bronx, who was there to honor his cousin Carmen Tanco.

“We grew up together. We used to come right here for family gatherings. I knew these hallways well,” Vargas said. “She was a wonderful person. We miss her. It’s touching to be here. The last thing she said to me was ‘Always respect your mother and have a great birthday every year.'”

Another lost loved one, Griselde Camacho, a Hunter College security officer, “had a beautiful smile,” said her cousin Nilsa Rios-Aguila.

“She is in a better place,” said Rios-Aguila, and those she left behind are “going to continue being strong.”

The mayor also sought to embrace the positive on the sad occasion.

“In the midst of tragedy,” he said, “New Yorkers showed us something so strong, so resilient, so good.”

De Blasio wore a Fire Department of New York jacket to the ceremony. The department was given a much greater role in responding to reports of possible gas leaks because of the blast.

The FDNY was never notified of the gas leak in the building. At the time, residents who smelled gas were often told to call their utility or dial 311, the city’s information hotline.

Con Edison officials said they received only one call reporting gas that morning, about 20 minutes before the explosion. Several residents said they made other complaints about the odor, but those calls could not be located by city investigators.

After that, the FDNY encouraged residents to call 911 about gas leaks and odors. Last year, calls were up 68 percent, according to a department spokesman, Frank Dwyer.

The gas pipe that led to the explosion was 127 years old.

MADISON (AP) – Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley has launched her first television campaign ad.

Her campaign says the ad will begin airing this weekend around the state. The 30-second spot shows Bradley declaring that special interests and partisan politics have no place in courtrooms.

The ad also features a shot of Bradley and her close friend, Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, sitting together in the Supreme Court’s hearing room. Justices are officially nonpartisan, although Bradley and Abrahamson are generally seen as the court’s liberal-leaning minority.

Bradley faces Rock County Circuit Judge James Daley in the April 7 election. The ad makes no mention of Daley. His campaign spokesman says only liberals would believe Bradley is impartial.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Federal health officials will meet in May to review problems with the design and cleaning of specialized medical instruments linked to at least two recent “superbug” outbreaks.

The Food and Drug Administration has set a two-day meeting for mid-May to gather expert opinion on improving the safety of the specialized endoscopes, which are used on about 500,000 U.S. patients each year.

The meeting’s announcement comes amid escalating criticism of the FDA’s oversight of the hard-to-clean devices, which have been linked to sometimes fatal outbreaks of antibiotic-resistant bacteria at several hospitals in recent years. Last week 10 members of Congress asked the FDA to answer questions about the devices, including how the agency reviews manufacturers’ cleaning instructions.

In the last month, two Los Angeles hospitals have reported superbug infections in patients despite following manufacturer’s guidelines. The scopes’ complex design – to help physicians drain fluids in the body – also makes them extremely difficult to clean. Bodily fluids and other particles can stay in the device’s crevices even after cleaning and disinfection.

Previously the FDA recommended hospitals follow manufacturers’ instructions for disinfecting the devices, which typically involves the use of germ-killing disinfectants and manual or machine-assisted processing. But after the first of the two recent outbreaks, the FDA acknowledged that those instructions may not fully disinfect the devices.

In the first case, seven patients at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center contracted an antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria after undergoing endoscopic procedures with a device made by Olympus Corp. Two patients died from the infection. Last week officials at another Los Angeles Hospital, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, reported that four patients were infected with the same superbug after being treated with the same Olympus scope. The specialized device, known as a duodenoscope, is a flexible fiber-optic tube that is inserted down the throat, through the stomach and small intestine to treat conditions in the pancreas and bile ducts.

Industry experts say that FDA guidelines do not require makers of reusable medical instruments to provide scientific evidence that their cleaning instructions fully disinfect the devices.

Some hospitals have adopted extra cleaning procedures, including sterilizing scopes with toxic ethylene oxide gas. Other steps include quarantining the devices for several days after each use to test for dangerous bacteria. Those techniques are becoming more common in Europe, Australia and elsewhere, but they are also more expensive than the current U.S. practices. Experts say adopting those techniques would require U.S. hospitals to purchase larger inventories of scopes that can be cycled in and out of use. One duodenoscope can cost about $40,000.

FDA officials have previously said that contamination problems have been reported with devices made by all three U.S. manufacturers of the devices: Olympus, Pentax Medical and Fujifilm.

Despite these problems, regulators said pulling the products off the market would cause a shortage and interfere with routine hospital care.

MADISON (AP) – Assembly Speaker Robin Vos says he’d like to see a smaller cut to the University of Wisconsin System’s budget and less autonomy for the system.

Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s 2015-17 state budget proposal calls for slashing $300 million from the system in exchange for detaching the system from state oversight. System officials have long sought such autonomy but say the budget cut would devastate their campuses.

Vos, a Rochester Republican, said during an interview with WisconsinEye on Thursday that the cuts are deeper than what he would have made to the system. He said, too, that giving system regents such wide-ranging autonomy doesn’t make any sense because they’ve said they don’t want to make major changes and they could raise tuition dramatically.

A system spokeswoman didn’t immediately return a message.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) – Cabela, a 1-year-old mixed breed dog who was rescued after being shot and tied to railroad tracks in Tampa, has captured a nation’s heart, while police have announced four arrests in connection with the dog’s abuse.

“Cabela was shot because she wouldn’t fight,” said Andrea Davis, a Tampa Police spokeswoman.

The photo of the bloodied dog in the police officer’s arms was widely circulated earlier this month.

Police have received thousands of messages in the case, including adoption offers, via phone calls, emails and through social media.

Cabela is being cared for at Tampa Bay Veterinary Emergency Service. Doctors initially thought Cabela’s leg would have to be amputated, but they were able to save her leg.

Cabela will make a full recovery, Davis said.

The dog had been used for fighting and didn’t do well, officials said, and that’s why she was marked for death.

On Thursday, police said 18-year-old Darnell Devlin and 21-year-old Kenny Bell each face two counts of possession of a dogfighting dog. The arrests came after a search warrant of a home where Cabela had lived. Detectives discovered two more dogs that were used for fighting.

Also arrested were two 17-year-olds – Natwan Callaway and Bobby Hollinger – who were charged as adults. They were charged with aggravated animal cruelty and trespassing; Callaway was also charged with possession of a firearm.

All four are being held at the Hillsborough County Jail without bond. It’s unclear if they have retained attorneys.

Police said surveillance video led to the arrests. It showed four people walking to the tracks with the dog on March 4. Two adults left, but the teens stayed, and shortly after, officers responded to the area for a shots fired call.

That’s when they found Cabela.

Rich Mills, one of the officers who responded to the scene, told local media that Cabela was bleeding from the gunshot wounds and tied with her head pinned to the tracks when police found her. He said officers were surprised that she was not whimpering or crying.

“It touched me,” Mills said of the scene. “It was almost eerie – like that she was just letting us come to her aid.”

The owner of the veterinary office posted on Facebook that Cabela is doing well.

A recent photo showed the brindle-and-white on her back in a dog bed, belly up, in a pink cast.

MADISON (AP) – Gov. Scott Walker’s newly appointed top aide tells lawmakers that a nearly $140 million computer project that’s been long-delayed and fraught with difficulties is on track for a July 1 launch.

Department of Administration Secretary Scott Neitzel commented on the project Thursday during a Senate committee confirmation hearing.

Democratic Sen. Kathleen Vinehout voted against confirming Neitzel, saying his answers did not inspire confidence and she is worried that the project may fail.

The massive project, in the works for years, will eventually create one integrated computer system across the state government for disparate systems to support financial, human resources, payroll and procurement activities.

It is projected to save $100 million over 10 years.

Neitzel says he is on top of the project, which he calls a “high, high priority.”