Green Bay News

GREEN BAY – The 2015 Golden Apple Awards presentation begins with a knock on the door.

For the 22nd year, a group of Green Bay area teachers received Golden Apple Awards Thursday.

FOX 11’s Tom Milbourn made a surprise classroom visit to a few of this year’s Golden Apple Award recipients.

Whether it’s a 7th grade West De Pere Language Arts Class or 1st graders at Valley View in Ashwaubenon or juniors and seniors at the CESA 7 Alternative High School, the students all shared in their teachers’ recognition.

Teachers like Jennifer Parins from CESA 7 Alternative High School, credit the students, “They are here every day. They work really hard and they are so committed and dedicated to their own education.”

Parins is among a group of five teachers being honored from CESA 7 Alternative High School. Other recipients include Nancy Collins, Amy Daul, Kim Hoffmann and Jessica Sherman.

For some teachers, the visit was completely unexpected.

“I am shocked and surprised right now and emotional. Wow, we’re on the news right now, first graders,” said Ashley Gonwa, first grade teacher at Valley View Elementary.

It was also a touching day for teachers who can live their passion.

West De Pere Language Arts Teacher, Angela Kelly says being a teacher is more than just a career, “Because I believe teaching is what I’ve been born to do and meant to do on this earth.  And I just love any age of kids I can share this passion with and help teach them.”

The Golden Apple Awards are a program of the Greater Green Bay Chamber, and are sponsored by FOX 11, Associated Bank, Imperial, Humana, Schneider Foundation, Schreiber, The Press-Gazette, and the Shopko Foundation.

The Golden Apple Awards banquet is April 22 at the Radisson Hotel & Conference Center. For information on registering to attend the event, call Carina Raddatz at 920-593-3419.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FOX 11’s Tom Milbourn and Michelle Melby visited schools March 5, 2015, to surprise teachers with Golden Apple Awards!

LOS ANGELES (AP) — We feed them, groom them, clothe them and otherwise shell out the big bucks to protect and pamper our pets.

The American Pet Products Association’s annual report on pet industry spending says Americans spent $58 billion in 2014 on their 397 million pets, which range from freshwater fish and reptiles to cats and dogs.

The industry trade group released the survey Thursday at the Global Pet Expo, an annual trade show in Orlando, Florida. The data came from a variety of groups, market research studies and media reports.

Here’s a snapshot of how we spend money on pets:

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WHERE THE MONEY GOES

The association measures five areas of spending. Last year, people spent $22 billion on food; $15 billion on veterinary care; $14 billion on supplies such as beds, bowls and collars and over-the-counter medicine to fight ailments such as fleas, ticks and colds; $4.8 billion on other services; and $2 billion on animals themselves.

The “other services” category grew the fastest in 2014 and includes payments on grooming, boarding, walking, training, day care and even trips to the spa — where pets can get facials and massages, said Bob Vetere, president and CEO of the pet products association, based in Greenwich, Connecticut.

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VET VISITS FLAT

The report says trips to the veterinarian were unchanged or slightly down last year, although expenditures per visit have increased as owners green-light more expensive procedures, Vetere said. Those treatments ranged from the lifesaving to the exotic, like plastic surgery.

A robust human-animal bond still exists, especially with dogs and cats, and people are doing more to prolong their pets’ lives, from surgery to food, Vetere said.

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WHAT’S FOR DINNER

If food for pets sometimes sounds good enough to eat, it’s because it is. San Diego-based Honest Kitchen and Vero Beach, Florida-based Caru Natural Dog Stews are two pet food brands considered human-grade by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration because their grub is made with ingredients palatable by people and produced in facilities meeting higher safety requirements.

Americans spent the most on food for their pets last year, and much of it mirrored human trends, such as gluten-free, wheat-free, little sugar or reduced-calorie. The feast might come dry, wet, raw, baked, flaked, shredded, diced, sliced, frozen or freeze-dried.

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PET SALES DOWN

Sales of the animals themselves dropped from $2.23 billion in 2013 to $2.15 billion in 2014, which was expected because spending in the category has fallen slightly each of the past several years, Vetere said. There is likely no one reason, he said. But adoptions at shelters and rescues are strong, many cities banned the sale of dogs from puppy mills and the lifespans of dogs and cats have lengthened.

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INDUSTRY GROWTH

As pets have become more important parts of U.S. families, spending on them has exploded. There has been more than a threefold increase since the group’s first survey was released in 1994, when people paid out $17 billion. Spending grew 4.2 percent, from $55.72 billion in 2013 to $58.04 billion last year, Vetere said.

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COMPARING SPENDING

People spent about five times more on their pets than they did on movies last year. The box office firm Rentrak estimated that ticket sales from 2014 totaled $10.4 billion, a 5.2 percent drop from 2013. But people spent far more on their homes than they did their pets, with expenditures from home improvements and repairs reaching $298 billion in 2013, the most recent data available.

 

The Green Bay men’s basketball team opens play in the Horizon League Championship Saturday, but who it plays remains a question.

The No.-2 seeded Phoenix does know it will play either No. 3 Oakland or No. 6 Illinois Chicago, which play Friday in a quarterfinal. Green Bay (23-7) meets the winner Saturday at 6 p.m.

The other quarterfinal game Friday is No. 5 Detroit vs. No. 4 Cleveland State, with the winner playing host Valparaiso in the other semifinal.

Horizon League Championship Bracket

Green Bay swept Illinois Chicago this season, including a 72-67 win Feb. 26 at Chicago. Meanwhile, Green Bay and Oakland split games, each winning at home.

Green Bay will make its third straight Horizon League championship semifinal appearance, but has not reached a championship final since 1998, when it fell to Butler, 70-51.

This will be Green Bay’s 21st appearance in the Horizon League championship and it has a record of 16-19. It won the championship final once, in 1995. That was the Phoenix’s first year in the conference.

BELOIT (AP) – A southern Wisconsin college is reacting to the latest incident of racist messages on campus.

Beloit College held a town hall meeting Wednesday after a racial slur was spray painted on the side of a dorm. More than 100 students and faculty attended.

The Beloit Daily News reports the vandalism happened early Friday morning. But dean of students Christina Klawitter says she wasn’t notified until 6 p.m. that day.

Klawitter told the forum the college is still trying to find out who’s responsible. She says racism is “not OK in our community,” and urged anyone who sees something similar to come forward.

A similar slur was written on a chalkboard in a classroom a couple of weeks ago, and posters hanging on the office doors of African-American teachers were defaced.

APPLETON – Two civil rights activists will be honored during Lawrence University’s graduation ceremonies, the college announced.

The school plans to present honorary doctor of humane letters degrees to Appleton native James Zwerg and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia. Lewis is also scheduled to deliver the principal commencement address.

Lawrence is commemorating the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Voting Rights Act.

From Lawrence University:

This will be Lewis’ third appearance at Lawrence. He first visited in April 1964 as Head Field Secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee for a campus civil rights week event and returned again in February, 2005 to deliver a university convocation.

Zwerg, a 1958 graduate of Appleton Senior High School, became engaged in the Civil Rights Movement as a 21-year-old exchange student at Fisk University while attending Beloit College.

He participated in sit-ins in Nashville, Tenn., resulting in repeated verbal abuse and physical assaults and joined the Freedom Riders in 1961. He was severely beaten in Montgomery, Ala., photos of which appeared in Time and Life magazines as well as newspapers around the world.

His efforts were chronicled in numerous articles, television documentaries and the book “Freedom Riders: John Lewis and Jim Zwerg on the Front Lines of the Civil Rights Movement.”

Zwerg graduated from Beloit College in 1962 and later earned a degree in theology at Garret Theological Seminary. Ordained a minister in the United Church of Christ, he served churches in Wisconsin until 1970 when he moved to Tucson, Ariz., to become minister of the Casas Adobes United Church of Christ. Retired, he lives in rural New Mexico.

Lewis has represented Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District since 1986. He has been at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement for more than 50 years.

He participated in the 1965 march from Selma, Ala., to the capital in Montgomery, that became known as “Bloody Sunday” after state troopers attacked marchers on Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge, galvanizing the country and hastening the passage of the Voting Rights Act later that year.

The march, and its violent conclusion, was chronicled in the 2014 film “Selma,” a Best Picture nominee at last month’s Academy Awards ceremonies.

By his early 20s, Lewis already was a nationally recognized leader in the Civil Rights Movement, organizing sit-ins and participating in the segregation-challenging Freedom Rides across the South.

He helped organize, and spoke at, the historic 1963 March on Washington, in which Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Lewis is the lone surviving member among the speakers at that event.

Lewis’ efforts on behalf of social injustice and human rights have been recognized with dozens of prestigious awards, among them the 2010 Medal of Freedom, the Martin Luther King Jr. Non-Violent Peace Prize and the John F. Kennedy “Profile in Courage Award” for lifetime achievement.

A graduate of Fisk University and the American Baptist Theological Seminary, Lewis is the author of “Across That Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change,” which received the 2012 NAACP Image Award for Best Literary Work-Biography and the best-selling graphic novel memoir trilogy “March.”

Commencement is scheduled for June 14.

OSAKA, JAPAN (TV Asahi) – The world’s oldest living person is celebrating a new milestone.

Misao Okawa turns 117-years old Thursday.

The birthday party at her Osaka retirement home was broadcast across Japan this week.

The staff says she’s slowed down a bit recently, but still eats three large meals a day and sleeps eight hours at night.

Okawa has said her love of sushi as one secret to longevity.

Her life has spanned three different centuries, but this week Okawa said 117-years didn’t seem like such a long time.

According to Guinness World Records, the oldest person to have ever lived was 122-year-old Jeanne Calment of France.

 

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – A representative of Wisconsin’s Native American tribes says the state’s tribes will not support iron mining projects.

Chris McGeshick, chairman of the Sokaogon Chippewa Community, addressed state lawmakers Thursday. He said he would not support a Penokee Hills mining project or any frack sand mining initiatives in the state. Tribal representatives and Senate Democrats loudly applauded McGeshick’s statement.

He delivered his speech amid an ongoing Assembly debate about a right-to-work bill. Audible from outside the building was an ongoing rally protesting right-to-work legislation as well as a booming band in the Capitol rotunda playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever.”

McGeshick also called for lawmakers to improve health care access on Indian reservations and for more continuity in communication between indigenous and American communities.

BOSTON (AP) – A man who became a symbol of the Boston Marathon bombing when he was wheeled away, ashen-faced, his legs severely injured, testified Thursday that he locked eyes with one of the bombers shortly before the explosives went off.

“He was alone. He wasn’t watching the race,” said Jeff Bauman, who walked slowly into court on two prosthetic legs. “I looked at him, and he just kind of looked down at me. I just thought it was odd.”

Later, from his hospital bed, Bauman gave the FBI a description of a man who authorities say turned out to be Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Tsarnaev, 26, died in a gun battle with police days after the bombing.

Bauman testified at the trial of Tsarnaev’s younger brother, Dzhokhar, who could get the death penalty if convicted of charges he helped carry out the 2013 bombings that killed three people and wounded more than 260.

Before testimony began Thursday, Tsarnaev’s lawyers complained to the judge that the survivors’ testimony from the previous day was too gruesome and that such accounts should be limited.

Defense attorney David Bruck objected to the testimony of three women who described their injuries in detail and what they saw in the aftermath of the attack. Bruck said that under the federal death penalty law, victim-impact testimony is supposed to be presented during the second phase of the trial, when the jury decides on the punishment.

Prosecutors denied that any of the survivors gave victim-impact testimony and said they merely described what they saw.

U.S. District Judge George O’Toole Jr. agreed with prosecutors and refused to limit survivors’ testimony.

The trial opened on Wednesday, with Tsarnaev attorney Judy Clarke bluntly admitting to the jury that her client took part in the attack. But in a bid to save Tsarnaev’s life, she argued that he was influenced by his older brother.

The first witness to testify Thursday was a policeman who was the first officer to reach 29-year-old Krystle Campbell, one of those killed.

Officer Frank Chiola said he ran across the street to help the victims as soon as he heard the explosions. As he reached Campbell and began doing chest compressions, he said, smoke came out of her mouth. He said she appeared to be in a lot of pain.

The Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I. issued an alarming warning to police nationwide. They’re concerned over a trend of young boys and girls wanting to fight as part of the terrorist group. Intelligence officials say at least 180 Americans of varying ages tried joining terrorist efforts in the Middle East. About a dozen have been arrested before they could leave the states and wage jihad.

Young people today have grown up in the digital age. Terrorists like ISIS have a strong foothold in the U.S thanks to social media.

Social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter can get inside the heads of disenfranchised Americans to wage war against the west.

But what if the U.S. intelligence community could infiltrate ISIS by allowing potential terrorists to make it to their destination like Iraq or Syria, so they could gain more intelligence on the ground?

“That’s easier said than done,” says Professor Tony Lemieux of Georgia State University. “You’re going to have to have the confidence that you’re really able to follow it to the ground. Whereas being able to intervene earlier and stop it? You can prevent it.”

Michael Steinbach, the FBI’s assistant director for counterterrorism admits what keeps him up at night is a lack of intelligence. “Once in Syria, it is very difficult to discern what happens there. This lack of clarity remains troubling.”

The U.S. abandoned its embassy in Damascus in 2012.

“I think it’s always a major balancing act,” says Gary LaFree from the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism Consortium at the University of Maryland. “There are big consequences when you abandon an embassy in a particular part of the world. Your intelligence to that part of the world is greatly diminished.”

Would it make sense to smuggle spies to gain intelligence on the ground?

Blending in with a barbaric band of jihadists is a nearly impossible task that requires monumental risks and morally loathsome duties. And in years past when “spies” blended in with the enemy, the payoff of their actions was in many cases counter-intuitive.

Senator James Lankford ( R ) Oklahoma says the law enforcement community does everything it can now to track these potential terrorists . “A person says they may hate someone. That’s not illegal in America. But once they’re able to act on that hatred and carry it out violence on that, that’s illegal behavior.”

European intelligence officials say boys as young as 10 are now being forced to convert to Islam and fight for the Islamic State, sometimes against their own communities.

“What we have here is a perfect storm,” says Matthew Levitt from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Unemployment, poverty, lack of access to education and potentially mobilizing people to engaging in violence includes the digital age.”

WASHINGTON (AP) – Iran’s growing influence in Iraq is setting off alarm bells, and nowhere is the problem starker than in the high-stakes battle for Tikrit. It marks a crucial fight in the bigger war to expel the Islamic State group from Iraq, and yet Iran and the Shiite militias it empowers – not the U.S. – are leading the charge.

This is both a political and military dilemma for the Obama administration, which is under heavy criticism for negotiating with Iran over limits on its nuclear program. Iran, meanwhile, is asserting itself in a divided Iraq like never before.

The battle for Tikrit raises the question: Who is really running this war? Iraq? The U.S.? Iran?

Defense Secretary Ash Carter, under questioning from Sen. John McCain this week, acknowledged his concern when McCain asked if it alarms him that Iran “has basically taken over the fight.”

“It does. It does,” Carter replied, adding, “We’re watching it very closely.”

Watching, but not participating.

The Iraqis did not ask the U.S. led-coalition to coordinate or provide airstrikes in support of the Iraqi ground forces in Tikrit, even though it was largely U.S. air power that halted Islamic State advances after its fighters swept across northern Iraq last summer and captured key cities, including Tikrit and Mosul, as the Iraqi army quickly folded.

Instead, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey told McCain’s committee, about two-thirds of the Iraqi forces fighting for Tikrit are Shiite militias supported by Iran, which also has provided artillery and other resources. The rest are regular Iraqi soldiers.

The issue is the two major powers – the U.S. and Iran – might be running parallel campaigns with different goals. Both want the Islamic State group out of Iraq, but the U.S. hopes for an inclusive Iraqi government that includes Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. Iran, the major Shiite power in the region, would prefer a largely Shiite Iraq.

The Iranian involvement has also raised concerns among key members of the U.S. coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

“What is happening in Tikrit is exactly what we are worried about. Iran is taking over the country,” Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said at a news conference on Thursday in Riyadh with Secretary of State John Kerry.

Kerry, however, said he was glad to see the Iraqi government taking the lead, even if it meant Iranian involvement.

“This was put together by the Iraqis, formulated by the Iraqis, executed by the Iraqis, and that’s the best thing all of us could, frankly, ask for,” Kerry said. “So we take it the way it is and we’ll hope for the best results and move from there.”

Tikrit is ripe with irony. It is the birthplace of Saddam Hussein, the former president who led Iraq into a devastating 1980-88 war with Iran. Now Baghdad has embraced Iranian military leadership in the fight for Tikrit, to the exclusion of the Americans, who invaded Iraq 12 years ago this month to topple Saddam and lost thousands of lives trying to ensure a stable, multi-sectarian and independent Iraq.

Stephen Biddle, a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University and an occasional consultant to U.S. commanders, said the Iraqis see the Iranians as a convenient alternative to the Americans as Washington pushes Iraq to be more accepting of Sunni political interests.

“So if we push them too hard they can just go to the Iranians,” Biddle said. “The Tikrit offensive is a terrific example of that in practice.”

Dempsey called the Iranian involvement in Tikrit “the most overt” Iranian military support thus far in Iraq’s campaign against IS, but he held out hope that it could work out.

“Frankly, it will only be a problem if it results in sectarianism,” Dempsey said, referring to the fact that the Shiite militias could inflame sectarian tensions in Sunni-dominated Tikrit

Analysts at the private Institute for the Study of War wrote Wednesday that the presence of Shiite militias in the Tikrit area could generate sectarian reprisal attacks.

“The greater question,” they wrote, “is one of Iran’s involvement in the operation,” including the presence of Iranian Gen. Ghasem Soleimani, commander of the elite Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, and Iranian military advisers.

“It raises questions about the independent capability and operational leadership” of the Iraqi security forces, the analysts wrote, and “calls attention to next steps and where Iran’s battle plans will stop.”

A U.S. defense official said Thursday that Washington has confirmed that Soleimani is in Iraq and providing military advice but not necessarily at the front lines in Tikrit. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence information.

Carter’s view, shared by the Army general who is overseeing the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, Lloyd Austin, is that to gain a durable defeat of the Islamic State, the Iraqis have to decide for themselves what will work and whom they will partner with.

“We will enable their efforts with our air power, with our advice and assistance in any way we can,” Austin said Tuesday. “But at the end of the day, they have to be able to do this,” and at times that has meant partnering with Iran.

“I can say that Iran’s influence is growing in Iraq,” Austin said, “but how much they have, I can’t speak to that.”

Biddle, for one, is skeptical of chances that the Iraqi government under Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, a Shiite, will make the political reforms Washington thinks are necessary, including replacing sectarian military and police commanders.

“The Iraqis don’t want to make those changes for a variety of perfectly understandable reasons.” he said, and the Americans may not have sufficient leverage to force them to change, given Iran’s willingness to provide an easy alternative.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – The parents of a young girl with leukemia want to build their daughter a playhouse, but they’ve been blocked by their homeowners association.

Pete and Jennifer Schultz, who live in the Kansas City, Missouri, suburb of Raymore, say they need the playhouse for their 6-year-old daughter, Ella Joe, because her health keeps her from playing with other children.

“She’s earned this – she deserves it,” Pete Schultz said, according to The Kansas City Star. “She can’t get out and play with other kids. This playhouse is what she would have. Is it really going to hurt someone?”

The homeowners group released a statement on its website, saying the proposal for a “barn-style” playhouse was denied because it didn’t have enough details to merit an exemption.

“Our hearts are with Ella Schultz and her family as they battle this terrible illness,” it read.

The Stonegate of the Good Ranch is committed to working with the Make-A-Wish Foundation “to see if we can figure out a way to make Ella’s wish come true,” and the group has requested additional information from the charity and a construction company that has committed to building the play house.

An email to the homeowners association from The Associated Press seeking further comment wasn’t immediately returned.

As this plays out, Ella Joe has been in the hospital fighting complications from her cancer. University of Kansas Hospital spokesman Bob Hallinan confirmed that she remained in the hospital Thursday afternoon.

The Schultz’s neighbors have rallied around the family before, including last year, when after spending several months in the hospital, Ella Joe came home to a neighborhood parade.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The number of people seeking unemployment benefits rose last week to the highest level since May, though the pace of applications remains at a level consistent with steady hiring.

Weekly applications rose 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 320,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, increased 10,250 to 304,750, a six-week high.

The number of applications tends to reflect the pace of U.S. layoffs. The four-week average has remained near or below 300,000 since September, a historically low level that typically signals healthy job gains.

More Americans are earning paychecks, and gas prices have plummeted from last summer, thereby boosting consumers’ buying power. Americans also say they are more confident and are spending more, which has encouraged many businesses to hold on to their workers and to add staff.

There are some signs that heavy snow and unseasonably cold weather have played a role in increasing the number of layoffs. Several states said two weeks ago that applications had risen because of bad weather.

Kentucky said applications for unemployment benefits in that state rose nearly 3,000 in the week that ended Feb. 21 because of “inclement weather.”

Guy Berger, an economist at RBS Securities, noted that snow and ice hit the Midwest and upper South in the final two weeks of February, likely boosting the number of applications. But that increase would have occurred after the government conducted its surveys for the February jobs report, to be released Friday.

“Tomorrow’s employment data should not be terribly affected,” Berger said in a note to clients.

Economists have forecast that the report will show employers added 240,000 jobs and that the unemployment rate dipped to 5.6 percent from 5.7 percent.

The state-level information is released with a one-week lag. Massachusetts, which has experienced huge snowfalls this winter, said applications jumped 3,800 two weeks ago, in part because of layoffs at schools.

That likely reflects temporary layoffs of school bus drivers, cafeteria workers and other employees during school system closures. Workers on temporary layoffs can apply for unemployment aid.

Still, the four-week average of applications for benefits is nearly 10 percent lower than it was a year ago. The reduced number of applications has coincided with a big step-up in hiring. Employers added more than 1 million jobs from November through January, the strongest three-month pace since 1997.

That pace of hiring probably won’t be sustained for much longer, economists say. But they foresee healthy job gains for the rest of this year.

The strong job gains are showing signs of finally lifting paychecks for more workers. Average hourly pay rose 0.5 percent in January, the most in six years. Economists have forecast that wages ticked up 0.3 percent in February.

Other recent data suggest that the job market remains strong. Payroll processor ADP said Wednesday that businesses added 212,000 jobs in February. That was down from 250,000 in January but still a solid gain.

And a survey of services firms, including hotels, restaurants, insurance agencies and retailers, found that they stepped up hiring last month.

WASHINGTON (AP) – They only lasted minutes, but the beatings of civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama, permanently seared the inhumanity of Southern segregation onto the American conscience.

The images were televised and captured in photographs: Police tear-gassed kneeling protesters, clubbed them and attacked them on horseback behind a civilian posse on Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge. Five decades later, many were struck by the resemblance as police lobbed tear gas at protesters last year in Ferguson, Missouri, after the police shooting death of black 18-year-old Michael Brown.

President Barack Obama and some surviving marchers are going back to Selma this weekend to commemorate the 50th anniversary of that “Bloody Sunday” assault, and to talk about how the country has – and has not – changed since then.

In this March 7, 1965 file photo, state troopers use clubs against participants of a civil rights voting march in Selma, Ala. At foreground right, John Lewis, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, is beaten by a state trooper. The day, which became known as “Bloody Sunday,” is widely credited for galvanizing the nation’s leaders and ultimately yielded passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (AP Photo/File)

Several Ferguson protesters also plan to go to Selma, hoping to ensure that more Americans will draw parallels between yesterday’s and today’s struggles. “It is clear that the struggle continues,” said human rights attorney Nicole Lee, who was in Ferguson during the unrest after police decided not to charge officer Darren Wilson in Brown’s death.

A grand jury declined to indict Wilson as well last year. The Justice Department said Wednesday that it also would not seek to prosecute Wilson. It did issue a scathing report that called Ferguson’s law enforcement practices discriminatory and unconstitutional.

Similar things were said about Selma after the police killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson, 26, who died a few days after being shot in the stomach by Alabama state trooper James Bonard Fowler while trying to protect family members during a melee that broke out after a voting rights protest in February 1965.  A grand jury later declined to indict Fowler.

Georgia congressman John Lewis, then a student activist who was severely beaten in Selma, also sees parallels between the 1965 marches and the #BlackLivesMatter movement that sprang up after Brown’s death. He also sees a major distinction.

“The only thing that is so different (is that) today, I don’t think many of the young people have a deep understanding of the ways of nonviolent direct action,” Lewis said.

Other Selma veterans say they fear their sacrifices are being wasted by those who fail to vote, leading to lack of representation in government and on police forces. “Racism never went anywhere. Racism just took a nap, and when it woke up, we were watching … all those stupid reality shows. We let everything pass by us, and then we complain,” said Lynda Blackmon Lowery, who marched in Selma at age 15 and says she was one of the youngest marchers beaten on the bridge.

“There was nothing magic about Selma,” said Andrew Young, one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s closest aides and an organizer in King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. “Selma just gave us the right to vote. But if you don’t vote, and don’t take advantage of that right, you’re still living in a pre-Selma age,” Young said.

In this March 13, 1965 file photo, a line of police officers hold back demonstrators who attempted to march to the courthouse in Selma, Ala. Police kept the demonstrators hemmed up in a square block area where they attempted several times to break through. (AP Photo/File)

African Americans voted at a higher rate than non-Hispanic whites in 2012 – 66.2 percent versus 64.1 percent – with Obama on the ballot. But voter turnout was down in last year’s midterm elections roughly three months after Brown was killed, and dismal in local elections. In Ferguson, fewer than 1,484 of the town’s 12,096 registered voters cast ballots in the last mayoral election.

Back in 1965, the SCLC targeted Selma as an area where they should challenge the lack of voting rights, Young said, and King called it “the most segregated city in America.”

Young said they came up with the idea to march from Selma to Montgomery at the funeral for Jackson, to make a voting rights statement and to protest Jackson’s death. Shocking images of the police beatings were broadcast nationwide; ABC interrupted its Sunday night movie, “Judgment at Nuremberg,” to air 15 minutes of uninterrupted footage from the Selma attacks.

“They broke into Hitler and the Nazi persecution of the Jews to (show) the persecution of African Americans by state troopers in Alabama,” Young said. “People made the connection that this cannot be allowed to happen.”

Eighty four people were injured in the violence, including Lewis, who suffered a skull fracture. In 2004, Fowler confessed to a newspaper reporter that he shot Jackson. He said he fired in self-defense after Jackson hit him on the head with a bottle. In 2010, Fowler pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter and was sentenced to six months in jail.

A few days after the Bloody Sunday assaults, King led a second march to the scene of the violence. A third march, on March 21, actually made it from Selma to Montgomery. Eight days later, President Lyndon Johnson spoke to a joint session of Congress, and compared Selma to some of America’s Revolutionary battles.

Five months later, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which ushered millions of African Americans and other minorities onto voter rolls in the South.

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Associated Press videojournalist Alex Sanz contributed to this story from Atlanta and Selma, Alabama.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The manufacturer of a medical instrument at the center of a recent “superbug” outbreak in Los Angeles did not receive federal clearance to sell the device, according to officials from the Food and Drug Administration.

The FDA confirmed that Olympus Corp. did not seek FDA clearance for the latest version of its specialized endoscope, which it began selling in 2010. FDA clearance is required for all substantive updates to medical devices sold in the U.S.

Despite the lack of clearance, the FDA said doctors should continue using the device because it’s not clear that a federal review would have prevented the recent infections reported in patients.

Olympus said in a statement that it determined in 2010 that it didn’t need to submit its changes for FDA review. The company has since filed an application which is now pending at the FDA.

The company’s hard-to-clean device is believed to be responsible for infections in seven people – two of whom died – who contracted an antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria after undergoing endoscopic procedures at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center between October and January. Two Olympus devices used at the UCLA hospital were found to have “embedded” infections even though they had been cleaned according to manufacturer’s instructions. The specialized device, known as a duodenoscope, is a flexible fiber-optic tube that is inserted down the throat into the stomach and small intestine to drain fluids.

On Wednesday Cedars-Sinai Medical Center reported that four patients at its hospital had also been infected with the “superbug,” possibly transmitted through the same Olympus device. The Los Angeles hospital launched its own investigation after learning of the UCLA outbreak two weeks ago.

An FDA spokeswoman said that the agency informed Olympus last March that the company must submit an application for its redesigned device, which the company filed last October. That application is still pending because the FDA asked the company for additional information.

In an online posting, the FDA said it does not plan to withdraw Olympus’ TJF-Q180V duodenoscope, because it could cause a shortage of devices used in about 500,000 procedures per year.

The agency also noted that FDA has received reports of infections with similar devices made by two other manufacturers, Pentax Medical and Fujifilm. The FDA said last month it is trying to determine what more can be done to reduce infections linked to endoscopes.

Revelations about the lack approval for Olympus’ device came as lawmakers in Congress questioned the FDA’s performance overseeing the safety and design of similar instruments. In a letter Wednesday, 10 members of Congress asked the FDA to answer nearly a dozen questions about oversight of duodenoscope, including when the agency first learned about problems with infections.

“It appears that if a superior cleaning procedure cannot be developed, the best solution will be to develop a new device,” states the letter, signed by six Democrats and four Republicans in the House of Representatives.

The FDA previously said the duodenoscope’s complex design, intended to improve usability, also makes the device extremely difficult to clean. Bodily fluids and other particles can stay in the device’s crevices even after cleaning and disinfection.

Cleaning instructions issued by manufacturers of the devices may not adequately disinfect the devices, according to the FDA. The agency has recommended that hospitals instead follow cleaning guidelines issued by several medical societies in 2011.

Infections of the “superbug” carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE, have been reported at hospitals around the country, and some have been linked to the type of endoscope used at UCLA.

Olympus said in a statement the company “continuously strives to improve our products for safe and effective use. This includes changes to device design.”

Olympus Corp. of the Americas is a unit of Japan’s Olympus Corp.

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AP Science Writer Alicia Chang contributed to this report from Los Angeles

The recipients of the 2015 Golden Apple Awards were notified Thursday with surprise visits to their classrooms.

They are:

• Angela Kelly, West De Pere Middle
• Ashley Gonwa, Valley View Elementary
• Nancy Collins, Amy Daul, Kim Hoffmann, Jessica Sherman and Jennifer Parins, CESA 7 Alternative High
• Elizabeth Ruh, Forest Glen Elementary
• Chris Wendorf, Sunnyside Elementary
• Kari Groeneveld, Glenbrook Elementary
• Sara Hoffmann, Pulaski Community Middle

The Golden Apple Awards are a program of the Greater Green Bay Chamber, and are sponsored by FOX 11, Associated Bank, Imperial, Humana, Schneider Foundation, Schreiber, The Press-Gazette, and the Shopko Foundation.

The Golden Apple Awards banquet is April 22 at the Radisson Hotel & Conference Center. For information on registering to attend the event, call Carina Raddatz at 920-593-3419.

 

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Wisconsin’s unemployment rate has dropped to 5 percent, its lowest point since before the recession.

The state Department of Workforce Development reported Thursday that the unemployment rate dropped from 5.2 percent in December to 5 percent in January.

Private-sector job creation was basically flat over the period, with just 300 new jobs created.

The numbers fluctuate greatly month-to-month because they are based on a survey of just 3.5 percent of Wisconsin employers. More accurate quarterly jobs numbers, that aren’t as current, were scheduled to be released March 19.

• Click here for the full report

LOUIS (AP) — A federal investigation into the police killing of an unarmed, black 18-year-old in Ferguson, Missouri, lays bare what officials contend are racist, profit-driven law enforcement practices in the small St. Louis suburb.

While the Department of Justice cleared officer Darren Wilson of federal civil rights charges in the August death of Michael Brown, it also called for sweeping changes in a city where officers trade racist emails, issue expensive tickets mostly to black drivers and routinely use what investigators called excessive force on people stopped for minor or non-existent offenses.

Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday that the department “found a community that was deeply polarized; a community where deep distrust and hostility often characterized interactions between police and area residents.”

Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III said steps are already being taken to correct problems.

“We must do better not only as a city, but as a state and a country,” Knowles said.

The shooting of Brown sparked a national dialogue on race and law enforcement. Separate federal investigations into the shooting and the police department began soon after Brown was killed.

In pairing the announcements on the investigations’ results, the Obama administration sought to offset community disappointment over the conclusion that the shooting was legally justified with a message of hope for Ferguson’s majority-black citizens.

Officials announced 26 recommendations, including training officers in how to de-escalate confrontations and banning the use of ticketing and arrest quotas.

Wilson was cleared in November by a state grand jury, a decision that set off protests, looting and fires. The federal report concurred that there was no evidence to disprove Wilson’s testimony that he feared for his safety. Nor were there reliable witness accounts to establish that Brown had his hands up in surrender when he was shot, Justice Department lawyers said.

An attorney for Wilson, Neil Bruntrager, described the officer as “very happy” with the outcome.

Ben Crump, the attorney for Brown’s parents, said the family was “extremely disappointed. This underscores the need for change and reform when there is continued use of excessive deadly force on people of color by police officers.”

Another lawyer for the parents on Thursday announced plans for a wrongful-death lawsuit against Wilson and the city of Ferguson.

While the federal government declined to prosecute Wilson, it raised grave concerns about the operation of Ferguson’s police department and municipal court. Though about two-thirds of the city’s 21,000 residents are black, only four of 54 commissioned officers are African-American.

That lack of diversity undermines community trust, the Justice Department’s report said. It also found Ferguson relies heavily on fines for petty offenses, such as jaywalking, to raise revenue.

Holder said the city collected more than $1.3 million in fines and court fees in 2010, but $3 million more is projected for the current fiscal year.

“Our review of the evidence, and our conversations with police officers, have shown that significant pressure is brought to bear on law enforcement personnel to deliver on these revenue increases,” Holder said.

He cited a 2007 case where a woman received two parking tickets costing $152. Because of court fees and other expenses, she has paid $550 so far, spent six days in jail, and still owes $541.

Another woman, Tiffany Tunstall, 34, told The Associated Press that she received “threatening” letters for nearly two years after paying off traffic tickets through an installment plan.

“I didn’t want to have anything to do with the city I was raised in,” she said. “I felt disrespected.”

Activist John Gaskin III, a member of the national NAACP board of directors, said lines outside of municipal court are often long.

“You’d think we’re buying tickets to a Beyoncé concert,” Gaskin said. “The common theme is: Everyone there is African-American.”

Federal investigators found many other examples of discrimination. A lawful protest was broken up with a police warning of “everybody here’s going to jail.” And a black man sitting in a car with tinted windows was accused without cause of being a pedophile by an officer who pointed a gun at his head.

Between 2012 and 2014, black drivers were more than twice as likely as others to be searched during routine traffic stops, but 26 percent less likely to be carrying contraband.

The report also included seven racially tinged emails that did not result in punishment. The writer of one 2008 email stated that President Barack Obama would not be in office for long because “what black man holds a steady job for four years.”

Knowles said three employees were responsible for those emails. One was fired Wednesday, and the other two are on administrative leave pending an investigation, he said. The mayor did not take questions, and Police Chief Tom Jackson was not at the news conference where he spoke.

The report’s recommendations, if accepted by city officials, could lead to an overhaul of basic practices by police officers and court officials. Those include improving officer supervision, doing better recruiting, hiring and promotion and adopting new mechanisms for responding to misconduct complaints.

Federal officials described Ferguson leaders as cooperative and open to change and said there were already signs of improvement. The city, for example, no longer issues failure-to-appear warrants, has eliminated a fee for towing cars and rescinded warrants for nearly 600 defendants.

Under Holder, the Justice Department has investigated roughly 20 police departments over alleged civil rights violations. Some have led to the appointment of independent monitors and have been resolved with agreements in which police commit to major changes.

“It’s quite evident that change is coming down the pike. This is encouraging,” Gaskin said. “It’s so unfortunate that Michael Brown had to be killed. But in spite of that, I feel justice is coming.”

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Associated Press writers Jim Suhr in St. Louis and Alan Scher Zagier in Ferguson contributed to this report.

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department agreed Thursday to review thousands of messages from a private email account that former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton used for government business, but it cautioned that the process will move slowly and perhaps take months.

The department announced its action just after midnight, soon after Clinton spoke for the first time about the political firestorm over her use of private emails sent from a private computer server using an Internet address traced back to Clinton’s family home in Chappaqua, New York.

Clinton urged the State Department late Wednesday on her Twitter account to release the documents publicly.

“I want the public to see my email. I asked State to release them. They said they will review them for release as soon as possible,” Clinton said on Twitter.

Secretary of State John Kerry said in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Thursday that the department “will undertake this task as rapidly as possible in order to make sure that we are dealing with the sheer volume in a responsible way.” Officials have said that Clinton turned over more than 55,000 pages of emails to the department. But State spokeswoman Marie Harf warned that the review could “take time some time to complete” and officials indicated it could take months.

It was not immediately clear what procedure or protocols the State Department was using to review Clinton’s emails, or what U.S. laws or rules might prohibit Clinton from releasing her own emails by herself immediately. Clinton’s current spokesman and the State Department have said she never received or transmitted classified information on her private email account, so there should be no such concerns that disclosure of her messages could compromise national security.

“She had other ways of communicating through classified email through her assistants or her staff, with people, when she needed to use a classified setting,” Harf said.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, the government can censor or withhold emails and other records under nine categories intended to protect information that would hurt national security, violate personal privacy or expose business secrets or confidential decision-making in certain areas. But it wasn’t clear whether the State Department would automatically apply those provisions to its review of Clinton’s emails, or whether it would invoke its legally authorized discretion to release even emails that might be covered under those exemptions. Under the open records law, withholding emails merely because they might be embarrassing or expose government incompetence or malfeasance is not permitted.

“I understand the State Department will now redact personal phone numbers and other information, which may take some time, but I believe this decision is the right one,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., senior Democrat on the House Select Committee on Benghazi.

It also wasn’t clear what resources the State Department intended to use to review Clinton’s emails or how long the process will take. The agency has roughly 127 employees who review emails requested under the federal open records law, but they are already overwhelmed with nearly 11,000 other pending requests, which for complex cases can take an average of more than 18 months to review each one.

The possible release of Clinton’s emails would come after more than 75 separate requests for her emails were filed with the State Department between 2009 and 2013 by media organizations and other parties. Associated Press requests for Clinton emails and other documents have been delayed for more than a year — and in one case, four years — without any results. The AP said this week it is considering legal action against the department to compel responses.

On Wednesday, the House committee investigating the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, issued subpoenas for emails from Clinton and others related to Libya. It also instructed technology companies it did not identify to preserve any relevant documents in their possession.

Separately, the conservative legal group Judicial Watch filed suit against the State Department to compel its response to an open records request for communications between Clinton and Nagla Mahmoud, wife of ousted Egyptian president Muhammad Morsi.

For a third day, Washington seemed preoccupied with Clinton’s email practices, which gave Clinton — who is expected to run for president in 2016 — significant control over limiting access to her message archives. But those same practices also complicated the State Department’s legal responsibilities in finding and turning over official emails in response to any investigations, lawsuits or public records requests. The department would be in the position of accepting Clinton’s assurances she was surrendering everything required that was in her control.

The White House legal counsel’s office was not aware of Clinton’s use of a private email account and learned only after some of those emails were sought by a congressional committee investigating the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, according to a person familiar with the matter. Once apprised, the counsel’s office asked the State Department to ensure that her emails were retained for proper archiving, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity without authorization to go on the record.

Presidential spokesman Josh Earnest said Wednesday that White House officials probably received emails from Clinton’s private address and would have been aware of her use of the private account. But the person familiar with the counsel’s office actions said White House officials were not aware that Clinton was using her private site for all unclassified email — a striking departure from former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who also had a private email site but used it in conjunction with a State Department account.

The revelation that Clinton relied exclusively on a private email account also raises questions about whether the agency or anyone else in government examined Clinton’s private email server and network before it began operating and continued to regularly review it during her tenure. Federal regulations subject the computer systems of some federal contractors and other organizations to federal oversight when they interact with government systems to ensure they are protected.

Clinton’s extensive use of her private account for at least 55,000 emails made it likely that in at least some exchanges, references were made to either classified or sensitive information, said J. William Leonard, who held high-ranking information security posts with the Defense Department and the National Archives.

“I would be exceedingly surprised if there were not situations where at the very least classified or sensitive information was inadvertently released just by the nature of her position and the nature of information that is routinely discussed,” said Leonard, who under President George W. Bush was director of the Information Security Oversight Office, which oversees the government-wide security classification system.

Harf said that Clinton as Cabinet secretary never used a government email account on the agency’s separate network for sharing classified information, which Clinton would have been prohibited from forwarding to her private email account.

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Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Riyadh and Brad Klapper, Nedra Pickler and Josh Lederman in Washington contributed to this report.

 

MADISON (AP) – The public has been removed from the galleries inside the state Assembly chamber in the opening minutes of the debate over right to work.

Republican Speaker Robin Vos ordered the galleries cleared of dozens of spectators as protesters shouted out during his opening comments on the bill Thursday. Police worked to remove people as they continued shouting “Right to work is wrong for Wisconsin!” and other chants.

A rally is held March 5, 2015, outside the state Capitol in Madison to protest right-to-work legislation. (WLUK/Andrew LaCombe)

The protest inside the Assembly chamber came after about 300 people rallied outside just before the debate began in earnest early Thursday afternoon.

Lawmakers stopped the debate for about 10 minutes as the spectators were removed.

The Senate passed the measure last week. Once it clears the Assembly it will head to Gov. Scott Walker.