Green Bay News

BAYFIELD – Before you can see these breathtaking ice sculptures, you have some work to do. Or at least I did.

From where I parked off of State Highway 13, it’s a nearly two mile walk to get to the beach access path. Loaded up with about 60 pounds of camera equipment and other gear to keep me warm, leaving my gloves in the car turned out to not be as bad as I was expecting.

But once on the ice, which was about a foot thick during my visit, there was more walking. About another mile’s worth to get to the good stuff, and it wasn’t just of the caves.

Julie Van Stappen, from the National Park Service, notes other things to see on your way to the ice caves, “You can see all these different cracks and airbubbles and stuff, so the ice itself is gorgeous.”

Visitors to the Apostle Islands ice caves walk across a frozen Lake Superior in Bayfield County, March 2, 2015. (WLUK/Bill Miston)

In some places, you could see the lake bed and the stones on it. But remember, even with the ice’s beauty, it’s still ice.

“This year, there’s a lot of clear ice, so you need to be careful about grip,” cautions Van Stappen.

Park service officials say ice cleats are a must.

Jon Morell of St. Cloud, MN, agrees, “Very supportive and helpful. This is our first time, first try on the ice with them.”

Trekking poles – or some old ski poles – are also a big help. Something I didn’t have the luxury of using, or wanted to carry.

“This year it looks very different than it did last year, and especially the route, because last year, we had a lot of snow and it was really packed down,” Van Stappen said.

However, the weather during my hike couldn’t have been better.

Visitor Sharon Myszka from Athens enjoyed the trek to the ice caves, “It’s about 20 degrees, sunny and I haven’t fallen yet, so we’re good.”

Well, before you and I know it, the low winter sun will creep higher and higher and wintertide – and the caves – will vanish before our eyes.

If you’re planning on traveling to the ice caves this week, you can check their Facebook page for weather conditions.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – The former information technology director for the city of Sun Prairie has agreed to plead guilty to a federal theft charge.

Randall Tyler is accused of stealing more than $500,000 from the city to build computers that he sold on the Internet.

A federal charging document alleges that for nearly nine years, Tyler used city funds to buy computer components that he used to build “high-performance” computer systems that he then sold to others, mainly through eBay.

The Wisconsin State Journal reports Tyler is scheduled to enter his guilty plea on March 25.

Defense attorney Marcus Berghahn says Tyler has cooperated with the investigation and is arranging to repay the money.

The theft charge carries a penalty of up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Learn more about Spirit of the Rivers, a sculpture being built in Manitowoc, and how you can donate to the project.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Packers defensive lineman Letroy Guion is hoping to enter a pretrial diversion program for the marijuana-related charges he is facing in Florida, according to his attorney. The lawyer, Robert A. Rush based in Gainesville, Florida, says the “wheels of justice move slowly” and he hopes the entire matter is resolved in “the next two weeks,” which he said would be consistent with a first time offender facing similar charges.

“I’m impressed [with Guion], he’s an incredibly nice young man, he’s very caring towards his community,” said Rush. “He’s done a whole lot of things very quietly in his community people don’t hear about at all. I find him to be a very fine young man and i’ve represented a number of athletes.”

Rush says he’s made the request to have Guion enter a pretrial diversion program, and expects the request to be successful if Guion “is treated like everyone else.”

Guion was arrested by police with more than 350 grams of marijuana in his car and a firearm. Guion’s lawyer, however, says the gun charges are no longer an issue and that the gun was in the vehicle and correctly packaged.

“The facts were not legally sufficient to show probable cause that there was any violation of gun laws,” said Rush.

Guion’s attorney also said the case was not handled exactly as he would have hoped. Authorities in his hometown of Starke, Florida released a picture of the marijuana and gun from Guion’s car and seized his car and the about $190,000 of cash in the car. Rush called what happened “exaggerated and frankly a bit unfair.”

“There’s a lot of things that happened, it’s like, ‘alright nothing I can do about it,” said Rush. “When you’vge got a guy who’s a first offender charged with psosession of marijuana and make him post a $100,000 bond, that’s pretty excessive. We’re in a college town [Gainesville], I have students with marijuana all the time. It’s not like he’s a flight risk, we all know where he’s going to be.”

Guion is in line to become a free agent after his first season with Green Bay. At the NFL Scouting Combine, Packers general manager Ted Thompson indicated the team is monitoring Guion’s situation.

Photos of the construction of Spirit of the Rivers, a monument to be placed at Mariners Trail, along Lake Michigan between Manitowoc and Two Rivers.

Click the link to see event locations and for more information on Slide the City.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Senate on Wednesday failed to override President Barack Obama’s veto of a bill to construct the Keystone XL pipeline, the first of many confrontations between the Republican-controlled Congress and the White House this year over energy policy.

The 62-37 vote is expected to be one of many veto showdowns between Republicans and Obama in his final term. Already, the White House has issued more than a dozen veto threats on legislation.

Proponents of the Keystone bill have said since its introduction that they didn’t have the two-thirds of the Senate vote needed to override Obama’s veto. They fell four votes short. They’ve already been discussing other way to force the pipeline’s approval, either by attaching it onto must-pass spending bills or other, broader, energy legislation.

“If we don’t win the battle today, we will win the war because we will find another bill to attach this pipeline to,” said Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., the chief sponsor of the bill, before the vote.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pleaded with Democrats for more support of a bill that he said advanced the president’s own priorities.

“If you’re interested in jobs and infrastructure and saving your party from an extreme mistake, then join us,” he said. “Vote with us to override a partisan veto and help the president pursue priorities he’s advocated in the past.”

Obama has repeatedly resisted Congress’ attempts to force his hand. His veto of the bill, the third of his presidency, said that the bill circumvented longstanding and proven processes for determining whether cross-border pipelines serve the national interest and cuts short consideration of its effects.

The $8 billion project would transport oil extracted from Canada’s tar sands to pipelines linked to Gulf Coast refineries.

Environmentalists have framed the pipeline as a test of Obama’s commitment to address climate change, arguing that it would open up a path for tar sands oil to get to market. Republicans have pushed the pipeline as a job-creating infrastructure project that will supply the U.S. with oil from a friendly neighbor, rather than unstable regimes.

The State Department’s analysis found that the oil would be harvested regardless of whether the pipeline is built, a conclusion that the EPA said needed to be re-examined given low oil prices. The same review said the pipeline would create thousands of jobs during construction, but ultimately it would require 35 permanent employees.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A storm stretching from northern Texas to southern New England is set to bring what could be winter’s last significant snowfall for the East Coast.

West Virginia and Kentucky are expected to get hit the hardest with 8 to 10 inches, while Baltimore and Washington, D.C., are looking at 6 to 8 inches of snow, said National Weather Service forecaster Bruce Terry. Philadelphia could get 6 inches and New York could see about 4 inches of snow.

Homeowner Steve Showalter, of Benscreek, Pa., in Somerset County, uses an ice pick to clear ice jams along his driveway as the Benscreek River flows over it, Wednesday, March 4, 2015. (AP Photo/The Tribune-Democrat, Todd Berkey)

Boston is a little more than 2 inches shy of its all-time snowfall record, and meteorologists are predicting 1 to 2 inches to fall.

On Wednesday, schools from Texas to West Virginia were closing early and Penn State canceled classes due to weather for the first time in eight years. About 1,200 flights were canceled, including 600 in and out of Dallas-Fort Worth.

Residents of Kentucky and West Virginia dealt with flooded roadways and mudslides. In Arkansas, high school basketball playoff games were postponed until Thursday.

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LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL?

Mike Halpert, deputy director of the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center, said the storm “might be winter’s last hurrah.”

After the storm and maybe a couple of cold days into the weekend, the next couple weeks are forecast to be considerably warmer than normal for a large chunk of the country, Halpert said. But Halpert’s office, which does longer term forecasts, does predict colder than normal for snow-struck New England and only normal temperatures — which would be warmer than recent weeks — for the rest of the Northeast.

Likewise, AccuWeather senior meteorologist Alex Sosnowski says the storm could be winter’s “caboose.”

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TWO MORE INCHES, PLEASE!

Some Bostonians are clamoring for a little more snow so they can break a record.

So far this winter, the city has received 105.5 inches of snow — more than 8 1/2 feet, the National Weather Service says. The record is 107.6 inches recorded during the 1995-96 season. Records date to 1872.

Having endured weeks of misery, residents like Erin O’Brien insist they deserve bragging rights. Otherwise what was the point of repeatedly digging out?

“I want the record. We earned the record,” said O’Brien, a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.

Others don’t care about the record. Amy Ouellette, a marketing associate in Salem, north of Boston, just wants spring and sun to come and melt it all away.

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ROOF COLLAPSE KILLS COWS

Officials are blaming heavy, wet snow for a partial barn roof collapse that killed at least five cows Wednesday morning in central New York.

The collapse at the Whey Street Dairy in Cuyler, 25 miles southeast of Syracuse, was one of hundreds of roof collapses blamed on heavy snow in the Northeast this winter.

Massachusetts officials say they’ve received reports of nearly 200 roof collapses since Feb. 9.

No one was injured Wednesday morning when a 100-foot by 100-foot section of the roof of Boston’s vacant Bayside Expo Center collapsed. The building was previously slated for demolition.

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ICE ROAD TRUCKERS

No injuries were reported in a four tractor-trailer crash that closed an icy road in rural western New York.

The Daily News of Batavia reports the trucks either collided or went off the road in drizzle and snow around 5 a.m. on Route 63 in the Genesee County town of Bethany, 32 miles southwest of Rochester.

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TRAVEL-WEARY BUCKEYES

Bad weather Tuesday night turned an Ohio State men’s basketball team trip to Penn State from an easy one-hour plane ride into an 8½-hour ordeal.

Icy runways in State College, Pennsylvania, forced the team’s plane to land in Latrobe, about 110 miles away.

After landing, the team’s student managers tweeted: “weather conditions have the team stranded in the Pennsylvania wilderness. managers have been sent to find and salvage anything edible.”

The managers joked they ordered pizzas — 25 large and scalding hot — to avoid being eaten by hungry players. The team took a bus the rest of the way to Penn State, traveling at times through dense fog and rain, for the Wednesday night game.

 

CRANFORD, NJ (WCBS-TV) – Joe Colangelo created a 55-foot-long luge course in the yard of his home in Cranford.

He says he built it for his children, 4-year-old James, 3-year-old Evelyn, and 10-month-old Margaret.

It took Colangelo about three weeks to make it all happen.

When asked why he built it, he laughs, “Why? Why not? We’re all stuck in this winter together. We might as well have some fun with it.”

Colangelo posted a video of his creation online and got more than 900,000 views.

He says to keep the course frozen and in optimum working order, he sprays water on it with shower nozzles from his bathroom window.

BAYFIELD – It took millions of years to carve the sandstone cliffs into what we see today. But it only took one winter to create these frozen pieces of art and there’s not much time left before they are gone.

Sharon Myszka made the roughly three hour drive from Athens to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore ice caves. She came for the first time with her son and daughter-in-law.

Myszka was in awe of the ice caves sights, “It’s so natural, a natural beauty.”

Visitors to the Apostle Islands ice caves walk across a frozen Lake Superior in Bayfield County, March 2, 2015. (WLUK/Bill Miston)

Tommy Williams came to visit the ice caves from Brooklyn Center, Minnesota.

“It’s just painted for us, out here, by Mother Nature, and we try to capture it as best we can,” Williams said.

As a professional concert and entertainment photographer, Williams doesn’t often shoot landscapes, “First time I’ve been out here man, it’s beautiful. Just the way the ice freezes up on the landscapes and stuff, and capturing pictures on our cameras and stuff like that, it’s really neat stuff.”

Patrick Dunn from Eden Prairie, Minnesota, says, “To get out here and get this sort of serene feel – you know, you spend so much time, you walk and you’re actually looking at the ice sculptures on the rock. But then when you turn around, and take a look out to the vastness and get kind of that ‘I’m on the moon’ serenity, it’s just like peace, unlike being at work every day.”

The National Park Service says more than 11,000 people made the long walk on the ice to see the caves’ beauty on the first opening weekend.

“It always was a spectacular thing that the locals knew about, but it wasn’t until last year that the world found out about it,” said Julie Van Strappen from the National Park Service.

Visitors explore the ice caves at the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, March 2, 2015. (WLUK/Bill Miston)

Van Stappen is the planning and resource management chief for the national park. Van Stappen says more than 138,000 people visited the caves last year, compared to 8,500 people in 2009, when the caves were last open.

So what’s different? Well Van Stappen believes the surge in the ice caves’ popularity has to do with that thing you keep in your pocket.

“Prior to that, there wasn’t the ability to just share pictures, and comments, and share that information so quickly, and now you can take a picture, and you can spread it out and thousands of people can see it immediately. and the pictures are so spectacular, that from one person to the other person and the other person before you knew it, it was huge phenomena,” said Van Strappen, “I just suggest that if people are interested, to come sooner rather than later.”

Before these works are gone forever.

“I’ll be putting some of them on Facebook. Just beautiful, absolutely beautiful,” said Myszka.

LONDON (AP) — Put down the doughnut. And while you’re at it, skip the breakfast cereal, fruit juice, beer and ketchup.

New guidelines from the World Health Organization say the world is eating too much sugar and people should slash their sugar intake to just 5 to 10 percent of their overall calories.

The guidelines finalize draft advice first released last year, which were published Wednesday after a year of consultations. They are focused on the added sugars in processed food and those in honey, syrups and fruit juices. The advice does not apply to naturally occurring sugars in fruits, vegetables and milk, since those come with essential nutrients.

“We have solid evidence that keeping intake of (added) sugars to less than 10 percent of total energy intake reduces the risk of overweight, obesity and tooth decay,” Francesco Branca, director of WHO’s nutrition department, said in a statement.

Experts have long railed about the dangers of sugar and studies suggest that people who eat large amounts of the sweet stuff are at higher risk of dying prematurely from heart problems, among other complications.

To meet the lower threshold set by the new guidelines, Americans, Europeans and others in the West would have to slash their average sugar intake by about two-thirds.

In the U.S., adults get about 11 to 15 percent of their calories from sugar; the figure for children is about 16 percent. In Europe, sugar intakes range from about 7 percent in Hungary and Norway to 17 percent in Britain to nearly 25 percent in Portugal.

Some experts said the 10 percent target was more realistic for Western countries than the lower target. They said the 5 percent of daily calories figure was aimed mostly at developing countries, where dental hygiene isn’t good enough to prevent cavities, which can lead to more serious health problems.

Last month, a U.S. government advisory committee advised that sugar be limited to 10 percent of daily calories, marking the first time the U.S. has recommended a limit on added sugars. The Agriculture and Health and Human Services Departments will take those recommendations into account when writing the final guidelines, due by the end of this year.

WHO had previously suggested an upper limit for sugar consumption at around 10 percent, but issued the lower 5 percent guidance based on what it described as “very low quality evidence” suggesting further health benefits.

“To get down to 5 percent, you wouldn’t even be allowed to have orange juice,” said Tom Sanders, a professor of nutrition and dietetics at King’s College London who wasn’t part of the WHO guidelines.

He said it shouldn’t be that difficult for most Britons to get their sugar intake to 10 percent of their diet if they limit things like sugary drinks, cereals, beer, cookies and candy.

“I don’t want to say that you can’t even have jam on your toast, but it is possible to do this with some effort,” he said. “Cake is lovely, but it’s a treat.”

WHO said most people don’t realize how much sugar they’re eating because it’s often hidden in processed foods not considered sweet. The agency pointed out that one tablespoon of ketchup has about 4 grams (1 teaspoon) of sugar and a single can of soda has up to 40 grams (10 teaspoons).

“The trouble is, we really do like sugar in a lot of things,” said Kieran Clarke of the University of Oxford, who said the global taste for sugar bordered on an addiction. “Even if you are not just eating lollies and candy, you are probably eating a fair amount of sugar.”

Clarke noted that there’s added sugar even in pasta sauces and bran cereals. She said fruit juices and smoothies were common dietary offenders, because they have very concentrated amounts of sugar without the fiber benefits that come with eating the actual fruit.

Clarke welcomed the new WHO guidelines but said people should also consider getting more exercise to balance out their sweet tooths.

“If you do enough exercise, you can eat almost anything,” she said. “But it’s very hard to avoid large amounts of sugar unless all you’re eating is fruits and vegetables.”

 

CRANDON – One of the suspects in a case where a man was beaten and left for dead in the woods was convicted Wednesday.

Justin Bey pleaded guilty to four counts: second-degree attempted homicide, false imprisonment, kidnapping and bailjumping, according to online court records. Five other counts were dismissed.

From left to right: Justin Bey, Raymond Jones, April Jones, Samantha McClellan (Forest Co. Jail)

The state will recommend a 20-year prison term and 10 years extended supervision. The defense can argue for whatever it wants.

Sentencing was scheduled for Aug. 11.

The victim met one of the suspects online and traveled to Forest County. After the suspects claim the man inappropriately touched a child, they allegedly beat the man for several days and left him for dead in the woods for wolves to eat. He was later found by ATV riders. No charges are planned against the victim for the alleged touching incident, the district attorney has said.

Three other people were also charged in the case:

* Raymond Jones is scheduled for trial May 19. He faces eight counts, including attempted first-degree intentional homicide.

* April Jones pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor battery count. She was sentenced to nine months in jail.

* Samantha McClellan was convicted of battery and disorderly conduct, and was sentenced to 18 months probation.

A Green Bay Packers player has taken to social media to apologize for being arrested last weekend.

In a post on Twitter, Jarrett Bush apologized to fans, teammates and the Packers organization, calling his arrest an “improper decision that led to negative publicity.”

I apologize to my fans, teammates and the Green Bay Packers for an improper decision that led to negative publicity this past weekend.

— Jarrett Bush (@Jarrettbush) March 4, 2015

The 30-year-old defensive back spent several hours in jail early Sunday morning. Police in his hometown of Vacaville, California, said they were called to a fight outside a restaurant. Although most of the crowd dispersed when officers arrived, they said Bush refused to leave and created a disturbance. Bush was cooperative after being arrested, police said. Jail records show Bush was released on $1,600 bail about five hours after being booked in.

Bush is not expected to face criminal charges in the incident.

The Northeast Wisconsin Orchid Society is holding its annual show, Orchids and All That Jazz, March 7-8, 2015.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Justice Department won’t prosecute former a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer in the shooting death of an unarmed black 18-year-old, but in a scathing report released Wednesday faulted the city and its law enforcement for racial bias.

Federal officials concluded there was no evidence to disprove former officer Darren Wilson’s testimony that he feared for his safety, nor was there reliable evidence that Michael Brown had his hands up when he was shot.

This undated photo provided by the Brown family shows Michael Brown. Michael Brown, 18, was shot and killed in a confrontation with police in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Mo, on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2014. (AP Photo/Brown Family)

The decision in the August 9 shooting had been expected, in part because of the high legal standard needed for a federal civil rights prosecution. Wilson, who has said Brown struck him in the face and reached for his gun during a tussle, also had been cleared by a Missouri grand jury in November and later resigned from the department.

The report said blacks in Ferguson are disproportionately subject to excessive police force, baseless traffic stops and citations for infractions as petty as walking down the middle of the street.

Attention now turns to Ferguson as the city confronts how to fix racial biases that the federal government says are deeply rooted in the police department, court and jail.

Similar federal investigations of troubled police departments have led to the appointment of independent monitors and mandated overhauls in the most fundamental of police practices. The Justice Department maintains the right to sue a police department if officials balk at making changes, though many investigations resolve the issue with both sides negotiating a blueprint for change known as a consent decree.

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

Others said the federal government’s findings confirmed what they had long known and should lead to change in the police department leadership.

Brown’s killing set off weeks of protests and initiated a national dialogue about police use of force and their relations with minority communities. A separate report being issued soon is expected to clear the officer, Darren Wilson, of federal civil rights charges. A state grand jury already declined to indict Wilson, who has since resigned.

The findings of the investigation, which began weeks after Brown’s killing last August, were released as Attorney General Eric Holder prepares to leave his job following a six-year tenure that focused largely on civil rights. The report is based on interviews with police leaders and residents, a review of more than 35,000 pages of police records and analysis of data on stops, searches and arrests.

OSHKOSH – Police are looking for a semit truck driver they say stole laptop computers from a store.

The theft happened Feb. 21 at Walmart, 351 S. Washburn St. Police say the man hid two laptops while he walked out of the store.

Oshkosh police released this image of a truck believed to have been driven by a man who shoplifted laptop computers from Walmart, Feb. 21, 2015.

The man was described as having dark, short hair and wearing glasses. His pants had two horizontal reflective stripes on the legs. Police also released an image of the truck they say he was driving.

Anyone with information is asked to call Oshkosh police at (920) 236-5700. Anonymous tips can be left with Winnebago County Wide Crime Stoppers by phone at (920) 231-8477, by sending a text message with the keyword IGOTYA and the tip to 274637 or online.

MADISON (AP) – A veteran Republican pollster says Gov. Scott Walker is the perfect candidate to run for president.

Ed Goeas spoke Wednesday at the state chamber of commerce’s annual business day event. Goeas is president and CEO of The Tarrance Group and was recently hired by Walker to serve as a senior adviser.

Goeas says while midterm elections are about the past, presidential elections are always about the future. And he says Walker “is just what the doctor ordered in terms of the future of the country.”

He says voters are looking for a candidate who advocates for reform, is focused and has consistent principles. Goeas says the Republican field, with many candidates in their 40s like Walker, is a “very nice contrast” with likely Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

NEW YORK (AP) – Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson expects the price of oil to remain low over the next two years because of ample global supplies and relatively weak economic growth.

“People kinda need to settle in for a while,” Tillerson said at the company’s annual investor conference in New York.

In a presentation to investors outlining its business plans through 2017, Exxon assumes a price of $55 a barrel for global crude. That’s $5 below where Brent crude, the most important global benchmark, traded on Wednesday. It’s about half of what Brent averaged between 2011 and the middle of last year.

The price of oil plunged in the second half of 2014 when it became apparent that production was outpacing global demand. U.S. production was particularly robust, with the increase of 1.5 million barrels per day being the third largest on record, according to a report from BP. Meanwhile, weakening economic conditions in China, Japan and Europe slowed the growth in oil demand.

BP CEO Bob Dudley made remarks similar to Tillerson’s in a recent call with investors. The CEOs comments reflect an increasingly common industry view that new sources of oil around the globe, relatively slow growth in demand, and large amounts of crude in storage will keep a lid on prices for the foreseeable future.

“When you have that much storage out there, it takes a long time to work that off,” Dudley said.

The U.S. Energy Department reported Wednesday that U.S. oil supplies have grown to 444.4 million barrels, the highest level at least 80 years.

Tillerson cautioned that geopolitical turmoil could unexpectedly send prices higher. But he said that if tensions calm, much more oil is ready to hit the market.

Production in Libya has been erratic in recent years because of political upheaval there. Production in Iran, once OPEC’s second largest exporter, has been depressed in recent years because of Western sanctions. Those sanctions could be eased if current talks over Iran’s nuclear program make progress.

“I see a lot of supply out there,” Tillerson said.

GREEN BAY – If you drive over Green Bay’s Mason St. Bridge overnight, it might be a good idea to use a different road overnight this weekend.

The Department of Transportation says it is planning to test the lift bridge’s newly installed mechanical and electrical equipment. Testing is scheduled to run from 10 p.m. until 5 a.m. Friday through Monday.

During the tests, the lift span will be raised and lowered, and in some cases held in the “up” position for as long as half an hour.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court justices peppered opponents of President Barack Obama’s health care law with skeptical questions during oral arguments Wednesday on the latest challenge to the sweeping legislation.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose vote is seen as pivotal, suggested that the plaintiffs’ argument raises a “serious” constitutional problem affecting the relationship between states and the federal government.

The plaintiffs argue that only residents of states that set up their own insurance markets can get federal subsidies to help pay their premiums.

Millions of people could be affected by the court’s decision. The justices are trying to determine whether the law makes people in all 50 states eligible for federal tax subsidies to cut the cost of insurance premiums. Or, does it limit tax credits only to people who live in states that created their own health insurance marketplaces?

During oral arguments, the courts’ liberal justices also expressed doubts. In an earlier case involving the law, however, Kennedy was on the opposite side, voting to strike down a key requirement.

A ruling that limits where subsidies are available would have dramatic consequences because roughly three dozen states opted against their own marketplace, or exchange, and instead rely on the U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s healthcare.gov. Independent studies estimate that 8 million people could lose insurance coverage.

Activists on both sides were in place outside the marble courthouse by 5:30 a.m. Wednesday. Some held placards showing how many people in each state would lose insurance if the court rules that the law does not allow subsidies everywhere.

Opponents of the Affordable Care Act failed to kill the law in an epic, election-year Supreme Court case in 2012. Chief Justice John Roberts joined with the court’s liberal justices and provided the crucial vote to uphold the law in the midst of Obama’s re-election campaign.

The new case, part of a long-running political and legal fight to get rid of the law also known as Obamacare, focuses on four words — “established by the state” — in a law that runs more than 900 pages. The challengers say those words are clear and conclusive evidence that Congress wanted to limit subsidies only to those consumers who get their insurance through a marketplace, or exchange, that was established by the state.

The administration counters that the law was written to dramatically reduce the ranks of uninsured, and that it would make no sense to condition subsidies on where people live. The phrase “established by the state,” is what the administration calls a “term of art” that takes both state- and federally run exchanges. The administration also says the term cannot be read in isolation, and that other parts of the law show that subsidies should be widely available.

Both sides in the case argue that the law unambiguously supports only its position. One other option for the court is to declare the law is ambiguous when it comes to subsidies and defer to the Internal Revenue Service’s regulations making tax credits available nationwide.

Partisan and ideological divisions remain stark for a law that passed Congress in 2010 with no Republican votes. Of the judges who have ruled on lawsuits over the subsidies, Democratic appointees have sided with the administration and Republican appointees have been with the challengers.

Roberts was the only justice to essentially cross party lines with his vote in 2012. His fellow conservatives on the court voted to strike down Obamacare in its entirety.

The lawyers arguing the case Wednesday also squared off three years ago. Michael Carvin argued part of the broad challenge to the health care law in 2012. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr., the administration’s chief Supreme Court lawyer, successfully defended it.

A decision in King v. Burwell, 14-114, is expected by late June.