Green Bay News

BOSTON (AP) — Bostonians have another reason to be steamed about this winter of epic snow: The city is starting to remove the lawn chairs, milk crates, orange cones and other stuff that people set out in the street to reserve the parking spaces they’ve dug out.

Garbage haulers and recycling crews began collecting the “space savers” Monday after Mayor Marty Walsh declared an end to the longstanding practice — at least until the next major storm.

In South Boston, a neighborhood where the wintertime battles over parking spots are legendary, some complained the ban is coming too soon. The region saw about 3 more inches of snow Sunday night, and more is on the way later this week.

Southie residents fear the parking struggles that have pitted neighbor against neighbor will only get worse.

“Some people think they own these spots,” said Heidi Labes, who keeps her family’s two street parking spots reserved with traffic cones. “There has to be more tolerance. And more parking.”

Others said the cleanup was long overdue.

“It’s time for them to go,” said Mark Nadolny. “I guess the mayor could have waited another week or two, but you’ve got to do it at some point.”

In tightly packed Boston neighborhoods — and, for that matter, in other snowy cities where parking on the street is a problem even in the best of circumstances — homeowners use space savers to enforce the unwritten rule of the urban jungle: If you shoveled it out, it’s yours.

Drivers who violate space-saver etiquette risk returning to find hostile notes on their windshields, fresh snow piled on their cars, or, in some of the worst instances, smashed windows, keyed doors and flattened tires.

In general, space savers are allowed on Boston streets up to 48 hours after a storm. But many of the objects have been out at the curb for more than a month, because city officials largely turned a blind eye to the practice as storm after storm unloaded more than 8 feet of snow.

In Philadelphia, where residents have used milk crates, shopping carts — even a toilet — to save shoveled-out parking spaces, the police department regularly tweets humorous warnings against the illegal practice under the hashtag “NoSavesies.”

One, featuring a picture of Elsa from the Disney movie “Frozen” holding an orange traffic cone, urged residents upset about people parking in their spots to “Let it go.”

“We have a long winter ahead of us, and we’re prepared to put out as many ridiculously bad memes as necessary to get folks to shovel and share,” the department said in a Facebook post.

Somerville, a Boston suburb, doesn’t allow space savers either, and residents have been putting up signs this winter to remind neighbors that they don’t tolerate the bare-knuckle tactics parts of Boston are notorious for.

“How should we be behaving? LIKE RATIONAL, LEVEL-HEADED ADULTS,” the bright green signs read. “So should we be slashing tires? NO. And should we be bashing in windshields? NO.”

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AP reporter Michael Sisak in Philadelphia contributed to this story.

The U.S. government is offering the historic Algoma Pierhead Light to eligible agencies.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Backed by Iranian-supported Shiite militias, Iraqi forces launched a large-scale offensive Monday to retake Saddam Hussein’s hometown from the Islamic State group, the first in a series of campaigns to try to reclaim large parts of northern Iraq from the Sunni extremists.

Previous attempts to capture the symbolic city have failed, and hours into Monday’s operation, the military said it still hadn’t entered Tikrit, indicating a long battle lies ahead. Retaking it will help Iraqi forces secure a major supply link for any future operation to retake Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city which has been under militant rule since June.

State-run Al-Iraqiya television said that forces were attacking from different directions, backed by artillery and airstrikes by Iraqi fighter jets. It said the militants were dislodged from some areas outside the city, but several hours into the operation, it gave no additional details.

Tikrit, the provincial capital of Salauhddin province, 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Baghdad, fell to the Islamic State group last summer, along with Mosul and other areas in the country’s Sunni heartland.

U.S. military officials have said a coordinated military mission to retake Mosul will likely begin in April or May and involve up to 25,000 Iraqi troops. But the Americans have cautioned that if the Iraqis aren’t ready, the offensive could be delayed.

The U.S.-led coalition launching airstrikes targeting the Islamic State group was not involved in the Tikrit operation, Iraqi officials said. A Pentagon spokesman, Army Col. Steve Warren, said the U.S. was alerted to the offensive before it started Monday but was not asked to provide air power.

“Right now we are not providing any air power to support the Iraqi operation in the city of Tikrit,” Warren told reporters in Washington. “We did note the Iraqi government’s statements that they are emphasizing minimization of collateral damage, and we are continuing to monitor it.”

Iraqi forces apparently have the help of Iranian Gen. Ghasem Soleimani, the commander of the elite Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force, who arrived two days ago, the Iranian semi-official Fars news agency reported.

The powerful general has emerged as the chief tactician in Iraq’s fight against the Sunni militants, working on the front lines alongside dozens of advisers from his country’s Revolutionary Guard to direct Shiite militiamen and government forces in the smallest details of battle.

Fars also reported drones were flying over Tikrit, without identifying whether they were Iranian or Iraqi.

The military commander of Salahuddin region, Gen. Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi, told state TV fighting was taking place outside Tikrit mainly on its eastern side.

“Until this moment we have not entered the city,” al-Saadi said. “God willing, we will enter, but we need some time as planned. … God willing, victory will be achieved and Salahuddin will be turned into a grave for all terrorist groups.”

Tikrit is an important test case for Iraq’s Shiite-led government, which is trying to reassert authority over the divided country. Islamic State fighters have a strong presence in the city and are expected to put up fierce resistance.

Past attempts to retake Tikrit have failed, as Iraq struggles with its armed forces, which collapsed in the wake of the Islamic State group’s offensive last summer.

The offensive comes as momentum has begun to shift since Iraqi soldiers, backed by airstrikes from the U.S.-led coalition, took back the nearby refinery town of Beiji in November. Any operation to take Mosul would require Iraq to seize Tikrit first because of its strategic location for military enforcements.

Iraq is bitterly split between minority Sunnis, who were an important base of support for Saddam, and the Shiite majority. Since Saddam was toppled in a U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the Sunni minority has felt increasingly marginalized by the Shiite-led government in Baghdad, and in 2006 long-running tensions boiled over into sectarian violence that claimed tens of thousands of lives.

While state TV said Shiite and Sunni tribal fighters were cooperating in Monday’s offensive, Tikrit is an important Sunni stronghold, and the presence of Shiite forces could prompt a backlash among Sunnis. The Iraqi military is heavily dependent on Shiite militias that have been accused of abusing Sunni communities elsewhere in Iraq.

Hours after the offensive began, the U.N. special envoy in Iraq appealed to warring groups to avoid attacking civilians.

“Military operations reinforced by international and Iraqi air support must be conducted with the utmost care to avoid civilian casualties, and with full respect for fundamental human rights principles and humanitarian law,” Nickolay Mladenov said in a statement.

Monday afternoon, a gasoline tanker rigged with a bomb exploded as soldiers and Shiite militiamen tried to dismantle it in the village of al-Jalam south of Tikrit, killing seven troops and wounding 15, police and hospital officials said.

Al-Jalam, a farming area that has been a stronghold of Sunni militants, is located outside the Sunni city of Samarra, 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.

Ahead of the operation, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, a Shiite, called on Sunni tribal fighters to abandon the Islamic State extremist group, offering what he described as “the last chance” and promising them a pardon.

“I call upon those who have been misled or committed a mistake to lay down arms and join their people and security forces in order to liberate their cities,” al-Abadi said Sunday during a news conference in Samarra.

His comments appeared to be targeting former members of Iraq’s outlawed Baath party, loyalists to Saddam, who joined the Islamic State group during its offensive, as well as other Sunnis who were dissatisfied with Baghdad’s Shiite-led government.

Saddam, whose Sunni-dominated government ruled the country for some two decades, was executed after his ouster. Tikrit frequently saw attacks on U.S. forces during the American occupation of the country.

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Associated Press writers Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Robert Burns in Washington and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — En route to what he described as a “fateful mission,” Benjamin Netanyahu spent much of his 12-hour flight to Washington slouched in a business class seat laboring over a draft of his highly anticipated address to Congress. In the back of the plane, the rest of the delegation was watching “The Imitation Game,” a biopic of British cryptanalyst Alan Turing, who helped break the Germans’ Enigma code and aided the allies’ victory in World War II.

The symbolism was hard to ignore. Netanyahu considers himself to be a visionary who foresaw the Iranian nuclear threat long ago, and hopes that blocking it from attaining a bomb will be his crowning achievement in government.

With no invitation to the White House and the vice president and secretary of state out of the country, Netanyahu kicked off the visit before a friendly home crowd Monday — a pro-Israel U.S. lobby group — and tried to downplay the crisis with President Barack Obama as a family spat.

“America and Israel are more than friends. We’re like a family. We’re practically mishpucha,” he said to laughter, using the Yiddish expression for family. “Now, disagreements in the family are always uncomfortable, but we must always remember that we are family.”

Despite the expressions of affection, the family spat will be on full view on Tuesday when he addresses Congress. Not only will Republican House Speaker John Boehner — who invited him behind the president’s back — be sitting behind him, the senior Republican senator, Orrin Hatch, will be stationed where Vice President Joe Biden would normally sit.

Biden went to Latin America; Secretary of State John Kerry was in Geneva meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif.

Following Monday’s AIPAC speech, Netanyahu was expected to keep working on his speech till the very last minute trying to live up to the hype that has been created over the controversial address.

“You know, never has so much been written about a speech that hasn’t been given,” he told attendees of the American Israel Political Action Committee policy conference.

Boehner is planning a festive greeting for Netanyahu Tuesday and will present him a bust of Winston Churchill, the only other foreign leader to address Congress three times.

Netanyahu often cites Churchill as an inspiration and the world leader he most admires.

Netanyahu’s office says the Israeli leader will give Boehner a menorah and a copy of the story of Purim, a Jewish holiday being celebrated this week that commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian Empire where a plot had been formed to destroy them. The gift is symbolic in that Iran has vowed to annihilate Israel.

CRANDON – Ten people have been arrested and police are still looking for two more in a five-month-long undercover drug investigation in Forest County.

Nine of the twelve suspects in the investigation are facing multiple drug charges including delivery and possession of schedule II narcotics and delivery and possession of THC.

The Forest County Sheriff’s Department says the investigation resulted in three search warrants in Crandon.

After deputies searched 30-year-old Robert J. McGeshick and 21-year-old Shayna M. McGeshick’s home, located in the 11000 block of Daisy Lane, arrest warrants were issued for the two. Police continue to look for them.

Another search warrant was at 30-year-old Nathan F. Labarge and 24-year-old Casey L. Jacobson’s residence located in the 5000 block of Kwedakik Court. Labarge and Jacobson have been charged in the investigation.

Officials also searched a house on Highway 55 belonging to Laurie A. Olds, 53, and a 55-year-old man, who has not yet been charged in the case.

Also charged in the case are Sidney S. Daniels, 32; Nicole M. Orr, 28; Jacob S. McGeshick, 21; and Jenifer K.M. Renkas, 24.

Deputies say this is an ongoing investigation and more arrests may come in the future.

They ask that if anyone has any information on the McGeshick’s whereabouts, to contact the Forest County Sheriff’s Office at (715) 478-3331.

APPLETON – A plan is in the works to give Fox Valley artists a new place to let their creative juices flow.

The Draw is expected to take over the former Riverside Paper Corp.’s offices at 800 S. Lawe St. in Appleton. It’s the brainchild of John Adams and Jackie Johnson, two area creative professionals. They’re working with developer Stadtmueller & Associates to transform the 5,200-square-foot building. Plans call for an art gallery, office space, art studios, a darkroom, kiln room, art library and coffee shop.

Developers say it will cost about $300,000 to restore and renovate the building. The Draw is expected to open in the spring.

MADISON (AP) – A member of the Legislature’s budget committee is questioning why Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s state bodyguards all received a $4-an-hour raise.

The 10 members of the Wisconsin State Patrol’s Dignitary Protection Unit got the raises last month even though Walker had suspended merit salary increases.

Sen. Jon Erpenbach, a Middleton Democrat, questioned Department of Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch about the raises during a committee hearing on Monday. Huebsch said the state Department of Transportation, which oversees the State Patrol, granted the raises as part of a pilot program that prohibits unit members from collecting overtime.

DOT spokeswoman Peg Schmitt said in an email to The Associated Press the unit’s members will lose the $4 raise when they move to other assignments.

CHICAGO (AP) – Chicago Cubs officials plan to ask the city for permission to work around the clock to speed up Wrigley Field renovations.

Their comments came Monday during a media tour of the $375 million stadium construction project that began late last year.

The iconic ballpark will open for the season on April 5 without bleachers, which were torn down as part of the project. Officials say that’s a loss of about 5,000 seats.

The left-field bleachers should be open in May, followed by the right-field bleachers in June.

The team says a new left-field video board should be installed and working by opening day.

But the Cubs say steelwork has been delayed by February’s extreme cold. That’s why they want the approval to work day and night.

MADISON (AP) – Nearly 100 private and religious schools have applied to be a part of Wisconsin’s voucher program next fall.

The state Department of Public Instruction reported Monday that 98 schools applied by the deadline to be in the program where taxpayer-funded subsidies pay for students to attend private schools. That is up from 68 schools that applied for this year.

• Click here to see the full list

Of those 98, 36 are newly applying, 62 were a voucher school this year.

Parents who want to enroll their children in the statewide program have until April 20 to apply. Enrollment is currently limited to 1,000 students, and if more than that apply, only the 25 schools with the most applicants will be allowed in the program.

Gov. Scott Walker’s budget proposal would remove the enrollment cap after this year.

MADISON (AP) – The co-chairman of the Legislature’s finance committee says he wants to see the Milwaukee Bucks’ new owners put more of their own money toward a new arena for the team.

John Nygren, a Marinette Republican, said Monday that he wants the Bucks to tell legislators exactly how much the project will cost so lawmakers know just how much of the arena the state would fund. He says he believes the Bucks owners should pay a greater share of the costs but did not elaborate.

Bucks’ owners Wes Edens and Marc Lasry have committed $150 million toward a new arena. Gov. Scott Walker has proposed selling $220 million in state bonds to help pay for the project. Former Bucks owner Herb Kohl has committed another $100 million.

MADISON (AP) – Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is sounding more notes of caution about U.S.-Israeli relations than even the country’s prime minister.

Walker published an opinion piece Monday in the National Review Online that calls the bond with Israel at “perhaps the most serious crisis in our history.” That contrasts with the message from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who told a pro-Israeli group in Washington on Monday that “reports of the demise of the Israeli-U.S. relationship are not just premature, they are just wrong.”

• Click here to read Walker’s column

Walker is a likely GOP presidential candidate increasingly addressing foreign policy. He plans to visit Israel later this year.

Walker’s commentary in the conservative publication accuses President Barack Obama’s administration of dealing too readily with Iran on a nuclear agreement that some regard as a threat to Israel.

VACAVILLE, Calif. – Green Bay Packers defensive back Jarrett Bush was arrested for public intoxication over the weekend in his California hometown.

Police in Vacaville say they were called to a downtown restaurant early Sunday morning for a report of a large fight. When officers arrived, most of a large crowd began to disperse. However, officers say Bush refused to leave and continued to create a disturbance. He was arrested and taken to the Solano County Jail.

Bush was cooperative after being arrested, police say. 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.

APPLETON – A crisis was averted, a Fox Valley blood bank says, but its supplies are still low.

Last week, the Community Blood Center put out a call for type O-negative blood. While blood donors stepped forward to give, the bank says as of Monday morning it is still down about 300 units, close to 30 percent of its target. People are being encouraged to donate blood in the next five days.

“If you already have a donation appointment in the next few weeks, please don’t reschedule it. But if you haven’t donated in the past eight weeks and don’t have any appointments planned, we encourage you to give blood,” John Hagins, blood center president and CEO, said in a news release.

• Click here to learn more about donating and to schedule an appointment

The blood center says it supplies about 1,200 units of blood to local hospitals each year.

MARINETTE – Three people suspected in a meth ring are behind bars in Marinette County.

Investigators say they learned a man was to be coming into Milwaukee by train and two people from the Kingsford, Michigan and Iron Mountain, Michigan areas were to pick him up. The man was supposed to have crystal meth with him

The two left the Iron Mountain area to pick him up Sunday morning and was pulled over just after 7 p.m. in Crivitz on its way back. A police dog tipped off investigators to meth and drug paraphernalia.

The three arrested were a 46-year-old man from Othello, Washington; a 33-year-old man from Iron Mountain and a 36-year-old woman from the Kingsford area. Officers are recommending charges of possession with intent to deliver more than 50 grams of meth. Their names were not released.

WAUSAU (AP) – Central Wisconsin prosecutors are deciding whether to charge a 15-year-old as an adult in the stabbing death of a 13-year-old boy.

Wausau police say Isaiah Powell was stabbed twice in the back during a fight involving a group of teen boys that started with an argument that had played out on Facebook. Police say boys with a BB gun fired a couple times at another group on a porch before the fight broke out.

Marathon County District Attorney Ken Heimerman tells the Daily Herald Media some charges, such as first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide and second-degree intentional homicide, are serious enough that the boy could be charged in adult court.

He says less-serious charges could be addressed in juvenile court. Charges were expected later Monday.

BRILLION – A Northeast Wisconsin business is remembering its longtime leader.

Michael S. Ariens died at his home Saturday, according to Ariens Co. The grandson of company founder Henry Ariens, he was company president from 1969-1992 and chairman of the board from 1992-2014.

One of the key products the small-engine manufacturer introduced under Mike Ariens’ watch was its Sno-Thro line of snowthrowers. He also led Ariens Co. through several business acquisitions.

“Mike leaves us with a legacy of his personal leadership style, a strength of character that people who work with him want to emulate. As a leader he was thoughtful, and insightful with a great sense of humor,” chairman and CEO Dan Ariens said of his father in a prepared statement. “As a businessperson he was pointedly committed to the company’s purpose: to care for our customers like they are part of the family.”

Mike Ariens was 83.

DETROIT (AP) — Ndamukong Suh can test the open market when free agency begins March 10 after the Lions decided not to use the franchise tag on the star defensive tackle, according to a report on the team’s website.

Monday is the deadline for teams to designate franchise or transition players. The Lions did not officially confirm the decision to let the deadline pass without franchising their 28-year-old All-Pro, but the report on the team’s website said Detroit concluded that the franchise tag’s price of around $27 million for Suh proved too daunting.

Last month, general manager Martin Mayhew said he was optimistic about getting a deal done with Suh, but the franchise tag was probably the team’s best source of leverage, and even that would have come at a prohibitive cost.

Suh has been a force in the middle of Detroit’s defensive line ever since the Lions drafted him with the second overall pick in 2010. He has 36 sacks in five seasons, including 8 1/2 in 2014, when the Lions made the playoffs as a wild card while boasting one of the league’s top defenses.

Suh has been hit with several fines in his career for his aggressive on-field actions, and he was nearly suspended for Detroit’s playoff game at Dallas last season — a one-game ban for stepping on Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers was overturned on appeal. But that occasional drama has done little to detract from Suh’s overall value to the Lions, who now face the prospect of having to bid against other teams for his services.

Suh, quarterback Matthew Stafford and wide receiver Calvin Johnson — all of whom came to the Lions via high draft picks — have helped Detroit reach the postseason twice in the last four years. The Lions were able to secure Stafford and Johnson on long-term deals beyond their rookie contracts, but so far they’ve been unable to sign Suh.

OSHKOSH  – The lineup for the 2015 edition of Rock USA has been announced.

This year headliners are:
July 15 – Alice Cooper
July 16 – Judas Priest
July 17 – Avenged Sevenfold
July 18 – Def Leppard

For the full lineup, click here

For ticket information, click here.

GREEN BAY – An Arizona woman is expected in Brown County this week to pick up her small dog one month after it turned up in Wisconsin.

A local animal control officer took Nicholas, a Yorkshire terrier, to the Bay Area Humane Society on Feb. 6. The humane society says the dog was found wandering the streets in Howard. A check of the dog’s microchip showed it was registered to Linda Baldazo. The officer called Baldazo, who said her dog had been missing for a few months. She last saw it playing outside in her fenced-in yard.

Baldazo is scheduled to fly in to Austin Straubel International Airport Friday afternoon to pick up Nicholas.

The humane society says it has been trying to get Nicholas back to Arizona for the past few weeks. A return flight was scheduled for Feb. 10, but the weather on that day was too cold for the dog to travel in the cargo area.