Green Bay News

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – One man has died in a construction accident in Madison.

Officials say the worker was injured when the masonry at the site collapsed just after 7:30 a.m. Friday. Fire Department spokeswoman Lori Wirth says the man had been working near a stairwell at the rear of the building.

The Dane County Medical Examiner says he died later at UW Hospital.

His name was not immediately released.

The accident happened at the Watermark Lofts, which is scheduled to open this summer with apartments and retail space. It’s being built at the site of a building that was destroyed by a large fire in 2012.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – An accidental shooting at a Madison blood bank led to a lockdown at a nearby college campus.

Police say a man who went to the Interstate Plasma and Blood Center Friday “to conduct business” had a gun in his clothing that accidentally went off. Police say his injury was not life threatening, and he ran away.

That led to an hour-long lockdown across the street at Madison Area Technical College’s Truax Campus, which ended about 2 p.m.

At least one other nearby school and business also went into lockdown mode, but police say it doesn’t appear that the man threatened anybody or entered any schools.

Fox Valley Lutheran visited Xavier in an Eastern Valley Conference girls basketball game Thursday.

GREEN BAY — The Green Bay Packers have released LB Brad Jones.

“We thank Brad for his contributions and dedication to the Packers over the past six years,” general manager Ted Thompson said. “We wish him all the best.”

Jones joined the Packers in 2009 as a seventh-round selection in the NFL Draft out of the University of Colorado. He played in 76 regular-season games with 36 starts and seven postseason contests with five starts in his six seasons with Green Bay.

Jones, who had one year left on his contract ($3.25 million salary; $3.7 million cap savings), appeared in 13 games with one start during the 2014 regular season and played in both postseason contests. In six seasons, Jones registered 293 tackles, 10 sacks and 33 special teams tackles.

MARQUETTE, MICHIGAN – We’ve all heard the stories about how Boston has been pummeled with so much snow this winter but there’s one place, about three and a half hours away from Green Bay, that gets even more snow.

During this time of year, in the Upper Peninsula, you’ll find snow hanging from rooftops, swallowing mailboxes and even trees.

“This is a city of 20,000 people and it spends $1.25 million a year on snow removal,” said Mike Coyne, mayor of Marquette, Michigan.

If you spend some time talking to Coyne, you’ll find out quickly that even though his city gets a lot of snow, most Yoopers tend to enjoy it.

“We expect it and get disappointed if we don’t have it,” Coyne said.

So how much snow falls in a place like Marquette?

“For the overall season, we average around 204 inches,” Keith Cooley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Even though it seems like Marquette gets a lot of snow, if you head farther north, you’ll find even more snow and it’s all thanks to Lake Superior.

“The area that gets most of the snowfall in the U.P. is actually along the Keweenaw Peninsula. In a city like Houghton it’s, right now, right around 200 inches of snow for the season. But the lake effect snow helps to build up our totals quite a bit,” Cooley said.

If you compare that to the city of Boston, it has around 95.5 inches of snow this winter.

While some people in the U.P. might chuckle when they see cities in the northeast dealing with snow, some Yoopers have compassion for the people living in places like Boston.

“Even if we got that much snow and we do sometimes, it’s very difficult to deal with because it’s so much. The difference is the U.P. gets snow every day and little bits,” Coyne said.

In Marquette and other surrounding cities, there’s a lot more places to put the snow.

“Winter here is so spectacular,” said Frida Waara.

The longer you stay in the U.P., you’ll probably find more people who just can’t get enough of the fresh powder.

“It’s so drop dead beautiful even on a cloudy day,” Waara said.

Whether the snow banks are piled high or blocking the view of Lake Superior, the U.P. gets a lot of snow and Yoopers seem to love it.

The National Weather Service says the Marquette area has already seen more than 154 inches of snow this winter season.

LAS VEGAS (AP) – A police report says the suspect in the road-rage killing of a Las Vegas mother boasted to friends about the shooting and fired 22 shots from a semiautomatic handgun outside the victim’s home.

The report released Friday sheds new light on the violent encounter between suspect Erich Nowsch Jr. and victim Tammy Meyers and her son Brandon Meyers last week. Police say Nowsch fired several shots at them on two occasions that night – once a few blocks away from their house and again in the cul-de-sac outside the home.

Police say he told friends after the shooting: “Got those kids. They were after me, and I got them.”

The arrest of 19-year-old Nowsch and the disclosure that Tammy Meyers had taken a motherly interest in him provided another twist to a case that has posed more questions than answers.

OSHKOSH – Sturgeon spearers have one more day to land a trophy fish.

The season ends at 1 p.m. Saturday, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has announced. The 74 adult female sturgeon speared on Friday brought the season total to 770, enough to trigger the 90 percent harvest cap. Since the full harvest cap of 790 adult females was not met, the season goes one more day.

Spearing had been allowed only on Lake Winnebago since Thursday. The season ended on the upriver lakes of Poygan, Winneconne and Butte des Morts on Wednesday.

In all, 2,022 fish have been speared on the four lakes in seven days of spearing so far – 1,734 on Lake Winnebago and 288 on the upriver lakes.

Three fish heavier than 100 pounds were speared Friday, led by the 116.3-pound, 75.2-inch fish registered by James Fryman at Wendt’s on the Lake in Fond du Lac County.

• Click here for the complete spearing totals

WASHINGTON (AP) – The modest raises that Wal-Mart has said it will give its lowest-paid workers provide a glimmer of hope for lower-wage workers in other companies and industries.

Other retailers and some fast food restaurants may now feel compelled to follow suit to retain their workers and attract others to fill openings, economists said.

Wal-Mart’s move follows a sustained campaign for higher wages by some of the company’s employees and a nationwide debate over whether to raise the federal minimum wage. Given Wal-Mart’s position as the nation’s largest private employer, its decision to yield, even in a limited way, could embolden more employees to seek raises.

“They really set the standard across the retail sector,” said Claire McKenna, a policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project, a group that advocates for low-wage workers. “What they do really matters.”

Josh Bivens, research and policy director at the liberal Economic Policy Institute, said Wal-Mart’s move also reduces the pressure on other retailers to keep labor costs at rock-bottom levels.

“It at least takes away the excuse from other firms that ‘We’d like to raise wages, but we can’t because we have to compete with Wal-Mart,'” Bivens said. “It could possibly give some competitive breathing space to other retailers to raise wages.”

On Thursday, Wal-Mart said it would increase its minimum pay to $9 an hour in April and $10 an hour by February 2016. The move will mean raises for 500,000 of its 1.3 million employees. The average full-time wage will tick up to $13 an hour from $12.85. For part-timers, the hourly wage will go to $10 from $9.48.

Wal-Mart’s decision follows similar steps by other firms. The Gap has raised its minimum wage to $10 an hour. Swedish home furnishings retailer Ikea raised pay for thousands of its U.S. workers this year by an average of 17 percent to $10.76 an hour. Health insurer Aetna has said it will pay a minimum of $16 an hour. That’s more than double the federal minimum wage of $7.25.

All of which means that many people who earn less than $10 an hour will now have more options.

“If you work at a fast-food restaurant” for $7.25 an hour, “you are going to want to leave that job and work at the Wal-Mart nearby,” said Sylvia Allegretto, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley.

Allegretto noted anecdotal evidence, for example, that recent increases in Washington state’s minimum wage – now $9.47 an hour – led residents of nearby Idaho to seek work in the state.

Workers at McDonald’s and other fast-food companies have agitated for higher pay, coalescing around demands for $15 an hour.

But unlike Wal-Mart, which owns all its stores, the fast-food industry is largely franchised. Companies like McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King say they don’t make employment and pay decisions on behalf of their franchisees.

The relationship between companies like McDonald’s and workers at franchised restaurants has come under intense scrutiny, however. Last year, in a victory for unions, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that McDonald’s is a “joint employer” that could be held liable for its franchisees’ policies. Hearings on disciplinary steps are set for March. McDonald’s has vowed to contest the NLRB’s ruling.

Kathryn Slater-Carter, who owns a McDonald’s franchise near San Francisco, thinks businesses located near a Wal-Mart store could be forced to raise pay. She suggested, though, that this could be beneficial for everyone: By paying and treating workers better, franchisees could benefit from stronger applicants and lower turnover, which can itself raise costs.

“In any community, how you treat your employees gets known by everyone,” Slater-Carter said. “You can get a bad reputation, and then you have trouble getting employees.”

Still, she noted that the costs that franchisees already bear – from food ingredients and renovations to electricity and franchise fees to corporations – limit their ability to raise pay. Last year, Slater-Carter backed a California bill that would give franchisees greater protections from companies. The bill was vetoed by the governor.

Many states and cities have also raised their wage floors. Twenty states, including Florida, New York and Washington, raised their minimums at the start of this year. For the first time, a majority of states – 29 – have minimums above the national level.

Wal-Mart’s move could encourage more union efforts to press for raises for low-income workers.

Paul Osterman, a management professor at MIT, said the decision was at least partly a result of pressure from organizations such as OUR Walmart, a union-backed group of the company’s employees.

Wal-Mart has faced opposition when it’s tried to expand in the Northeast and in many large cities, mostly because of its low pay, Osterman noted.

“They’re running out of rural areas,” he said. “To grow, they need to move into the cities.”

Allegretto said a surge of hiring across the nation in recent months has likely have made it harder for Wal-Mart to hire without raising pay. Economists see that as a benefit of an improving economy: It eventually forces higher wages.

That’s why liberal economists like Bivens, at the Economic Policy Institute, want the Federal Reserve to delay raising the short-term interest rate it controls until wages rise faster. Other analysts worry that a delay in raising rates could inflate asset bubbles or lead to high inflation.

“We want an economy where employers have to bid for workers,” Bivens said.

___

Choi reported from New York.

WITTENBERG (WAOW-TV) – A Wisconsin man took the mounds of snow piling up in his yard and turned it into something that’s now warming hearts everywhere.

It’s a lovable snowman brought to life.

Paul Dahms, a Wittenberg resident says it was a lot of hard work to make, but it was worth it, “lots of cars driving by and lots of people saying it looks really cool.”

The giant “Olaf” snowman stands about 22 feet tall and 12 feet wide at the base.

Dahms says his daughter gave him the inspiration to build the famous snowman from the movie Frozen.

“Lainey wanted a snowman, so I said I’d build her one and she kind of with the whole Olaf kick this year, I tried to shape it or get it as close to Olaf as I could,” Dahms said.

He says he began building it in December — adding a little more each snowfall, “The first two sections, snowblowed everything into the driveway into one spot and then just kind of shaping it up from there.”

By using a variety of tools to create Olaf’s distinctive grin.

“If you look at Olaf’s head it’s not the straightest thing in the world and trying to get the angle and stuff like that was a little harder than I thought, but I did it the best I could,” said Dahms.

After 50 total hours of work, Dahms finally finished his frozen masterpiece on Friday,

Much to the delight of the neighborhood.

“I think he’s terrific. I think Olaf is just cute,” laughs neighbor Pat Boldig.

Dahms says it’s those reactions that make his hard work so rewarding, “Just for my daughter to enjoy and anyone else who wants to come by and look at it to come by and take pictures with it.”

“It makes winter go by just that much faster,” said Boldig.

Showing it might take something frozen to make this season a little warmer.

 

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – YouTube is going to release a mobile app that will only show video clips suitable for young children to help parents control what their kids are watching on the Internet.

The YouTube for Kids app, scheduled to be released for Android devices on Monday, features thousands of kid-focused channels that provide both entertainment and education. The content is mostly meant for children two to eight years old. Clips are selected by computer algorithms and human review.

Although YouTube doesn’t permit pornographic videos or most other clips containing nudity, a wide range of salacious, violent and crude material is available on the site.

That prompted many parents to ask YouTube for a “family-friendly” version of its service, said Shimrit Ben-Yair, a product manager for the kids’ app.

The concept is similar to a kids section that Netflix set up on its Internet video subscription service more than three years ago.

Besides excluding inappropriate clips, YouTube’s kids app also will refuse to provide search results on requests, such as “sex,” that are deemed inappropriate for young audiences. The app also provides controls that, among other things, enable parents to determine how long their child can watch videos in a single session.

YouTube will show ads with some of the clips on its new app to funnel more revenue to Google. The commercials will be suitable for young viewers and won’t appear any more frequently than the ads that pop up in YouTube’s unfiltered app, Ben-Yair said.

YouTube initially is only making the kids app for U.S. users of smartphones and tablets running on Android, the software made by YouTube owner Google Inc. A version compatible with Apple Inc.’s iPhone and iPad may be released in upcoming months.

The app is being endorsed by Common Sense Media, a San Francisco group dedicated to shielding children from mature content.

GREENVILLE – Federal Bureau of Investigation officials met with local law enforcement and other area leaders at a safe communities summit in Greenville Friday.

David Johnson, a cyber intelligence analyst with the FBI’s Milwaukee office, spoke about online threats and how to protect yourself.

David Johnson said, the bottom line is, “This can happen to everybody.”

Johnson says the United States is one of the top countries infected with malicious software or malware.

He recommends using security software on all of your electronic devices, including phones, computers and tablets.

People should also be careful what they click on whether it’s a link in an email or on a website.

If you do fall victim to a cyber crime, you can file a complaint with the FBI.

FOX 11’s Laura Smith is working on this story and will have a full report tonight on FOX 11 News at 9.

NEW DELHI (AP) — Officials in India want to make one thing clear: The tree that President Barack Obama planted in New Delhi three weeks ago is not dead.

In this Sunday, Jan. 25, 2015 file photo, U.S. President Barack Obama, left, participates in a tree planting ceremony at the Raj Ghat Mahatma Gandhi Memorial, New Delhi, India. The lack of leaves has been giving Indian officials sleepless nights, with the local media blasting them for allowing the tree to die. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

It just looks dead.

The peepal tree was awash in leaves when Obama planted it at the New Delhi memorial to Indian independence leader Mohandas K. Gandhi. By Thursday, though, it was just a single lonely stem.

Its lack of leaves has been giving Indian officials sleepless nights, with the media here blasting them for allowing the tree to die less than a month after the presidential visit.

But the reality: Peepal trees often lose their leaves this time of year.

“It’s a seasonal phenomenon,” B.C Katiyar, a top regional government horticulturist, said Thursday, after he and other officials visited the tree and pronounced it in good health. “It will send out shoots within the next 10 days.”

The peepal, or ficus religiosa, is seen as holy by many in Asia — the Buddha is said to have attained enlightenment under the tree in 589 B.C.

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — It takes a lot of geometry and physics to get a race car to go 200 laps at speeds that can top 200 mph.

In a nod to the often overlooked science behind races like Sunday’s Daytona 500, NASCAR announced Friday a commitment to promote “STEM” — the buzzword for science, technology, engineering and math — inside classrooms and out.

The NASCAR Acceleration Nation initiative focuses on the three D’s of speed — downforce, drafting and drag — and includes instructional materials for teachers.

The effort is a way for NASCAR to show the fun side of engineering and math and to encourage fans to view NASCAR in a new way, said Brent Dewar, NASCAR’s chief operating officer.

“A lot of people see cars racing and they love the sport for the sporting element of cars winning, and racing and passing,” Dewar said. “Behind all of that is pure science. It’s the horse power, and it’s drag and it’s aerodynamics.”

Driver Carl Edwards was a substitute teacher in Columbia, Missouri, long before he became known for his back-flip off cars after winning races. For him, one of the biggest teaching challenges was keeping students’ attention, and he hopes that bringing race cars into science discussions will spark interest.

Edwards said that with every lap, scientific data is involved, from tracking the statistical probability of crashing at different parts of the race to the amount of fuel used by the engine at different speeds in various throttle positions. Although he said he still uses the science and math he learned in school, Edwards wishes he’d learned even more.

“You can take any part of the car and talk about how it was engineered and why it’s designed the way it is to interact with the rest of the race car, and there’s a physics or a math or a science lesson in any of that,” he said.

As part of the initiative, NASCAR partnered with publisher Scholastic Corp. to develop fact sheets and quizzes primarily for middle school teachers focused on aerodynamics. An example of topics addressed: Why can race cars in a drafting formation lined up behind each other go faster than cars moving solo? (The answer is that the air acts like a vacuum and sucks trailing cars forward; leading cars also get a boost because the trailing cars push high-pressure air over the leading cars’ spoilers.)

About 7,400 kits will be mailed to teachers initially, but teachers can also go online to download the material and view online demonstrations. The effort includes a website for fans with math and other games and an interactive play area that children and teens can visit on race days.

NASCAR’s effort is part of a larger push in both the private and public sector to promote STEM out of concern for the nation’s global competitiveness and because of strong projected job growth in those fields.

Michael Lynch, a NASCAR executive involved with the effort, said NASCAR is tracking how students do on a quiz before and after using the material, so they can see what works and what needs to be changed.

NASCAR wouldn’t say how much it’s spending on the STEM-related activities.

 

LOS ANGELES (AP) — An 18-year-old student is struggling to survive after he was infected by a “superbug” outbreak tied to contaminated medical instruments at a Los Angeles hospital, his attorney said.

The young man has spent nearly three months in the hospital and is in grave condition after contracting a potentially lethal, antibiotic-resistant strain of bacteria at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, attorney Kevin Boyle said Thursday.

He had entered the hospital for a procedure that involved using an endoscope to examine his pancreas.

“They were scoping it out, trying to see what was the matter,” Boyle said. “He had no life-threatening condition before like he does now.”

At least seven people — two of whom died — have been infected with the bacteria known as carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae, or CRE, after undergoing similar endoscopic procedures between October and January. More than 170 other patients also may have been exposed, hospital officials said.

Boyle declined to release the teenager’s name or where he attends school. The student spent 83 days in the hospital at one point and was released but recently relapsed and has been hospitalized again, the lawyer said.

“After he had the procedure, he was released. Then he came down with his illness, and when they studied him and noticed he had the CRE bacteria in him, they quickly put two and two together,” Boyle said.

He said the family doesn’t blame UCLA but is considering suing the endoscope’s manufacturer.

That hard-to-clean medical instrument used on more than half a million people in the U.S. every year has become the focus of the investigation into the outbreak.

The infections may have been transmitted through two contaminated endoscopes that were used to diagnose and treat pancreatic and bile-duct problems. The instruments were found to have “embedded” infections even though they had been cleaned according to manufacturer’s instructions, said Dr. Robert Cherry, the hospital’s chief medical and quality officer. Five other scopes were cleared.

Hospital officials said they immediately removed contaminated medical devices and adopted more stringent sterilization techniques.

CRE infections have been reported at hospitals around the country, and some have been linked to the type of endoscope used at UCLA. The duodenoscope is a thin, flexible fiber-optic tube that is inserted down the throat to enable a doctor to examine an organ. It typically has a light and a miniature camera.

The manufacturer of the devices, Olympus Corp. of the Americas, an arm of Japan’s Olympus Corp., said in a statement that it emphasizes the importance of meticulous manual sterilization of its instruments. It says it is giving new supplemental instructions to users of the endoscopes and is working with federal officials on the infection problem.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an advisory Thursday warning doctors that even when a manufacturer’s cleaning instructions are followed, germs may linger. The device’s complex design and tiny parts make complete disinfection extremely difficult, the advisory said. Between January 2013 and December 2014, the FDA received 75 reports involving 135 patients in the U.S. who may have been infected by tainted scopes.

In a statement, the FDA said it is trying to determine what more can be done to reduce such infections. But it said that pulling the device from the market would deprive hundreds of thousands of patients of “this beneficial and often life-saving procedure.”

At UCLA, doctors first discovered the problem in mid-December when a patient underwent an endoscopic procedure and developed an infection that couldn’t be treated with antibiotics.

An investigation was launched and doctors employed high-tech methods to find other cases — a process that took several weeks, said Dr. Zachary Rubin, medical director of clinical epidemiology and infection prevention.

CRE infections had been passed on from one “source case” patient between Oct. 3 and Jan. 28, Rubin said.

The hospital has notified potentially exposed patients through letters and phone calls and is offering free testing and treatment options.

“You can very easily do everything right and still have some contamination,” said Dr. Deverick Anderson, an infectious-disease expert at Duke University. “We’re finding this is a problem, but it’s probably one that we don’t have a very good solution to right now.”

___

Associated Press writers Robert Jablon and Michael R. Blood in Los Angeles, and AP Medical Writer Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.

APPLETON – Do you have questions about plans to build an exhibition center in downtown Appleton? City leaders have set a meeting for Monday night to answer citizens’ questions.

The city’s Community and Economic Development Committee is scheduled to meet at 6 p.m. in Committee Room 6A at City Hall. The meeting is expected to include presentations from Mayor Tim Hanna, the Fox Cities Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Fox Cities Chamber of Commerce, the Fox Cities Exhibition Center board president and Appleton Downtown Inc. Topics to be discussed include ownership of the proposed center, legal concerns, the city’s proposal to buy land from Outagamie County, management of the center and funding construction through bonds and hotel room taxes.

The meeting is scheduled to end with an open question-and-answer session. Community members are encouraged to send questions to council members ahead of time.

• Click here for a list of questions submitted for the meeting

Last month, Appleton’s full Common Council voted not to buy a county-owned parking lot behind the Radisson Paper Valley Hotel, where the exhibition center would be built. That vote appeared to end plans for the center, but two weeks later, the council voted to take another look at the issue before another vote might happen.

In the meantime, an environmental review of the site showed no concerns that would impact construction.

Arctic air plunged the eastern half of the United States into a deep freeze — as far south as Alabama and Georgia — and broke records Friday.

The cold snap followed snow and ice storms earlier in the week, and weather forecasters warned that more sleet and freezing rain will be possible in the coming days.

Residents also had to deal with more school cancellations, power outages, road hazards and water main breaks.

Here’s a look at the latest weather and the effect it is having around the country:

___

SIBERIAN EXPRESS?

“Polar vortex” is so last year. Some forecasters are calling the record-setting bout of icy air the “Siberian Express” because winds coming from Russia are traveling over the Arctic Circle and pushing into Canada and the United States.

Despite being the buzzword of winter 2014, the polar vortex is a term that has been used for decades in meteorology. It is a pocket of very cold air that typically swirls around the North Pole.

Last year was displaced by a high pressure system that traveled far north into the Pacific Ocean, sending the center of the vortex into southern Canada.

___

FERRIES FROZEN OUT

A Boston-bound commuter ferry carrying more than 100 passengers had trouble steering in the ice and had to be towed to port.

The ferry Massachusetts departed Hingham at about 8:30 a.m. Friday right behind an ice breaker, said Alison Nolan, an official with Boston Harbor Cruises. After the ferry went off course, the ice breaker towed it to Boston.

The Massachusetts arrived at about 10 a.m., about 45 minutes later than normal. No one was hurt and the boat was not damaged.

Ferry service was canceled elsewhere in the Northeast. The Cape May-Lewes Ferry, which connects Delaware and New Jersey, halted operations because of ice and wind. Ferries on New York’s East River also were canceled.

___

BONE-CHILLING AND RECORD-BREAKING

Beach accessories are displayed in the snow outside Erie County resident Brenda Taylor’s house Thursday, Feb. 19, 2015, in Summit Township, Pa. (AP Photo/Erie Times-News, Greg Wohlford)

Bitter cold temperatures have shattered decades-old records from Cincinnati to Washington to New York.

The National Weather Service said the low Friday got down to 6 degrees at Reagan National Airport, just across the Potomac River from Washington. At Baltimore’s airport, the temperature dipped to a record low 2 degrees.

In western Pennsylvania, temperatures dipped to minus 18 in New Castle, minus 15 in Butler and 6 below zero in Pittsburgh — all records.

Records also were set at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey (1 degree); Trenton, N.J. (zero degrees); New York’s Central Park (2 degrees); and Cincinnati (12 degrees below zero).

 

 

ANOTHER KIND OF ISLAND LIVING

The Virginia National Guard flew in food, medicine and mail to an ice-bound fishing and tourism outpost in the middle of Chesapeake Bay, 14 miles from the mainland.

The mayor of Tangier Island, Mayor James “Ooker” Eskridge, played down its plight but said medicines were essential for those who could not get off the island. Tangier has no drugstore.

“But you know, we’re not starving out here,” he said in an interview. “This happens when you live in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay.”

While the island has a grocery, many islanders hop on a ferry to Crisfield, Maryland, for larger purchases.

___

YOU THINK IT’S COLD WHERE YOU ARE?

Temperatures dropping close to 0 degrees at home? That’s nothing to folks in Embarrass, Minnesota.

On Thursday, the community reported a temperature of 41 below zero — without the wind chill factor.

Forecasters say that’s the lowest recorded temperature in northern Minnesota this winter.

Elsewhere in Minnesota, it was 31 below zero in Ely and Fosston, and 28 below at Bemidji.

The National Weather Service issued a wind chill advisory for parts of the state.

___

NIAGARA FALLS SPECTACLE DRAWS TOURISTS

Visitors look over masses of ice formed around the Canadian Horseshoe Falls in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2015. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press,Aaron Lynett)

The deep freeze transformed Niagara Falls into an icy spectacle, encasing the trees around it into crystal shells and drawing tourists who are braving below-zero temperatures.

The Niagara River is flowing below the ice cover, so the falls aren’t completely frozen.

But days of subzero temperatures have created a thick coating of ice and snow on every surface near the falls, including railings, trees and boulders. The massive ice buildup has become a tourist magnet.

___

CHAIN-REACTION CRASH

Delaware State Police say at least 16 children suffered minor injuries when three school buses they were riding crashed into one another.

The chain-reaction wreck happened about 4 p.m. Thursday in Bridgeville. Troopers say three school buses were traveling north when the first bus slowed because of icy road conditions. Officers say the third bus slid on the ice and rear-ended the second bus, which then hit the first bus.

Authorities say the buses were carrying 3rd- to 5th-grade students from the Woodbridge School District.

Police say at least 16 children were taken to hospitals. The bus drivers were not hurt.

Troopers say no charges are expected.

___

NASA SHIVERS

Schools in Alabama sent students home early and NASA shut down its Huntsville facility as a winter storm began coating north Alabama with ice, sleet and snow.

Dozens of school systems dismissed students early or canceled classes altogether Friday because of the weather. NASA closed early at its Marshall Space Flight Center because of deteriorating road conditions.

Huntsville and the rest of the state’s northeastern corner is under a winter storm warning through early Saturday, and forecasters say much of northern Alabama and Georgia could get snow and sleet, including metro Atlanta.

___

FROZEN BASS FISHING

In South Carolina, the start of the three-day Bassmaster Classic was delayed about 90 minutes, pushing first launch to about 8:30 a.m. Friday when temperatures were under 20 degrees.

Still, the competitors cast their lines amid finger-chilling temperatures on sprawling Lake Hartwell, located along the border of South Carolina and Georgia.

As the sun peaks over the horizon as icicles form on a plant, Friday, Feb. 20, 2015 at Dewar Nurseries in Apopka, Fla. As temperatures dipped to 28 degrees, workers covered acres of plants with frost cloth and also sprayed water encasing the roses in a cocoon of ice. (AP Photo/Orlando Sentinel, Red Huber)

 

MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Gov. Scott Walker is set to address a Christian media convention in Tennessee next week.

The National Religious Broadcasters announced Friday that Walker will speak at its 2015 International Christian Media Convention at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center in Nashville on Monday.

The NRB describes itself as an international association of Christian communicators that works to advance biblical truth and media excellence.

Walker, a Republican and son of a Delavan, Wisconsin, pastor, is mulling a 2016 presidential run.

CHICAGO (AP) — Seven dogs have been safely reunited with their owners after two men stole a minivan they were left in outside a pet day care in Chicago.

The day care owner originally told the Chicago Tribune the van’s driver was ordered away from it at gunpoint Wednesday, but surveillance video released Thursday shows that the van was unattended when two men walked up to it, got inside and drove away.

The van was found about 4 miles from the day care on Thursday, when a woman called police after seeing a dog sitting in it for at least an hour in bitterly cold temperatures.

A witness told police that one of the thieves pointed a gun at him when he tried to stop the minivan soon after it was stolen.

Messages seeking comment were left with the day care owner.

 

Don’t worry Thin Mint fans, your favorite Girl Scout Cookies will be arriving without delay.

There have been reports of a Thin Mint shortage in other parts of the country, but Northeast Wisconsin will not be affected.

The Girl Scouts have two designated bakers to make their cookies, Little Brownie and ABC Bakers. ABC Bakers, which produces the cookies in the Northwestern Great Lakes area, will fulfill all cookie orders on time.

The Girl Scouts will be taking cookie orders through March 27.

Cookie deliveries will begin in early March.

For more information, click here.

 

 

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) – The loudest cheers for the Daytona 500 this weekend may not come from the speedway grandstands.

NBC executives swear they’re pulling for Fox during Sunday’s race for an unlikely reason.

“We would love to see Fox break our record,” said Jon Miller, president of programming for NBC Sports and NBCSN. “A healthy Daytona signals a healthy NASCAR, which is good for everyone.”

ESPN and TNT are out. Fox is in and so is NBC, which is back in the NASCAR business nine years after the final Daytona 500 to air on the network drew a record 11.3 rating with an average of 19.4 million viewers.

NASCAR’s 10-year deal with NBC Sports Group begins this season and gives the network the final 19 Sprint Cup Series races of the season and final 19 Xfinity races. NBC last broadcast races in 2006 before ESPN took over its portion of the schedule.

Fox Sports has a deal to air the first five months of Cup races beginning this season, and it also runs through 2024.

NBC Sports paid $4.4 billion for its rights and the Fox Sports deal is now worth $3.8 billion. This all puts NASCAR at $820 million a year for the length of the 10-year contracts.

The staggering sum has both networks expecting a ratings bang for their bucks, even as flat viewership and sagging attendance have socked the sport. Last year’s Daytona 500 averaged 9.3 million viewers in a race delayed more than six hours by rain. The 2013 edition won by Jimmie Johnson averaged 16.7 million viewers, but down from nearly 18 million who watched in 2007 and 2008.

NASCAR Chairman Brian France said his series is still “one or two” for American sports viewers every weekend from February to September.

“When you judge it all, we’re pretty comfortable that this is not only the most dominant motorsport in North America by a wide margin, but we’re competing nicely with the most competitive sports landscape in the world,” he said.

NBC still has time to tinker before its July debut.

“We think we can bring a lot to the party and really help them regain their momentum and continue to grow the sport,” Miller said.

Up first, Fox is ready to wave the green flag on the NASCAR season with Sunday’s race. The race marks Fox’s 15th Daytona 500 following its debut in the 2001 edition marred by the death of Dale Earnhardt. Mike Joy, the play-by-play announcer, and analysts Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds have called every start, wreck and checkered flag over that span – punctuated, of course, by Waltrip’s “Boogity, boogity, boogity!”

“The main difference is that Fox Sports is an analyst-driven production,” Joy said. “You see that in football, baseball, and you see it in NASCAR. That in and of itself was a big culture shift from the way that CBS, ABC and NBC were putting sports on the air, where their anchors were at the top of the telecast and then they would fill in with analysts specific to a given sport.

“This was very different right from the start and I think that’s one of the big reasons it works so well.”

Fox will air 10 Sprint Cup races and Fox Sports 1 will air eight Cup races until the handoff to NBC for the July 5 race at Daytona. Fox (two races) and Fox Sports 1 (12) also have the first 14 races of NASCAR’s second-tier Xfinity Series.

NBC will air just seven races, including the final three of the season, on network television. The other 12 will air on NBCSN, which airs in 85 million homes.

Fox can count on some star power in the Xfinity booth: former Cup champions and active drivers Jeff Gordon, Brad Keselowski and Kevin Harvick will rotate as guest analysts for its telecasts. Gordon, a four-time champion, is adding to his race weekend workload before he ends his full-time Cup schedule after this season.

“Every Saturday, I’m in my bus watching the Xfinity races and I’m drawn to it,” Gordon said. “I’m learning from it as well as critiquing it.”

Gordon said his impeding exit from the sport has only “ramped-up the interest level” from both Fox and NBC for his services next season.

Maybe Gordon can ask former Hendrick Motorsports colleague Steve Letarte for advice on moving from the track to the booth. Letarte won the Daytona 500 last year calling the shots for Dale Earnhardt Jr. Letarte turned in his crew chief headset for an announcer’s earpiece for the NBC team.

He will join lead announcer Rick Allen and analyst Jeff Burton. Letarte left the weekly grind of NASCAR for the relative comfort of the booth for family reasons. The trio will make a dry run this weekend using Fox’s feed.

“I’m down here trying to understand the other side of the sport that maybe I don’t know,” Letarte said. “Heck, we won this race a year ago. I think that relevancy is really going to come through. I don’t think I have to put a tremendous effort into that in year one.”

He has a decade to figure it all out.