Green Bay News

TOWN OF SEVASTOPOL – It may look like a scene from the arctic, but this “ice volcano” is erupting right here in Northeast Wisconsin.

FOX 11’s Eric Peterson shot the above video Feb. 6, 2015, while on assignment at Whitefish Dunes State Park in the town of Sevastopol – right on Lake Michigan in Door County.

• Click here to see photos of the ice volcano

According to the state Department of Natural Resources, “ice volcano” is formed when waves hit a shell of ice. At a weak spot in the ice, a hole forms, and water gushes through. The water splashes up and creates a mound with a hole in the middle, just like a volcano.

• Click here to watch video of an ice volcano seen earlier this year along the bay of Green Bay

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — An Albuquerque officer searching a former meth lab stumbled upon artwork by late-American Indian artist Al Momaday that was worth more than $30,000 and likely was stolen, police said.

Police said the officer found the valuable prints last week during a protective sweep of the condemned apartment right before city official were to board up the property. Authorities say the building was deemed uninhabitable for two years following the discovery of a methamphetamine lab.

According to police, the officer spotted an art portfolio case containing Momaday prints on the floor. The officer googled Momaday’s name and discovered he was a Mountain View, Oklahoma-born Kiowa painter who died in 1981.

“Knowing this, and knowing all the history about this apartment, I knew (whoever) left this property behind had no lawful reason to be in possession of this (artwork),” the officer wrote in his report.

The officer took the prints to an Albuquerque Museum curator who valued them at $33,000.

Investigators believe the art might have been stolen while on loan. They are still trying to determine who it belongs to and what to do with it.

Momaday’s paintings depicting his Native American heritage have gained international acclaim and are featured in galleries around the country. He also created plaques for Albuquerque churches.

A teacher, Momaday married Natachee Scott at Jemez Pueblo and helped bring Native American art lessons to New Mexico.

He is the father of N. Scott Momaday, the first American Indian to win a Pulitzer Prize for literature.

An assistant to N. Scott Momaday told the Albuquerque Journal that the author believes some items were stolen from him during a recent move to Santa Fe. However, he wasn’t sure if those items included artwork by his father.

In recent years, the abandoned building where the prints were found had been used as a drug den and a place to store stolen goods, authorities said.

No arrests have been made. The case remains under investigation.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Rain pelted parts of the San Francisco Bay Area and gusty winds swept in Friday from a storm that’s expected to unleash up to 10 inches of rain through the weekend in parts of the drought-stricken region.

North of San Francisco, businesses in Marin, Napa, Solano, and Sonoma counties stacked sandbags to prepare for possible flash flooding from swollen waterways as rain started falling in the North Bay. Winds of up to 15 mph were recorded east of the city Friday morning, and the blustery weather could knock down trees and power lines, causing isolated power outages, the National Weather Service said.

The rainfall won’t make a significant dent in the state’s historic drought, but it’s a welcome change after six dry weeks in the area. For the first time in recorded history, there was no measurable rainfall in downtown San Francisco in January, when winter rains usually come.

It would take 150 percent of the average rainfall for California to recover from the dry period, state water resource officials say. But snow is more important than rain because snowpack supplies about a third of the water needed by residents, agriculture and industry.

The Weather Service issued a heavy rain, high wind gust, and flash flood warning for the Bay Area through Monday. The storm is expected to start slowly, push south Friday afternoon and drop rain throughout the region through Sunday.

The heaviest downpours are forecast in the North Bay, where up to 7 inches of rain is expected to overwhelm waterways and roadway drainage systems, leading to flash flooding.

Urban areas could see up to 4 inches of rain, while Marin and Sonoma counties could see 10 inches of rain through Sunday, Weather Service lead forecaster Roger Gass said.

Additionally, wind gusts across the Bay Area over the next few days could hit 20 to 40 mph, with potential gusts up to 60 mph. But it won’t be cold, with temperatures in the upper 50s to low 60s.

Since Dec. 20, rain has been nearly nonexistent across much of California and Nevada, halting hopes for drought improvement.

Plus, California’s second snow survey this winter found the Sierra Nevada snowpack is far below normal after a dry, unusually warm January. A higher snowpack translates to more water for California reservoirs to meet demand in summer and fall.

Water resources managers said heavy rain and cooler temperatures in the next three months would be required for the snowpack to build and give Californians hope for beginning to recover from the drought this year.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Insurers aren’t required to encrypt consumers’ data under a 1990s federal law that remains the foundation for health care privacy in the Internet age — an omission that seems striking in light of the major cyberattack against Anthem.

Encryption uses mathematical formulas to scramble data, converting sensitive details coveted by intruders into gibberish. Anthem, the second-largest U.S. health insurer, has said the data stolen from a company database that stored information on 80 million people was not encrypted.

The main federal health privacy law — the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA — encourages encryption, but doesn’t require it.

The lack of a clear encryption standard undermines public confidence, some experts say, even as the government plows ahead to spread the use of computerized medical records and promote electronic information sharing among hospitals, doctors and insurers.

“We need a whole new look at HIPAA,” said David Kibbe, CEO of DirectTrust, a nonprofit working to create a national framework for secure electronic exchange of personal health information.

“Any identifying information relevant to a patient … should be encrypted,” said Kibbe. It should make no difference, he says, whether that information is being transmitted on the Internet or sitting in a company database, as was the case with Anthem.

The agency charged with enforcing the privacy rules is a small unit of the federal Health and Human Services Department, called the Office for Civil Rights.

The office said in a statement Friday that it has yet to receive formal notification of the hack from Anthem, but nonetheless is treating the case as a privacy law matter. Although Anthem alerted mainline law enforcement agencies, the law allows 60 days for notifying HHS.

The statement from the privacy office said the kind of personal data stolen by the Anthem hackers is covered by HIPAA, even if it does not include medical information.

“The personally identifiable information health plans maintain on enrollees and members — including names and Social Security numbers — is protected under HIPAA, even if no specific diagnostic or treatment information is disclosed,” the statement said.

A 2009 federal law promoting computerized medical records sought to nudge the health care industry toward encryption. Known as the HITECH Act, it required public disclosure of any health data breach affecting 500 or more people. It also created an exemption for companies that encrypt their data.

Encryption has been seen as a controversial issue in the industry, particularly with data that’s only being stored and not transmitted. Encryption adds costs and can make day-to-day operations more cumbersome. It can also be defeated if someone manages to decipher the code or steals the key to it.

In fact, Anthem spokeswoman Kristin Binns said encryption would not have thwarted the latest attack because the hacker also had a system administrator’s ID and password. She said the company normally encrypts data that it exports.

Under the HITECH law, the government set up a public database listing major breaches, known informally as the “hall of shame.” Breaches on that list affected more than 40 million people over a decade, meaning that the Anthem case could be twice as damaging as all previous reported incidents combined.

Indiana University law professor Nicolas Terry said it seemed at the time of the 2009 law that the government had struck a reasonable balance, creating incentives for encryption while stopping short of imposing a one-size-fits-all solution. Now he’s concerned that the compromise has been overtaken by events.

“In today’s environment, we should expect all health care providers to encrypt their data from end to end,” said Terry, who specializes in health information technology.

If the voluntary approach isn’t working, “HHS should amend the security rule to make encryption mandatory,” he said.

The federal government also is investigating whether the personal information of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries was stolen. Those government programs are a major contract business for Anthem.

The federal health care privacy law “was written largely for what was going on in the ’90s,” said Kibbe, the cyberstandards expert. “It was updated in 2009, but that wasn’t an overhaul. It was a tuneup.”

___

Associated Press writers Ted Bridis and Tom Murphy contributed to this report.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) – A professor who taught anatomy and physiology and was highly regarded by both his students and fellow faculty members was shot and killed in an apparent murder-suicide at the University of South Carolina, a coroner said Friday.

Raja Fayad, 45, was shot several times in the upper body Thursday afternoon in a fourth-floor office at the university’s Public Health building, Richland County Coroner Gary Watts said in a news release.

The identity of the other dead person, a woman with whom Fayad had “a history together,” was not released because her family has not been notified, Watts said Friday.

No one witnessed the shooting, which happened in a small laboratory and adjacent office, State Law Enforcement Division spokesman Thom Berry said Friday.

The professor and the woman had a long-term relationship, Berry said. SLED agents have searched several different locations but found no notes or other writing to help them find a reason for the shooting, Berry said.

Officers found a 9 mm pistol near the bodies, its magazine empty, Berry said.

Fayad taught anatomy and physiology among other classes. He was interested in trying to figure out if there was a link between chronic digestive track inflammation and cancer, according to his university biography.

Professor J. Larry Durstine helped recruit Fayad to South Carolina from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2008. He said Fayad was bright, caring and sympathetic toward colleagues and students.

Fayad was graduate director and head of the Applied Psychology Division at the school’s Public Health Department. He got high marks from students on an Internet site that allows them to rate their professors.

Fayad decided to go into academics instead of becoming a practicing doctor after getting his medical degree in Syria, Durstine said. He liked to tinker around his house and was always in a good mood, even during their last phone call to discuss a faulty committee.

“I don’t think I’ve seen him any other way,” Durstine said.

The shooting was isolated to the campus office. Students and faculty learned about it from an emergency text alert from university officials saying shots were fired and they should stay inside. The university also interrupted programming on its cable system to warn students and others to stay inside.

On social media, students sent out pictures of classes continuing across the sprawling campus except for in the building where the shooting happened. At least one of them showed a table used to block a door.

University President Harris Pastides asked the school to honor Fayad with respect by showing someone they care. “Hold a Gamecock’s hand today,” Pastides wrote on Twitter.

Property records indicate Fayad owned a home near Lake Murray in Lexington County, but Watts said he was currently living at a long-term hotel with a family member.

School officials told professors not to penalize students who failed to show up for afternoon classes, even if they missed exams.

NEW YORK (AP) – Uber says it’s introducing two new safety features for riders in India in response to concerns about safety that followed a passenger reporting she had been raped by a driver.

The San Francisco taxi alternative company says it will launch a “panic button” in its ride-hailing app that allows riders to notify the police in case of an emergency, and a “safety net” feature that will allow users to share trip details and their location with as many as five other people.

Uber says it is also creating a local team that will respond to reports by riders and will get a notification when the panic button is pressed.

The company says the new features will be available Wednesday. Uber did not say if the new features will be available in other countries, but said in an email that it will have more updates in the coming months.

Uber, valued at $40 billion, lets passengers summon cars through an app in more than 250 cities around the world. It faces multiples legal and regulatory challenges as it expands in the United States and abroad.

An Uber passenger said she was raped by a driver in New Delhi in December, and she sued the company in January. The lawsuit alleges Uber isn’t doing enough to keep passengers safe, and Uber may also face charges if Indian prosecutors believe it misrepresented the safety of its services.

The company says it plans to improve its safety programs in 2015 and is looking for new ways to screen drivers.

In India, Uber has been banned in New Delhi, the southern technology hub of Hyderabad, and the entire southern state of Karnataka.

The Times of India said Thursday that regulators in Mumbai also supported a ban and that they want Uber to set up emergency support services, put panic buttons in cabs, and display phone numbers for the police and regional transportation office.

On its blog, Uber said the idea of a physical panic button wasn’t feasible because it doesn’t own the cabs. It added that buttons would be vulnerable to wear and tear and said that if it and other operators were forced to put buttons in cars, passengers might get confused in an emergency.

Uber said it would support physical panic buttons if the owner of the vehicle were responsible for installing them and if the button called the police directly.

NEW YORK (AP) — CNN says that a former pilot who says he flew with NBC anchor Brian Williams in Iraq is questioning his own account of the mission that he outlined to the network on Thursday.

CNN’s Brian Stelter interviewed Rich Krell, who claimed he piloted the helicopter that Williams flew on in Iraq in 2003. Krell said Thursday that the aircraft was hit by small arms fire, although not the grenade that Williams had one time claimed.

Stelter said Friday that Krell, whose account was contradicted by other soldiers, is now saying that he is questioning his own memories — including the fact that he piloted Williams’ aircraft. Stelter said it was important to tell viewers that he is no longer standing by his story.

Williams has apologized for giving a false account of what he faced when reporting in Iraq a dozen years ago.

BRUSSELS (AP) — U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is questioning the willingness of Russian President Vladimir Putin to seek peace in Ukraine as the leaders of Germany and France are seeking such a deal in Moscow.

Putin “continues to call for new peace plans as his troops roll through the Ukrainian countryside and he absolutely ignores every agreement that his country has signed in the past,” Biden said Friday at the European Union headquarters in Brussels.

Biden insisted the 28-nation EU and the United States need to stand together and support the government of Ukraine with financial and political aid.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande were heading to Moscow on Friday to press for peace in eastern Ukraine, where Russian-backed rebels were fighting government troops.

The United States has been reconsidering whether to provide Ukraine defensive weapons and other lethal aid since the recent spike in violence between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian government forces.

Without directly addressing the issue, Biden said that “Ukraine is fighting for its very survival right now.”

Both he and EU President Donald Tusk stressed that any peace deal would have to respect the full territorial integrity of Ukraine, which lost its southern peninsula Crimea to Russian annexation last year.

“Russia cannot be allowed to redraw the map of Europe. That is exactly what they are doing,” Biden said. Tusk added that the West “cannot compromise on Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Both the United States and the EU have been pledging several billions in financial assistance through loans and special aid for Kiev, based on a commitment to stay the course of reform.

And despite the intensified fighting, Biden continued to see hopeful signs.

“Even in the face of this military onslaught they are attempting to push forward with reforms,” Biden said.

TROY, Mo. (AP) — A 6-year-old Missouri boy’s mother, grandmother and aunt face charges after authorities said they staged his kidnapping because they believed he was too nice to people and they wanted to teach him about possible danger from strangers.

The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday the three wanted to scare the boy. Authorities say they enlisted help from the aunt’s co-worker, who lured the child into his pickup after he got off a school bus Monday.

Authorities said the man told the boy he wouldn’t “see his mommy again,” and that he’d be “nailed to the wall of a shed,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. He showed the boy a handgun in an effort to make him stop crying, authorities said.

The man tied the child’s hands and feet with plastic bags and blindfolded him with a jacket, the sheriff’s office said, before he drove the boy to his Troy home. Authorities said the boy was kept in the basement for a while, before untied and told to go upstairs, where he was lectured about staying away from strangers.

Investigators said the boy’s family said they wanted to educate him about the harm of talking to strangers and felt they didn’t do anything wrong.

The mother is charged with felony kidnapping and abuse or neglect of a child. The others are charged with felony kidnapping, felonious restraint, and abuse or neglect of a child. All four were being held in Lincoln County Jail in lieu of $250,000 bail. It wasn’t immediately known if they had attorneys.

Police were alerted after the boy told school officials. He has been placed into protective custody.

GREEN BAY – The 5th Annual Green Bay Film Festival announced their full line up of independent films and special events.

Celebrating the fifth anniversary, the festival will feature 79 independent films from all over the world packaged into 23 film sessions over 3 days of March 6-8.

The festival has a wide variety of films and events including a showing of a sci-fi adventure filmed in Door county, a documentary about human trafficking on a global and local scale and Saturday night will show a Zombie Double Feature, with a zombie flash mob and special effects artists.

The festival will end Sunday evening with an awards ceremony at 5:45 p.m.

You may purchase an all-weekend pass or individual film session tickets.

For more information on tickets and the line-up, you can click here.

FOUNTAIN CITY, Wis. (AP) – Workers are using helicopters to string nearly 50 miles of power lines in Wisconsin as part of a $2.2 billion project.

Utility companies say the CapX2020 project would update the power grid and connect eastern cities with wind energy resources. The approved $550 million Wisconsin portion would deliver power from Hampton, Minnesota, to a planned substation in Holmen.

Regulators in Wisconsin are considering whether to approve another transmission line that would link the project with Dane County, costing up to $580 million.

Charles Jones, Xcel Energy’s project safety manager, told the La Crosse Tribune that helicopters are the most efficient way to string transmission lines that hang high above the ground. He said it’s easier than using cranes.

About 3 miles have been strung so far. The helicopters are also being used to attach 1,600 yellow plastic spirals so birds don’t collide with the wires.

One worker sat on a platform about 140 feet above ground Thursday morning, with temperatures around 12 degrees. In extreme cold, workers can only go for about 30 minutes at a time.

OSHKOSH – A man already facing charges in a series of robberies near the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh campus has been linked to a stabbing and attempted robbery incident last fall.

Police suspect Jake Sizemore, 19, in the incident. Investigators say recent DNA test results from the state crime lab link Sizemore to the incident last Oct. 24. A 19-year-old Middleton man and an 18-year-old Two Rivers man were both stabbed in the abdomen when they tried to stop the robber from taking the 19-year-old’s phone. Both men were hospitalized for their injuries but did survive.

Sizemore also faces charges of robbery with use of force, battery and carrying a concealed weapon from other incidents last fall in the same area.

He has not yet been formally charged in connection with the Oct. 24 incident.

BEIRUT (AP) — A purported statement by the Islamic State group claimed that an American female hostage was killed in a Jordanian airstrike on Friday on the outskirts of the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, the militant group’s main stronghold.

The statement identified the woman as Kayla Jean Mueller and said she was killed during Muslim prayers — which usually take place around midday on Fridays — in airstrikes that targeted “the same location for more than an hour.”

No Islamic State militants were killed in the airstrikes, the statement further claimed.

It published photos allegedly of the bombed site, showing a severely damaged brown colored three-story building — but no images of the woman.

American officials said they were looking into the report. The White House said it did not have immediate comment.

The statement could not be independently verified. It appeared on a militant website commonly used by IS and was also distributed by IS-affiliated Twitter users.

Mueller is an aid worker whose identity was never disclosed out of concerns for her safety.

A family representative told The Associated Press last year that the 26-year-old was working with humanitarian groups in Syria when she was captured in 2013.

If her death is confirmed, she would be the fourth American to die while in the captivity of the Islamic State militants. Three other Americans, journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and aid worker Peter Kassig were beheaded by the group.

Jordan, which is part of a U.S.-led coalition bombing Islamic State group targets in Syria, stepped up its attacks after IS announced it had killed a captive Jordanian pilot. The Syrian government said Thursday that dozens of Jordanian fighter jets had bombed Islamic State training centers and weapons storage sites. It did not say where the attacks occurred.

There was no word from the Jordanian government on whether its planes had struck Raqqa on Friday.

JANESVILLE (AP) – A data processing and management company in Janesville has laid off 150 employees.

Data Dimensions CEO Jon Boumstein says third shift workers were terminated Friday. Boumstein says the layoffs are the result of a contract’s ebb and flow. He says there just isn’t enough work to support the number of employees.

WISC-TV reports nearly 400 people remain employed at the Janesville location.

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — A Vermont student’s proposal for a state motto in Latin drew a burst of Internet fire from people who apparently confused the Romans’ language with Latin America, but the teenager is taking it in stride.

Sen. Joe Benning, a Caledonia County Republican, filed a bill on behalf of St. Johnsbury Academy ninth-grader Angela Kubicke, who proposed that Vermont add to its English-language motto, “Freedom & Unity,” one in Latin: “Stella quarta decima fulgeat.”

That means “The 14th Star Shines Bright,” honoring Vermont’s history as the 14th state to join the Union following the original 13 colonies.

When television station WCAX did a story about the proposal, its website’s comment section lit up with vitriol, with many seemingly linking the Latin motto to the immigration debate. Those comments were followed by others trying to deliver a combined lesson in language, history and geography.

Kubicke is scheduled to join other Latin students from around Vermont in testifying about the proposed motto before the Senate Government Operations Committee next week.

Benning said his young constituent was responding to the fuss with “grace and fortitude.” As for his own thoughts on the Internet debate, Benning recalled the motto of his law school newspaper: “Res ipsa loquitur” or “The thing speaks for itself.”

Kubicke called the Internet reaction “a little bit appalling. It’s a lack of knowledge. I think that’s why this motto is very important. It sheds a light on the classics.”

She added with a laugh: “Maybe people will learn the difference between Rome and Mexico.”

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Attention die-hard craft beer drinkers: This Bud’s not for you.

After several years of losing ground to craft brewers, Anheuser-Busch, the country’s biggest brewery, seems to be conceding that its flagship brew may not fly with fans of fancy suds.

Rather than try to woo them to toss back a Budweiser, Anheuser-Busch is aiming its latest marketing at its core consumers, the folks who likely wouldn’t reach for a craft beer in any case. And they’re doing it with a playful wink and nod that says, “We didn’t want their fancy-schmancy beer anyway.”

That was Anheuser-Busch’s playbook for the Super Bowl, when they ran an ad that calls Budweiser a “macro beer” — a reference to the microbrews of the craft market — that “isn’t brewed to be fussed over.” Relaunched this week in wider play, the ad shows a mustachioed man drinking beer from a fancy glass and mocks, “Let them sip their pumpkin peach ale. We’ll be brewing us some golden suds.”

“A prevailing misperception in beer is that small must be good, and big must be bad. This spot, if you like, is us saying we categorically don’t accept that,” Brian Perkins, Budweiser’s vice president of marketing, said in an interview. “This is about us owning who we are without apology.”

The ad left a sour taste with some in the craft beer world, who took to social media with parodies and taunts, including a video in which members of Ninkasi Brewing in Oregon chugged Budweiser and asked: “If you aren’t drinking a beer for taste, what are you drinking it for?”

But Perkins called the ad a “gentle poke” and said, “The only people who misread the spot, frankly, probably weren’t drinking Budweiser anyway … I’ve lost them already. They’re not my consumer.”

And he is right — they’re not.

Budweiser remains the No. 3 beer in the U.S. and Bud Light ranks at the top. Still, Budweiser’s volume fell more than 6 percent annually between 2008 and 2013, according to market research firm Euromonitor International. Meanwhile, craft brewers such as Colorado’s New Belgium, California’s Sierra Nevada and Sam Adams maker the Boston Beer Co. grew more than 7 percent annually over the same period.

Overall sales of craft beer rose about 17 percent to hold a 14 percent dollar share of the $100 billion U.S. beer market in 2013 despite a nearly 2 percent drop in overall beer sales, according to the Brewers Association, a Colorado-based trade group that represents most of the nation’s 3,200 breweries. Big beer also is losing ground to hard liquor.

Drawing a line in the sand between Budweiser and the craft beer market makes sense, says Euromonitor analyst Eric Penicka.

“They’re acknowledging that the typical craft beer consumer is definitely not going to go out of their way to buy Budweiser,” he said. “The product itself is hard for (Budweiser) to push outside of the core group who is already consuming it. And I think it makes sense for them to do that. … For them to try to push Budweiser into the craft consuming market, which would be primarily younger, more educated, financially more well-off, is not really going to strike a chord.”

Not that it’s a complete surrender. The U.S. arm of Anheuser-Busch InBev SA, a Belgian company that is the world’s largest brewer, has bought several smaller craft brewers, including Chicago’s Goose Island and Seattle’s Elysian Brewing, the latter of which also makes a peach pumpkin ale and includes the tagline “Corporate Beer Still Sucks” on one of its labels.

The beer giants also have been bulking up “craft-like” brands, such as Anheuser-Busch’s Shock Top, which has its own seasonal pumpkin beer, as noted by many who took offense to Budweiser’s ad.

Anheuser-Busch’s biggest competitor, MillerCoors — maker of Coors Light, Miller Lite and Blue Moon — has taken a similar approach with a portfolio of both craft and mass market beers, and isn’t ready to write off dedicated craft beer drinkers. MillerCoors spokesman Jonathan Stern says his company sees plenty crossover with consumers happily drinking both styles of beer.

The issue, he says, is that big beer’s core consumer just isn’t choosing mass market beers as often as they used to, and smart marketing to millennials is needed to turn that around.

Budweiser’s campaign isn’t about “running scared,” as some have implied, but simply owning its place as a big beer brand that’s enjoyed by many, Perkins said.

“In order to talk about who we are, sometimes you juxtapose it with what you’re not,” he said. “Kudos to the brewers of peach pumpkin ale and other flavor variations. That’s their thing and they’re great at it, but meanwhile, we’ll stick to who we always have been.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — A special House committee looking into the deadly Benghazi, Libya, attacks in 2012 will interview a host of current and former high-ranking Obama administration officials as it speeds the pace of the investigation.

The panel’s chairman, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said Friday he intends to interview 20 high-ranking officials, including former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and former CIA director David Petraeus, as well as White House chief of staff Denis McDonough and national security adviser Susan Rice.

The list also includes former White House press secretary Jay Carney, Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and former national security adviser Thomas Donilon.

Gowdy has previously said he will ask former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to testify at a public hearing before the 12-member committee. He said Friday that appearance should occur “as soon as possible.”

Gowdy said last week he was frustrated at the slow pace of the investigation and was going to “ratchet it up.”

Gowdy said the interviews with the high-ranking officials will begin as soon as April, after the panel interviews 22 potential witnesses who work for the State Department or have knowledge of the attacks.

The State Department agreed to the interviews last week but said that since many of the potential witnesses work overseas, the department “will need flexibility” as to when the witnesses will appear.

Gowdy also plans to interview former UN Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Adm. Mike Mullen, who chaired an independent panel that reviewed the September 2012 attacks, which killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Pickering was President George H.W. Bush’s U.N. envoy, and Mullen was the top U.S. general under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Their report harshly criticized the State Department for its security posture in the months before militants stormed the Benghazi facility. But House GOP members said their review was incomplete and lacked independence.

Learn more about a $3.5 million fundraising campaign by the Howard-Suamico School District.

MADISON (AP) – A number of University of Wisconsin System campuses are looking to launch letter campaigns to legislators and Gov. Scott Walker opposing the governor’s budget cuts for the system.

Walker’s budget calls for slashing $300 million from the system while keeping a tuition freeze in place for two years. Chancellors say the cut is too big and will lead to layoffs and faculty bolting for other states.

UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank sent a mass email out to that school’s alumni on Thursday imploring them to write to lawmakers and the governor asking them to reduce the cut. Officials at UW-Whitewater and UW-Milwaukee are trying to start similar write-in campaigns.

UW-Whitewater Chancellor Richard Telfer wrote on the school’s website that he can’t allow the system to be weakened this way.

GREEN BAY – A tipped semi trailer in a roundabout is slowing traffic on Green Bay’s west side.

Police say the incident happened on W. Mason St. near the off-ramp to Hwy. 41 southbound. Wetsbound lanes of Mason St. are closed to through traffic.

Officers suggest using Lombardi or Shawano avenues to get around the incident.