News from around Wisconsin at 6:28 a.m. CDT
MILWAUKEE - Although Brett Favre plans to skip
the Green Bay Packers' mandatory minicamp this weekend, he might not be
excused by Packers coach Mike McCarthy.
McCarthy was not
available for comment Tuesday, but team spokesman Jeff Blumb said that
as far as McCarthy was concerned, "the camp is mandatory."
The
Packers' three-day minicamp begins Friday, and Favre could face fines
from the team if he fails to show up without being formally excused.
Favre
told the Biloxi (Miss.) Sun-Herald that because he is unable to
practice while recovering from offseason ankle surgery, he is going to
stay home in Mississippi _ where he'll apparently try his hand at party
planning.
"They were going to have me sit out anyway," Favre
said, in a story that appeared on the paper's Web site on Tuesday. "To
be honest, we have (daughter) Brittany graduating in two weeks. Instead
of going up there and not doing anything, I will be better off being at
home because of graduation parties and banquets."
Favre said the
move is not related to his frustration with the team's unwillingness to
complete a trade for wide receiver Randy Moss.
"I am frustrated," Favre told the paper. "But being frustrated and not going are not related."
MADISON,
Wis. (AP) _ A power plant operated by University of Wisconsin-Madison
is allowing coal dust into the environment, polluting one of the city's
prized lakes, state regulators say.
The Department of Natural
Resources has warned the plant is violating the Clean Water Act by
allowing dust from its coal pile to spill into a nearby neighborhood.
When it rains, the coal dust runs into storm sewers that drain into
Monona Bay, a popular fishing and recreation spot.
The DNR warned the university last week to stop the violations or face forfeitures of up to $10,000 per day.
"This
material doesn't belong in our Madison lakes," said DNR official Tim
Coughlin, who wrote the May 8 warning to the university after
personally witnessing runoff of coal residue. "It's a pollutant."
The
letter came just days after the Sierra Club sued the university for
allegedly violating the Clean Air Act by failing to install modern
pollution controls when making upgrades to the plant, which was built
in the 1950s.
Environmentalists want the university to shut down
the Charter Street plant, one of the biggest local sources of
pollution, and switch to a cleaner-burning fuel. They seized on the DNR
warning.
"The real problem is that there is way too much coal
being pumped through Charter Street," said Brent Denzin, an attorney
with Midwest Environmental Advocates, Inc.
WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) _ A
Minnesota truck driver sentenced to life in prison for murdering six
deer hunters in northern Wisconsin after a confrontation over
trespassing was not a victim of a racially biased court system as he
claimed, a state appeals court ruled Tuesday.
The 3rd District Court of Appeals rejected Chai Soua Vang's request for a new "minority counsel" to represent him.
"Our
independent review of the record discloses no improper racial issues
with regard to sentencing or otherwise for appeal," the three-judge
panel said.
The appeals court upheld Vang's convictions for six
counts of first-degree intentional homicide and three counts of
attempted first-degree intentional homicide, agreeing with his
attorneys that there was no merit to an appeal.
The fatal
shootings occurred in November 2004 after a group of deer hunters in
Sawyer County confronted Vang, 38, of St. Paul, Minn., over trespassing
in a tree stand.
Vang, a Hmong immigrant and experienced hunter,
testified during his trial that he shot the six white hunters and
wounded two more in self-defense, claiming one of them fired a shot in
his direction after they shouted racial epithets and cursed at him.
The two survivors testified that Vang had begun walking away from the confrontation when he turned and opened fire.
WASHINGTON
(AP) _ A former high-ranking Justice Department official again came to
the defense of the U.S. attorney in Milwaukee, telling a Senate panel
Tuesday he couldn't fathom why Steve Biskupic would wind up on a list
of targeted prosecutors whose performance and loyalty to President Bush
were questioned.
"I don't know from firsthand knowledge that he
was on a list," said Jim Comey, who was the deputy attorney general
from 2003 to 2005. "I can't imagine why he would be put on a list ... "
Comey
made the remarks at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing under
questioning by Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis. Earlier this month, Comey
defended Biskupic at a House Judiciary Committee hearing, calling the
U.S. attorney an "absolutely straight guy" who would never prosecute
anyone for political reasons.
Democrats have questioned whether
political pressure from the Bush administration influenced Biskupic's
prosecution of state worker Georgia Thompson, whose bid-rigging
conviction was vacated last month by a federal appeals court for a lack
of evidence. Republicans used the Thompson conviction in television ads
last year to allege that Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle's administration was
corrupt.
Biskupic "cares passionately about the independence of
the Department of Justice," Comey said Tuesday, adding that Thompson's
conviction reversal should not be read as an indication that there was
a lack of good faith in the prosecution.
"Sometimes appeals
courts disagree about the inferences to be drawn from the evidence and
reverse a conviction," he said. "That doesn't tell you that the
prosecutor is a bad guy. In fact, I know this one, and this is a good
guy."
But Comey was less forthcoming on the subject of Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales, who is under fire in Congress for the firing
of eight U.S. attorneys.
A service of the Associated Press(AP)
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