Free Republic

Tyler Hurd, a 23-year-old junior at SCSU, hopes to be a special education teacher. Hurd spent the past month at Technical High School in St. Cloud, working toward completing the 50 hours of secondary field placement required to earn his teaching license. But student teaching, along with many other aspects of daily life, is not always simple for Hurd. When Hurd was 14, he sustained a head injury while playing hockey. The injury resulted in epilepsy, a neurological disorder causing chronic seizures. Because a seizure can take place at any moment, Hurd was matched with Emmitt, a 2 and a...

Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer is a college professor with a long history of political activism and fearless liberalism.—AP, 5-11-08, profile of candidate for Minn. Dem primary nomination [emphasis added]. Fearless liberalism? Fearless? It's fearless for an American college professor to be a big-time liberal? Give me a fearless break! Yet that's how the AP described the predictably left-wing politics of the man challenging Al Franken for the right to challenge Republican Norm Coleman for his seat in the US Senate. Among Nelson-Pallmeyer's positions: * opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances * suppport nationwide legalization of same-sex marriages * favors a...

Gasoline prices are up. Isn't that thrilling? We haven't caught Western Europe yet, where they're shelling out $7 a gallon. It's going to take a lot more lousy policymaking to get there, but we can do it. For today, though, let's give ourselves a well-deserved pat on the back for some real progress. Sometimes, you've just got to stop and smell the ethanol. We are oh-so-close to the day when abandoned monster pickups become roadside planters, 3-mile-per-gallon semis are museum pieces and we can pay a whole lot more not just for gas, but for everything. You would think that...

No doubt you felt a surge of Gopher Pride when you learned that a Waseca couple hit the Powerball. The big lottery jackpots always seem to go to people in far-away Cooter County. Bufus! Put down the banjo and git out of the tree, your daddy done won us some Britney-size money!They end up blowing through $150 million in a few years, which isn't surprising: You take an ordinary feller, give him unimaginable wealth, and he will justify building a catapult that throws Ferraris in the air so he can shoot them down with a shoulder-mounted missile launcher. Sure, he'll...

Three small-town eighth-graders were suspended for not standing at the start of the school day Thursday for the Pledge of Allegiance. "My son wasn't being defiant against America," said Kim Dahl, mother of one of the students, Brandt, who attends Dilworth-Glyndon-Felton Junior High School in western Minnesota. Brandt told the Fargo Forum that Thursday's one-day in-school suspension, "was kind of dumb because I didn't do anything wrong. It should be the people's choice." Kim Dahl said the "punishment didn't fit the crime. If they wanted to know why he didn't stand, they should've made him write a paper." She said...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman — who quit the Democratic Party 12 years ago to become a Republican — has accused likely Democratic opponent Al Franken of changing positions, demeanor and rhetoric in his attempt to win a Senate seat. Coleman makes the charge in a fundraising e-mail sent out this week with the subject line, "It's Hard to Deny this Kind of Evolution." "After decades of carrying the flag for radical left-wing causes, his extremely liberal viewpoints are couched in softer, more acceptable terms," Coleman writes of the former "Saturday Night Live" star. "And for the most...

A local gas station employee is out of a job after he thought he was helping save someone’s life. Mark Beverly was one of two employees inside a Roseville Super America when a robber came into the store on March 26. Beverly was cleaning the bathroom when he heard the store clerk cry out. He came out to find a robber attacking the female employee. "I just jumped on his back and trying to hit his head and pushed him over the counter. I jumped back over and he was out of there," he said. Later that day, Beverly returned...

DULUTH, Minn. - The driver of a 1997 Honda Civic that struck and killed a dog near Cloquet is suing the dog's owners for damage done to his vehicle. Jeffery Ely was driving on the night of Jan. 4 when Fester, a miniature pinscher, squeezed past owner Nikki Munthe as she was letting in her other dog and ran out onto the road. Ely's car struck Fester, killing the 13-pound dog instantly. Now Ely is suing the Munthes for about $1,100 for damage to his car, time he had to take off from his two jobs to get the car...

It was something that had never occurred to Jane Flannigan, until she got the call Sunday that her eight-year-old son had been hit by a car while biking with a friend. Owen Erickson was not badly hurt, though he did end up on the hood of the car. But when the car's driver moved his Toyota Prius from the street to the curb, Flannigan noticed something. "I saw the car, but I could not hear anything," she recalled about the hybrid vehicle which was operating on battery power at the time. "It is totally silent." That's when it dawned on...

The owner of the Star Tribune has informed investors that it has written down the value of its $100 million investment in the newspaper by 75 percent to reflect deteriorating conditions since the purchase in March 2007. "In the past year, the newspaper industry has suffered greater than expected declines in circulation and advertising revenue, particularly in print classified advertising," the memo from New York's Avista Capital Partners said. "The outlook in the near to medium term remains uncertain." The write-down, taken at the end of 2007, reflects the estimated loss of value and is consistent with the falling stock...

ROSEVILLE, Minn. - Paul and Sue Rosenau say they already have everything they need, so their lives won't change that much after winning a $180.1 million Powerball jackpot. "We realize that money is probably not as important as friendship and helping others. And that's what we hope to do with it," Paul Rosenau said at a news conference Tuesday when they accepted a ceremonial check. Rosenau, 54, is a heavy equipment operator and his wife, Sue, works at an agricultural research institute. The couple from Waseca will take the prize from last Saturday's drawing in a lump-sum of $59.6 million...

Best Buy's Geek Squad, whose technicians have been accused of copying revealing materials and photos from customers' computers, is changing some rules. One Hennepin County case is set for trial.

A young woman jumped out a second story window after being sexually assaulted early Sunday morning at her home near the University of Minnesota campus, according to Minneapolis Police. Police said a 20-year-old woman was confronted by a stranger in her residence on the 1000 block of 15th Avenue S.E. The woman was sexually assaulted and then fled out of a second story window, breaking her ankle from the fall. Police said she then ran to a neighbor's house to report the assault. Minneapolis police are investigating this recent incident. On April 26, an 18-year-old female student was sexually assaulted...

The Belle Plaine man who fatally shot his 8-year-old son while turkey hunting last month had alcohol and marijuana in his system at the time of the incident, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday in Sibley County. Anthony Klaseus mistook his son, Hunter, for a wild turkey last month and shot him in the chest with a 12-gauge shotgun, according to police. When officials arrived at the scene, they smelled alcohol and asked Klaseus if he had been drinking. Klaseus stated he had consumed one beer several hours earlier in the day and agreed to take a preliminary breath...

Check out the screencap from Carol Costello's CNN Newsroom segment of this morning on Hillary's gas-tax holiday plan. Costello's message: Clinton's proposal isn't just bad economics. It's not simply Santa Claus politics. No, it could . . . put your life in danger. CAROL COSTELLO: For cash-strapped consumers, any reduction in gas prices would be like, well, like Santa coming into town early—or so it seemed on the stump. View video here.

Election day is exactly six months from Sunday and Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race will be one of the most closely watched in the nation. DFL candidate Al Franken jumpstarted his campaign with a rally the day before Republican Norm Coleman officially announced his reelection bid. Since then, headlines have not been kind to Franken. First, a $25,000 fine for not paying workers’ compensation insurance in New York. Then he revealed he is paying $70,000 in back taxes, penalties and interest to 17 states. In the latest SurveyUSA poll about Franken's tax troubles, 500 people were polled. Of those people, 59...

"I can no more disown [Jeremiah Wright] than I can disown my white grandmother." BARACK OBAMA, PHILADELPHIA, MARCH 18 Guess it's time to disown Granny, if Obama's famous Philadelphia "race" speech is to be believed. Of course, the speech was not just believed. It was hailed, celebrated, canonized as the greatest pronouncement on race in America since Lincoln at Cooper Union. A New York Times columnist said it "should be required reading in classrooms across the country." College seniors and first-graders, suggested the excitable Chris Matthews. Apparently there's been a curriculum change. On Tuesday, the good senator begged to extend...

An article in the New York Post Sunday reported the Star Tribune is on the ‘brink of bankruptcy.’ The newspaper recently hired a company to restructure its balance sheet after failing to meet debt obligations, the article reports. In a statement from the Star Tribune in response to the New York Post article, Chris Harte, the newspaper’s publisher said, "The facts are that the Star Tribune currently has sufficient liquidity and is current on all its debt payment obligations." Hart said while it is true that the newspaper faces declining ad revenue, they have been working aggressively to get their...

Grand Theft Auto IV hit the stores last week like a tsunami, and is expected to become one of the biggest sellers in video game history. Commentators agree that the game, with its sophisticated graphics, sets a new standard for realistic violence and sex. News reports and game-related websites give the flavor of what avid gamers are getting for their 60 bucks. GTA IV opens with an S&M sex scene. Players can gun down ordinary citizens, beat up prostitutes, murder cops and enjoy lap dances from strippers. This mayhem is accompanied by what the Associated Press called a "nearly constant...

The Minneapolis Star Tribune, reeling under a heavy debt load and plummeting advertising sales, is on the brink of bankruptcy, The Post has learned. One of the nation's top dailies, "The Strib," as it is known to readers in the Twin Cities, recently hired the Wall Street powerhouse Blackstone Group to restructure its balance sheet after failing to meet its debt obligations, according to people familiar with the company. The broadsheet is unlikely to shutter its doors, but its creditors, including the banking giant Credit Suisse Group, figure to eventually end up controlling the paper. Down the road, the creditor...

A promise to help a little girl live a better life is becoming reality. When a cooking accident in Iraq left Esmma badly burned, a group of Minnesota soldiers who helped her in Iraq, knew she'd get better care in Minnesota. The soldiers were determined to get Esmma to the Mayo Clinic. Two months ago, she and her father Hader arrived in Rochester. Hader explained through a translator that he sold his house and cars to afford the trip to Minnesota. "Even what I did, I don't think I did a lot for her. She deserves more then that, even...

The Minnesota Department of Health wants the final curtain to close on "theater nights" at Bugg's Place. The department filed a lawsuit this week against the South St. Paul bar for holding the events, which attempt to skirt the state's new smoking ban. The department filed a similar injunction request in April against Bullseye Saloon in Elko; a hearing is scheduled for Tuesday. The bars have claimed they operate a Freedom to Breathe Act of 2007 exception allowing actors to smoke as part of a "legitimate theatrical performance." The law, which went into effect Oct. 1, prohibits smoking in several...

Nobody is more effusive in praising the government of the United States than the crackpots who condemn it for its complex plots of manipulative destruction. The college professors and even the occasional pastor who suggest, for example, that the U.S. government masterminded the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, are the same people who insist the government is inefficient, inattentive, ponderous and ultimately corrupt. They can't have it both ways. How can a government that is inefficient, let alone inattentive, ponderous and hopelessly corrupt, pull off a mass killing as magnificent as what occurred on that bright Tuesday morning in...

Senate candidate Al Franken wants to talk about jobs, health care and global warming. Republican blogger Michael Brodkorb wants to talk about Franken's failure to pay all his income taxes on time. Guess what everyone is talking about? From the kitchen table in his tranquil suburban neighborhood, Brodkorb for the last year has used his blog "Minnesota Democrats Exposed" to launch a furious political assault on Franken. He's labeled the former comedian and liberal commentator a "mean-spirited and un-Minnesotan" candidate who's running a "desperate and ridiculous" campaign. That's routine stuff in the world of political blogging, but in the last...

First came the revealation of his failure to pay workers' compensation insurance in New York. Then came the revelation of his failure to file corporate tax returns in California. This week it was revealed that Franken owes $70,000 in back taxes in 17 states.

Senate candidate Al Franken wants to talk about jobs, health care and global warming. Republican blogger Michael Brodkorb wants to talk about Franken's failure to pay all his income taxes on time. Guess what everyone is talking about? From the kitchen table in his tranquil suburban neighborhood, Brodkorb for the last year has used his blog "Minnesota Democrats Exposed" to launch a furious political assault on Franken. He's labeled the former comedian and liberal commentator a "mean-spirited and un-Minnesotan" candidate who's running a "desperate and ridiculous" campaign. That's routine stuff in the world of political blogging, but in the last...

In his tranquil suburban neighborhood, Brodkorb for the last year has used his blog "Minnesota Democrats Exposed" to launch a furious political assault on Franken. He's labeled the former comedian and liberal commentator a "mean-spirited and un-Minnesotan" candidate who's running a "desperate and ridiculous" campaign. That's routine stuff in the world of political blogging, but in the last two months Brodkorb has scored two direct hits that have the Franken campaign reeling. Brodkorb scooped the traditional media by detailing extensive bookkeeping problems in New York and California that ultimately prompted Franken, this week, to pay about $70,000 in back taxes...

Medical news is always contradictory; one day coffee cures leprosy, the next it causes Epstein-Barista syndrome. But even by the usual standards, the latest news was intriguing: this season's flu vaccine targeted the wrong bug, and that led to the worst flu season since the last time the vaccine aimed at the wrong bug. So it's not an exact science, exactly. You'd like to think they head out with tiny nets, capture this year's strain, bring it back to the lab and work all night until someone shouts "EUREKA!" and holds up a test tube while the lightning crashes outside....

Al Franken's accountant hasn't talked to reporters since Franken blamed him for giving him bad tax advice. But tax experts say the accountant should have known that Franken, who is seeking the DFL endorsement to run against GOP Sen. Norm Coleman, needed to pay taxes in the 19 different states where Franken earned money in the last four years. Minnesota Public Radio News contacted 60 local accountants, and heard back from a dozen of them. They all said Franken is ultimately responsible for making sure he pays taxes in the right states. most of them also echoed Woodbury tax accountant...

CLEVELAND (AP) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Thursday backed off his assertion that pork-barrel spending led to last year's deadly bridge collapse in Minneapolis. With Democrats criticizing him for citing wasteful spending as the cause of the disaster, McCain told reporters in Cleveland, "No, I said it would have received a higher priority, which it deserved." That statement was in contrast to McCain's remarks to reporters aboard his campaign bus as it rolled through Pennsylvania on Wednesday: "The bridge in Minneapolis didn't collapse because there wasn't enough money. The bridge in Minneapolis collapsed because so much money was...

A liquor store clerk and a robbery suspect shot each other in a botched armed robbery in Inver Grove Heights. The robbery suspect died of his injuries around 2:00 p.m. Thursday. WHAT HAPPENED Shortly after 10:00 a.m. Thursday, an armed man entered Trail Liquors on South Robert Trail in Inver Grove Heights. Liquor store manager Matt Huerta, 57, claims the suspect entered the business and demanded the cash from the register. Huerta handed over the money, prompting the suspect to demand the money held in a safe in the back of the store. Huerta claimed he did not have access...

LINTON, N.D. – A portion of Ernie Roehrich’s farm hasn’t been plowed for two decades: It’s part of a federal program that pays landowners to idle land for conservation. Payments from the Conservation Reserve Program have helped during lean times. And wildlife – especially pheasants – have flourished on his century-old family farm in south-central North Dakota. But lured by high commodity prices, Roehrich and thousands like him nationwide are opting out of the program – and even paying penalties to exit early. “I’m all for conservation,” Roehrich said. “But the market is the market – farmers are businessmen, too.”...

Poet T.S. Eliot called April the cruelest month. Looking at April 2008, you can add snowiest. Storms late in the month made it the whitest April ever in places such as Park Rapids and Detroit Lakes in Minnesota, with the latter city more than doubling its previous snowfall record for the month. The first 70-degree day of the year usually arrives in April, but the highest the mercury reached in Fargo last month was 68 degrees on the 15th, said John Wheeler, WDAY-TV meteorologist. The last time Fargo saw an April without a 70-degree day was 1996, he said. The...

Members of the Minnesota National Guard received an emotional outpouring of support along Highway 12 Wednesday. Friends, relatives, and strangers lined up for nearly 35 miles to welcome them home from Iraq to their final destination in Litchfield. From 35 miles away in Delano all the way to Litchfield flags, signs and cheers filled the air. They all lined up for the arrival of the 94 troops from the Litchfield based 849th Mobility Augmentation Company. For nearly a year they've been missed by co-workers, honeymoons have been on hold and the last few minutes of waiting at the Litchfield Armory...

Republican John McCain said Wednesday that the bridge collapse in Minnesota that killed 13 people last year would not have happened if Congress had not wasted so much money on pork-barrel spending. Federal investigators cite undersize steel plates as the "critical factor" in the collapse of the bridge. Heavy loads of construction materials on the bridge also contributed to the disaster that injured 145 people on Aug. 1, according to preliminary findings by the National Transportation Safety Board. "The bridge in Minneapolis didn't collapse because there wasn't enough money," McCain told reporters while campaigning in Pennsylvania. "The bridge in Minneapolis...

Dear Governor Pawlenty: It's 3 o'clock in the morning, and somebody is making a phone call. Not to the White House. A child has spiked a fever of 104. Worried parents are trying to reach a doctor. When people have medical emergencies or just simple medical questions, whether it's 3 in the morning or 3 in the afternoon, they don't care how the Health Care Access Fund is divvied up. They're worried. They want to talk to doctors they trust, find out what is wrong and have their doctors make it all better. Public policy that helps that happen is...

When Lakeville police stopped a mini-van going 81 miles per hour at 2:30 a.m. on Interstate Hwy. 35 last week, they found that it was packed with 15 illegal immigrants who had been in the van for seven days. The Ford Windstar, which has allotted space for seven people, was en route to Minneapolis. Lakeville police said it had been specially modified with heavy duty springs and suspension parts to accommodate the additional weight. All 15, including the driver, are expected to be deported to Mexico, said Tim Counts...

Unless we're subjected to another major league game of "double-dare ya" between the Legislature and Gov. Tim Pawlenty, the 2008 session will soon come to a merciful end. With luck, we'll still have a few bucks in our over-taxed pockets and a few freedoms left to enjoy. But with political food fights the name of the game at the Capitol, it can be hard to see beyond the battle du jour and ask ourselves the big question: Who do we want to be as a people in Minnesota? To get some perspective on this, it can be helpful to visit...

Brooklyn Park police were looking for a meth lab, but they found a fish tank and the chemicals needed to maintain it. And a few hours later, when the city sent a contractor to fix the door the police had smashed open Monday afternoon, it was obvious the city was trying to fix a mistake. It happened while Kathy Adams was sleeping. "And the next thing I know, a police officer is trying to get me out bed," she said. Adams, a 54-year-old former nurse who said she suffers from a bad back caused by a patient who attacked her...

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Senate candidate Al Franken says he will pay about $70,000 in back income taxes in 17 states going back to 2003. The Minnesota Democrat has been under attack by Republicans for failing to file tax returns in California for several years when the comedian-turned-candidate earned money there. Franken tells The Associated Press he never intended to avoid paying taxes. He says during the years in question, he paid his entire income tax bill to the city and state where he lived. Franken says he did this on the advice of his accountant, but that he...

A Sacramento County judge has declined to free former 1970s radical Sara Jane Olson after she was sent back to prison following a mixup by state corrections officials. Olson was freed in March from the women's prison in Chowchilla but was quickly re-arrested after officials discovered they had miscalculated her release date by one year. Her attorneys then asked Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cecil to order her release, arguing that state corrections officials had no authority to re-arrest her. They also claimed Olson's due-process rights were violated. In a ruling made public Tuesday, the judge says Olson had...

hris Jenkins was a popular student at the University of Minnesota who disappeared one night in 2003. Reporter and detectives connect "smiley face" tag to deaths of young men. Four months later, he was found dead in the Mississippi River. At first police thought Jenkins was just a drunk college kid who accidentally fell into the river and drowned after a night on the town.

DETECTIVES: Chris Jenkins murder connects dozens around country Could there be a calculated, cross-country plot to kill young college men, including some in Minnesota? It seems a little hard to believe, but two New York detectives say they can prove it. Now, they are revealing years of their evidence for the first time to 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS... GO DEEPER INTO THE INVESTIGATION:

<p>Al Franken's career as an entertainer made him famous and rich and positioned him to run for the U.S. Senate.</p> <p>But now, just as he appears on the verge of securing the DFL endorsement to take on Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, Franken could be tripped up by missteps in the way his show business enterprise was run.</p>

Check out ballot initiative #101. It calls for a "sex strike" (by women only) annually on Aug. 16th, the birthday of a Sunni child. This is to take place in downtown Denver, and St. Paul MN. (Don't know why MN is required to abide by the CO constitution, but I'm sure there is good cause.) It is a "healing" amendment to the Colorado Constitution. There are currently 127 initiatives filed for Nov. ballot. If 1/3 of them get the required signatures, this could be one of the longest ballots in history. Check out some of the other crazy initiatives as...

U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot, R-OH, blamed labor unions and partisan politics for a U.S. House vote this week rejecting an amendment that could have kept the Delta Queen riverboat from having to phase out its overnight cruise packages. The historic riverboat has been operating with a special Congressional exemption from the federal Safety at Sea Act since 1968, an exemption that has been renewed eight times. The safety act bans the use of wooden vessels for overnight cruises. Backers of the exemption claim the Delta Queen deserves special treatment because of its historical significance and recently upgraded fire-safety systems. With...

A friend of mine called me the other night from White Bear Lake. He said he was grilling a steak but couldn't get the temperature of the grill hot enough because there was so much wind and ice and snow. "What are you doing?'' he asked me. "I just lit a kerosene lamp,'' I said, "and I was about to go to the cellar and throw more coal into the furnace. I also have the Masters on television.'' "At least it isn't lightning,'' he said. "No, wait, check that.'' "We have lightning here, too,'' I said. "We have thunder and...

It's late April, but Old Man Winter was showing Friday that he isn't finished with Minnesota just yet. Heavy snow began falling in parts of western Minnesota, where a handful of schools closed early. Ivanhoe reported 2 inches of snow as of 1 p.m., and 5.5 inches was reported in the western town of Donnelly near Morris by 4 p.m. By 7:30 p.m., Appleton and Madison both reported 8 inches, and by 9 p.m. Donnelly had nearly 9 inches. The National Weather Service said a large area of western and northern Minnesota could get 6 inches to 15 inches by...

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows that Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman has opened a seven-percentage point lead over Democratic challenger Al Franken in his bid for re-election. Coleman, widely considered one of the most vulnerable incumbents of Election 2008, attracts 50% of the vote for the first time this year while Franken earns support from 43%.

DETECTIVES: Chris Jenkins murder connects dozens around country Could there be a calculated, cross-country plot to kill young college men, including some in Minnesota? It seems a little hard to believe, but two New York detectives say, they can prove it. Now, they are revealing years of their evidence for the first time to 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS... University of Minnesota college student Chris Jenkins was found in the Mississippi River in February of 2003. Minneapolis Police began investigating the case, which also caught the attention of two retired NYPD detectives. Turns out, Jenkins' death was the missing part of the...