Free Republic

Teen abortions in Minnesota have declined dramatically since the state enacted a law requiring parental notification before minors undergo abortions. Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding Minnesota’s parental notification requirement. The law (MN Statute 144.343), strongly supported by Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life (MCCL), was passed by the Legislature with large bipartisan majorities in 1981. It requires that both parents be notified at least 48 hours before an abortion is performed on a minor girl. The measure includes a judicial bypass procedure, which is required by the courts, and exceptions for rare cases. Minnesota’s...

Dakota County Sheriff Tim Leslie will soon have his deputies obtaining DNA from people arrested and charged for certain violent crimes. This DNA collection will take place before they are convicted – a departure from current Minnesota law. In 2006, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled the practice of gathering DNA, without a warrant, from people charged but not convicted, was illegal. Two years ago, in 2013, the United States Supreme Court ruled the practice was okay – at least in Maryland. In light of that ruling, Dakota County is betting that if their new procedure is challenged in court,...

A 24-year-old Minneapolis man who police say is a gang member is now charged in Thursday's shooting of an innocent mother and her child. On Monday, the Hennepin County Attorney's office charged 27-year-old Dontae Peterson with eight counts of attempted murder and assault. Police announced an arrest Friday. Police say Peterson was arguing with a man, only identified as OT2, and his associates. At about 2:15 p.m. on June 18, Peterson noticed OT2 and his friends were riding in a light-colored SUV that was traveling north on Park Avenue. Peterson ran through Peavey Park and stood between two parked cars....

It's late on a Tuesday morning and — as it's done every day for decades — the Patrick Gannaway towboat pushes its two barges up the Mississippi River right through downtown Minneapolis. To get its 2,400 tons of sand, gravel, and limestone past the river's only waterfall, the barges take a five-story vertical ride inside the Upper St. Anthony Falls lock. Deckhands squeeze everything into the narrow chamber and use a winch to take up the slack in the boat's steel cables. In a control room above, a lock operator closes the chamber's enormous gates before opening a valve and...

Wages Mazatlan Mexican Restaurant will be serving 25 employees a total of nearly $355,000 in back wages after violating the Fair Labor Standards Act. The consent judgment made Thursday comes after an investigation by the U. S. Department of Labor Wages and Hours Division. Christopher Rosengren, attorney at Rosengren Kohlmeyer, says, "The Fair Labor Standards Act in a nutshell ensures that all workers are treated fairly." The U.S. Department of Labor says Mazatlan violated several provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, including minimum wage, overtime and records–keeping. The investigation focused on incidents between March 2011 and March 2013. Rosengren...

Anarchy reigned in Mankato, Minn., for a short time last week before authorities stepped in to curb the scourge of outdoor dining without enough live plants in the vicinity. The Mankato Times reports police shut down the patio at Blue Bricks on Front Street last week after they determined there weren’t enough flowers nearby. In Mankato, 25 percent of the area around patio dining has to have at least 25 percent live plants

The archbishop of the Twin Cities and a deputy bishop have resigned after prosecutors charged the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis with having failed to protect children from unspeakable harm from a pedophile priest. The Vatican said Monday that Pope Francis accepted the resignations of Archbishop John Nienstedt and Auxiliary Bishop Lee Anthony Piche. They resigned under the code of canon law that allows bishops to resign before they retire because of illness or some other "grave" reason that makes them unfit for office. Earlier this month, Ramsey County prosecutors charged the archdiocese as a corporation with having "turned...

My favorite response was from a woman with a funny name -- one of those names where the alphabet got tossed up in the air -- who told me that she bicycles to and from work, to any event, social or otherwise, to the store, what have you. Really? You ride your bike to social events? Don't you get sweaty? I'm wondering what would constitute a social event that you could ride your bike to. Let's say you're going to an art museum charity fundraiser. Do you wear a dress? Valet park? I'm not buying that, any more than I...

Three recruiting assistants for the Minnesota National Guard have been indicted for what the military has described as a "widespread scheme." They were indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury in Minneapolis and are accused of illegally taking bonuses for signing up new recruits. According to the indictments, Timothy Stafford is accused of fraud in kickbacks on the enlistment of 25 soldiers, and Terry Wosmek and Quinton Jones are accused of receiving kickbacks for four recruits each.

It's a case of dueling press releases. But it deserves a minute of Minnesotans' time -- especially those Minnesotans who oppose the Sandpiper Pipeline and can't understand why their fellow residents keep rejecting their arguments. For those opponents, gaining this understanding is crucial. For indisputable evidence now has surfaced that the pipeline's backers are carrying the day -- evidence in the form of Friday's unanimous vote in favor of the pipeline by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission. How can that be? How is it that even in famously liberal and environmentally sensitive Minnesota, the Land of 10,000 Lakes, the commission...

The parents of two of the defendants in a Somali-American terrorism case allegedly knew that their sons planned to leave the U.S. to fight with terrorists in the Middle East, according to transcripts of secret wire recordings released by federal prosecutors Wednesday. Mohamed Farah, whose detention hearing is scheduled for Thursday morning in federal court in Minneapolis, told another alleged conspirator that in mid-April his mother knew of his impending plans to travel to Syria, according to the recordings made by a confidential informant, a friend of Farah’s who was working for the FBI. “She knows where I’m going, bro,...

A young man who had threatened local FBI agents was set free Tuesday in part because of a U.S. Supreme court ruling 10 days ago. Mohamed Ali Omar, the older brother of one of seven Minnesota terror suspects accused of trying to join ISIS, was found guilty in March of threatening FBI agents who came to his south Minneapolis home to investigate his brother. But on Tuesday he walked out of federal custody. A judge will decide in September if his conviction should be tossed out and if he should get a new trial. It was just eight days ago...

Big premium increases that Minnesota insurers proposed last week reflect losses they’ve been taking in a part of the market targeted by the federal health law. Insurers say they collectively lost more than $300 million on policies for individuals who buy coverage on their own last year because subscribers had more costly health problems than expected. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, which is the largest insurer in the individual market, announced proposed average increases of 54 percent and 55 percent. Blue Cross says it lost $135 million in the individual market during 2014. “When there are losses that...

June 05--Minnesotans got a shock Thursday when the state's health insurers proposed "eye-popping" rate increases for people who buy health insurance on the individual market -- premium increases as high as 70 percent. Democratic-Farmer-Labor Gov. Mark Dayton condemned the increases as "outrageous" and suggested they should be scaled back. Republicans saw them as reason to criticize the state-run portion of that market, MNsure. Here's the background about these premium increases, why they're happening and what they mean: What's proposed? Federal law requires health insurers to disclose any premium increases above 10 percent. Those were released Wednesday, and in Minnesota, there...

Charges have been filed against the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, which is accused of failing to protect children, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi announced Friday. Choi said the charges are in relation to three victims of former priest Curtis Wehmeyer. Six charges have been filed, all of which are gross misdemeanors. They include three counts of Contributing to Need for Protection or Services and three counts of Contributing to Status as Juvenile Petty Offender or Delinquency. Because the charges are against a corporation rather than individuals, Choi said no one is looking at jail time; if convicted, the...

“What I saw happening on our trip, I thought it was beautiful because kids could talk to these sex educators without any shame, without any fear,” Hedges said Monday. Gaia is a K-12 school with a motto promising academic freedom, youth empowerment and democratic education. Parents say the school has about 25 students, including several described by administrators as transgender...“It was certainly the first time we have taken that kind of field trip and it will probably be our last, which I feel bad [about] because the kids had so much fun,”

Show and Tell no longer has the same harmless meaning it once had. “Parents of students at Encinal High School in Alameda want a teacher fired after they say he sent them home with an extra credit assignment of finding sex toys and condoms in their parents’ private drawers, and taking a selfie with what they find,” CBS San Francisco reported on June 3, 2015. “Mothers Kimberly Cobene and Evangeline Garcia heard about the sex toy selfie last month from a counselor at an afterschool program their sophomore daughters attend.” “It was to go into your parents’ private drawers or...

The field trip upset some parents at Gaia School. “It’s just a major breach of trust," said one parent. Some parents are outraged after the leader of a small Minneapolis private school took about a dozen middle- and high-school-aged students on a sex education field trip to an adult novelty store late last week. “It’s just a major breach of trust,” said Lynn Floyd, whose 11- and 13-year-old daughters were part of the outing to the Smitten Kitten. “You just can’t erase those images.” A leader of Gaia Democratic School and the host of the field trip defended the outing,...

A West St. Paul man is accused of beating his young children and forcing two of them to take shots with him until they were drunk. Officers were called at 11:56 p.m. Friday, May 29, after a woman reported a domestic assault. The woman said she is married to 28-year-old Oscar Oswaldo Cruz of West St. Paul and that they have been together for five years. They have a 1-year-old and 4-year-old together, and she has a 6-year-old and 9-year-old from a previous relationship. All of them live together in West St. Paul. The woman said Cruz called her at...

Roughly one dozen students in Minneapolis, Minnesota, some as young as 11 years old, were taken on a private school-sponsored field trip to an adult novelty store last week, leaving some parents furious. The director of the private Gaia Democratic School in Minneapolis, Starri Hedges, took the middle- and high school-aged kids to “Smitten Kitten” as part of a sex education lesson. Parent Lynn Floyd called the field trip a “major breach of trust,” adding that parents were not even notified ahead of the trip. Both of her daughters, aged 11 and 13, attended the off-campus trip. “You just can’t...