Free Republic

MANKATO, Minn. - A KEYC-TV anchor who made David Letterman's Top 10 List after many speculated she could have been drunk during a newscast has been arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. An anonymous caller contacted the North Mankato Police Department on Wednesday morning to report an intoxicated person was leaving a Roe Crest Drive residence in a vehicle. A report describing the vehicle was put out to law enforcement officers in the area and the car was stopped by a Nicollet County sheriff's deputy on U.S. 14. Annie Stensrud, 28, was arrested for allegedly driving while intoxicated. She...

The founder and former chief executive of troubled Bixby Energy, an alternative energy startup, will appear in U.S. District Court in St. Paul this afternoon after being arrested this morning by federal agents. Bob Walker, also the retired founder of mattress maker Select Comfort Corp., is scheduled to appear before Magistrate Judge Janie S. Mayeron at 2 p.m., Jeanne Cooney, community relations director for the U.S. Attorney's office said today. The charges against Walker will be revealed in court, Cooney said. Last Wednesday, Ramsey-based Bixby Energy admitted to defrauding investors of between $2.5 million and $7 million and agreed to...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The White Castle hamburger chain is sipping on the idea of selling alcoholic beverages at its restaurants. The 90-year-old company is testing beer and wine sales at a location in Lafayette, Ind., that combines a traditional White Castle burger joint with a Blaze Modern BBQ, a new restaurant concept also being tried out. In other cities, Columbus, Ohio-based White Castle is testing an Asian food concept and a restaurant that serves grilled sandwiches.

1 --According to his biography, he first picked up a golf club in 1994, at North Korea's only golf course, and shot a 38-under par round that included no fewer than 11 holes in one. Satisfied with his performance, he reportedly immediately declared his retirement from the sport.

A 6-year-old boy struck by a car at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport was listed in fair condition Sunday at Gillette Children's Hospital. Zachary Drew, his mother and three siblings had been on his way to greet his father who was returning from an 11-month tour in Iraq with the Oklahoma National Guard, the boy's mother said Saturday. They were crossing the ramp to the terminal around 8 p.m. Friday when the accident happened. The little boy suffered a broken leg and nose, lost most of his teeth, and he may need reconstructive surgery on his jaw. "This guy turns the...

At least 10 doctors not previously disciplined by the state signed sick notes for Madison School District employees that the district considered fraudulent, according to a State Journal analysis of the notes submitted amid Capitol protests earlier this year. The newspaper also found that about 570 district employees submitted sick notes for at least one of the four days in February when teacher absences forced a school shutdown. The number presents, for the first time, a clearer picture of how many Madison employees sought an excused absence. The documents - obtained by the newspaper Friday as part of a settlement...

First Amendment rights don't apply at a bayfront Christmas attraction, the city of Duluth argued in an objection filed Friday in federal court. "Bentleyville is not a public forum, and the nonprofit is not a state actor," Duluth City Attorney Gunnar Johnson said, reading from the city's objection. "The plaintiffs do not have First Amendment rights in Bentleyville." Federal Magistrate Judge Leo Brisbois recommended this week in favor of a temporary restraining order that would permit Steve Jankowski of Duluth and Peter Scott of Hibbing to resume preaching at Bentleyville, at Bayfront Festival Park. Last year, city police told them...

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Koch Industries is looking to fill 2,500 job openings across the nation thanks to the commercial growth of most of its subsidiaries. Company officials said most of the 300 job openings at Koch Industries and 10 of its subsidiaries in Wichita are new, professional positions in areas such as information technology, accounting and engineering, The Wichita Eagle (http://bit.ly/t02aP1) reported Friday. "Most of the job openings are due to growth as opposed to replacement," said Jeff Morris, director of talent development for Koch Industries. "It's a good problem to have," he said of the overall job openings....

It's a database of words that no lawmaker can talk their way out of. "We just want lawmakers to be a little bit more transparent and accountable," said Tom Lee, with the non-profit Washington, D.C. organization the Sunlight Foundation. On Monday, it announced a retooled and beefed up website, capitolwords.org, that tracks every word uttered on the floor of the U.S. House and Senate, going back 15 years. "It's not only something that's fun," Lee said, "but it's also a serious tool. It can be used to show deliberate ways in which language is used to manipulate the public.

Should we act on climate change now or wait? While an international majority of scientists believes climate change is real, a minority of scientists and majority of politicians want you to wait. After all, behavior change should not be mandated or government regulated - especially without proof. UBS Wealth Management, a financial services company working with high/ultra high net worth clients, published a comprehensive report to its investors in January of 2007 titled "Climate Change: Beyond Whether." Its findings suggest we can follow one of three paths: 1) Take a wait-and-see approach 2) Act now and risk investment if nothing...

The University of Minnesota sent employees its seasonal celebration guidelines for office activities. The school recommends using "winter celebration" as terminology instead of "holiday party." Also they say to keep decorations, music, and food general, not specific to any religion. The University says the policy mirrors federal guidelines.

A conservative group has set up a nativity scene at the Capitol building in Madison, and an atheists' group is seeking its own permit for an opposing display. A WISC-TV report says Wisconsin Family Action has been granted a permit to display its scene until the end of the month. The six statuettes that sit on a table depict the birth of Jesus Christ. Group spokeswoman Julaine Appling says the display is tasteful. She says there's room for a number of different voices. But the Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation says a nativity scene isn't appropriate for a state building....

Jennifer "Rita" Platt says she's determined to vote next year, but Wisconsin isn't making it easy for her. She and the rest of Wisconsin's voters will need to comply with a new voter ID law when they go to the polls in February's primaries. With few exceptions, those without the proper ID can't vote. But Platt and her boyfriend don't have forms of identification accepted at the polls, so they recently drove about 45 minutes to a Department of Motor Vehicles office in Hudson to each get an ID. They encountered two problems. The DMV office's computer system was down,...

Union militants are threatening and harassing the courageous charter school teacher who is leading the fight to defend Wisconsin's new government-sector Right to Work law. With free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation attorneys, Kristi Lacroix and two other civil servants filed an amicus brief and a motion to intervene against union lawyers' spurious lawsuit seeking to overturn Wisconsin's monopoly bargaining reforms. WISN-TV in Milwaukee reported that "she has been blistered by negative and vicious emails and phone messages at school and on Facebook, including one suggesting she get protection."

The New York Times reported last week that Republican leaders in the Senate are trying to recruit Gov. Dave Heineman to run against conservative Don Stenberg in the Republican primary race for U.S. Senate in Nebraska. This recruitment effort is troubling for several reasons. First, it threatens Don Stenberg, a proven conservative who is already leading incumbent U.S. Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) in the polls. Gov. Heineman is a good guy, but by his own admission his heart is not in this race, and he's definitely no Don Stenberg. In fact, the Cato Institute recently gave Heineman a "C" grade...

The plaintiffs in the lawsuits and other opponents of the current policy allege that its language, which instructs staff to stay neutral on discussions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender topics in the classroom, perpetuates a hostile environment for the GLBT community in district schools. Several teachers have also said the policy is difficult to interpret and apply. But the majority of school board members have stood behind it, saying it is an important policy to keep teachers neutral on a controversial and sometimes polarizing topic. The new policy states that "teachers and educational support staff shall not advocate personal...

In short, what the Congressional Budget Office presents as increased inequality from 2003 to 2007 was actually evidence that the top 1% of earners report more taxable income when tax rates are reduced on dividends, capital gains and businesses filing under the individual tax code. If Congress raises top individual tax rates much above the corporate rate, many billions in business income would rapidly vanish from the individual tax returns the CBO uses to measure the income of the top 1%. Small businesses and professionals would revert to reporting most income on corporate tax returns as they did in 1979.

Deep in debt and dealing with a complete turnover in leadership, the Minnesota Republican Party is limping into a high-stakes election year. The condition of the party has led to squabbling over past losses and disagreement over direction. And it comes as the GOP is looking to defend its first-in-a-generation hold on legislative majorities, the only check on a state government otherwise controlled by Democrats. The party will meet early in 2012 to select a new chairman to replace Tony Sutton, who abruptly resigned Friday amid internal criticism of the party's finances. The party has lost a third of its...

SAN ANTONIO — A Texas woman who for months was unable to qualify for food stamps pulled a gun in a state welfare office and staged a seven-hour standoff with police that ended with her shooting her two children before killing herself, officials said Tuesday. The children, a 10-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl, remained ...

Chrysler Group LLC confirmed today that its new small car, the first vehicle to feature Fiat SpA (F.MI) technology, will be called the Dodge Dart. The car, in production at the automaker's assembly plant in Belvidere, Ill., will be featured in January at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. With this vehicle, Chrysler will have a small-car offering in its portfolio for the first time in more than a decade. The car also will allow majority stakeholder Fiat to raise its stake in Chrysler by 5 percentage points to 58.3 percent once it is certified by the U.S....