Free Republic

State Sen. Nicole Mitchell, DFL-Woodbury, was arrested Monday morning in Detroit Lakes and booked into the Becker County Jail for suspected first-degree burglary. Detroit Lakes Police Chief Steve Todd said at 4:45 a.m. on Monday, a 911 dispatcher received a call from a homeowner on Granger Road who reported that there was a burglar inside their home. Todd said officers arrested the woman inside the home and she was identified as Mitchell. Mitchell, 49, was booked into Becker County Jail and was still listed on the jail’s roster early Monday afternoon. Mitchell was elected to the Senate in 2022 and...

On more than 10,000 acres of drained swampland in western New York, Maureen Torrey’s family farm grows an assortment of vegetables in the dark, nutrient-rich soil known as “Elba muck.” Like other farms in the area, Torrey Farms Inc. of Elba, N.Y., depends on seasonal labor, mainly undocumented field hands from Mexico, to pick, package and ship its cabbage, cucumbers, squash, green beans and onions throughout the nation. With the peak harvest season at hand, Torrey’s concerns about a labor shortage are growing. A crackdown on illegal immigration, more job opportunities in Mexico and rising fees charged by smugglers are...

Skip Foppiano of Morada Produce is praying for cool weather. The San Joaquin County grower and packer is thick into cherry harvest season and is short on labor - 20 to 30 percent fewer pickers than he had last year. If it gets too hot, his smaller-than-usual workforce won't have time to get all the cherries off the trees before they rot. Farmers across California are experiencing the same problem: Seasonal workers who have been coming for decades to help with the harvest, planting and pruning have dropped off in recent years. With immigration crackdowns, an aging Mexican population, drug...

Antonio Nuño Gonzalez stood in line in Mexico and waited for his papers to come to the United States. Eventually he was packed into a cattle car with other men for the trip north. After crossing the border, he was sprayed with DDT and stripped naked for a physical examination so thorough he's still making ribald jokes about it more than 50 years later. It was all worth it for the chance to do back-breaking work — picking cotton, strawberries, lettuce and other California crops, from the desert heat of Brawley to the verdant coastal valley of Watsonville. His American...

We have to guard against a kind of moral obtuseness where if we don’t see the harm, that means it doesn’t exist. These poor people can’t afford to send their children off to day camp in the summer so they can do archery and go swimming. They can’t afford an academic program so the children’s achievements won’t dissipate over the summer. They can’t afford to have Mom quit work and stay home to watch them, so they bring their children to work. It is not in any way obvious that the children would be better off if their parents made...

PORTLAND, Ore. — Kroger supermarkets is recalling 10-ounce packages of pistachios sold in Texas and 30 other states over fears of possible salmonella contamination.

<p>PLATTEVILLE, Colo. (AP) -- A farm couple got a huge surprise when they opened their fields to anyone who wanted to pick up free vegetables left over after the harvest -- 40,000 people showed up.</p> <p>Joe and Chris Miller's fields were picked so clean Saturday that a second day of gleaning -- the ancient practice of picking up leftover food in farm fields -- was canceled yesterday.</p>

State inspectors return to California's fields after years of lax enforcement of laws. KERMAN, Calif. — A lot of what California farming is about today was contained within a gold 1989 Ford Aerostar that arrived at a surprise roadblock by state labor authorities as the sun was coming up Tuesday. The van had no seat belts and was not insured. The driver had neither a driver's license nor the permit required to transport farmworkers.   Inside the van were seven passengers, among them three girls who looked under 18 years old. For several weeks, they had been working in the...