Free Republic

MILWAUKEE -- The Milwaukee Police Department found that there is a serious problem with its guns. Officer Vidal Colon was injured over the weekend in a shootout, in which his gun jammed. The police chief has known about the problem for a year, but he is now taking immediate action following Saturday’s shooting. The chief sent a memo to the entire police department about the weapon problem. On Saturday, Colon responded to a report of a man armed with a gun near 36th and Scott streets. Colon fired his gun 13 times, and the suspect, Louis Domenech, shot back six...

Frustration with the federal government’s response to the nation’s economic woes boiled over Saturday as a feisty crowd of about 80 people gave Sen. Byron Dorgan an earful during a town hall meeting at West Fargo City Hall. Dorgan, D-N.D., took a barrage of questions about the proposed economic recovery plan, which emerged from Senate negotiations late Friday with a new price tag of $780 billion after purging $100 billion from the House version. One person asked why the cost of the plan is so high if Congress isn’t sure it will be effective.

Radio talk show host Ed Schultz is calling on North Dakota political leaders to create a tax credit program to spur the state’s auto sales as talk centers nationally on a federal bailout of the U.S. auto industry. Schultz offered the idea Wednesday on his “News and Views” program on KFGO. Schultz said Americans “expect more action” to fix the economy and the sagging auto industry and that North Dakota’s projected $1.3 billion budget surplus means it can afford to give its citizens an incentive to buy vehicles. “We have to do something,” Schultz said. “We need to forward the...

BISMARCK – North Dakota’s new Teacher of the Year was barred from a reception held to honor top teachers because she declined to join the North Dakota Education Association, education officials said.

GE's announcement a week ago that it would accept offers for its appliances business marked the death-knell of yet another US manufacturing business, one among so many in US manufacturing's long and seemingly unstoppable downtrend since 1980. - snip -The sad story of GE Appliances is a paradigm of what has gone wrong in the US economy since 1980. No, manufacturing did not need to leave the United States; US manufacturing was killed by a multitude of foolish short-term-profit motivated decisions by inept and overpaid US management.

Based on the valuable input from a previous thread, I picked up a brand new Ruger Mini-30. Right out of the box I had the sad experience of pulling the trigger and no bang. I send it back to the factory, waited long 3 weeks and got it back with a note that they had replaced the firing pin. Took it out yesterday and got 5 shots off before the pin broke again. Can’t blame cheap ammo, I’m using USA made Winchester. Is Ruger using glass firing pins? Is something misaligned in the action causing extra stress on the pin?

Hundreds of North Dakotans can help solve a health mystery by participating in a study that will investigate possible risks associated with eating wild game killed by lead bullets. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the North Dakota Department of Health will test the blood-lead levels of 680 people in the state. The study, which starts Friday, will compare blood lead levels of people who eat venison with the levels of those who don’t.

The Red River Valley needs more resources for foster parents to care for culturally and diverse children, a foster parent says. Jill Sherbrooke said it took awhile to figure out that her 7-year-old foster child is Muslim and shouldn’t have pork or marshmallows, for example. “We have no idea even where to go, how to help her learn about her background, her culture, her religion,” Sherbrooke said last week of the girl, who is from Liberia.

MILWAUKEE -- After two abductions and several armed robberies, police and public safety officers are taking action on the Marquette campus. Officials held a forum featuring student safety where police gave tips to keep students safe and give them peace of mind. Statistically, Milwaukee police said it's one of the safest areas in the city. A recent string of armed robberies on and around the university, however, have some students on edge.

These two are comparable in price and probably in performance. Looks like the M1 is about 1-1/2 lb. lighter. Suggestions?

A 35-year veteran of the Cass County Sheriff’s Department will remain on duty while authorities investigate how he accidentally discharged his weapon while using the bathroom Thursday at the Cass County Courthouse. Detective Dean Wawers was in the men’s restroom on the main floor of the courthouse about 12:45 p.m. when his standard-issue handgun – a .40-caliber Glock Model 23 – accidentally discharged, Sheriff Paul Laney said Friday during a news conference.

A mercury spill on the south side of Fargo’s South High School put the school into a lockdown for more than an hour this afternoon. A thermometer was broken in a medical careers class and some mercury was released, said Superintendent Rick Buresh, who was at the scene. He said it didn’t appear anyone was injured. However, a teacher and two students were kept for decontamination, Fargo Fire Capt. Gary Lorenz said.

A 31-year-old convenience store clerk suffered a minor gunshot wound late Friday when three masked men entered the business and one fired off a shot from a 30-30 lever-action rifle (think Chuck Connors in "The Rifleman"), Milwaukee Police said today. The clerk a the Locust Quick Mart, 1432 W. Locust St., was grazed around 10 p.m., and was treated and released from a local hospital, according to Capt. Gregory Habeck. The suspects were described as three African-American men, ages 17 to 18. Their motives were unclear, according to Habeck. The trio hadn't demanded money and left as soon as the...

All three victims injured in a fire today at the Bartolotta Fireworks factory west of Waukesha were members of the Bartolotta family, a family member said. The wounded factory workers were identified as Rocco Bartolotta, 22; Dominic Bartolotta, 30; and Anthony Bartolotta, 32. A family spokeswoman at Columbia St. Mary's Hospital in Milwaukee said Rocco and Dominic were being treated at St. Mary's, while Anthony was treated at Waukesha Memorial Hospital and released. The spokeswoman, Donna Bartolotta, the mother of Rocco Bartolotta, said all three victims suffered second- and third-degree burns in the fire. Investigators continued their search for the...

Call Dean Wormer: Graduation party at restaurant owned by 'Animal House' actor gets out of hand... Mequon - When the party animals at Delta house were facing the wrath of the Faber College dean and campus ROTC commander Doug Neidermeyer, they decided on a now-classic response: "Toga party." Twenty-eight years later, a group of high school students decided the best way to celebrate graduation would be in togas - with a party at Libby Montana restaurant in Mequon. It seems the party planners chose Libby Montana because the actor who played Neidermeyer in the movie "Animal House" - Mark Metcalf...

Rotation Slim sold ice cream to the whores who, in the 1930s, worked Pepsi-Cola Alley in his hometown, Birmingham, Ala. Slim was fond of whores; he had an affinity for them. In the Army, training in Texas, he'd slip down to Mexico, where women, sometimes girls, would give him what he wanted for 50 cents - half what the women charged on Pepsi-Cola Alley. Stationed in London during WWII, Slim had a knack for finding women whose houses had been bombed, who had lost everything and had no place to go. He'd sneak them onto the base and sell their...

SAN FRANCISCO - Paul A. Flaherty, a computer engineer who helped create the pioneering AltaVista online search engine, has died. He was 42. Flaherty died March 16 of a heart attack at his home in Belmont, about 20 miles south of San Francisco, family members said Friday. Flaherty came up with the idea of indexing Web pages that made the AltaVista search engine one of the most popular Internet search tools in the mid-1990s.

U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore brought former Sen. John Edwards to Milwaukee on Monday to talk about poverty in what was billed as a "community forum" on its effects in the city. But the event had the strong hint of another presidential campaign in the making for Edwards. An overflow audience turned out at the Hillside Family Resource Center, 1452 N. 7th St., to hear Democrats Edwards and Moore discuss poverty and its impact on the nation and Milwaukee. The event was the beginning of what Moore says will be an ongoing dialogue between her office and the public on poverty...

In the late 1980s, a history professor from Marquette University named John William Rooney walked into the French National Archives in Paris and walked out with a copy of the 1814 Treaty of Fontainebleau, a woven paper with red wax seals and a green silk cord through which Napoleon Bonaparte agreed to give up the French empire and accept exile. John William Rooney, former Marquette professor, on taking the 1814 Treaty of Fontainebleau from the French archives The opportunity to steal a major piece of history, Rooney said, was too tempting to pass up. "If you were to stand in...

Detroit - About one-third of the automotive parts industry is probably headed for bankruptcy. The chilling prediction comes from Sean McAlinden, chief economist at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. He spoke at a conference for automotive writers Saturday, a week before the North American International Auto Show opens to the public Jan. 14 at Detroit's Cobo Conference and Exhibition Center. Faced with financial hemorrhaging, automakers are paring down their number of suppliers and are working closer with the remaining companies to get a better handle on costs. Those suppliers in top market positions can invest in...