Free Republic

President Joe Biden’s migration has flooded almost 1,000 poor Latino migrants into the poor college town of Whitewater, Wisconsin, according to a plea by the city’s police department. “Their arrival has put great strains on our existing resources, ” says the letter to Biden by the city manager and police chief of the 15,000-person city: Communicating with an immigrant population that generally speaks only Spanish has been a challenge we’ve worked to overcome by the use of costly translation software. We have found approximately three times the number of unlicensed drivers on our roadways compared to previous years. This occupies...

Parents in a Colorado school district expressed outrage after a report said the local teachers union sent out an email to its members instructing them to get rid of evidence of students' transgender information, according to a CBS report. The Jefferson County Education Association (JCEA) email explained to teachers that if they surveyed students on their gender identities, that information should not be stored in records, in a CBS report headlined, "Controversy erupts in Jefferson County after the teachers union tells educators to destroy evidence of student surveys regarding gender identity." The email said, "if you do a questionnaire, please...

More than 100 parents contacted the Courier Journal to report problems with their child's transportation. Parents said they were particularly upset by the district's lack of communication about when their children would arrive home from school. The last bus riders weren't dropped off until 9:58 p.m. Smallwood said the bus her children rode didn’t have air conditioning, and since kids weren’t allowed to have food or drink on the bus, her autistic daughter, who has low blood sugar and must eat every two hours, was told she couldn’t eat because there were “no exceptions.” Smallwood said her family also couldn’t...

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo — Three 18-year-old suspects, who are high school seniors, were arrested in connection to a string of rock-throwing incidents at vehicles including the senseless attack that killed 20-year-old Alexa Bartell. The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office announced the arrests Wednesday morning. Bartell was killed on April 19 around 10:45 p.m. after a rock was thrown into her windshield while she was driving northbound on Indiana Street in Jefferson County.

A circuit judge in Kentucky has again blocked a pair of state abortion bans from taking effect — in part, he said, because they adopt “a distinctly Christian and Catholic belief” about when life begins. “The laws at issue here adopt the view embraced by some, but not all, religious traditions, that life begins at the moment of conception,” Judge Mitch Perry of the Jefferson County Circuit Court wrote in an opinion issued Friday. “The General Assembly is not permitted to single out and endorse the doctrine of a favored faith for preferred treatment. By taking this approach, the bans...

An employee of the city of Birmingham Mayor’s Office was arrested over the weekend on felony charges. Uche Bean, 32, was arrested late Friday night by Birmingham police. Police officials have not yet responded to a request for additional information about the allegations and charges against Bean. Bean said she declined to comment at this time. Bean was held in the Birmingham City Jail until warrants were obtained Sunday charging her with second-degree domestic violence and third-degree burglary, jail records show. Bean, deputy director of Mayor Randall Woodfin’s Division of Social Justice and Racial Equity, was then booked into the...

A Navy nuclear engineer and his wife from Maryland were busted for trying to sell confidential information about US nuclear-powered submarines to a foreign country, using memory cards hidden inside a peanut butter sandwich and a Band-Aid wrapper to transmit the secrets, according to court documents. Jonathan Toebbe, who worked at the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program and had a top-secret security clearance, and his wife, Diana, were busted Saturday in Jefferson County, W.Va., accused by the FBI for violating the Atomic Energy Act, the Justice Department said on Sunday. Toebbe, 42, “has passed, and continues to pass, Restricted Data as...

A group of police officers and firefighters are suing Oregon Gov. Kate Brown over the state's vaccine mandate, KOIN-TV reported. The lawsuit, filed in Jefferson County Circuit Court, seeks to deter the state from mandating all employees of the executive branch to be vaccinated against COVID-19. The group is asking a judge to declare Brown's order as "unenforceable." They claim the executive order clashes with existing Oregon statutes of free expression and could result in the wrongful termination of employees. "Forcing them to decide between their livelihoods and vindicating their statutory and constitutional rights is unconscionable and wrong," the suit...

Feb. 26—Carbon County commissioners aren't keen on a plan to toll bridges along Interstate 80 to fund construction projects. Commissioner Chris Lukasevich on Thursday said Pennsylvania residents already pay the highest gas tax in the United States, and feels that state should better use existing funds. Commissioners Wayne Nothstein and Rocky Ahner also question the move, which would allow tolls on the Interstate 80 bridges over the Lehigh River at the Carbon-Luzerne county line for up to 30 years. Ahner worried about the average commuter, who has to pay the toll each way to go to work every day. "It...

A U.S. Postal Service employee is out of a job amid an investigation into over 100 absentee ballots discarded in a dumpster in Louisville, Kentucky. A contractor found the unopened 112 ballots while renovating a home in Jefferson County on Thursday. Additionally, two political flyers were discovered by special agents with the Postal Service Office of the Inspector General. “When the investigation is concluded, the case will be presented for federal prosecution to the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” Special Agent Scott Balfour said in a statement. The case has been turned over to the U.S. attorney’s office, Balfour said. Such incidents...

LOUISVILLE, KY — As polls began closing in the parts of Kentucky in the Eastern Time zone Tuesday, State Rep. Charles Booker's U.S. Senate campaign requested an injunction from the Jefferson Circuit Court to extend voting hours until 9 p.m. at the Kentucky Exposition Center. In a news release, the campaign said it filed a petition for the injunction because of reports of serious traffic delays at the Kentucky Expo Center, which served as a polling location in Louisville. After the petition was filed, the doors were unlocked and remained open until 6:30 p.m., NBC affiliate WAVE-TV reports. “For hours,...

School officials in Colorado are considering demolishing Columbine High School because of a “morbid fascination” surrounding the 1999 shooting there that left 12 students and a teacher dead, according to reports. In a letter sent to parents Thursday, the superintendent of the Jefferson County School District urged the officials to consider the possibility of razing the high school in Littleton and building a new one nearby, KUSA-TV in Denver reported. Columbine “serves as a point of origin for this contagion of school shootings,” Superintendent Jason Glass wrote. “School shooters refer to and study the Columbine shooting as a macabre source...

DENVER — After a massive manhunt along the Front Range and foothills west of Denver, Sol Pais was found dead Wednesday morning near the base of Mt. Evans, according to multiple sources. The 18-year-old woman from Surfside, Fla. had been wanted by authorities since Tuesday morning after allegedly making "credible" threats toward schools in the Denver metro area. Multiple sources told Denver7 Wednesday morning that she had been found dead around the base of Mt. Evans. The FBI tweeted shortly afterward that there was no longer a threat to the community. We are expecting to learn more at a 11:30...

RANSON, W.Va. — Concerned Residents against Rockwool organized a protest Tuesday at the Jefferson County Development Authority. This comes just days after another group, known as Jefferson County Vision, filed a lawsuit against the authority for allowing the insulation plant to locate in Ranson. A Tuesday afternoon Jefferson County Development Authority meeting would have included the final reading of a water bond for Rockwool. As opposition grew outside of their windows, the authority decided to table the motion. 35 people were on the list to speak with a few dozen more waiting outside. Those who oppose the facility cite a...

A Jefferson County woman was arrested Saturday after telling investigators with the Sheriff's Office she shot and killed her husband because he bought pornography. According to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, just after 2:30 p.m. 69-year-old Patricia Hill called 911 and told dispatchers she just shot her husband Frank. When investigators got to the couple's home in the 3000 block of Donaldson Lane, they found 65-year-old Frank Hill dead in a backyard shed. Investigators say Frank had been shot twice. According to the Sheriff's Office Patricia Hill told investigators she was angry her husband ordered porn on the TV, after...

A Jefferson County teen has died after he was burned while trying to start a fire nearly one week ago. Jefferson County Sheriff's Office officials said they were notified Thursday by a hospital social worker that the teen had suffered severe burns and would be taken off life support, said Chief Deputy Randy Christian. Authorities didn't release the teen's name but a GoFundMe account set up in his name and multiple social media posts identified him as Sam Gean, an eighth-grader at Corner Middle School where he played the trumpet in the school band. The fundraising account said he was...

A couple of steaks shoplifted at a Gardendale Walmart three months ago led to the biggest food stamp fraud investigation in Jefferson County's history, and launched 11 simultaneous raids this morning at convenience stores countywide. Led by the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office, teams of law enforcement officers met at 5 a.m. for a briefing and then fanned out across the county beginning at 6:50 a.m. The officers and agents were armed with 242 arrest warrants and plans to arrest 17 suspects. All 17 suspects were in custody by mid-morning, and investigators already today have filed for forfeiture and condemnation...

There’s a big battle brewing in the Jefferson County, Colorado, school system. The manufactured controversy over a proposed curriculum review is generating national New York Times headlines. But the fight is not about what misguided students and biased reporters say it’s about. “Censorship” is a red herring. The real issue is union control. Here’s the deal: Public school teachers in this Denver-area district walked out of their classrooms this week to protest the implementation of performance-based pay. The JeffCo school board approved the new compensation system last week, which rewards the most highly effective teachers with 4.2 percent raises, effective...

MADISON, Wis – Wisconsin Reporter has learned the identity of the suspect accused of politically motivated disorderly conduct at last month’s Jefferson County Fair. April Kay Smith, 38, a kindergarten teacher in the Germantown School District, was issued a disorderly conduct citation for tearing up and stomping on several signs on July 9 at the Jefferson County Republican Party booth after the fair had shut down for the night, according to a Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department report obtained by Wisconsin Reporter. The incident report, filed by Jefferson County Deputy Heather Larson, states that Smith and her husband, Andrew Smith, 31,...

In 2010, one out of every two registered Republicans in the heart of southern Kentucky’s “Old 5th” congressional district came out to vote. A contiguous bloc of 14 counties in southern Kentucky boasted the most fertile and efficient ground for gathering Republican votes in that year’s primary. Those counties (see chart below) had slightly fewer registered Republicans than the 157,000 in Jefferson County, the state’s largest county. The 14-county region has less than half the population of Jefferson County. Yet, it turned out 78,200 Republicans in that spring’s primary compared to 50,449 in Jefferson County. A big reason: scores of...