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The very same crew which recently dumped three million gallons of toxic sludge out of an abandoned mine and turned the Animas River in Colorado the color of a yellow banded poison dart frog for roughly a week has just issued a whole new set of rules to “protect” small pools of water. They would also like you to know that these rules are going into effect even though a federal judge put them on hold in 13 states, too. This new batch of regulations is going to “protect” bodies of water which may include the ditch in front...

BISMARCK, N.D. — A federal judge in North Dakota on Thursday blocked a new Obama administration rule that would give the federal government jurisdiction over some state waterways. U.S. District Judge Ralph Erickson of North Dakota issued a temporary injunction against a the rule, which gives the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers authority to protect some streams, tributaries and wetlands under the Clean Water Act. The rule was scheduled to take effect Friday. “The risk of irreparable harm to the states is both imminent and likely,” Judge Erickson said in blocking the rule from taking effect....

The announcement Monday by North Dakota’s popular Republican governor, Jack Dalrymple, that he will not seek re-election in 2016 might be enough to lure one of the state’s senators home from Washington. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., had begun to mull the possibility of a second run for the job well before Dalrymple’s announcement, and the possibility of her candidacy was talked up by leaders at the Democratic Governors Association in February. A spokeswoman for Heitkamp, the 59-year-old freshman senator who won her seat in 2012 by fewer than 3,000 votes, was non-committal when asked how Dalrymple’s exit might impact her...

North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple announced Monday that he will not run for re-election next year, blowing the gubernatorial race wide open and intensifying speculation over whether Democratic U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp will seek the state’s highest office. The 66-year-old Dalrymple said in a news release that he and first lady Betsy Dalrymple plan to spend more time with family, including their five grandchildren. “It continues to be my great privilege to serve my state, service that includes 16 years as a state representative, 10 years as lieutenant governor and (the) last five-plus years as governor,” he said. “North Dakota...

After white supremacist Craig Cobb tried and failed to start a whites-only enclave in the tiny North Dakota town of Leith, he set his sights on another community: Antler, population 20-something. But establishing a presence in the town, just a few minutes from the Canadian border, has proved difficult for Cobb. Last month, he says, he bought $10,000 worth of property in the town's center from Jim Lozensky, who until recently was an Antler resident. The sale included an old bank and two nearby residential lots. Cobb wanted to turn the bank into a church for his racist religion, Creativity...

GRAND FORKS – Continuing to play as UND/North Dakota wouldn't violate any NCAA rules unless fans continued to cheer for the Fighting Sioux and other schools complained about it.The NCAA passed rules restricting its members from using Native American imagery in 2005, and after a drawn out battle with tribes, lawmakers and university representatives, the University of North Dakota ultimately reached a settlement agreement and retired its Fighting Sioux name in December 2012. The school has played as UND/North Dakota ever since. But it's common knowledge in the Grand Forks area that the end of the national anthem at UND...

Overall, the U.S. plans to resettle 7,500 refugees this month and over 10,000 in September to meet it's commitment of 70,000 for this fiscal year. Most of the arrivals here in metro will be Bhutanese, Somali, Iraqi and Congolese. About 75 percent have family connections here.

Why the next seven weeks? Because fiscal year 2015 ends on September 30th and the settlers in the US State Department and in their contracting agencies want to hit the Obama target of 70,000 for the year and they have (as of July 31), 18,470 more to go! Actually that 70,000 figure that Obama announced in his Presidential Determination Letter to Congress last September is meant to be a ceiling, not a goal that they necessarily have to hit. However, since the contractors are paid by the head and they have salaries and office overhead to pay, they always try...

The bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bismarck has ordered parishes in western North Dakota to sever sponsorship ties with the Boy Scouts of America following the group's decision to lift its ban on gay adult leaders. "I cannot permit our Catholic institutions to accept and participate directly or indirectly in any organization which has policies and methods which contradict the authoritative moral teachings of the Catholic Church," Bishop David Kagan wrote Monday in a letter to parishioners. The Boy Scouts last week ended its ban on gay adult leaders, while allowing church-sponsored Scout units to maintain the exclusion...

Oil and gas producers in one of the most active drilling areas in the country have had to make concessions to not disturb species such as the lesser prairie chicken and the dunes sagebrush lizard. Now industry officials in parts of Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico may have four other species to contend with: make way for the Cascade Caverns salamander, the Arizona toad, the alligator snapping turtle and the Rio Grande cooter. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Tuesday it is giving what it calls “status reviews” to the four amphibians and reptiles found in the Southwest as...

BISMARCK — A federal appeals court on Wednesday affirmed a lower court’s decision to block a 2013 North Dakota law that would have imposed the strictest abortion ban in the nation by outlawing abortion when a fetal heartbeat is detected, at about six weeks of pregnancy. The New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the lawsuit in June 2013 on behalf of the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo, the state’s lone abortion provider, applauded the opinion issued by a three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. “It’s beyond time these anti-choice politicians in North Dakota and...

GasBuddy started an emergencypetition on Friday calling on Governor Brown to obtain an EPA waiver to prevent gasoline price increases of at least 50-cents a gallon in Southern California and 30-cents in Northern California. As Breitbart News warned in December in “Brown Needs Oil Trains to Prevent Skyrocketing Energy Prices,: decades of anti-oil-production-policies in the Democrat-controlled state had made residents highly reliant on inconsistent supplies of oil from Iraq and oil trains from North Dakota. With supplies now breaking down, Californians are sure to be angry paying $5 a gallon for gasoline. GasBuddy noted that an “extraordinary convergence of fuel supply problems...

It is a shocking number; 73%of young North Dakotan's can not join the military, because they are too fat, too dumb or either a criminal or drug user.

Attorneys general from thirteen states filed a lawsuit Monday challenging EPA's new rule defining the waters of the U.S. (WOTUS), asserting that the rule expands the scope of clean water regulations to lands that are dry much of the year and increases the federal government's authority over land use. The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota. South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley, who joined in the lawsuit, noted that 35 states have filed comments in opposition to the rule and several other attorneys general are considering filing challenges. The EPA is overstepping...

Police are investigating an armed home invasion, and a crash that followed in South Fargo. Lt. Joel Vettel says they are looking for two people of interest: Luke Goodridge and Isaac Nyemah. Police say Goodridge, Nyemah, and the others involved, are the same people who have been caught up in a street crime war for the past several days. Officers say following a home invasion, several people left in a car. People in the home jumped into another car and gave chase. That led up to the crash. At least two people involved in the home invasion jumped out of...

A U.S. airman “with no apparent motive” walked into a Wal-Mart Supercenter in North Dakota early Tuesday and opened fire with a handgun, killing one worker and injuring a second before turning the gun on himself, police said. Grand Forks police said the shooting a few minutes after 1 a.m. may have been random, with no link yet found between Marcell Willis, 21, and either the store or the employees. Willis was stationed at Grand Forks Air Force Base, about a dozen miles west of the city....

Grand Forks police have confirmed that two people have died in a shooting in a Grand Forks Walmart store. ... Officers discovered "multiple victims" inside the store, and that several of them were taken to a hospital for treatment of unspecified injuries.

<p>Judging by its critics, the energy industry – and specifically the oil and gas industry in North Dakota – isn’t female-friendly. Yet women who live and work in the oil patch say the energy industry isn’t just a safe place for women, but that there are plenty of opportunities for everybody.</p>

Bakken production will keep growing, albeit at a slower pace, and the Eagle Ford still has running room within high-return portions of the play, according to a recent analysis by Wood Mackenzie. The Bakken and Eagle Ford together produce just over 2.5 million barrels per day of oil, or nearly two-thirds of U.S. tight oil production. Higher oil prices in the 2013 to 2014 timeframe spurred operators to drill not only in the core of the Williston Basin, but in the fringe and speculative areas. This included areas along the Montana-North Dakota border, the northern most part of the play...

(May 13, 2015 – Fargo, ND) – Fargo North and Davies High Schools have officially recognized two Students for Life Clubs organized by pro-life students Brigid O’Keefe and Katie McPherson. The approval came in response to a demand letter sent by the Thomas More Society on behalf of the students and Students for Life of America,