Free Republic

Two students seeking to start school pro-life clubs in Fargo, North Dakota, are claiming they are victims of unconstitutional discrimination from officials opposed to their cause.According to a complaint letter sent by the Thomas More Society (TMS), a public interest law firm assisting the students, Brigid O’Keefe of Fargo North High School and Katie McPherson of Fargo Davies High School have each spent months attempting to establish pro-life clubs at their schools, to no avail. McPherson first applied to found a club in September 2014, while O’Keefe applied last February. Both had their applications declined, with O’Keefe saying she and other potential club members were...

BISMARCK – For the third time in six years, North Dakota lawmakers have killed legislation that would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, despite warnings from some Democrats and Republicans that it could tarnish the growing state’s image and attract backlash similar to what Indiana and Arkansas have faced in recent days. Kevin Tengesdal, a gay U.S. Navy veteran from Bismarck who had testified for the bill and helped fill the House balcony in support of it Thursday, brushed away tears and hugged fellow supporters outside the chamber after the vote. “It was disheartening. When can our voice be heard?”...

The University of North Dakota is looking for suggestions for a new nickname. The school's nickname committee will be accepting submissions beginning Wednesday until the end of the April. The names must be 25 characters or less. The committee says it is looking for nicknames that are unique, promote pride and strength, represent the state and region, honor the traditions and heritage of the past, and can be a unifying and rallying symbol. A consulting group will research the suggestions for any trademark or copyright infringement. The committee will narrow down the choices for a public vote. The school's Fighting...

The Fargo Police Department has launched a voluntary program whereby they’re requesting that citizens give them access to their video feeds in exchange for a sticker: FARGO – If you’ve got a video camera, police want to take a peek. A new program unveiled Tuesday allows residents and business owners here to give police access to their video cameras. Police say they’d like to use the footage to solve and deter crime. …The program, called SafeCam, “helps citizens be proactive in protecting their homes,” said Officer Jessica Schindeldecker.Those who register their cameras will receive a Police Department sticker, intended to deter...

The Duluth School District is deciding how to move forward after a racist photo surfaced at Denfeld High School through social media. The photo showed an African American student with a noose around his neck, and the caption "Gotta hang em all." Stephan Witherspoon says the student in the picture is his nephew. "I feel heartbroken," he said. "A little fearful. Because, you know, this type of hate represents a lot more than just a picture that was spread around in the school. It represents a people that have been oppressed for hundreds of years — hosed and burned and...

Forty-seven Senate Republicans are signaling in an open letter to Iran and the White House that a deal over Tehran’s nuclear program will be at risk once President Obama leaves office. “It has come to our attention while observing your nuclear negotiations with our government that you may not fully understand our constitutional system,” the senators wrote in the letter, which was first reported by Bloomberg. “Thus, we are writing to bring to your attention two features of our Constitution — the power to make binding international agreements and the different character of federal offices — which you should seriously...

Saudi Arabia and OPEC may have dropped oil prices to stifle production in the U.S. and other competing nations, but they didn’t drop it enough to stifle the U.S. oil and gas boom from fracking, a senior expert with McKinsey and Company said in Chicago. “If the Saudis think they’re going to put U.S. shale players out of business, they’re probably not, although there will be less drilling,” Joe Quoyeser told about 125 people, mostly graduate students, at Northwestern University’s Kellogg Energy Conference on Wednesday. ”But there are other elements of oil supply that are needed to balance the market...

STAGE one of Saudi Arabia’s plan—or perhaps hope—to restructure the oil market is taking longer than expected. By refusing to rein in production while prices fell, the Saudis permitted a big surplus to grow and served notice on higher-cost rivals (Russia, Venezuela, American shale-oil producers) that they would not prop up other people’s profit margins at the expense of their own market share. That signal has been weakened by the growing amount of oil in storage, which is absorbing most of the glut. World oil stocks rose about 265m barrels last year and Société Générale, a French bank, reckons they...

MINNEAPOLIS -- A Minnesota Muslim group is calling on North Dakota Republican leaders to apologize for un-inviting a Muslim leader from offering an invocation before the state House. "Lawmakers of any political persuasion should reject religious bigotry and exclusion," Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Minnesota chapter, said Friday in a statement. House Republican leaders said earlier they asked Nadim Koleilat not to participate on Ash Wednesday after some in Republican House members complained it was inappropriate. Koleilat, who leads the Bismarck Muslim Community Center, was asked by the state Senate to offer an invocation the...

BISMARCK – Republican leaders in the North Dakota House of Representatives said they canceled the opening prayer by a Muslim on Ash Wednesday because some members thought it was more appropriate to have a Christian deliver the invocation. Dr. Nadim Koleilat, board president of the Bismarck Muslim Community Center, ended up giving the invocation in the Senate instead of the House. Comments made on the District 24 Republicans’ Facebook page – including one posted Monday that called Koleilat’s planned appearances in the House on Wednesday and in the Senate next week “political correctness at its worst” – were brought to...

NEW YORK, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- Oil prices were treading water early in the Friday session as markets weighed latest inventory data and production figures from the United States. The price for West Texas Intermediate crude oil, the U.S. benchmark, was relatively unchanged from the previous session to trade at $51.10 for the March contract. WTI has recovered from late January lows below $45 per barrel and have rallied for most of February.

BISMARCK -- Legislators continued their look at new bills to combat sex trafficking in North Dakota on Tuesday, taking up proposals to require school for "johns" and increased penalties for pimps that force abortions. Anti-trafficking groups are hoping for the adoption of a uniform trafficking law, increased penalties for sellers and buyers of commercial sex and significant resources for victims. Hearings on the package of bills began last week by the Senate Judiciary committee. Senate Bill 2332, from Sen. Mac Schneider, D-Grand Forks, goes after the demand for commercial sex, which many say creates the market for pimps. The bill...

A Northwest District Court judge has dismissed a disorderly conduct case against a Williston man who, last fall, drove a truck displaying graphic photos of aborted fetuses. Judge Paul Jacobson dismissed the case against Robert Arthur Rudnick on Monday. While on patrol on July 31, a Williston police officer stopped a vehicle driven by Rudnick that was towing a trailer with graphic signs taped on both sides. Rudnick was one of many people in North Dakota advocating on behalf of Measure 1, which would have added an "inalienable right to life of every human being at any stage of development"...

Students who attend Catholic schools in North Dakota will carry the lead banner next week in the annual March for Life on the National Mall in Washington. More than 160 students from schools within the Bismarck Diocese will join their peers from Shanley High School in Fargo to lead a crowd expected to exceed 500,000 in the anti-abortion march, said Nick Emmel, a religious studies teacher at St. Mary's Central High School. While in Washington, students also will attend conferences, tour the monuments and visit the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, he said. This is the second year students from...

A closely watched legal fight over two of the nation's most stringent abortion bans resumed Tuesday, with attorneys for North Dakota and Arkansas asking a federal appeals court to reinstate two laws overturned by two separate lower federal courts. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis heard back-to-back oral arguments Tuesday but made no immediate ruling after giving each side 15 minutes to present its case. Several questions by the three-judge panel suggested that the two states face a difficult task to uphold laws that seemingly challenge the U.S. Supreme Court standard established more than four decades...

BISMARCK – The North Dakota Supreme Court has declined to rehear arguments against their ruling that upheld a state law passed in 2011 that limits drug-induced abortions. The state’s only abortion clinic petitioned the high court for a rehearing in November to clarify what it called ambiguities in the effects of House Bill 1297. The bill makes it illegal for doctors to provide medication abortions unless they have a contract with another doctor who has admitting privileges at an area hospital.

en Chorn had a good vacation in Minnesota last month, making it to a Vikings game, a hockey game in Duluth and getting engaged. But while he was gone, the price of oil hit him personally. “While on vacation, I got a call from someone who’s covering for me and said, ‘Hey your rig’s being laid down,’” said Chorn, who does geology work on rigs for Sunburst Consulting. He’s had a slow six weeks since then. The oil price drop will impact fringe regions in the Bakken the most, experts said, because the oil there costs more to extract. “I...

One-third of the crude oil hauled from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale region by railcars could be forced off the tracks and into expensive truck fleets in the next four years, according to a railcar-industry trade group. The Railway Supply Institute says there aren’t enough shops to retrofit cars carrying flammable liquids in time to meet proposed federal deadlines, and that tens of thousands of cars will be idled as a result. The U.S. Department of Transportation wants tank cars carrying crude oil to be retrofitted with more puncture-resistant features in two years, and those carrying ethanol to be upgraded in...

Did the Welsh discover America? 26/8/2002 A team of historians and researchers announced today that Radio Carbon dating evidence, and the discovery of ancient British style artefacts and inscriptions in the American Midwest, provide the strongest indications yet" that British explorers, under the Prince Madoc ap Meurig, arrived in the country during the 6th Century and set up colonies there. Research team members have known the location of burial sites of Madoc's close relatives in Wales for some time, it emerged today; but they have decided to break their self-imposed silence in order that their research be fully known and...

Seven more states signed on to a lawsuit challenging President Obama's executive action halting the deportation of as many as 5 million undocumented immigrants, bringing the total to 24 states, Texas Atty. Gen. Greg Abbott announced Wednesday. The new states to join the coalition were Arizona, Florida, Arkansas, Michigan, North Dakota, Ohio and Oklahoma. The original 17 states, including Alabama, Kansas and Texas, filed suit in U.S. District Court last week, arguing that Obama overstepped his powers in enacting such changes on his own. "The president's proposed executive decree violates the U.S. Constitution and federal law, circumvents the will of...