Free Republic

A new project from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is using computer simulated training sessions to teach doctors in Minnesota how to talk to fat kids.The nearly $500,000 study using “virtual role play” to coach doctors is the latest attempt by the federal government to combat obesity.“Obesity in the United States is at historically high levels and is an important health problem,” the grant for the project states. “Interventions targeting children are a high priority because children bear the greatest lifetime health risk from overweight and obesity.”“Health professionals in primary care settings are influential in the lives of families,”...

New! Join us for 2nd Saturday 2A Coffee & Chat! Saturday, January 12, 2013, 10:30 a.m. (metro location, see info below) A great chance to meet other like-minded people in a casual setting once per month. We meet up on the second Saturday of each month at a Twin Cities metro area coffee shop, restaurant or gathering spot. Open carry is welcomed, but not required**. This is NOT an "event" or "rally" or "protest." It's simply friends and new friends meeting for coffee. Period. LOCATION: (metro suburban location just minutes NE of DT Mpls) Given the current climate of discrimination...

Nearly one in three people with Somali ancestry in the United States live in Minnesota, although some activists claim there are more. The 1 in 3 estimate comes from new survey data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. The bureau's American Community Survey says there are about 25,000 people with Somali ancestry in Minnesota and about 85,700 in the United States. The other states with large Somali populations are Ohio, Washington and California, but their communities are much smaller than Minnesota's.

Target Corp. said Monday it won't give money to gay-friendly causes to quiet the uproar over a $150,000 donation that helped support a Minnesota governor candidate who opposes gay marriage. The discount retailing giant said it was "best to wait" given the controversy stirred by its donation, which prompted Facebook calls for a boycott and scattered protests outside stores. An anti-boycott site also popped up on Facebook from conservatives supporting Target. "We believe that it is impossible to avoid turning any further actions into a political issue and will use the benefit of time to make thoughtful, careful decisions on...

A Somali man is fighting extradition to the United States where authorities suspect him of supporting terrorism in his homeland from a base in Minneapolis. Mohamud Said Omar, 44, has appeared in an open session of a Dutch court for the first time since his arrest at an asylum-seeker's center here last fall. Lawyer Bart Stapert argues that Omar is innocent and the crimes he is accused of would not be punishable under Dutch law.

You’ve probably never heard of Brandon Darby. The former community organizer who saved American lives by undermining a left-wing terrorist plot at the 2008 Republican convention used to be a proud member of the radical left. He called for the overthrow of the U.S. government. He hated cops. He consorted with eco-terrorist tree-spikers, radical feminists and black nationalists. He was approached to rob an armored car and asked to commit arson to fight gentrification. He mouthed politically correct slogans about the Bush administration. Government didn’t care about people, and he thought the botched response to Katrina proved it. When he...

Law enforcement sources have confirmed to WCCO-TV that there is a lockdown at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Officials are evaluating security concerns and a partial evacuation of Lindbergh Terminal is underway. The bomb squad from the Bloomington Police Department has also been called to the airport.

The Islamic Circle of North America has been named in "a list of our organizations and the organizations of our friends" by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is bent on waging "a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions." They say they want to encourage dialogue via these billboards. Great. I'll start. The billboard says that Islam is "the way of life of Adam, Noah, Abraham,...

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (WCCO) ― Sarah Palin is bringing her book tour for "Going Rogue" to Minnesota. The former Vice Presidential Candidate and former Alaska Governor will sign copies of her new book at the Mall of America. Palin burst onto the national political stage last year after giving a speech at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul. Now Palin brings hundreds of her admirers out to get a glimpse of this maverick of a politician. The excitement surrounding her book tour hits the Twin Cities on Monday. "She seems more real world ... not an average politician," said Jason...

A south Minneapolis travel agency owner who is accused of swindling travelers out of airline tickets, pleaded not guilty Thursday in Hennepin County Court. Ali Mohamud, 35, is charged with six felony counts of theft by swindle. Mohamud owns Amana Travel Agency, located at 1841 Nicollet Ave. S. Mohamud is accused of taking approximately $40,000 from at least a dozen travelers by either failing to purchase their airline tickets or canceling them and keeping the cash. The FBI is also looking into Mohamud. In August, agents searched his business as part of an investigation into Somali men missing from the...

Note: Photo included. http://images.publicradio.org/content/2009/09/11/20090911_troykastigar_39.JPG # SNIPPET: "St. Paul, Minn. — A sixth Minnesota man is feared dead in Somalia after joining an Islamic extremist group there. But Troy Kastigar stood out from his fellow recruits, because the Minneapolis man was not Somali. Kastigar, 28, was a Muslim convert who apparently had no personal ties to the lawless east African country. Troy Kastigar's family received reports of his death within the past week, according to friends of the family. The circumstances of his reported death aren't clear, and the information could not be confirmed by the FBI."

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) ― The National Weather Service has issued a tornado warning for the counties that include Minneapolis and St. Paul, and says it has received a report of a tornado just north of downtown. The weather services say it received reports of the tornado at 2:11 p.m. Wednesday. Radar shows the storm is moving north at about 20 mph. It reportedly damaged a downtown church. The tornado warning covers central Anoka County, northeastern Hennepin County and western Ramsey County. It remains in effect until 2:45 p.m. Electric Fetus reported on their Twitter page that their building sustained damage and...

St. Paul, Minn. — Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison said the U.S. government is trying to ensure the safe return of some of the young Somali-American men believed to be fighting with a terrorist group in their homeland. Ellison said he has been included in classified briefings about efforts to bring the missing men back to the Twin Cities. At least four Somali-American men from Minnesota who left to fight in the Horn of Africa have died there in recent months. One of youngest, a skinny teenager from Minneapolis named Burhan Hassan, was trying to leave the fighting and make his...

Brian and Doris Johnson have passed out free Bibles at the Twin Cities Pride Festival for 11 years, but this year their free gifts got them arrested. After being told they couldn't have a booth at this year's festival, the family came anyway and ended up behind bars for trespassing. The Pride Festival started Saturday in Loring Park and is considered the third-largest GLBT celebration in the nation. Since the festival rented out the entire park, police said they could choose which vendors to allow in the park. The Johnsons are born-again Christians and believe homosexuality is a sin. Pride...

A group of individuals was recently denied the privilege of having a booth at the Twin Cities Pride Festival due to the fact that they believe what the Bible says about homosexuality. The following email correspondence has been posted as a result.

“Somalis, FBI in other U.S. cities on alert for terrorist recruiting” “While Minneapolis is the core of an investigation, leaders elsewhere want to keep youth from being drawn to violence.” COLUMBUS, OHIO - SNIPPET: “”No one has disappeared,” said Ahmed Hosh, who works with Somali youths in Columbus. “But if those who did the recruiting were individuals talking to someone alone, the scary thing is it could happen here.” The Twin Cities area has been at the center of the federal investigation ever since a 27-year-old from Minneapolis blew himself up in a suicide attack in Somalia last fall. But...

A young Somali man from Minneapolis believed to have been recruited by a terrorist group to travel to his war-torn homeland has returned to Minnesota, a community leader said Saturday. Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, said Saturday that the 22-year-old man was recruited for jihad before a change of heart led him to return in recent months. Jamal wouldn't confirm the man's identity, saying that he and his family fear for their safety and are in hiding. Others identified him only as Kamal. The disappearances of perhaps a dozen young men from the Twin Cities...

Somalis in U.S. draw FBI attention War at home seen as lure The FBI is expanding contacts with Somali immigrant communities in the U.S., especially in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, fearing that terrorists are recruiting young men for suicide missions in their homeland. FBI Special Agent E.K. Wilson, spokesman for the Twin Cities FBI field office, described the effort as community outreach. Many members of the Somali community are concerned over disappearances, he said.

A leader of a Minneapolis mosque today criticized testimony at a U.S. Senate hearing that indirectly linked it to a terrorist group's recruitment of young Somali men from the city. Farhan Hurre, director of the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center in south Minneapolis rebuffed what he called "finger-pointing and false allegations" at the hearing held Wednesday by the Senate's homeland security committee. Mosque leaders have repeatedly pushed back against rumors and news reports that have drawn a connection between it and the disappearance of as many as 20 Somali-Americans from the Twin Cities. During the hearing, a representative of the local...

The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota said it will file suit today against a publicly funded charter school, alleging that it is promoting the Muslim religion and that its directors are using a holding company to illegally funnel taxpayer dollars to a Muslim organization. The suit was to be filed this afternoon in U.S. District Court against Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, known as TIZA, and the Minnesota Department of Education, which the ACLU says is at fault for failing to uncover and stop the alleged transgressions. The suit names the department and Alice Seagren, the state education commissioner, as...

The American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota said it will file suit today against a publicly funded charter school, alleging that it is promoting the Muslim religion and that it is leasing school space from a religious organization, the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, without following state law.

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. – On the day Muslims around the world began to celebrate Eid al-Adha, Fatuma Mohamed was at the Mall of America (MOA), far away from where she would normally say her prayers. But she and other Muslims needed to take time from the activities of the mall and find a quiet area to pray as Muslims do during the festival that commemorates Ibrahim's willingness to sacrifice his only son for God. “I said my prayer right at that corner,” Mohamed said, pointing to the spot. Another Muslim, Amran Ali, did the same. “I had to say my prayer...

BURNSVILLE, Minn. (FOX 9)—One of the five men suspected to be a suicide bomber who killed himself and 29 others last October in Somalia, was buried Wednesday at a Burnsville Cemetery. FOX 9 has learned DNA tests have confirmed Shirwa Ahmed was one of five suicide bombers who killed himself and 29 others last October in northern Somalia. He is also a Minnesotan and a naturalized U.S. citizen. The FBI helped return Ahmed's remains to his family. At a Twin Cities cemetery in Burnsville Wednesday afternoon, the suspected suicide bomber was laid to rest. Shirwa Ahmed, 27, was given a...

The Somali community in the Metro has become fearful after reports that one of their own was a suicidal bomber. Federal sources say Shirwa Ahmed blew himself up in a suicide bombing in northern Somali last month. They also believe he was a recruiter in the Twin Cities for a terrorist network. Government sources believe that as many as 40 young men who knew Ahmed, recently left Minnesota without telling their families. 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS talked to Ahmed's family. They said they have not heard from him in weeks. The report was the talk of this busy Somali market on...

Killing and being killed for Allah (cf. Qur'an 9:111) More on the Somali jihad in Minneapolis -- home also of several notable Stealth Jihad efforts, including the attempt to impose Sharia law on the patrons of taxicabs at Minneapolis airport, and the refusal of Muslim cashiers at local Target stores to check out pork products. Anyway, have any authorities stopped to consider the question of whether we really want to import into the United States people who would blow themselves up as suicide bombers? Why not? "FEDS: Twin Cities man behind Somalia bombing, investigating network," by Sam Zeff, Bob McNaney,...

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has learned that federal law enforcement sources believe that a Twin Cities man blew himself up in a suicide bombing in Northern Somalia last month. The FBI and Homeland Security are investigating whether Shirwa Ahmed had developed a terrorist recruiting network in the area. 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS learned that Ahmed came to the Twin Cities in 1996 and graduated from Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis. He was a naturalized U.S. citizen. More than a dozen young men of Somali descent, mostly in their 20s, from the Minneapolis area have recently disappeared, U.S. law enforcement officials tell 5...

Honking their horns and stirring up faint clouds of post-construction dust, hundreds of drivers helped open the new Interstate 35W bridge this morning just a few minutes after 5 a.m. The two processions -- one from the south end of the bridge, one from the north -- were led by representatives of agencies that were the first responders when the old bridge collapsed last year. They were followed by Minnesota Department of Transportation maintenance trucks with sturdy, wide bumpers that kept drivers in line. Vehicles coming from the south were the first to make it across the 10-lane bridge, which...

Eight members of the RNC Welcoming Committee, a self-described anarchist organization, each one faces four charges for their alleged plans to disrupt the convention. Each individual was charged Wednesday with second-degree furtherance of terrorism, conspiracy to riot, conspiracy to commit civil disorder and conspiracy to damage property. Those arrested were Robert Joseph Czernik, Monica Rachel Bicking, Erik Charles Oseland, Garrett Scott Fitzgerald, Nathanial David Secor, Max Jacob Speckton, Luce Guillen-Givens, and Eryn Trimmer. The eight were arrested after Ramsey County Sheriff’s deputies raided four homes in Minneapolis and St. Paul on Aug. 30 and 31. They are all being held...

About 1,200 people marched Sunday in support of undocumented immigrants in Iowa. The Statue of Liberty stood on both sides of the main street of Postville on Sunday, a symbol of how the volatile issue of immigration divides not only this Iowa town, but this country. On one side, a woman who was part of a group of Twin Cities Jews that helped orchestrate the rally offered a picture of the statue as evidence that America has always welcomed the downtrodden. But across the street, on the other side of a line of police officers, Rosanna Pulido, painted green and...

A horrific news story has slowly made its way into the headlines here in the Twin Cities. A local resident, his wife and three daughters spent the evening of the Fourth of July at Valleyfair, a local amusement park. They were leaving the park at midnight when a criminal began to molest his twelve-year-old daughter. The father intervened to defend his daughter, and the offender put out a call for his "homies." Eight "men" materialized and began to beat up the father. They knocked him to the ground and took turns stomping on his head. The man's wife and daughters...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Lebanese man who says he attended an al-Qaida training camp was charged Friday with lying to federal authorities about shipments of communications equipment seized by the U.S. military in Afghanistan. Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi, 41, was charged in a U.S. District Court in Minnesota, one of several places he's lived in the United States. A federal judge in New York, where Elzahabi has been held since his arrest in May, held a hearing for Elzahabi and ordered him transferred to Minneapolis to face two counts of making false statements to federal investigators. A criminal complaint by FBI...

The spectacle of the coming Republican National Convention will be brought to you by Minnesota's major corporations, even more than planned. Virtually every major Twin Cities company has given money to the convention's local host committee, donated free services or both. The surprise has been the ratio of local donors to national money. "They originally thought it would be a 50-50 split, and it's looking more like 60 percent local and 40 percent national," said Teresa McFarland, spokeswoman for the host committee, which is charged with raising $58 million.

twincitiescarry.com is holding a potluck picnic and 2A Day celebration “Minnesota Gun Rights Gathering”, or GRG for short 11am, Sunday, July 13, Lake Harriet Bandshell picnic area, next to the Refectory. We will start setting up around 9 am. GPS address will be 4135 W Lake Harriet Parkway, Minneapolis 55410 42nd and W. Lake Harriet Parkway. Pay parking near, street parking a short walk away. Potluck theme, bring enough for yourself, and enough to share as well. Carry is optional. Please let us know if you plan to attend...we’d like to have an idea of how many will attend for...

A Roman Catholic Church decision to prohibit a Minneapolis gay pride prayer service has many in the gay community up in arms, leading activists to call the action a troubling and telling sign from the Twin Cities' new archbishop. The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis recently told staff members at St. Joan of Arc Church they could not hold their annual gay pride prayer service planned for Wednesday — an event held for several years in conjunction with the annual Twin Cities Pride Celebration, parishioners said. Instead, the archdiocese suggested a "peace" service with no mention of rights for...

The FBI has identified the Twin Cities as one of the 10 worst areas of the United States for mortgage fraud and said it has literally dozens of criminal investigations underway here as part of a national crackdown on the problem. Deputy U.S. Attorney General Mark Filip and FBI Director Robert Mueller called a news conference Thursday afternoon in Washington to announce a special enforcement effort targeting mortgage fraud and mortgage-related securities fraud. The multi-agency initiative is called Operation Malicious Mortgage. From March 1 through June 18, the government charged 406 defendants in 144 mortgage fraud cases around the country....

A flight attendant angry about his work route set a fire in an airplane bathroom, forcing an emergency landing, authorities said. The Compass Airlines flight carrying 72 passengers and four crew members landed safely in Fargo on May 7 after smoke filled the back. No injuries were reported. The plane was flying from Minneapolis to Regina, Saskatchewan, authorities said. Eder Rojas, 19, appeared in court Thursday, following his arrest a day earlier in Minneapolis, and ordered held without bail, prosecutors said. The charge of setting fire aboard a civil aircraft carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

ST. PAUL, Minn. - The 16 big flasks of bubbling bright green liquids in Roger Ruan's lab at the University of Minnesota are part of a new boom in renewable energy research. Driven by renewed investment as oil prices push $100 a barrel, Ruan and scores of scientists around the world are racing to turn algae into a commercially viable energy source. Some varieties of algae are as much as 50 percent oil, and that oil can be converted into biodiesel or jet fuel. The biggest challenge is slashing the cost of production, which by one Defense Department estimate is...

MINNEAPOLIS - As the estimated cost of recovering from an interstate bridge collapse surges past $400 million, survivors of the deadly disaster just wish they could get a few thousand dollars here and there to make ends meet. About 30 of the more than 100 people injured in the Aug. 1 collapse, which killed 13 people, meet weekly to talk about the troubles it's caused them. This past week, one man spoke of his struggles with a $41,000 medical bill. Others mentioned missed paychecks. That they've all had such problems getting aid irritated fellow survivor Kimberly J. Brown enough that...

Now we know who's in charge of Minneapolis streets. It's a loosely organized group of serial lawbreakers called Critical Mass. Last Friday, 600 or so took over city thoroughfares, breaking traffic laws with impunity while police stayed in the background. Every month, Critical Mass cyclists ride through rush hour traffic in cities across the country. Some insist the ride is just a "celebration." Others acknowledge a political agenda: they want to enlighten the rest of us -- greedy capitalists that we are -- about the joys of bike riding so we can join them in saving the planet. The Mass...

The RNC Welcoming Committee doesn't really want to welcome the Republican National Convention to the Twin Cities. And they're organizing this weekend - a year before the Republican heavyweights arrive - to make their un-welcome heard. A few hundred "anarchists and anti-authoritarians" will gather for a pre-convention convention this Saturday and Sunday, to give shape and strategy to their 2008 RNC convention plans, according to a woman who identified herself as Bea Bridges. Bridges read a statement at a news conference this morning about this weekend's gathering but did not take any questions from invited reporters. In her statement, she...

Muslim religious leaders removed from a Minneapolis flight last week exhibited behavior associated with a security probe by terrorists and were not merely engaged in prayers, according to witnesses, police reports and aviation security officials. Witnesses said three of the imams were praying loudly in the concourse and repeatedly shouted "Allah" when passengers were called for boarding US Airways Flight 300 to Phoenix. "I was suspicious by the way they were praying very loud," the gate agent told the Minneapolis Police Department. Passengers and flight attendants told law-enforcement officials the imams switched from their assigned seats to a pattern associated...

Authorities surrounded a home in Bloomington near the Southtown Mall Monday afternoon. The home, located on 84th Street and Knox Ave., was raided Monday afternoon by ATF agents and officials from the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Officials told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that there was no immediate danger and it was more of precautionary measure. Bloomington firefighters evacuated homes in the neighborhood and used police tape to block off a large area. 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS spoke with a neighbor who was evacuated from his home. "Bombs, bomb contaminants, explosives in the neighborhood and they got a call on… they wanted to...

“Around 600 students of Jamia Hafsa and Jamia Fareedia have not returned to their homes after the Lal Masjid operation. These are the people called ‘missing students’ and they are hiding in madrassas and mosques in and around the two cities Islamabad and Rawalpindi. They are walking bombs and are determined to blow themselves up any time, anywhere,” said a source directly involved in the ongoing investigation of suicide blasts in the country.Lal Masjid prayer leader Maulana Abdul Aziz said that five to six hundred students of the two madrassas had been trained, equipped and brainwashed to carry out suicide...

A suspected terrorist, arrested in Minneapolis and held in prison for nearly 3 and a half years without a trial, is asking to be released. Mohammed Warsame is charged with federal crimes of violence and supplying support to Al Qaida. Supporters in the Muslim community packed the federal courthouse in Minneapolis Tuesday to express their concern for Mohammed Warsame. "The length of this detention, without his day in court, is causing a serious problem," said Somali Justice Center Director Omar Jamal. Warsame's attorney said it's the longest time in U.S. history someone has been incarcerated pretrial. "He's been incredibly resilient,"...

Invasion splits Somalis living in the Twin Cities Some say Ethiopian troops will restore order; others fear it will lead to genocide BY MARY BAUER Pioneer Press After news hit that Somali government forces and their Ethiopian allies marched into the capital city of Mogadishu on Thursday, Somalis in the Twin Cities flocked together — but in two camps. Many of those who supported Ethiopia's response to an "invitation" from Somalia to restore order went first to the Somali Justice Advocacy Center on Selby Avenue in St. Paul, then to a Starbucks in Minneapolis. "People are celebrating," said Abdulahi Ahmad...

MINNEAPOLIS -- Six Muslim imams on Monday were removed from a US Airways flight at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and questioned by police for several hours before being released, a leader of the group said. The six were among passengers who boarded Flight 300, bound for Phoenix, around 6:30 p.m., airport spokesman Pat Hogan said. A passenger initially raised concerns about the group through a note passed to a flight attendant, according to Andrea Rader, a spokeswoman for US Airways. She said police were called after the captain and airport security workers asked the men to leave the plane and...

When Nihad Awad flew to Minneapolis to attend a fundraiser for state Rep. Keith Ellison in August, following him was a simmering debate in American politics: What constitutes support for terrorism? Last week, Minnesota Republicans thrust that issue to the forefront after Ellison won the DFL primary in the Fifth Congressional District. In a letter to Republicans statewide afterward, state GOP chairman Ron Carey accused Ellison of trying to hide his backing from "a self-identified supporter" of the Palestinian group Hamas.

State officials issued an air pollution health advisory Wednesday for the Twin Cities metro area that extends through today. Relatively light winds, high moisture levels and fog have allowed fine particles such as soot to accumulate, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency warned. The fine particles, as small as one-fiftieth the width of a human hair, can enter the lungs and cause breathing difficulties.

Minneapolis-St. Paul is the "friendliest" major metropolitan area for people trying to quit smoking, according to an analysis released by GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare on Monday.

MINNEAPOLIS - A Louisiana woman of Syrian descent was charged with trying to evade currency reporting requirements Monday after being caught with more than $24,000 in concealed U.S. currency when boarding a flight to her homeland. Amneh Ahmad Abbas, 49, of New Orleans, was ordered held without bond by U.S. Magistrate Judge Arthur Boylan. Another hearing is scheduled at 10 a.m. Thursday.