A small unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation may be paving the way for state governments in search of a system that could help prevent mass shootings and violence, not through weapons bans, but through threat assessment and mental health treatment.It is clear most of those who decide to ...
Utilities in good handsTHUMBS UP: Gary Gleisner will be retiring as the Director of Utilities for the City of New Ulm at the end of the month. On Thursday the Public Utilities Commission named his successor, Pat Wrase, who has been the Planning and Development Engineer for the Utilities ...
If you owe the Internal Revenue Service money, chances are you will be harassed until you pay up or at least make arrangements to do so. Unless you happen to be doing business with the IRS.IRS Inspector General J. Russell George revealed Tuesday that nearly 1,200 vendors who have contracts with ...
We hear Costa Rica is a lovely place to vacation, a lush tropical vacation that would seem even lovlier in the throes of a Minnesota winter.We hope April Todd-Malmlov enjoyed her recent two-week sojourn there. It will have to have been a magnificent vacation to sustain her through the storm she ...
Christmas is just eight days away. No doubt many area residents wish they had more time to prepare.There is so much to do, after all. There are gifts to buy, Christmas cards to be sent, holiday meals to prepare, visits to family and friends to plan, and on and on.But wait a moment. In the ...
In Washington, government spending is discussed in terms of billions and trillions of dollars. A million bucks isn't even enough to merit decimal-point mention in most agency budgets.But out here in the hinterlands, $1 million is still thought of as big money.U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and ...
A year ago 20 innocent children and six adults in the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. were slaughtered by an armed, crazed gunman. It was a horrible event that shocked the nation and brought calls to do something about these events.Unfortunately we seem to have done little. On ...
Necessity defenseTHUMBS UP: An interesting case was argued before the Minnesota Supreme Court on Thursday. Should a woman be penalized by having her drivers license revoked for driving under the influence of alcohol when she was driving to escape her abusive husband?Jennifer Axelberg found ...
For as long as 30 years, the wind power industry will be permitted to do something no one else can get away with, President Barack Obama has decreed. No matter how many bald and golden eagles are killed by wind power turbines, the industry will not be punished in any way.Few of Obama's ...
The Pentagon cannot account for more than $8 trillion U.S. taxpayers have given it since 1996, according to a report by the Reuters news agency.Yet, even as the Defense Department insists it needs more money to defend the nation, officials admit waste and fraud are rampant.Clearly, the Pentagon ...
I wanted to write about that guy, you know, he worked at Norwood. He lived in town, I don't know, ten years ago? Fifteen? I think he lived by public school. You remember who I'm talking about, right? What was his name? Wait. I wrote some stuff down in the notebook that's always by the computer. ...
Twenty years ago, the so-called Marty Rule, named after DFL?Sen. John Marty, placed a ban on gifts to public officials. Strict regulations put the kibosh on lobbyists or special interest groups taking legislators out to dinner or throwing lavish parties or receptions.It may just be a ...
As many as one-fourth of the people who thought they had obtained health insurance through the government's website, HealthCare.gov, may be "orphans," officials confirmed last week.That is the term federal bureaucrats have coined to describe people who enrolled for insurance through the website ...
There are plenty of people stepping up to take credit for the state's projected billion-dollar budget surplus. Gov. Dayton and the DFL believe the surplus is a result of the tax increase in the last budget, passed after Democrats took control of the Minnesota House and Senate. Republicans are ...
Political revolutions are time of violence, struggle and inflamed passions. Successful revolutions do more than overthrow a repressive government or system. They replace the old regime with something better. These revolutions are rare. Unsuccessful ones simply replace one despot with ...
ChristkindlmarktTHUMBS UP: We think the organizers of the Christkindlmarkt at the New Ulm Event Center were pleasantly surprised and maybe even a bit overwhelmed by the turnout they had last weekend. Over 4,000 people came to the Event Center over two days to shop for unusual gifts and sample ...
The latest Minnesota budget forecast on Thursday was particularly rosy. State finance officials are predicting a surplus of more than $1 billion at the end of the current biennium. That's a nice change from the doom-and-gloom billion-dollar deficit predictions of a few years ago.This is great ...
Cities and counties across the state are setting their final budgets for 2014. There has been criticism levied around the state because property taxes are going up a bit in spite of the state's increase in Local Government Aid payments, after Gov. Mark Dayton and DFL legislators promised this ...
St. Cloud State University conducts an annual political poll, asking people how they feel about various polticians and goverment officials, and poltical parties.The most recent poll, reported by MinnPost, shows approval ratings are declining for Democratic leaders, but that the Republican Party ...
Editor's Note: Michelle Malecha is the current intern to Ulm/Neu-Ulm with the New Ulm Sister Cities Commission Hans Joohs Cultural Exhcange program. This is her second letter telling about her experiences.Cultural exchange has been a daily part of life in Ulm; learning how to prepare ...