January 28th, 2019
GRAND FORKS – If there is one cardinal rule for doing business in North Dakota it is never publicly criticize – always praise – the hand that feeds or you will be ostracized, sometimes threatened, or fired without pay.
Oil. Coal. President Donald Trump. Even the United Way.
Patricia Berger, president and CEO of the United Way of Grand Forks, and Area, Inc. contributed to a Facebook post written by longtime TV personality and former WDAZ journalist and anchor Terry Dullum after…
January 23rd, 2019
BISMARCK – Nearly two years after the last No-DAPL tent was torn down and activists scattered, elected representatives have seemingly forgotten the world’s eyes were once riveted on North Dakota.
Two bills have been introduced to the state’s legislature to curb protests against what the state calls critical infrastructure, including systems related to utility services, fuel supply, energy, hazardous liquids, natural gas, or coal. Both bills are not limited in scope, encompassing…
January 22nd, 2019
BISMARCK – The state is trying to throw its weight behind President Donald Trump’s campaign promise by proposing a resolution committing the Sixty-sixth Legislative Assembly to support Trump’s wall.
House Concurrent Resolution 3025 urges Congress and the President to fund construction of a wall and border control impediments along with strengthening the border control infrastructure to ensure compliance with and enforcement of federal immigration laws, the resolution starts.…
January 16th, 2019
BISMARCK – Backed by police and educators, state legislators hope to curb violent crime and rising suicide rates by proposing bipartisan legislation that would allow police to temporarily confiscate firearms from those deemed dangerous individuals.
Representative Karla Rose Hanson, a Democrat from Fargo, wrote House Bill 1537, which would establish Public Safety Protection Orders or “red flag” laws against individuals deemed dangerous to themselves or others.
“Public Safety…
January 15th, 2019
BISMARCK – North Dakota legislators introduced a bill to require physicians to provide information to patients about a questionable “abortion reversal” pill.
House Bill 1336 targets the “informed consent” section of the North Dakota Century Code and seeks to legally bind physicians to tell women planning on having an abortion about the possible effects of a reversal to abortion-inducing drugs.
“It may be possible to reverse the effects of an abortion-inducing drug if she…
January 15th, 2019
BISMARCK – While state legislators busy themselves with writing bills to suppress initiated measures, reinforce marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, solicit stronger penalties for protests, and require schools to offer Bible classes, the state’s Democrats and a handful of Republicans proposed a bill to clarify legalized breastfeeding in public.
If passed, penalties could be enforced on those who prohibit women from exercising their rights, according to House Bill 1330. The bill stemmed…
January 9th, 2019
FARGO– Annita Lucchesi began researching the cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women with a hand broken from domestic violence. Never before compiled into a single database by any law enforcement agency, her task is daunting, even without the pain.
“I almost became one of the women on this list,” Lucchesi said. “Having escaped domestic violence I felt the responsibility to create this resource. I thought someone was already doing it, there are lots of lists out there, but…
January 9th, 2019
BISMARCK– North Dakota’s first Native Congresswoman introduced two bills related to murdered and missing Indigenous people.
Ruth Buffalo, of Fargo, turned in the bills – House Bill 1313 and House Bill 1311 – to require additional training and data collection by law enforcement related to MMIW issues.
Buffalo, a Democrat, and a registered member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara Nation, recently made national headlines after receiving permission from the House minority leader and…
January 8th, 2019
BISMARCK – Reflecting sentiments of the 1920s, state legislators are trying to push a bill that will authorize a Bible class as an “elective instruction” course in public and nonpublic schools.
“The bill calls it being an elective – not an essential studies course – which is two very different things,” Representative Aaron McWilliams, a co-signer from Hillsboro, said. “What the bill doesn’t do – some people look at it and immediately fear that what it does is say that…
January 8th, 2019
FARGO – A licensed retailer refusing to sell a firearm to any legally qualified person should be a crime in North Dakota, or so say a handful of the state’s elected few.
A newly-proposed bill in the North Dakota Sixty-sixth Legislative Assembly currently known as House Bill 1160 plans to enforce penalties on any licensed retailer who refuses to sell another authorized person a firearm. The original bill stated anyone who refuses, but sponsors plan to rewrite the bill.
“A person…
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