News

MANDAN – Hundreds of trials for activists who stood against the Dakota Access Pipeline have seen the judge’s gavel, but only two, so far, received jail time.

Mary Redway, 64, a retired environmental biologist from Rhode Island, and Alexander Simon, 27, a teacher living in New Mexico, both were found guilty and sentenced Thursday to jail by Southeast District Court Judge Thomas Merrick. Both activists, known as water protectors, were arrested on October 22, 2016 along with 140 others,…

Read more...

FARGO – A week before William Fleck decided to attend an anti-LGBTQ speech at NDSU, a transgender friend committed suicide. Fleck’s friend was bullied. He was persecuted – locally – and driven to a desperate act.

Fleck knew what he was walking into when he entered the Memorial Prairie Rose Room on October 17, but the audience’s acceptance still shocked him.

He attended the speech entitled "Religious Freedom and the Constitution,” organized by the Lutheran Student Fellowship…

Read more...

MOORHEAD – The original day set for a white supremacist rally came and went without so much as a whimper from local hate groups.

Multiple protests originally planned as counter rallies merged into one rally, which took place instead on the same day, Saturday, attracting more than 150 people celebrating diversity, called Standing for Humanity.

As in August’s North Dakota United Against Hate rally, chilly rains dampened the atmosphere, and the rally was moved from W. H. Davy Memorial…

Read more...

VALLEY CITY – The White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan are targeting North Dakota university newspapers in a cry for help: a book banning.

So far, Valley City State University’s ‘Viking News,’ and NDSU’s ‘The Spectrum,’ have received a letter postmarked Fort Myers, Florida, with no return address, from someone claiming to be a “Loyal American Patriot,” asking for help banning a book titled ‘The Slave Players,’ by Megan Allen, published by Burn House Publishing.

“Dear…

Read more...

FARGO - Fargo City Commissioners passed a resolution to establish the city as a hate-free community on Monday, and one commissioner voted against the bill. 

The resolution was originally written by Moorhead City Councilwoman Mari Dailey, then passed to the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, or AFL-CIO, and then on to the Human Relations Commission in September, before it was handed over to city officials. The resolution requires city leaders to…

Read more...

CAVALIER – Friends call Michael Foster the valve turner a hero, the state is trying him as a criminal, and the Keystone Pipeline named him a terrorist for stopping their oil pipeline flow for eight hours in 2016.

After a week of trial and a five-hour deliberation, a jury found Foster guilty on all counts, except reckless endangerment, leaving felony criminal mischief, felony conspiracy to commit criminal mischief, and criminal trespass, a misdemeanor.

Foster’s co-defendant, Sam…

Read more...

MOORHEAD – Water seeps into the Barbly family rental house, and has been leaking for two years, creating mold, eating away at trim, and forcing the family’s five children upstairs to sleep on the living room floor.

The company managing the property at 1510 34th Avenue South says the family is responsible, and linked the seepage to a sump pump hose placed too close to the building, and also to gutters, according to letters sent to the Barbly family.

Last week, after three years…

Read more...

WOODWORTH, N.D. – Autym Burke spent months preparing a nursery for the child she thought she was to adopt.

Living in Oregon, she’d seen pictures and videos of the Native American baby she planned to name “Ruby.” The paperwork seemed to be in order, at first, the caseworker seemed legitimate. After all, Congressman Kevin Cramer, R-ND, included her in a campaign video.

The reported caseworker, Betty Jo Krenz, was included in a 2014-campaign advertisement approved by Cramer. She also…

Read more...

When it comes to the intersection of healthcare and civil law, Anne Hoefgen, executive director of Legal Services of Northwest Minnesota (LSNM), has a story she often recounts. It is about a woman who once visited a dental clinic in Bemidji, Minnesota. The facility had teamed up with LSNM to offer patients non-criminal legal aid.

The woman was there to have a tooth pulled. Once the procedure ended, she asked if any of her healthy teeth could be extracted too. Her husband waited on her in…

Read more...

BISMARCK – Since 1977, the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act have applied to all U.S. persons, except, apparently, Dakota Access Pipeline, LLC.

On Thursday, the subsidiary son of Energy Transfer Partners wired $15 million to the state-owned Bank of North Dakota to “help retire debt incurred by the state as a result of its response to the Dakota Access Pipeline Protests,” Governor Doug Burgum announced. 

The money will be used to pay down loans, totaling…

Read more...