(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)WASHINGTON (AP) – The White House says President Donald Trump’s upcoming budget will propose a whopping $54 billion increase in defense spending and impose corresponding cuts to domestic programs and foreign aid. The result is that Trump’s initial budget wouldn’t dent budget deficits projected to run about $500 billion. White House budget officials outlined the information during a…
WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump says he won’t be attending the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner this spring. In a tweet on Saturday, the president doesn’t give a reason but says he wishes “everyone well and have a great evening!” The annual fundraiser for college scholarships mixes politicians, journalists and celebrities. Trump has long had an adversarial relationship with…
For only the second time in 44 years all ski races set for this weekend’s Annual American Birkebeiner have been cancelled. The only other time this happened was in 2000. Organizers for North America’s largest cross country ski race held out hope for this weekend as a potential snow storm was on the horizon. Last minute efforts started early as…
SAN DIEGO (AP) – U.S. Customs and Border Protection says it plans to start awarding contracts by mid-April for President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall. The agency said Friday on a website for federal contractors that a request for bids would be published on or around March 6. Companies would have to submit “concept papers” to design and build prototypes…
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump  has signed a new executive order taking aim at government regulations. The president says the order will direct each federal agency to establish a regulator reform task force. The task forces will then recommend which regulations they can simplify or eliminate. The president has long argued that excessive regulations are “killing jobs, driving companies…
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – Republican legislative leaders from Ohio and Wisconsin are joining forces as they prepare for massive changes in how the federal government under president Donald Trump deals with states. Ohio House Speaker Cliff Rosenberg and Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Thursday in Ohio, that they hope to enlist others in asserting the role of states in…
ST. PAUL (AP) – Governor Mark Dayton is urging Minnesota schools to continue allowing transgender students to use the bathroom of their choice. His Thursday pronouncement follows President Donald Trump administration’s decision this week to lift an Obama-era directive. It leaves the decision regarding bathrooms to individual states and school districts. Although the Obama guidance was not legally binding, transgender…
DULUTH, Minn.-Today marks the 44th birthday for Christopher Kerze, who went missing from Eagan April 20, 1990 when he was 17-years-old. After he went missing, his parents received a note allegedly from Kerze postmarked from Duluth. In the note he mentioned a desire to commit suicide. A few days later his parents van, which he allegedly took, was found in…
ST. PAUL (AP) – In statehouses across the country, lawmakers with loved ones who fell victim to drugs are leading the fight against the nation’s deadly opioid-abuse crisis, drawing on tragic personal experience to attack the problem. In Minnesota, for example, state Senator Chris Eaton’s daughter died of a heroin overdose in 2007. Eaton has since spearheaded a law granting…
WHITTIER, Calif. (AP) — A California police officer was killed and another wounded in a shooting Monday while they were trying to help a man who had been in a traffic accident in Whittier, officials said. The two city police officers had responded to a report of a traffic accident and approached the vehicle when they were shot, said Lt….
PALM BEACH, Fla (AP) –Â President Donald Trump has tapped Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster as his new national security adviser. Trump announced the pick Monday at his Palm Beach club, Mar-a-Lago. He says McMaster is “a man of tremendous talent and tremendous experience.” Trump says retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who had been his acting adviser, will now serve…
MADISON (AP) – Two Democratic state lawmakers have proposed subjecting powdered alcohol to the same regulations as liquid alcohol. Senator Tim Carpenter and Representative Debra Kloste said Monday they’ve introduced a bill to expand the state’s definition of alcohol to include powdered forms. The federal government in 2015 approved a powdered alcohol product all Palcohol. Since then, state s have…
NEW YORK (AP) – Russian officials say its ambassador to the United Nations has died suddenly in New York City. Vitaly Churkin was 64. Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador, Vladamire Safronkov, told The Associated Press that Churkin became ill in his office at Russia’s U.N. mission and was taken to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, where he died Monday. His cause of death…
BUTNER, N.C. (AP) _ A federal prison official says a blind Egyptian cleric serving a life sentence in the United States in connection with a failed plot to blow up landmarks in New York City has died. Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman died early Saturday. Abdel-Rahman was sentenced to life in prison after his 1995 conviction for his advisory role in a…
DALLAS (AP) Norma McCorvey, the “Jane Roe” at the center of the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion, has died. She was 69. Journalist Joshua Prager, who is working on a book about McCorvey, says she died Saturday morning at an assisted living center in Katy, Texas. Although McCorvey was the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade, she later…
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) New Hampshire Democrat Ray Buckley has dropped out of the race for Democratic National Committee chair and is throwing his support behind Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison. Buckley’s announcement comes a week before DNC members gather in Atlanta to choose a new chair. Ellison and former Labor Secretary Tom Perez are seen as the main contenders. Buckley announced…
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Senate has confirmed President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Scott Pruitt was approved on Friday by a vote of 52-46. Pruitt served six years as Oklahoma’s attorney general and was closely aligned with oil and gas companies in his home state, whose executives backed his political campaigns. He filed 14 lawsuits as…
CHICAGO (AP) – Prosecutors have charged an Amtrak police officer in the shooting death of a Minneapolis man outside Chicago’s Union Station. The Cook County State’s Attorney’s office announced Friday that 31-year-old LaRoyce Tankson surrendered to police Thursday. He has been charged with first-degree murder int he February 8 shooting of 25-year-old Chad Robertson, who died Wednesday. Robertson was taking…
FARGO, N.D. (KVRR) — Governor Burgum’s concerns for cleaning up at the main pipeline protest camp rise along with the temperatures. He issued an evacuation order on Wednesday. He says what protesters have left behind could end up polluting the rivers. Protesters left their mark on the site of the Dakota Access pipeline. That area of land floods almost every spring….
(AP) –Â The Trump administration considered a proposal to mobilize as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up unauthorized immigrants, including millions living nowhere near the Mexico border, according to a draft memo obtained by The Associated Press. Staffers in the Department of Homeland Security said the proposal had been discussed as recently as last Friday. The 11-page document…
MADISON (AP) – Two Republican lawmakers have scrapped a bill to end daylight saving time in Wisconsin amid a backlash on social media and now want to make the sunshine-extending time change permanent year-round in the state. Representatives Samantha Kerkman and Michael Schraa introduced a bill last week that would have eliminated daylight saving time in Wisconsin. The change would…
MADISON (AP) – Democratic U.S. Representative Ron Kind says he is not ruling out a run for governor in 2018 against Republican Governor Scott Walker. The western Wisconsin congressman from La Crosse has frequently been mentioned as a possible candidate for governor, but he’s never run. But Kind tells Wisconsin Public Radio, on Thursday, that the state needs new leadership…
UPDATE:Â http://www.fox21online.com/2017/02/17/white-house-denies-national-guard-immigration-roundup-report/ (AP) – A draft memo obtained by The Associated Press outlines a Trump administration proposal under consideration to mobilize as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up unauthorized immigrants. Millions of those who would be affected in 11 states live nowhere near the Mexico border. The 11-page document calls for the unprecedented militarization of immigration enforcement as…
MADISON (AP) – Governor Scott Walker has signed into law the first bill to pass the Legislature this session, a measure to help Wisconsin’s cheese industry. Walker on Thursday, signed the bill making it possible for tax incentives to be extended to help finance construction of a $30 million cheese packaging and distributing plant in the village of Oostburg near…
MADISON (AP) – The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s student government is demanding free tuition for black students. The Associated Students of Madison adopted a resolution Wednesday saying blacks were legally barred from education during slavery and that the flagship school remains out of reach for students of color. The resolution demands free access, tuition, and housing for all black people, including…
(WTXF) – Hasbro has announced an iconic game token will be removed from the current Monopoly game. After nearly a month of voting, fans from around the world decided the Thimble Token will not “Pass GO” anymore in the next generation of the game. Hasbro says the thimble was an integral part of day-to-day life when the token was originally…
WEST ALLIS, Wis. (AP) – Prosecutors have filed charges against a 14-year-old boy accused of fatally shooting two teenage brothers during a failed attempted to rob them of money and marijuana at a house in a Milwaukee suburb. Charging documents filed Wednesday say the boy told investigators he didn’t plan on hurting anyone but became scared when he got into…
Chad Robertson (pictured top right) of Minneapolis was shot by an Amtrak police officer in Chicago.CHICAGO (AP) – A Minneapolis man who was shot by Amtrak police near Chicago’s Union Station has died. Chicago Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi says 25-year-old Chad Robertson died Wednesday. Robertson was taking a bus from Memphis to Minneapolis and was on a stopover in Chicago…
ST. PAUL, Minn. – Lt. Governor Tina Smith was joined by Minnesota workers and legislators at the State Capitol today, to rally and urge the Legislature to hold employees that commit wage theft accountable for their failure to pay for work already performed. Wage theft occurs when employers don’t pay workers what is owed to them for work performed. The…
MADISON (AP) – Republicans who control the Wisconsin Legislature have signed contracts to pay attorneys representing them in a redistricting lawsuit a flat fee that could reach $275,000. Documents released Wednesday show that one contract calls for paying attorneys with the law firm Kirkland and Ellis up to that amount for the filing of five briefs in the case that…
MADISON (AP) – Governor Scott Walker says he supports eliminating Wisconsin’s all-but powerless state treasurer’s office if voters approve. Republicans who control the Legislature have slowly eliminated the treasurer’s duties over the years, shifting them to other agencies. The position’s only remaining responsibility is serving on the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands. Eliminating the office would take an amendment…
ST. PAUL (AP) – A judge is set to hear arguments on whether to dismiss the case against a Minnesota police officer who shot and killed a black man during a July traffic stop. St. Anthony police officer, Jeronimo Yanez is charged with manslaughter and other counts int he July 6 shooting of Philando Castile. Prosecutors have said Castile was…
This 2012 photo provided by The Xerces Society shows a rusty patched bumblebee in Minnesota. Federal officials said Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2017, that the rusty patched bumblebee has become the first bee species in the continental U.S. to be declared endangered after suffering a dramatic population decline over the past 20 years. (Sarina Jepsen/The Xerces Society via AP)TRAVERSE CITY, Mich….
NEW YORK (AP) – New calculations to better track HIV infections confirm that the United States is seeing a strong and steady decline. The number of new cases has been falling for years, but health officials wanted a clearer picture of how the epidemic was behaving. They had been counting people when they were diagnosed with the AIDS virus, not…
MADISON (AP) – Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker says he has no problem with refugees coming into the state as long as they are “safe.” Walker was asked Tuesday by reporters about the ongoing legal fight over President Donald Trump’s travel ban affecting seven predominately Muslim counties, which has been put on hold by a federal appeals court in California. Numerous…
MADISON (AP) – A divided Wisconsin Supreme Court has resolved a question over whether results of certain toxicology reports can be admitted at trial without having the author of the report testify in court. The court ruled 5-2 on Tuesday, that toxicology reports that are part of a routine autopsy to determine the cause of death can be admitted as…
FILE- In this Feb. 13, 2017, file photo, National Security Adviser Michael Flynn in the east Room of the White House in Washington for a joint news conference with President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Flynn resigned as Trump’s national security adviser Monday. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)WASHINGTON (AP) — The resignation of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn…
CHICAGO (AP) – A federal appeals court will consider the fate of a Wisconsin inmate featured in the Netflix series “Making a Murderer.” Brendan Dassey was sentenced to life in prison in 2007 in the death of photographer Teresa Halbach two years earlier. Dassey told detectives he helped his uncle Steven Avery, rape and kill Halbach in the Avery family’s…
A damaged spillway with eroded hillside is seen in an aerial photo taken over the Oroville Dam (Croyle/Handout via REUTERS )OROVILLE, Calif. (AP) _ The Latest on problems with an emergency spillway at the nation’s tallest dam (all times local): 12:40 p.m. The acting head of California’s water agency says he’s “not sure anything went wrong” on a damaged spillway…
GLYNDON, Minn. (AP) – Two North Dakota State University students are dead and a third is injured after a crash on a snow and icy interstate in Minnesota. The Minnesota State Patrol says 18-year-old Danie Thomssen of Fargo, and 19-year-old Carson Roney of Oaks were killed in the crash that happened about 10 p.m. Saturday, on Interstate-94 near Glyndon, in Minnesota’s…
FOX NEWS – Hundreds of thousands of customers’ credit and debit card information may have been stolen after it was discovered that malware had been installed on payment systems and cash registers at hundreds of Arby’s restaurants in the U.S. Arby’s was not made aware of the security breach until mid-January. At the request of the FBI, the company did…
1/2 (U.S. Customs and Border Patrol) Show Caption Hide Caption 2/2 (U.S. Customs and Border Patrol) Show Caption Hide Caption FOX NEWS – Authorities in Texas last month recovered about 4,000 pounds of marijuana hidden inside a shipment of fake key limes near the U.S.-Mexico Border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials found the drugs in a commercial shipment on…
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal appeals court refused Thursday to reinstate President Donald Trump’s ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations. The panel of three judges from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to block a lower-court ruling that suspended the ban and allowed previously barred travelers to enter the U.S. An appeal to the U.S….
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – A federal appeals court in San Francisco is set to issue its ruling in the legal fight over whether to reinstate President Donald Trump’s ban on travelers from seven predominately Muslim nations. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals announced that it will release its decision before the end of the business day Thursday in California….
This 2012 photo provided by The Xerces Society shows a rusty patched bumblebee in Minnesota. Federal officials said Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2017, that the rusty patched bumblebee has become the first bee species in the continental U.S. to be declared endangered after suffering a dramatic population decline over the past 20 years. (Sarina Jepsen/The Xerces Society via AP)TRAVERSE CITY, Mich….
Aric BabbittSOUTH ST. PAUL, Minn. – The South St. Paul School District has been notified of a claim of sexual abuse by a former Lincoln Elementary School teacher. Forty-year-old Aric Babbitt, was found dead along with his husband, Matthew Deyo, in an apparent murder-suicide on an island in Washington state in August 2016. The incident came after Babbitt was placed…
WASHINGTON (AP) – A push by a group of senior Republican statesmen for a tax on carbon to help combat the effects of climate change is already meeting entrenched opposition from their own party. Former Secretary of State Jim Baker with to the White House today, looking for Trump administration support for the plan. It would place a new tax…
Evan Vucci/APWASHINGTON (AP) – The 2016 election is never far from President Donald Trump’s mind. When Trump met Tuesday with a group of sheriffs from around the country, he saw not just lawmen but battleground states. Trump talked about his victories with officials from Pennsylvania and North Carolina. And when a sheriff from Minnesota introduced himself, Trump said if he…
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) – The Army has notified Congress that it will allow the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline to cross under a Missouri River reservoir in North Dakota, completing the four-state project to move North Dakota oil to Illinois. The Justice Department filed court documents Tuesday including letters to members of Congress from Deputy Assistant Army Secretary Paul Cramer….
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Senate has confirmed school choice activist Betsy DeVos as Education secretary, with Vice President Mike Pence breaking a 50-50 tie. The Senate historian says it was the first time a vice president had to break a tie on a Cabinet nomination. Two Republicans joined Democrats Tuesday to vote to derail DeVos’ nomination. Democrats cited her lack…
