http://wcco.com/localen-USSat, 04 Jul 2009 18:53:18 GMT5http://wcco.com/local/wisconsin.store.yanks.2.1071448.html
The fireworks were called "Run Hadji Run." The packaging showed a cartoon drawing of Uncle Sam yanking the beard of a man dressed in Muslim attire, and the other showed a bomber jet flying over a group of Arab men on camels.

"Hadji" is a title given to Muslims who have completed a pilgrimage to Mecca.

The Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations demanded their removal after learning the fireworks were for sale at Fireworks City in Baldwin, Wis. They were removed late Friday.

The Muslim group has also asked the Missouri-based manufacturer, Red Rhino Fireworks, to remove the product from circulation.

]]>http://wcco.com/local/wisconsin.store.yanks.2.1071448.htmlSat, 04 Jul 2009 18:52:26 GMThttp://wcco.com/local/wis.watches.bleeding.2.1071423.html
The Department of Natural Resources has been working for years to contain viral hemorrhagic septicemia, or VHS, an exotic disease that causes a wide array of fish species to bleed to death.

Chief Conservation Warden Randy Stark says his wardens stepped up enforcement of prevention methods over the long July 4th weekend. No one should move live fish off the water and boaters should drain water and remove all plants, animals and mud from their craft and equipment before leaving.

State- and county-funded watercraft inspectors as well as trained volunteers will be at boat landings and shore fishing spots.

]]>http://wcco.com/local/wis.watches.bleeding.2.1071423.htmlSat, 04 Jul 2009 18:09:49 GMThttp://wcco.com/local/prairie.home.companion.2.1071415.html
Garrison Keillor says he plans a grass-roots show, with longtime special effects man Tom Keith, the Guy's All-Star Shoe Band, the Lake Wobegon Brass Band, the St. John's Boys' Choir and singer Andra Suchy.

Keillor's public radio variety show debuted on July 6, 1974. That show, broadcast live at Macalester College in St. Paul, was watched by about a dozen people. Now, "A Prairie Home Companion" is heard on nearly 600 public radio stations nationwide, attracting more than 4.3 million listeners a week.

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According to the show's website, "A Prairie Home Companion" began in July 6, 1974 at Janet Wallace Auditorium at Macalester College in Saint Paul.  It cost $1 to attend.

]]>http://wcco.com/local/prairie.home.companion.2.1071415.htmlSat, 04 Jul 2009 17:56:48 GMThttp://wcco.com/local/detroit.lakes.four.2.1071408.html
The Becker County Sheriff's Office says the accident occurred just after 2:30 a.m. Saturday. The van had seven occupants in all, four of whom were ejected when the van struck the field approach. Authorities say the four victims were dead at the scene.

The four victims are from the Pinepoint-Ponsford area and are identified as a 28-year-old male, a 35-year-old male, a 24-year-old female and a 22-year-old female. Their names have not been released.

The remaining three occupants are being treated for serious injuries at hospitals in Detroit Lakes and Fargo.

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Becker County is located in west central Minnesota.

]]>http://wcco.com/local/detroit.lakes.four.2.1071408.htmlSat, 04 Jul 2009 17:48:41 GMThttp://wcco.com/local/60.votes.not.2.1071392.html
The seating of Minnesota Sen. Al Franken will give Democrats the filibuster-proof 60-40 majority in the Senate, but only on paper. Absences by two ailing senators mean the party can count only 58 votes, and then only if Majority Leader Harry Reid can herd two independents and the independent streaks of 55 others behind Obama's biggest initiatives: expanded health care coverage and cleaner but more expensive energy.

Republicans are well aware that the closer the Democrats get to 60, the more leverage GOP senators have as Congress struggles with those problems that have eluded solutions for decades.

"With their supermajority, the era of excuses and finger-pointing is now over," said GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who heads the National Senatorial Republican Committee.

It's a fragile supermajority because Sens. Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts are ill and have not voted in weeks. It's unclear when or whether they might return to the Capitol.

Ill senators have voted by gurney and wheelchair in the past. But Democrats and Republicans said they don't foresee any votes in the coming week that would be close enough to warrant a trip to the Senate by either Byrd or Kennedy.

Byrd, 91, returned home this past week from a six-week hospital stay after a series of infections. Kennedy, 77, is battling brain cancer.

It's also a truism that it's often easier to get 80 votes and more than it is to get 60. Overwhelming support for legislation can become a persuasive force of its own. But if there's a chance of stopping or slowing a bill, other considerations factor in to a senator's calculus -- typically regional matters, ideology and plain self-interest as much as party loyalty.

Thus, Obama, Reid and Co. have much legislative horse-trading ahead of them on an assortment of items poised for consideration before Congress' monthlong August break.

Slowing it all down will be Senate hearings and debate on appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor's fitness for the Supreme Court. Senate Judiciary Committee hearings are set to begin July 13, followed by what's expected to be a robust two weeks of committee and floor debate.

Democrats want her confirmed before Congress leaves for its summer vacation. Republicans have complained that her nomination is moving too fast. But they have struggled to raise public opposition to her confirmation without alienating Hispanics, the fastest-growing demographic and increasing powerful voting bloc.

On policy, Democrats in the House and Senate are pushing to begin votes by month's end on health care, the main work of Kennedy's public life. Obama has urged Congress to finish work by the end of the year on the bills designed control health costs and make coverage available to about 47 million people who lack it.

Kennedy's health committee, led in his absence by Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, could meet as soon as the coming week to complete its version of the bill, which Obama has said reflects many of his goals. That includes a government health insurance option to compete with private plans.

At the same time, the Senate Finance Committee chaired by Montana Sen. Max Baucus is drafting a companion measure aimed at winning a bipartisan compromise. The government-run option for coverage is unlikely to be included in that version.

Senate committees also are set to tackle and energy bill that aims to reduce greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. Here, too, deep regional divisions among Democrats undermine prospects of nailing down 60 votes in favor of it.

House passage of the climate change bill on a 219-212 vote last month provided an instructional preview of the Senate debate. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called the vote transformational, for the broad effects it would have on every household, business, industry and farm in the decades ahead. Republicans pointed mainly to higher energy bills for virtually everyone -- a lot higher for some.

Even with a 78-vote majority in the rule-bound House, Democratic leaders needed help from a few Republicans to pass the bill after 44 Democrats said no.

Pelosi's July agenda includes putting together a health care bill that could be considered in the fall.

In the Senate, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., has the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee writing a global warming bill. It's using the House plan, which calls for a 17 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020 and an 83 percent reduction by 2050, as a starting point.

But the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee also will play big roles; a final product won't come together before fall.

Also on the July agenda are more House and Senate votes on the 12 annual spending bills for the budget year that begins Oct 1. The House has passed four of the 12; the Senate is scheduled to vote Monday on its first, covering what Congress spends on its own operations.

House leaders promise to try to pass all 12 bills by the end of July. Action in the Senate promises to be significantly slower.

]]>http://wcco.com/local/60.votes.not.2.1071392.htmlSat, 04 Jul 2009 17:37:45 GMThttp://wcco.com/local/budget.battles.keep.2.1071382.html
In California, where lawmakers failed last week to solve the state's whopping $24.3 billion deficit by the start of the new fiscal year, they can't legally do anything else. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had declared a fiscal state of emergency that prevents the Legislature from taking action on anything but the budget until the state's fiscal crisis is resolved.

Unlike their colleagues in Washington, where policy work isn't hindered by the need to pay as you go, state lawmakers generally can't leave for home without settling on a spending plan. This year, the trials of passing a budget kept lawmakers nationwide from work on health care, transportation, unemployment insurance trust funds and pension funds, said Sujit CanagaRetna, a senior fiscal analyst at the Council of State Governments in Atlanta.

"The sea of red ink we're swimming in now has completely displaced these other fundamental issues," CanagaRetna said. "The can's been kicked down the road and those issues are going to have to be dealt with."

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland's plans for an overhaul of the state's public education system -- a key campaign promise -- remains in limbo as lawmakers argue over a proposal to allow casino-style gambling to raise money and the state gets by on a one-week temporary budget. The state Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that the existing school-funding system is unconstitutional, in part for an over-reliance on property taxes.

Strickland isn't alone. Missouri's Republican-led Legislature, citing tight finances, refused to act on two of new Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon's main campaign pledges -- to restore Medicaid coverage for low-income parents and to expand a community college scholarship program.

In Maryland, Gov. Martin O'Malley made campaign promises to do all he could to lower electricity rates. But the bill died in a House committee where members said they did not get enough time to review the complicated legislation in a session dominated by budget problems.

And in the frenzied rush after Rhode Island's budget passed late last month, state lawmakers were unable to agree on a compromise to close a 30-year-old legal loophole that permits prostitution so long as it happens indoors. For years, judges have dismissed prostitution charges against sex workers and their bosses in the so-called spas and "massage parlors" that proliferate across the state.

It won't be any easier tackling such unresolved issues in the years to come as budget problems are expected to continue into 2011, CanagaRetna said.

"It's going to involve some fundamental reforms in how state government operates," he said. "Not only a time commitment, but energy and resources from both sides of the aisle and the executive branch. Right now people are just swimming in one place trying to stay afloat."

Education reform efforts died in several states. In New Mexico, a proposed overhaul that came with a $400 million price tag failed. Minnesota Democrats had hoped to revamp school funding with a $1 billion-plus plan to increase state spending on schools and cut property taxes. That was left undone, as were Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty's proposals to spend more on schools through pay-for-performance programs.

There were plenty of other reform efforts that fell victim to the simple economics of dwindling state incomes. Indiana's Gov. Mitch Daniels' plans to expand two maximum security prisons to meet a growing demand for bed space and expand full-day kindergarten to more schools were lost during that state's special session budget negotiations.

Kansas' budget problems prevented the state from keeping a promise to its schools to continue increasing their aid, a commitment it made to end a successful education funding lawsuit in 2006. The state had pledged to increase that aid by some $165 million for the 2009-10 school year, but that has now been cut by about $163 million, or $215 per pupil. That's inspired talk of more litigation.

n Wisconsin, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle had to give up one of his signature programs: $30 million in grants benefiting businesses researching and developing clean energy. He also delayed the start of tax breaks to help parents with child care expenses.

"This is one of the hard choices that have to be made during tough economic times," Doyle's spokeswoman Carla Vigue of eliminating the renewable energy program. "The Legislature and the governor have to make hard cuts, including cuts to programs that the governor cares deeply about."

]]>http://wcco.com/local/budget.battles.keep.2.1071382.htmlSat, 04 Jul 2009 17:28:26 GMThttp://wcco.com/local/eagan.home.fired.2.1071228.html
The suspects fled from the residence, which is on the 4500 block of Whitetail way, in a vehicle before the 10:34 p.m. arrival of the police. However, the victim was able to provide the dispatcher with a detailed description of the car.

Soon afterwards, a car matching the description was located by an officer.

During the traffic stop, one occupant appeared to have tossed a firearm from the vehicle.

When the officer stopped the car, one of the three suspects fled on foot.

Two of the occupants were taken into custody and the weapon was located nearby.

Later, the third suspect was located with the help of an organized search of nearby residences.

The suspects are identified as Matt Slaby, 20, Shanley Dunn, 18, and Matt Stankey, 21.

No one was injured.

The case is still under investigation.
]]>http://wcco.com/local/eagan.home.fired.2.1071228.htmlSat, 04 Jul 2009 15:48:51 GMThttp://wcco.com/local/therapeutic.horse.riding.2.1071208.html
Each Thursday afternoon, Luka and her family drive 50 miles from Minneapolis to East Farmington, Wis., so she can ride Dixie, a Haflinger horse at Achin' Back Acres.

Luka, 7, has Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome, a rare genetic condition characterized by short stature, developmental disabilities, distinctive facial features and broad thumbs and first toes.

Riding Dixie has helped improve Luka's self-esteem, muscle tone and sensory integration, said her mother, Leila DeLance.

It's also helped her learn the days of the week.

"She's got a horse sticker on every Thursday of the month," DeLance said. "She's always wondering, 'Is this Dixie Day?' All day long, she relates to Dixie. ... When she goes to bed, she thinks about Dixie going to bed. We went and got her hair cut today, and she was wondering about Dixie getting her hair cut."

Luka began the therapy riding program at River Valley Riders on April 28. Program participation is limited to the spring, summer and fall, weather permitting, and DeLance already is worried about Luka missing Dixie Days this winter.

"The one thing with these kids is consistency -- a schedule is really important," she said. "If she could be in there all year-round, it would be that much more transformational."

Someday soon, River Valley Riders officials hope, Luka will be able to ride all year long.

River Valley Riders recently purchased 38 acres in Afton and is raising money to build a heated indoor riding arena and stables. The nonprofit organization wants to expand its program that offers regular horseback and carriage riding to children and adults with disabilities or neurological impairments. Joan Dorle Berg, the program's director, cites research that shows horseback riding to be physically, mentally and emotionally beneficial. Students feel joy and bond with their horses, she said.

"It helps in communication, with balance and with social skills," said Berg, who teaches adapted physical education to children. "It also helps to build endurance. It's hard work. The body is going forwards and backwards, side to side and up and down, all at the same time. Plus, you're outside with the beautiful weather, so there are all these opportunities to see things and smell things."

The program began in 2000 and offers riding four nights a week. Because it has no real home of its own, it operates out of three locations: Berg and her husband, Roger, donate space on their Achin' Back Acres; space is donated at the Rick-a-Shay Ranch in Chisago City; and the group rents riding time at the Washington County Fairgrounds in Baytown Township.

The program is popular -- more than 100 people are on a waiting list, hoping to join the 45 regular participants and 92 volunteers. Class sizes are limited, in part because of the need to haul horses to and from the three locations. If the organization had its own arena, Berg said, horses could be boarded there. River Valley Riders uses about 20 horses overall, about six a night. Most are transported to sites weekly, a big expense. An arena and stable would solve a lot of those problems, Berg said.

With the land purchase accomplished, the next steps are to raise $80,000 to install a driveway, parking lot and outdoor arena. Berg said she hopes River Valley Riders will be able to begin operating out of its new location next spring.

Then there will be a capital campaign to raise $1 million for the indoor riding arena.

"This is ongoing therapy for the kids. It's not just a pony ride, and we'd like to see it continue," she said. "Our mission is for that child or adult to have a better life -- to see things from the top of a horse that we don't see. We're walking along, plodding in the sand and the mud, and there they are, gliding along on the back of a horse."

Luka loves gliding along on the back of Dixie, DeLance said.

"It's really great for her self-esteem, because she's so proud of herself when she gets up there," DeLance said. "It's so cool."

]]>http://wcco.com/local/therapeutic.horse.riding.2.1071208.htmlSat, 04 Jul 2009 13:44:14 GMThttp://wcco.com/local/memorial.gardens.tribute.2.1071201.html
Fleischhacker's mother died 15 years ago. To honor her, Fleischhacker planted a tree in her yard.

"It's not a Prairiefire Crabapple, it's mom's tree," said Fleischhacker, assistant production manager of Thomsens Greenhouse & Garden Center, St. Joseph.

Memorial gardens, plants and trees are often planted at people's homes to signify an important person, pet or event, said Clarissa Cooper, landscape designer, Scenic Specialties Landscape Center, St. Joseph. Cooper taught a class on memorial gardens recently, detailing design ideas and plant and flower suggestions.

Memorial plantings are becoming popular, said LaRae Possin, co-owner of Rosewood Nursery & Floral, Sartell. After a death, friends give everything from trees to bird baths to help the grieving family, she said.

People find comfort in such offerings for a reason.

"It's a living and growing garden," Cooper said. "It provides a way to continually remember someone who was close to you. The garden lives on."

The gardens can include plants and flowers transplanted from the honored one's garden. Plants that have significance to the loved one are also often included, Cooper said.

"A lot of times people will remember that grandma had a really big garden," Cooper said as an example. "Sometimes you can include edible plants in a small space" of the garden.

Planting a trees honoring someone is also an option, Fleischhacker said. Flowering crabapple trees are especially popular, she said.

One problem can arise, though, Fleischhacker said. If a family moves, the tree more than likely will not go with them.

One couple found a remedy to that problem, she said. They planted an Autumn Blaze maple tree at the former home of their father, after asking permission from the current owners.

The tree gives off shade in the summer time, which their dad loved, Fleischhacker said. It also turns beautiful colors in the fall, which recognizes their father's autumn birthday, she said.

Landscape designers also have helped with Mary gardens -- gardens dedicated to the Virgin Mary and prayer.

There are no rules for these religious gardens, but gardens featuring all white plants are popular, Fleischhacker said.

"It is absolutely beautiful," she said.

The gardens can also include plants that have religious significance, Cooper said. Horticulture has strong ties to Medieval monasteries that recorded different kinds of plants and flowers, she said.

Many plants were given biblical names, Cooper said. For example, a rose is called emblem of Mary.

Althea Heim of Sartell attended Cooper's design class. By the end of the summer, she wants to create a Mary garden using a cast-iron bath tub and a statue of Mary.

"I just think they are so cool," Heim said. "Just to have a place to go out there and meditate and share with my grandchildren."

Sacred Heart Parish, Sauk Rapids, planted the Our Lady of Guadalupe Mary's Garden about four years ago on church grounds. Scenic Specialties helped design the garden.

Parishioner Bernie Wesenberg helped care for the garden for years. Visiting the garden is a retreat, she said.

"There's a peacefulness about it," Wesenberg said. "The birds are chirping and there's no phones ringing. You're sitting in God's creation."

]]>http://wcco.com/local/memorial.gardens.tribute.2.1071201.htmlSat, 04 Jul 2009 13:27:43 GMThttp://wcco.com/local/recalled.meat.purple.2.1070600.html
•What happens to recalled meat? - Georgia Johnson, Minneapolis

Most recalls are voluntary, and the meat is disposed of by the company that produced the product. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, meat packages are typically dyed with ink, so they can't be resold. Then they are either taken to landfills or incinerated.

• What are the purple boxes hanging in Minneapolis and St. Paul trees? - Leigha Horton from Minneapolis

The boxes are triangular-shaped, and they're a bug traps. The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Minnesota DNR are trying to catch the emerald ash borer.

They have the purple baited traps in 47 states right now. The ash borer is small and hard to detect, so these baited boxes help.

The goal is to track the movement of the ash borer as it comes to different area.

• Why do we call it an "ear" of corn? - Michele Seeback from Hanley Falls, MN

"Ear" is a botanical term, meaning "a cereal inflorescence which is a spike." Make sense?

OK, what that really means is that the ear a grain (cereal), it's the flowering part of the corn plant (inflorescence) and it grows without branches (spike). Also, when corn pops out of the ground, it looks a little like an ear.

]]>http://wcco.com/local/recalled.meat.purple.2.1070600.htmlSat, 04 Jul 2009 04:02:18 GMT