Schultz Fall Blog

Feed My Starving Children, a Minnesota-based organization has well over exceeded it's giving goal for this year.

Earlier this summer, the organization set a goal of five million meals to be sent to East Africa. This week they announced that they not old reached their goal, they surpassed it, sending nearly 11 millions meals by the end of 2011.

"There are those moments when you just stop and you've got to be so grateful for the response and what we're able to do," Mark Crea, CEO of Feed My Starving Children told Kare11.

Crea said that most of the gracious response was a result of generous volunteers, donors, and corporations.

"It's just giving, and it doesn't take a whole lot," Tiffany House, a volunteer said, "We always have plenty of food on our tables, and most of them don't have anything."

Police are on a search for the 2-year-old girl who went missing in Detroit Friday monring after her father was allegedly carjacked.

Deandre Lane, claims he was carjacked at gunpoint and they took off with his daughter, Bianca, in the backseat.

Lane has spent time in prison on charges of narcotics and weapons.

Family members of Lane doubt his story because he called his girlfriend before calling police after the alleged carjack.

"Just please take her to a hospital, a church, a drug store, anywhere, and just leave her somewhere safe, anywhere we can find her," Bianca's mother, Banika Jones, said at a press conference.

ABC News reports that Lane is cooperating while in custody, but has recently failed a polygraph test.

"I'm praying that she is still with us because I wanna see that little girl again," Bianca's uncle, Jerry Weaver, said.

An American aid worker who was kidnapped back in August is now being held hostage by Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

Warren Weinstein is the first private American citizen to be kidnapped in Pakistan since the 2002 execution of Daniel Pearl.

Weinstein was a respected development expert whose work was very uncontroversial, working with dairy farmers and furniture sellers.

ABC News reports that Al Qaeda listed of nine demands in a video which includes the release of Talaban and Al Qaeda prisoners everywhere including Guantanamo Bay.

Officials say that the kidnapping should not come as a surprise. When troops captured Bin Laden in May, they found documents stating how Al Qaeda wanted to get back into the kidnapping business in order to make money.

Weinstein's kidnapping appears to be more about making a political statement officials believe.

A house fire on Wednesday morning in North Minneapolis left one man dead and two firefighters injured.

The victim who was inside the supposed to be vacant house was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center after a firefighter gave him first aid. He was later pronounced dead.

Two firefighters suffered minor injuries after they fell through the floor of the burning house.

The house, which was supposed to be vacant left authorities puzzled as to why the man was in there.

"As you look at the building you'll notice that there is a piece of plywood on the front door," Dep. Chief Todd Steinhilber, of the Minneapolis Fire Department told Kare11. "One of the crew went to the back door immediately and found the backdoor wide open."

A freshman student was hospitalized Thursday after a science experiment went wrong at Maple Grove school.

Dane Neuberger, 15, and three other students were in the front row when their teacher was performing an experiment with flammable liquids.

"Finally he put methanol in a big jug and dropped a match in there," Neuberger told KSTP. "And that's the last I know. I was on fire and he was wrapping me with a fire proof blanket."

Neuberger and the three other students were taken to Hennepin County Medical Center. The other students were released for less severe burns.

Doctors say Neuberger should heal without scarring as long as the burns remain simple second degree burns.

"It's scary I wish it didn't happen," Neuberger said. "I try to avoid looking in the mirror though, I don't like what i see."

With the first significant snow fall of the year flooding Minnesota Saturday, the snow is to blame for hundreds of accidents across the state.

Kare11 reports that MnDot cameras captured numerous crashes and spinouts in the metro area shortly after the snow began falling Saturday afternoon.

"There have been close to 450 crashes statewide between noon and 8:30 p.m. including over 100 spinouts," Lt. Eric Roeske of the State Patrol said.

Twenty-five of the crashes resulted in injuries. Two of the crashes involved squad cars, and one accident was fatal.

Roeske advises motorists to allow extra time to get around, reduce speeds, increase following distances and anticipate heavy congestion.

Chemist Arthur Berrier has the same routine day after day. Secluded inside a heavily guarded federal lab in Virginia, he searches for the new mix of substances to alert the investigators before it's too late.

In this constant game of catch up, the drug creators are always remaining one step ahead. Manufacturers of these illegal drugs have an endless choice of chemicals to create a new addiction.

The names and bizarre mixes of substances contained in drugs are in constant change. This makes state or federal bans against them weak and hard to come by.

Police departments in places swamped with the drugs problems say they lack the resources or the expertise to respond to problems.

"For us, this is just getting bigger and bigger," Thomas Duncan, Berrier's boss at the Virginia research lab said. "We had no idea."

Sadly, many researchers believe the war on synthetic drugs is something that can't be arrested or legislated away, the Star Tribune Reports.

Experts believe that it will require a multi-pronged effort that relies heavily on education, prevention and public awareness.

The protesters in Cairo and Egypt's military council butt heads again on Saturday, as the troops clears out thousands of demonstrators from Tharir Square, the New York Times reports.

Tear gas and rubber bullets were shot as the battles heated up Saturday evening. With at least three demonstrators reported dead because of the fights.

There were about 5,000 demonstrators in the square Sunday afternoon before the fighting broke out with the military. The number of demonstrators only grew as the day went on.

"I saw the revolution being slain so I had to come," Ahmed Hamza, 41, a lawyer, said watching the fray. Hamza told The Times that like many others, he was set to stay until the ruling military council forcefully carried out an exit plan. "Today there will be violence," he added.

Reports indicated that more than 700 people had been injured. Demonstrators created and maintained a makeshift hospital in a mosque near the square to treat injured protestors. Nearly 400 people were treated there from serious injuries and a couple hundred more were treated from the tear gas.

The cool, dry Minnesota air fills up around the hunters as the sun shows its rays for the first time. An ice layer on the water and a drizzle of willow leaves lets them leave in their boat, off to find the game.

They rode off into the lake and as a result of the sun's first morning sun rays, ducks in the water and in the air.

"It's not quite the perfect duck camp, but, well, yeah, it's a dream," Mark Voerding, whose duck camp that was, confessed to the Pioneer Press.

Duck camps, and what was left of old ones, were perched throughout the rolling farmland and body of water, near the shore.

As duck hunters grow old, retire or simply die, there are less hunters out and less camps in use.

Minnesota reported about 90,000 registered hunters this year, which is well below the 130,000 reported a decade ago. The result being duck camps go empty this time of the year.

Perhaps because of the increased duck numbers or the change of season the numbers went up from previous years. Only time will tell how the waterflow of hunters will continue.

For the past two months Zuccotti Park in Manhattan has been thriving with drummers, protesters, passer-byers, journalists, and other groups of people.

Wednesday morning, a lone man sat on a marble ledge frantically scribbling in his journal. Two officers chatted and told stories, passing time during their shift. Crossing guards ushered people across the street. Everything seemed "Back to normal."

Back to normal- the protesters had been evicted from the park and for the first time since September, things seemed to return to the usual.

Many of the residents in the area say the eviction was a breath of fresh air. "It was nice to have my neighborhood back," Karen Greenspan, 52, who lives less than a block from the park told the New York Times. "I could actually see the ground."

Officials estimate that the protesters have caused the city nearly $3 million a month with the increase of police presence.

The protesters are not about to back down just yet though. According to their website there will be another gathering and protest planned for late in the week.