North Dakota
An Air Force veteran opened a garage in North Dakota. When a vet buddy asked him for a ride, a lifeline was born.
U.S. Army veteran Myron Hennen hadn’t had a car in 18 months – not easy in Grand Forks, North Dakota, a small city with frigid temperatures for most of the year, large open expanses and a tight-knit veteran community.
The 68-year-old said he was struggling with mental health issues and was arrested for various charges including theft and possession of drug paraphernalia. His car was impounded by police and he was assigned to veterans’ treatment court, where Hennen said he got help for the first time.
“By the time I got it diagnosed and treated and started to get my life under control, I had very little money,” he wrote in a September letter.
Hennen told CBS News he didn’t have enough to get his car back.
Hennen said he was living off a small Social Security payment and was isolated in his home in East Grand Forks, Minnesota, right across the river from Grand Forks — until he met Larry Mendivil Jr. through a coordinator at the court.
Mendivil, an Air Force veteran who had been deployed five times and worked on inspections and repairs, struggled to ease back into civilian life.
“I was actually homeless for a little while,” he said.
The military, he said, “trains you for war but don’t train how to live when you get out.”
Navigating life in Grand Forks, or other rural areas without a car can be daunting.
“The most important thing in North Dakota is you got to have something here to drive. Everyone here knows how important a car is,” said Mendivil.
Sobriety and stability can come with transportation
Nearly a quarter of U.S. veterans — 4.4 million — live in rural communities and a large portion struggle with poverty, isolation and access to healthcare. Transportation can be key for many military members returning to civilian life — but researchers found it’s often an afterthought.
Researchers Andrea Lubin and Stephanie Dipetrillo found transport access should be considered “an essential service” without which veterans “can have a difficult time reintegrating into civilian life,” they wrote in a 2015 report for the U.S. Department of Transportation.
For many, a vehicle is a necessity: 71.6% of workers living at the poverty level use personal vehicles to get to work. Without transportation, veterans can become isolated and that can exacerbate underlying mental health issues and other struggles. About 35,574 veterans, like Mendivil, experienced homelessness in 2023 in the U.S., according to Veterans Affairs.
Experts say that since American society is organized around automobiles, having a vehicle is essential to making money.
Mendivil told Hennen he had a 2007 Honda Accord that needed a new battery, alternator, and starter but he would fix it, for free. It was a kindness, Hennen said, that changed his entire situation.
Lubin, managing director at Rutgers University’s Voorhees Transportation Center told CBS News veterans interviewed for their report said “transportation costs” or cars were rarely discussed with assisting organizations after they returned stateside.
Mendivil, 42, found his way back to sobriety and stability through cars. He started helping his uncle, a mechanic, around his shop. Mendivil was fixing cars when he got a call from an old Air Force buddy.
His Suzuki truck had stalled and his buddy couldn’t get to his new job, a setback he was sure would get him fired and imperil the fragile life he just started to rebuild. Mendivil drove an hour to his friend’s house, picked him up and dropped him off at work. But then he went the extra step, and fixed the truck, showing his friend some mechanical skills in the process.
He then launched the nonprofit Miracles for Vets, or Mv4, which assists veterans with rides, fixes their cars and donates repaired vehicles to veterans who don’t have transportation.
“It’s a brotherhood”
On a scrappy budget of less than $50,000 a year, Mendivil said he’s helped 300 veterans fix their cars over the years and just gave away his 45th vehicle. His methods, he says, are relatively straightforward. He keeps it about the veterans and the vehicle.
“We are so small and we’ve all been in the military. It’s a brotherhood,” Ross Weiler, the foundation’s board chair, told CBS News. He said, “Larry is a gearhead, and I’m a gearhead.”
Miracles for Vets works out of a garage on Dyke Avenue in Grand Forks, partnering with different suppliers to fix the cars that come through. Auto Glass and Automakers have donated four windshields to cars for veterans, and Mendivil said the company gives “a free install for the windshield if we are out of money and if it’s for a veteran.”
Grand Forks Treatment Court sends mandated workers to help out at the garage in the afternoons, Mendivil said, otherwise it’s mainly just him and one other mechanic fixing cars. Veterans sometimes congregate at the garage just to see the vehicles the organization is working on or get a tune-up of their own.
Donald Lapham, 61, said Miracles for Vets has helped him with his 2006 GMC Sierra truck when the transmission doesn’t work. He spent 17 years in the Army reserves and now lives in his truck, Lapham said, “dealing with depression and bad knees.”
Mendivil said there hasn’t been one car he hasn’t donated at least $500 in parts and $2,000 for labor. His girlfriend does all the accounting, and his son,11, helps out in the garage.
“I’ll never be an important person, yet helping veterans to stay mobile and giving them free cars is super important to me,” Mendivil said.
Hennen, the veteran who got the 2007 Honda Accord agreed. Once he had his car he didn’t have to take the bus to the grocery store. That trip, he said, would take him about an hour each way, and was tough in the “rough winters.” Now Hennen said, he jumps in his car and drives 10 minutes each way. He is planning on visiting his three granddaughters who live 300 miles away.
“Having a car in my life gave me a feeling of freedom,” said Hennen. “I could go anywhere I want to go, how I want to go and I could go where I wanted to go.”
He said he hadn’t felt that way since he was a young man. “Life is a lot better than it was before.”
GRAND FORKS — A North Dakota composer’s dream is turning into a statewide invitation.
Williston-based musician Emily Black-Driscoll was chosen as the North Dakota Music Teachers Association’s commissioned composer for 2026. She’s preparing an original composition that will premiere in August.
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North Dakota
Challengers declare victory after ND Supreme Court rules against Legislature’s attempt to alter term limits
BISMARCK — A constitutional ballot measure to amend the state’s term limits law as proposed by the Legislature will not appear on November’s ballot, the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled Thursday, siding with petitioners who argued the Legislature exceeded its authority and violated the state constitution in proposing the changes.
“The people’s voice was heard,” Grand Forks County Commissioner Terry Bjerke said in reaction to the news.
Bjerke was a member of the sponsoring committee behind the successful 2022 effort to pass a term limits initiative, which amended the state constitution by capping legislative term limits to eight years in the House and eight years in the Senate. The amendment, which became article XV of the state constitution, also included a clause barring the Legislature from making constitutional changes to term limits.
During the 2025 session, however, lawmakers narrowly approved Senate Concurrent Resolution 4008, in which the legislature proposed Constitutional Measure 1, a ballot measure to amend the term limits language to allow legislators to decide in which chamber they want to serve their 16 years, and to repeal the clause limiting the legislative assembly’s authority to propose an amendment to alter or repeal term limits.
Bjerke and former Minot legislator Oley Larsen brought the lawsuit challenging the validity of the Legislature’s action in January, and the state Supreme Court
heard oral arguments in the case
this spring.
“Those term limits may only be altered by a measure proposed by the people rather than the Legislative Assembly. And yet a few years later, the Legislative Assembly is doing what they are prohibited from doing,” attorney Zachary Wallen argued on Bjerke and Larsen’s behalf.
Tanner Ecker / The Bismarck Tribune
The Legislature’s attorneys argued the clause prohibiting legislative proposals to alter the constitutional term limits language “infringes on our republican form of government” by “limiting the people’s ability to vote on amendments proposed by their elected officials.”
Justice Jon Jensen seemed skeptical of that argument during the April 2 hearing, questioning whether a second vote was appropriate.
“The public did speak on this. The public spoke on it when it passed the original constitutional amendment and they said, ‘Legislature, you don’t even get to propose a change.’ They have already spoken on it,” Jensen said. “You want a second shot, or a second bite at the apple, not a first one, a second.”
In Thursday’s ruling, all five justices sided with Bjerke and Larsen.
“We … conclude the Legislative Assembly’s adoption of S.C.R. 4008 violated N.D. Const. art. XV … and declare S.C.R. 4008 and Constitutional Measure 1 void … We enjoin the Secretary of State from placing Constitutional Measure 1 on the November 2026 general election ballot,” the ruling said.
Bjerke thanked the legal team that worked on behalf of their lawsuit, and said he was grateful the court reached the conclusion it did.
“I’m thrilled that what the people voted on and approved has been validated,” Bjerke said.
He added that the Legislature had “multiple opportunities” to address term limits prior to 2022’s initiated measure and chose not to, and gave a nod to the country’s coming milestone and the process by which voters expressed their support for term limits.
“We’ve lasted 250 years,” Bjerke said. “I have two words for those elected leaders who think they aren’t: everyone’s replaceable.”
North Dakota
Fargo woman convicted in North Dakota fraud case now faces charges in Minnesota: A deeper dive
FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) – A North Dakota woman who was sentenced to 180 days in jail in Cass County for defrauding healthcare providers and Medicaid programs is now facing additional fraud charges in Minnesota.
Christine Marie Pryor, 55, pleaded guilty in November 2024 to theft by deception involving more than $50,000. She was sentenced to first serve 180 days with a 3-year sentence suspended. She received credit for 44 days already served.
Pryor was ordered to pay $82,584.78 in restitution to Southeast Human Services in Fargo, where she worked between 2018 and 2019.
How the scheme unfolded
According to court documents, Pryor worked at multiple healthcare facilities in North Dakota and Minnesota between 2018 and 2023, using the identities and credentials of three licensed professionals without their knowledge. She submitted fraudulent Capella University diplomas and transcripts to gain employment.
Investigators say Pryor admitted she searched state licensing websites for therapists who shared her first name, then used those therapists’ last names and license numbers when applying for jobs.
At Southeast Human Services, where she worked as a Licensed Addiction Counselor, Pryor earned $55,584.82 while providing therapy services to approximately 150 patients. She also opened her own counseling center, NIAM Brain Injury Center, in Fargo between 2020 and 2021, and worked at The Lotus Center in Moorhead, Minnesota, from 2021 to 2023.
Court documents say the three licensed professionals whose identities were used told investigators they had no knowledge of Pryor’s actions and did not give her permission to use their information.
Two additional charges against Pryor in North Dakota, unauthorized use of personal identifying information, were dismissed on motion of the state.
Additional charges in Minnesota
Pryor is also facing charges in Minnesota. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced on Tuesday charges against Pryor in Clay County District Court for six theft offenses and six identity theft offenses related to defrauding Minnesota’s Medicaid program of more than $150,000.
According to the Minnesota complaint, Pryor claimed to provide psychotherapy and alcohol and drug counseling services to Medicaid recipients despite having no license or credentials to do so. Prosecutors allege she used the credentials and identities of three licensed professionals while claiming to provide Medicaid-funded services to 169 clients.
The Minnesota charges were filed as part of National Health Care Fraud Takedown Day, a joint effort involving the Department of Justice and more than 40 state Medicaid Fraud Control Units.
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