North Dakota
Bemidji postal concerns lead to district-wide USPS audit in Minnesota and North Dakota
BEMIDJI, Minn. — After reports of mail delays and poor working conditions at the United States Postal Service gained local and national attention in November, with a special focus on the Bemidji Post Office, the USPS Office of the Inspector General has announced that an audit will be performed on the Minnesota-North Dakota Postal District.
The Bemidji office first gained attention when its rural mail carriers put on
a symbolic strike in mid-November,
protesting 12-hour days and what they described as an influx of Amazon packages that were prioritized over other mail deliveries.
This story gained the attention of national news outlets, and the offices of U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith held
a listening session in Bemidji
where residents shared their experiences and former postal employees testified to poor labor conditions that caused several people
to quit or take early retirement.
Madelyn Haasken / Bemidji Pioneer
This led the senators, along with other Minnesota representatives, to call on the USPS Office of the Inspector General to conduct a full audit of the Minnesota-North Dakota Postal District.
“For years, I have been raising the concerns of Minnesotans to the Postal Service, and they repeatedly insist that everything is fine,” Smith said. “This audit will provide a much-needed, unbiased review of postal service in Minnesota.”
This audit was officially announced by the OIG in its report of a similar investigation into mail services around St. Paul.
“(Those reports) just verified everything we’ve been hearing across the state,” Klobuchar said. “They’re going to do this same in-depth review in Bemidji, in Blackduck, in other areas across our state, and I think what (the OIG) found makes them believe that there are going to be other problems.”
These reviews will be published as a part of a district-wide report that’s expected in late spring, and what Klobuchar hopes will address ongoing constituent concerns.
“In Bemidji, we know the issue of the Amazon packages and the concerns there, the workforce issues,” she said. “We just need to get this under control.”
The review will examine the postal service’s processing, logistics and delivery networks and will include observations of several post offices and mail processing plants as well as interviews with employees.
Alongside the examination of northern Minnesota’s postal service, the investigation will also audit several North Dakota locations, including offices in Mandan, Minot and Bismarck.
The results of the audit will come with a detailed list of issues and recommendations, which district management will have a chance to agree with and implement.
“When a report is issued, the postal service responds to each (OIG) recommendation, and if there is agreement, it provides a corrective action plan with a date of planned implementation,” explained Tara Linne, the OIG’s director of communications.
These corrective actions are evaluated and closed by the OIG once they have been resolved. If the postal service disagrees with or does not act on a recommendation, another process is followed.
“(If there’s disagreement) we work toward an agreement by elevating discussions between USPS and OIG management,” Linne said. “Any recommendations that the postal service does not act on remain open and are reported to Congress until a resolution is achieved.”
For the current and former postal workers whose efforts helped gain widespread attention, the audit is welcome news.
“This is the whole reason we started our endeavor with the symbolic strike,” shared Dennis Nelson, a former rural carrier who helped organize the efforts and resigned in December because of the working conditions. “We needed public officials to get involved with this.”
While the audit is only examining the Minnesota-North Dakota district, Nelson believes the issues with the postal service are likely nationwide.
“I suspect that these issues are not unique to our district. It’s systemic,” he said. “(This audit) has been a long time coming.”
Courtesy / Dennis Nelson
As for the changes he hopes to see, Nelson wants to see a less hostile working environment that treats its employees with respect. He also wants to see significant efforts made in hiring and an examination of rural carriers’ pay systems.
Importantly, he also wants to have a better system for reporting problems. Nelson explained that while he worked for the Post Office the narrative was that the OIG was something to be feared rather than an institution to reach out to for help.
“We were told to fear the OIG and that if they showed up we were in trouble — that we did something wrong and they would be investigating us,” he said. “It never occurred to anybody to contact the OIG or that they might be the people who could help us.”
While Nelson may no longer work for the Bemidji Post Office, he hopes that this audit will mark the first step toward progress and making the postal service an improved institution.
“The whole idea was to get this thing rolling and make it a better place for everybody,” he said. “It’s too little and too late for those of us who had to endure it, but if all the changes come about that I hope, then the whole thing will be worth it.”
North Dakota
Grand Forks Founder of Coffee Business Named Small Business 2026 North Dakota Small Business Person of The Year Winner
(U.S. Small Business Administration image)
(KNOX) – The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has named Sandi Luck, founder and CEO of Grand Forks based Bully Brew Coffee and ND Coffee Roastery, as its 2026 North Dakota Small Business Person of the Year winer. This prestigious award recognizes Luck’s visionary leadership, the sustained growth of her coffee enterprise, and her unwavering commitment to the North Dakota community. Luck’s entrepreneurial journey began 18 years ago when she launched a modest coffee kiosk while serving as a professor of marketing and entrepreneurship at the University of North Dakota. By blending her academic expertise with a “community over competition” philosophy, she has scaled her 100 percent woman-owned enterprise into a regional powerhouse.
“During National Small Business Week, SBA is honored to recognize the job creators, builders, and innovators who fuel our nation’s economy and anchor communities across America,” said SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler. In North Dakota, the agency will host a series of events throughout the week, including local award ceremonies and networking sessions to celebrate the grit and resilience of entrepreneurs in their own communities.
“Sandi Luck embodies the spirit of North Dakota entrepreneurship,” said SBA’s North Dakota District Director Al Haut. “From her roots in Grand Forks to the expansion her company across the region, she has proven that a small business can be a powerful engine for both economic growth and community connection.”
Luck strategically leveraged her professional network and SBA resources, including SCORE, the North Dakota Women’s Business Center, and the statewide Small Business Development Center network. A pivotal milestone occurred in 2022 when she purchased a 27,000-square-foot warehouse to store her roasting operations and educational programs. This expansion allowed the ND Coffee Roastery to secure over 120 wholesale accounts, including becoming the official coffee roaster for North Dakota State University.
FARGO — Many in North Dakota are wondering what’s next for the Republican Party in North Dakota after the tension displayed at
the state’s Republican convention.
Several statewide incumbents skipped the process, prompting frustrated delegates to send a message, voting to symbolically distance them from the party by stripping them of their Republican label.
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CARTER COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL) – A Carter County woman was jailed for months in Fargo, North Dakota, after artificial intelligence mistakenly flagged her for bank fraud.
According to the Carter County Sheriff’s Office, Angela Lipps arrived at the Carter County Detention Center on July 14, 2025, for violation of probation. The Detention Center was informed through the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) that Lipps also had a warrant in North Dakota for being a fugitive of justice.
The sheriff’s office told News Channel 11 that it informed the Cass County Jail in Fargo that it had Lipps in custody. On Oct. 30, 2025, Lipps was extradited to Cass County. Upon arrival, Lipps obtained a criminal defense attorney, Jay Greenwood.
In Fargo, Lipps was held in custody for two months while facing four counts of unauthorized use of personal identifying information and four counts of theft, according to Greenwood.
According to Greenwood, Lipps claimed she had never set foot in the state of North Dakota prior to being transported there by law enforcement.
“We kind of had a discussion as to, ‘I’ve never been in North Dakota before, this is the first time I’ve ever been on an airplane when they brought me here,’ and so, we needed to establish that kind of that alibi line of defense,” Greenwood told News Channel 11.
Greenwood added that he began investigating bank records to prove that Lipps was not in Fargo at the time the bank fraud crimes occurred.
“I kind of reached out to Lipps’ family to see if they could get me some bank records just to show whether or not she was ever here, whether she was using her debit card in Tennessee, and it showed that she had been,” Greenwood said. “I asked for records of a few months back, so I kind of wanted to know if she had been buying the same types of things at the same types of places for a few months, and that showed that, and I gave that information to the state attorney’s office.”
Upon submitting the evidence to the state attorney’s office, the case was dropped shortly before a scheduled preliminary hearing.
Fargo Police Department Chief David Zibolski acknowledged in a press conference on March 23 that it was a mistake by an AI recognition tool used by the West Fargo Police Department, which forwarded that information to the Fargo Police Department.
“Through their AI system, made that identification of Ms. Lipps and forwarded that information,” Zibolski said. “I would say it’s not an identification; it’s a potential suspect, but they forwarded that information to our detectives, who then assumed wrongly that they had also sent in the surveillance photos with that photo ID.”
Greenwood said fault also lies with the Fargo Police Department for not fully investigating the case before issuing a warrant for arrest.
“All I did was ask her family if she had ever left Tennessee, and they were pretty clear that she hadn’t, and then provided me information within about a week,” Greenwood said. “So it’s kind of split both ways. I get when people are going to use the tools that they have, you know, AI tools that they can use. But it can’t be the only tool. And they just left it at that. And this is what happens.”
Zibolski added in the news conference that the Fargo Police Department has issued a temporary directive and the department’s use of facial recognition technology is under review:
- The use of facial recognition technology to identify an unknown person shall only be utilized by members assigned to the criminal investigation division.
- Prior to the use of this technology, the member’s unit commander shall review the case and approve the use of facial recognition technology to assist in creating an investigative lead that may help to identify an unknown person.
- Once reviewed and approved for submission, department members shall only use bona fide status or federal entities to perform the search.
- Department members shall not use any other individual agency or department’s facial recognition AI system.
- All facial recognition identification submissions shall be tracked by the unit commander. The unit commander shall report the results of those submissions monthly to the CID Commander.
The Fargo Police Department is still actively searching for the fraud suspect.
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