Senior Democrats have reached agreement with the National Rifle Association on what could be the first federal gun-control legislation since 1994, a measure to significantly strengthen the national system that checks the backgrounds of gun buyers.

The sensitive talks began in April, days after a mentally ill gunman killed 32 students and teachers at Virginia Tech University.

The shooter, Seung Hui Cho, had been judicially ordered to submit to a psychiatric evaluation, which should have disqualified him from buying handguns. But the state of Virginia never forwarded that information to the federal National Instant Check System, and the massacre exposed a loophole in the 13-year-old background-check program.

The Metro school district is taking a closer look at its policy on employee background checks.

This comes following the arrest of a Hunters Lane High School teacher earlier this year.

The district hasn’t been doing the background checks even though they’re required to do so.

According to NewsChannel 5 reporter Rodney Dunigan, money is the main reason the school system isn’t doing them.

Some language may change but a state senator will continue to push his bill requiring a background check for private handgun sales.

Democrat Spencer Coggs says criminals will always be able to get a gun but he thinks making private handgun buyers go through a background check just as they would at a gun shop will make it more difficult.

A month after the state accused Trenton public school officials of fabricating student transcripts, another state investigation has shown that 350 district employees might not have cleared a required criminal background check.

A state Department of Education audit made public this week found that 114 people, nearly half of them teachers, substitute teachers or classroom aides, may not have been fingerprinted.

In addition, there is no documentation to prove that 236 other employees passed a criminal background check, according to the report.

The General Services Administration in April started background checks on 725 employees as part of the governmentwide identification card project, a federal union said May 30.

But the National Federation of Federal Employees is preparing to challenge GSA’s background check policies. NFFE said GSA refuses to negotiate with the union over the investigation process or tell the union details on how it is conducting background checks and what criteria will be used to determine if employees fail a check and get fired.

Charles Paidock, vice president for NFFE’s Great Lakes Region, said the union may file an unfair labor practice charge with the Federal Labor Relations Authority by the end of the week.

The employees being reinvestigated have been at the agency for fewer than 15 years, Paidock said.

It’s possible to get hired in Texas to care for elderly people even if the applicant has a history of some pretty violent criminal offenses.

A bill heading to the governor’s desk would add to the list of criminal convictions that would keep people from being hired in nursing homes or as home care attendants.

Some crimes that were not already on the list: aggravated sexual assault and terroristic threat.

With all of the violence on Milwaukee streets, three mothers who lost their sons in a triple shooting are working to keep guns out of the wrong hands.

The three are rallying behind a gun-control bill to be introduced to the state Assembly Tuesday which also has support from Milwaukee’s most prolific gun dealer.

The mothers have been on a three-year journey, which has been bound by a vicious act of violence. Their sons were shot, execution style, outside Elvin’s Ice House Tavern in 2003 — the victims of one man’s jealousy.

Language added to a hotly debated immigration resolution at the request of members of the state’s congressional delegation is giving Mayor Kathy Taylor second thoughts about signing off on it, her spokeswoman said Friday.

The resolution initially directed police to check the immigration status of inmates in on felony arrests, but misdemeanor complaints were added Wednesday before the council voted.

Taylor’s office said she and the council reached an agreement in committee on Tuesday that called for only those arrested on felonies to be checked.

How can a firefighter with a criminal record and possible ties to a criminal street gang work his way up the ranks of the state’s fire prevention agency? With relative ease, actually, fire officials said. California Department of Forestry officials in Tulare County admitted Friday that a background check is not required to work as a firefighter at the department.

The disclosure comes in the wake of a Recorder story that revealed a former CDF-Tulare County Fire Department firefighter is facing felony vandalism charges for allegedly spray painting gang graffiti on several buildings in the town of Pixley — while in uniform.

Pixley residents said Juan Cardona Valdez, a 32-year-old former CDF engineer, spray painted red Norteno gang graffiti over blue Sureno graffiti in early December.

So you’ve met someone online. You’ve met a few times and seem to be “clicking.” This relationship has potential. But how do you know that this person you’re dating is really who they say they are?

Online dating “may seem like a convenience for some people, but you don’t really know who is on the other end,” says Ken Plummer, crime prevention officer with the Rochester Police Department.

There are ways to check into a potential partner’s background. Start by typing their name into Google or another search engine to see what comes up. You also can try an online public records search through a fee-based service such as ussearch.com or netsleuth.com. You also can conduct a search of Olmsted County court records on the fifth floor of the city-county Government Center.

• Group for Private Investigators
• Group for Process Servers