Vise-Grip is an iconic name in Nebraska, one of the most famous products invented or developed in the state, along with Kool-Aid, raisin bran, and the Reuben sandwich.
The locking pliers have been manufactured in DeWitt for more than 80 years. DeWitt blacksmith and Danish immigrant William Petersen got a patent for the device in 1924.
American Tool sold out in 2002 to Newell Rubbermaid, a minority owner since 1985. Since then, the DeWitt plant has operated under the name of Irwin Industrial Tools, a company American Tool bought in 1993.
Oden said employees were told that "to keep the Vise-Grip name competitive, they had to move to China."




Hundreds of children, some as young as nine, are being held in appalling conditions in Baghdad's prisons, sleeping in sweltering temperatures in overcrowded cells without working fans, no daily access to showers, and subject to frequent sexual abuse by guards, current and former prisoners say.
Karzai claims Brown has threatened to withdraw British troops from Helmand province, where 31 of them have died this year, if the president reinstates two provincial governors sacked for alleged dealings in the heroin trade.
Pima County (Tucson), Arizona's Election Integrity advocate and expert, John Brakey was arrested last night while performing his job as an election supervisor, on behalf of both the Democratic and Libertarian parties, during a post-election hand-count audit of ballots.
During the summer of 2006, from her office adjacent to the White House, deputy national security adviser Meghan O'Sullivan sent President Bush a daily top secret report cataloging the escalating bloodshed and chaos in Iraq. "Violence has acquired a momentum of its own and is now self-sustaining," she wrote July 20, quoting from an intelligence assessment. 





























