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A new era to begin next week
Minnesota Steel has scheduled groundbreaking for its innovative new Nashwauk direct-reduced iron mine and steel plant for next Friday, Sept. 19. This occurs 26 years, nearly my whole lifespan, after the shuttering and demolition of the old Butler Taconite plant. That dark event, and the massive layoffs across the Iron Range that came with it,…
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Glass ceiling? Up north, you betcha’
In the frenzied quasi-reporting of women’s issues during the Democratic and Republican conventions you might have heard vague mention of the pay disparity between men and women. Nationally, women make only about 70 percent of what men make. In a recent interview on KAXE, Business North reporter Beth Bily talks about the fact that women…
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Brown on the Air: GETTING LOST
My radio essay for this week’s episode of “Between You and Me” on 91.7 KAXE will cover the show’s topic of “getting lost.” My take explores the idea that getting lost can also include not knowing what to look for. Also, there will be an amusing anecdote which transitions into a philosophical argument and then…
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Minnesota Steel update from BizNorth
Here’s another take on this week’s Minnesota Steel news from this week’s Business North, including more assurances that the project will break ground this month. Related posts: No related posts.
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Heartland tour reaches Range on Friday
Though today the campaign goes silent in honor of the 9/11 victims, Friday brings the Range leg of the Barack Obama “Heartland for Change” tour. This is where the campaign sends an RV with local Democrats and campaign leaders to listen to folks all over Minnesota. The tour starts in Ely Friday morning at 9:30…
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Cliffs invests in biomass fuels on the Range
Cleveland-Cliffs announced yesterday that it will build a biomass fuel plant near Orr in Cusson, a rural location just north of the Iron Range. The wood briquettes produced there would be used to generate power at Cliffs’ Range taconite plants. If permitted, financed and built as planned, the Renewafuel plant will employ 25 people. The…
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Ferguson unites common sense and patriotism in election rant
This has been going around a lot today. I even saw it on “Good Morning America.” Comedian Craig Ferguson expresses in an eight minute, entirely nonpartisan monologue how I feel about the state of American politics today. It’s funny, it’s angry, it’s inspiring and it’s spot on. Why do we rely on comedians to say…
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Countdown toward Minnesota Steel reality enters single digits
In a crucial move, the Itasca County Board approved the final structure of state bonding funds for Minnesota Steel infrastructure. This puts the groundbreaking and construction for the project even closer, with an announcement of timeline within days. I can’t stress enough how important it is to see actual groundwork taking place for the people…
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In other news …
In other primaries, Tony Sertich easily beat Marc Pocrnich in the 5B DFL race, 87-13%. Pocrnich didn’t get more than 20 percent anywhere, not even Hibbing where he had centered his “campaign.” There were also some Range city primaries with no major trends to report. Check out the Hibbing Daily Tribune, Mesabi Daily News, Grand…
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What Reinert’s 7B win means
With Roger Reinert’s victory in the DFL primary for House District 7B, Duluth’s political structure has officially gone from one generation to the next. The city council and mayor’s races of almost two years ago coupled with this race show that Duluth’s DFL majority is looking past the “old guard” for new leadership. That’s not…
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LIVEBLOG: Duluth’s 7B showdown
This is the post I’ll keep updating tonight as results pour in from Duluth’s West Side for the only interesting legislative primary in northern Minnesota. For visual reference, I am grading papers in my basement lair in deep rural Itasca County (a place that, for the benefit of future foreign or robot invaders, should be…
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LIVEBLOG: The Iron Range’s 5B smackdown
Meantime, up north, State Rep. and House Majority Leader Tony Sertich (DFL-Chisholm) faces a primary challenge from Marc Pocrnich, who is running for increased Hibbing representation and in opposition to a shared sewer project between Hibbing and neighboring towns. Most elections are about crap, but this one is really about crap. As with my Duluth…
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Go vote!
I’ll join the friendly chorus of reminders to go vote in today’s primary. I’ll be “live blogging” (by way of TV and the internet) tonight’s primary results from Duluth’s DFL primary in 7B and other miscellaneous story lines, such as the local challenge against DFL House Majority Leader Tony Sertich in the Iron Range’s 5B.…
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Oh Lord! MDN hijinks continue
In case you were wondering, the Mesabi Daily News, the largest newspaper on the Iron Range, will not be endorsing Al Franken. That’s my logical assumption, anyway. They’ll have some sort of mock interview process, probably involving a peasant boy dressed to appear like Al Franken. But I think the fix is already in. A…
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Super Steel Tuesday on the Range
Tuesday is a huge day for Minnesota Steel, the mining and steel-making operation set to break ground in Nashwauk within days. The Itasca County Board has several key decisions to make during its meeting today. Tonight officials with Essar, the Indian company that owns the project, meet with Range lawmakers and other leaders to go…