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Duluth Homegrown runs today through May 8
The Duluth Homegrown Music Festival opens today and runs through next Sunday. This week-long music extravaganza is the hallmark of the emerging Duluth music scene and boasts more live music in one week than some towns see all year long. Quite simply, Duluth Homegrown is back-to-back live music all week long at more than a…
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U.S. Steel charges at Chinese imports
U.S. Steel, once the vaunted industrial giant of the world, is taking one last Rooster Cogburn charge at the global steel crisis that has the Pittsburgh-based corporate titan cornered in some western meadow. J.P. Morgan’s flagship corporation has been contracting for decades, illustrated perfectly by its move out of a Pittsburgh skyscraper into a much smaller suburban…
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Great Northern Radio Show from Pequot Lakes
The speed of life seems to have accelerated lately. End of the semester. Kids in school and activities. In any event, I’ve not talked about my April 9 Great Northern Radio Show from Pequot Lakes, Minnesota. The Pequot Lakes show was a lot of fun and turned out well. The musical lineup delivered big time. Reina…
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Cliffs eyes fall start for United Taconite
In a call to investors yesterday, Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves announced that his company will reopen Northshore Mining in May and plans to restart United Taconite in Eveleth later this year. Goncalves also announced that Cliffs made a profit during the last quarter, which wasn’t expected. However, Cliffs remains more than $2 billion in debt. A few weeks ago, Goncalves said United…
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Kids love rubber mulch for all the wrong reasons
Playground equipment used to be hellish industrial machinery. Kids would bust their arms just looking at the hand pump merry-go-round. The ground was just that: ground. Heck, you were lucky if it was dirt. It might have been pavement. In a quest to make things safer, many new playgrounds use rubber mulch, bouncy chunks reclaimed…
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ArcelorMittal, Steelworkers reach deal
The 2,000 Steelworkers and other workers currently laid off from Iron Range mines have been in the news for more than a year now. For much of that same year most remaining Steelworkers have been working under an expired labor contract. Last fall, labor tensions were high. The major companies, all reeling from big losses and shrinking…
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Aldi grocery chain to build in Grand Rapids, MN
The Scenic Range News Forum reports that the discount supermarket chain Aldi seeks to open a store in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, on the site of a former lumber store. In a subdivision deal, fast food chain Hardees will also open a restaurant on the same site. This lot is located across from the McDonald’s on Pokegama Avenue South. It had been occupied…
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Hooking up: Broadband in Minnesota
On Saturday, a postcard arrived in the U.S. Mail. Perhaps ironically, this small piece of snail mail told us that MinnesotaBrown World Headquarters in Balsam Township, Minnesota, would be connected to high speed fiber optic internet access later this year. It’s official. Paul Bunyan Communication’s Central Itasca Fiber project currently includes my rural neighborhood. You can see the company’s final…
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State luring wood product plant to Northern MN
A large publicly-traded company that makes wood siding is considering building a new plant in Northern Minnesota. According to reports from Minnesota Public Radio and the Associated Press, the plant would employ about 250 people. The company is considering sites near Hoyt Lakes, Cook and Grand Rapids, as well as sites in other states. From Brian Bakst…
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From taconite to tractor
It’s pretty well established that a tractor is made of steel. Iron Rangers generally understand that the trucks hauling iron ore on the edge of town have something to do with making that steel. Nevertheless it can be difficult to understand exactly how ore goes from rock to machine. So much of the process happens outside…
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60 Minutes: Nolan laments telemarketer Congress
Last night U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan (D-MN8) was featured on the venerated CBS news magazine show “60 Minutes” for his work on campaign reform. Nolan is co-sponsoring the STOP Act, co-authored by Florida Republican Rep. David Jolly and others, which would prevent federally elected officials from directly soliciting funds. You can see the story here:…
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Give a hoot, disguise your toots
Here at MinnesotaBrown, I’ve been a steadfast advocate of economic diversification in Northern Minnesota. This means all sorts of new ideas; not just ones I think of myself. Thus, I am honor bound to point out this latest concept. An Iron Range couple has created a new app that camouflages personal bodily sounds to avoid awkward social…
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Simonson prevails in SD7 DFL endorsement battle
Almost 500 DFL delegates met Saturday in Duluth to endorse a candidate to succeed retiring State Sen. Roger Reinert (DFL-Duluth). After a strong 57-43 percent showing on the first ballot, State Rep. Erik Simonson was endorsed on the second ballot over former city councilor Sharla Gardner. Gardner vowed to support Simonson, unifying the Duluth DFL apparatus…
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Mud for our modern world
Thus ends the afternoon meeting. You can hear him now, the co-worker who’d rather be fishing. He slaps open the conference room door as though exiting an outhouse. Then comes the husky voiced lady from the department that has no name, the one who smokes reds on the loading dock without blinking. “Clear as mud,”…
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Reforming the IRRRB is tricky business
For decades, reforming the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB) has been the intermittent goal of “good government” advocates, gadfly Iron Rangers, and frustrated partisans ascending to or descending from power. Reforming the IRRRB has also been a political football bandied about at the legislature by both parties at different times for different reasons. The concept of “reforming…