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Embattled RAMS settles on four candidates for top job
The Range Association of Municipalities and Schools (RAMS) has announced four candidates for its long vacant position of executive director. The position drew significant controversy earlier this year when the RAMS board named State Sen. David Tomassoni to the position, presenting a widely-perceived conflict of interest for Tomassoni and the group that lobbies St. Paul…
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Local film festival to mark 10 years of ‘North Country’
The sixth annual first ever Duluth-Superior Film Festival opens today in downtown Duluth and runs through Sunday, June 7. Local films and those with a Minnesota connection will be screened for audiences at popular Duluth cultural sites including the Zinema Theater on Superior Street, Clyde Iron Works, The Red Star Lounge and Teatro Zuccone. The festival…
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Rare moose sighting near Cherry
My social media feed has been abuzz with pictures and tales of moose patrolling Highway 37 near my ancestral lands of Cherry, Minnesota. The Mesabi Daily News reports this morning that the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has issued a warning to motorists to be on alert for two young female moose in the area just…
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On Graduation Day
Graduation Day is so much cliché, so much Pomp and Circumstance that they even named the song for it. You dress your best — new tie and dad’s clip, blue dress and subtle flash of white camisole — only to cover all with a plastic table cloth from the dollar store, topping your round head…
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The night Jesse Ventura ‘shocked the world’
Nate Silver’s popular polling aggregator and statistical analysis website FiveThirtyEight.com, now housed with ESPN, is doing a series of short documentaries about situations where polling shaped the news. The one posted this week features the 1998 election of Gov. Jesse Ventura (I-Minn.), one of the most compelling political stories in state history. Well worth a watch:…
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Ely Folk School slated for June 6 opening
In a digital world, one is often left to ask, Who is it that actually knows how to do stuff? Make things. Build structures. Produce crafts and useful items. Get by when the power goes out. Who does that now? Enter the Ely Folk School, slated to open on June 6. A story about the…
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Chisholm teen in Scripps National Spelling Bee today
An Iron Range eighth-grader is competing right now in Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. Cade Klimek from Chisholm High School will be representing Minnesota while spelling alongside the nation’s best today. Preliminaries: Wednesday, May 27, 8am – 4:45pm EDT. Streaming live on ESPN3. Semifinals: Thursday, May 28, 10am – 1pm EDT. Live on ESPN2. Championship Finals:…
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What’s behind Mesabi Nugget’s long term idle?
This week, Indiana-based Steel Dynamics announced the indefinite idling of its Minnesota properties, including Mesabi Nugget in Hoyt Lakes and Mining Resources near Chisholm, a scram mining operation that produced iron concentrate used by Mesabi Nugget. About 200 people will lose their jobs and there is no clear sense of when these properties will reopen, though Steel…
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Essar ramps up Nashwauk construction
Construction is accelerating at the long awaited $1.9 billion Essar iron mine near Nashwauk, while Essar now says it’s optimistic about producing direct reduced iron products here. In a tour of the site on May 21 with Mitch Brunfelt, Essar’s assistant general counsel and director of government and public relations, I took pictures and observed…
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Duluth wraps up Dylan Fest, starts new era
Bob Dylan’s birthday of May 24 passed me by this weekend with little fanfare. In years past as organizer for Dylan Days in Dylan’s hometown of Hibbing, Minnesota, I’d spend that day with Dylan fans from all over the world. This year, we had made the tough decision to let the event go in our…
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Whatever gets you through the night
As a teenager l slept in the basement on a mildewed, brown-speckled mattress in the same room as a sump pump that rattled to life every time it rained. No, this isn’t the start of a long lost Dickens novel set on the Iron Range. I slept here by choice, giving my sister my warm,…
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U.S. Steel responds to Keewatin Taconite rumors
UPDATE: U.S. Steel spokesperson Courtney Boone just told me that the company did not fire 50 management workers at Keewatin Taconite today. My source was in error. Thus, I am retracting the post for now. The mine really is going into indefinite shutdown next week, however, with some staff staying on for scheduled maintenance projects until…
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Open Duluth mayor race now a contest
At long last, City Councilor Emily Larson has an opponent in the open 2015 Duluth mayor’s race. Chuck Horton, a boxing trainer and promotor, announced his campaign this week. Larson, a DFLer, would still considered a favorite against the more conservative Horton in the generally liberal city of Duluth. But Horton is (pun intended) a fighter. His…
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Hwy 53 funds fall victim to turbulent session
Among the many casualties of the rocky legislative session was primary funding for the relocation of Highway 53, the road that connects Northern Minnesota’s Iron Range to Duluth and the rest of the state. Now, local elected leaders and Department of Transportation officials say that unless Highway 53 funding is part of the anticipated special…
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Bob Dylan among Letterman’s last guests
I’m working on a column about David Letterman’s retirement from the Late Show this week. I wrote about Letterman and late night TV some back in April, but the reality of it is upon us. Wednesday will be Letterman’s last show and the guests haven’t been announced. But Tuesday’s show brings a big name with…