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Nisswa night cops ‘rick-roll’ themselves
I used to work as an overnight disc jockey. I was also the editor of an afternoon newspaper. That meant that my day started before the end of what would normally be the “night shift” at the cop shop downtown. A strange feeling overtakes you as you realize that most people you know are sleeping, but…
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FARGO, Season 3, Ep. 3: “The Law of Non-Contradiction”
The FX series “Fargo” takes viewers on a “true crime” adventure through the snow-swept landscape of Minnesota. Based on the Coen Brothers Academy Award winning film “Fargo,” each season of the TV series explores a new story cast from the themes of innocence lost, human failings, and the redemptive power of goodness. Northern Minnesota author Aaron J. Brown…
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Officials push new rails on the Iron Range to cut transport costs
Say, ladies and gents, the brass says someday an iron horse might reach across the whole Mesabi Iron Range. Ain’t that a corker! Wait until Mr. James J. Hill hears about this. Slang from the 1880s aside, local officials and elected leaders — at the behest of companies like Minnesota Power — are pushing for more…
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Short film shot in Duluth shows horror of modern workplace
What drives the modern worker? Is it money? Ambition. Or have we been conditioned to press on with increasingly meaningless office tasks in fear of what might happen if we ever stop? Perhaps, like the shark who must swim to survive, the office worker must print, copy and collate. “Take Your Non-Vaporous Apparition to Work…
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New band ‘Hazardous Weather Outlook’ opens Duluth Homegrown
The annual week-long Duluth Homegrown Music Festival opens today. Nearly 200 local bands will perform at venues throughout the Zenith City. Homegrown is a cornerstone of the Northern Minnesota music scene, showcasing the depth and variety of artistic talent in the region. That’s why the choice of opening band is such a surprise. This year’s…
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As words change amid Info Age, ‘Truth’ rises to the top
Every time we use a word we create a small, rapidly vaporizing artifact of a time, a place, and its people. That’s why language is the cornerstone of any culture. Each year I report on the annual list of top words from the Global Language Monitor in Austin, Texas. I spoke with Paul JJ Payack,…
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City steps in to rescue Hibbing street dance
The Hibbing Daily Tribune reports that the city of Hibbing will step in to save the Jubilee Street Dance held each June in this Mesabi Iron Range town. The Hibbing Area Chamber of Commerce had previously announced it would no longer organize the event due to logistical challenges. The street dance shuts down Hibbing’s Howard…
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London’s Liberty House, backer of bid for Essar project, also bought US steel mill
This week brought the surprising news that Chippewa Capital Partners submitted the successful bid for the former Essar Steel Minnesota iron ore project on the western Mesabi Iron Range. Chippewa Capital Partners is a financing group formed around ERP Iron Ore, a company founded by Virginia state entrepreneur Tom Clarke. The larger backer, however, is GFG…
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FARGO, Season 3, Ep. 2: “The Principle of Restricted Space”
The FX series “Fargo” takes viewers on a “true crime” adventure through the snow-swept landscape of Minnesota. Based on the Coen Brothers Academy Award winning film “Fargo,” each season of the TV series explores a new story cast from the themes of innocence lost, human failings, and the redemptive power of goodness. Northern Minnesota author Aaron J. Brown…
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Outsider bid pulls off upset in Essar bankruptcy auction
As the old saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt. Today, a bankruptcy court in Delaware ruled on the case of Essar Steel Minnesota. The judge didn’t go with the incumbent, now renamed Mesabi Metallics. Nor did the well established Cliffs Natural Resources prevail. Instead, Chippewa Capital Partners, LLC, a group controlled by Tom Clarke’s ERP Iron Ore, announced…
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Trump’s tariff on Canada softwood may spike prices, slow construction
President Donald Trump’s Commerce Department made news in these parts by slapping a 15 percent tariff on Canadian softwood lumber. Trump says Canadian subsidies create unfair trade conditions, a charge that Canadian officials dispute. It comes down to how Canada handles the ownership of timber lands. In the U.S. private interests hold most lands, an…
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The budding role of culture in Steel Town USA
For decades, the U.S. Steel Corporation stood as the single most powerful entity along Northern Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range. When local delegations needed something they doffed their hats at U.S. Steel Tower, not the capitol domes of St. Paul or Washington, D.C. U.S. Steel officially headquartered in New York until 1970, when the company moved…
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Pivotal week for Essar bankruptcy on western Mesabi Range
It’s a big week ahead for those following the bankruptcy of Essar Steel Minnesota near Nashwauk, Minnesota. In the next few days a bankruptcy court will rule on the project’s fate. Essar is the proposed taconite plant at the site of the former Butler Taconite on the western Mesabi Iron Range. But calling it a taconite plant…
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To build Iron Range economic hopes we must keep working
The steam cloud pouring out of the stack at Keewatin Taconite once again guides my daily commute from the wilds of Itasca County into Hibbing. For nearly two years, the eastern sky bore only the unforgiving blaze of the sun. Now fluffy white billows remind that hundreds of miners are back at work. Unfortunately, KeeTac’s…
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Cheeseburgers, health care & rural identity: adventures in podcasting
At this point, the words “blog” and “podcast,” once trendy markers of an innovative agent of media disruption, have reached the point in their life cycle where the words themselves are pretty boring, perhaps even grating, on their own. But people read and listen to blogs and podcasts in great numbers, particularly if you count the…