-
Lee, Reyelts retirements to shake up Duluth TV news
Last month, longtime KBJR news director Barbara Reyelts and newscast anchor Michelle Lee both announced their impending retirement. Their departure reflects changes in the Duluth TV News market that began when WDIO’s legendary Dennis Anderson retired five years ago. Lee steps down Dec. 27. She has been doing TV news in Duluth since 1983 and has anchored the 6…
-
Speaking the hope of tomorrow’s Northern Minnesota
A few weekends ago I found myself in the rural environs of Northome, Minnesota. Two of my sons had a LEGO robotics meet there, an insanely long Saturday of watching LEGO robots intermittently pick things up and put them down again. The occasion left lots of time to wander the halls of Northome School. Northome is a logging town located in…
-
Evergreen with envy
Even in the distant North Woods of Minnesota you can’t avoid our long cultural obsession with “the holidays.” By now, those of you who celebrate have likely put up your Christmas trees. The Noel tradition of decorating an evergreen tree inside the home dates backs centuries, even before Christianity itself. To discuss this tradition, today…
-
Feds deny Twin Metals mineral leases near BWCA
Today, the U.S. government informed Twin Metals, a proposed nonferrous mining project near Ely, that the Forest Service would oppose mineral leases in lands near the federally protected Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. As a result, the Department of Land Management indicated it would not renew the leases, which had expired in 2012. The news…
-
Proposition 54, where are you?
Last Saturday, the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor party central committee voted down Proposition 54, a controversial resolution that would have placed the party in opposition to sulfide ore mining. Now, an aside. I earnestly considered whether or not to headline this post about a failed DFL resolution with pun that relates to a black-and-white TV comedy that aired before I was…
-
Intriguing buyer seeks to acquire Magnetation assets
A year and a half after declaring bankruptcy, and nearly a year after fully idling its Iron Range scram mining operations, Magnetation might finally have a new owner. Company officials announced late Friday that ERP Iron Ore, LLC, a subsidiary of ERP Compliant Fuels, seeks to buy the idled Magnetation assets. A Dec. 15 bankruptcy court…
-
Trusting the wolves, hastening our fate
May 25, 2000: The morning after LTV Steel announced it would close its Hoyt Lakes taconite plant, miners lined up outside the Workforce Center in Virginia, Minnesota. Each wanted to be first to submit a job application to another mine on the Mesabi Iron Range, none of which were hiring. Though employed to monitor youth…
-
Text of Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech
Though not in attendance at the ceremony in Stockholm, Bob Dylan nevertheless accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature today. As people in Dylan’s hometown of Hibbing celebrated the accomplishments of their famous son, the U.S. Ambassador to Sweden, Anita Raji, read Dylan’s speech into the record. It was short, grateful, and focused on the question of “What…
-
Saturday is ‘Bob Dylan Day’ in Minnesota
The sign honoring Hibbing High School alumnus Bob Zimmerman for his Nobel Prize. (PHOTO: Hibbing High School) This Saturday, Dec. 10, 2016, the Swedish Academy in Stockholm will award Bob Dylan with the Nobel Prize for Literature, in absentia. Patti Smith will sing “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” Someone will read an acceptance speech written by…
-
Indian banks sue Essar over cost overruns
Essar Steel Minnesota, bankrupt and seeking capital from a new holdings company, is still providing headaches to its parent company Essar Global back in India. John Myers at the Duluth News Tribune reported Dec. 7 that banks in India are suing Essar over problems on the Nashwauk iron ore project. From the story: The Economic Times reported Wednesday…
-
U.S. Steel vows (nonspecifically) to restore 10,000 jobs
In recent days, we’ve been talking about the general improvement of stock and commodity prices as they relate to Mesabi Range iron mines. One of my key observations was that despite the surge, U.S. Steel’s Keewatin Taconite remained closed after 18 months. Well, stop the presses. Maybe. On Wednesday, U.S. Steel CEO Mario Longhi said on…
-
Duluth TV reporter lutefisk hazing continues
Used to be, no one had refrigerators. From this simple truth emerged many methods of preparing and storing food across the cultures of the world. In the Scandinavian countries of Norway and Sweden, that included soaking white fish in lye until it formed a gel. Then, months later, you could “reconstitute” the floppy former fish…
-
Stunning turn in Dakota Access Pipeline debate
Today, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced it would deny the current easement request for the Dakota Access Pipeline, instead seeking alternative routes. Protesters supporting the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s opposition to the pipeline — which would have crossed the band’s water source, Lake Oahe — celebrated Sunday’s news as an unexpected triumph. For months, peaceful…
-
The nation’s rural reckoning of 2016
When the founders crafted our Constitution more than two centuries ago, they enshrined the rural agrarian roots of the United States. Country gentlemen trusted city folk about as much then as they do now, and for largely the same reason: power. For who would rule this nation? The farmers and loggers of the country, or…
-
Mills opts to back off recount in MN-8
Stewart Mills announced today he would not seek a recount in Minnesota’s Eighth Congressional district. Mills lost to Rep. Rick Nolan (D-MN8) by about 2,000 votes in the Nov. 8 general election. Outside the margin for an automatic recount, Mills had nonetheless sought to pay for one himself. Today, Mills said the expense of doing so…