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Truth behind the numbers on mining jobs
Like screeching crows or the rattle of a train yard, Northern Minnesota’s never-ending debate about risks and prospects of new mining eventually fades into the background. You get used to it. It matters, but it doesn’t change. So it’s been interesting to watch a similar debate enter the national discussion. President Trump, during the campaign and…
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Trump’s budget betrays rural America
Rural voters backed Donald Trump in the 2016 election for many reasons. For some, it was ideological. Rural areas have become more politically conservative, home to more people who believe in hands-off government and stricter regulation on social issues. Other voters saw the progressive social changes of the past ten years and felt overwhelmed. For…
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We’re (probably) gonna win Twins, we’re (occasionally) going to score
Javier Ponce? Pedro Jaramillo? Francisco Velasco? Who are these guys, and how did they end up on the roster of the Minnesota Twins? Major League Baseball kicks off its 2017 season on Sunday. The Minnesota Twins open Monday at Target Field. And it doesn’t look good. For instance, Ponce, Jaramillo and Velasco? Those are actually members…
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38% of U.S. jobs could be lost to automation within 15 years
A diagnostic scan of the economy along Northern Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range turns up several problems, and several causes of those problems. But nothing has contributed to more job losses in the Iron Range economy than the improved technology and automation of the iron mining industry. Those same changes literally saved the industry, while reducing the number of…
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From horse and buggy to hybrids, the woman who lived history
My great-grandmother Ruby Peck died Feb. 26, 2017 at the age of 103. For most of my life she lived alone in a small house set amid the rolling hills of southern Pennsylvania. My great-grandmother was a rock-ribbed Republican who voted that way because the GOP was the party of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S.…
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Stunning North Woods buzzer beater advances Grizzlies
The Minnesota Boys Basketball Tournament is going on in St. Paul this week. The North Woods Grizzlies, champions of northeastern Minnesota’s Section 7A, are still in the hunt, thanks to this heroic shot by sophomore Cade Goggleye. Check it out: WDIO has the same shot from a different angle. The Duluth News Tribune also has…
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Dylan talks hunting, fishing and Northern Minnesota in new interview
Like most who grew up on the Iron Range, Bob Dylan reminisces about hunting and fishing. He also insists there’s a profound difference between Northern and Southern Minnesota. Dylan, born in Duluth and raised in Hibbing, doesn’t give many interviews. When he does, they become their own art form. His answers, rarely direct, ebb and flow around some ambiguous concept,…
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Trump’s tricky American steel promise
What happens when the promise of political change meets the rocky cliffs of reality? Every president, every Congress, every legislature must weather this shift. History shows that all suffer at least some political fallout in the process. There’s a reason incumbent parties tend to lose seats in the midterms, and that presidential approval (usually) starts high…
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‘Flowetry in Motion’ for 2017 MN State All Hockey Hair Team
Northern Minnesota continues to celebrate the exciting conclusion to the Minnesota State High School Boys Hockey Tournament. For the first time since 1998, two northern teams won the Class A and Class AA championships, respectively. But the real fun is only getting started. After the tournament, Game On! Minnesota released its 2017 Minnesota State High…
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Government in the bag
At age 10, I controlled the government. It all started with a knock on the door of our trailer house. We lived on the family junkyard along County Highway 7, a couple miles south of Eveleth Taconite in the Sax-Zim bog. Such knocks came rare and usually involved directing toothless men back to the shop…
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‘All-218’ final for state high school boys hockey title
UPDATE: Hail, Hail the 218! Grand Rapids and Hermantown win the AA and A championships, respectively! The sun rises on a hockey holiday in the state of Minnesota. The class A and AA championship games take place today in St. Paul. Thrilling many here, no doubt, these showdowns feature three teams from our hardscrabble hockey-loving 218 area code…
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Pierre the Pantsless Voyageur now also armless
They say March in Northern Minnesota comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. Well, that lion just bit off the arm of an enormous French Canadian who lacks trousers. High winds raged across the region on Tuesday, March 7, knocking out electrical lines and blowing snow across the roadways. Wind gusts of more…
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Minnesota governor signs Sunday liquor into law
Minnesota’s long Sunday nightmare is over. Today, Gov. Mark Dayton signed into law a provision that allows the sale of liquor, wine and beer on Sundays. As I wrote during the legislative debate on this matter, Minnesota has long banned liquor on Sundays as part of an old set of “blue laws.” One part prohibition and one…
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Power plays go beyond hockey on the Mesabi Iron Range
This week the state hockey tournament takes place in St. Paul. This sporting spectacle doubles as a cultural celebration for the people of the North Star State. Once, the whole state bowed to the gods of hockey from our beloved blue collar Mesabi Iron Range. Today, however, the big suburban schools dominate the competition. The…
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Layman, Bakk IRRRB reform bills get closer
Following up on my post earlier this week, the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board met this week in St. Paul. Also this week, two Iron Range legislators, one Republican and one DFLer, moved toward each other with bills to reform the agency. In a contentious 5-4 vote, the board endorsed a plan to privatize Giant’s…