The naming of Detroit as the least safe city in the United States is causing some consternation in Detroit, oddly enough. But a Minnesota law professor is in the fray, too. The American Society of Criminology discounted the report from an arm of the Congressional Quarterly magazine, calling it “an irresponsible misuse” of crime data. Read more →
No doubt this will sound like sour grapes. No journalist — or blogger — wants to get beaten on any story. And there’s no question that blogger Eric Black “owned” (as we like to say in the news business, but only when it happens to us) the Rachel Paulose story. He did a great job Read more →
Midwest Airlines today is defending a pilot who was arrested in his cockpit at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport last week when someone smelled alcohol on his breath. KSTP reported that is blood alcohol level was .16. It wasn’t. It was .016. That’s not drunk, and it’s not against the law to have a Read more →
My name is 3205 Longfellow Ave. This afternoon, the city of Minneapolis will tack a sign on me that says condemned, despite the unusual involvement of neighborhood residents since the bank foreclosed on the Ecuadoran family that called me home. They’re gone now, but I’m still here. So are my neighbors, who are worried I’ll Read more →
$800 million. That’s how close Residential Capital is to bankruptcy, according to the Financial Times. The Minnesota-based arm of GMAC says its lenders are requiring it to keep $5.4 billion in value. Its latest filing with the SEC shows a value of $6.2 billion. “GM/Cerberus may elect to put ResCap into bankruptcy given its exposure Read more →
Perhaps we, the media, should reconsider what our job is. Perhaps you, the audience, should think about it, too. At the moment, we’re not on the same page. A young lady, Rissa Amen-Reif, was killed in Mankato over the weekend, when she and a friend were struck by a car. Amen-Reif was lying in the Read more →
In a conversation with MPR Morning Edition host Cathy Wurzer this morning (and also on his blog) , MPR meteorologist Paul Huttner painted a gloomy picture of the planet’s oceans and their ability to inhale what we exhale. Paul noted that over the weekend, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported that the oceans are Read more →
U.S. Attorney Rachel Paulose has kept a pretty low profile since three of her top administrators quit earlier this year, and subsequent revelations that her predecessor, Tom Heffelfinger, was one of the U.S. attorneys former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez wanted gone. This week the New York Times outlined the various controversies, suggesting that Paulose is Read more →
So you got shut out of the electronics recycling event in Bloomington. Here are sources you can use to find a place that will take your e*waste. Green Guardian – Features a Google map of locations in the metro area. Computer Take Back – An activist organization that tries to prevent shipping e-waste overseas. It Read more →
Among the things Pioneer Press subscribers could always count on: no matter the weather, the paper would be at their doorstep. Then owned by Knight Ridder, the Press built a massive marketing campaign around it in the ’90s. Subscribe to the Press, or walk to the end of the driveway in your underwear to get Read more →
How is it that coffee companies — we’re talking Starbucks and Minnesota-based Caribou here — can build stores on just about every block and make a buck doing it? We’re finding out today, they can’t. America’s love with “big coffee” may be over, and we’re finding that out by peeking into the financials the companies Read more →
On Monday, Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced a 35-point legislative initiative for veterans, including a new cemetery in Duluth, and money to study their mental health needs. If some investigative work by CBS News this week is all accurate, there’s valuable data Minnesota can use. No federal agency has tracked suicide rates among veterans, including those Read more →
In Mesa, Arizona, Engligh teacher and cheerleader coach Cristina Mallon has been forced to resign after a YouTube video showed her performing a “seemingly harmless cheer with pompoms.” She got suspended and then bounced after a complaint that a book she assigned — Jake Reinvented — was inappropriate. So, she’s gone. In Huntsville, Arkansas, teacher Read more →
Bob Collins