Legislature passes budget bills after dramatic special session

It looked like the setting for a mock legislative session: Instead of desks and nameplates on the floor of the Minnesota House, there were theater-style seats assigned by slips of sticky paper, while a small lectern stood in for the Speaker of the House's usual podium. There was a gallery for...

The near death — and second life — of the North Star Bicycle Festival

t took nearly 20 minutes for David LaPorte, director of the North Star Bicycle Festival, to weave the story of how close the event came to extinction. He laid it out on a sunny morning in Dinkytown earlier this week, at a coffee shop not far from his office at the University of Minnesota, where...

A walk in the woonerfs: rethinking a realm for bicyclists, pedestrians and cars

In my neighborhood of South St. Anthony Park in St. Paul, we tend to treat our alley like a woonerf. That’s not an autocorrect you’re reading, but a Dutch word for a “living street” designed specifically so that slow-moving vehicles, bicyclists and pedestrians can peacefully co-exist. In our...

Well that was awkward: With trade-deal vote looming, Congressional Baseball Game gets political

WASHINGTON — One night every summer, Democratic and Republican members of Congress trade their suits and ties for cleats and gloves in a longtime D.C. tradition: the Congressional Baseball Game. It’s meant to be a way for lawmakers to mingle and engage in a little good-natured bipartisan bonhomie,...

How Senate DFLers are becoming like Republicans

Republican state Sen. Dave Thompson had been noticing it throughout the Legislative session: a growing fissure between urban and Greater Minnesota legislators in the Senate DFL caucus. The urban-rural, moderate-conservative rift is old hat for Republicans, but this year it has beset Senate DFLers. “One ...

The art and science of construction detours in Minnesota

The word “detour” comes from the French, meaning “to turn away” or “change direction.” But it can also mean “evasion” or “excuse,” and as any driver knows, Minnesota’s contracted construction season can be synonymous with frustration. Though it might seem like a simple matter of erecting orange...

The new Mill City High will be unlike any other school in Minneapolis

John Miller had been teaching pretty happily for a quarter of a century when it occurred to him that he was in a position to fix the sundry small discontents of his professional life by dreaming up and opening his own school. This fall, after nearly four years of planning, scheming, grant-writing...

Attorneys shine a light on the growing problem of elder abuse in Minnesota

Reports of elder abuse are cresting as baby boomers’ parents age and their sometimes sketchy offspring and other opportunists navigate an uneasy economy – so much so that in 2006, the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse and the World Health Organization at the United Nations...

There's a whole lot of earthquaking going on. Here's what is causing the record numbers.

Even if you’ve been following the subject of increased earthquake activity in America’s oil and gas basins, with fracking as the probable cause, you might still be impressed by the hockey-stick trend line above. In the 36 years from 1973 through 2008 (blue line), there were 858 earthquakes in...

Walker performing arts season, 2015-16: It's a knockout

Each year, the Walker’s performing arts season has a hard act to follow: itself. With director and curator Philip Bither in charge since 1997, this eclectic, engaging and proudly risk-taking series of music, theater and dance is more than a beacon of the Twin Cities arts scene. Its grasp is global,...

The Beneficiaries of Republican Budget Bill: Arms Manufacturers

If the House Republicans have their way, Boeing, General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin would be the big winners of last week's annual defense policy bill. The National Defense Authorization Act, which usually gets through easily in this era of war and national security fear with bipartisan...

Okinawan People Oppose Relocation of U.S. Military Base to Henoko

On Monday, February 2, an international coalition of scholars, journalists, and filmmakers sent a letter to President Obama to express their opposition to the U.S. Marine air base at Henoko in Okinawa, Japan. The letter raises concerns about the way that this military base would affect...

Congress and Pentagon Shielding Weapons Contracts from Budget Cuts

On Tuesday, the House unveiled a partial spending bill that would fund most of the government until September 2015 and at the same time delay a fight over President Obama's executive action on immigration. Included in the bill is spending for defense, $521 million for baseline funding,...