Fortune tells chilling, deadly tale of a company's end run around FDA rules
A new investigative report in Fortune magazine tells the chilling and tragic tale that unfolded when a medical device company decided to make an end run around federal regulators and market its product...
View ArticleThe flying Putin glides into U.S. presidential campaign
Ever since the Republican and Democratic national conventions, Russia’s Vladimir Putin has tried to get our attention.On Sept. 5, he staged another of his macho publicity stunts. On the eve of...
View ArticleHelping the homeless: What is and isn’t working
Remember as a child secretly listening in on adults’ conversations? You felt like an insider.Well, I felt just a little like that Thursday listening in when more than 200 people from 60 agencies from...
View ArticleTempest winds lean hard on the North Country's MN-8 race
Minnesota Brown This week I listened to the new Bob Dylan album "Tempest" front to back, first time I've done that with any album in a long time. It's a darker turn, playfully macabre with Dylan's...
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Writer John Fund and County Attorney Mike Freeman debate voting amendment
Author and voter ID advocate John Fund was recently in the Twin Cities to make the case in favor of the proposed constitutional amendment requiring voters to show ID and introducing a provisional...
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iPhone fans line up, but not at Best Buy
Thomas Lee of the Strib notes that beleaguered Best Buy is getting no iPhone 5 mojo this weekend: “Analysts expect iPhone 5 to be a big blockbuster, even though the device offers only relatively modest...
View ArticleMinneapolis City Council signs off on merged police-misconduct unit
After a last-minute change, a divided Minneapolis City Council approved a new plan for dealing with police misconduct.The vote was 8 to 5 to merge two separate units that currently investigate charges...
View ArticleMN Blog Cabin Roundup, 9/21
Michele Bachmann…. A lady in declinefrom Gov. Arne Carlson's BlogMichele Bachmann’s recent assaults against the Muslims and again suggesting that President Obama is sympathetic to Islamic extremism...
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Creating public parks 3.0: new demographics, new needs
Few bikers on Minneapolis’ “Grand Rounds” know that more than 100 years ago landscape architect and park founder Horace Cleveland called parkways such as the 50-mile chain of lakes byway district he...
View ArticleSouth Thailand bomb attack kills 6, Muslim rebels blamed
A bomb exploded in a crowded shopping area in the south of Thailand today, killing at least six people and injuring dozens more, Agence France Presse reported. The attack began when three gunmen opened...
View ArticleIn Somalia, UN charcoal purchases could be funding Al Shabab terror group
A United Nations contract to buy charcoal for African Union troop kitchens in Somalia is believed indirectly to be funding the country's Al Qaeda-allied Islamist army, The Monitor has learned. Al...
View ArticlePolitics loom large at Pakistan protests
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s government declared today “Love for the Prophet Day.” But the make up of the protests, which eventually turned violent, revealed they were about more than just anger...
View ArticlePaul Ryan to seniors: Medicare 'going bankrupt,' competition is answer
Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan spoke bluntly about Medicare and Social Security Friday, sketching Republican reform ideas and arguing that President Obama, not the GOP, is putting those...
View ArticleAustin A&W is not selling out to Mayo, despite rumors, Austin paper reports
Before we get to the nasty stuff, here’s some good news. The Austin Daily Herald tracked down rumors that the A&W All-American Food drive-in was going to close and sell its property to the Mayo...
View ArticleToo often, cable TV news shows follow the party line
The Communist Party journalists I knew while serving as press attaché with the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw in the late '70s would be very comfortable working in the partisan world of American cable...
View ArticleShattuck-St. Mary's scandal gets seamier
This Shattuck-St.Mary’s story gets seamier by the hour. Tim Nelson of MPR says: “On Tuesday, Faribault Police Chief Don Gudmundson confirmed police were investigating a second staffer at the school in...
View ArticleIndia: Poor choose cash transfers over food subsidy
Over the past year or so, Indian experts have been wrangling over whether or not to scrap the so-called “public distribution system” that provides food to the poor at subsidized rates in favor of...
View ArticleAthens vents anger at Angela Merkel's visit
Tens of thousands of Greeks took to the streets to protest the visit of German Chancellor Angela Merkel today, venting their anger at the woman who has been the focus of the anti-austerity and...
View ArticleWhat's ahead for US as more Americans lose connection to religion
One-fifth of US adults — including one third of adults under age 30 — identify as religiously unaffiliated, the highest percentage ever recorded by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religious and...
View ArticleNorth Korea threatens US after it helps South Korea
North Korea boasted Tuesday that the US was “within the scope” of its long-range missiles after South Korea vowed to deploy new missiles capable of reaching anywhere inside the North.North Korea’s...
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