By Bob Collins

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 →

Catholic bishops issued a statement today that made it pretty clear how Catholics should vote in the 2008 elections: Catholic. This isn’t exactly new; it repeats similar instructions made every election year since 1976. When you think Catholic and politics, one often thinks “abortion.” But it’s not that simple. Operating under the directive that a Read more →

Steve Olson pens an item forcing us to look at ourselves. And the time we waste… or not. For the last month I have been trying to schedule two hours of unstructured play for my son and his best friend from school and we still haven’t found a time that works. The realization that we Read more →

I read somewhere last week that sooner or later, the United States is going to have to recognize it can’t influence the rest of the world as easily anymore. Japan, you got Okinawa back. Panama, we gave you the canal. But this Internet thing? We’re keeping it.

All of it, apparently. On Thursday, the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission will release a report on stadium financing that, it says, “details both the public costs and the revenues derived from supporting professional sports in Minnesota.” “This report shows that – contrary to what some people think – professional sports has been a financial winner Read more →

In our political culture, we’ve become accustomed to a myth, partly because of the way news is covered. There is a good guy and there is a bad guy. There is white and there is black. There is liberal and there is conservative. There are only two flavors to anything and one flavor per side. Read more →

In the wake of the suspension of a group of Hamline University football players for dressing up in blackface for Halloween, someone had to ask the question. What exactly is the problem with blackface? Oddly, it was asked in Boston, where Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr picked up a DVD of The Jazz Singer Read more →