Featured
Howie: Minnesota’s political civil war weekend
The emotional political truth in Minnesota: The DFL fears permanently losing working-class and regional voters. Republicans fear nominating candidates who thrill activists but collapse in the suburbs. Both fears are real.
Howie: Jim Oberstar understood Washington better than anyone
Oberstar approached Congress differently. He understood it as machinery requiring relationships, technical credibility, negotiation and committee leverage rather than ideological performance.
Howie: The hardest truth after George Floyd
History will remember George Floyd’s murder for many reasons. Protest. Rage. Reform. Politics. Division. Reckoning. But the enduring question may be simpler. Did America merely react to what it saw? Or did it finally learn to tell itself the truth?
Howie: What Glen Taylor understood about newspapers that Wall Street didn’t
The question is no longer whether newspapers are dying. The real question now is which institutions survive the transition from industrial-age newspapers into modern digital civic platforms. And whether Minnesota’s largest news organization fully understands what it must become next.
Tim Meyer: One Park One Vote built on solid sustainability
Whether residents ultimately agree with every proposal or not, the broader framework behind One Park One Vote deserves to be taken seriously because it attempts to connect housing, sustainability, environmental protection and economic development into one larger civic conversation.
Howie: Don Ness and the reinvention of Duluth
Ness convinced Duluth to stop speaking about itself like a city waiting for the next economic funeral and start speaking about itself like a place with a future worth competing for nationally. Not perfectly. Not without backlash. Not without legitimate criticism. But undeniably.
Howie: Bayfront still may be Duluth’s best idea
Bayfront remains one of the few places where the city still functions the way a healthy city is supposed to function: as a shared public space where people continue gathering together because they genuinely want to be there. Every summer, Duluth remembers that again.
Howie: Jim Oberstar understood Washington better than anyone
Oberstar approached Congress differently. He understood it as machinery requiring relationships, technical credibility, negotiation and committee leverage rather than ideological performance.
Howie: The hardest truth after George Floyd
History will remember George Floyd’s murder for many reasons. Protest. Rage. Reform. Politics. Division. Reckoning. But the enduring question may be simpler. Did America merely react to what it saw? Or did it finally learn to tell itself the truth?
Howie: What Glen Taylor understood about newspapers that Wall Street didn’t
The question is no longer whether newspapers are dying. The real question now is which institutions survive the transition from industrial-age newspapers into modern digital civic platforms. And whether Minnesota’s largest news organization fully understands what it must become next.