am.mn logoMore trouble with Texans for Norm Coleman. Politics in Minnesota recounts some tales about Fred Malek, the leader among a group of Texans who recently hired the former senator to head a new organization called America’s Action Network. Malek helped Al Checchi buy Northwest Airlines with mountains of debt in 1989, tallied Jews at the Bureau of Labor Statistics for President Nixon in 1971, and in 1959 was among a pack of young men arrested for cooking a dog on a spit in a park.

Elsewhere in Minnesota news this morning …

ST. PAUL: Governor now touts medical-info website he once threatened to axe. Any information at that website about gallstones? [ECM Publications]

MINNEAPOLIS: Somalis who returned home to fight were patriots, not terrorists. Incursions by Ethiopia, not Islamist jihad, motivated immigrants to fight in their homeland. [Minnesota Public Radio]

ROCHESTER: Train plan halted. It wasn’t anything the Mayo Clinic said: The Dakota Minnesota & Eastern Railroad (DM&E) blames the economy for stalling immediate-term plans to send coal rumbling across southern Minnesota. [Rochester Post-Bulletin]

KOOCHICHING COUNTY: State sweetens highway-turnback pot. The budget crunch has caused the Minnesota Department of Transportation to offer counties a deal they can’t refuse: cash to take state highways off MNDOT’s hands. [International Falls Daily Journal]

BIG LAKE: Big fares to ride the train. Round-trip tickets to Minneapolis on the new Northstar Commuter Rail line will top out at $16. [Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal]

STATEWIDE: Beautiful barns sought. Nominations are open for Barn of the Year. [St. Cloud Times]