Target of foreclosure fraud lawsuit was ‘controlling the prices of housing here’

A group of plaintiffs that includes the city of Minneapolis, the Family Housing Fund, the Greater Metropolitan Housing Corporation and three neighborhood organizations has announced it plans to file a lawsuit in Hennepin County today accusing a Roseville…

Breaking: Minneapolis to join lawsuit against “fraudulent real estate scheme”

The city of Minneapolis will join with three north Minneapolis neighborhoods Wednesday to file a lawsuit against “a fraudulent real estate scheme” that has worsened the city’s foreclosure crisis, according to a press release from the mayor’s office.

The mayor’s…

State funding likely for Second, Marquette reconstruction

A street reconstruction plan aimed at making it easier for buses and pedestrians to get through downtown Minneapolis is expected to get a confidence boost this afternoon at the State Capitol.

The project calls for…

Climate skeptics: Protecting polar bears will destroy our way of life

Stephen Colbert has an ongoing joke in which he describes bears as the single greatest threat to America today. The bit might have made a good keynote address earlier this month at the Heartland Institute’s “International Conference on Climate Change”…

Counting the dead: Mapping the impact on Minnesota

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The number of U.S. military casualties in Iraq recently passed the 4,000 mark. According to the Web site icasualties.org, 59 of those soldiers have come from Minnesota. We’ve plotted data from icasualties.org onto a Google map…

Health care expands in Minneapolis, but industry not recession-proof

Health care is the centerpiece of Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak’s strategy to make the city’s economy resistant to recession. Rybak called health care “Minneapolis’ most important industry” early this month in his state of the…

Counting the dead: Minneapolis man marks war dead on garage memorial

Jim Weber considers it a reminder, not a political statement. The 57-year-old Vietnam veteran and retired postal service worker started tallying U.S. military casualties in Iraq on a three-by-four whiteboard above his garage door in 2003. “At first, I…

Study: Carbon legislation makes coal a foolish investment

A financial research firm that was ahead of the curve on red-flagging Bear Stearns Companies’ bad investments is now warning a Kansas utility that expanding a coal-burning power plant would also fall under the financially dubious…

Bill would let bike-bound barhoppers sip between stops

Last summer some friends of mine came up with a brilliant idea for my bachelor party. On a drizzly August afternoon, we boarded a bizarre, rectangular bicycle-built-for-16 called the Pedal Pub and set out for a long…

Warming climate is thinning state’s moose herd

MPR’s Tom Robertson reports on Minnesota’s dwindling moose population, which wildlife biologists believe may be affected by climate change. This story line is likely to turn up again and again. Most species are adapted to live…