Greater Minnesota

The Chisholm cultural institution known until last summer as Ironworld will lay off 26 full-time staff members Friday and on Satuday close its doors to visitors. The Minnesota Discovery Center, originally a state-funded effort now struggling as a private nonprofit, has suffered in the economic downturn. But like the mines that anchor the Iron Range [...]

epublican Allen Quist solicits funds saying he and U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann “are two peas in a pod.” Now he’s set to announce Thursday whether he’ll make a bid to join Bachmann in Congress by running against Democrat Tim Walz in Minnesota’s First District.

Asked what the biggest threat facing Minnesota now is, gubernatorial candidate and state Rep. Tom Rukavina, DFL-Virginia, is quick with an answer: Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s unallotments. In a video by Craig Stellmacher, Rukavina says the legislature “should’ve come out swinging” immediately after Pawlenty decided unilaterally to cut $2.7 billion from the state budget. He believes [...]

No, it’s not the return flight-path for those errant Northwest Airlines pilots. It’s U.S. Sen. Al Franken’s hand-drawn map of Minnesota, done on spec for National Geographic. 

Don’t believe everything you’ve heard about what comes out of Sarah Palin’s mouth. In particular, Palin doesn’t sound that Minnesotan, say a trio of University of Wisconsin-Madison experts.

Gubernatorial candidate Margaret Anderson Kelliher picked up an endorsement from Minnesota’s largest union of state professional employees today. MAPE — the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees — announced its support for Anderson Kelliher, who is speaker of the state House of Representatives.
MAPE, which has nearly 13,000 members, interviewed each gubernatorial candidate in Roseville on Monday [...]

Tim Pawlenty didn’t bring it. Or he did, depending on who you ask. Here’s a roundup of reaction to the Minnesota governor’s speech to Republican activists in Iowa over the weekend.

The Rev. Nate Bjorge quit his position with the First Lutheran Church in Little Falls last week after the church voted to remain a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The ELCA, the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination, voted to allow churches to roster gay and lesbian pastors at a meeting in Minneapolis [...]

US Bank is putting its brand on nine banks, but it’s not necessarily an indicator of a robust economy: the Minneapolis-based bank, a division of US Bancorp, is assuming the assets and most of the debts of nine banks that closed on Friday. It was a record-setting day: It’s the most banks closed by the [...]

Republican state Rep. Paul Kohls has put his gubernatorial campaign on hold, according to the Jordan Indepedent. The Victoria, Minn., resident emailed supporters with the news this morning, noting that “it has become clear to me that the activists are lining up in much greater numbers behind some of the other candidates in the race, [...]