Allina in Springfield Thumbs Up: It makes a lot of sense for Allina Health, which owns and operates the New Ulm Medical Center, to step in at the Springfield hospital and clinic, which the Mayo Health System is leaving in March. Allina has a strong presence at the New Ulm Medical Center, ...
A significant number of schools throughout the United States have authorized staff members to carry firearms while at work. The idea is that armed educators and school service personnel can protect students in the event of an incursion by someone bent on violence. But an Associated Press ...
Until they have answers, the top priority for U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies needs to be determining whether Mohammed Alshamrani was a lone-wolf terrorist or part of a larger plot. Alshamrani, an officer in the Royal Saudi Air Force, was being trained at a U.S. naval base at ...
After many weeks in which the U.S. House of Representatives has seemed preoccupied with impeachment hearings, action on a new trade agreement may finally be on the horizon. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Tuesday announced her caucus has reached agreement with the White House on the ...
We don’t get it. Really. Apparently, according to The Associated Press, there is some sort of stigma attached to those who attend two-year colleges. As the AP reported, a Perrysburg, Ohio, college president decided to do something about the stigma. Steve Robinson, of Owens Community ...
Just a month after Mexican drug cartel murderers massacred at least nine Americans living in that country, more evidence of mayhem south of the border has been written in blood. In early November, two separate groups of women and children were ambushed near their homes in northern Mexico. ...
Season of giving Thumbs Up: With the late date for Thanksgiving this year, the holiday shopping season is a little shorter than usual. We hope people will find time to help those who may be suffering this season. There are people hurting because they have lost someone this year and their ...
With a projected surplus of $1.3 billion glimmering at the end of the current state budget, legislators are sure to be talking this session about what to do with it. Do we want tax relief? More money for roads and bridges? More money for unmet health care needs? Raises for health care ...
The struggle of rural hospitals to stay open in today’s economy is well documented. Rural areas have high rates of people without health care coverage, and hospitals face high rates of uncompensated care when they have to come in for treatment. Population is falling in rural areas, meaning ...
“Do we really want to be remembered as the generation that buried its head in the sand, that fiddled while the planet burned?” asked U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres this week. He was addressing representatives from nearly 200 nations, gathered in Spain for a meeting on climate ...
The most effective education on world trouble spots requires going there. So, just before Thanksgiving, a group of members of Congress went to Afghanistan. There, they talked with both U.S. forces and officials and Afghans, including that nation’s president, Ashraf Ghani. Making the trip ...
Temperatures have reached the point where most of us can no longer deny that winter is coming. With the change of seasons comes an increase in the need to heat our homes — and fire departments are warning residents there is also an increased need for caution. One popular way to keep warm is ...
Community Dinner THUMBS UP: The annual Community Friends Thanksgiving Dinner was held Thursday and fed around 850 people, hosting some 700 in St. Mary’s Catholic Church and sending out about 150 takeouts. It was another successful undertaking, with a host of volunteers making Thanksgiving ...
Too often, we prosperous, free Americans take our many blessings for granted. Nearly all of us enjoy material wealth that is the envy of billions of people in other lands. We are free to do nearly anything our hearts desire, as long as our actions do not harm others. Our nation itself is a ...
Nothing makes holidays like Thanksgiving happier than families getting together to spend a day feasting and catching up on their lives. So, nothing threatens that holiday happiness more than a bad weather warning that threatens to mess up holiday travel plans. That’s what we have coming up ...
In comparison to this country, Iran has some of the lowest gasoline prices in the world, at about 39 cents per gallon. But they are going up to about 50 cents — and stiff rationing is being instituted. Drivers buying more than 13 gallons per week will have to pay twice the minimum. How is ...
Community Dinner THUMBS UP: Thanksgiving is nearly upon us, and while most families are busy planning a dinner for 15 or 20 relatives, the New Ulm Community Friends are planning on feeding 500, 600 or more people on Thanksgiving Day. This is the 32nd Community Dinner put on by the friends, ...
A Washington Post data base of police shootings indicates about 1 in 5 police encounters that end in a fatality involve a person with mental illness. Often, friends or family members may call police to assist when something is going wrong with someone, but the encounter spirals out of control ...
A substantial number of people who once were unwavering supporters of capital punishment have become opponents. Their conviction that some vicious criminals should pay the ultimate price remains firm. But revelations that a substantial number of people convicted of capital crimes were ...
Slightly more than 30 years ago, millions of Americans watched helplessly as pro-democracy protests in China were crushed ruthlessly. Our horror at the Tiananmen Square massacre was mixed with admiration for the courage shown by more than a million Chinese in standing up to the ...