Some childcare providers have survived the covid-19 pandemic by essentially paying to take care of children

Providers have been able to ward off the risk of permanent closure by cutting their own pay or digging into their own savings. The government handouts provided later during the crisis have also helped them stay open, but they still face the risk of closure.

Anti-Police Vandals Deface Cop, Firefighter and Soldier Statues in Eagan

This week the Eagan Police Department invited residents of the Twin Cities suburb to an open forum on policing. It was an effort to reach out to those with concerns in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in police custody and the massive protests that followed. But this is what the authorities got in response to their attempt to find common ground. Vandals defaced three bronze statues honoring a policeman protecting a young girl, a firefighter, and a soldier respectively outside the city’s community center. The initials “BLM” presumably representing the radical Black Lives Matter group were spray-painted...

YouTube censors CAE talk on policing ft. Heather Mac Donald

Heather Mac Donald's fact-filled presentation on crime, race and policing was live-streamed on YouTube, but the tech giant was quick to remove the speech off its servers for "violating" the site's "community guidelines" on keeping the platform a "safe place."

AMERICAN EXPERIMENT BOOK SHELF

Minnesota’s care homes are a Covid-19 disaster area. How can we improve that?

If Minnesota is to get on top of its Covid-19 crisis, reducing transmission between care homes by reducing shared staff seems to be an important part of the strategy. 

Illegal Mining Threatens Gorillas in the Congo

In November of 2019, the Minneapolis Star Tribune ran an opinion piece by the Strib Editorial Board “Not This Mine, Not This Location.” The piece sought to lay out why Twin Metals Minnesota should not be allowed to develop the large deposits of copper, nickel, and cobalt because the proposed underground mine would be in the same watershed as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, which is simply so special that we must not try to manage the environmental risks of mining, we should reject them altogether. Whether the editorial board realizes it or not, their position is the epitome...

Coronavirus Threat Fails to Deter Election Judges in Mankato

Concern over catching COVID-19 in person at the polls has reportedly been the impetus for more Minnesotans to vote by absentee ballot in the forthcoming August 11 primary. The threat of the virus also been cited as a reason there may be a shortage of election judges to be on hand to monitor those who do venture out to vote in person. But the conventional wisdom has been turned upside down in the Mankato area by the response of more than enough citizens who have answered the call to serve on Primary Election Day,  according to the Mankato paper. Mankato,...

Many parents will have to stop working if most schools don’t fully reopen

Access to childcare is generally a huge determining factor on whether parents stay or exit the labor force. Keeping schools partially or fully closed increases the risk of many parents exiting the workforce.