December 23rd, 2019
by Jill Finkelson
jsfinkelson99@gmail.com
In 2008, North Dakota had around 1200 homeless living in the state and 30% of them were veterans. In ten years, the Fargo VA has housed 1500 veterans and significantly decreased the mortality of the homeless veteran population. The Fargo VA’s Homeless Program has worked tirelessly with the city of Fargo and the state to end veteran homelessness. This year, the numbers are promising and the focus has begun to shift to prevention measures. For…
December 11th, 2019
FARGO — Since 2016’s Dakota Access Pipeline controversy, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has said very little about North Dakota. Until now.
Never an essential swing state, North Dakotans feel overlooked, at times, and appear mostly proud of being partisan. The state threw 63 percent of its weight behind President Donald Trump in 2016, but North Dakotans have not always bled red. In fact, as the most socialistic state in the Union, North Dakota has voted for Democratic presidents such…
December 11th, 2019
By Sabrina Hornung and C.S. Hagen
sabrina@hpr1.com
BISMARCK — When Senator Kevin Cramer blocked a bipartisan motion for the United States to officially recognize the Armenian genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire last week, he not only bowed to President Donald Trump’s wishes, he also defied both houses of state government.
In 2007, the Governor, and North Dakota House of Representatives, and the state Senate officially recognized Resolution 3003 on January 3, 2007 and became the…
November 27th, 2019
FARGO — Climate change has been known and ignored for half a century, but Fargo residents made their voices known Wednesday during a city organized Town Hall event, demanding an end to fossil fuels and for the city to declare a climate change emergency.
More than one hundred people showed up to the event organized by Fargo City Commissioner John Strand. He emphasized the importance that all opinions on the issue were important, but only one person stood up to deny climate change was…
November 13th, 2019
FARGO — The North Dakota Legislature Legacy Fund Earnings Committee hearings started off Tuesday night by listening to the public on a range of ideas on how to spend the state’s $6.36 billion surplus from oil and gas revenues. On Wednesday, however, the hearings turned sour after a representative from an out-of-state bill mill took the stand.
Members of the Red River Valley Democratic Socialists of America immediately disrupted the speaker, Jonathan Williams, the chief economist and…
November 13th, 2019
By C.S. Hagen and Sabrina Hornung
ROBINSON — On the second day of deer season hunters and farmers gathered in Carol’s Kitchen for bacon and eggs, coffee, and stories. Extreme precipitation including 14 inches of snow this autumn were still making front page news as many farmers struggle to bring their corn, soybeans, wheat, canola, and to the east sugar beets in from frozen fields.
The ground is saturated, and now rock solid. Thin ice covers a foot of water over some roads, including…
November 13th, 2019
LINTON — The battle over the Dakota Access Pipeline is not finished, part two began Wednesday morning during a public hearing conducted by the North Dakota Public Service Commission.
Energy Transfer Partners — the parent company of the Dakota Access Pipeline — wants to expand the pipeline’s capacity, nearly doubling the flow of crude oil south. The Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, the principal opponent against the expansion, said such a change would put the environment, drinking…
November 12th, 2019
FARGO — In some places across the state the words Planned Parenthood are spoken as curse words, but the facts say differently: abortions are down, young women are finding information and assistance, and the poor can afford to plan their families.
“It’s always like a curse word until they need the help,” Kathryn “Kitty” Kolbert said before speaking at the 15th annual Progress on the Prairie Planned Parenthood event Tuesday night. “And that’s been my experience over the…
November 7th, 2019
By Lonna Whiting
lonnawhiting@gmail.com
I’m eating lunch at my desk transcribing an interview from a doctor about the benefits of colonoscopies before age 50.
It’s going to be used in a blog piece I’m ghostwriting for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association as part of Colon Cancer Awareness Month.The doctor’s voice comes through my earbuds, watery, nervous and scripted. They all sound the same like they’re reciting passages from Gray’s Anatomy: The Anatomical Basis of Clinical…
November 6th, 2019
In early October, Planned Parenthood North Central States (PPNCS) announced that Planned Parenthood Direct, a free smartphone app, was available for patients in North Dakota. The app, which can be downloaded on Google Play and in the App Store, allows patients across the state to connect with Planned Parenthood’s sexual and reproductive health care providers in order to receive confidential care and home delivery of contraceptives.
The Planned Parenthood Direct app is available for…