News

Be-trade

August 14th, 2019

Design by Raul Gomez

FARGO – Farmers don’t talk politics at the elevator, it’s almost an unwritten rule. But when the trade war with China broke out, conversations changed.

“Now every time I go to the elevator it’s fricking Trump this and fricking Trump that,” Todd Leake, a farmer, said. “When they’re listening to the markets they’re smashing their hands on the dashboard of their pickups saying they’re pissed off at Trump.”

Why President Donald Trump’s overall approval rating has…

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​Pride: the show must go on

August 9th, 2019

Peacekeepers Jameson Dargen and Dustin Wilkinson at All Ages Drag Show for Pride Week - photograph by C.S. Hagen

FARGO – When Holiday Mathena was in sixth grade, she knew she was different. Growing up in an open family she found the support she needed, Mathena said, but when she first came out as bisexual, she was ostracized at school.

Now 18 years old, a pansexual, she is also a drag king who enjoys the thrill of dressing to perform her male role as “Spencer Ship.” With only a few performances under her belt, two with Pride events, she’s aware of the controversy surrounding drag shows…

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​Pride: break down the barriers

August 7th, 2019

Kyle Anderson preparing for drag - photograph by C.S. Hagen/design by Raul Gomez

FARGO – Twenty years ago Kyle Anderson would have never given his real name. If he had been a drag queen then he would have made the makeover quietly, without pictures. Nobody at the Elk’s Lodge could have known what the before and during transformation pictures were like.

Dressed in a robe of thunderstorm blue, he stood before his bathroom mirror, took a long look. Name brand paint sticks, cream covers, brushes, and a brand new eyelash kit lie scattered across the counter. There is…

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​FM Pride 2019 Schedule of Events

August 7th, 2019

Stay up-to-date on FM Pride 2019 events by visiting https://fmpride.com/pride/ or like their Facebook Page at www.facebook.com/FMPride

Thursday, August 8th:

6:00—10:00 p.m.: Youth and family bowling, All Star Bowl, 309 17th St N, Moorhead, All ages,

8:00 p.m.—2:00 a.m.: Trivia and karaoke, Rhombus Guys Pizza, 606 Main Ave, Fargo

Friday, August 9th:

8:00 p.m.—10:00 p.m.: All ages, Youth pride drag show, The Stage at Island Park Fargo 333 4th St S, Fargo, All ages $10 cover

9:00 p.m.—2:00 …

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Through hell and back again

July 31st, 2019

Design by Raul Gomez

WALCOTT – When Gerda Jordheim was eight years old Adolf Hitler rode into town as the conquering hero in a military parade. She still remembers the Nazi salutes and hears the ‘Heil Hitlers’ her grandmother warned her against in her dreams. When she was 13, more than 69 Russian soldiers crazed by war raped her. Today, 80 years later, she is a survivor of brutal fascism, and fears for the country to which she immigrated.

“I just wonder why they want to do it now in this country?”…

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​Personal Essay: Why ‘Go back to where you came from’ is nothing new

July 24th, 2019

Design by Raul Gomez

By Amidu Jusu
amidujusu@live.com

I remember dreading walking to and from school in the hot summer sun back in Phoenix, AZ in 2005. Back then people threw their empty bottles and trash at us in the streets shouting: "Go back to your country."

And this was at the slightest hint that you were a new American. That’s all it took. It happened on multiple occasions.

Amidu JusuOne day during my walk an empty bottle hit me in the back, just a few inches from my head. Shocked, I turned around and saw a…

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​Man and the moon

July 17th, 2019

Photograph by C.S. Hagen, design by Raul Gomez

VALLEY CITY – Lowell Busching shuffled into The Vault, pointed to the staff-less counter featuring self-serve sandwiches, Kuchen, and coffee before launching into a history of the building, once a bank. Books and magazines are piled in shelves and along walls in an honor system: take one, but leave a buck.

At 83, his fingers are bent, his shoulders sloop, but his mind is as sharp as the day he helped land astronauts on the moon July 20, 1969, his birthday 50 years ago. Raised and…

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… And justice for some

July 10th, 2019

Design by Raul Gomez

WEST FARGO – March 2018 was an unusually cold and violent month for Fargo. Two standoffs – one of which ended in the death of Justin Dietrich – came days before police responded to Lance Belgarde’s former Horace home, a house he built with his own hands during his approximate 20-year marriage to Kimberly Belgarde.

February had fared little better across the valley. Across the frozen Red River a Minnesota State Patrol trooper shot Melody Gray after she attacked. A Clay County…

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​Blue Cross Blue Shield fined by state Insurance Department

July 9th, 2019

Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota building - photograph by C.S. Hagen

FARGO – A yearlong conduct investigation by the North Dakota Insurance Department into Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota resulted with a fine of $125,000 for the insurance company.

The North Dakota Insurance Department looked into Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota’s company operations, insurance fraud reporting, violations on policy form filing laws, failing to process coordination of benefits claims correctly, corporate governance, complaints, mental and behavioral health…

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‘No More Deaths’

July 2nd, 2019

 Protesting concentration camps along southern border - photograph by Melissa Gonzalez

By Melissa Gonzalez
gonzalezme.mmj@gmail.com 

FARGO - Tired of headlines broadcasting inhumane conditions in the “concentration camps” along the southern border, angry that state leaders have done little to voice opposition, nearly a dozen people gathered in front of Senator John Hoeven’s office to make their voices heard.

Two days before Independence Day, nine people - including Representative Ruth Buffalo - displayed protest signs and handed out flyers with photographs of children…

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