News

​Ruth Anna Buffalo: Woman of the Year

October 2nd, 2019

Ruth Buffalo - wet plate photograph by Shane Balkowitsch

By Lonna Whiting
lonna@lonna.co

“It’s always like this. Always busy,” Ruth Anna Buffalo said during a speaker phone interview while driving a rented cargo van from Bismarck back home to Fargo.

Buffalo, the first Native American Democrat elected to the North Dakota Legislature and a longtime public health advocate, had recently been in Washington, DC, for the Native American Legislators Caucus where she spent time attending roundtable discussions and panels with members of Health and…

Read more...


​Citizen undercover

September 24th, 2019

Keith Coates, a certified massage therapist, took it upon himself to investigate human trafficking in area massage parlors - photograph by C.S. Hagen

FARGO – Local men are keeping the trafficking of Chinese sex workers alive in the metro area. From distant Chinese villages, middle-aged women are being circulated across the world through San Gabriel, California and on to Fargo/Moorhead massage parlors.

With promises of happy endings, many of the local Asian massage parlors are offering such special services. The women rarely stay more than half a year before they’re moved to Cyprus, Paris, or back home. Mostly in their 30s, they…

Read more...


​‘I have hope’

September 20th, 2019

Penelope Echola leading chants at Fargo's climate strike - photograph by C.S. Hagen

FARGO – Millions of people, young and old, joined a worldwide climate strike Friday to demand their governments end the age of fossil fuels, and Fargo was no exception.

By noon, nearly 200 people waving signs and chanting slogans showed up at City Hall with the event, organized by the Red River Valley Democratic Socialists of America, to City Hall, and voiced their concerns about the inability of government to properly address climate change. Their plan: disrupt business as usual to…

Read more...


The North Dakota Salt Lands

September 11th, 2019

Photographs by C.S. Hagen, design by Raul Gomez - photograph by C.S. Hagen

WILEY FIELD, North Dakota – The stench hits first. Invisible and explosive, hydrogen sulfide burns through mucous membranes, leaving a metallic taste on the tongue. Breathe in enough – which isn’t much – and the gas, a byproduct of crude oil, will knock down anyone within two breaths. Death comes in minutes.

With few signs of burning flares on a windy day, the invisible poison has no ground zero in the oilfields of Bottineau County. It can be smelled everywhere between the…

Read more...


​North High school shooting threat

September 3rd, 2019

Fargo North High School - school website

FARGO – A school shooting threat written on a student’s desk at North High prompted an investigation and will ensure a heavier police presence at the school on Wednesday.

Fargo North High School Principal Andy Dahlen issued a statement late Tuesday night, saying that during eighth period a student told a teacher about writing on a desk. The teacher then reported the writing to the school administration.

“The following statements were scrawled on a desk: ‘I wan to run away,” and…

Read more...


The smaller we are the less likely we are to be profitable

August 28th, 2019

Photograph and design by Raul Gomez

By Carmen Rath-Wald
carmen.rath.wald@ndus.edu

Young Logan County area farmers sat together on a recent Monday night, and talked about Tyson’s closure of its Holcomb, Kansas beef processing facility due to a fire. According to USDA, North Dakota ranks 9th in the top 10 states in the nation with the most beef cows, measuring 985,000 head on January 1. Those at the table background cattle and sell to the finishers.

Beef processing facilities are located in Kansas, Nebraska and Texas and…

Read more...


​‘Hatred is born of ignorance: fear is its father, and isolation is its mother’

August 28th, 2019

Christian Picciolini a former violent extremist Nazi now fighting to help them leave speaks with HPR - photograph by Peter Tsai

CHICAGO – A day before the United States President called himself “The Chosen One,” a reformed Nazi predicted Christian fundamentalists view Donald Trump as an end to a means: the Apocalypse.

Violent extremists strive for RaHoWa, or a racial holy war, while Christian fundamentalists pray for the “Second Coming,” with rivers of blood, dead walking the earth, a time when all will be judged. The difference between white supremacists and religious fundamentalists boils down to…

Read more...


​ND’s petroleum spill could be U.S.’s largest land spill

August 20th, 2019

1 million gallon brine spill from Crestwood's Arrow Pipeline on July 8, 2014 - photograph by Sarah Christianson and provided by the Dakota Resource Council

WATFORD CITY – A reported 10-gallon spill of liquid gold at the Garden Creek I Gas Processing Plant in 2015 – just before the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy – could now be renamed as the largest land spill in human history.

The plant, operated by Oklahoma company, ONEOK Partners, reported 10 gallons of condensate or liquid natural gas spilled, but the accident, which occurred over a long duration of time, was underreported, Bill Suess, the spill investigation program manager…

Read more...


​Vandals using the Aryan Nations symbol hit statue of Viking hero

August 17th, 2019

Rollo the Viking statue - photograph by Sabrina Hornung

FARGO – First, Lady Liberty was kidnapped in July. Then on Friday, the statue of Rollo the Viking, or Rollon in French, was vandalized with what is apparently white supremacist graffiti.

There are no connections between the two acts of vandalism, according to police, but investigators are taking the crimes seriously.

The statue of Rollo the Viking, one of Fargo’s oldest originally placed west of the Great Northern Depot on Broadway, was one of two copies of the original 1863 works…

Read more...


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…

Read more...


Tracker Pixel for Entry Empire Tracker Pixel for Entry 7Clans Tracker Pixel for Entry Hjemkomst Tracker Pixel for Entry WurstWest Tracker Pixel for Entry Bismarck Tracker Pixel for Entry Blackbird

Recently in:

By Bryce Vincent Haugen More than 300 people gathered at Trinity Lutheran Church in central Moorhead on Jan. 27 for “constitutional observer” training. Led by the Immigrant Defense Network and supported locally by the West Area…

By Kooper Shagena Just off of I-94 and Highway 83 on State Street in Bismarck, an abandoned Kmart sits behind an empty parking lot, watching the cars roll on and off the interstate exchange. It has been standing there quietly since…

Saturday, January 31, mingling at 6:15 p.m. and program at 7 p.m.Fine Arts Club, 601 4th St. S., FargoThe FM Symphony is getting intimate by launching a “Small Stages” chamber music series and it's bringing folks together via…

By John Strand If you are reading this editorial and you too are worried sick about the state of our country, keep reading. Maybe we can inspire each other. It was near closing time. We were discussing our values crisis. So this…

By Ed RaymondA mind that snapped, cracked, and popped at one hundredI wasn’t going to read a long column called “Centenarian: A Diary of a Hundredth Year” by Calvin Tomkins celebrating his birthday on December 17 of 2025…

By Rick Gionrickgion@gmail.com Holiday wine shopping shouldn’t have to be complicated. But unfortunately it can cause unneeded anxiety due to an overabundance of choices. Don’t fret my friends, we once again have you covered…

By Rick GionSince the much-dreaded Covid years, there has been much ebb and flow in the Fargo-Moorhead restaurant scene. In 2025, that trend continued with some major additions and closings. Let’s start the New Year on a positive…

Saturday, January 17, doors at 7:30 p.m.The Aquarium above Dempsey’s, 226 N. Broadway, FargoThe Slow Death is a punk supergroup led by Jesse Thorson, with members and collaborators that include members of The Ergs!, Dillinger…

By Greg Carlson The versatile Nia DaCosta follows her underseen and underappreciated “Hedda” (one of my 2025 favorites) with the first female-helmed entry in the 28 Days/Weeks/Years Later series, a fascinating and grisly…

By Jacinta ZensThe Guerrilla Girls, an internationally renowned anonymous feminist art collective, have been bringing attention to the gender and racial imbalances in contemporary art institutions for the last 40 years. They have…

Saturday, January 31, 6:30-9 p.m.Transfiguration Fitness, 764 34th St. N., Unit P, FargoAn enchanting evening celebrating movement and creativity in a staff-student showcase. This is a family-friendly event showcasing pole, aerial…

By Annie Prafckeannieprafcke@gmail.com AUSTIN, Texas – As a Chinese-American, connecting to my culture through food is essential, and no dish brings me back to my mother’s kitchen quite like hotdish. Yes, you heard me right –…

By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.comNew Jamestown Brewery Serves up Local FlavorThere’s something delicious brewing out here on the prairie and it just so happens to be the newest brewery west of the Red River and east of the…

By Ellie Liveranieli.liverani.ra@gmail.com At the beginning of the movie “How the Grinch Stole Christmas," the Grinch is introduced as having a smaller than average heart, but as the movie progresses, his heart increases three…

January 31, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.Viking Ship Park, 202 1st Ave. N., Moorhead2026 marks 10 years of frosty fun! Enjoy sauna sessions with Log the Sauna, try Snowga (yoga in the snow), take a guided snowshoe nature hike, listen to live…

By Vern Thompson Benjamin Franklin offered one of the most sobering warnings in American history. When asked what kind of government the framers had created in 1787, he replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Few words…