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…
November 6th, 2019
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz comes to Moorhead quite frequently. He campaigned hard last year in this city of 45,000 on the western edge of the state. In January, he brought his multi-city inaugural party - One Minnesota - to Junkyard Brewing. In the months since he’s flown in several times to talk policy with local leaders and attend ceremonies.
Walz returned to town on October 29 as a part of his two-month bonding tour. The goal of the tour is to help the governor and his staff…
November 2nd, 2019
MOORHEAD — Varseen Khalil stumbled out of bed when the phone rang early one morning last week. Three a.m. calls rarely carry good news. A local friend was on the phone. He had received word from Syria that her uncle, a volunteer fighter in Kurdistan Syria, was shot by Turkish soldiers.
With limited access to information she knows he survived; he was patched up by medics because area hospitals are too dangerous. Even after being severely injured, her uncle refused to return home to Iraq…