Rationing of medical treatment is viewed by many Americans as unacceptable. Making health care decisions based on anything but need is seen as immoral. That is as it should be. But as researchers race to develop vaccines against COVID-19, the specter of rationing is being raised by ...
Lacking a magic wand that would cure COVID-19 or at least ease Minnesotans’ frustrations stemming from it, Gov. Tim Walz is nevertheless putting forth a reasonable plan to get the 2020-2021 school year started. Its three biggest selling points: • First, each district makes it own ...
Like most other major gatherings this summer, Farmfest was canceled. Instead of thousands of farmers and others interested in agriculture traipsing around the Gillfillan Estate near Morton to look at the latest farming technology and products, and viewing test plots, everyone is staying ...
Across the country in this Year of COVID-19, events large and small have been canceled, from the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament to the New Ulm St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Even the Great Minnesota Get Together has told Minnesotans to stay away. Concern about spreading the COVID-19 virus ...
Russia and other foreign foes continue to probe both election mechanisms and the political network in this country in attempts to find ways to commit mischief electronically, it is being reported. With the presidential election three month away, that comes as no surprise. There is little most ...
Gov. Tim Walz and his Health and Education Commissioners laid out a plan for reopening schools this fall in the age of COVID-19 that offers local school districts some flexibility about the kind of education they offer. Instead of a one-size-fits-all plan that decrees all districts must have ...
If you’re waiting for a new water treatment plant in your small town, you’ll have to wait longer. If you’re waiting for repairs to a leaky roof at your local community college, you’ll have to wait longer. In Mankato, if you were hoping for funding to stop the main source of drinking ...
Wearing masks a health issue THUMBS DOWN: The mask debate is getting a little ridiculous at times. Minnesota Republican Party, Jennifer Carnahan, earlier this week, had to apologize for an offensive post shared by the Republican Party of Wabasha County. The post compared Gov. Tim Walz to ...
Calls for change in law enforcement range from those demanding that police departments be virtually disbanded to others insisting on better training for officers and more accountability for the few rogues among them. Common to most reform proposals is that law enforcement personnel be more ...
Debate over a new coronavirus relief package continues in Congress and at the White House. Disagreements are both legitimate and political, but one thing ought to be obvious to all involved: Millions of Americans will be in very real financial trouble if a deal is not achieved ...
“What is going on at my hometown?” That question was asked by former Marshall resident Bo Erickson, who works as a reporter with CBS News. Erickson and CBS News joined media outlets across the nation to report on the now famous viral video of a couple wearing face masks with the Nazi ...
Get behind the mask mandate THUMBS UP: A new AP-NORC poll finds that a large majority of Americans, including all Democrats and about six in 10 Republicans, favor requiring people to wear masks in public when they are around people. Meanwhile the evidence is mounting that masks work when it ...
School, both public and private, will be quite different this fall. In many states, classrooms that normally would have been open by mid-August will not be occupied until September or October, if then. Whether the education process for millions of children will involve in-person teaching or ...
Of all the irrational debates Americans should be having about the upcoming November elections, one reported last week takes the cake. Beyond any doubt, many voters will be leery of casting ballots at polling places because of COVID-19 concerns. That has renewed the debate over absentee ...
Some of the men and women who serve us in uniform suffer wounds or other injuries that lead to a lifetime of sacrifice for us. In return, taxpayers help the most severely affected purchase specially adapted motor vehicles — once. U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, ...
The threat to rural MN is real THUMBS DOWN: The argument that COVID-19 is not a threat to rural Minnesotans is becoming less convincing by the day. Lincoln County is rural Minnesota. So is Pipestone County. Both counties are experiencing spikes in positive cases. In response to that spike, ...
President Donald Trump is threatening to withhold some federal funds from education institutions, both K-12 and colleges and universities, if they do not reopen soon for the fall semester. Some governors also have issued blanket reopening schedules for their public schools. This is misguided, ...
Leave aside the political correctness that has resulted in universal condemnation of all law enforcement personnel, for a moment. In the interest of saving lives, let us return at least briefly to using our common sense. As The Associated Press reports, a significant number of officers, ...
President Donald Trump, who assured us that the COVID-19 pandemic would one day just “disappear,” who wanted to lift stay-at-home restrictions and re-open the economy by Easter Sunday, who doses himself with hydroxychloroquine because he thinks its will prevent or cure COVID-19 (scientific ...
We get it. It’s summer in Minnesota. The skies are blue, the lakes are cool and the fish are biting. All any of us really want is some bonfire time with the family. But we’re going to ask you to peel a little bit of your attention away in the next few weeks and give it, instead of to ...