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Grow Downtown seeds St. Paul with 10 new retailers through free six-month leases

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 00:00:44 GMT

In downtown St. Paul, Alexandra “AJ” Johnson wants her ground-level Wabasha Street storefront, Jack and the Pack, to become a go-to resource for all things joring. For the uninitiated, she explains that joring — the Norwegian word for “pulling” — describes ropes and harnesses for biking dogs, sled dogs, ski dogs, scooter dogs, running dogs or virtually “anything with a dog, and they are pulling you.”Johnson, a residential property manager and former school teacher who lives in St. Paul, had long wanted to evolve Jack and the Pack from an online storefront and event-driven pop-up shop to a brick-and-mortar location. Then a friend showed her a newspaper article about the Grow Downtown program, an effort of the St. Paul Downtown Alliance to connect commercial landlords with new tenants through six-month, rent-free leases.Shop owners, many of them first-time business owners, may be expected to pay utilities, insurance and other incidentals. Otherwise,...

After more than a year of war, Ukrainians in Minnesota watch and wait

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 00:00:44 GMT

When a fireball erupted at 4:30 a.m. in Maryna Kyrylkova’s quiet suburb outside Kyiv, her 12-year-old son remarked on the flame and ash falling with misleading grace in the distance.“My kid said, ‘Are those butterflies?'” said Kyrylkova, a school teacher, who found herself bathed in the unnaturally bright and devastating light.Ukrainian refugee Maryna Kyrylkova talks about her family’s ordeal at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine during an interview at the International Institute of Minnesota in St. Paul on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)Then came another explosion. And another. And more the next day, which is when the family hurriedly packed what they could — Kyrylkova threw the family’s belongings in trash bags until her husband convinced her they had just enough time for suitcases — and drove, fleeing toward Romania, logjammed next to hundreds, if not thousands, of other families with the same idea.Changing course, they...

Skywatch: The world-famous Orion’s belt

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 00:00:44 GMT

If you’ve been kind enough to have read my column for some time, you know how much I love the constellation Orion the Hunter. It’s the absolute king of the winter skies and one of my best non-human friends. I look for Orion as soon as I head outside on clear winter nights. I know I’m not the only Orion lover. Like the Big Dipper, Orion is one of the most recognizable constellations in the night sky. Except that the Big Dipper isn’t actually one of the 88 official constellations seen from Earth. The Big Dipper is an asterism, or a pattern of stars, that makes up the rear end and tail of the constellation Ursa Major, the Big Bear. So, Orion is the most recognizable constellation as far as I’m concerned. Its calling card is the three stars neatly lined up in a row that make up the celestial hunter’s belt. There’s no other line of stars as bright anywhere else in the celestial dome.Over the years, cultures worldwide have come up with nicknames for Orion’s belt that have nothing to do wi...

Nurses and hospital leaders split on how to address staffing shortages

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 00:00:44 GMT

Minnesota nurses and hospital leaders are divided on whether giving caregivers more say in staffing levels will bring nurses back to the bedside.Nurses unsuccessfully pushed the issue during months of contentious contract negotiations and have now turned to the Minnesota Legislature to put new staffing rules in state law. Health system leaders say the proposed changes will result in reduced hospital capacity and worse access to care.Despite those differences, the state Senate Health and Human Services Committee advanced the “Keeping Nurses at the Bedside Act” on Wednesday. Sen. Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, the chief sponsor of the bill and a nurse, said the Legislature has struggled to address the nurse staffing issue for over a decade.She noted that too many nurses who train to work in hospitals leave because of burnout.“That is a signal we need to do more within these facilities to hold onto our people,” Murphy said. “Pumping people through not only doe...

St. Paul’s Sidewalk Poetry Contest returns to stamp new poems beneath our feet

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 00:00:44 GMT

Every summer, the city repairs 10 miles of sidewalk — and your words could be literally set in concrete.St. Paul’s Sidewalk Poetry Contest is returning this spring, allowing people of all ages across the city to submit poems that could be stamped into pavement.Poetry submissions should focus on this year’s contest theme, “network of mutuality,” also the theme of this summer’s inaugural Wakpa Triennial Art Festival. The phrase comes from Martin Luther King Jr.’s essay “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” in which the civil rights leader highlights the ways diverse communities are interrelated and should be invested in one another’s equity.A panel of jurors including poets Kevin Yang, Marian Hassan, Fong Lee, Thressa Johnson, Aisha Mohamed, Tanagidan To Win and Michael Kleber-Diggs will pick 15 poems to add to the collection in early June. In addition to having their words stamped onto sidewalks, winning poets also receive $100.Poems can be submitted online in English, Spanish, Hmong, Somal...

Literary calendar for week of March 12

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 00:00:44 GMT

BERICA HANNICKEL: Professor of environmental history at Northland College, Ashland, Wis., discusses her new book “Orchid Muse: A History of Obsession in Fifteen Flowers,” in the University of  Minnesota Spring Writer Series. Presented by the university English department and environmental humanities initiative. Free. 1:30 p.m. Friday, March 17, Pillsbury Hall, 310 Pillsbury Dr. S.E., Mpls.ROB KIRBY: Discusses “Marry Me a Little: A Graphic Memoir,” in which he recounts his experience of marrying his longtime partner, John, just after same-sex marriage was legalized in Minnesota in 2013 and their private lives set against historical and political backgrounds. 7 p.m. Thursday, March 16, Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin  Ave. S., Mpls.COINNEACH MacLEOD: Introduces his second cookbook, “The Hebridean Baker: My Scottish Island Kitchen,” presented by Magers & Quinn. $15-$40. 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 14, Peoples Organic, 3001 Hennepin Ave., Mpls. Ticket...

Ask Amy: Stepfather’s scorched earth texts raise alarm

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 00:00:44 GMT

Dear Amy: I have been divorced for 10 years, after my ex-wife had an affair.She married the man she had the affair with.My ex and I share joint custody of our two daughters, ages 17 and 11.My ex and I have only communicated via text messaging for the last five years, and it is infrequent and only about the children.Recently I found out through my children that their mother is getting divorced from her current husband.My youngest came downstairs crying and displayed a text from her mother’s soon-to-be-ex, which didn’t only throw mom under the bus, but completely napalmed her.He told the children and her own mother (their grandmother) via text message that she has been having an affair with a co-worker and that she has done it before (with him). Now the kids are super-mad at their mother.How do I bring it up that I don’t want to get involved in her personal life, but what this guy did by using MY kids as cannon fodder was not cool…?!— Perplexed in PhoenixDear Perplexed: You shou...

Silicon Valley Bank collapse: Mark Cuban says Fed should 'immediately' take action

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 00:00:44 GMT

Entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has demanded the Federal Reserve take action and assume responsibility following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) on Friday (10 March)."The Fed should IMMEDIATELY buy all the securities/debt the bank owns at near par, which should be enough to cover most deposits," Cuban wrote as part of a lengthy Twitter chain Friday. "Any losses paid for in equity and new debt from the new bank or whoever buys it. The Fed knew this was a risk. They should own it." "If the Fed doesn’t own it, trust in the banking system becomes an issue," Cuban argued. "There are a ton of banks with more than 50 pct uninsured deposits.""What would be best practices to protect from a future run if your company writes millions in checks weekly?"SILICON VALLEY BANK CUSTOMERS LINE UP OUTSIDE CALIFORNIA LOCATION AMID FRANTIC RUSH TO WITHDRAW MONEYThe Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced Friday that it would close Silic...

Russian schemes for instability in the Caucasus: Georgia and Karabakh

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 00:00:44 GMT

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and partly due to a decreased interest in the West, Russia has managed to become a regional superpower, exerting its influence over the other post-Soviet countries, writes James Wilson.Russian attempts to cling to “past glory” has involved making other republics bend to its will and interests. Some tried to oppose it. Prime examples are Georgia, which Russia invaded in 2008, and Ukraine, chunks of which Russia occupied in 2014 before invading again in 2022. With Georgia’s mass protests in Tbilisi making today’s headlines across the world, over a controversial bill that the Georgian government it is trying to pass, Russia has once again reverted to its strategy of destabilisation and issuing official threats.The proposed bill, named “Transparency of Foreign Funding”, would require non-governmental organisations in Georgia to register as "agents of foreign influence" if the funds they receive from abroad amount to more than 20% of the...

Omar Harfouch in Italian parliament: 'I fight for my daughter and the children of Lebanon, the Lebanese Republic needs liberal reforms

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 00:00:44 GMT

The Chamber of Deputies has held a conference of Lebanese politician Omar Harfouch, hosted by Hon. Roberto Bagnasco and organized by the Milton Friedman Institute, on the situation in Lebanon and the need for reform of the country's political and constitutional system."We, as the Friedman Institute, particularly wanted to promote this conference in order to highlight what is happening in a country very close to us, especially since we share the same sea and many issues that come from the Middle East and pass through Lebanon, and then come to Italy, as we have also seen recently with respect to immigration. At last a political figure is proposing a liberal state, so much so that he wants to reform it institutionally in a radical way" – said the conference’s moderator and Executive Director of the Milton Friedman Institute Alessandro Bertoldi."Lebanon needs a non-denominational elective system that guarantees greater representativeness and freedom for Lebanese citizens. We need to com...