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Other voices: Merrick Garland, an impressive bastion of judicial independence

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:33 GMT

In a 1970 issue of the student newspaper at Niles West High School in suburban Chicago, senior Merrick Garland, the class valedictorian, offered the following advice to younger students:“Be sure to be a monitor and get in control of the (mimeograph) room,” he wrote, “because the person who controls the mimeo room controls the school.”Well, not quite. But, considering how Garland has ended up as the nation’s attorney general during some of the biggest legal firestorms since Watergate, it is just as well that he learned a few things at an early age about the power of the press.And the White House.Garland’s Justice Department is prosecuting both former President Donald Trump and the son of President Joe Biden. Four criminal indictments with a total of 91 felony charges have been filed against Trump this year — two on state charges in New York and Georgia and two on federal charges. Separately, Biden is the subject of a special counsel investiga...

Readers and writers: Minnesota author’s new series stars delightfully mismatched sleuths

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:33 GMT

Sometimes, urban legends and nightmares are real.That’s the best description of Minnesotan Jess Lourey’s new dark thriller and first police procedural, “The Taken Ones.” It begins in 1980 when two sisters and their girlfriend go into the frightening woods near their Minnesota homes. Only one returns. Something terrified this girl so much that she could only stand, mute and with no memory, in the middle of the street. What happened? Did the girls encounter the legendary but never-seen Bendy Man? Was the girls’ disappearance related to a woman found 22 yeas later, buried alive, clutching a heart charm necklace?“One critic told me he didn’t know how to write about this book because revealing anything would be a great, big spoiler,” Lourey said happily about this first in a series introducing forensic scientist Harry Steinbeck and Evangeline “Van” Reed, a cold case agent for Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension....

Trudy Rubin: With MAGA-led chaos in Congress, Gen. Milley’s warning rings loud and clear

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:33 GMT

In recent days, the country has been subjected to a chilling preview of what MAGA rule would look like if Donald Trump returns to power, as America’s allies looked on in shock while its enemies had good reason to cheer.Having failed to shut down the government, but succeeded in axing Ukraine aid, a handful of Trump acolytes on Capitol Hill set out to cripple the U.S. government by other means. Led by MAGA Rep. Matt Gaetz, whose narcissism trumps Trump’s, these GOP hard-liners axed their own House speaker — ousting Kevin McCarthy with no sign they can find a successor. This would leave the government in chaos, with no means of passing a budget, which seems to be Gaetz’s intent.Trump, meanwhile, was denouncing the judge who ruled his companies had engaged in big-time fraud. To top that, the former president effectively accused the departing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, America’s top military officer, Gen. Mark Milley, of treason, and posted on T...

Twin Cities Book Festival comes to Fairgrounds on Saturday

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:33 GMT

The Minnesota State Fairgrounds is going to be the happening place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 14, when thousands of readers, publishers, literary organizations, book dealers, authors and illustrators enjoy the 23rd annual Twin Cities Book Festival presented by Minneapolis-based Rain Taxi Review of Books. The festival, the longest-running annual gathering for the Twin Cities book community, is free and there is plenty of free parking around the Fairground’s Progress and Fine Arts centers where the festival will be held.David Corn (Courtesy of Rain Taxi Review of Books)On stages and in event rooms there will be presentations by authors/illustrators of children’s, young adult and adult books, poetry and graphic lit, as well as a Minnesota Author Showcase with 30 writers who have published new books, including Kate DiCamillo introducing  “The Puppets of Spelhorst.” An all-day book fair will feature nearly 140 exhibitors and used books/records will be f...

Skywatch: A Saturday solar eclipse

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:33 GMT

Next Saturday, Oct. 8, it’s solar eclipse time around here, the best one since Aug. 21, 2017. Unfortunately, it won’t be a total eclipse this coming Saturday but a halfway decent partial eclipse.This Saturday’s eclipse will be a midday affair that begins at 10:29 a.m. as the silhouetted moon contacts the upper right side of the sun’s disk. It peaks at 11:48 a.m. when the moon will cover 57% of the sun. The show’s over at 1:10 p.m. as the moon moves beyond the lower left side of the solar disk.(Mike Lynch)As with any eclipse, you never want to stare at the sun. It’s not good for your eyes, and you could easily do permanent damage in a very short time. Viewing the sun with binoculars or a telescope for less than a second can cause permanent eye damage or blindness! You can also purchase special safe eclipse glasses that let you safely take in the show, but never wear them while looking through binoculars or a telescope!There are several places you can buy eclipse glasses online,...

Review: ‘Saw X’ cuts away most of the fat from a tired series, returning it to its gory glory

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:33 GMT

Decent health care and a modicum of compassion: Isn’t that what any trap-devising torture master wants? So it seems in “Saw X,” a movie that has more fun not being a “Saw” sequel before becoming a better-than-passable one. As we dive in, gaunt John “Jigsaw” Kramer (Tobin Bell, his voice freshly regraveled) winces through his brain cancer scans.“That was a long one,” he tells the technician. (Boo-hoo.) Unfortunately, Kramer’s case is terminal. And as he smirks through the bromides of his support group and gets his last will and testament in order, you can almost believe — barring one eyeball-sucking dream sequence — that Bell has stumbled into a different franchise altogether. (Call it “Sob.”)This somber cello-scored intro becomes a passage, then an entire first act, and it’s impossible not to smile at how veteran “Saw” editor-turned-director Kevin Greutert commits to the long game. As it happen...

Literary calendar for week of Oct. 8

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:33 GMT

C.M. ALONGI: Introduces her debut science fiction novel, “Citadel.” 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 12, SubText Books, 6 W. Fifth St., St. Paul.WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER: Bestselling Minnesota author of the Cork O’Connor mystery series introduces his new stand-alone novel, “The River We Remember.” 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 10, SubText Books, 6 W. Fifth St., St. Paul.T KIRA MADDEN: Author of the memoir “Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls,” finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award for best first book and finalist for the LAMBDA Literary Award for lesbian memoir, discusses her work in the University of Minnesota English Department’s Visiting Writers series. Free. 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 11, University of Minnesota Pillsbury Hall, 310 Pillsbury Drive S.E., Mpls.McGHEE/WOHNOUTKA: Author Alison McGhee and illustrator Mike Wohnoutka, winners of numerous awards for children’s and children’s picture books, discuss how writers and illustr...

William O’Brien State Park gets major boost from longtime farmer Myron Lindgren

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:33 GMT

When it came time to sell the family farm in Scandia, Myron Lindgren had two choices: cash out and sell to a developer, or sell the land — at a much lower price — for inclusion in William O’Brien State Park.Lindgren, 82, said the decision to have the land go to the state park in northern Washington County was an easy call. That’s what his late parents, Maynard and Helen Lindgren, would have wanted to see happen, he said.“Mom and Dad worked hard on that farm,” said Lindgren, who now lives at the Seven Hills Senior Living Center in St. Paul. “I know they would have wanted to see it left alone rather than have houses all over it.”Maynard Lindgren bought 120 acres of farmland in 1927, five years before he married Helen Johnson at Elim Lutheran Church in Scandia. The couple later purchased an additional 140 acres to add to the farm.Myron Lindgren in his apartment in St. Paul on Thursday. Lindgren, 82, said he sold the family farm for parkland to honor his late parents, Maynard and Helen ...

Tyler Cowen: Too much misinformation? The issue is demand, not supply

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:33 GMT

With the U.S. presidential election a little more than a year away, candidates and voters are bracing themselves for an “explosion” of AI-generated misinformation. Adding to the fear is that many research programs intended to study and counter misinformation, facing accusations of bias, are shutting down.Given all this, I have a prediction: AI-generated misinformation will not be a major problem in the 2024 campaign. But that’s only because so many other forms of misinformation are already so rife.Speaking in economic terms, the problem with misinformation is demand, not supply. Consider, for example, the view that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. To explain what happened in simple terms, there was a demand for this misinformation, namely from some aggrieved Trump supporters, and there was also a supply, most prominently from Trump himself. Supply met demand, the issue was focal and visceral, and the misinformation has continued to t...

Bethel student’s documentary contrasts two families’ attempts to cross the southern border

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:11:33 GMT

A new documentary produced by a Bethel University student brings attention to immigration issues through the perspectives of two different families.The documentary, titled “Border of Dreams” (“Frontera de Sueños” in Spanish), brings to focus the issue of U.S.-Mexico immigration by juxtaposing the lives of a Guatemalan family who tried to cross the border and failed and a Mexican family who successfully crossed the border and now live in the United States.Documentary editor and videographer Hana Ko shows children photos on her camera in the highlands of Guatemala. (Courtesy of “Border of Dreams”)The producer of the film, Soraya Keiser, is a print journalist by trade and managing editor at the Clarion, Bethel’s student news publication. Keiser originally went to Guatemala as part of Bethel’s Textura program for magazine production. The story she wrote there about the Guatemalan family is what eventually became the documentary.After the c...