Business & Economy

An APM Reports documentary, “Old Idea, New Economy: Rediscovering Apprenticeships.”

They’re ubiquitous in farm country: Tall silver grain bins that are used to store the fall harvest. But they’re also dangerous. Now a western Minnesota family has developed a way to avoid deaths when workers fall in, and they hope state officials will do something to ensure farms have the equipment to prevent accidents altogether.

Some factories are beginning to reopen, but labor shortages continue. In a recent poll of U.S. companies by Shanghai's American Chamber of Commerce, 78 percent said they lack staff to resume full production.

North Dakota regulators on Wednesday unanimously approved expanded capacity for the Dakota Access pipeline, saying they believed the project had met exhaustive state and federal requirements.

The Upper Harbor Terminal project promises amenities, jobs and economic growth in a working-class part of the city. Many in the ethnically diverse neighborhoods around it worry it will drive them out. Can the project build wealth for current residents without erasing them?

The Boy Scouts of America has $1.4 billion in assets. The national organization may hope that its bankruptcy filing will shield the even larger assets of its local councils.

New energy-efficient structures are enabling homeowners and small farmers to grow veggies year-round. “There isn't a whole lot you can't grow,” says the founder of GroShed — even when it's 30 below zero, the days are short or the sun is weak.

Cattle rancher Tim Nolte's plan to expand his farm has gotten caught up in a yearslong debate over the effects of changing land use on the water of the Pineland Sands region, which covers four counties in north-central Minnesota.

The conflict over copper-nickel mining in northern Minnesota typically divides people into two camps: Those who think it can be done while also protecting the nearby wilderness — and those who think it can't. But for many who live near the proposed mines, the issue isn't always so black and white.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources on Wednesday asked the state Supreme Court to overturn a lower court decision that rejected some of the most important permits for the proposed PolyMet copper-nickel mine.