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NewsCut

Storm Lake, Iowa is the new rural America

Storm Lake, apparently, is considered a model of how to keep rural America alive. Attract plenty of immigrants who'll work in the drudgery of a processing plant for poor wages, go through the growing pains, and weather the hostility toward them as if what happened to rural America is somehow their fault.
by Bob Collins

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The last men of Luverne prepare for a toast

The last men of Luverne prepare for a toast

It's too late to know now how many of the last men of Luverne wanted to be the last one living. When their club started in 2010, they bought a bottle of hooch and 24 mugs. When there was only one left, he'd toast the other 23, all veterans of World War II. Only the aged can reveal the loneliness of losing all of your friends, and nobody really likes drinking alone anyway. So the three remaining vets aren't going to wait.
by Bob Collins

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This is not how you catch a baseball

This is not how you catch a baseball

Things worked out fine for the Tampa Bay Rays at Target Field on Friday night. They won 5-to-2 over the local nine. Not so much, though, for Steven Souza Jr., who just missed catching Kenny Vargas' fly ball to right field in the seventh inning.
by Bob Collins

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When art offends

When art offends

If art is occasionally meant to inflame, mission accomplished at the Walker Art Center where a new installation in the refurbished Sculpture Garden is the portrayal of gallows, one of which is inspired by the largest mass execution in U.S. history, the hanging of 38 Dakota Indians in 1862.
by Bob Collins

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Self-driving cars: The solution people don’t want

A lot of problems are going to be solved when self-driving cars become a thing. But first a big problem has to be solved: Consumers don't want them.
by Bob Collins

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Military still failing families of missing soldiers

Military still failing families of missing soldiers

For more than 70 years, the family of 2nd Lt. Alexander 'Sandy' Nininger Jr., who died when he charged alone into a group of Japanese invaders near Abucay, Bataan in 1942, have been trying to get him home. It may take a Minnesota native to do it.
by Bob Collins

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Farmer’s cross-state run ends with his death

Farmer’s cross-state run ends with his death

Reggie Oeltjen had an ambitious idea for a 65-year-old man. The Stewartville, Minn., man wanted to run across the state -- that's 280 miles in 20 days -- for no other reason than he could.
by Bob Collins

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When nine Wisconsin brothers signed up to fight a war

Wisconsin's Bond brothers -- all nine of them -- signed up to fight in World War II. They all survived the war, returning to work in factories and on the railroad. And now, they're all gone.
by Bob Collins

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If bicycles sounded more like cars

Bicycle bells don't scare anybody into paying attention. You know what does? A big air horn.
by Bob Collins

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S.D. student who fought cancer will be allowed at grad ceremony

Meredith Erck, the Rapid City, S.D., senior who wanted to walk with her friends at what would have been her commencement had she not been battling cancer, will walk with her friends after all.
by Bob Collins

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