A tale of two CEOs

Black Friday line
Shoppers lined up around the outside of the Best Buy store in Baxter, Minn., at midnight on Thyanksgiving in 2011.
AP Photo/Brainerd Dispatch, Steve Kohls

Today on the Update, we're following the a shakeup in leadership of two large Twin Cities companies, Best Buy and the Carlson Companies. Also, we're reporting on a new trend, more young college graduates signing up for food stamps. Xcel Energy wants to end incentives for solar power and the children of illegal immigrants want deferred deportation.

CEOs shuffle: Best Buy, whose founder is in the midst of an attempt to buy back the company, is in the news again this morning after naming former Carlson executive Hubery Joly as its new CEO. Tim Nelson reports that the resulting chief executive vacuum at Carlson has been filled by its former chief financial officer Trudy Rautio.

Majoring in food stamps: Brooke Holmgren has something many young college graduates do not: a job. But it's not the job she imagined she would find after earning a degree in English from St. Catherine University in St. Paul last year. She delivers sandwiches for minimum wage, and she's on food stamps. Julie Siple says Holmgren is part of a growing trend.

Turning out the lights: Conrad Wilson reports that Xcel energy is pulling the plug on Solar Rewards, a program that gives upfront rebates to homeowners and business owners who install solar panels, says the $5 million annual program has met its goal of promoting the renewable energy source. But the move casts a shadow on the future of solar power technology comapnies in Minnesota.

Deportation deferred: About 700 people, more than twice as many as expected, showed up over the weekend for a workshop aimed at demystifying the details of a new deportation deferral program aimed at the children of illegal immigrants. The policy put in place by the Obama administration offers a temporary reprieve from deportation in the form of a two-year work visa, Tim Post reports. Attendees were trying to figure out if they qualified for the program, and how to enroll.

Rape remarks firestorm: Asked in a local television interview Sunday whether if he would support abortions for women who have been raped, Senate candidate and six-term GOP congressman Todd Akin said: "It seems to me first of all, from what I understand from doctors, that's really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." The scientifally false statement drew a strong rebuke from Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney, who told the National Review: Congressman's Akin comments on rape are insulting, inexcusable, and, frankly, wrong. ... Like millions of other Americans, we found them to be offensive."

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