TALKERS112321
- Second-oldest Minnesota State Fair food vendor ends 90-year run: One of the Minnesota State Fair's longest-running food vendors has turned off the ice cream machines for good.
- Burnsville schools will go to distance learning due to COVID-19 surge: Students in the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District will switch to distance learning starting Wednesday and running through Dec. 3 due to a surge in COVID-19 cases in its schools and communities in the south metro.
- Prior Lake school board members walk out after confrontation: Members of the Prior Lake-Savage Area School Board walked out of a special meeting Monday night when tearful students and raucous activists confronted them about what they describe as a racist culture within the school district. Students and activists have been protesting since earlier this month, when a video showing two Prior Lake students using a racial slur to harass a Black student went viral.
- Minnesota expands access to COVID treatment as demand soars: The Minnesota Department of Health and M Health Fairview plan to offer more appointments for monoclonal antibody treatment.
- MSP Airport prepared for "significant spike" in holiday travel: In a sure sign of pandemic-related weariness, thousands of Minnesotans are expected to take to the highways and skies to celebrate Thanksgiving this week — despite a concerning uptick in COVID-19 cases throughout the state.
- U.S. to release 50 million barrels of oil in response to high gas prices: President Joe Biden's release from America's strategic reserve is aimed at global energy markets, but also at U.S. voters who are coping with higher inflation and rising prices ahead of Thanksgiving and winter holiday travel. Gasoline prices are at about $3.40 a gallon, more than 50% higher than a year ago, according to the American Automobile Association.
- Cold Spring woman runs for council four months after racist attack: Workers have mended the gaping hole on the side of Andrea Robinson's Cold Spring home after a man in July drove his SUV into the house in an attack authorities say had a racist motive. Just four months after Robinson told Cold Spring City Council about the harassment her multiracial family had endured leading up to the incident, she is now running for a seat at the table.
- U.S. Bank donates riot-damaged Minneapolis branch to nonprofit developer: Seward Redesign plans to redevelop the property to include affordable housing, commercial spaces and a home for nonprofits.
HEY, LOOK AT THIS
Thousands of photos went into this composite image of last week's lunar eclipse: Photographer Andrew McCarthy told PetaPixel that he set up three cameras with three telescopes and stayed up until 4 a.m. in his backyard in Florence, Ariz., to take thousands of images that he then stitched together to show the moon in various stages of the longest partial eclipse in centuries.
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TRENDING
- Here are some great travel deals for Black Friday and Travel Tuesday: Don't expect a cornucopia of exciting deals. Flexibility, though, may yield savings.
- After 35 years, Uptown mainstay Kitchen Window to close: The kitchenware shop will liquidate its stock before closing in January 2022.
- Tattersall's new Wisconsin distillery and restaurant open Dec. 1: The northeast Minneapolis-based company has already shifted most production to its new "destination distillery" in River Falls. The restaurant in the 75,000-square-foot space is a first for Tattersall.
SPORTS ROUNDUP
- Four ex-Twins players making first appearance on Hall of Fame ballot: Four former Twins players are on baseball's Hall of Fame ballot for the first time this year. Justin Morneau, David Ortiz, Joe Nathan and A.J. Pierzynski are on the ballot, joining Torii Hunter, who made his first appearance in 2020. There are 13 first-time candidates — headed by Ortiz, Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Howard — on the ballot of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, joining 17 holdovers.
- How "Why did they call that play?!" became Minnesota's most common sports question: Second-guessing football coordinators has become the lowest-hanging fruit in sports. We all do it, and we all believe with every fiber of our being that we can do it better than that dolt making the calls, writes Chip Scoggins.
- Heading into next season, Twins could have $50 million to spend: Pitching and shortstop are areas of immediate need, and the team expects to spend up to last year's payroll of about $125 million.
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WORTH A CLICK
I've worked at the Turkey Hotline for 7 years. Here's my best advice. Hint: Thanksgiving dinner is never really about the turkey at all, according to Chris Anderson in an interview with Bon Appetit magazine.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
Nov. 23, 2015: Alisha Walden, a volunteer at the University of Minnesota's Raptor Center, released a five-month-old bald eagle male on a rope as she trained it to fly again before it returns to the wild. (Photo: Renée Jones Schneider/Star Tribune)