Today in Minot

Despite my best intentions, I am always stressed by this point in the holiday season. As a mom, I feel the societal pressure to transform into Martha Stewart to create the ultimate holiday for my family. The only problem is that I don’t have Martha’s team...

There’s a pattern playing out across resource-rich communities: towns that once said yes to libraries, rec leagues, and big ideas are now governed by people who inherited what others built—and mistake it for something that just exists. They shout no to diversification, no to new revenue, no to anything that requires reaching. Then they cut budgets and call it responsibility. Christy Mathes with WyoFile names what that really is: not conservatism, but demolition with better branding. And the end result: whether any community can nostalgia its way to survival?

Local news doesn't just happen. It takes reporters showing up to school board meetings, covering the court docket, asking the questions no one else will. Across North America, that infrastructure is fraying—and some governments are finally asking what it would take to stop the bleeding. Manitoba...

magine walking out of a grocery store into flashing police lights. Two suspects are kneeling with their hands up, visibly unarmed. Someone nearby says a drug sale may have taken place. Yet, despite the lack of threat, an officer suddenly shoots and kills one suspect, then...

Cognitive dissonance might be psychology’s most ubiquitous concept—the idea that when our beliefs clash with reality, we’ll twist our thinking to resolve the discomfort. Leon Festinger developed the theory in the 1950s, partly by infiltrating a doomsday cult called the Seekers. But newly released archives reveal something troubling: the researchers didn’t just observe the cult—they influenced it. Half the attendees at some meetings were paid infiltrators. So what happens when the science behind an idea that feels intuitively true turns out to be shakier than we thought? Shayla Love with The New Yorker has the full story that opens the question.

In the early 1990s, North Dakota was the only state in the country without a single measles case. Today, it has the highest measles rate in the nation. That’s the backdrop for the latest blow: a federal panel, stacked with appointees from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., just voted to end the recommendation that newborns be vaccinated against hepatitis B. “It’s a terrible decision,” says Dr. Stephen McDonough, who served as North Dakota’s public health officer for 15 years. “These crackpots don’t know what they’re doing.” The full column from Jim Shaw at Inforum is as unforgiving as it is eye opening.

North Dakota’s new 3% cap on local property tax increases sounds like straightforward relief for homeowners—and that’s how Governor Kelly Armstrong sold it. But for smaller cities like Cavalier and Devils Lake, the math looks different. Three percent of a small budget doesn’t go as far as 3% of a large one, and costs like health insurance don’t care about caps. Local officials say they can make it work for now. What worries them is what happens in year three, or year five, when the cuts start adding up. Jordan Rusche with Grand Forks Herald has the full, historically inevitable story.

A winding path through snowy Minnesota woods, except you’re not hiking or cross-country skiing—you’re ice skating. That’s what the Northland Arboretum in Baxter just built: a half-mile trail of ice curving through pine trees, believed to be the first forest skating trail in the state. The staff bought a $1,500 used Zamboni, taught themselves to drive it, and figured out the rest as they went. “We don’t know what we’re doing,” the executive director admits cheerfully. “We’re just out here figuring it out.” Kirsti Marohn with MPR has the full story.

A landmark North Dakota law approved this year accidentally lumped in two fake names in a list of critical minerals that appear to be inspired by coal company lawyers who worked on the bill. The inclusion of fictional substances is being called an embarrassment by one...

Nearly half of American adults say they sometimes or always feel alone. One contributor you might not expect: zoning laws. Post-war land use planning spread everything apart—work here, school there, shopping somewhere else—then built roads that make it dangerous to do anything but drive. The result is a nation of people isolated in single-occupant vehicles, even for trips under a mile. The good news, as urban planning advocate Andy Boenau argues, is that these policies were made locally—which means they can be unmade locally too. Read the full commentary at Fast Company linked below.