Today in Minot

“Let’s move the flour to the basement pantry,” I said to my husband. Since one of our family members has celiac disease, food storage and preparation are special safety considerations. My husband has been a grain miller in the food industry, and I have a cereal...

It’s been a tough winter on my spruce trees, and we’re only in December! The heavy snow and high winds have pulled a lot of needles and smaller twigs from the trees. It doesn’t help that, when I clear the driveway with the snowblower, the spruce...

Estill County, Kentucky, had the highest overdose death rate in the state in 2021. It’s since dropped to fifth—still grim, but heading in the right direction. What’s changing? A combination of harm reduction and a prevention model borrowed from Iceland, focused less on telling kids to “just say no” and more on giving them something meaningful to do. It’s a small town with no movie theater, no bowling alley, no public transit. So they’re building from what they have: schools, a hospital, and people who stayed. Anabel Peterman with Next City has the full story worth reading.

Switching off can be surprisingly expensive. Much like the smoking cessation boom of the 1990s, the digital detox business – spanning hardware, apps, telecoms, workplace wellness providers, digital “wellbeing suites” and tourism – is now a global industry in its own right. People are increasingly willing...

Volodymyr Zelensky landed in Florida Saturday evening for a high-stakes meeting with Donald Trump—one his own delegation says they’re approaching ready for “all scenarios.” On the table: security guarantees, economic cooperation, and a revised 20-point peace framework that Zelensky says is 90 percent complete. The meeting comes just hours after Russia launched nearly 500 drones and 40 missiles at Ukrainian infrastructure. “They do not want to end the war,” Zelensky said. What happens next may depend on what’s decided at Mar-a-Lago. Linda Hourani with The Kyiv Independent has the full story.

The dollar isn’t going to collapse in 2026. But it might start to matter less. Countries are building alternatives—new payment systems, digital currencies, trade deals that bypass the greenback entirely. China’s cross-border system now handles more than half of its trade. Central banks are quietly diversifying their reserves. And stablecoins, once seen as a dollar extension, could become neutral rails for global commerce. It used to take a long time for currency shifts to impact economics, Keyu Jin WIRED has the full story on what may be unfolding more quickly in the modern moment.

2026 will be an important election year for the city of Minot. This column will not address the mayoral race because it is supposed to be a nonpartisan race. The jury is out on whether or not nonpartisanship will be fact or fiction. There will be...