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Mali’s military junta holds referendum on new constitution that it calls a step toward new elections

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:12:52 GMT

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Malian voters cast ballots on a new draft constitution Sunday in a referendum that the country’s coup leader says will pave the way toward holding new elections in 2024, but that critics have called a delaying tactic for him to extend his time in power.In a message broadcast on state television on the eve of the vote, Col. Assimi Goita told Malians that the proposed draft constitution “provides for a better-organized executive power, while maintaining the necessary balance with the legislative power.”However, Imam Mahmoud Dicko, an opponent of the military junta, invited his supporters to a large hall in Bamako on Friday to ask them to vote against it. “In our country today, can we speak of justice, democracy, human rights, the rule of law? What kind of democracy are we talking about? Where is it? What rule of law is there in a country where justice is used by the military to repress people? That’s the reality of this country today,” said Dicko, a one-time ...

Netanyahu says will move ahead on contentious judicial overhaul plan after talks crumble

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:12:52 GMT

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday his government intends to move ahead on contentious plans to change the country’s judicial system after talks aimed at finding a compromise solution appeared to be crumbling.The government’s plans to overhaul the judiciary plunged Israel into one of its worst domestic crises ever earlier this year. Negotiations between the government and opposition parties somewhat alleviated the crisis with attempts to find a middle ground over proposed changes to the country’s justice system. Those talks were jolted last week over a crisis surrounding the powerful regular committee responsible for picking the country’s judges. Opposition leaders said negotiations were frozen until the committee is formed. At a meeting of his Cabinet on Sunday, Netanyahu said the opposition wasn’t negotiating seriously and that his government would move ahead cautiously on the overhaul.“We will begin, this week, practica...

In Labrador, those caring for a town’s homeless population face backlash, criticism

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:12:52 GMT

HAPPY VALLEY-GOOSE BAY, N.L. — On a recent spring day in a sandy church parking lot in Labrador, Vanessa Hamel stopped mid-sentence to lean out of a food truck window and wave to an approaching group of people.“Whaddaya doin’?” she sang out to them, laughing. They waved and laughed back.She pulled her head back into the truck — the local Salvation Army’s Emergency Disaster Relief Vehicle — and began gathering up bags of ham sandwiches, juices and snacks to hand out to them. They’re homeless and they sometimes get extra, said Hamel, who is a community outreach worker with the church.A church offering food to those who can’t afford it is generally unremarkable. But in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, N.L., it’s become controversial. Among Hamel’s familiar clients are homeless and transient people who live along the wooded trails that snake through the town. Their numbers have spiked from a few dozen to more than 80 in recent years. As governments and organizations...

Readers and writers: Author digs into family’s intersection with legendary Hormel swindle

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:12:52 GMT

Gretchen Cherington might be a wealthy woman today as a stockholder in the $11 billion Hormel Foods Corp., if only Hormel hadn’t been robbed of $1.2 million by a company executive who was found out in 1921. The business, known then as Geo. A. Hormel & Co., almost didn’t survive. It left her grandfather bankrupt.Gretchen Cherington launches her new book, “The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy,” about how her grandfather lost his fortune to an embezzler in the Hormel company. (Gretchen Cherington)Cherington’s new memoir, “The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy” (She Writes Press, $17.95), is the engrossing, well-told story of the entwined lives of three ambitious men living in Austin, Minn., in the early 20th-century glory days of entrepreneurs.“The Butcher” is George Hormel, a German American who could “cleave a hog with a single blow,” innovative founder of a company in 1891 that sold good meats that ...

40 years later, Burnsville-based Northern Tool brings its first product into the battery-powered age

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:12:52 GMT

What began as a single build-it-yourself product out of a garage in Eagan has grown to a billion-dollar multi-channel retailer with 130 stores.Northern Tool + Equipment is celebrating more than 40 years in business by updating its flagship product that Minnesotans know all too well: the log splitter.Don Kotula, founder of Burnsville-based Northern Tool + Equipment uses the company’s original log splitter (undated). The retailer debuted its new battery-powered log splitter in June 2023. (Courtesy of Northern Tool + Equipment)Don Kotula started his family-owned company, first known as Northern Hydraulics, in 1981 with a log splitter that customers had to build themselves. This month, his sons and now co-owners Ryan and Wade Kotula launched the company’s first battery-powered log splitter.“We are getting back to our roots and what started the company,” said Ryan Kotula.Headquartered in Burnsville, Northern Tool sells tools and equipment online, mostly to trades professionals, and...

‘Ladies from the River’ — including 2 Minnesotans — resume their canoe trek to Hudson Bay

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:12:52 GMT

“The Ladies from the River” are back on the water — this time in Manitoba — and if all goes according to plan, they’ll reach the First Nations settlement of Norway House at the north end of Lake Winnipeg sometime in July.I first wrote about “The Ladies from the River” — Anne Sherve-Ose of Williams, Iowa; Deb White of Rosemount; and Deb Knutson of Owatonna, Minn. — last summer when they embarked on the first leg of a canoe trip from Lake Traverse to Hudson Bay.With the Sorlie Bridge in the background, “The Ladies from the River” – from left, Anne Sherve-Ose, Deb Knutson and Deb White – enjoyed the luxury of eating in a restaurant June 21, 2022, after paddling into East Grand Forks, Minn. The women were on the homestretch of a canoe trip that began June 9, 2022, on Lake Traverse and took them down the U.S. portion of the Red River to the Manitoba border at Pembina, N.D. (Brad Dokken / Forum News Service)Sherve-Ose said they decided to paddle to Hudson Bay as a sequel, of sorts, to a c...

Skywatch: Here comes summer

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:12:52 GMT

The summer of 2023 begins this coming Wednesday morning at 9:58, at least astronomically. Astronomers call this the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. On Wednesday, the sun reaches its highest height in our sky. It all has to do with the inclination or tilt of Earth’s axis as it orbits the sun. On the summer solstice day, the northern hemisphere is tilted to the maximum toward the sun’s most direct rays. At noon, the sun shines directly overhead along the Tropic of Cancer at a latitude of 23.5 degrees north of the equator. In southern Minnesota and Western Wisconsin around 45 degrees north latitude, our noontime sun won’t be quite at the zenith, but it will be close at nearly 70 degrees above the southern horizon.(Mike Lynch)On Wednesday, the sun will take a very long and very high arc across the sky. It will rise in the northeast at 5:26 a.m. and set in the northwest at 9:03 p.m., giving us nearly 15 hours and 37 minutes of daylight. As a bonus, morning...

Literary calendar for week of June 18

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:12:52 GMT

TIM BURKETT: Introduces “Enlightenment is an Accident,” 7 p.m. Thursday, June 22, Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Mpls.NANCY CROCHIERE: Discusses her novel “Graceland,” about a soap opera star convinced she is dying who wants to visit her favorite place, Elvis Presley’s Graceland, driven by her granddaughter, to whom she promises to reveal the secrets about her long-lost father. But the young woman’s mother doesn’t want secrets revealed and has to stop the journey of grandmother and granddaughter as they travel from Boston to Memphis meeting free-range ferrets and Elvis-impersonating frat boys. 6 p.m. Thursday, June 22, Next Chapter Booksellers, 38 S. Snelling Ave., St. Paul.JULIA FINE: Presents “Maddalena and the Dark,” in conversation with Kat Howard. 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 20, Magers & Quinn, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Mpls.MINNESOTA MYSTERY NIGHT: Hosts a conversation between Thekla Fagerlie-Madsen, a technical write...

Conor Sen: Booming EV market is complicating the GOP’s message

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:12:52 GMT

It’s still very early days, but if you’re wondering how the 2024 presidential campaign might be different from the last matchup between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, one place to start is electric vehicles. Battery-powered cars are one of the biggest economic vulnerabilities that Republicans have in the battleground states such as Georgia, Michigan and Arizona that could wind up deciding the winner.The growth of electric vehicles is unique in that it touches an area of the U.S. economy that has changed dramatically since the last presidential election. They’re a key part of the Biden administration’s policy accomplishments, and they’re also entangled in the culture wars that animate the bases of both political parties.Electric-vehicle sales in the U.S. are growing so quickly that you could even describe the shift as monumental. In 2020, 325,000 electric vehicles were sold in the U.S., accounting for 2.4% of all passenger vehicle sales. Those numbers are p...

Ask Amy: Neighbor’s music problem is amplified on FB

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 11:12:52 GMT

Dear Amy: Until recently, my neighbor “Ron” and I always got along very well.Ron works from home, and I am retired.I enjoy working in my garage, house or yard during the day, usually between 11 and 5 p.m.While working in the garage, I will listen to music, and sometimes it can be a little loud because of the tools I am using.Recently Ron posted on Facebook a profanity-laced post about my loud music, saying that it interferes with his job.Basically, he made me out to be an inconsiderate jerk, which is the farthest thing from the truth.All he or his wife had to do was to let me know it was an issue, and I would have turned it down, no problem.When my wife talked to them about the situation, first they denied that they were referring to me, blaming it on the neighbors across the street. (Not true.)Then they tried to turn it around, blaming my wife for telling me about the FB post.My wife eventually got a half-hearted apology, which she said should be directed toward me.They said they w...