News Day

From "nation of slaves" to "my teeth are white," from $100,000 waiters to allegations of stolen elections, nonsense and deception dominate Minnesota's political headlines in July.

This is the weekend edition of News Day, unless something incredibly big or irresistibly crazy (think Emmer's $100,000 waiter gaffe) surfaces before Monday. I'll be working on my garden, and on some articles about the status of women and girls in Minnesota - watch for them next week. So - keep reading for the latest on arsenic dumping in Minneapolis, I-94 highway closures this weekend, one more way rich people are different from the rest of us, anti-immigrant graffiti in St. Cloud, the Oakland police non-murder verdict, and more.

The United States filed suit July 6 to stop Arizona's anti-immigrant enforcement law.

Debt buyers hound, harass, and defraud people who may never have owed a dime to begin with, according to an alarming exposé in the Star Tribune.

Firms with little known names, like LVNV Funding and Unifund CCR Partners, buy massive databases of unpaid debts for cents on the dollar, and then inundate courts with legal actions seeking to collect the full amount, plus interest and fees. These firms, known as debt buyers, base their claims on data up to 15 years old that can be impossible to verify.

The National Consumer Law Center, an advocacy group for low-income Americans, estimates that one in 10 debt-buyer lawsuits nationwide is based on inaccurate information. Bank accounts have been tapped, wages seized and people threatened with arrest for debts they don't owe or for inflated amounts.