Daily Planet Originals

It’s nearly impossible to travel through Minneapolis and not witness the remains of the foreclosure crisis. Entire streets are left empty and dark. Historic homes have been turned into picked-apart skeletons. And as one foreclosure unfolds, its seeds take root in neighboring homes and streets, causing home prices to plummet and the mortgage mess to accelerate. The problem is especially visible on the city’s North side, where more than 800 homes are on the city’s vacant properties list. MORE »

On a cool gray morning in early November, I meet Tim Eian, a young Minneapolis building designer, at the corner of Lowry and North Fourth Street in North Minneapolis’s Hawthorne neighborhood. “This is it,” he says, gesturing to a brick eightplex, his blue eyes lit with excitement. Every window in the building is covered with plywood or plastic. On one boarded-up window, someone has scrawled “R.I.P.” According to Tim, the building, like many houses in the neighborhood, will be demolished soon. But he is more concerned with the lot. MORE »

“Too many people think this place is a satanic bookstore.” 46-year-old owner, James Williams said. He added, laughing, “I would rethink the name if I started over.” Opened in 1995, Sixth Chamber is named for poet William Blake’s “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.” MORE »

You’re not going to find a stronger theater company in the Twin Cities than the Theatre in the Round Players, and they’ve done it again, mounting yet another first-rate production. The White Sheep of the Family, by L. du Garde Peach and Ian Hay, is a splendidly written, sharply directed, beautifully acted farce you’re going to rush home and tell family, friends—pretty much anyone who’ll listen—all about. MORE »

NORTHFIELD, MN — In 2001, two third-grade girls from Northfield had a dream.

They would go to college together and be roommates. There was only one problem: Stephanie was a blond-haired, blue-eyed Midwesterner, and Alejandra was Hispanic. Back in 2001, only 18% of Northfield’s Latino population passed the Minnesota Basic Skills Test (BST), a requirement to graduate from high school. MORE »

by Jay Gabler •

by Jay Gabler •

Minnesota’s unemployment rate is going up. The unemployment compensation trust fund will most likely go into deficit during the first quarter of 2010, according to Lee Nelson, the Chief Attorney for the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED).

The October seasonally adjusted percentage of unemployed Minnesotans is 6.0%, up from 4.6% in October 2007, according to the Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). In October, statewide claims increased by 31.1% from a year ago. MORE »