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Minnesota's unemployment fund: trouble ahead?
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 »
Local clinic honors World AIDS Day with free HIV tests
The Family Tree Clinic in St. Paul’s Merriam Park neighborhood is offering free rapid HIV tests Mon. Dec. 1, in collaboration with World AIDS Day.
The screening test looks for the presence of HIV antibodies. If HIV antibodies are detected, a Western Blot test is used to confirm the results.
Barbara Peterson, a Family Tree clinician, said if an individual’s tests come back positive, the clinic will help the individual line up primary care, social workers, and insurance. MORE »
Minneapolis food shelves lay bare
At the end of a long hallway at the Brian Coyle Community Center in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, a small room is lined with shelves and a commercial refrigerator. On the shelves, cans of lima beans sit aside boxes of mac’n’cheese and plastic bags of East Indian spices.
Every day when the food shelf closes, the metal shelves are bare. The next morning, workers restock them again from a diminishing supply across the hallway. MORE »
Richard Marx begs Minnesota's forgiveness
Singer-songwriter Richard Marx was the first solo artist to have his first seven singles make the top five on the U.S. Billboard charts. Marx, whose #1 singles include “Hold on to the Nights,” “Satisfied,” and “Right Here Waiting,” has recently released two albums available for download on his Web site: Emotional Remains and Sundown. He’ll be at Trocaderos on December 13 for an acoustic show with Matt Scannell of Vertical Horizon; in anticipation of that show, he talked by phone about opening for REO Speedwagon, managing his image, singing for drunk philanthropists, hanging out with Lionel Richie, and jockeying with Prince for the top of the charts. MORE »
VOICES | Crashing to the bottom of the country
We all know that Minnesota is the state where absolutely nothing is allowed, a benighted place in oppressive thrall, to quote a recent online post, to “all this busybody namby-pamby Big Brother regulation.” MORE »
