An Axios story by Torey Van Oot says, “An estimated eight in 10 Minnesota kids have already been infected with COVID-19, new CDC data shows. Driving the news: The CDC released the results of its latest pediatric antibody seroprevalence survey last week.
- The results of blood samples taken in May and June suggest that 82% of Minnesotans between the ages of 6 months and 17 years have been infected with COVID-19 at least once. Zoom out: The Minnesota estimate is slightly higher than the national average of 79.7%.”
For MPR, Andrew Krueger says, “Vehicle access to a popular Minnesota state park near the Twin Cities will be very limited for two weeks in September. The Department of Natural Resources says a bridge repair project will close most of the main road into Afton State Park, along the St. Croix River, from Sept. 12 through Sept. 26. The park office near the entrance will remain open, but the road beyond that point — and many other park facilities — will be closed for that two-week period.”
A BusinessWire story says, “Twin Metals Minnesota filed a significant lawsuit in the United States District Court in Washington, D.C. to reclaim its federal mineral leases and reverse a series of arbitrary and capricious actions by federal agencies aimed at preventing the development of its modern mining project in northern Minnesota. These actions by the Department of Interior and Bureau of Land Management undercut America’s long-term priorities of securing domestic supply chains, addressing climate change by moving toward a clean energy future, and strengthening national security.”
For WCPT-AM Richard Eberwein reports, “Minnesota GOP gubernatorial nominee Dr. Scott Jensen will appear at a Republican Jewish Coalition event on Tuesday. However, resurfaced comments show Jensen seeming to think that pandemic-era COVID-19 policies are comparable to Nazi-era antisemitic aggression. Video of Jensen speaking to a COVID-19 conspiracy theorist group called MaskOffMN in April is recirculating online, where he called for resistance to COVID policies to prevent another Adolf Hitler-level rise of authoritarianism. ‘If you look at the 1930s and you look at it carefully, we could see something’s happening’, Jensen said. ‘Little things that people chose to push aside. And then the little things grew into something bigger. Then there was a night called Kristallnacht, the night of the breaking glass.’”
For the AP, Stephen Groves reports, “A South Dakota ethics board on Monday said it found sufficient information that Gov. Kristi Noem may have “engaged in misconduct” when she intervened in her daughter’s application for a real estate appraiser license, and it referred a separate complaint over her state airplane use to the state’s attorney general for investigation. The three retired judges on the Government Accountability Board determined that ‘appropriate action’ could be taken against Noem for her role in her daughter’s appraiser licensure, though it didn’t specify the action. The board’s moves potentially escalate the ramifications of investigations into Noem. The Republican governor faces reelection this year and has also positioned herself as an aspirant to the White House in 2024.”
This from KSTP-TV, “A 6-year-old girl is recovering in the hospital after she was caught in the crossfire of a shootout Monday evening near East Phillips Park in Minneapolis. Officers from the Minneapolis Police Department and Minneapolis Park Police responded to a report of shots fired around 5:16 p.m. (Monday) near the intersection of 18th Avenue South and 24th Street East, MPD spokesman Officer Garrett Parten said. A 6-year-old victim was found shot, and officers and medics gave her first aid before taking her to Hennepin County Medical Center. Her injuries are believed to be non-life-threatening, Parten said.”
Stribber Jenna Ross writes, “Maggie Hennefeld encountered them alone, in the archives, in the dark. Silent film stars who were daring and funny and original — but forgotten because they were women. A teenage tomboy who floods her home. A maid who explodes through the chimney. A wife who dominates her husband with a lasso. Hennefeld is spotlighting them, at last. ‘When most people think of silent, slapstick comedy, they think of Charlie Chaplin, maybe Harold Lloyd — who are brilliant’, said Hennefeld, an associate professor of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota. ‘But there were so many women who were doing messy, violent, rough-and-tumble slapstick as well. They’ve just been written out of the history.’ Hennefeld and two co-curators have unearthed 99 silent films produced from 1898 to 1926 for a new collection, enlisting composers to pair them with new, original scores. On Aug. 25, the Trylon Cinema will screen 11 short films from ‘Cinema’s First Nasty Women’, a four-disc DVD/Blu-ray set that will be released late this month.”
A KNSI-AM story says, “Violence is keeping people away from restaurants. Nowhere is that more true than in the Twin Cities. The reservation service OpenTable uses 2019 as a baseline for its ‘State of the Industry’ data. In July, bookings to eat out in Minneapolis were down 54% compared to three years ago. The shocking trend is hardly letting up even as a high-profile crime crackdown is underway. The number of people eating out in the Twin Cities fell by nearly 50 percent from August 9th through the 20th. Other cities logging a large decline include Chicago, Milwaukee, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington D.C. All have seen violent crime surge to multi-decade highs, if not all-time records.”
Stribber Jana Hollingsworth writes, “The parents of the student attacked after a Proctor High School football practice last fall are suing the school district and the former football coaches and superintendent for a civil rights violation related to sexual discrimination. The student’s parents, whom the Star Tribune isn’t naming to protect the identity of the victim, filed a suit in federal court Friday on their son’s behalf, alleging several things related to the September incident that resulted in the cancellation of the school’s football season and the resignation of its head coach. An 18-year-old former Proctor student and football player was given probation in June for assaulting the victim with a plunger and must register as a predatory offender for 10 years. According to the federal complaint: Toilet plunger-related hazing was common before and during former coach Derek Parendo’s decade-plus leading the team, known to coaches, former superintendent John Engelking, the athletic director and guidance counselors.”
Sounds like some debates between Jenson and Walz are in order.
The Business Wire article is bizarre. Statements such as “a series of arbitrary and capricious actions by federal agencies” and “leases were illegally canceled” and “there is no risk to the environment from acid rock drainage” are presented as if they are established facts rather than position statements by Twin Metals in its federal lawsuit to reclaim its federal mineral leases. This seems rather disingenuous.
But then it makes more sense when – upon Googling Business Wire – I find that Wikipedia describes it as “an American company that disseminates full-text press releases”.
So this wasn’t an article at all. It was a press release presented as if it were a news article.
Disingenuous indeed!
Cutting out that pesky middleman of the free press because although common, it’s not 100% guaranteed that a news organization will just regurgitate your press releases without fact checking.
Regarding that statistic from Open Table—in the past couple of years, many restaurants have switched to other reservation systems (the other big one I know about it Tock). I can’t help but think that if Open Table’s numbers are down, that might reflect the state of their business more than the state of the restaurant industry.
Not to mention—looking at the Open Table study, I don’t see anything about violence mentioned there at all. That is clearly KNSI’s interpretation and should be marked as such.
Looked at the KNSI story. Basically: (a) Open Table bookings down substantially since 2019 (i.e., pre-COVID); (b) Tom Emmer had a friend from St. Paul who owns a restaurant testify that he opens an hour later so employees don’t need to arrive in the dark. Put these together, and conclusion: No one is going to restaurants in the Twin Cities because of violent crime. (Makes me think of the punchline: “Frog without legs can’t hear.”)
I guess this kind of stupid stuff is out there with frequency, but not sure how it makes the MinnPost Glean cut.
Not to mention – the lack of mention of the largest worldwide pandemic occurring over the time period studied. COVID-19 is the leading cause in a reduction of eating out, not violence. No surprise the article quotes Emmer and one of his fans. Just because a GOP restaurant owner blames “violence” on a reduction in reservations doesn’t mean it’s true. Also, just because Open Table reservations are down, doesn’t mean all restaurant business is down. My family doesn’t cook, we eat out all the time, and have never once used Open Table. MinnPost needs to do better at evaluating the validity of the stories you choose to feature in the Glean. This one is pure propaganda.
A “significant” lawsuit? As opposed to what? This is why Business reporting is so ridiculous. And hazing with a plunger? Seriously? This was common?
Yep Paul, anal rape with a plunger was a common hazing ritual – known by the coach and district. Hence the lawsuit.
It isn’t just Minnesota. There are cases of sexual assault that was considered “hazing” in Chicago (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/teens-sexually-assaulted-high-school-team-hazing-parents-allege-lawsuit-n1277531) and Maryland (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/a-football-locker-room-a-broomstick-and-a-sex-assault-case-roil-a-school/2019/03/29/01500f30-2fc8-11e9-8ad3-9a5b113ecd3c_story.html) that are nauseatingly similar.
There is evidence that this type of assault is widespread and often minimized. There is also a generational aspect where people who were assaulted become the new perpetrators.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sexual-assaults-in-high-school-sports-minimized-as-hazing-ap/
As opposed to a trump lawsuit
In other words, most kids have lost two years of their education life for nothing. The masks are useless, the shots are ineffective, and the lockdowns were a travesty. Way to go, governor.
Shots keep people out of the hospital and from dying, yea but who cares, right?
Early on in the pandemic, Walz said what I thought was a great insight. When talking about the reasons for masking, etc., he said that ALL of us are going to eventually get Covid, but that we don’t want everyone to get it at once. Remember that the hospitals were overwhelmed and ICU’s were over capacity.
Are you being serious, or merely sarcastic?
No, he’s just being Dennis.
You may remember that back in 2020 and 2021 there were months when more than a 100 people a day were dying from Covid in Minnesota and the hospitals were putting intensive care patients in hallways. I lost friends to Covid. The lockdowns were put in place to try to stop community spread. It’s likely that many of the 82 percent of kids who have had it were infected by the omicron variants in recent months. Those variants are less deadly.
With 3 doctors and two nurses in my family, I know that the healthcare system was being overwhelmed in 2020 and 2021 by a new disease that we were still learning about. The governor was trying to prevent the collapse of the healthcare system and prevent deaths based on the best information at hand. Monday morning quarterbacking is always easier than quarterbacking the real game.
Before you go all Scott Jensen on this statistic, you might want to find out how many children died or were hospitalized because of COVID.
And although it’s not likely we’ll have actual numbers on this any time soon, it’s also worth reflecting on how many of those children developed long COVID – a potentially disabling condition that could affect them for years to come.
I can tell you how many children between the ages of 0-17 died in MN from COVID (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm). It’s horrible that even one child, died but was it really worth stunting their growth mentally, socially, and physically for the last 2 years? My children hated being at home on iPads trying to learn. They were (and now are again) challenged with in-person learning and they received nothing by being online. You may say that the school should do better or I should have pushed for more; trust me, I did, but the educators could only do so much bc trying to coordinate one-on-one time with 25 students is a huge task and I don’t fault them at all.
I won’t argue that the vaccine (which is a misnomer) likely reduced the severity of the virus, but I can’t outright say that it protected people because it was touted as a way to stop the virus, which it certainly didn’t do. It didn’t eliminate the virus, it didn’t stop the virus from spreading from a vaccinated person to another vaccinated person, it didn’t stop the virus from spreading from a vaccinated person to an unvaccinated person, and it definitely didn’t stop a vaccinated person from getting it once or even multiple times. Masks were mainly ineffectual even with proper fit (which a majority of wearers did not and do not do) and constant usage.
“It’s horrible that even one child, died but was it really worth stunting their growth mentally, socially, and physically for the last 2 years?”
Ask the parents of a child who died.
Why do you think the word “vaccine” is incorrect? I’m asking as someone who earned a PhD in Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology who is pretty certain that the term “vaccine” is accurate. The rest of your statement is a bit silly. First, getting infected and STILL not ending up ill/hospitalized/dead usually equals a GOOD THING. Are you arguing that it isn’t? It’s really no one else’s problem that most of the unvaccinated got sick. There are only a tiny number who couldn’t get vaccinated; the vast majority made a CHOICE to not get vaccinated. Tough tuckus if they got sick. Decisions have consequences and accepting the consequences is part of personal responsiblity.
Second, no vaccine “protects” anyone if “protect” means what you are defining it as. Vaccines cannot create a magical barrier around the vaccinated. They can only work through activating your immune system, which is mostly…internal. If your immune system was able to “prevent” an infection for every disease, you’d be nothing but immune-related cells and proteins. As a result, your immune system usually works by stopping an infection, not preventing it, which would only really be possible if your immune system could immediately detect a single or a handful of molecules (which might eventually happen with repeated exposure, but that’s usually a bad thing – see, e.g., latex allergy). I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you simply don’t understand how the immune system works and someone lied to you. The mask thing isn’t that hard to understand. Other than the part about many people who didn’t wear them correctly, you are, again, wrong. But, this is something that requires very little effort to know better. So, I actually expect a bit more from people on this one. Try to know better.
If people were not using an N95 respirator (not a mask) and trained on the proper fit / use , we were not in compliance with what is required to protect yourself from a virus.
OSHA requires basic standards for compliance. For example someone sanding joint compound on a job site needs to be supplied with a minimum N95 protection level and properly fitted in order to be compliant. This is for a particle size that is significantly larger than a virus.
Walking around the grocery store seeing gators , bandannas, cloth masks and surgical masks half on peoples bearded faces is better than nothing ….. while not even coming close to the governments own basic standards for respiratory protection.
It seems somewhat hypocritical that while mandating the use of masks, we were knowingly not in compliance with known levels of protection and use of a respirator. If “better than nothing” was the standard then that is what was achieved.
I guess I think the term vaccine is incorrect bc the definition of a vaccine is “a substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases.” While the COVID vaccine did stimulate the production of antibodies (I agree that not ending up ill/hospitalized/dead is good – my wife had it pretty bad but was able to stay at home), it certainly didn’t provide the true immunity from the virus that so many said it would. This is very evident from the very high profile individuals (most notably Pres. Biden and Jill Biden) being double-vaxxed and boosted and still being infected more than once.
And if the argument is that no one said that getting the vaccine would provide true immunity, Rachel Maddow (MSNBC), stated in 2019, “Now we know that the vaccines work well enough that the virus stops with every vaccinated person. A vaccinated person gets exposed to the virus, the virus does not infect them, the virus cannot then use that person to go anywhere else. It cannot use a vaccinated person as a host to go get more people.” Had I went all in on what she said, then, yes, someone lied to me, but I made sure to educate myself, however many, many people that were lied to listened very intently to what her and others were saying. I understand just fine how the immune system works and am not under the impression that any vaccine will provide true immunity (I still get the flu vaccine each year, have had multiple boosters for MMR, tetanus), but when you have people with the ability to reach and influence thousands, even millions of people, that is what breeds ignorance – and I am betting that a very large percentage haven’t taken the time to “try to know better”.
Also, you are right, to not get the vaccine was a choice (and I am glad you made that distinction bc it should have always been a choice) and that was them exercising their right to make decisions about their own health. If they got sick, it was on them – I wholeheartedly agree.
My kids did fine, in fact both are now moving on to even more advanced classes than they were pre pandemic. You clearly did something differently, and not for the better.
My children, thankfully, have involved parents that push them to be better and they are very smart (humble brag, I guess), but there are many children that don’t have parents that are able or even willing to put in the extra time to make sure they are learning or even maintaining. It’s those children that I feel for and wish we could go back now (hindsight is 20/20, right?) and redo the last 2 years, but we can’t and we have to move forward from here.
My statements were about the educators that were not able to provide (even though they wanted) that 1-on-1 teaching that many kids need. The schools were forced to go to online, distance learning and that was not good for anyone.
Since your kids did so well we should ignore the impact of school closures for the significant number of kids who now have a learning deficit , increased mental health impacts and the fact that 50% of Minnesota students are not proficient in math ?
Where are your facts that support your statement that masks reduced the spread of early variants?
You can’t accuse someone of making up there own facts while providing none of your own.
A small correction – the shots did not “end the pandemic”. The pandemic is still with us, as evidenced by your later statement that “Covid is still killing 500 unvaccinated people per week.”
However, the shots HAVE saved lives, and slowed the pandemic way down in areas where they have been available (and utilized), and for that, they have been invaluable.
So now you believe the CDC. I see, how convenient.
Weird, I go out to eat about 1/10th of what I used to and it has nothing to do with dodging bullets in this city. I learned to cook during the pandemic and got used to eating at home. We could really use a lot less hype around “violence” in our cities.
20% increase since 2019 isn’t hype. Neither is catch and release of violent offenders and lack of police to patrol the streets.
No one is saying that the violent crime is unmanaged. What they’re saying is that it is a HUGE leap to link reduced OpenTable reservations to increased crime. There is no evidence of that. At. All. The article was essentially an opinion piece crying wolf and trying to make sure the people who are afraid stay afraid. Stay in your little burrows. Don’t poke your head out. It’s a lot easier for us to tell you what to think if you are too afraid to see for yourself. A lot of people above provided much more plausible explanations for reduced OpenTable reservations. Correlation doesn’t equal causation. Basic.
Apparently the 6year old wasn’t aware that crime is not an issue.
I expect you to be just as sarcastic the next time a kid kills themselves, their sibling, or their parents when they get a hold of gun in the household.
I will say that it’s a lot harder for a 6 year old to get caught in the cross-knife-fight.
The point is morons who keep pretending there is not crime wave, or that we just need to be aware of our surroundings.
I don’t know who’s saying we’re not experiencing a crime wave. The data shows that we are. And, other than the people who think it’s a perfectly viable option to leave guns in the hands of everyone and just teach kids how to dodge and weave at school, no one is saying that violence won’t get you so long as you’re aware of your surroundings. That said, what many people here are saying is that crime is likely not THE reason (maybe not even *A* reason) that OpenTable is reporting fewer reservations. Rather, the article conflates two different issues, likely because there are certain politicians who benefit from people being more afraid than they ought to be (and their business buddies have an agenda, too). Increased crime is a problem everywhere, even in my corner of the metro. And trust me, no one has talked about defunding Blaine police, even though I really think they spend too much time focusing on speeding and not enough time on other issues that affect the quality of life in the city.
Would you say there are more morons who claim there’s no crime wave, or who claim more guns on the street save lives?
I’m in Minneapolis virtually every day, for hours on end. Where am I supposed to go to witness the endless warzone. I seem to have missed it thus far.
I am sick of little kids being hurt by senseless violence
that KNSI-AM story is a load of crap. I am not understanding the relation between eating out and violent crime and the KNSI article basically says “X is up this year”, “Y is also up this year!!”, “Therefore, Y is caused by X!” Scaremongering story not worthy for minnpost repost.