Free Republic

A foundry in Hibbing, Minn., is closing, citing rising electricity rates as the primary reason. Northern Foundry in northeast Minnesota, the Star Tribune reports, will be shutting down and laying off 91 employees. “Minnesota Power's repeated electricity rate increases ... mean Northern Foundry pays substantially more per kilowatt hour than MTI's other facilities,” the foundry’s parent company, Metal Technologies Inc., said in a statement, according to the Star Tribune. Minnesota has been pursuing an aggressive effort to transition its electrical grid away from fossil fuels, and last year, the state passed a law committing to 100% renewable energy by 2040....

The Hibbing Minnesota School District has become a battleground in the culture wars around the Second Amendment.  When the Lincoln Elementary School was being built in 1956, it was seen as reasonable and proper to include a gun range in the basement.  The range has been in continuous use for almost 60 years.  The range has a spotless safety record.  There have not been any injuries in the entire 60 year history of its operation. From hibbingmn.com: Director Jeff Polcher noted that there have been zero incidents at the gun range in its nearly 60-year existence. He said requiring...

Seventy years ago today, on Saturday, May 24, 1941, if you were walking the halls at St. Mary’s Hospital in Duluth you might have run into members of the Zimmerman family. They would have been there for the birth of Abe and Beatty Zimmerman’s first child, a son whose arrival was noted in the News-Tribune five days later:

Four current or former members of the Hibbing Community College football team have been charged in the alleged rape of an 18-year-old Iron Range high school student. Daily Whitten, 19, of Darlington, S.C., and Talon Deante Jackson, 20, and Terrance Dominque Laverity, 20, both of Miami, were each charged Monday with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. Former teammate Andrew Jonathan Williams, 20, of Milwaukee, was charged with two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct, according to the criminal complaints filed in the case. The woman said a man from Milwaukee whom she had met in the dorms asked...

Steve Burmeister for The New York Times Zimmy’s restaurant is one of the rare places saluting Bob Dylan in Hibbing, Minn., where he grew up. HIBBING, Minn. - Nearly half a century ago, a scrawny youth whose artistic temperament and creative spirit had made him a misfit here left town to seek his fortune. Some people hope he never comes back. "If Bob Dylan came here to sing tonight, I wouldn't go," said Dennis Berklich, a fellow graduate of Hibbing High School. "Bob Dylan doesn't care about Hibbing, Minn., so why should we care about him? Besides that, I...