The Archbishop is the archnemesis of birth control.

​In a letter made public yesterday, the Minnesota Catholic Conference, including Archbishop John Nienstedt, voiced opposition to the new federal health care mandate requiring insurance companies to cover birth control free of charge.

"While we support providing access to those services which can truly prevent disease or disability for women, such as pap smears and mammograms," the letter reads, "we join other persons of good will who strenuously object to mandatory coverage for contraceptives and sterilization procedures."

This is further evidence that all decisions about women's reproductive health should be made by old celibate men.

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Michele Bachmann has an iPhone, needs money.

​Michele Bachmann has a new e-mail blast out, and a new campaign "ad" on Youtube, both of which make it pretty clear that her campaign is totally, absolutely, utterly out of money. Over the last few weeks, Bachmann's fundraising e-mails have grown more desperate, and her videos are about the cheapest-looking presidential ads since the "I Like Ike" pins hit the market.

This looks like the beginning of the end. Bachmann has always relied on tens of thousands of small donations from supporters, and had to shovel a lot of money out the door to bring in that cash. Not only that, her campaign's one success -- her surprise win in the Ames Straw Poll -- was more or less bought by the Bachmann for President campaign.

With the all-important Iowa Caucus creeping right up around the corner, it's now or never for Bachmann. And it looks like never.
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Facebook

A "Slap an Asian Day" Facebook invite from another school.

​The parent of a Chaska Middle School West student was looking over her kid's Facebook page when she noticed another student complaining that someone had slapped her that day in school. Someone replied to that post saying that it was because it was "Slap an Asian Day" in school.

The parent followed that post down a Facebook rabbit hole and discovered that yet another student had declared an official "Slap an Asian Day." It was supposed to be today.

With the clock ticking until Slap an Asian Day, the parent contacted the Chaska police department.

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You and a friend could get into this building for free tonight.

​The Minnesota Wild's last preseason game is tonight against the Edmonton Oilers. If you've got at least $70 bucks to throw down, you could buy a couple of tickets.

Or you could get them for free from City Pages! We're giving away two pairs of free tickets to tonight's game to whichever readers can convince us they need them the most.

So far, the preseason's been pretty exciting, with a lot of goals scored by and against the Wild. If you want to get one last absolutely free preview of Mikko Koivu, Dany Heatley, and Devin Setoguchi before the regular season kicks off, you've come to the right place.
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Thirteen of Clubs, Flickr.

U of M police started targeting bikers after weeks of accidents and complaints in the area.

​The University of Minnesota police department began to beef up enforcement on bicyclists around the congested light-rail construction zone last Wednesday.

In one week, the college's police department ticketed 62 cyclists for failing to dismount on the sidewalk, says Lt. Troy Buhta. Each ticket runs $115, coming out to a total of $7,130 in tags.

"We warned for three weeks [before]," says Buhta. "Eventually we had to pull the trigger. You can only warn people so much."

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Cynthia Coy was paid for foster care visits she didn't make.

​Waseca City Councilwoman Cynthia Coy pled guilty Tuesday to ripping off foster children by falsifying visitation records to the tune of $1,735.80.

But she won't have to step down from her position as a city official because she has entered into a plea agreement with the Steele County attorney's office that amounts to a slap on the wrist. Coy pled guilty to a single misdemeanor count of misconduct of a public officer.

In Minnesota, government employees convicted of felonies must resign. Coy was originally charged with felony theft in addition to various misdemeanor counts. The plea deal allows her to avoid a felony on her record as well as the unemployment line. And if the city of Waseca has a problem with that, it's not saying.

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The story of how the boy was shot has changed overnight.

​Police say that a 16-year-old boy and his friend were playing around with a rifle last night when the gun went off unexpectedly, killing the other boy, who was 15 years old. Initial reports had it that the gunshot was self-inflicted but accidental. This morning, the story is changing a bit.

The 15-year-old, whose identity has not been released, was killed by a single gunshot to the neck. The the 16 year old, also unidentified at this point, was taken in for questioning and has since been released to his parents.

The initial version of the story is that the gun had gone off while the younger boy was holding it, but the Star Tribune is now reporting that the boy's death was a tragic case of dangerous fun and games.
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Six fire crews fough the blaze.

​On the eve of its closing weekend, a fire has burned several booths at the Minnesota Renaissance Fair in Shakopee.

The fire started around 6:15 a.m. this morning, a few hours before the fair was set to open. The fire was thought to have started in a chicken shack, which had burned up by the time firefighters arrived.

Six different firefighting crews were called to the scene, MPR reports. Firefighters were hampered by the fact that there are no fire hydrants in the area, and all water to douse the blaze had to be trucked in.

Fair officials still say the festivities will go on today, though the fair's opening might be delayed.
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Minneapolis parents are being warned to remind their kids about strangers.

​Minneapolis parents are being warned to take precautions with their school-age kids after the third attempted abduction of a local teenager in two weeks.

Not one of the abductions has been successful, thanks in large part to some pretty courageous and quick behavior on behalf of the girls targeted. Minneapolis police say they have a suspect in the most recent case, which came Tuesday afternoon on the 3200 block of North 6th Street.

According to the 16-year-old victim in that case, her abductor had actually forced her into his truck. But, as he drove, the teenager found a knife in the truck and used it to fight her way to safety, the Star Tribune reports.
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Diane Bakdash is free and clear in the death of Ben Van Handel.

​Diane Bakdash was a nurse practitioner with a squeaky clean reputation until the night her son Timothy allegedly mowed down several pedestrians in Dinkytown, killing one. According to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office, it was motherly fidelity that led Bakdash to assist her son in a hasty disposal of the car involved.

Today, however, it appears that the case has completely disintegrated. Bakdash was cleared of the final charge against her earlier today.

"Our position from day one, from the very outset of this case, was that she was 100 percent innocent," says her attorney, Ryan Garry.

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