RICHMOND — Virginia will likely become the second state in the nation — after North Dakota — to allow private adoption agencies to turn away parents based on sexual orientation or religious and moral beliefs. Read full article > >

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Virginia adding ‘conscience clause’ to adoption laws

Money is flowing by the barrelful into Mountrail County, N.D., transforming a tiny community into an unexpected oasis of prosperity at the heart of the nation’s biggest oil play.

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In North Dakota, a Great Divide Over Oil Riches

Are oil companies are finding it increasingly difficult to find new oil? It can certainly seem that way. Most of the older, easier-to-drill oil fields appear to be running near full capacity, while newer supplies often prove costly and difficult to drill — think of deepwater extraction off the Gulf of Mexico or shale production in North Dakota, which isn’t economical unless crude prices rise higher than $60 per barrel. Read full article > >

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Oil’s getting harder and harder to come by

An Air Force crew damaged a component of an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile while performing maintenance near a North Dakota base last month, prompting a partial evacuation, military officials said Monday. Air Force officials said no one was hurt in the Nov. 17 incident near Minot Air Force Base, but it was immediately reported to the highest levels of the Pentagon. A military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said it triggered a “robust discussion” over whether to inform the public. Read full article > >

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Missile component damaged in accident

Confronted with the problem of too many jobs and not enough empty beds, North Dakota embraced man camps. But now officials are trying to slow things down.

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North Dakota Oil Boom Creates Camps of Men

Many North Dakota residents flooded out by the Souris River have yet to return to their homes, and now winter is almost here.

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North Dakota Flood Victims Brace for Winter

Sirens urged residents of Minot, North Dakota, to evacuate in the face of major flooding as water began flowing over the city’s dikes, which are leaking in places.

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Sirens sound as water tops N.D. dikes

Thousands of residents of the city of Minot in the US state of North Dakota are evacuated over fears that the Souris River is about to flood.

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North Dakota braces for flooding

Thousands of residents of the city of Minot in the US state of North Dakota are evacuated over fears that the Souris River is about to flood.

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North Dakota braces for flooding

by Ann Friedman I am from the center of the country and have lived most of my adult life on the coasts. When I was very young, it didn’t occur to me that being from a small-ish town in the middle of the country might be a bad thing. It was just where I was . The older I got, the more I came to believe that the center was, in fact, the farthest point from everything important or interesting to ever occur. A place no one made movies about. (Well, almost no one. The people of Iowa thank you for Field of Dreams , Kevin Costner.) A place where leaving is the way to prove you’ve arrived. In New York, San Francisco, and D.C. I got used to hearing, “You’re from Idaho? Oh, Iowa ? Whatever. Same thing, right?” This is perhaps why I love to visit cities and parts of the country not typically defined as tourist destinations. Pittsburgh. Peoria. Milwaukee. Wichita. Reno. When I told friends who had only lived on the coasts that I was about to embark on a month-long road trip, most were jealous. They’ve always wanted to do a cross-country drive! To face their fears of the limited menu at Country Kitchen, the bleakness of the Nebraska landscape, sexist good ol’ boys and racist yokels. Maybe to assuage a low-level guilt that they have been to rural India but never rural Indiana. Small and medium-sized towns all over America — not just those in the middle of the country — spend a lot of time thinking about how to get young people to stick around. How to become places people go, and not just places people leave. I stayed with a friend of mine in Kansas City who told me that despite being heralded by any number of local civic and arts organizations as an “up and coming community leader,” she was kind of dying to move. I wouldn’t blame her. After all, I left. Lots of us did. Other than my home state, only North Dakota has seen more young, college-educated people seek their fortunes elsewhere. (I would love to see a statistical breakdown of how many of those kids move to an apartment near the L train and then get a tattoo in homage to their home state.) This is obviously just one small part of the larger story about migration within the United States. Traditional power centers like New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, D.C., and Boston are absent from this list of the fastest-growing cities in America. But why we leave the places we’re from — and whether and how we can be persuaded to return — something I’ve been thinking about a lot as I get reacquainted with the center.

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The Places We Leave

The National Republican Senatorial Committee can put a target on this one: Democratic North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad will soon announce plans to retire from the Senate. The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Conrad has been in office since 1986…

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Kent Conrad to Retire From Senate

Yet another storm wreaking havoc on the U.S. may lead to some less-than-happy New Year’s celebrations. Around 100 cars were involved in a massive traffic accident north of Fargo, North Dakota, Thursday-causing hours-long delays and bad conditions for…

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Snowmageddon Pummels West

What’s wrong with the northern border states? Wisconsin and North Dakota lead the nation in drunk driving, and the surrounding states like Minnesota, Michigan, and Montana aren’t far behind, according to a new report by the Substance Abuse and Mental…

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Wisconsin Has Most Drunk Drivers

For two years, politicians have danced around the nationalization issue, but ForeclosureGate may be the last straw. The megabanks are too big to fail, but they aren’t too big to reorganize as federal institutions serving the public interest. In January 2009, only a week into Obama’s presidency, David Sanger reported in The New York Times that nationalizing the banks was being discussed. read more

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ForeclosureGate Could Force Bank Nationalization

US residents from North Dakota to North Carolina clean up after a fierce storm unleashed rain, high winds, snow and 56 tornadoes in just two days.

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US Midwest battered by 56 tornadoes