July 2012 Archives

Minnesotans United for All Families is attempting to reach voters as time winds down before the Minnesota marriage amendment is voted on in November, according to MPR.

Minnesota for Marriage, the group supporting the amendment which would limit marriage in Minnesota to being between "a man and a woman," says it will not be marking the 100-day period, MPR reported.

The fight is also being held in the Minnesota Supreme Court, where Secretary of State Mark Ritchie's chosen title for the amendment is being called into question, the Star Tribune reported.

Chick-fil-A has announced its opposition to same-sex marriage and is receiving backlash over it, the Star Tribune reported.

The president of the company, Dan Cathy, told the Baptist Press that the company backs "the biblical definition of a family," according to the Star Tribune.

Boston's mayor has blocked a store from opening in the area, and the Jim Henson Co. pulled their toys from the company, according to MPR.

A woman in the Anoka County Jail known only as Jane Doe has been identified as Tammy Antoinette Thomas, according to the Pioneer Press.

Thomas has been charged with identity theft, theft and trespassing, the Star Tribune reported.

The name came from fingerprints and a Texas arrest, the Pioneer Press reported.

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, donated $2.5 million to help keep same-sex marriages legal in Washington state, the Pioneer Press reported.

Bezos joins a growing list of corporate supporters for same-sex marriages, including large companies such as General Mills and Starbucks, Inc.

The donation is expected to give Washington supporters "a fighting chance" to win in November, according to the New York Times.

One person died and four others were injured in a house fire in Minneapolis Saturday, the Star Tribune reported.

The house was 112 years old and was being rented by a family for a year, according to the Star Tribune report. The house next door was also damaged by the fire, which burned two stories of the house.

The house is being investigated for signs of arson, according to a report from MPR.

Star Tribune article about CityTarget

This article uses numbers to compare Target's customers with that of other retailers, to describe the amount of space in an area to the reader, and to describe the customers to the reader.

The numbers were overwhelming when the article was describing how large the stores were. The article says how large a normal big box store is and compared the size of the new Targets to that, but it is still not something I was really able to understand. The reporter could have also given an example of the smaller range to compare with the larger numbers.

When talking about the customers, the reporter gave median ages and incomes, and explained how the ages compared with other stores to make it easier for the reader to understand.

The source of the numbers is unclear.

The Red Cross now considers widespread conflict in Syria to be a civil war, the Star Tribune reported.

The conflict had been contained in specific parts of the country. Recently the United Nations investigated a large attack between the Syrian government and its opposition in the city of Hama, the New York Times reported. Hama is one of the areas that previously contained the conflict, according to the Star Tribune.

President Obama will not apologize to Mitt Romney for a series of attack ads and speaking points against the Republican presidential candidate, the New York Times reported.

The president and vice president have been on the campaign trail through swing states, emphasizing Romney's past as a leader in the private equity firm Bain Capital and his refusal to release records of previous tax returns, the Star Tribune reported.

The campaign by Obama also emphasizes attacks from the Romney campaign, the New York Times reported.

A man has been charged in the deaths of his three daughters Thursday, the Pioneer Press reported.

Aaron Schaffhausen, the girls' father and their mother's ex-husband, reportedly called his ex-wife Jessica Schafffhausen to tell her he killed the girls while she was gone, the Star Tribune reported.

The three girls, ages 5, 8 and 11, were found by police in their beds with their necks slit, the Pioneer Press reported.

shortly after his phone call, Aason Schaffhausen appeared at the police station in River Falls, where he was arrested, the Pioneer Press reported.

He has refused to give large answers in the matter, instead replying to questions in court with "yes" and "no" and asking his public defender to speak for him, according to the Star Tribune.

A St. Louis County man is recovering from Minnesota's first confirmed case of West Nile virus this year, the Pioneer Press reported.

The man traveled to south-central Minnesota where he was bitten by an infected mosquito, the Pioneer Press reported.

Experts say this year may be an ideal year for mosquitoes which carry the virus, the Star Tribune reported. The species that carries West Nile thrives when there are "wet springs and hot, dry summers."

The last year there was a large number of cases reported in the state was 2007, when 101 cases were reported. The number of cases has't been larger than 9 since 2008, where there were 10 reported cases, the Star Tribune reported.

Four states will vote on same-sex marriage issues November, the New York Times reported.

Voters in Maryland, Maine, and Washington will be voting on initiatives to allow same-sex marriage or to repeal previous bans, The New York Times said. Minnesota is the only state of the four voting on a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

The initiatives come in a voting year where more young people are likely to vote. President Barack Obama has recently declared his support for the G.L.B.T. community, and the administration has had a large presence at Pride parades and festivals across the country in order to secure votes from the community, The New York Times reported.

The Star Tribune and Pioneer Press both utilize multimedia options to compliment their news stories. Both use mostly photos and videos to do so.

Both organizations use slideshows with captions to let their photos stand alone, and both use photos in their stories to highlight parts of their stories. The Pioneer Press has shorter captions for its photos, which provide less background information and do not do as much storytelling. The Star Tribune has much more comprehensive captions, especially in their slideshows, and those captions contain much more background and detail on the news the photos are related to.

Both organizations' captions use concise writing without superfluous information to weigh down the caption. The reader gets a sense of the story but isn't stuck reading the entire news article the photograph compliments in order to get the information.

Two teenage boys were arrested Friday for the death of 5-year-old Nizzel George in North Minneapolis, the Star Tribune reports.

The boy was shot once in the back on Tuesday in his grandmother's house and died soon after, according to the Star Tribune.

One of the teens was arrested on suspicion of murder and the other on suspicion of weapons possession, the Pioneer Press reported.

George's is the second death by shooting of young children in six months in the community, the Pioneer Press reported.

A man who was charged in Eagan and Bloomington, Minn. with second- and third-degree sexual conduct felonies will not be extradited from England, the Pioneer Press reported.

The man, Shawn Eugene Sullivan, was charged of sexually assaulting two girls in 1993 and raping another the next year. Sullivan fled to Ireland before prosecutors officially filed charges, the Pioneer Press reported. In Ireland, he was convicted of another two assaults on young girls.

Britain's High Court stopped the extradition process Thursday when the U.S. failed to show Sullivan wouldn't be placed in a "draconian" civil commitment program, the Star Tribune reported.

The program allows a person to be committed for "sex offender treatment" if a judge deems them "sexually psychopathic or sexually dangerous" the Star Tribune reported. Only two people in the program have ever been released, with one taken back into custody soon after.