MPR News
Tom Robertson

Rural Minnesotans are less optimistic about the economy than people in the Twin Cities and other metropolitan areas of the state, according to a new study by the Blandin Foundation.

The Blandin Foundation’s Rural Pulse survey, to be released today, found that while about 40 percent of respondents in urban areas thought there aren’t enough local job opportunities, 56 percent of rural Minnesotans thought so.

“Recovery hasn’t made it to all people,” said Kathleen Annette, president of the Grand Rapids-based foundation. “And there are those in rural communities that have less optimism. And those are primarily those that are making less than $35,000 a year, and they’re older than the age of 35.” Read more: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2013/05/08/news/rural-minnesotans

Blandin Foundation
News Release

Economic recovery is reaching Minnesotans unequally, according to a statewide survey released by the Blandin Foundation. The real-time snapshot of community issues, perceptions and priorities among rural Minnesota residents, called Rural Pulse(TM), demonstrated that demand for living-wage jobs far outweighs all other concerns.

While residents note that the economy has improved somewhat, 58 percent of rural Minnesotans and 41 percent of urban Minnesotans say there are insufficient local job opportunities.  Urban residents are nearly twice as likely as rural residents to say that their economy has improved over the past year. Read more: http://www.blandinfoundation.org/resources/news-detail.php?intResourceID=7903

Ely Echo
Editorial

PolyMet has had Swiss-based Glencore as a financial partner for some time, so this wasn’t really big news. Duluth Metals received a $30 million loan from CEF Holdings Limited, which is owned 50% by Cheung Kong Limited and 50% by the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

That being said, we’re a bit puzzled why the anti-mining crowd is opposed to foreign investment. Maybe they don’t realize our country was built on it. And without foreign investment, our country would be bankrupt.

Over 40 percent of the U.S. government’s debt is owned by foreign countries. China is at the top of a list that includes Japan, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Duluth News Tribune
John Myers

One day after announcing plans to raise $80 million in cash, officials of PolyMet Mining Corp. on Thursday said they are moving headlong toward permitting and, eventually, construction of Minnesota’s first copper-nickel mine.

“This is a pretty big step for our project,” Jon Cherry, PolyMet president and CEO, told reporters Thursday. “We’re getting over that hump.”

On Wednesday the company announced it would receive a $20 million loan from its largest investor, Swiss commodities giant Glencore. Glencore already owns 25.6 percent of PolyMet and has options to increase that to 34 percent.

Duluth News Tribune

Members of a Minnesota coalition of labor union members and business owners testified in Washington today that federal regulatory efforts surrounding mining ventures need to be streamlined.

Harry Melander, president of the Minnesota Building and Construction Trades Council and Ruthe Batulis, president of the Dakota County Regional Chamber of Commerce and member of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors, testified before the House Natural Resources Committee Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources.

The two are part of the Jobs for Minnesota coalition formed to promote Minnesota’s first-ever copper-nickel mining projects.