Litchfield Community Education is off to a busy start this summer with all kinds of activities. Several of the youth activities began on Monday and more will get started next week.
Litchfield Community Education Director Grant Solem says many children got signed up for activities as soon as the summer program guide came out on May 1st, but it’s never too late to get signed up. He says one of the more popular activities each summer is swim lessons and kids travel from all over the area to attend the lessons offered in Litchfield.
Solem says the schedule gets shuffled a bit as they will block out June 17th for the Parade of Bands and June 19th which is the Juneteenth holiday, and they do have some evening swim lessons. He says private swim lessons for adults can also be arranged.
Solem says there aren’t as many activities scheduled for adults during the summer months, but they have a trip scheduled to see the “Church Basement Ladies” later this summer and to see “Grease” this fall. He says Litchfield Community Theatre is getting its production of “Guys & Dolls” ready for later in July and tickets will be going on sale soon. For more details about Litchfield Community Education, look for the link on the Litchfield School District website or call 693-2354.
On this day in music, June 11, 1988, the star-studded Freedomfest concert took place at London’s Wembley Stadium. The event, which marked the 70th birthday of the then-imprisoned anti-apartheid revolutionary, Nelson Mandela, was organized to raise awareness of apartheid (institutionalized racial segregation) in South Africa and called for the country’s political prisoners, including Mandela, to be freed. Performances by the likes of Whitney Houston, George Michael, Phil Collins, Stevie Wonder, and the Bee Gees were broadcast live to an estimated global audience of one billion. Less than two years later, Mandela was freed from prison, while apartheid was repealed in 1991. Mandela, who died in 2013, went on to serve as South Africa’s first present.
In 1966, The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It, Black” became the first No.1 hit to feature a sitar. The song, which began a two-week run at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 on this day, also reached the top spot in the UK, Canada, and the Netherlands.
In 1969, The Beatles topped the UK pop chart for the 17th time with “The Ballad of John and Yoko.” The recording only featured John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
In 1977, with their single “I’m Your Boogie Man,” KC and the Sunshine Band became the second group in Billboard chart history (following the Jackson Five) to score four US No.1 hits.
In 2005, Queen co-founder and guitarist Brian May was recognized for his charitable and musical contributions when he was awarded a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II. On that same day, Led Zeppelin founder and guitarist Jimmy Page was awarded an OBE.
BORN ON JUNE 11
1934: James “Pookie” Hudson (The Spaniels)
1946: John Lawton (Uriah Heep)
1947: Richard Palmer-Jones (Supertramp, King Crimson)
1949: Frank Beard (ZZ Top)
1951: Lynsey De Paul
1952: Donnie Van Zant (38 Special)
1961: Robert Birch (Stereo MCs)
1964: Penny Ford (Snap!)
1969: Steven Drozd (Flaming Lips)
1997: Kodak Black
Scott Gottschalk of Kimball is into day-18 of his No Boundaries Tour motorcycle ride – attempting to ride his motorcycle 120,000-miles in 120 days to make it into the Guinness Book of World Records. He will finish the ride in St. Cloud on September 18th.
Scott called KLFD this morning from the Fargo area and says he has traveled about 18,000-miles so far and has encountered lots of tourist traffic while venturing through the Western states and also lots of smoke from the Canadian wild fires. He says there have been great temperature swings with cold mornings and hot afternoons.
Scott says there is a group that puts out a banner for him on an overpass in the Sioux Falls area every time he travels through there and it’s encouraging to see the support. He says he has a spare gas tank, but was talking on the phone one day and got distracted and forgot that he was on his second tank already and ran out of gas.
You can follow Scott and donate to his cause at NBTRide.com. The purpose of the ride is to raise money – and awareness – to stop human trafficking.
President Donald Trump’s administration has been reshaping the federal government since he assumed office in January. Among the dramatic changes: layoffs of thousands of federal workers.
National data released last week by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicate there were 59,000 fewer federal jobs in mid-May compared to the start of the Trump administration. This includes a net loss of 22,000 jobs in May following monthly losses of 13,000 or fewer in February, March and April.
While the nation has now seen a net loss of 2 percent of all federal government jobs since the start of the year, the broader market has seen a gain of 0.3 percent, or 510,000, non-farm jobs.
Still a federal job ‘he-cession’ despite greater losses among women in April
The BLS jobs data include very little demographic data, but they do show job gains and losses by gender, lagging one month prior to the overall numbers. From March to April women experienced a larger net loss of federal jobs (8,000) than did men (5,000.)
Still, due to the higher level of net federal job loss among men in February and March (that we reported on in greater detail last month), the running tally of net losses to men, 25,000, is more than twice the losses experienced by women, 12,000. Put differently, as of mid-April there had been a net loss of 1.6 percent of federal jobs held by men, compared to a loss of 0.8 percent of federal jobs held by women.
Federal job changes by state
The federal government employs nearly 3 million Americans, comprising just under 2 percent of all non-farm employment, making it the nation’s single largest employer.
Findings about changes in federal government employment from the most recent state-level jobs report, featuring survey data through mid-April, include:
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Minnesota has lost 400 federal jobs since January, a loss of 1.2 percent of its federal workforce.
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Maryland and Virginia have had the highest net loss of federal jobs since January, at 5,900 and 5,100, respectively. New York, Florida and Georgia are the only other states that have lost 1,000 or more federal jobs.
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Maryland and Virginia have also seen the highest percentage loss in federal jobs, at 3.6 percent and 2.6 percent, respectively. New Mexico and Hawaii are the only other states to have lost more than 2 percent of their federal workforce so far this year.
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Five states have seen small net increases in federal jobs so far this year: Indiana, Tennessee, Massachusetts, Utah and Vermont.
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The four states with the highest percentages of federal jobs are Maryland, Hawaii, Virginia and Alaska. Federal government jobs there make up over 4 percent of all non-farm employment in those states.
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In Washington, D.C. — the district itself, not the metro area — about one-quarter of those employed are in the federal government. From January to April, D.C. lost 2,400 federal jobs, equivalent to about 1.2 percent of its federal workforce.
How are the recent federal job cuts affecting specific metro areas?
Roughly 90 percent of federal workers are based outside of the Washington, D.C., metro area, making federal employment an important part of the workforce throughout the nation.
The newly released monthly metropolitan jobs report for April showed that, at least so far, federal job losses in most metro areas are minimal. Note that the reference day for these monthly reports is the 12th day of the month — so layoffs occurring between April 12 and May 12 will be picked up in next month’s report, scheduled for June 24.
Findings from the most recent metropolitan jobs report, specifically focused on the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, include:
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The Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area has a net loss of zero federal jobs January to April. The metro’s 20,700 federal jobs make up 1.1 percent of it’s nonfarm employment.
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The Washington, D.C., metropolitan area lost 9,000 federal jobs from January to April, numerically the largest loss of any major metropolitan area.
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The next highest losses were experienced by the metro areas of Baltimore (2,500 jobs lost), Virginia Beach (-1,000), New York (-800) and Honolulu (-800).
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Fifteen of the 100 largest metro areas gained federal employment, led by the Indianapolis and Dallas metro areas, each adding 700 federal jobs.
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Proportionally, the biggest losses of federal jobs from January to April were in the metropolitan areas centered around Baltimore (-4.5 percent), Portland, Maine (-3.9 percent), Hartford, Conn. (-3.5 percent), and Baton Rouge, La. (-3.2 percent).
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Thirty-nine of the nation’s 100 largest metros broke even, with neither gains nor losses of federal jobs, according to the data.
Technical notes: According to Bureau of Labor Statistics’ definitions, government employment covers only civilian employees; military personnel are excluded. Employees of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, and the Defense Intelligence Agency are also excluded. Employees on paid leave or receiving ongoing severance pay are counted as employed in the establishment survey.
Clean energy tax credits would shrink drastically in a sweeping tax cut and spending bill that was passed last month by the U.S. House and is now before the Senate.
In Minnesota, those incentives have spurred new solar and wind projects and created thousands of jobs in clean energy development and manufacturing.
The Trump administration’s so-called “big, beautiful bill” is sparking fears that rapidly phasing out those credits could severely curtail Minnesota's burgeoning clean energy sector.
“It aims to decimate our industry — an industry that is one of the fastest growing in terms of creating good-paying, local jobs,” said Gregg Mast, executive director of Clean Energy Economy Minnesota, an industry-led nonprofit.
The Canadian company Heliene opened a new solar panel manufacturing plant last month in Rogers, just northwest of the Twin Cities. The company already operates another plant on the Iron Range.
The new facility will create more than 200 jobs and produce roughly 800,000 solar panels a year — enough to power more than 100,000 homes.
Heliene’s CEO, Martin Pochtaruk, said they had hoped to open a third plant in Minnesota to make solar cells, the building blocks of larger solar modules. But those plans are on hold due to the uncertain federal outlook.
Pochtaruk said the House bill would affect demand for his company’s products in future years.
“That bill is bad,” he said. “It’s bad for job creation; it’s bad for the U.S. economy."
Tax credits for clean energy projects came about under President George W. Bush. During the Biden administration, the Inflation Reduction Act significantly expanded and extended those credits and created new ones.
The credits have been used to defray the cost to build new solar and wind projects, help consumers install rooftop solar or weatherize their homes and encourage companies to invest in clean energy manufacturing.
But President Donald Trump has called those policies a “green new scam” and said they have caused inflation and increased the cost of energy. He said the clean energy industry should stand on its own, without the benefit of tax breaks.
Michael Allen, co-founder and CEO of All Energy Solar, based in St. Paul, said solar businesses would be happy to stand up against any other industry — if the playing field were actually level.
“If we’re going to remove the tax incentives for the solar industry, then let’s remove the tax incentives for the natural gas and the coal and the petroleum industries,” Allen said.
Allen called it short-sighted to reduce incentives for clean energy at a time when demand for electricity is growing, including for electric vehicles, homes and large data centers.
“At a time where we’re going to see a huge spike in electricity consumption and or demand, we’re then reducing the incentives for industry like ours that is currently the largest provider of electricity in the state of Minnesota,” he said.
Rolling back the tax credits would raise Minnesotans’ energy costs by making the cost of clean energy projects more expensive, said Pete Wyckoff, deputy commissioner of energy resources for the Minnesota Department of Commerce.
“The president came in and said, ‘I’m here to lower your energy prices,’ but absolutely everything he’s done policy wise pushes in the opposite direction,” Wyckoff said.
Under Minnesota law, utilities are required to provide carbon-free electricity by 2040. Their plans to meet that mandate assume the tax credits will be available, Wyckoff said.
According to the commerce department, in 2023, the first year of the expanded incentives, 8,700 Minnesota households claimed the tax credit for installing rooftop solar or geothermal systems in their homes, while more than 60,000 received a tax credit for making their home more energy efficient.
“It impacts Minnesotans indirectly through effects on their electric rates and their energy bills, but it also can impact them directly if they’re doing these home improvement projects,” Wyckoff said.
Much depends on whether the Senate decides to accept the House bill. Some Republican senators have expressed reservations about ending incentives for clean energy that have largely gone to red-voting districts.
The possible rollback of tax credits comes as clean energy businesses were already navigating ever-changing tariffs on steel, aluminum and other components.
Heliene largely uses components made in the U.S. But Pochtaruk said tariffs on imports are driving up the price of domestic steel and other products, too.
“When imports on steel are 25 percent, but the pricing in the country has increased by 40 percent, that is inflation,” he said.
All this uncertainty makes it difficult to plan for the future, said Mast, of Clean Energy Economy Minnesota. Businesses need predictable policies, he said.
"That's exactly what we're not seeing now, when we go from one extreme to another,” Mast said. “We just need to have policy certainty."