Summary: Squeezed in between summer basketball and fall football, a final fishing excursion to Father Hennepin State Park on Mille Lacs Lake in Central Minnesota to close out the summer. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 14, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the Sartell-Rice area in Central Minnesota had been hit by near-hurricane force straight-line winds.

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Summary: The Pentagon has released the names of 30 U.S. service members killed Aug. 6, 2011 when a rocket-propelled grenade fired by a Taliban insurgent downed their Chinook helicopter on a combat mission — the deadliest single loss for U.S. forces in the decade-long war in Afghanistan. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 13, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the number of civilians killed or wounded in the Afghanistan war rose 31 percent in the first six months of 2010, with anti-government forces causing about three-quarters of the casualties, according to a report by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).

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Summary: Weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, compiled from U.S. Department of Defense news releases and iCasualties.org. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 12, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Gen. Babaker Shawkat Zebari, commander of Iraq’s military, called for U.S. forces to stay in the country for another decade, reinforcing his stance that his country’s military won’t be able to secure the nation on their own after U.S. troops leave at the end of 2011.

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Summary: At the Iowa GOP / Fox News Debate in Ames, Iowa, Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty fought a rhetorical slugging match, with Bachmann likening Pawlenty to President Barack Obama and Pawlenty charging that Bachmann’s record of accomplishment in Congress “is nonexistent” and that “she has a record of misstating and making false statements.” … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 11, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported and analyzed the primary election results in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District (MN-06).

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Summary: Chris Cillizza, in his Washington Post blog, “The Fix,” writes that Michele Bachmann’s measured response to the controversial photo of her on the cover of Newsweek magazine “affirms a simple but important truth of this campaign: Michele Bachmann is no Sarah Palin.” … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 10, 2010, Aubrey Immelman provided his weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

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Summary: Politico reports that Barack Obama’s aides and advisers are preparing to center the president’s reelection campaign on a ferocious personal assault on Mitt Romney’s character and business background, a strategy grounded in the early-stage expectation that the former Massachusetts governor is the likely GOP nominee. However, the Obama campaign would be sorely misguided if it diverted inordinate resources to fending off Romney as Barack Obama’s likely opponent. Despite being the early front-runner in public opinion polls, Romney is unlikely to be the Republican presidential nominee, with the vastly underestimated Michele Bachmann potentially posing the greater reelection threat to Obama in terms of personal charisma. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 9, 2010, Aubrey Immelman appealed to Minnesota voters to support Independent Tom Horner for governor in the August 10, 2010 primary election.

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Summary: The possibility that power brokers and warlords in Afghanistan might be what keeps the country from unraveling has had analysts concerned, but the recent assassination of Ahmad Wali Karzai, one of the most powerful strongmen in Afghanistan, and the ensuing struggle in Kandahar for power, has brought the issue into sharp relief as the U.S. begins to draw down forces. Though much of the international effort in Afghanistan has focused on strengthening democratic institutions, foreign forces have often had to lean on strongmen. As a result, a new generation of warlords has risen to power, fueled by U.S. money. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 8, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Taliban insurgents gunned down ten members of a Christian medical team — six Americans, two Afghans, one German, and a Briton — in Badakhshan province, Afghanistan.

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Summary: A military helicopter has been shot down in eastern Afghanistan, killing 30 U.S. special operation troops, most of them from the elite Navy SEALs unit that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, along with seven Afghan commandos and an Afghan translator. It was the deadliest single incident for American forces in the decade-long war. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 7, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that the Justice Department announced the indictment of 14 people — 12 of them Minnesota Somalis, many of them U.S. citizens — accused of funneling “money, personnel, and services” to the Shabab, the Islamist terrorist group fighting an insurgency in Somalia.

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Summary: As the Tea Party continues to reshape the Republican Party, the GOP establishment wonders if the Tea Party movement will power Republicans to new victories in 2012, or dash them on the rocks of unbending ideology. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 6, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that NBC Dateline devoted a full hour to the murder mystery of Chris Jenkins, the University of Minnesota student who went missing in downtown Minneapolis on Halloween night, 2002.

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Summary: Weekly report of U.S. military deaths in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, compiled from U.S. Department of Defense news releases and iCasualties.org. … One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on August 5, 2010, Aubrey Immelman reported that Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker overturned California’s gay marriage ban in a strongly worded ruling that could force the U.S. Supreme Court to confront the question of whether same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.

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