You hear a lot of women saying they’d rather be alone in the woods with a bear, not a man, because they considered the man to be more dangerous.

I always chose the man, because my interactions with men have generally been positive, and a man wandering through the woods seemed likely to be a hunter or a naturalist or just someone out enjoying nature. Someone reasonable. Someone more likely to harbor a save-the-maiden fantasy than a desire to harm. Bears, on the other hand, if they have it in their head to attack, there is little you could do but try to survive.

A recent visit to Ely’s North American Bear Center changed my mind. Not that I think less of men, but that I think more of bears. Black bears, at least.

The Bear Center provides refuge to three black bears, at least one of whom would have been otherwise euthanized. There’s Lucky, abandoned or orphaned as a cub, who was begging for food near Madison, Wis., and who came within an hour of being put down before a rescuer whisked him off to Ely. There’s Tasha, fat, sleek, and gorgeous, discovered in 2015 in Kentucky trying to nurse on her dead mother, who was believed to have been hit by a vehicle. And Holly, separated from her mother during an Arkansas fire, and who had slipped off to hibernate before our visit.

The bears were fascinating, delicately lipping up cranberries and shelling out nuts with their back teeth during our visit. We learned that their sense of smell is seven times stronger than that of a bloodhound, and that they can smell through an organ on the roof of their mouths.

In fact, sometimes they’ll stand erect and open their mouths – which looks threatening, but it’s really just to get a better sense of their surroundings, said Spencer Peter, assistant director and biologist at the center.

Hollywood trains them to stand like that for movies, he said. “But they’ll dub in the sound.”

ST. PETER, MINN. – Moments before Erica Schwartz approached a house on a door-knocking campaign in this key swing district, a campaign staffer read from an app on his phone that provided the political loyalties of the people inside. In this home lived two soft Democrats in their 50s, the app said. In the next, a soft Republican in her 80s. In several homes, Republicans and Democrats lived under the same roof.

Schwartz, a Republican from Nicollet, is running for the purple District 18A in the Minnesota House of Representatives against DFLer Rep. Jeff Brand of St. Peter.

Brand won the district in 2018 before losing to Republican Susan Akland in 2020, and then winning again in 2022. Control over the seat could determine the fate of the Democratic trifecta — the governor’s office, Senate and House — that since 2023 has allowed the party to pass a raft of bills, including for free school lunches and paid family and medical leave.

Both candidates said they believe they have the secret to talking to voters in this purple district, which includes North Mankato and St. Peter, Gustavus Adolphus College and numerous rural townships.

Brand said he started knocking on doors in January. The Democrat from St. Peter said he emphasizes his experience when talking to voters. He’s served two terms in the House, where he’s passed 40 bills, after seven years on the St. Peter City Council. People aren’t as tribal about their political affiliations in 18A as they might be elsewhere, he said.

“There’s a lot less conversation about the political culture war stuff, and more conversation about, ‘What are you going to do for us?’” Brand said in a recent interview.

Schwartz, too, said knocking on doors has been a focus of her campaign. The Republican from Nicollet said that many of the people who talk to her already know how they’re going to vote in the presidential contest.

But while door-knocking, Schwartz said she tries to talk less about national politics and more about kitchen-table issues such as inflation. She and her husband run the Nicollet Mart, a gas station and convenience store, and she said people have been struggling to pay for food. “What they’re concerned about is cost, the increase of gas prices, groceries and taxes,” Schwartz said in a short interview in early September.

The University of Minnesota has postponed a scheduled Tuesday night lecture from infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci after pro-Palestinian protests that included some protesters barricading Morrill Hall the day before.

On Monday night, several hundred pro-Palestinian protesters gathered at the building, which houses the Minneapolis campus’ administrative offices, as Students for a Democratic Society used tied-up patio furniture to form giant barricades blocking the building’s large front windows and its entrances. The protesters demanded the U divest from companies with ties to Israel. At least 11 of the protesters were arrested.

The university decided to postpone Fauci’s lecture set for Tuesday night because of “unexpected and complicated incidents” over the past day, university spokesman Jake Rickersaid in an email.

“Given the importance of this lecture and the unexpected and complicated incidents that occurred on campus in the past 24 hours, University officials determined it best to reschedule to ensure a great experience for attendees and our University community,” Ricker said.

All tickets for the lecture will be voided and information about the rescheduled date will be posted later, the university said in an online post about the postponement. Pre-paid parking will be automatically refunded, the university added.

Additional pro-Palestinian protests took place Tuesday afternoon at the university in front of Coffman Memorial Union. The protests prompted university officials to temporarily close down at least a dozen buildings in a Tuesday alert. Those included: Coffman Union, Weisman Museum, Hasselmo Hall, Ford Hall, Vincent Murphy Hall, Tate Lab, Morrill Hall, Northrop Auditorium, Johnston Hall, Walter Library, Smith Hall, and Kolthoff Hall. All other East Bank campus buildings were switched to keycard access only, according to the alert.

An anti-Fauci rally had also been planned by conservative group Action 4 Liberty to coincide with the lecture at the university, but that was moved after the lecture was canceled.