NewsCut

Deval Patrick, the former Massachusetts governor who announced yesterday he won't run for president, has already distinguished himself as a different kind of potential presidential candidate. Unlike most politicians who are being coy with the media while claiming they haven't made up their minds about running for office, Patrick really was weighing both sides of running and really was undecided.
The Red River Valley Dental Access Project, which provided dental services to low-income people who couldn't afford it, has been one of the success stories in Minnesota and North Dakota. For a $30 flat fee, volunteer dentists and dental specialists provide all the dental care needed. They don't get paid and they put in all the hours needed.
There are only five men left of the survivors of the USS Arizona, sunk by the Japanese in the attack on Pearl Harbor 77 years ago Friday. For the first time in years, no survivor of the Arizona will make the trip to Oahu for ceremonies and return the salute as a Navy ship passes by the memorial.
The sooner Dane Best, 9, of Severance, Colorado, grows up, the sooner we can get some of the country's nagging problems solved. Dane Best solves problems. Take that ban on snowball fights in his community.
If you've never lived in small-town America, you've missed heroes at work -- the people who got up before dawn and went into a tiny shack somewhere, read the school-lunch menus, the lost and found items, spinning some platters, and making people feel as if they're listening to a neighbor, because they are.
First of all, the whole call-the-cops-on-your-neighbor-rather-than-talking-to-them thing is creepy. And oh so Minnesotan.