By Amy Dalrymple | Editor
Democratic-NPL U.S. House candidate Trygve Hammer, right, speaks to moderators Rob Port, center-left, and Chad Oban, center-right, during a U.S. House debate with Republican incumbent Rep. Julie Fedorchak at Bismarck State College on Oct. 13, 2026. (Photo by Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor)
By Michael Achterling
North Dakota’s Republican and Democratic-NPL candidates for U.S. House debated the national debt, surging healthcare costs and farming concerns during their first – and probably only – debate of the 2026 election.
Republican incumbent Rep. Julie Fedorchak and Democrat Trygve Hammer also clashed over the Iran war during a recorded episode of Plain Talk, hosted by Forum Communications columnist Rob Port and Chad Oban.
Fedorchak said she’s received classified briefings on the Iran war and saw “some pretty compelling evidence” that the actions taken by President Donald Trump were justified.
Hammer said he does not believe Trump’s claims that Iran was two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon and thinks Congress could have kept the U.S. out of the war if members had been holding the president accountable.
MORE DEBATE COVERAGE: Superintendent of Public Instruction candidates Levi Bachmeier and Tracy Foss also participated in a Plain Talk debate. Check out the Monitor’s coverage on our website at 4 p.m. today, or in Friday’s newsletter.
Tony Clark, executive director of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, right, speaks Oct. 14, 2026, in Fargo on a panel discussing data centers. Also pictured are, from left, Robert Mayo, research specialist at North Dakota State University, Paul Matthys, president and CEO of Cass County Electric, and agriculture commissioner Doug Goehring. (Photo by Jeff Beach/North Dakota Monitor)
By Jeff Beach
There’s no way of stopping the development of data centers and artificial intelligence, a North Dakota State University researcher said Wednesday, adding that attempts to slow development would only push it to other areas.
“It's important to understand that AI is coming. These data centers will be built,” Robert Mayo, a research specialist at NDSU’s Challey Institute of Global Innovation and Growth said during a panel discussion. “All we can do is, through good public policy, choose how it develops and where it develops.”
Paul Matthys, president and CEO of Cass County Electric Cooperative, said there are many investors eager to put money into data center projects. But those investors are also eager for a return on that investment.
“It's partially what's pushing the speed in the market,” Matthys said.
Balconies of an apartment building are seen Sept. 8, 2026, in Bismarck, N.D. (Photo by Jack Dura/North Dakota Monitor)
By Jack Dura
A long-awaited federal grant has come through for the only fair housing organization in the Dakotas, resolving a monthslong funding gap that led the group to furlough half of its staff.
The Grand Forks-based High Plains Fair Housing Center had been waiting on the $425,000 final installment of a three-year Fair Housing Initiatives Program grant initially expected in May. But the delay extended over the summer, leading the center to furlough four of its eight staff last month.
A notification reached center Executive Director Michelle Rydz on Saturday that the grant money was in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s financial system for disbursing funds, she said. The grant starts Thursday.
Three of the center’s four furloughed staff can come back. The fourth took a job with Legal Services of North Dakota, a partner organization, Rydz said.
A gas station advertises gas and diesel prices in Forest Glen, Md., on Oct. 5, 2026. More than half a dozen states have enacted tax relief to ease the burden on consumers as fuel prices continue to surge. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
By Tim Henderson
Inflation grew to a 3.7% annual rate in September, according to an Oct. 14 report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, up from 3.4% in August.
In the last consumer price inflation report before midterm elections, with voters already fed up with higher prices, September’s number was the highest since May, when it was 4.2%.
“Inflation has wiped out wage gains for 6 months now,” Heather Long, the chief economist for Navy Federal, wrote in a social media post. “It’s a financial squeeze. Americans are trying to work more hours to make up for it, but many are still falling behind.”
Social Security benefits increase will hit 3.6% in 2027 | States Newsroom
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As the nation’s physician shortage worsens, some fear the Trump administration’s immigration policies will dissuade or prevent doctors who earned their medical degrees in foreign countries from practicing in the United States.
Among all U.S. doctors, an estimated one quarter were educated abroad. But they make up an even larger proportion of physicians in many specialties, including internal medicine (41%), endocrinology (46%) and geriatrics (52%).
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