Representatives of the state Health Department say if the medical marijuana measure passes, it would be costly to administer and enforce.

It’s measure 5 on the November ballot.

Deputy state Health Officer Arvy Smith told the Legislative Management Committee – start-up costs would be about $1.4 million dollars. That would be for the remainder of the current two year budget period, which expires next June 30th. As for the upcoming two years,

The state’s Office of Management and Budget said an initiated Constitutional measure on the November ballot would cost North Dakota taxpayers nearly $4 million in the 2017-2019 biennium.

The measure – dubbed “Marsy’s Law” – would put rights of crime victims in the Constitution.

That estimate was given to the Legislative Management Committee – and it will be posted to the Secretary of State’s Website. OMB also said if it passes, it would cost $1.1 million to implement in the remainder of the current two year budget period.

The chairman of the Legislature’s interim Higher Education committee said the University System, like all of state government, has to face reality.

"Clearly, we are in a cost-containment time frame now," Rep Mark Sanford (R-Grand Forks) told the state Board of Higher Education Thursday. Sanford said he believes the system would still be in a cost-containment time even if the state’s budget looked like it did five years ago – during the oil boom.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “to cut something like a hot knife through butter?” We often use it to refer to something as being easy. But what if we replaced butter with steel? And instead of a knife, it was a device that can reach 30,000 degrees. If steel is combined with those 30,000 degrees, the effect will be the same as if it was a hot knife through butter. Karman Rheault (ROW) has harnessed that intense heat and uses it to create artwork out of metal.

The Obama Administration’s decision to temporarily halt construction on part of the 1,200-mile Dakota Access Pipeline has the oil industry on edge.

It was evident at the North Dakota Petroleum Council’s annual meeting, where the pipeline protests cast a shadow over an industry struggling amid low oil prices.

If you’re wearing jewelry, look closely, it may have glass beads on it. Some may be smooth, others with grooves. Glass beads can have one color, others multicolored. But have you ever stopped and wondered how they were actually made?

Jodi Peterson is a glass artist in Moorhead and, she creates her art under the name Wolf Nest Glass Studios. She is making a glass bead, like the ones on jewelry, and it’s being made from the searing hot flames of mapp gas.

For some of us art is innate. We have the ability to take a blank canvas, use our imagination, and make something come alive on it. But many more of us don’t have that ability. We may have tried once or twice but find the creative process difficult and give up. Now imagine creating something partially blind.

So, how can you create a painting when you can’t really see what you’re doing?