MPR News with Tom Weber 2c3e4e

This year marks 50 years of Hmong refugee resettlement and immigration to Minnesota. MPR News will feature Hmong Minnesotans in a variety of careers through the month of May as part of our “ChangeMakers” series. This series highlights Minnesotans from diverse and often underrepresented backgrounds who are making an impact.  Painter and politician Cy Thao was born in Laos in 1972. After the United States military left Vietnam, his family lived in a Thai refugee camp for five years, then immigrated to Minnesota in 1980. He was among the first generation of Hmong people to grow up in the state. Thao is a painter best known for his project called the Hmong Migration, a collection of 50 paintings documenting 5,000 years of Hmong history, from life in southern China, to alignment with the U.S. during the Vietnam War, to resettlement in the U.S. His goal was to educate younger generations of Hmong Americans about where they came from and help others understand the story of the Hmong people. The collection was featured in the Minneapolis Institute of Art. 2004 interview with MPR NewsArtist chronicles the Hmong migration For eight years, Thao also served St. Paul as a lawmaker in the Minnesota House of Representatives. His election in 2002 made him the second Hmong American lawmaker to serve in a state legislature anywhere in the country. Another Minnesota lawmaker, Sen. Mee Moua, DFL-St. Paul, was the first. She was elected to the Minnesota Senate during a special election earlier in 2002. Minnesota Now producer Ellie Roth spoke to Thao about the path he helped carve for Hmong politicians in Minnesota and the pressure that comes with being a “first.” You were elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2002 and served until 2011. What type of responsibility did you feel to the Hmong community here in Minnesota, as one of the first Hmong lawmakers in the country?If you understand our community, we’ve been oppressed almost everywhere, every country we’ve been to. This was the first time in the history of our people where we’re given the full opportunity to run for office openly. A lot of people were really, really excited that America had kind of accepted us, allowing us to be part of the institution and to be lawmakers. It boosts our self-esteem and allows us to say, “Yeah, we’re American just as much as anybody.” I mean, you don’t get more American than being part of an American institution like the Legislature. Painting by Cy ThaoCourtesy Cy ThaoThere are currently more than a half dozen Hmong American lawmakers serving in the Legislature. Do you ever reflect on the path that you carved for the Hmong communities, specifically in politics here in Minnesota?I think there’s some momentum for them, and I think it allowed them to dream big. You know, as the first guy to be in the House, I always had to be extra, extra careful of what I say or do, because the last thing I want to do is look incompetent. If people think that, “Oh my god, these Hmong guys are incompetent. They come in, they don’t know what they’re doing, can’t laws, don’t understand.” That’s all I was thinking for those eight years. I didn’t want the next Hmong person to have to answer that question. Now that we’ve been here more than 50 years, I don’t think we feel like that anymore. We kind of graduate to that point of not even questioning qualification anymore. I think at a point in our history that was a big deal. We’re nearing the 50th anniversary of Hmong people being in Minnesota. How are you reflecting on this moment in time?When you say 50 years, that’s a really long time. But it doesn’t feel that long for a guy like me, who kind of went through the whole thing, but it is long. I think, the transformation of the community when my parents first came, they worry that they don’t speak enough English to get a job. Now my daughters, they don’t speak one word of Hmong. And for sure, my grandkids, they probably can’t find Laos on the map. Former Minnesota Representative Cy Thao poses for a portrait at his home in Bradenton, Fla. Octovio Jones for MPR NewsIt’s kind of sad, but in a way that’s just kind of the history of America anyway. It doesn’t matter which group, who comes from where, I think the minute you step foot in America, you’re going through this transformation. And your community will have a hard time at the beginning, but eventually they’ll find their footing. And then once they find their footing, they’ll start doing amazing stuff. Then eventually they won’t even be Hmong, they’re just gonna be Americans. One day, eventually, I don’t think they’re even gonna say, “I’m Hmong American.” They’re just gonna say, “Yeah, I was born in America. I’m American. My ancestor came from here.” That’s no different than anyone else. We’re just like one little blurb in that whole story of America now.

After plowing through two deadlines — one constitutionally required for session adjournment and another for an aspirational pre-Memorial Day finish to budget work — lawmakers are setting a new target to complete a $66 billion budget. It likely isn’t early enough to prevent thousands of furlough notices from going out to state workers starting June 1 — this coming Sunday. The letters would warn of possible layoffs that would result if the Minnesota Legislature can’t remaining pieces of the state budget before July.  Legislative leaders and the governor are hopeful they can avoid that worst-case scenario. “June 1 does matter, because we are obligated, by law, with our contracts, to send out those, those furlough notices, those layoff notices,” Gov. Tim Walz said May 23 on the MPR News Politics Friday show. “I know we have a close Legislature. We have just a couple things to button up.” State employee contracts require 30 days notice “whenever practicable” to employees who might get let go. Those who work for agencies and on programs that haven’t been funded yet are at risk. A few budget bills have been signed into law, but the vast majority of the two-year plan is unfinished. For some, it’s a double whammy: Layoff letters could come just as the state implements new rules requiring that state employees work half the time each month in the office or work site. State leaders met over the holiday weekend. One said Tuesday that there was progress in finishing outstanding bills. House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman said a special session is possible as soon as next week. “We’re hoping to wrap things up this week, and then the revisor will finish drafting,” Hortman said Tuesday.  House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman speaks to the press on May 20, the final day of the scheduled 2025 Minnesota legislative session.Clay Masters | MPR NewsLawmakers rolled out a workforce and jobs budget bill on Tuesday. But other proposals on taxes, education and health and human services were still being finalized. It’s difficult to gauge exactly where each of the budget bills stands since most of the work of crafting them has occurred behind closed doors. Rep. Cedrick Frazier, DFL-New Hope, voiced frustration on Tuesday about a proposed change to Minnesota law governing non-compete agreements for Minnesota workers, which apply when certain employees move companies within the same industry. Democrats and Republicans on the workforce and jobs working group couldn’t agree on how to proceed. “We continue to have a conversation about changing the law that would handicap workers at a moment when we are days away from sending out layoff notices because we can’t get the work done here,” Frazier said. “I am very frustrated about the whole idea of this happening here in this moment.” Republicans on the said it was important to strike a deal that would roll back some of the policy.  “If we don’t do something to help our partnership and our large companies with noncompetes, it hurts Minnesota companies, this will hurt jobs, future growth in Minnesota,” Republican Rep. Dave Baker said. “We have people on this committee who have zero interest in negotiating anything. That’s why we’re here.” Republican State House Rep. Dave Baker discusses the Civility Caucus with DFL State House Rep. Sandra Feist, co-chair of the caucus, in the House Chambers at the Minnesota Capitol in St. Paul on Feb. 26.Tim Evans for MPR NewsAnother hard deadline on the horizon is July 1. If a budget isn’t done by then, the state would face a partial government shutdown. Given some of the gridlock in these working groups, it could get close to that. Leaders point to the narrow divide in the Legislature — 101 Democrats and 100 Republicans. That’s meant there has to be compromise in every bill that moves forward. And that’s tough. Because committees in the House are evenly split, it takes from both political parties to advance budget bills. There have been instances where Senate Democrats and some House agree, which normally would be enough to move a bill out of a working group or conference committee. But that tied House makes it harder to get enough to close deals. That happened yesterday during a working group meeting on taxes. Senate Taxes Committee Chair Ann Rest, DFL-New Hope, put up an offer that was what House proposed. “Let it be known to our leaders that the House cannot even accept their own proposal. Now we will take a recess,” Rest said. Sen. Ann Rest, DFL- New Hope, (center) and of the legislative working group on taxes hold their first meeting after the legislative session to negotiate a tax bill that did not on May 20.Peter Cox | MPR NewsA leading House Democrat, Rep. Aisha Gomez, laughed off the remark. Moments earlier, previously told Rest that it’s hard to move portions forward without a full picture. “We haven’t had the conversation about how we’re going to fund our bill, how we’re going to meet our target,” Gomez said. “If we cannot advance that, we cannot advance our bill.” Additional details about the tax proposal came to light this week. Proposed provisions that would bump up Minnesota’s cannabis tax from 10 percent to 15 percent, along with a new electricity exemption for data centers is estimated to raise tax revenue by $108 million over the next two years. That could be a challenge as Republicans have said they don’t want to raise taxes this year. At least one House Republican would have to it for the measure to move forward.  Hortman and House Speaker Lisa Demuth, a Republican, signed off on the budget deal. That means they would be expected to bills even if all others in their caucuses vote against elements of it.

The book “Washita Love Child: The Rise of Indigenous Rock Star Jesse Ed Davis” follows the arc of the Oklahoman’s life — from his homelands and ancestors, throughout his music career in the 1970s and 1980s, and his early death. Davis played guitar alongside musicians such as Bob Dylan, Taj Mahal, Jackson Browne, John Lennon and John Trudell. Before author Douglas Miller entered kindergarten, he listened to Davis on Jackson Browne’s tune “Doctor My Eyes.” In the book’s preface, Miller re reading album liner notes and later becoming a musician. Miller says he spent several years in Minneapolis playing with his band and studying history. “I like to tell people I’ve been listening to Jesse Ed Davis since my earliest memories and ‘Doctor My Eyes’ was Jackson Browne's first top 10 hit on that first album. And Jesse Ed Davis played the searing guitar solo,” said Miller, an associate professor of Native American and United States History at Oklahoma State University. “That is sort of well-known in the classic rock canon as one of the great guitar solos.” Davis died from substance use in 1988 at 43 years old. Miller says Davis has been ed mainly for how he died, less so for how he lived. “I just wanted to fill in the rest of the story,” Miller said. “I thought he was someone who had been robbed of the real beauty of his life and the way that he was ed and mised.” Miller will discuss the book, with a focus on Davis’ work with Dylan and Trudell, at the Landmark Center in St. Paul, Wednesday at 7 p.m. Miller was interviewed by Native News editor Leah Lemm. The conversation was lightly edited for clarity. Miller: “Washita Love Child” is a book about Jesse Ed Davis, who was a relatively unheralded Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, Seminole and Muskogee musician from Oklahoma. In 1966, he hopped on Route 66 west of California with a dream of making it in the music business, and it worked. He ended up achieving an extraordinary career playing with Bob Dylan and John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Star, Leon Russell, Taj Mahal, Jackson Brown and on and on — roughly well over a hundred of the greatest artists of his time and place, for the better part of 15, 20 years before an untimely ing. Lemm: Why isn’t Jesse Ed Davis more widely known? Miller: He had these, sort of, high-profile moments, but he's there as, you know, sometimes a session man, sometimes a side man. So, I think his career got pulled in numerous different directions and that made it difficult, I think, for his legacy to be easy to comprehend. And then I would couple that with, when Jesse Ed Davis died in 1988, he was at a sort of a second, I think, artistic peak working with John Trudell, the great Dakota artist and poet and musician. But Jesse's popular profile had reached sort of its lowest point. So, when he died, he wasn't in the public perception the way Jim Morrison was, or Janis Joplin or Amy Winehouse or Kurt Cobain or someone like that. Lemm: How do we know what we know about him? Miller: First, we know a lot about him from the music he made. He appears on roughly a hundred major albums so I could kind of hear the music as a primary source. There were some materials available to me. He did a handful of interviews, but in addition to the music, there were two other great sources for me. He had a sort of adopted son named Billy Noriega. Billy preserved all these years later a pretty nice collection of Jesse Ed Davis material that he endowed to me for the book project. And finally, I did just over 120 interviews with Jesse Ed Davis’ music partners like Jackson Browne and Taj Mahal, Bonnie Raitt, Robbie Robertson, all kinds of great musicians, as well as his personal band mates and friends and family . Everybody I could think of, even some fans. Lemm: Early on in the book you mentioned that you didn’t want his death, which was tragic and untimely, to be the story of his life. Miller: That was part of the mystery and motivation for me. Jesse Ed Davis died from an injection of heroin. A rock and roll star, a rock and roll lead guitar player who dies from drug addiction, that often becomes people’s stories in that context. And what about all the rest? You know, what’s the story of Jesse’s life as a Native American kid growing up in Oklahoma? Who were his ancestors? Where did he come from? Where did his sound come from? I wanted to sort of find that dimension of his legacy. I wanted to see him on stage and in studios and tell all these great stories about him.

An old mine cart is parked outside the Gila County Historical Museum in Globe, Ariz. Mining is still part of the local economy, but many area residents have low-wage jobs that make them eligible for Medicaid.Linda Gross for KFF Health NewsLike many residents of this copper-mining town in the mountains east of Phoenix, Debbie Cox knows plenty of people on Medicaid. Cox, who is a property manager at a real estate company in Globe, has tenants who rely on the safety-net program. And at the domestic violence shelter where she volunteers as president of the board, Cox said, staff always look to enroll women and their children if possible. But Cox, who is 65, has mixed feelings about Medicaid. "It's not that I don't see the need for it. I see the need for it literally on a weekly basis," she said. "I also see a need for revamping it significantly because it's been taken advantage of for so long." It wasn't hard to find people in Globe like Cox with complicated views about Medicaid. Debbie Cox, a property manager, says she has tenants who need Medicaid to get medical care, but she also thinks the program needs to be strengthened to prevent abuses.Linda Gross for KFF Health NewsGila County, where Globe is located, is a conservative place — almost 70 percent of voters went for President Trump in November. And concerns about government waste run deep. Like many rural communities, it's also a place where people have come to value government health insurance. The number of Gila County residents on Medicaid and the related Children's Health Insurance Program has nearly doubled over the past 15 years, according to data from the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. Today, almost 4 in 10 residents are on one of the health insurance plans for low- and moderate-income people or those with disabilities. So, since House Republicans ed plans to cut roughly $716 billion from Medicaid, the national debate taking place over the program hits close to home for many Globe residents, even as some welcome the prospect of tighter rules and less government spending. For a rancherFor Heather Heisler, the stakes are high. Her husband has been on Medicaid for years. "We're ranchers, and there's not much money in ranching," said Heisler, who gets her own health care from the Indian Health Service. "Most people think there is, but there isn't." Heisler was selling handicrafts outside the old county jail in Globe on a recent Friday night when the town hosted a downtown street fair with food trucks and live music. She said Medicaid was especially helpful after her husband had an accident on the ranch. A forklift tipped over, and he had to have part of his left foot amputated. "If anything happens, he's able to go to the doctor," she said. "Go to the emergency room, get medicines." She shook her head when asked what would happen if he lost the coverage. "It would be very bad for him," she said. Among other things, the "Big, Beautiful Bill" ed by House Republicans would require working-age Medicaid enrollees to prove they are employed or seeking work. The bill, which has advanced to the Senate, would also mandate more paperwork from people to prove they're eligible. Difficult applications can dissuade many people from enrolling in Medicaid, even if they're eligible, researchers have found. And the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates more than 10 million people will likely lose Medicaid and CHIP insurance under the House Republican plan. That would reverse big gains made possible by the 2010 Affordable Care Act that has allowed millions of low-income, working-age adults in places like Globe to get health insurance. More people with health insuranceNationally, Medicaid and CHIP have expanded dramatically over the past two decades, with enrollment in the programs surging from about 56 million in 2005 to more than 78 million last year, according to federal data. "Medicaid has always played an important role," said Joan Alker, who runs the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. "But its role has only grown over the last couple of decades. It really stepped in to address many of the shortcomings in our health care system." That's particularly true in rural areas, where the share of people with disabilities is higher, residents have lower incomes, and communities are reliant on industries with skimpier health benefits such as agriculture and retail. In Globe, former Mayor Fernando Shipley said he's seen this firsthand. "A lot of people think, 'Oh, those are the people that aren't working.' Not necessarily," said Shipley, who operates a State Farm office across the road from the rusted remains of the Old Dominion copper mine. "If you're a single parent with two kids and you're making $20 an hour," he added, "you're not making ends meet. You've got to pay rent; you've got to feed those kids." Fernando Shipley is the former mayor of Globe, Ariz. He says many of the people who rely on Medicaid are working, and otherwise wouldn't be able to afford health care for their families.Linda Gross for KFF Health NewsNot far away, at the local hospital, some low-wage workers at the registration desk and in housekeeping get health care through Medicaid, chief financial officer Harold Dupper said. "As much as you'd like to pay everyone $75,000- or $80,000-a-year, the hospital couldn't stay in business if that was the payroll," he said, noting the financial challenges faced by rural hospitals. The growing importance of Medicaid in places like Globe helps explain why Republican efforts to cut the program face so much resistance, even among conservatives. "There's been a shift in the public's attitude, and particularly voters on the right, that sometimes government plays a role in getting people health care. And that's OK," said pollster Bob Ward. "And if you take away that health care, people are going to be angry." Ward's Washington, D.C., firm, Fabrizio Ward, polls for Trump, among other clients. He also works for a coalition trying to protect Medicaid. At the same time, many of the communities where Medicaid has become more vital in recent years remain very conservative politically. More than two-thirds of nearly 300 U.S. counties with the biggest growth in Medicaid and CHIP since 2008 backed Trump in the last election, according to a KFF Health News analysis of voting results and enrollment data from Georgetown. Many of these counties are in deep-red states such as Kentucky, Louisiana, and Montana. Voters in places like these are more likely to be concerned about government waste, polls show. In one recent national survey, 75 percent of Republicans said they think waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid is a major problem. The actual scale of that waste is hotly debated, though many analysts believe relatively few enrollees are abusing the program. Mountains of mine tailings, or waste, above the valley where Globe, Ariz., is located. The area has been a center for copper mining since the 19th century.Linda Gross for KFF Health NewsNevertheless, around Globe, Republican arguments that cuts will streamline Medicaid seemed to resonate. Retiree Rick Uhl was stacking chairs and helping clean up after lunch at the senior center. "There's a lot of waste, of money not being ed for," Uhl said. "I think that's a shame." Uhl said he's been saddened by the political rancor, but he said he's encouraged by the Trump istration's aggressive efforts to cut government spending. Back at the street fair downtown, David Sander, who is also retired, said he doubted Medicaid would really be trimmed at all. "I've heard that they really aren't cutting it," Sander said. "That's my understanding." Sander and his wife, Linda, were tending a stall selling embroidery that Linda makes. They also have a neighbor on Medicaid. "She wouldn't be able to live without it," Linda Sander said. "Couldn't afford to have an apartment, make her bills and survive." KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism. Copyright 2025, NPR

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered that the latest suspect arrested in the Feeding Our Future investigation remain jailed after allegedly trying to flee the country. Prosecutors say that Hibo Daar of Eden Prairie bought an airline ticket to Dubai on the same day that federal agents searched the New Vision Foundation, a St. Paul nonprofit that allegedly operated fraudulent meal distribution sites. FBI and IRS agents arrested Daar on Sunday evening at MSP Airport as she tried to board her flight. Daar is the 71st person charged in a years-long investigation into a fraud scheme centered around the defunct nonprofit Feeding our Future that cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, according to federal prosecutors. Daar is charged with wire fraud. She has not entered a plea. Investigators say lax oversight during the pandemic and COVID-era rule changes opened the floodgates to massive fraud in the Summer Food Service Program and the Child and Adult Care Food Program. When former U.S. Attorney Andy Luger announced charges against the first four dozen defendants in September 2022, he said it was the nation’s largest COVID-19 scam. In a criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday, federal prosecutors allege that Daar, 50, ran a phony meal distribution site called Northside Wellness Center under the sponsorship of Feeding Our Future. Northside allegedly collected nearly $1.8 million from Feeding Our Future after submitting fraudulent meal reimbursement claims. FBI forensic ants say that Northside spent less than $2,000 of that money on food.  According to the criminal complaint, Daar allegedly received $110,000 in fraud proceeds herself. Northside Wellness also made large payments to others involved in the scheme, including $72,000 to Feeding Our Future employee Hadith Ahmed. Ahmed pleaded guilty in 2022, and testified at the first Feeding Our Future trial in 2024 that he set up a phony consulting company to collect kickbacks from meal site operators.   Prosecutors say that Northside claimed to have served “about 40,000 meals to children every week,” including 5,600 suppers and snacks every day during April 2021 from an address on E. Hennepin Ave. in Minneapolis. A spreadsheet that prosecutors showed jurors earlier this year at the trial of Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock and restaurant owner Salim Said lists Northside among the 25 most prolific filers of fraudulent reimbursement requests. Investigators say the group submitted claims for 1,025,746 meals. In the complaint, prosecutors allege that Northside used fraudulent invoices to back its reimbursement claims including one from Premuim [sic] Fresh Produce for nearly 3,000 gallons of milk. During Daar’s initial court appearance Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Bobier said that prosecutors notified Daar last month through her attorney that she was a target of the investigation and might be charged.  On Thursday, federal agents executed a search warrant at the New Vision Foundation, a St. Paul nonprofit that also allegedly operated a fake meal site, and claimed to have served 1,052,874 meals. On the same day that MPR News and other outlets reported on the search, Bobier said that Daar bought an airline ticket to Dubai. Daar is not an employee of the New Vision Foundation and the search warrant unsealed Thursday does not list her name. But it does mention a company called “Campus Trading & Supplies, LLC.” New Vision allegedly used phony invoices from Campus Trading to back its own fraudulent reimbursement claims.  Campus Trading’s address on the invoice included in the search warrant matches the same Eden Prairie apartment complex listed as the business address of Northside Wellness Center and Daar’s residence. In fraud cases, prosecutors typically do not request pretrial detention. But Bobier argued that because Daar tried to leave the country, she presents a flight risk. Magistrate Judge David Schultz agreed, and ordered that Daar remain jailed until at least Friday, when she has a formal detention hearing.  Aaron Morrison, a federal public defender who represented Daar at her initial appearance, argued that Daar does not present a flight risk because she’s a U.S. citizen with extensive ties to the Twin Cities. Morrison added that if prosecutors were concerned about Daar fleeing the country, they should have filed charges sooner. Of the 70 other defendants charged in the case since September 2022, 38 have pleaded guilty. Another seven — including ringleader Aimee Bock — were convicted at the second Feeding Our Future trial in March.  Bock and her co-defendants are jailed and awaiting sentencing. Five other defendants charged in indictment with Bock are due to face trial Aug. 11.

The Walter Cup will stay in Minnesota after the Professional Women’s Hockey League team the Frost won the championship for the second year in a row. The Frost defeated the Ottawa Charge Monday night, winning Game 4 at home in St. Paul in the best-of-five PWHL Finals and becoming two-time champions in the league’s second year. Frost forward Kelly Pannek scored the first goal for the Frost in the second period to take the lead for Minnesota. Ottawa’s Tereza Vanišová responded in the third period to tie up the score for the Charge, sending the match into overtime. Liz Schepers scored the overtime goal to secure the championship. Katy Knoll went along the wall and fed Schepers in front of the net. Ottawa goaltender Gwyneth Philips parried the first shot but Schepers poked home the rebound to clinch back-to-back Walter Cup titles for the Frost. Fullscreen SlideshowPrevious Slide8 of 8Olivia Schultz of Maplewood, right, cheers with fans after the Minnesota Frost scored the game-winning point during Game 4 of the PWHL playoffs against Ottawa at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul on Monday, May 26, 2025.Liam James Doyle for MPR News1 of 8The Minnesota Frost team poses with the Walter Cup after winning the PWHL Finals for the second year in a row on Monday.Liam James Doyle for MPR News2 of 8The Minnesota Frost team poses with the Walter Cup after winning the PWHL Finals Monday.Liam James Doyle for MPR NewsNext SlideIt was on the same date last year, May 26, when the Walter Cup was at the X for the first time. In Game 4 of the Finals in 2024, Minnesota had its first chance to win the inaugural title. Last year, the Frost thought they won it at home during that game, but the goal was disputed. The team later lost in double-overtime to Boston. “We got a taste of it a little bit last year, and we really came into this game with, you know, feeling like there was no tomorrow, like we wanted to get this done here and do it the right way,” Scehpers said. The Frost ended up winning Game 5 on the road in 2024, but getting to hoist the cup at home Monday night was a real treat for players, their loved ones and fans. “It's just so fun having your friends and family on the ice and celebrate with you. I mean, that's kind of the team behind the team, right? So we don't get here without the people that are behind us, that are on the ice with us, celebrating now,” Pannek said. “So it just makes it really special. And I always think it's fun being able to be on the road too, and it's just your team. So now that we've had both experiences, it's pretty nice.” Each game in the best-of-five series went to at least one overtime and finished 2-1, with Game 3 going to triple overtime, the longest game in PWHL Finals history. The teams played 81 minutes, eight seconds of extra time in the series. The fourth game came exactly a year after Minnesota fell to Boston 1-0 in a Game 4 double overtime before going on the road to win the inaugural Walter Cup. Goaltender Maddie Rooney had 33 saves for Minnesota. Midway through the second period Claire Thompson pinched in from the left point and fed Pannek alone on the right side of the net. Pannek beat Philips high for her second playoff goal. The goal marked the first time in the finals the Charge trailed in regulation. The Charge trailed until the middle of the third period when Vanišová was left alone in front of the net and Danielle Serdachny fed her from below the end line. It was the first point of the postseason for Vanišová, who led Ottawa with 15 goals. Philips had 36 saves. The rookie had 148 saves in overtime in the postseason. Ottawa’s Aneta Tejralová, on a rush, hit the left post with a shot about five minutes into overtime and the Frost’s Taylor Heise hit the right post about four minutes later. MPR News digital editor Anna Haecherl contributed to this story. Fullscreen SlideshowPrevious Slide23 of 23The Minnesota Frost, right, celebrate after their goal while the Ottawa Charge, left, react during the second period of Game 4 of the PWHL hockey finals Monday.Ellen Schmidt | AP1 of 23Fans cheer for the Minnesota Frost before the start of Game 4 of the PWHL playoffs against Ottawa at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul on Monday.Liam James Doyle for MPR News2 of 23Minnesota Frost defenseman Maggie Flaherty maneuvers the puck down the rink during the PWHL playoffs Game 4 against Ottawa at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul on Monday.Liam James Doyle for MPR NewsNext Slide

On a warm evening in late April, staff at the Bridge on 7th homeless shelter in Brainerd prepared to open for one final night before closing for the summer. They made coffee, folded sheets and stockpiled toiletries such as toothbrushes and soap. Meanwhile, people gathered outside, waiting for the doors to open at 7 p.m.  "We just kind of make sure it's a safe place for people – like, meet people where they're at. There's no judgment here,” said Randi Wickham, a shelter attendant. “We're just here to offer them a safe place to sleep.” For more than three years, the Bridge on 7th has provided a safe, warm place for adults experiencing homelessness to spend the night, with few restrictions on who can stay. It’s served a total of 534 people since it opened in 2021. Bill Wear, operations manager for the Bridge on 7th in Brainerd, waits while a visitor leaves his personal belongings while checking into the shelter for the night. Wear said he’s often asked where people who stay at the shelter go when it closes for the summer. “Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer,” he said.Kirsti Marohn | MPR NewsBut the overnight shelter is only open from September through April. A recent decision by the Brainerd City Council not to allow it to operate through the summer has sparked a community debate, and left some without a place to stay. On April 30, the last night before it closed, Joseph Jensen, a frequent guest, wondered where he’d sleep the following night. “There are people in need throughout the year, no matter what, whether this is a resort town or not,” Jensen said. “It would be great to have the resources that we need all year round.” Those who stay at the Bridge on 7th don’t have a lot of options for where to go. Even when it gets warm enough to sleep outside, it’s no longer legal. Last year, the Brainerd City Council ed a ban on camping on public property. A statewide problemSimilar housing problems are playing out around the state. The number of people without shelter in greater Minnesota has grown in recent years, but available shelter space hasn’t kept up, said Cathy ten Broeke, executive director of the Minnesota Interagency Council on Homelessness. According to data provided by Crow Wing County, a point-in-time count on one night in January 2024 found 215 people experiencing homelessness, almost three times as many as in 2020. In 2023, the Legislature provided $100 million for homeless shelter capital projects, including organizations in greater Minnesota. There were about three times the requests as money available, ten Broeke said.  Shelter attendants Jennifer Saba, left, and Randi Wickham fold sheets and towels at the Bridge on 7th in Brainerd on April 30, before the shelter opens its doors for the night.Kirsti Marohn | MPR NewsSome communities have resisted adding shelter capacity, even when there’s community and available funding, she said. “That's really challenging, because they are going to continue to see the numbers of people sleeping outside go up,” ten Broeke said. At the same time, cities such as Brainerd, Duluth and Rochester have adopted camping bans, making it illegal to sleep outside. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2024 that fining or jailing people for sleeping and camping in public places when there is no shelter available does not violate the Constitution. Rochester bans camping on city propertyIn attempt to curb homeless encampments Duluth City Council removes criminal penaltyFrom homelessness ordinance A new program in RochesterIt helps students’ families avoid eviction In Brainerd, city officials said the camping ban was a tool to protect public health and safety. Still, ten Broeke questions the benefits of those bans. “We haven't seen any evidence here, and certainly not nationally, either where camping bans or criminalizing people sleeping outside has done anything to reduce homelessness or solve the problems,” she said. What’s proven to work, she said, is getting people into affordable permanent housing that offers ive services. An attempted fix meets resistanceKnowing their guests would lack housing in the summer, the nonprofit Bridges of Hope, which operates the shelter in Brainerd, thought they had an answer. In April, they asked the city for a permit to operate the Bridge on 7th year round.  “We thought this would be such a logical solution,” said Jana Shogren, Bridges of Hope's executive director. "It's illegal to sleep outside now. We thought that they would want us to keep the shelter open." Shogren said the nonprofit had full funding for the project and wasn’t asking the city for any money, just permission. Beds were ready for guests at the Bridge on 7th overnight shelter in Brainerd on April 30, its last night of operation before closing for the summer. The shelter’s operators sought a permit extension to continue operating the shelter year round, but the city council did not approve it.Kirsti Marohn | MPR NewsBut, at an April 7 city council meeting, some city officials voiced concerns about the shelter operating year round, saying that it may be attracting people from other cities that don’t provide the same services. “My primary concern is we're steadily seeing a draw from outside of the city, outside of this community,” Brainerd Police Chief John Davis said. Davis said the shelter has been a good community partner, especially in the winter months when lacking shelter at night can be a life-threatening situation. “I don't want to minimize the struggles of anyone in the summertime that doesn't have shelter,” he said. “However, I don't identify that as the same type of critical emergency.” Davis also questioned whether Brainerd’s services for people in need would be strained if the shelter stayed open year round. “The question is, these really good resources that we have here for our own community, would we be exhausting those if we continue to have the draw that we've seen?” he said. “Would that increase significantly if we went to a year-round model?” Joseph Jensen eats pizza at the Bridge on 7th shelter in Brainerd on April 30, the last night before the shelter closed for the summer. Jensen said he’s stayed at the shelter many times. “There are people in need throughout the year,” he said. “It would be great to have the resources that we need all year round.” Kirsti Marohn | MPR NewsCouncil president Mike O'Day echoed the police chief's concerns. He urged other cities to step up and provide their own overnight shelters. "Overall, it's been successful,” O’Day said. “But as other communities aren't pulling forward and bringing warming shelters to their community, it then rains down on this community to take on that burden.” The council voted to extend the Bridge on 7th’s permit to operate for one year, but only from September through April. The decision frustrated Shogren, who spoke at a council meeting two weeks later.  "Most of the people we serve are from here,” she said. “Most of them stay just a short time, and many of them leave in a better place than they found us. And that's a good thing." City staff also raised concerns that the shelter has been the cause of increased criminal activity in the neighborhood and calls to police. But Shogren said many of the 119 police calls since the shelter opened were for medical assistance, and would have been needed whether the person was staying at the shelter or not. Since the Brainerd City Council’s decision, ers of the Bridge on 7th have been attending meetings, asking council to reconsider. Seeking other options, none clearMayor Dave Badeaux, who didn’t vote on the shelter’s permit, said the city is looking into other options to help improve housing options, including talking to faith leaders and other communities about potential solutions. “The city must be risk averse in making decisions that work for the entire community, while also asking cities and communities around us to step up as well,” Badeaux said. On the last night of Bridge on 7th’s operation in April, guests dropped off backpacks and other personal items to be locked up. Some sat at tables and talked, or ate slices of pizza the staff ordered to mark the shelter's last night. Others retired to the rows of waiting beds covered with quilts.  Staff worry about where those guests have gone since. They could be camping outside, risking fines and jail, or other threats such as crime and severe weather. On several nights since the Bridge on 7th closed, temperatures have fallen into the 30s and 40s. “It's going to either push them into unsafe situations or further out in the outskirts of the community, where they're not going to be able to get the help they need,” Wickham said. A sign near the entrance of the Bridge on 7th overnight shelter in Brainerd warns guests that they must by out by May 1. The shelter closed on April 30, and will not reopen until fall.Kirsti Marohn | MPR News

Being blown out the game before didn't sit well with Oklahoma City. The young Thunder moved within one win of the NBA Finals with a championship response. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had 40 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists in a steely performance befitting the NBA MVP and the Oklahoma City Thunder snapped back from a 42-point loss by beating the Minnesota Timberwolves 128-126 in Game 4 on Monday night to take a 3-1 lead in the Western Conference finals. Minnesota Timberwolves' Terrence Shannon Jr. (00) goes up for a layup against Oklahoma City Thunder's Chet Holmgren (7) during Game 4 between the Timberwolves and Thunder.Kerem Yücel | MPR News“I tried not to worry too much about scoring or making plays or whatever it was,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “I tried to just lose myself in the competition, be aggressive, pick my spots.” Jalen Williams scored 34 points on 13-for-24 shooting, including 6 of 9 from 3-point range, and Chet Holmgren added 21 points, seven rebounds and three blocks in a statement game in his hometown that helped the Thunder stave off several pushes by the Wolves to tie the series. Gilgeous-Alexander went 12 for 14 from the free-throw line, making a pair with 6.1 seconds left to stretch the lead back to three. The Thunder fouled Anthony Edwards with 3.5 seconds to go, and his intentional miss of the second free throw to try to keep possession was tracked down in the corner by Gilgeous-Alexander and flung out of bounds to drain the clock. The Wolves had one more desperation inbounds from half-court with 0.3 seconds remaining that Williams grabbed to send the Thunder back to Oklahoma City for a close-out Game 5 on Wednesday. “They outplayed us, outrebounded us, got more of the 50-50 balls,” said Edwards, who was limited to 16 points. “Wanted it a little bit more.” Nickeil Alexander-Walker (23 points) and Donte DiVincenzo (21 points) each went 5 for 8 from 3-point range to lead a second straight onslaught of bench offense to keep the Wolves close all night, but the Thunder always had an answer for the mini-runs they managed. They trailed for only 36 seconds, all stretches in the first quarter. Fullscreen SlideshowPrevious Slide4 of 4Minnesota Timberwolves' Nickeil Alexander-Walker (9) and Oklahoma City Thunder's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (2) share a moment during Game 4 of an NBA basketball Western Conference Finals playoff series.Kerem Yücel | MPR News1 of 4Minnesota Timberwolves' Anthony Edwards (5) drives to the basket during Game 4.Kerem Yücel | MPR News2 of 4Minnesota Timberwolves co-owners Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore and Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson cheer during Game 4 of an NBA basketball Western Conference Finals playoff series between the Timberwolves and Thunder.Kerem Yücel | MPR NewsNext Slide“Give their role guys credit," coach Mark Daigneault said. "The shot-making was ridiculous, so for us to overcome that on the road the way we did was a great team win.” Any intrigue about how the Thunder would respond from Game 3 quickly disappeared when Williams started hitting from deep to lead an 11-for-17 shooting start from the floor. The Thunder grabbed 11 offensive rebounds in the first half, too. The Thunder, for all their dominance, have shown a hint of vulnerability away from Paycom Center, where they’re 7-1 with a plus-191 scoring differential this postseason. But Luguentz Dort helped bottle up Edwards and Julius Randle (five points on 1-for-7 shooting), and the Thunder forced 23 turnovers to help offset those 64 bench points. “Uphill battle," DiVincenzo said, "but everybody is sticking together, understanding that you try to look at this game and grab any sort of hope.” Fullscreen SlideshowPrevious Slide5 of 5Timberwolves' Naz Reid (11) goes up for a shot against Oklahoma City Thunder's Chet Holmgren (7) during Game 4 between the Timberwolves and Thunder.Kerem Yücel | MPR News1 of 5Timberwolves' Mike Conley (10) dribbles the ball during Game 4 between the Timberwolves and Thunder.Kerem Yücel | MPR News2 of 5Fans cheer and hold up signs during Game 4 between the Timberwolves and Thunder.Kerem Yücel | MPR NewsNext Slide

Marcel Ophuls believed subjectivity was key to filmmaking and saw documentaries as an antidote to the news. He's pictured above on May 5, 1987.Chip Hires | Gamma-Rapho via Getty ImagesFilmmaker Marcel Ophuls has died at the age of 97. Recognized as one of the great documentarians of his era, he died on Saturday, as confirmed by his grandson, Andréas-Benjamin Seyfert. Ophuls demanded — and commanded — his audience's attention, in 4 plus hour documentaries like The Sorrow and The Pity and Hôtel Terminus. Ophuls knew that by creating hours-long documentaries, he ran the danger of "not only seeming pretentious, but being pretentious." But, as he told NPR in 1978, "there's a relationship between attention span and morality. I think that, if you shorten people's attention span a great deal, you are left with only the attraction of power." Ophuls was born in and his family fled to to escape the Nazis. They eventually ended up in Hollywood, where his father, the famed director Max Ophuls, found work. His son started out making fiction films, too, but went on to become one of the foremost chroniclers of the atrocities of the 20th century. The Sorrow and The Pity is Ophuls' 1969 epic about the Nazi occupation of . He interviewed former Nazis, French officials who collaborated, of the Resistance, and average people who simply found ways to get by. Throughout the film, Ophuls appears on camera—patiently drawing confessions from his subjects. The film faced criticism in for its depiction of the country's war efforts. The Sorrow and The Pity became an art house hit, says Patricia Aufderheide, who teaches communications at American University in Washington, D.C. — and it helped create a new kind of documentary. "It's a kind of filmmaking where the filmmaker is very present as an investigator into something about the human condition," she says. Ophuls told NPR in 1992 that documentaries function as an antidote to news. Subjectivity is key, he said; the goal is "to juxtapose events and people in such a way that individual destinies and collective destinies make us think and reflect about our own roles in life." Ophuls was good at putting old Nazis and retired U.S. intelligence workers at their ease, as he does in his 1988 film Hôtel Terminus, about Klaus Barbie — a notorious Nazi — and the Americans who later protected him. When the film crew arrived to set up for interviews, Ophuls stayed in the back of the room, letting the crew chat up the subject. Judy Karp, the filmmaker's U.S. sound recordist, says Ophuls would adapt to make the interviewee comfortable. "He would come in as the person that he needed to be in order to get the story out of them and to get the information that he wanted," Karp says. "He was never false — but it's like we never knew which Marcel was going to be there." For Hôtel Terminus, which won the best documentary feature Oscar in 1988, Ophuls interviewed French writer and philosopher René Tavernier, who lived through the period the film covers. His son, acclaimed director Bertrand Tavernier, described Ophuls as one of the greatest of all filmmakers, not just documentarians. "He knew that documentary sometimes has to be built as a fiction film," Tavernier told NPR in an interview before his own ing in 2021. "You have to have interesting characters. You have to have an interesting angle. You have to work on dramatization, progression. At the same time, he was never manipulating the audience." His stories were true, but Ophuls thought of himself as an entertainer nonetheless. In 1978, he told NPR that his greatest hero in show business — and yes, he considered himself in show business — was Fred Astaire. The dancer's "control and structure and balance is so dignified, and so rarified," he said. In 1992, he told NPR that his mission was to make the world a better place through his work, going beyond entertainment. "That's what we live for, isn't it?" he said. "To try to make it better." Copyright 2025, KUNC

Nothing could stop Sandi Braunstein from carving her way down a ski run at Snowmass Resort in Colorado. She glided over the snow alongside her two coaches, Jeff and Erik, who were there to instruct and her as she made turns down the mountain. Braunstein uses a bi-sit ski, which consists of a molded seat mounted on a frame with two skis underneath. This adaptive equipment is designed for people who ski in a seated position and might have difficulty balancing on traditional skis. “When you go down the hill, it is both thrilling and terrifying,” Braunstein said. “I’m like, don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall.” Braunstein is a full-time mom, student and hobby farmer in Grand Rapids. She is also a military veteran who served for nearly a decade in the Minnesota Army National Guard. During a training exercise in the Guard, she broke her leg and three vertebrae in her back. After seven unsuccessful surgeries over the span of nine years, Braunstein elected to have her left leg amputated below the knee. Now she is an avid member of the group Disabled American Veterans. That is why she was downhill skiing in Colorado. “I love sports, and this is the winter sports clinic that they do every year. I skipped last year, so I am happy to be back on the slopes,” Braunstein said. Returning to civilian life after military service can be a welcome change, but the abrupt transition can also be stressful and overwhelming. The reintegration process can feel isolating, and especially difficult for veterans who come back from long or dangerous deployments, or who found a deep sense of community in the military. Reentry can provoke anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress. Braunstein has been exposed to multiple traumas over the course of her life and lives with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, a mental health condition that can develop after experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event. She said nature has a positive influence on her mental health. “Even if you go to a park, just touch the grass,” Braunstein said. “I know it sounds mundane, but it helps. It has helped.” Spending time engaging in outdoor recreation is known to improve general health and well-being. And research shows that veterans, in particular, benefit from outdoor activities as part of a complementary approach to treating mental health. Studies indicate that outdoor recreation and multi-day wilderness trips can reduce symptoms of PTSD, anxiety and depression. Outdoor excursions also build on veterans’ strengths and can echo positive aspects of military service, like being physically challenged, having a defined purpose and building camaraderie. “To me it’s more healing and fulfilling than anything else I’ve experienced,” Braunstein said. “I’ve met so many incredible people, and I’ve done so many incredible things that I don’t think I would have had the spirit to do otherwise.” The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs says about 13 percent of female veterans and six percent of male veterans have been diagnosed with PTSD. The percentage is higher for Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. Symptoms like flashbacks, nightmares, difficulty sleeping, hypervigilance and detachment manifest differently from person to person. They can persist for an extended period of time and impact a person’s relationships, ability to work and daily activities. The Veterans istration’s health care system sets clinical practice guidelines to identify first line treatments for PTSD. Psychiatric medication may be included in the treatment plan, but psychotherapy is generally the first line of treatment. Engaging in beneficial activities, such as wilderness adventures, can complement both medication and therapy. Getting outside is something Matthew Kaler, a psychologist with the Veterans istration in Minneapolis, encourages wholeheartedly. He said it is a way for people to introduce rewards into their day-to-day life that may have been taken from them by their symptoms. “Getting to a place where you feel like you have meaning in your life again is critically important and so we want to encourage people to find those things that fit for them,” Kaler said. Some veterans have found that fit and are sharing it with others. GalleryFullscreen SlideshowPrevious Slide1 of 2Sean Gobin hiking the Appalachian Trail in 2012 after returning home from war. In 2013, Gobin founded Warrior Expeditions and now serves as the executive directorCourtesy photo2 of 2Sean Gobin deployed to Afghanistan with the United States Marine Corps in 2011.Courtesy photoNext SlideSean Gobin lives in southern Virginia and served three combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with the Marines. Gobin was a tank platoon commander in 2003 during the initial invasion of Iraq and fought in Fallujah in 2005. He then spent 2011 in Afghanistan training the Afghan national security forces. Gobin says this was his breaking point. “I did not realize it at the time, but I was obviously struggling with pretty severe post-traumatic stress symptoms. I was having a really hard time connecting with people and talking to people and being around people. It was a lot,” Gobin said. “I was like, I have to get out. I have to make a change or else everything is just going to implode.” On Gobin’s last day in uniform, he left his base in North Carolina and headed to Springer Mountain, Georgia, to begin a 2,200-mile hike on the Appalachian Trail. He trekked across rugged mountainous terrain all the way to Maine to “walk off the war.” “What started as a bucket list item of something I always wanted to do since I was a kid — and I just looked at as a personal physical challenge — ultimately ended up saving my life,” Gobin said. It took him four and a half months to hike through 14 states on the Appalachian Trail. “Towards the end of the trail, I was like, wow, this has been so beneficial to me,” Gobin said. “I wonder if it would be beneficial to others.” The experience inspired him to form a nonprofit called Warrior Expeditions, an outdoor therapy program that aims to help veterans transition from their wartime experiences and recover from PTSD. Vets process their traumas, reconnect socially and improve their physical health through long distance hiking, paddling and biking expeditions. The trips last three to six months. “There’s enough duration within the experience to actually rewire the brain,” Gobin said. Numerous studies show that spending time outside has a direct impact on the brain and body. Outdoor experiences can lower blood pressure, heart rate and cortisol and improve cognitive function. Gobin said being on extended outdoor trips allows for decompression and the ability to process emotions. Warrior Expeditions collaborates with two psychologists who are also veterans. They measure post-traumatic stress, anxiety and depression among participants before and after each journey. They say the results show a clear reduction in symptoms and an improvement in psychological well-being. Gobin said when you see somebody at the end of a trip, it is like a light switch was turned on. “Eyes are bright. They are super exuberant and enthusiastic while talking and telling you about everything, and they are laughing,” Gobin said. “It is a night and day difference in interacting with the person I met six months ago.” Veteran advocacy groups around the U.S. successfully backed federal legislation in 2020 that launched programs and policies to help veterans with reintegration, mental health and treatment. The legislation also requires a Veterans istration task force to research the benefits of outdoor recreation therapy. GalleryFullscreen SlideshowPrevious Slide1 of 2Trent Dilks sits with a dog at a checkpoint in Iraq in 2006.Courtesy photo2 of 2Trent Dilks recreating in the mountains and snow in Colorado.Courtesy photoNext SlideTrent Dilks is the Minnesota legislative director for the group Disabled American Veterans. He advocates for veterans at the state and federal levels and said the VA task force study is overdue. Dilks also served 10 years with the Minnesota National Guard and did two combat tours in Iraq. “Being in Iraq and seeing all of that, and then the culture shock of coming back to all of the excess and all of the things and all of the noise here, it was difficult,” Dilks said. “I was restless. I was not comfortable where I was. I was dealing with a lot of anxiety. Later, I would realize it was post-traumatic stress.” Dilks coped with his PTSD in destructive ways by partying and trying to numb his feelings. He tried therapy and medication but did not like how the drugs made him feel. Dilks recognized that he needed to find his own path to healing. A significant part of that journey involved spending time outdoors. With a burst of excitement, Dilks grabbed his phone and tapped open a video from a trip to Colorado. In the clip, he and his former roommate from Iraq are summiting a peak. Snow is blowing in every direction. “It was him and I hiking up there and the wind gusts were just absolutely crazy,” Dilks said. Watching the video, Dilks burst into laughter, and a smile spread across his face as he noticed the icicle hanging from his beard. He said that whenever life feels difficult, he returns to the outdoors, because nothing beats fresh air and the space to breathe. This story is part of Call to Mind, American Public Media and MPR's initiative to foster new conversations about mental health.

It was Memorial Day weekend, five years ago, when George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Bystanders recorded the nine-plus minutes that Chauvin calmly kneeled on Floyd’s neck, as the Black man pleaded for help and air. That video rocketed from phone to phone, from media to media and sparked worldwide protests against police brutality. But for the Black community in Minneapolis, Floyd’s murder was just a chapter in a much longer story. Long before 2020, people had been organizing, creating and demanding change. Certainly, in the immediate aftermath of Floyd’s death and Chauvin’s 2021 conviction, progress was made. Businesses and institutions promised to invest in racial equity, to develop new community practices, to reckon with systems of harm. But in the neighborhood where Floyd lived and died, has that change taken root? That was the question at the center of a North Star Journey Live event hosted by MPR News host Angela Davis earlier this month. On May 6, a cross section of Black community leaders came together at Pillsbury House Theatre to talk about real change, deep healing and defiant hope. The conversation was candid, often surprising and ultimately inspiring. North Star Journey Live: Five Years After George FloydFullscreen SlideshowPrevious Slide5 of 5Black community leaders came together at Pillsbury House Theatre on May 6 to talk about real change, deep healing and defiant hope.Tom Campbell | MPR1 of 5MPR News host Angela Davis hosts a conversation with Black community leaders on Friday, at the Pillsbury House + Theatre in Minneapolis to talk about Floyd’s legacy, the promises made, and the healing and restoration that still need to happen.Tom Campbell | MPR2 of 5MPR News host Angela Davis hosts a conversation with Black community leaders on May 6.Tom Campbell | MPRNext Slideists: Angela Harrelson, George Floyd’s aunt and ed nurse Anthony Taylor, community development lead for the Cultural Wellness Center and outdoor educator-activist Jeanelle Austin, founder of the Racial Agency Initiative and a board member for the George Floyd Global Memorial Jerome Richardson, cofounder of the youth-led Minnesota Teen Activists Signe Harriday, artistic producing director at Pillsbury House + Theatre and lead local organizer for the Million Artist Movement Tabitha Montgomery, executive director of the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association Special guests: Junauda Petrus, creative activist and current poet laureate for Minneapolis Elder Atum Azzahir, founder and executive director of the Cultural Wellness Center Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS. 

A couple dozen blue-uniformed officers gathered at Phelps Park near George Floyd Square in the spring warmth, flipping burgers and mingling with community as children played.  It was a sight that would have been impossible five years earlier, when witness video of police killing George Floyd ignited global protests. At first glance, there’s no indication of that past. But on the edge of the park, an indignant voice sounded, breaking the image of a new day.  “Say his name!” The voice belonged to Marcia Howard, a Minneapolis school teacher who has been tending to the protest space at George Floyd Square since 2020. She has continued to open meetings at the memorial each morning at 8 a.m., discussing neighborhood mutual aid plans with other volunteers and advocating for the remaining demands that community drafted after Floyd’s murder, including ending qualified immunity for police officers.  She yells again: “Say his name!” It’s not long before two officers — Drea Mays and Xander Krohnfeldt — peel off from the crowd to greet her. They say hello. It seems they’ve met before. “I am doing excellent,” Howard sarcastically said in response to an officer’s greeting. “Because this is cute. It’s been five years …. I think about all the little children who were not alive when George Floyd was murdered.” As they speak, eventually launching into a debate over police reforms, a mural of George Floyd on the side of a church seems to watch over them. “The fact that y’all gotta do what you gotta do in order to make this innocuous in their minds, right?” Howard continued. “Oh, we’re just friendly neighborhood police.” Marcia Howard, a local teacher and activist, speaks during a community morning meeting discussing the findings of an investigation into the city's police department on June 16, 2023 in Minneapolis.Kerem Yücel | MPR NewsWhile the police department works to make court-mandated changes and replenish its ranks with new hires, neighbors await transformation of the police while others continue to demand a transformation of systems writ large. Once at the epicenter of calls to defund the police, the police budget in Minneapolis has only grown, though the sworn force shrunk after officers left the department. Those officers are working to build trust and faith in their profession. That task is a steeper climb in the 3rd Precinct, where George Floyd was murdered, turning the neighborhood into an epicenter of unrest. The fabric of the community remains visibly changed — from the signs at George Floyd Square to the shell of the 3rd Precinct police station and the still-empty lots. An empty, battered precinct stationA 10-minute drive away from where Floyd was killed, the scorched 3rd Precinct police station stands empty. Exterior cleanup has picked up in recent weeks, but for several years it was surrounded by razor wire. Enduring images of the station being set ablaze during the unrest and the hulk that’s left turned it into a symbol — one that carries vastly different meanings depending on who you ask. The Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, the union that represents MPD cops, sells a challenge coin on their website with an image of officers in riot gear lined up in front of that building. It reads “Never Forget 2020.” But for many neighbors in the area, the structure represented something else. Mabel Houle, 70, said she re the police standing on top of the 3rd Precinct, aiming less-lethal weapons loaded with rubber bullets at protestors “who were just wanting our voices heard.” “After George Floyd, we just had a bad feeling about that,” Houle said. “That place, that experience, that building, the response that we felt even in the neighborhood after the protests,” she said. “It just wasn’t a healing experience. It was more brutality.” The deconstructed vestibule of the former 3rd Precinct building is pictured on May 21, in Minneapolis. Ben Hovland | MPR NewsFor years, even before tensions boiled over there, 3rd Precinct officers didn’t have a clean reputation around the neighborhood.  While the Department of Justice probe found discriminatory policing across the department, investigators learned that the 3rd Precinct was where the “cowboys” wanted to work. Derek Chauvin was one of the top cops there, tasked with training others. For years, he used excessive force on residents without consequence, prosecutors said.   Barbara Scotford lives a few minutes walk from the old police station and said she long had a sense that it was a “troubled” precinct.  “The building itself was such a citadel,” she said. “It was really hard to go in. I going in once to invite anybody in a uniform to come to my garage sale and they would get 50 percent off. Well, you'd think I was some sort of terrorist or something trying to entrap them into something. That was a very strange us against them feel to it."  Longfellow resident Barbara Scotford pauses during a walk down Minnehaha Avenue in Minneapolis, just down the street from the former 3rd Precinct building, on May 21. She’s lived blocks from the former police station for over 25 years. Ben Hovland | MPR NewsScotford said five years later, the inner workings of the 3rd Precinct remain a mystery to her. Without having much personal interaction with officers, she can’t say what her sense of change is, except that she says she no longer sees officers speeding through intersections as often.  For some, the sense that police have abandoned the area, persists. Kara Carrier also lives in the blocks near the 3rd Precinct. She moved back to Minneapolis with her family in 2023, after more than a decade in Los Angeles. She said she has two dogs “ready to launch if necessary.” “If I see police cars around here, it's very rare, and it makes me wonder, is this ever going to come back?” Data from the city indicated that officers were responding. In the 3rd Precinct, 911 response times for the most urgent calls are on average seeing a quicker response time than in 2019. However, police take about 14 minutes longer to respond in situations where there’s no immediate threat. A fraction of the officers from 2020 remainFive years later, the makeup of that precinct has changed, too. Seventy-three 3rd Precinct officers are no longer with the department, among the hundreds who left the MPD after June 2020. Many filed worker’s compensation claims for post-traumatic stress disorder before leaving.  About 1 in 5 assigned to the 3rd Precinct patrol unit is an officer who served there in 2020, according to an April 2025 MPD roster. There are currently 86 officers assigned to that unit, down from the 120 five years ago.  The officer leading that cohort is 3rd Precinct Inspector Jose Gomez. He’s been with MPD since 1994. In 2020, he was assigned to special crimes investigations, working in a unit focused on juvenile outreach and diversion. Now, he’s been the face of rebuilding trust in the city’s largest police precinct, which covers much of south Minneapolis east of Interstate 35W. He’s developed a reputation for being the kind of cop people want to see on the streets. Since President Donald Trump came into office, Gomez has been on Latino radio shows and at local businesses, pushing to get the word out that Minneapolis police aren’t allowed to ask residents about their legal status. “I understand the fear, I mean it’s real,” he said at a recent community meeting in the Seward neighborhood. “I was born here, lived in Mexico for a while, came back with my parents, and we would always hide. I didn't get it at the time, but we would just hide when the mailman came, because he had a uniform, and they didn't know any better.” Gomez has been developing a relationship with a mosque near the new station for 3rd Precinct officers, set to open in 2026. He has an office in the American Indian Center in a part of the city with a large Native American population where trust in police runs low for many. Community gardener Jay Webb speaks with Minneapolis police chaplain Imam Nasir Hamza (center) and inspector Jose Gomez (right) during a prayer event held by the Unity Community Mediation Team at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis on April 29.Ben Hovland | MPR NewsJolene Jones is a leader of the Indigenous Protector Movement in Little Earth — an unarmed neighborhood patrol that formed during the unrest and has continued since then. Gomez has gone “above and beyond” making inroads with the community there, she said. But she also says it’s going to take more than one supervisor to change the reputation of a department that has a history of police brutality and racism toward the Native community, according to an investigation by the Department of Justice released in 2023. “Just because I feel I have a good relationship with Gomez does not mean I trust the MPD. Does not mean I trust the officers under him. Does not mean when I get pulled over, that I don’t get nervous,” she said. For one thing, she said, she wants to see officers respond to calls for help by treating victims like victims, not perpetrators. She said many people are still resistant to call the police — which protector Jordin Perez, 31, agreed with. “If you try to go call them, it wouldn't be a help, because they'd be trying to find problems within the problem,” he said. MPR News requested to interview Gomez, but was directed to Chief Brian O’Hara instead, who attended the cookout at Phelps Park. It was kicked off by an event hosted by the Unity Community Mediation Team, a group consisting of Black pastors and community leaders who have been working to mend relations with police for more than two decades. They said change has happened and will continue to happen. Minneapolis Ward 8 City Council Member Andrea Jenkins thanks the Unity Community Mediation Team during a prayer event at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis on April 29.Ben Hovland | MPR News“I thank God for today as a starting point where we're actually here and we can be here together, because there's no way forward through this unless we're going forward together," O’Hara said. Emmett Dysart stood nearby. The 57-year-old grew up in the neighborhood and said he’s been racially profiled too many times to trust the police. If he gets burglarized, Dysart — who is Black — said he’s not calling the police. He’s just getting a bigger dog. Dysart said he’s “cool” with the cops. He doesn’t see them as “the boogeyman,” but he’s doubtful they’ll have the same friendly faces at 11 p.m. on Lake Street and Chicago Avenue. He added that he doesn’t get the sense enough officers take the time to get to know the people they serve. “We used to have beat cops that walked up and down,” he said. “They would know the community.” Two Minneapolis police officers walk past the former gas station at George Floyd Square on May 21, in Minneapolis. Kerem Yücel | MPR NewsWalking the beat in the 3rd precinctIn the entire city of Minneapolis, there are just two officers who walk a daytime foot patrol and they’re in the 3rd Precinct. Together, Drea Mays and Xander Krohnfeldt cover the beat that includes 38th and Chicago, also known as George Floyd Square. They also walk parts of Franklin Avenue and Lake Street, engaging with businesses and residents, in addition to making arrests. The duo can respond to 911 calls, though they are usually not the first pulled in. Mays said there used to be beat cops in every precinct and priority spots — like downtown — where she used to walk the beat. But that's no longer the case. The department says with a smaller force than five years ago, MPD prioritizes sworn personnel responding to 911 calls or on investigations. While they are the only officers assigned to walk the beat, all other officers on patrol have to log at least 15 minutes a day of “high visibility” work, which includes getting out of their squads and walking the streets. “Building relationship means being a part of the community, right? And so if something happens and they know who I am and I know who they are, it just makes that relationship or interaction that much easier,” Mays said. “And that's how you build trust, because without relationship there is no trust.” Police, residents seek solutions to establish trust in the 3rd precinctMutual aid’s deeper rootsWhere that trust has been broken, other models of community safety long present in Minneapolis found new life. On Minnehaha Avenue, just three buildings down from the old police station, a group of business owners and a local pastor gather at a table inside Arbeiter Brewing, in the hour before opening. They’re part of Longfellow Rising, a group formed to push for racial equity and vitality in the community. “What happened five years ago was a very important movement, and I think for us to continue the work of what happened is part of our DNA now as organizations on this block,” said Kate Winkel, one of the co-owners of Arbeiter. Winkel said she tries not to engage with the police. If a problem arises, she’ll work with other business owners to find a solution that doesn’t involve dialing 911. “And that’s what you want out of communities at the end of the day,” added Ingrid Rasmussen, a pastor at nearby Holy Trinity Lutheran Church. “People who care enough about one another to not simply pick up the phone and report some sort of unwanted behavior prematurely.” Many at the table were heavily involved with mutual aid during the unrest. That includes Rasmussen, who said the church became a site for medical care and food and plywood distribution at the time. She said that care has continued in the corridor, whether through free meals or helping uplift Native people and people of color who want to start businesses as the area continues to stabilize.  Policing alternatives and a new police stationFor neighbors in the 3rd Precinct, as in all parts of the city, more alternatives to calling police exist in 2025 than in 2020. The Behavioral Crisis Response team — a group of unarmed mental health responders trained in de-escalation — has taken on a greater number of calls that had previously gone to police. Calls diverted to BCR have nearly doubled since 2022, the first full year the option was available to residents in Minneapolis. For the past year, a couple social workers with Hennepin County have been walking along Lake Street five days a week, working to get people connected to housing and treatment. Each police precinct also has an embedded social worker from Hennepin County. In 2024, MPD referred 455 people across the city to social workers, according to a Hennepin County spokesperson. As for the old 3rd Precinct station, it’s less blighted than it had been for the past five years. In late April, crews began taking down barricades around part of the 3rd Precinct. After more than a year of messages promising cleanup underway, a sign reads: “future home of the Minneapolis Democracy Center.” The plan is to eventually turn the rehabbed building into a Voter Services Center, with room to host community space. Officers with the 3rd Precinct are temporarily working out of a space in downtown Minneapolis. Their new HQ will be known as the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center. It’s a symbol in its own right, a representation of where city leaders say they want the new direction to be — only part police station.

This year marks 50 years of Hmong refugee resettlement and immigration to Minnesota. MPR News will feature Hmong Minnesotans in a variety of careers through the month of May as part of our “ChangeMakers” series. This series highlights Minnesotans from diverse and often underrepresented backgrounds who are making an impact.  For 18 years, Terry Yang ran the Bubai Foods grocery in Walnut Grove with his brother. The grocery store provided both Asian and American food items for both the Hmong community and the town as a whole. Now retired, Yang spends his time helping to teach, spread and preserve Hmong traditions and cultural practices for the next generation. He also hopes to work with others and create a book documenting cultural traditions as an instructional guide for practices like marriages or funeral rites. Yang said he sees the services and products that he provided as a form of service to both the Hmong community and everyone who walked through the store’s front door. What brought you to Walnut Grove?We have some family, and they moved from California to the city. Actually, in the city was tough for renting and housing, you know, too expensive, but still hard to find a place to live. So I said to my brother, we have to go along, to help those family. If you don’t go, nobody’s gonna go. So that’s why we decided to come here looking for the houses. Soon after, that was when you opened or went into business with, I believe, your brother for Bubai Foods?Yes, after we moved in here, and since the people are kind of moving in and the population build, you know, larger and larger, so my brother and I, we thought they should need a Oriental store in here to fit, you know, for our people in here. And that’s why we decided to bring this space in town. Terry Yang poses for a portrait at his house in Walnut Grove.Kerem Yücel | MPR NewsYou also mentioned that when you moved here, you wanted to provide something that your community would want to have. Was that a challenge to also bring that into Walnut Grove?Some type of food just Asian people, they like it. For other people, they like it too. And I don’t want them to travel three hours here and back to the city to get it, so I rather travel myself and get it for them. And a lot of white people in here, especially most teachers in this school. They love it. They come to buy our Asian products and engage some of our people to teach them how to cook, how to prepare. A lot of people now make egg rice or egg rolls and, you know, spring rolls or cook rice and cook noodle, which is a very nice experience for us, for them too. If they can reach or approach or something like this, you know, it can get out and get us very close in a relationship, and that’s why I like it the way we respected each other, and you kind of know each other well, and you know, and helping each other without asking. Is there you’d like to share in regards to your perspective as a local leader who has provided a resource for the community? This brings me a little concern, because for other part, like earning for their own life, of their own family, perfectly, but for the culture. The people never know culture. Right now, if they want to do the culture you’ll be harder to get it. But for me right now, if I’m still here, I can get the people from the city to help. For a long distance, like over 160 or 170 miles away and two, three hours away, you know, but if I’m still living in here alive, anytime we need something like that, I can ask those people in the city to come and help us anytime. Do worry about losing cultural traditions? Yeah for this small town like this, yeah, in the city, they have a lot of classes going on. But in here, we don’t have it. Actually, most of you in there working so hard, they didn’t really have enough time to search both then or to, you know, study those. Terry Yang poses for a portrait at his house in Walnut Grove.Kerem Yücel | MPR NewsDuring my research I came across an interview where they asked you, when you were a child what you thought you wanted to be when you grow up. You mentioned you wanted to be a leader. I wanted to ask if you were to talk to your younger self, what would you tell yourself from your experience today?When you’re young, you talk a bit, and you might say something like that, but you grow up now I taught my children you just want to be helper and serve, not to be leader. But if you can serve, you can help you be leader. But you plan to be leader and sitting around, you're not going anywhere after and then you just fail. And so now I taught my children to serve, to help kindly and timely. You never ask for your time. You never complain. I told many people, I’m doing things for people, not for favor. I’m happy with that, as long as I can do something to help you, that’s who I am. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

MN Shortlist is your weekly curated roundup of recommended events from MPR News, highlighting standout performances, exhibits and gatherings around the region. Memorial Day Concert and ReenactmentMay 24 — Calling all BBQ lovers and history nerds: Before Memorial Day got its name, it was called “Decoration Day,” after the tradition of decorating the graves of Civil War soldiers. Over time, it became “Memorial Day” to honor all American military who have died in service. But in St. Paul, one brewery dives back into the past to this historic holiday. Waldmann Brewery is hosting a reenactment on Saturday of scenes from its archive that date back before the day was even recognized. The brewery is housed in the oldest surviving commercial building in the city, built in 1857, and the reenactments will even include the mustering of a stonemason-builder from the relic’s past. This time capsule performance will be accompanied by music of the era performed by the St. Paul-based quintet Century Brass, which specializes in 19th-century American brass band music. (Anika Besst) ‘Shelter From The Storm: Bob Dylan Tribute Concert’May 24 — Minnesota calls tater tot hotdish, Paige Bueckers, long goodbyes and Bob Dylan its own — and embracing the latter’s legacy is Duluth-based band Shelter From The Storm. Catch them live at the Sacred Heart Music Center on Saturday, where they will cover hits from Dylan’s repertoire on the legend's 84th birthday. The band has had many iterations since it was founded in 1993 to celebrate Dylan, and these performances became an annual tradition for his birthday. This event is part of the Duluth Dylan Fest. (Anika Besst) ‘An Act of God’Through May 25 — If you came face to face with God, how would you react? What if God had chosen a local theater to impart some new wisdom to the masses? This is the story dramatized in “An Act of God” at Six Points Theater in St. Paul. The show is by David Javerbaum, a comedian and prolific Twitter commentator. In it, the God of Abraham has come down to address humanity and deliver some new and improved testaments. In this production, God takes the form of Sally Wingert, a Twin Cities theater legend with 30 years in the industry. Six Points’ production has extended its original run, and now plays through May 24. (Jacob Aloi) ‘The Kreutzer Sonata’Through May 25 — The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra is producing an hour-long “express concert" based on adapting a novel into a musical performance. Curated by cellist Richard Belcher, it features Leoš Janáček’s The “Kreutzer Sonata,” which borrows its name and themes from Leo Tolstoy’s novella, which itself is named after a work by Ludwig van Beethoven. The concert will also feature the Midwest premiere of a piece written by jazz pianist Billy Childs. Performances run through May 25. (Jacob Aloi) ‘Timmon Wallis Presents Nuclear Abolition’May 28 — Can you really blame anyone for an underlying sense of existential dread? It’s part of being human. Timmon Wallis’ new book, “Nuclear Abolition,” offers a checklist and procedure on how to quell one potential existential threat: nuclear weapons. Wallis describes a scenario that leads to eliminating these weapons — and doing so before it’s too late. Wallis is a former executive director of Nonviolent Peaceforce, founded in the Twin Cities. He currently works to protect civilians caught up in violence and armed conflict in 10 countries around the world. He was directly involved in negotiations at the UN that led to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which won his colleagues the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. He will be sharing his procedure for nuclear abolition and discussing possibilities for a reimagined future at Magers & Quinn. (Anika Besst) ‘Ode to Walt Whitman’May 29 – June 8 — Minnesota puppeteer Bart Buch performed “Ode to Walt Whitman” — based on the poem by Federico García Lorca — in 2009 in New York. According to the artist’s website, puppeteer Jane Henson (wife of Jim Henson) saw it twice because “The show is a good poem and good poems need to be read twice.” Buch has performed it several times since and is back again with the “poetic puppetry-infused adventure honoring two queer icons” at Open Eye Theatre. The premise? Whitman and Lorca meet online in “a gay chat room and have a string of surreal adventures.” The performance includes hand and grass bunraku puppets, masks, shadows, video projections and a butterfly marionette — all set to an electronica score composed by Martin Chavez Dosh. (Alex V. Cipolle) ‘Travois’Through June 27 — “Travois” is a bright and defiant solo show of work by artist Julie Buffalohead at the Dreamsong gallery in Northeast Minneapolis. Curated by Jill Ahlberg-Yohe (formerly an associate curator of Native American art at the Minneapolis Institute of Art), the show features five new paintings and seven sculptures. The heart of the exhibition is “Ancestral,” a red, white and blue trade cloth dress made using wool, leather, mirror and bead cones that “memorialize each member of the Ponca tribe illegally removed from Nebraska to Oklahoma by the federal government in 1877.” Also on view are Buffalohead’s expressive rose-tinted paintings featuring women and animal spirits. (Alex V. Cipolle)

Minnesota lawmakers are preparing to work through the holiday weekend to complete budget bills and get ready for a possible special legislative session next week. The bulk of a $66 billion, two-year budget remained unfinished on Thursday as legislators met largely behind closed doors to resolve disagreements about how to fund health and social services programs, public schools, taxes and other areas of state government. “Even though it is slower than we would like, things are going well,” Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth said. “It doesn’t appear like anyone has quit or given up, and that’s a very good sign.” Demuth said while some working groups are operating in “methodical” fashion, all are making progress in their own way. Lawmakers have a July 1 deadline to complete the remainder of the budget or face a partial government shutdown. Layoff notices for employees in government programs and agencies not funded would have to go out June 1. “Human beings are deadline driven,” DFL House Leader Melissa Hortman said, predicting that the pressure would build as May draws to a close. Pieces of the remaining bills started to surface on Thursday, with legislative groups meeting publicly for the first time to show their work. A human services committee was set to unveil its agreement Thursday afternoon and a jobs and economic development planned to present its budget Thursday evening. The hallways of the Minnesota State Capitol have been relatively quiet since the regular session came to an end Monday.Peter Cox | MPR NewsAn education policy working group made public its proposed changes for public preschool through high school programs. But it didn’t have its funding plan completed as of Thursday afternoon. The policy plan adds to the power of the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Education during fraud investigations. The bill also allows all school districts to start their 2026-27 and 2027-28 academic years on or after Sept. 1 given the later Labor Day in those years. Absent from the agreement are any changes to the cell phone use policy in schools, which will leave it up to districts to write their own rather than have one statewide model. Legislative leaders and Gov. Tim Walz met with working groups Wednesday evening to start expediting budget bills that got stuck. With a narrowly DFL-led Senate and tied House, each working group faced challenges ironing out compromise deals that could satisfy from each chamber and each political party. Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy, DFL-St. Paul, said the tied House created an especially unique dynamic in negotiations. “The House is coming in like a two-headed monster. The Democrats have a perspective and they're offering spreadsheets, and the Republicans have a perspective and they're offering spreadsheets, and then the Senate is in a place of having to try and mediate those differences and offer their own perspective,” Murphy said. “So it’s been more challenging than usual to be able to sew all of that together.” Hortman and Demuth laughed off the characterization, but said their co-chairs were working in tandem to uphold agreement and fight for positions ed by the House. Sen. Ann Rest, DFL- New Hope, (center) and of the legislative working group on taxes hold their first meeting after the legislative session to negotiate a tax bill that did not on Thursday.Peter Cox | MPR NewsAll three leaders said they canceled holiday weekend plans to finish outstanding budget bills. They said they expected key lawmakers would do the same. “I was supposed to go to the cabin this weekend. I’m not to make sure we get our stuff done,” Murphy said. “We are making slow and steady progress ironing out our differences in a way that I hope means that we'll be able to get to work of a special session soon.” On Wednesday, Walz said the soonest he’d be able to call a special session is early next week. He said lawmakers seemed eager to complete their bills and return to take votes. “I think most of them want to finish it up, you know, because by that point in time, the differences have been put aside. It doesn't mean they've been solved. They've just been put aside for now, and we finish this up,” Walz told TPT’s “Almanac at the Capitol.” Hortman said there hasn’t been a firm deadline given to the s that haven’t finished their bills. They had initially been instructed to wrap up by Wednesday evening or face intervention by leadership. “We haven’t given them a new deadline to blow,” she said.

If the residents of Rochester tried singing happy birthday to its downtown glow-up, they might get drowned out by the sounds of jackhammers and cement trucks.  And instead of birthday candles, the city is decorated with orange construction cones —hundreds upon hundreds of them. Rochester is celebrating a milestone this month. The city’s Destination Medical Center is ten years old. It’s a massive economic development effort to transform the area around the home of Mayo Clinic. Destination Medical Center, or DMC, is the largest public-private partnership in the state’s history. At the halfway point it's attracted $1.8 billion in private investment in dozens of projects, including those under construction right now. Its aim is to reshape and invigorate Rochester's downtown landscape and reputation. “I really didn’t pay much attention to Rochester (before). It wasn’t a go-to place. It wasn’t a place I came to visit,” said Patrick Seeb, who became DMC’s executive director in 2021, and is now Rochester’s biggest cheerleader. “We are attracting developers and investors from around the region,” Seeb added.  “So Twin Cities investors who hadn’t paid much attention to Rochester are doing projects in Rochester.” Patrick Seeb, executive director of the Destination Medical Center Economic Development Agency, introduces discussion at a downtown Rochester task force work session on Feb. 27.Ken Klotzbach for MPR NewsMore than Mayo ClinicSeeb said the construction that’s torn up Rochester’s downtown will continue for a while.  But he says it’s a sign that the project is succeeding — that Rochester is becoming more lively for patients and residents, developing new housing for health care and related industry workers, and diversifying the region’s economy. “I think most importantly is the energy we’re seeing around the innovation development and the interest of innovators who really didn’t understand the opportunity to be associated with Mayo Clinic and how powerful that is,” Seeb said. State lawmakers ed legislation creating DMC in 2013 and it officially launched two years later, after Mayo Clinic leveraged its reputation as Minnesota’s largest employer and a globally known medical center to get a massive public-private investment in the community.  Mayo and DMC’s board committed to attracting more than $5 billion in private investment to develop Rochester’s downtown over 20 years. In return, city, county and state taxpayers are kicking in nearly $600 million in public funding to improve the city's downtown infrastructure.  At its half-way point, DMC is on its way to meeting those investment goals, and while much of that money has come from Mayo Clinic, other private developers have invested millions into building new hotels for visiting patients and their families, and new housing for health care industry employees. There are also new shops, restaurants, and several new buildings dedicated to med-tech start-ups.  In addition, Mayo Clinic is constructing a $5 billion expansion of its downtown campus, which wasn’t part of the original plan and is now giving the whole DMC endeavor a big boost.  DMC officials said the construction projects, new business ventures, restaurants, and hotels have created about 17,500 jobs - that’s about half of the project’s 20-year hiring goal. The city said it is on track to generate $7.5 billion in net new tax revenue by 2050. A pandemic setbackBut DMC has had setbacks too. The COVID-19 pandemic was unkind to cities everywhere and Rochester has been no exception. Investment dipped during COVID. And with many people still working remotely, some new store fronts and commercial spaces remain empty years after being built. Former Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak said without DMC, it could be worse. He served on DMC’s board for its first decade.  “If the state hadn’t done Destination Medical Center, would Rochester have been the place where Mayo expanded?” Rybak asked. “Maybe a little, (but) certainly not to the tune of $5 billion.” “You would have seen the downtown businesses, a few more of those would close. You would have not seen some of the housing. You wouldn't have seen the hotels,” Rybak said. “And I think more than anything else, there would not have been this sense that individual investors can put something into Rochester and know that the city will continue to grow.” The site of potential workforce housing in downtown Rochester. The developer says that local officials have pushed back on her project even though it meets the goals of Destination Medical Center, a 20 year project to transform the city.Catharine Richert | MPR NewsBut developer Brenda Quaye said there’s still not enough housing to meet demand. She's been trying to get the city council to green light one such project on blighted downtown property. She said the city wants her to build affordable housing, while her plan would court workers who’d pay somewhat higher rents.  “We agree that there’s a need for affordable housing,” Quaye said. “But there’s also a need to house the people who are MRI technicians and RNs and residents and younger people who are working at the Mayo Clinic, who want to live in downtown Rochester and make it a vibrant, 24-hour experience.” And executive director Seeb acknowledged that the DMC needs to do more to attract and keep employers that aren't Mayo Clinic — such as new medical and biotech companies, and technology and professional services firms — and their workers.  He pointed to a project the DMC board approved just this week: a new lab space for businesses serving the healthcare industry. Hopefully, he said, those spin-offs will be able to incubate, develop and thrive in Rochester so they’ll want to stay for the long term.

Terresa Hardaway re a pivotal moment with the rapper Common a few years back. It was 2021 at the first anniversary of the police murder of George Floyd. Hardaway was handing out t-shirts she had designed at an event at George Floyd Square in Minneapolis. The black tees were emblazoned in a chunky white type, including the phrases “Black Lives Matter” and “Abolish the Police.” The rapper Common pauses during a performance at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, also known as George Floyd Square, in Minneapolis during a community celebration to mark the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s murder on May 25, 2021. Ben Hovland | Sahan JournalCommon donated and picked up one that said “All Power to the People.” “Right there, he took off his shirt, put on the ‘All Power to the People’ shirt, and just kept walking through George Floyd Square,” Hardaway says. “It was the coolest thing. I was like, “Oh my god, this is so awesome.’” Common wore the shirt on stage for a performance with Sounds of Blackness, the Grammy-winning Minneapolis vocal and instrumental ensemble. Photos of him in the tee spread online, along with Hardaway’s expressive block-letter design, which she named “Stop Killing Black People.” “You don’t know what he’s saying, but you know what he stands for,” Hardaway says of the widespread photos of Common in her design. “That’s the moment we needed to capitalize on. I think that the Civil Rights Movement did that really well.” Designer Terresa Hardaway with the rapper Common at the first anniversary event of George Floyd's murder at George Floyd Square in Minneapolis. "He gave us a little donation and grabbed one of the shirts and right there he took off his shirt, put on the 'All Power to the People' shirt and just kept walking through George Floyd square," Hardaway re.Courtesy of Terresa HardawayWhat do we wear to the next protest?For years, Hardaway has been asking herself: “How do you brand a movement?” Hardaway is an associate professor of graphic design at the University of Minnesota, where she is the director of the Design Justice Collective. Hardaway is also the owner of Black Garnet Books and the co-founder and creative director of Blackbird Revolt. Hardaway and co-founder Jordon Moses started the design studio in 2017 to respond to a question: “What do we wear to the next protest?”  In the years that followed, Hardaway grew increasingly disturbed by police killings of Black people filling the news and social media. Then the pandemic hit, followed shortly after by the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. “All of this was so overwhelming, and I had to find a way to kind of focus that down and figure out and process why I live in a country that hates me so much,” Hardaway says. A demonstrator holds one of the signs by Blackbird Revolt during a protest for Daunte Wright at the Brooklyn Center police station on April 14, 2021. Hardaway says it took “a big team of us” to distribute signs and other gear to protestors.Scott Olson | Getty ImagesSo she started to sketch, drawing letter forms on an iPad. “Being able to draw and let it in and use letters to sort of tell that story and give it character is something that helps me concentrate,” Hardaway says. Hardaway drew inspiration from Black activist design throughout history. She points to simple, bold designs, including the black-and-white flag the NAA made in the 1930s that said “A Man Was Lynched Yesterday,” and the red-and-white “I Am A Man” posters used during the Civil Rights Movement. She also looked to the work of graphic artist Emory Douglas, the Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party, whom Hardaway brought to speak at the University of Minnesota in 2019. Emory created the visual identity for the Black Panther Party and human rights, Hardaway says, before digital tools were available. “How do I make this message scream as loud as possible and be super high contrast?” Hardaway says. “I did that by not using color in my work and really thinking about — Okay, Emory Douglas was doing this with an X-Acto knife. How do I give it that same feeling of urgency?” On April 14, 2021, a protester holds a sign designed by Hardaway during a demonstration outside the Brooklyn Center police station, following the killing of Daunte Wright by Officer Kim Potter. L.A.-based designer Dori Tunstall re seeing images of the signs at protests online: “To see it everywhere was reaffirming of our existence. It's literally a visualization of Black Lives Matter.”Scott Olson | Getty ImagesLetters of intentShe began thinking of each letter as an individual person, relating it to how it takes all sorts of people working together to make a movement, bringing with them their trauma, healing, skills and quirks. In the Blackbird Revolt studio in downtown Minneapolis, Hardaway looks up at a sign imprinted with “Stop Killing Black People.” She points to the word “Stop.” “The ‘S’ is this really wonky, strange-looking letterform, but the T and that horizontal stroke fit really nicely right there inside the counter space of the ‘S,’” Hardaway says.  “These letterforms feel really awkward by themselves,” she continues. “But then, all together, it's like, ‘Oh, wow!’ This is a unifying message that  we can actually take and now put on a flag or paint on a banner or shout out in front of a police precinct, and it begins to have a much bigger impact when we are all together.” “I started thinking as letter forms, and what it meant for us to come together out on the streets and thousands and thousands of people to be out there,” says Hardaway, pictured here on May 7 at the Blackbird Revolt studio. "What does that look like visualized in letters. That's where the Stop Killing Black People project really came from.”Ben Hovland | MPR NewsIn April 2021, Hardaway attended the protests in Brooklyn Center for Daunte Wright, who was killed by police officer Kimberly Potter. She re hand-drawn signs smearing in the falling snow and protestors growing cold.  “How do I brand what's happening here, unify us, keep us warm, and also use this moment when we are getting news coverage to continue expressing our message?” Hardaway re thinking. ‘Not Instagramable or glamorous’Hardaway says the Blackbird Revolt team and other volunteers raised about $30,000 to screen print t-shirts, hoodies, waterproof signs and buttons with slogans already being chanted at protests. They distributed thousands and thousands of items for free — or what Hardaway calls “distro,” which she has since written about in the 2023 book she co-edited, “An Anthology of Blackness: The State of Black Design.” “We raised funds on our social media platforms for gas masks, umbrellas, hand-warmers, gloves, hats, socks, water, snacks, flashlights, antibacterial lotion and any other requests from frontline protestors,” Hardaway wrotes.  They took the same approach for the screen-printed protest gear. It was “free to Black people — don’t even worry about paying for it — donation requests for anyone else,” Hardaway says. Fellow designer and Blackbird team member Kelsi Sharp says it was the first time she became aware of the concept of mutual aid.  “People were flabbergasted that it was free,” Sharp says. “Because what we see a lot of in the years since is: People want to buy their way into liberation and abolition and it's like, ‘Nope, you can't buy this. This is free.’ So I thought that was really powerful.” Designer Kelsi Sharp, in 2021, painted banners and flags using the Stop Killing Black People typeface. "I feel like this is the first time I'm recognizing how much of a moment it was, because it was really just our life. We were really just surviving," Sharp says.Courtesy of Terresa HardawaySharp re painting 16-foot-tall letters of the Stop Killing Black People type on banners to march with or hang on the sides of buildings. They also painted a mural using the lettering that says “Black Futures,” which can still be seen in the parking lot of the University of Minnesota Urban Research and Outreach-Engagement Center in North Minneapolis, between the Minnesota African American Heritage Museum and the Minneapolis Police 4th Precinct building. Sharp says at the time, it was hard to recognize the impact of the design because everyone was in survival mode. “We were literally taking boxes directly from the manufacturer,” Sharp says, “and handing them out to people, like, literally rip open the box and hand them out to people. It was not Instagramable or glamorous.” In April 2021 after former police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty for murdering George Floyd, Insight News printed a cover photo of a protestor holding a sign designed by Terresa Hardaway.Courtesy of Terresa HardawayBreaking the gridLos Angeles-based designer and scholar Dori Tunstall says the free community distribution was key to the design’s power. “I saw it everywhere,” Tunstall says. “To see it everywhere was reaffirming of our existence. It's literally a visualization of Black Lives Matter.” Tunstall is the author of the 2023 book “Decolonizing Design: A Cultural Justice Guidebook.” She wrote the foreword for Hardaway’s “An Anthology of Blackness.” Tunstall was also the first Black person to hold the position of dean of faculty design at Ontario College of Art and Design University in Toronto, or anywhere in the world.  The type, Tunstall says, also reaffirms design as a language of protest. The signs and apparel would not have had the same impact, Tunstall says, if the lettering was done in, say, Helvetica, “the ultimate corporate typeface.” “If someone's walking down the street with a sign, you may only see it for let’s say a maximum of 30 seconds,” Tunstall says. “So you have to get the feel of it instantly — the feel of anger, rage, injustice, all these things that are carrying the message of why people are out in the streets.” Tunstall says Hardaway is at the forefront of the present-future generation of designers and educators who are making design relevant to Black and brown communities, ing peers such as Tré Seals in Washington D.C., who designs typefaces named for leaders like W.E.B. Du Bois, Carrie Chapman Catt and Rubén Salazar.  The styling of Hardaway’s type itself is an act of protest, Tunstall says. “For the design nerd, it breaks the grid,” Tunstall says. The Stop Killing Black People type is jumbled and nonlinear, she explains, in contrast to the minimalist Swiss style grid that is dominant in graphic design.  “Its closeness, compactness, breaks the grid in a way that says: This is coming from a place and people that is not European, but actually fights against the structures and the regulation that this European system has imposed upon us,” Tunstall says. Lettering sketches by Terresa Hardaway are featured in the 2023 book "An Anthology of Blackness: The State of Black Design."Alex V. Cipolle | MPR News‘You had to be there to get it’The design lives on. Hardaway has made the type open source and free to as set of graphic elements (rather than a font you can type with on a computer). It comes with a disclaimer: Hardaway says use the type for “abolitionist purposes and not for your little birthday parties, unless it’s an abolitionist birthday party.” Blackbird Revolt is using the lettering for Juneteenth celebrations.  Hardaway is also curating a group exhibition about the intersection of Black liberation and Indigenous sovereignty called “Resist & Reclaim” at the Goldstein Museum of Design. It will feature 20 Black and Indigenous women and femme artists. Using her lettering, Hardaway screen-printed 20 jean jackets with the phrase “Resist and Reclaim” and sent them to the artists as a base canvas for an artwork. The exhibition will open in November. Around the Twin Cities, Hardaway still sees the fruits of the early “distro” of the design. In May, a sign with “Say Their Names” painted in Hardaway’s lettering leans against the raised fist sculpture at the intersection of 38th and Chicago, where George Floyd was killed.  “I still see that today in people's windows, I see people having it on the back of their backpacks,” Hardaway says. “If I don’t know anything, I know that someday they were with me at one point at one of these protests, because we didn't sell it. You had to be there to get it.” A sign with Hardaway's lettering at George Floyd Square on May 22. "People were really starting to just lean on each other. That is the remarkable part of of this moment. Even through the letter forms, you can see the letter forms leaning on each other," Hardaway says.Alex V. Cipolle | MPR NewsCorrection (May 23, 2025): An earlier version of this story misspelled the name of Black Garnet Books.

The City of Anoka broke ground on what could be one of the first government-run cannabis dispensaries to open in the U.S. since 2015. On Thursday, city officials met at 839 East River Road for a groundbreaking ceremony to commence the $2.7 million construction of a new cannabis store. Anoka is among 13 cities and counties in Minnesota that have applied for a license to operate a cannabis store. City liquor and cannabis operations manager Kevin Morelli says they’re waiting on the state’s Office of Cannabis Management to approve their license. “We might be waiting around for it, but at least we'll be ready to go, and we’ll have that in hand, and we can hit the ground running,” he said. According to Morelli, Anoka appears to be the first municipality to start building out a space for a dispensary so far in Minnesota. Other cities, like St. Joseph and Osseo, want to secure the license before construction. Anoka mayor Erik Skogquist and other city officials shovel dirt during a groundbreaking ceremony at the location of Anoka's cannabis dispensary on Thursday.Courtesy of City of AnokaThe Office of Cannabis Management says municipalities are guaranteed a license as long as they fulfill requirements for the license application. The deadline to apply for a municipal license was March 16. The agency has 90 days to approve or deny an application after final documentation is submitted, including local government approval. Office spokesperson Josh Collins says the agency expects to start seeing businesses, including municipal cannabis dispensaries, open up this summer. In addition to reviewing municipal applications, the cannabis agency is in the midst of reviewing 3,500 license applications and preparing to hold a license lottery on June 5. Minnesota learns from lessons of Washington, where first municipal cannabis store closed downThe state of Washington was the first to open a city-run cannabis store in 2015. By 2018, the store struggled to break even as more retail stores opened and the dispensary eventually closed down in 2021. Minnesota law requires local governments to allow a minimum of one cannabis retailer for every 12,500 residents, but also gives local governments the option to limit the maximum number of retail cannabis dispensaries in their community. Anoka has a population of about 18,000, so the city council limited the number of private dispensaries in the city to one. Morelli is optimistic the limit will allow the city-owned dispensary, which is located across from Anoka’s municipal liquor store, to thrive. The City of Anoka will be working with Oertel Architects and RJM Construction on the $2.7 million project to build a new cannabis dispensary.Courtesy of City of AnokaThe state’s cannabis agency says they will be able to make adjustments, like adding additional licenses, based on supply and demand in 2026. It will keep an eye on how the market matures in the first year before making changes. “Demand studies have shown that there is a great deal of interest from Minnesotans for cannabis products,” said Collins. “We don’t view this as a situation where there’s one winner and and the others are losers. I think that there’s going to be significant demand, and there’s opportunity for success, for our social equity applicants, for municipalities, for our tribal partners, and for general applicants as well.” RelatedTribal cannabis dispensaries to open across Minnesota with White Earth Nation tribal-state compact Collins says it’s an exciting time for Minnesota. The state is on the cusp of opening dispensaries and launching the cannabis market.  Minnesota will also be leading the nation not only in municipal dispensaries, but also in allowing tribal-run dispensaries off tribal lands. Cities want to use cannabis profits to offset property taxesAnoka has been operating in the liquor business since 1937 and wants to be at the forefront of cannabis. “I think the logic is very similar, where the city is the one in control, making sure that we are operating, operating well, operating responsibly, setting a good example. And then the secondary portion of it is also the financial side of it,” said Anoka Mayor Erik Skogquist. It’s estimated the dispensary will not be profitable until the third year of operation, when it could net $1.5 million. Skogquist says the revenue will be used to pour back into the city, similar to what the city has done with the profits from its liquor store. “This is an opportunity for the city to basically expand our current enterprise, to be able to have this as well and potentially raise millions of revenue that we can use to cover things like parks or some policing or other things that won't have to come off of the backs of the property-tax-paying public,” he said. Other cities like Osseo and St. Joseph don’t operate a liquor store and see a cannabis dispensary as a way to bring in money they need to repair infrastructure. “St. Joseph is pretty progressive in general and we want it for just the additional money that it’d bring to the city so we’d be able to do different projects like improving our crosswalks,” said Mayor Adam Scepaniak. He says the city is also waiting to get their license before making next steps. And the earlier St. Joseph gets into the market, the better. “We still want to be on the front edge of this and be an early adopter, because the earlier you can get into this, the better chance you have of being viable and basically surviving once the market becomes diluted and it progresses,” said Scepaniak. Anoka mayor Erik Skogquist speaks at the groundbreaking ceremony of the city's cannabis store.Courtesy of City of AnokaMost states have avoided municipal cannabis because of the conflicts with federal law — the Drug Enforcement istration still classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 substance. That also poses risks that banks may not accept cannabis funds because it’s federally illegal. But cities pursuing municipal cannabis sales now point to the cultural acceptance of cannabis. And cannabis is now legal in Minnesota. Scepaniak says the number of banks in Minnesota that are willing to work with cannabis businesses have gone from one last year to 10 to 12 banks this year. “The less this seems like a boogeyman activity and people are starting to realize that’s normalized — not only in Minnesota, but around the United States — and the positive attributes of everything that this can bring, people are just coming on board. And these financial institutions are also recognizing how much of a cash cow this is, so it really behooves them to participate,” he said. And in the city of Anoka, consumer habits are evolving in favor of cannabis after recreational use was legalized in Minnesota. The city’s liquor store has been selling low-dose THC products since 2023 and has seen success with it. “As beer, wine, hard spirit sales have decreased, the low dose have increased, and so that’s complemented the products as people's familiarity grows with it and needs and desires change for people,” said Skogquist. Anoka is aiming to finish construction of its cannabis store in December and hopes to open in January. But all of it hinges on when the city will get its license.

Native American households spend a disproportionate amount of their incomes on energy costs. According to the Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, the typical energy burden for Native Americans is 45 percent higher compared to white households. “There are reports from the Department of Energy and other sources that do find this systematically across the country, that is the costs are higher,” said Corrie Grosse, an associate professor of environmental studies at the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University. She’s also the author of “Working Across Lines,” a book about how people can work together to resist extreme energy extraction. “The cost of electricity on reservation is sometimes many times higher than just right off the reservation,” she said. To top it all off, many folks in Indian Country use propane to heat their homes, which is more expensive than natural gas. “The proportion of people’s incomes — tribal who are paying these costs — it’s a very high proportion of their income,” she said. “So, very difficult to pay those bills.” That’s where 8th Fire Solar enters the picture. It's been producing solar thermal s in Osage since Spring 2018. Gwekaanimad Gasco is the program coordinator. Gwekaanimad Gasco is the program coordinator at 8th Fire Solar. He said most tribal installations on reservations are grant funded but there are some homeowners who pay for the s themselves. Mathew Holding Eagle III | MPR News“Solar thermal is a technology used to generate heat,” Gasco said. “We build these s that go on the side of a house or a building, and they recirculate air and heat it up and use the forced air system, so a fan and some ducting to push the air to wherever in the house or the building you would like it.” Unlike photovoltaic systems, which are expensive and generate electricity, solar thermal s are cheaper and more accessible. The systems can save up to 35 percent in heating costs. As a White Earth Ojibwe and Little Traverse Band Odawa citizen, that's paramount to Gasco. “It’s supplementary heat but has the ability to offset the usage of your main heating system, so it can save you a good chunk depending on the size of your system,” he said. “It’s a really important technology in Indian Country, especially around here where, you know, heat is less for being comfortable, it’s more for survival.” 8th Fire Solar’s work caught the attention of Native Sun Community Power. It’s a much larger organization based in the Twin Cities.  Native Sun executive director Robert Blake is a Red Lake Nation citizen. His organization works to advance renewable energy infrastructure — with solar and electric vehicles —  on tribal lands. It also does a lot of environmental advocacy and trains workers in renewable energy industries. Blake said the chance to work with 8th Fire Solar, a White Earth Nation-led organization, was a no-brainer.  The two nonprofits announced a merger earlier this year. “We’re fighting energy poverty, we’re making our community stronger. And so that’s the way I see how they’re a part of this,” Blake said of 8th Fire Solar. “And they’re doing what they’re doing, and they’re doing it well.” Robert Blake is executive director of the nonprofit Native Sun based in the Twin Cities. He said the decision to merge with 8th Fire Solar was a “no-brainer.”Mathew Holding Eagle III | MPR NewsNative Sun will continue to focus on its own projects and programs like Electric Nation — an inter-tribal EV charging network through the Upper Midwest. But it will also help guide and expand 8th Fire's reach throughout Indian Country. “We’re coming together from two different tribal nations and two different businesses and we're working together for a common goal,” Blake said. And they’re doing it amidst a lot of changes under the Trump istration, which has been scaling back or eliminating big parts of the Inflation Reduction Act, which funds climate initiatives.  “The Inflation Reduction Act was a huge benefit to Native communities, particularly around renewable energy. So billions and billions of dollars were available, and now those dollars are at risk,” Grosse said. “Trump is trying to roll the IRA back. It’s unclear exactly how that’s going to play out, but tribes and tribal-led organizations are not really able to count on that funding anymore.” Native Sun’s Robert Blake said his organization has seen funding whiplash in the renewable energy sector firsthand.  His new colleague Gasco said challenges like these are nothing new. “It’s going to be a tougher time, for sure. But we were born through resilience,” Gasco said. “We’ve always been used to this fight, so it’s just a matter of keeping our heads down and keeping our people together, and keeping moving.” 8th Fire Solar has been producing solar thermal systems in Greater Minnesota near Osage since Spring 2018. Program coordinator Gwekaanimad Gasco said the nonprofit has recently begun efforts to expand their services through photovoltaic certification.Mathew Holding Eagle III | MPR NewsBut Grosse stressed relief could be on the horizon by way of the Alliance for Tribal Clean Energy and the NDN Collective. “They’re actually kind of making themselves, grantmaking organizations, because they’re attracting such large sums of money,” Grosse said. “So I think it’s a really hopeful time, even though there’s a lot more challenges than we had under the Biden istration.”  Michael Childs Jr., a Prairie Island Indian Community Tribal Council member is co-chair of the newly formed Tribal Advocacy Council on Energy. TACE is unique because it is not a state established council but a tribal nations advocacy council with appointees from 10 of Minnesota’s 11 tribal nations.  Childs said he looks forward to the potential impacts of the merger of Native Sun and 8th Fire Solar on Indian Country.   “I’m excited because Bob does bring a business background,” Childs said.  He said Blake’s connections will help 8th Fire Solar. “I think that’s really what I'm expecting to see out of it, and I think I will.”  8th Fire Solar will soon begin their biggest job to date. It’s a 20-home solar thermal project spread across four reservations in Minnesota. Native Sun, will provide expertise and resources.

Listen to a nearly half-hour conversation with the siblings by clicking the play button above. The murder of George Floyd resonated across the world. Undoubtedly, however, the sharpest impact was felt closest to the epicenter, the neighborhood around 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis where then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd’s neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, killing him. There, residents became witnesses to and leaders of a global movement for Black lives. In the aftermath of May 25, 2020, activists transformed the intersection into a memorial and ongoing site of protest now called George Floyd Square. A closed Speedway gas station was re-christened the People’s Way. A wooden raised fist was erected at a makeshift roundabout. Cardboard and plastic headstones were planted nearby to honor other Black people killed by police. The area became a pilgrimage destination and a space for radical organizing — home to daily meetings for neighbors, weekly jam sessions, mutual aid and annual festivities to honor its origins. Jeanelle Austin (left) waits with rapper Common and Minnesota U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar backstage during the first Rise and festival marking the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s murder on May 25, 2021. Ben Hovland | Sahan JournalSustaining that work has not been easy, amid controversy around the square’s future. MPR News re-connected with three people — siblings — who have been organizing around George Floyd Square since its start. Jeanelle Austin is lead caretaker for the memorial at George Floyd Square and the executive director of the nonprofit preserving offerings left there, called Rise and . Theodore “Butchy” Austin is a musician who helped start activist band Brass Solidarity and has led mutual aid efforts around 38th & Chicago. Jeanette Rupert is an ICU nurse, minister and co-founder of the community medicine nonprofit, 612 MASH, short for Minneapolis All Shall Heal, an effort to provide medical care and education in the neighborhood. They’re just a few in a large family that has lived in the neighborhood for decades and are each giving back in different ways. They told MPR News more about what drives their family’s involvement and how the events of 2020 continue to impact their lives. Jeanette Rupert returns to the ICU at Methodist Hospital at the end of her shift in St. Louis Park, Minn., on Dec. 21, 2020. After working the overnight shift, Rupert left to go do health checks on neighbors in George Floyd square.Evan Frost | MPR NewsBringing their gifts to the squareButchy credits their family’s activism to an upbringing in church. They grew up attending Evangelist Crusaders Church on 43rd Street and Fourth Avenue. Their parents, Reverend Judy Austin and the late Pastor Ted Austin, modeled serving their community in addition to full-time work. And it was their mother that called on them to rise to the occasion in May 2020. Jeanette said the day after George Floyd was killed, she and most of her six siblings gathered at their childhood home in south Minneapolis near 38th and Chicago, the house her parents had built decades prior and where their family still lives, to figure out what to do. That day, she recalls feeling paralyzed. It was surreal. Helicopters were swirling overhead and hundreds of people were flocking to their neighborhood. Their mom then offered a message of hope: “You guys were raised for such a time as this. You give your gifts to the community. Each and every one of you have unique gifts, and I want to encourage you, this is not the time to sit here in sorrow, but to stand up and to serve your community in ways that's going to be comforting and healing,” recounted Jeanette. Jeanelle Austin (left) and her mother Judy Austin release a paper lantern from George Floyd Square in Minneapolis in honor of Jeanelle’s birthday on Nov. 30, 2020.Courtesy of Ben HovlandLater, one sister told Jeanette to consider volunteering at a medical tent that had popped up at the intersection. Others texted Jeanelle, who had experience in community organizing and protest and was living in Texas at the time, to come back home to help. Their younger siblings helped gather groceries and other needed items for people in need. After their father ed away in 2019, Butchy moved next door to the family home with his wife and four kids. He had extra time to volunteer because his work in corporate sales slowed down and became remote as result of the COVID-19 pandemic. He didn’t necessarily think he had a gift but was inspired to serve anyway by a Scripture in the Book of James encouraging Christians to care for “orphans and widows in their distress.” He went to the square with a cooler of beverages to out. He carried his trumpet strapped over his shoulder, though he hadn’t really played in over a decade and didn’t know what he’d do with it. That was until Jeanette suggested he learn a song to play at a rally. His first experience went well and encouraged him to continue performing publicly. Eventually, he met other musicians interested in street band activism and they formed Brass Solidarity in 2021. Butchy Austin plays “Lift Every Voice and Sing” on trumpet during a vigil at George Floyd Square in Minneapolis on Aug. 30, 2020, where faith leaders and community gathered to pray for Jacob Blake, who was shot and killed by Kenosha, Wis., police on Aug. 23.Courtesy of Ben hovlandThe band has played together every Monday without pause since and has grown to include about 100 of all skill levels. “We didn’t have a purpose outside of we just wanted to bring healing and joy to a community that was impacted by the murder of George Floyd and grow in our values, grow in our purpose, grow in our mission and use our sound as more of a sonic occupation going forward,” said Butchy. “We turned nobody away,” he added. “We just opened it up to whoever wants to align with our mission and our values around dismantling white supremacy, empowering BIPOC communities, bringing joy, bringing healing, bringing love, using music to do that.” Butchy Austin wheels a cooler full of cold drinks to a meeting at the People’s Way in Minneapolis on Aug. 30, 2020.Courtesy of Ben HovlandHe still feels “imposter syndrome” sometimes because he isn’t a more skilled musician but hearing from others about the impact of Brass Solidarity, he’s embracing not being perfect. Likewise, Jeanette said she learned to feel comfortable being in the public eye as a nurse, something she previously wasn’t open about either. She also says she grew in her ministry, coming to families of victims of police violence, and picked up the nickname “Reverend Nurse.” Jeanelle had bought a one-way ticket home, expecting a short stay, but after weeks of cleaning and helping out at the square, she moved back to Minneapolis in 2020 and fully committed to serving there. Jeanelle in 2020Preserving George Floyd's memorial Jeanette in 2020In the ICU and at George Floyd Square, one nurse fights two pandemics Butchy in 2023Local brass band transforms George Floyd Square with music Other community leaders in 2020Making George Floyd's Square 5 years in George Floyd Square“We haven’t forgotten. We’re still kicking. We’re still going. We don’t get as much media attention, but we got to keep it going,” said Butchy. In the last five years, COVID-19 restrictions have eased. The city has re-opened 38th & Chicago to vehicle traffic. The wave towards racial justice and diversity initiatives has reversed under the second Trump istration. But activists at George Floyd Square still stand behind their 24 demands created in 2020 and hope to see them all one day met.   “People have this desire to go back to normal, but I live in a community where there’s no such thing as normal anymore,” Butchy said. “We’re just trying to figure out how to thrive and still demand justice and still take care of people.” They spoke to the challenges of continuing to organize around the space over the years. For one, people still have different ideas of what should happen at the intersection and beyond for justice in the murder of George Floyd. Butchy said Brass Solidarity wasn’t very well received when it first started with their weekly “sonic occupation,” though people have since warmed up to it. Fullscreen SlideshowPrevious Slide3 of 3Names painted on “The Mourning age” along Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis are reflected in Butchy Austin’s sunglasses as he warms up before a Brass Solidarity concert on May 3.Ben Hovland | MPR News1 of 3Butchy Austin leads Brass Solidarity down Chicago Avenue during an activist street band festival at George Floyd Square in Minneapolis on May 3.Ben Hovland | MPR News2 of 3Butchy Austin plays with Brass Solidarity during an activist street band festival at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis on May 3.Ben Hovland | MPR NewsNext Slide“A lot of Black people, we have different ideas of liberation and you have to be able to hold space for that,” said Jeanelle. “People wanted all of the energy of the social movement to move in the direction of their idea of liberation and so that created friction, that created tension.” She said that the way media descended on Minneapolis and resources poured into the area from around the world in 2020 brewed distrust and resentment for some. “People are wondering, ‘well, how come these resources aren’t coming to me?’ and you’re just navigating just layers and layers of trauma,” she said. “So it’s not just the trauma of the lynching of a Black body in your neighborhood, it’s the trauma of systemic racism that has perpetually already existed in your neighborhood.” Jeanelle Austin collects dried offerings at the memorial for George Floyd at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis on June 25, 2020.Courtesy of Ben HovlandJeanelle also said George Floyd Square is meant to center Black people and protest, but these days most volunteers and visitors are white, so some Black people feel tokenized when they're there. Other Black people have told her it’s too hard to show up to the site of a traumatic event. Over 80 percent of Minnesotans are white “and I can’t control that. I can’t control white people showing up,” she said. “That’s always been a challenge for us,” she said. “How do we create spaces that are for Black healing, that are for the Black community, that are for Black love and culture, without having the white gaze and without having it be consumed by whiteness?” Trauma in protestCommunity organizing has also been a stressor for each sibling and their families. Jeanelle was already burnt out from protesting for Black lives when Minneapolis police murdered George Floyd in May 2020. She attended her first march in 2012 for 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, who was fatally shot by a neighborhood watchman in Florida, and had continued to march for other Black people killed in high-profile cases: Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Freddie Gray, Reginald Thomas Jr., Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. Jeanette Rupert (center right) comforts Katie Wright (center), as she addresses ers on April 12, 2021, the day after her son, Daunte Wright, was shot and killed by a police officer in Brooklyn Center, Minn.Ben Hovland | Sahan JournalAustin started organizing her own protests while working at a theological seminary in Pasadena, Calif. From there, she began to network with other activists and learn the work of community organizing. But activism would eventually drain her so much that in 2018, she would quit her job, move to Texas and just sleep for six months. She recalled protests in California and in Minneapolis where she watched in terror as people drove their vehicles straight into a crowd of demonstrators. She started a racial justice leadership company in 2019 to research how activism could be sustainable, and on returning to Minneapolis, she chose to become a memorial caretaker as her form of protest to avoid further burnout. But she said it was only this year that she decided to focus on her own health, resetting to move forward in a balanced way. “I haven’t really had hobbies in like five years,” she said. Fullscreen SlideshowPrevious Slide4 of 4Jeanelle Austin offers lunch to artist Mari Mansfield during a break from repainting the names on the Mourning age on Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis on May 3.Ben Hovland | MPR News1 of 4Jeanelle Austin guides visitors from Norway through the memorial for George Floyd at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis on May 3.Ben Hovland | MPR News2 of 4Jeanelle Austin (center) and Sharolyn Hagen check the spelling of one of the names on the Mourning age along Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis during a community cleanup day on May 3.Ben Hovland | MPR NewsNext SlideShe’s been running on fumes. She said the annual Rise & Festival consumes most of her energy. She also runs a summer internship program to get more Black and brown youth into the cultural heritage preservation industry. She sees herself as among “stewards of the collective memory” and said it comes with a weight. “You endure people’s grief coming out sideways, people’s trauma coming out sideways. All the trauma anniversaries that take place. All the frustration that people have around economics and capitalism and money and power,” said Jeanelle. “And it’s hard. It’s worrisome, trying to encourage people who are ready to throw in the towel, but you’re like, not yet.” Butchy and his wife Rachel Austin share a moment after the Chauvin trial verdict is announced at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis on April 20, 2021.Ben Hovland | Sahan JournalButchy said it’s only in the last six months that he’s become intentional about therapy and acknowledging he’s not OK. He said years of being immersed in the rhetoric, pain and anger of other activists had strained his relationships with his children and his wife. He realized he had been distancing himself from white friends and relatives, even though they had been good allies. “I developed some unhealthy and toxic ideas and perceptions around white people and I let stuff fester to the point where it became less about ing the Black community and more about my frustration with white people and associating their whiteness with my pain and my depression,” said Butchy. “I regret not getting healing in that sooner or not being aware that there need to be boundaries as far as how deep into my activism I got.” Jeanette Rupert leaves George Floyd Square with a 'jump bag' of medical equipment from the 612 MASH shed in Minneapolis Dec. 16, 2020. When Rupert is not working as an ICU nurse, she volunteers near the square giving medical aid and checking in on neighborhood residents in need of health care.Evan Frost | MPR NewsJeanette said being so involved came at the cost of time, peace of mind and self-care for her. She also received backlash from people at her church who disagreed with her ministry on the streets. She credits her ability to juggle so much to from her husband. A turning point in her community involvement was when her daughter experienced an emergency in 2023. Jeanette then decided to step back from 612 MASH and other volunteer work to focus on her children. “It was important for me that my family is healthy and whole,” she said. “We as activists have to that we have to take care of ourselves, and our ministry is first to our family before we serve everyone else.” Fullscreen SlideshowPrevious Slide3 of 3Jeanette Rupert sits next to her father’s grave at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis on May 9.Ben Hovland | MPR News1 of 3Jeanette Rupert says a prayer of gratitude at her father’s grave at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis on May 9. She visits the site only once every year on her birthday. Ben Hovland | MPR News2 of 3Jeanette Rupert stands over her father’s grave at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis on May 9.Ben Hovland | MPR NewsNext SlideTheir visions for the futureDespite the challenges and pain the past five years have brought, the siblings still have a sense of optimism for the future. Jeanelle is hoping to hire more staff for Rise and soon — right now she is the nonprofit’s sole full-time employee. Organizers also have a bid out to acquire the People’s Way, the former gas station at 38th & Chicago turned community space that the city currently owns. Jeanette, despite stepping back from some roles, still responds to calls from people seeking medical help and continues to families whose relatives were killed by police. However, now she said her work is “more heightened and more focused.” She has pivoted to working more with educational institutions with hopes of ensuring large-scale change towards health equity and has doubled down on faith leadership. In March, after years of both serving in youth ministry, she and her husband also started a church in their living room focused on meeting people where they’re at, not tied to traditional physical space. “I honestly believe that the pandemic, that’s where I truly as an individual grew. That my calling is to help people heal, not just naturally as my license as a nurse, but also as a minister, to help people heal mind, body, soul and spirit,” she said. Nurse and minister Jeanette Rupert leads George Floyd’s family and community memberes in a prayer and moment of silence at Say Their Names Cemetery in Minneapolis on the second anniversary of Floyd’s murder on May 25, 2022. Ben Hovland | Sahan JournalButchy said he’s met and connected with more people in the last five years than he had in the 15 or 20 years prior, building a strong network around 38th & Chicago. “A lot of us knew each other, but we didn't bond in a way that we were forced to bond in the wake of the uprising, in the wake of having military tanks rolling down your street and Black Hawk helicopters circling your home or media converging on your property, and white supremacists and other antagonists and instigators threatening your community,” said Butchy. “Community is really unique and it's really strong here,” said Jeanette, speaking about her family’s neighborhood. “I mean, you need a cup of sugar? Trust me, five, six people will be like, ‘I got you.’ If your tire breaks down, you can reach out and somebody will show up.” Each sibling talked about the power of community — in transforming the narrative of danger or disunity around 38th & Chicago, in ing each other, in working towards justice together, though it still feels like a lofty goal.  “You inch towards what looks like justice and then you find that there's another killing or another Black body on the ground,” said Jeanette. “What does justice look like? Because I feel like that ‘one step forward, two steps back.’” “The baseline work is just bringing imagination back to our people, getting people to be able to dream again,” said Jeanelle. Jeanelle and Butchy Austin play double dutch at the People’s Way at 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in Minneapolis during a community cookout on Aug. 31, 2020. Courtesy of Ben HovlandBut, more so in these years than ever, they have appreciated drawing and inspiration from family. “It's a blessing to be in close proximity to each other and be able to process with each other our highs and our lows as we navigate this work of racial justice, racial healing, community,” said Butchy.