More than a decade after an aquatic invasive species called starry stonewort was first discovered in Minnesota, it’s taking an ecological and economic toll on a growing number of the state’s beloved lakes.

Nicknamed the “lake killer” early on, the fast-growing algae can form dense mats that choke out native plants and tangle around boat motors and swimmers’ legs.

Since Minnesota confirmed its first infestation in 2015, it has spread to 40 water bodies, including Six Mile Lake in Cass County, which was confirmed just last week.

If caught early, starry stonewort is no longer considered a death sentence for lakes. Authorities, though, say it’s never been eradicated from any U.S. lake or river. It remains a costly problem with no permanent cure.

Researchers have found that chemical treatments or hand pulling can temporarily reduce the algae’s abundance, but don’t stop it from regenerating.

The problem is evident in Lake Koronis near Paynesville, the first Minnesota lake confirmed to have starry stonewort.

Initially, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources staff mistook it for a native species it resembles called chara. By the time starry stonewort was discovered at a public access in 2015, the invasive algae had already spread to 250 acres, an area about twice the size of the Mall of America.

“When it came in, it was winning the battle until we came along and started knocking it back,” said Kevin Farnum, aquatic invasive species manager for the Koronis Lake Association.

But Farnum acknowledged that the lake association’s efforts aren’t going to stop the invader permanently.

“Is it still finding areas where it can grow in the lake? Yeah, probably,” he said.

‘Don’t want to be known as that kind of lake’

Killing starry stonewort is challenging, because unlike plants, it doesn't have a vascular system that transports nutrients. Every stem or tiny branch is a single cell. So killing it requires bathing every cell in algaecide.

And even then, the treatment doesn’t wipe out the infestation. Starry stonewort can regenerate from tiny, star-shaped structures called bulbils left behind in the lake.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota’s Aquatic Invasive Species Research Center found that applying algaecide to starry stonewort can reduce its biomass. But it doesn't stop it from coming back the following year.

On a July morning, Farnum checked the lake to see how much starry stonewort had grown by tossing a metal rake attached to a long rope over the side of his boat.

Slowly, hand over hand, he pulled in the rake loaded with what looked like bushy, bright-green weeds. Except for a few strands of chara, “that’s all starry stonewort,” he said.

When the invasive algae was first found in Minnesota, the situation was grim. Farnum and other Lake Koronis property owners launched an effort to save their lake.

“We've had situations where people that should be very athletic have said, ‘I got tangled up, and it was kind of scary,’” he said. “We don't want to be known as that kind of a lake.”

They started with a mechanical harvester, cutting and removing dense mats of starry stonewort. It cleared some areas, but the algae quickly grew back.

So they tried another strategy: surveying the lake, identifying the most heavily infested spots and treating those with a copper-based algaecide. A contractor applies the chemical by dragging a weighted hose along the lake bottom.

“It's a little bit like the game of Whac-a-Mole,” Farnum said. “You just keep knocking it down wherever it's the highest. And you hope that you don't have to repeat it in the same year.”

It's a costly battle. Every year, Lake Koronis spends about $170,000 controlling starry stonewort. The money comes from a local watershed district, which has the authority to levy property owners, as well as a grant from the DNR. So far, residents haven’t pushed back much on the cost.

If left untreated, it’s possible that starry stonewort could eventually reach an equilibrium with native plants, Farnum said. But that could mean the algae spreads throughout the lake. “We don't think people are going to want that,” he added.

Early detection is critical

One positive finding from the past decade: Researchers have learned that if they find starry stonewort early, they have a better chance of keeping it contained.

“What we can do when it's found early in small isolated populations is use hand pulling to contain it, and that's proven to be really effective,” said Dan Larkin, an aquatic plant researcher at the University of Minnesota.

That’s been the strategy on Rush Lake, part of the Whitefish Chain of Lakes north of Brainerd.

In early July, divers from the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe combed the bottom of a channel where starry stonewort was first discovered two years ago.

They used a method called diver-assisted suction harvesting, or DASH. It doesn’t use chemicals. Instead, the divers pull the algae from the lake bottom with long suction tubes and send it up to a floating barge.

Workers on the barge filter out the plant material into mesh bags for disposal, and release the filtered water back into the lake.

Early detection and quick action helped prevent a catastrophe, said Tony Coffey, president of the Whitefish Area Property Owners Association. If starry stonewort had escaped into the main part of the channel, it could have spread across Rush Lake — or the entire Whitefish chain, he said.

“Containing it on one acre is one thing,” Coffey said. “Containing it on 14,000 (acres) is just not going to work."

The Whitefish association now combines hand pulling with chemical treatments to keep the starry stonewort contained to that one spot. At the end of last summer, divers found only a small amount, Coffey said.

Property owners pay for the effort through annual dues and donations. They even bought a remote-operated vehicle to search the lake bottom for signs the algae has spread.

Costly battle with no end in sight

There’s no clear statewide price tag for fighting starry stonewort and the problem continues to grow. And there’s still a lot researchers don’t know about starry stonewort’s effects on water quality, fish and native vegetation, including wild rice.

While the invasive algae has now been confirmed in 40 Minnesota water bodies, the size of the infestations varies from year to year. Lake conditions and weather can play a big role.

“Not every lake that gets starry stonewort is going to end up like Koronis,” Larkin said.

Once an invasive species is in a lake, the DNR typically does not treat it directly. Instead, they issue permits to lake associations, local governments or property owners to mechanically remove or chemically treat it.

Of the 482 permits issued last year, most were for curly-leaf pondweed or Eurasian water milfoil, according to a DNR report. Thirty-two permits — about 7 percent of the state total —were targeting starry stonewort, mostly in northwestern and central Minnesota.

The DNR also provides grants for invasive species management. In previous years, the grants totaled about $400,000 statewide.

This year, the total jumped to about $1.4 million, said Michael Verhoeven, a DNR natural resources consultant. The increase follows a legislative change that raised the surcharge on Minnesota boat licenses to fund aquatic invasive species work.

But local resources available to manage and control starry stonewort vary from lake to lake. Even when a lake has an association, it might not be as well resourced or financed as Whitefish, Larkin said.

“Other places aren't going to be able to have money in the bank and have the really engaged, knowledgeable people to be able to jump in,” he said.

Some Minnesota lake groups are turning to technology to keep starry stonewort from spreading to more lakes.

At a public landing on Grand Lake in Stearns County, a motion-activated speaker greets boaters, and reminds them to inspect their boats and trailers and remove any aquatic plants or animals. A video camera watches to see whether they’re dragging plant fragments.

"It'll pick up the license number on the boat, so you can track the boat, and it'll pick up detail where you can see a little teeny weed on the trailer,” said Jim Bartelme, who has lived on Grand Lake since 1952.

Bartelme has helped combat starry stonewort since it was discovered there in 2017. Divers hand-pull the plant four times a year and so far, have managed to keep it from spreading, he said.

"What we wanted to make sure is to contain it, and we didn't end up like Koronis with it all over the lake,” Bartelme said. “We've been able to do that.”

Last year, the lake improvement district added chemical treatments, too. But Bartelme said no matter what they do, starry stonewort ends up in the sediment at the lake bottom, where chemicals can't reach.

"By the end of summer, early September, we normally have it down to nothing almost,” he said. “Then we come back in July, and there it is."

‘If we stop, what’s going to happen?’

Grand Lake residents want to keep starry stonewort from spreading to other water bodies, Bartelme said. In addition to the camera system, they installed a self-serve power-washing station for boaters leaving the lake.

On a recent summer day, Bob Litfin of St. Cloud and his grandson, Jaydyn Johnson, sprayed their boat and trailer after a day of fishing, washing away any invasive species that might have hitched a ride.

“It's just one of those things that people either they didn't know about, or they didn't take care of it when they pulled their boat out,” Litfin said.

Every year, the Minnesota Aquatic Invasive Species Research Center hosts “Starry Trek,” a one-day statewide search for starry stonewort in Minnesota lakes. Volunteers receive training, then are sent to nearby lakes to bring back any suspicious-looking species.

About 1 in 4 new infestations of starry stonewort in Minnesota were discovered by Starry Trek volunteers, Larkin said.

He noted that the "lake killer" moniker used by the media when starry stonewort was first discovered was hyperbolic. Still, the algae has created ecological and recreational problems and made itself another invasive plant that Minnesotans need to manage.

Forty Minnesota lakes are now wrestling with the thorny question of how to keep this aggressive invasive species in check into the future.

Farnum’s encouraged that a younger generation is taking up the fight. His granddaughter, Ezri, was a teenager when starry stonewort was first discovered in the lake. Now 23, she’s president of the Koronis Lake Association.

“It's nice to have the younger people involved,” Farnum said. “They need to be involved because they're the ones that are going to have it in the future and have to deal with it."

At the same time, he acknowledges that keeping up the battle against starry stonewort is challenging. He doesn’t know how long they’ll be able to sustain the effort.

"Part of the problem,” he said, “is if we stop, what's going to happen?"

It’s 43 days to the election, do you know where your U.S. Senate candidates are?

The race for Minnesota’s open Senate seat is oddly quiet with a little more than six weeks to go.

It’s a contrast to the blistering pace of rallies and parades, publicized campaign stops and barrage of ads seen before the August primary set up the race between Democratic nominee Peggy Flanagan and Republican nominee Michele Tafoya.

Beyond the days both spent at the Minnesota State Fair, the campaigns have had a low-key, almost underground feel.

Press conferences have been virtually nonexistent, as is the case with policy rollouts. Debates are seen as iffy even as both campaigns profess to want them. Events where the candidates do appear are not advertised in advance and mainly show up as social media clips later.

Flanagan, the sitting lieutenant governor, appeared at some union-organized Labor Day events and other community gatherings. Tafoya, a former sports broadcaster making her initial run for office, has popped up in greater Minnesota and in interviews with conservative outlets.

Even as both camps have started to air TV ads, it’s nowhere near the amount seen in the governor’s race. Outside groups haven’t really stepped in either.

“I always sort of say in politics is define or be defined, and what I find interesting is that the Republicans aren't yet aren't defining Flanagan, and Tafoya is not defining herself,” said Hamline University political science professor David Schultz.

MPR News contacted both campaigns and reviewed social media updates from the candidates to see what they’ve been up to lately.

Go now, post later

For each, it’s been a mix of metro-area and greater Minnesota events. Flanagan has attended several events with organized labor in Duluth, open streets in Minneapolis, a Mexican independence day celebration in Minneapolis, among other appearances.

Tafoya visited businesses in northern Minnesota, including a safety glass company in Pine River, a parade in Jordan and the opening of a Minnesota military museum at Camp Ripley.

Schultz said both campaigns appear to have a lot of money at their disposal.

“You would be thinking at this point that right on the edge of early voting, or going into the early voting period, is when I would start to see all that money being unloaded,” he said.

Both campaigns purchased commercial time for the coming weeks, targeting morning and evening news shows along with widely viewed college and professional football games.

Fraud is a focus

In those ads and social media posts, Tafoya has focused on social services fraud that occurred during Gov. Tim Walz’s tenure when Flanagan was his second-in-command.

“Peggy Flanagan ignored warning signs while fraudsters stole our tax dollars,” Tafoya writes in one post on X. “She has spent eight years as lieutenant governor in the Walz administration, yet now wants Minnesotans to believe she had nothing to do with its failures.”

For Flanagan, the fraud issue has been an albatross. Tafoya and other opponents said she can’t easily escape the millions of dollars in fraud and should have done more to stop it.

Flanagan has responded by saying she’s “appalled by the fraud,” adding she was not the point person on the issue.

“The governor has taken the lead here. And the administration has been aggressive internally in working to stop fraud, prevent it from happening in the first place,” Flanagan said in a primary debate on MPR in July. “And I think the measures that have been passed through the legislature, in particular, this office, this independent Office of Inspector General, I think, is powerful.”

Debates coming?

Flanagan’s campaign has agreed to two debates so far, including one MPR News would host and another hosted by KBJR in Duluth. Tafoya’s campaign has not confirmed if she’ll participate in either or others she’s contemplating.

Schultz said that might be by design.

“I think she’s benefiting right now from being an unknown quantity politically,” he said. “Obviously people know her from her sports announcing and so forth like that.”

Flanagan’s campaign has also been active on social media, opening attacks on Tafoya by tying her to President Donald Trump and the winter immigration enforcement surge.

When a political candidate doesn’t have a political record, it can be tougher on their opponents to sift through their record.

But like former U.S. Sen. Al Franken, Tafoya came into politics after previously hosting local radio and podcast programs where she’s interviewed guests and staked out positions.

When concerns over Franken’s past writing and comedy bits were brought up in his 2008 run, Franken first said it was his job as a comedian. But he later apologized for jokes that were offensive.

Podcast scrutinized

Tafoya's long-running podcast has begun to get some scrutiny.

Last week, Punchbowl News highlighted several episodes in which Tafoya showcased guests who participated in the Jan, 6, 2021 Capitol riot and faced charges for their actions.

Tafoya defended them and argued that the U.S. Justice Department under President Joe Biden was used politically.

In one interview reviewed by MPR News, Tafoya interviewed actor Jay Johnston, who was convicted of charges that included handing a stolen U.S. Capitol police shield to other rioters. He was sentenced to a year and a day in prison, but was pardoned by Trump on his first day back in the White House. On her podcast, Johnston said he was caught up in the moment but did nothing wrong.

“I am so sorry you went through this,” Tafoya said. “It’s so agonizing to hear these stories from people who really did nothing wrong and for political reasons, in the United freaking States of America, went through what you went through is sort of impossible to believe.”

She hosted other Jan. 6 participants, saying it appears they were unfairly prosecuted and punished.

Flanagan’s team has also linked to episodes of Tafoya’s podcast.

In one post, Flanagan writes, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them,” linking to a video of Tafoya’s podcast in which she says many “good people” were “caught up in the shuffle” and arrested during the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Tafoya’s campaign didn’t respond to an MPR News inquiry but issued a statement on behalf of the candidate to Punchbowl News: “I’m a journalist who’s recorded hundreds of interviews. It’s easy to take things out of context.”

Tafoya didn’t specify what was taken out of context, but she added: “All violent criminals must be prosecuted — from the criminals who assaulted cops on January 6th to the rioters, looters and carjackers here in Minnesota who got off easy under Peggy Flanagan,” the statement said.

So far, Minnesota’s race hasn’t risen on the national radar in the same way as competitive contests in Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Texas and other states.

“What we're seeing is that when the Republicans are assessing the seats that they need to hold and the ones that they have the best shot at picking up,” Schultz said. “Minnesota might still come down a little bit further on the list.”

Without a GOP infusion, national Democratic groups don’t appear to be investing either.

Flanagan navigated an expensive and bruising primary to win the nomination over Democratic U.S. Rep. Angie Craig. Right away, Craig threw her support behind Flanagan and the two clasped hands at a party unity event.

Tafoya, who is regarded as a more-moderate GOP candidate than past nominees, did not get the immediate backing of her main primary opponent, Adam Schwarze. He had the party’s convention endorsement but couldn’t convert that into the nomination.

Schwarze, who had the backing of hardline Republicans, said that since the primary he reached out to Tafoya’s campaign five times to see how he can help. He said Friday that he has not heard back.

“I’m just trying to be a team player and help,” he said. “I’m just disappointed that there wasn’t an opportunity to mend the fences and show a unified front.”

A group home in Brooklyn Center run by a government official in Liberia billed the state for numerous services its residents did not need or did not receive, a state investigation found.

The findings released last week stemmed from a Health Department investigation that began two days after MPR News and APM Reports published an extensive report on the owner of the group home company, Sekou Dukuly. Until a month ago, Dukuly acted as the licensed assisted living director for three Golden Touch Health Care group homes in the Twin Cities suburbs, even though he was living in Liberia and serving as managing director of its National Port Authority.

The Health Department investigation, which centered on just one of those group homes, determined it was mathematically impossible for the facility to provide all the services it billed to the state, given the number of employees scheduled to work on many days.

The combined service hours outlined for three of the group home’s four residents totaled at least 45 hours per day in July and August, according to the investigation. But the group home often had just one staff member on site per shift. Even accounting for the manager, who also worked at the company’s two other group homes, the investigation determined the facility could provide at most 32 hours of services to its residents on those days.

The investigation found many of those services weren’t even necessary. The records show the group home charged Minnesota’s Medicaid program to help residents with socializing, preparing meals, arranging transportation for appointments and monitoring medications. Staff were also supposed to help some residents with bathing, grooming and dressing. But the investigation concluded that the residents were capable of doing many of those activities themselves.

One resident with chronic pain told investigators she did not receive any help from staff, according to the report. She said she prepared her own meals, cleaned her room and managed her own medications. The resident said she had only seen the facility’s nurse “once or twice” in the two to three months she had been living there and that the staff “don’t talk to her.” She also said she complained to an administrator about the lack of activities but didn’t hear back. The report said she met Dukuly only once, when she had to sign paperwork.

Another resident said she managed all her own prescriptions, even though the group home billed the government for three drug-related services: setting up her medications, reminding her to take them and documenting when she did. The group home told investigators it did not have those documents.

The investigators compared care plans for three of the group home residents against records documenting the services they received. Such a comparison was not possible for the fourth resident, because some of his files were unavailable due to a change in case managers.

The group home told the state it provided every required service for the fourth resident, who was recovering from a stroke. But for a 17-day period, staff did not document providing most of those services. The facility’s nurse blamed a technical “glitch,” but investigators pointed out that the group home’s records indicated the resident received some services, including making the bed each morning. The facility also had records for the other three residents, something that “would not indicate a system error,” according to the report.

The group home also billed for at least 13 hours a day of mental health management the residents did not need, according to the report. The state pays a minimum of $26 an hour for mental health management in Health Department-licensed group homes, which would add up to more than $10,000 each month.

“It’s just really concerning,” said Marcus Schmit, the executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “We really need to think about human services redesign so that the dollars that we're dedicating to vulnerable Minnesotans are actually providing the services that they deserve.”

Dukuly, through his attorney, declined to comment. But Chad Blumenfield, an attorney for Golden Touch Health Care, wrote the conclusions in the state report “omitted critical context.” He said the level of care for residents is supposed to be “flexible.”

“Golden Touch is confident its residents have received the care they need from a strong team of health care professionals with extensive experience,” Blumenfield wrote in an emailed statement.

Over the past decade, Dukuly has had a hand in 24 group homes in the Twin Cities metro area, mostly in the northwest suburbs. During that time, the state paid companies linked to him $36 million dollars, including just over $4 million to Golden Touch Health Care between 2022 and 2024, according to Minnesota Open Checkbook, a state website that tracks government spending.

The Department of Human Services said it would not confirm if those numbers are accurate, and it did not provide detail on the amount Golden Touch Health Care allegedly overbilled the Medicaid program, which it oversees. It also has not fulfilled a public records request for data on state payments to the company filed two months ago.

As part of its initial investigation in August, the Health Department issued an immediate temporary suspension against the three group homes run by Dukuly, including the one in Brooklyn Center where the alleged overbilling was later found. That administrative action allowed the department to begin relocating residents to other facilities. The Health Department is also in the process of finalizing a license revocation.

“We are working more closely together (with other state agencies) than ever to ensure problems are found, bad actors are identified and situations are elevated and addressed quickly,” a Health Department spokesman wrote in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Minnesota Department of Human Services temporarily suspended payments to Golden Touch Health Care, citing “credible allegations of Medicaid fraud.”

“Intentionally billing for services not provided is fraud,” a spokesperson for the Department of Human Services wrote in a statement in response to the Health Department’s investigation.

The spokesperson noted that the Human Services Department is still withholding payments from Golden Touch, but that “is not a final determination that fraud has been found.” If the department does conclude fraud was committed, it can seek to terminate Golden Touch from Medicaid, the statement added.

Blumenfield said the state’s payment freeze against the company is unfounded.

According to documents Blumenfield provided, the Department of Human Services justified withholding payments by pointing not to Dukuly, but to Golden Touch Health Care’s co-founder, Emmanuel Williams. According to the documents, the state is currently investigating allegations that another company owned by Williams, Ancora Healthcare, billed for services it did not provide between August 2023 and September 2025. Blumenfield also provided documents showing Williams sold his ownership share in Golden Touch Health Care to Dukuly in 2022.

“We have provided this information to DHS, but DHS has refused to lift the payment suspension,” Blumenfield wrote in an email. “This is manifestly unfair.”

Williams did not respond to requests for comment. Public records indicate he and Dukuly still have financial ties. Dukuly owns a property where Ancora is licensed to provide community support services, but Blumenfield said Dukuly never had an ownership stake or any other role in the company itself.

Yusuf Yusuf drives his truck 4,000 miles every week.

Yusuf has been a truck driver for nine years, and he thinks the current price of diesel fuel is "crazy." And says his boss's main concern right now is saving as much fuel as possible.

He recounted a story of how he had to fill the tank of his semi-truck in California, where diesel is over $8 per gallon. He said, at the time, his boss questioned why he would do that because of the high prices of fueling up in the state.

Diesel prices in Minnesota are the highest they've ever been, currently costing drivers over $6 per gallon, according to AAA. Prices have increased by over $2 per gallon since the U.S. Began its war against in Iran in March and Ukraine struck Russian oil refineries over a week ago.

"As a driver I can get good money, but when you get a load and get $3,000 [for a tank of] fuel, you see that's already negative though, and [in] some states you can't even get a load like California, that's the place I mostly go, and it's too high," Yusuf said.

High diesel prices are having a wider impact across the economy. The Minnesota Department of Transportation is also feeling negative effects on their budget.

"The greatest impact, the direct impact that we will see with increasing diesel prices, really centers around our winter operations," Jed Falgren, the department's maintenance engineer said. "We have our plow trucks out all year long supporting other operations, but our greatest use of diesel fuel occurs when we're in our snow and ice removal processes during the winter."

MNDot operates 850 diesel powered plow trucks which burn through thousands of gallons of diesel every year, especially in the winter. In the warmer months, their trucks burn through 75,000-80,000 gallons of diesel per month, but when winter hits, they burn through 150,000-160,000 gallons per month month, Falgren said.

"Short-term we look at doing some of the same things that anybody would do, is there a way we can drive less," he said. "Is there a way we can look at maximizing our fuel economy? Making sure that our fleet is in as good a condition as possible?”

“We'll continue to do those kinds of things, but unfortunately, there ends up just being a limit on how much you can do on a technology that is so critical for us to do the work that we do."

Falgren said they've explored long-term solutions like using hydrogen as a potential fuel, but it won't help the short-term issues.

Ben Froehlich is the Vice President of Operations for Volk Transfer, Inc., a carrier based out of Mankato. Froehlich said their fleet of 40 trucks has already driven nearly 9 million miles so far this year.

"We've done a little more on our routing. We were running pretty lean prior to this, so there wasn't a whole lot of room for improvement," Froehlich said. "A lot of our savings really has come down to changing in habits the drivers have had. [We’re] paying more attention to what they're doing, [they’re] paying more attention to what they're doing."

Volk freight truck drivers usually fill up 200 to 240 gallons at a time, and the cost has doubled to more than $1,200, according to Froehlich.

"We're not going to stop moving freight because fuel's expensive. Our job is to become more efficient and continue to taking care of the customers," he added. "But if diesel does retain the $6 per gallon or higher pricing, it is going to change the economics of trucking, and ultimately that will it will come downstream to the consumer more than it already has."

Ahmad Ibrahim owns Reyhana Transportation in Blaine with a fleet of six trucks. He said they deliver mainly to Wisconsin and Iowa, driving around 7,000 miles a week.

"The price of diesel affects the farmers. [But] it can affect everybody, no matter what you do, no matter how good your business is, because fuel is the is the main resource for this country," Ibrahim said.

Ibrahim said he had to raise rates for his customers, but it isn't even enough to cover the fuel costs.

"Every time the price goes up, we get affected right away," he said.

Ibrahim added he'd seen a lot of people leave the trucking business due to the cost.

"If you’re coming to me and said, 'Hey, I'd like to open a trucking business right now,’ I will tell you, ‘Go fly. Don't even think about it,’" Ibrahim said.

And high fuel prices affect a company’s ability to operate and stay in business.

"What we've seen happening is some contraction in the industry. We've seen some companies literally just exit, shut the door," said John Hausladen, president of the Minnesota Trucking Association. "We've seen some sell to other fleets, we've seen a number of fleets actually reduce the number of trucks that they are operating and we have actually seen a reduction in the number of truck drivers."

Although the number of truck drivers is decreasing, he said trucking won't go away. That decrease will instead affect consumer goods.

"Because trucks run on diesel, and virtually everything spends time on a truck, this will translate directly into increased prices to consumers," Hausladen said. "Some of those increases have already taken place. That's just the nature of what transportation is."

It was supposed to be another boring school board meeting.

That’s how most of the summer meetings usually are for Detroit Lakes Public Schools, board member Julie Smith-Yliniemi said, and there was no indication July 27 would be any different.

“We always have something called a bridge meeting the week before, so that we can talk about the agenda or if there's anything that anyone wants to talk about,” she said. “Nothing came up.”

Until the meeting actually started.

“Right away there was a motion to amend the agenda, and that was a surprise motion to two of us (and) the superintendent,” Smith-Yliniemi said.

That motion added a resolution that would make Detroit Lakes the latest Minnesota school district to ban the display of materials such as rainbow stickers, flags and buttons in schools. The rainbow is a global symbol of LGBTQ+ pride and acceptance dating back to the 1970s.

In this case, the resolution targeted the “safe space” rainbow stickers some teachers have in their classrooms to signal acceptance to students.

The resolution passed 4-2 that same morning, without any public input.

“I was blindsided,” said Smith-Yliniemi, the only board member to respond to MPR’s request for comment. “We were blindsided by this. I'm angry, but I am angry for our community as well because they deserve better than what they have gotten from our board.”

Amidst a backlash from community members, including Smith-Yliniemi, who voted against the ban, the board is now discussing a revised resolution that overhauls district policy about prohibited materials and avoids mentioning rainbows specifically.

And meanwhile, the stickers are still up.

Critics of the rainbow pride ban

The move to ban rainbows surprised many in Detroit Lakes.

“They didn't get a lot of the public conversation before they put this bill into motion, and as a result, a lot of people feel like they were very alienated by the process,” said Rebelle Marie, president of Detroit Lakes Pride.

She said the school board did not seem to be respecting the idea that “the public school is a public institution for the community at large.”

It would be a month before the next school board meeting, and confusion and concern spread throughout the community as to the exact scope of the ban and the effect it would have.

The two-sentence resolution seemed vague enough that it could apply as narrowly to only official school displays or as broadly to banning decals on students’ own backpacks.

“It was written in a way that was too broad, and so it seemed to target teachers, students, staff and parents who are a part of the district and politicize their identity,” Marie said.

On Aug. 24, the public was given its first chance to officially comment on the resolution. Nearly 100 people packed the room. Nineteen people spoke during public comment, and all but three opposed the ban.

Kerry Claypool-Lambert argued the stickers are there to support marginalized students and can save lives. She’s a mother of three children that graduated from Detroit Lakes High School and shared statistics that LGBTQ+ youth are more likely to attempt suicide.

“The one thing that can help these children is affirming spaces and supportive adults,” she said. “Having that can save a life, and by removing this support from schools, you are putting the lives of children like mine at risk.”

Not everyone sees ‘safe space’ stickers as inclusive

On the other side, some supporters of the ban argue that the stickers aren’t politically neutral and therefore shouldn’t be displayed by teachers.

Travis Janich said he’s been asking school administrators to do something about these stickers for years. He’s a pastor at True Life Church in Detroit Lakes and said not everyone sees safe space stickers as inclusive.

At the meeting he shared a letter from a student who wrote they were severely bullied by a peer who identified as LGBTQ+.

But when the student sought help from a teacher, Janich said they didn’t feel comfortable opening up about who had bullied them.

“The student walked up to the door and saw that pride sticker, and they felt that that teacher has already sided with that community, that they couldn't find help,” Janich told MPR in an interview. “And that's where my heart broke.”

He added that all teachers should offer a safe space for all students, so the stickers shouldn’t be necessary.

“It's how we live with each other,” he said. “It's how we communicate with each other. It's building the trust and so — our teachers, our school, our administrators — we need to be building trust in our students that they know they can come talk to us.”

Meeting attendees discussed a new resolution to pause the ban until it could be revised by the district’s legal counsel, who had already urged the board privately not to go through with the ban as written, according to Smith-Yliniemi.

Still, the resolution to delay the ban failed. But the meeting still ended in confusion that hasn’t yet been cleared up publicly.

Board member Sandy Nelson, who introduced the ban and voted against pausing it, was asked by Superintendent Mark Jenson whether the stickers should come down now.

“As far as I'm concerned, no,” Nelson said, telling Jenson to wait until the attorney advised further on the resolution’s language. This caused an uproar in the room, with some asking the board to vote again on the pause to make it official. They did not.

Rainbow ban in limbo

Even though the last successful action by the board was July’s resolution to ban rainbows, the stickers haven’t been removed from teachers’ classrooms, Smith-Yliniemi said.

But that might not be the case for much longer, with another school board meeting looming.

In a work session Tuesday, the board will consider a new version of the district’s policy on the display of “non-school-sponsored materials.”

The new version does not explicitly ban rainbows. But it does remove the recognition of students’ and employees' free speech rights and limits employees from displaying any non-approved flags.

“I believe it is to hide the true intent of what was originally wanted,” Smith-Yliniemi said. “Which is to get these stickers down. They’re trying to find a way to continue that while avoiding legal problems.”

5 years after Marshall’s pride flag dispute

Detroit Lakes is not the first Minnesota community divided over rainbows in schools. A few years ago in southern Minnesota, the city of Marshall wrestled with the issue, too.

In late 2019, Marshall Middle School installed a display of about 30 flags that was meant to celebrate the diverse identities of the students, including the city’s burgeoning immigrant population.

There was also a pride flag.

For more than a year, disputes over the display fueled discord between Mary Kay Thomas, the principal who championed the flags, and members of the school board.

Thomas refused to take down the display and was eventually demoted following a district investigation into her workplace conduct.

She sued, arguing the district retaliated against her for protected speech. Her federal lawsuit was dismissed, and she is currently appealing a Minnesota lawsuit that was also dismissed, according to her attorney David Schlesinger.

Around the same time as Thomas’ demotion, the district settled a separate lawsuit with a group called Marshall Concerned Citizens that opposed the flag. In the settlement, the district agreed to remove the entire display.

It’s been about five years since its removal.

Anne Veldhuisen is a pastor in Marshall and a mom of two middle schoolers. She considers herself an ally of the LGBTQ+ community.

She said while the flag came down, more good has actually come from the controversy than bad.

“For the city of Marshall and for the surrounding communities, it became a way for us to rally together,” she said.

For example, the city’s annual Pride festival was born out of the controversy. Activist Julie Walker, who’s also director of the LGBTQ+ Center at Southwest Minnesota State University, co-founded it.

“We sat at a picnic table and we said, ‘We need to figure out ways that we can show queer kids that while there is this lawsuit happening in town, that there is also a lot more acceptance than what they might be able to visibly see in town,’” Walker said.

This year marked the city’s sixth Pride celebration.

Veldhuisen said in recent years, there are also more spaces out in the community that are openly inclusive, like the Brau Brothers Brewery in Marshall, which hosts an annual drag show.

“But beyond just these events, to walk around our town or the surrounding communities, there is a sense of welcome and a sense of understanding that each person's journey is a little bit different from the next,” Veldhuisen said.

But there’s still work to do, Walker said.

“We have many businesses and organizations and even individuals who say, ‘I would love to support this. I would love to provide these resources. But I need to do so anonymously because I'm afraid of some of the pushback in this area,’” she said.

Inside the middle school, a gay-straight alliance, or GSA, club formed while the flag was still up.

“Students were being harassed for being a part of the club,” she said. “Students were having their club posters taken off the wall and ripped in half in front of them. There were threats against students in the school district.”

The club hasn’t met regularly for years. Walker said it’s been hard finding an advisor as the public conversation around LGBTQ+ issues has grown more heated in recent years.

“We’re in an age right now where there’s risks associated with being an advisor and meeting in that public way, especially in a public school,” she said.

Walker, whose children identify as LGBTQ+ in the Marshall school district, said she’s worried about the mental health of students in Detroit Lakes who don’t know who they can trust.

In the absence of the stickers, she said adults in Detroit Lakes will need to make an extra effort to signal their safety.

“As a queer person myself, I don't assume that I'm safe in any space that I enter,” she said. “I think the concern is that we're removing these visible spaces that tell kids that they're safe.”

Special thanks to Danger Boat Productions and the Minnesota Humanities Center for their Sketches of Minnesota events around the state that helped inform this report.

Dallas Turner threw Tyson Bagent to the ground, then took off down the field in celebration. It rained on his parade, for sure, but that was just fine with him.

Turner had two of Minnesota's four sacks, including his takedown of Bagent on the final play, and the Vikings shut down Caleb Williams and the Chicago Bears for a damp 9-3 victory on Sunday.

“I feel like, just preparing myself for these moments, ever since I was in college,” said Turner, a third-year linebacker who also had a sack during a 39-22 win over Green Bay in Week 1. “I feel like it’s very important, just keep on showing up every single day to execute at a high level.”

Isaiah Rodgers recovered a fumble and blocked a late field-goal attempt as Minnesota improved to 2-0 for the first time since it opened the 2024 season with five consecutive wins. Aaron Jones rushed for 105 yards and Will Reichard kicked three field goals, including a 39-yarder with 1:09 left.

The Vikings earned their seventh consecutive win at Soldier Field, matching the franchise record for consecutive road wins over a division opponent. They won seven straight at Detroit from 1968-74 and seven straight on the road against Green Bay from 1971-77.

“Defense was unreal. It was a gritty game, gritty game for the whole team,” Minnesota quarterback Carson Wentz said.

Williams left with a right hamstring injury midway through the fourth quarter, silencing a drenched crowd of 58,914. The No. 1 pick in the 2024 draft was 15 for 26 for 138 yards, and he had five carries for 42 yards.

“We’ll see how bad it is tomorrow and we’ll go from there,” Bears coach Ben Johnson said.

Johnson called the plays as Chicago (1-1) rolled to 291 yards rushing and 552 yards overall in a 59-37 victory at Carolina in Week 1. It was the highest-scoring season opener in NFL history.

But Johnson and the Bears were stymied by Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores and his usual aggressive approach. Led by Turner and Blake Cashman, Minnesota limited Chicago to 297 total yards. Cashman had 10 tackles and a sack, and Byron Murphy Jr. intercepted an ill-advised throw by Williams in the first quarter.

“I really loved the game plan from the time Flo and I sat down on Tuesday, and just kind of the way him and the staff wanted to attack, wanted to make sure that we were just playing really good sound defense," Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell said.

Williams got hurt on a scramble deep in Minnesota territory. The third-year quarterback, who passed for two touchdowns and rushed for two more in the opener, was helped off the field.

Bagent came in and passed to D’Andre Swift for 1 yard before throwing an incomplete pass on third down. Johnson then sent Cairo Santos on for a 23-yard field goal, but it was blocked by Rodgers.

After Wentz drove Minnesota to Reichard’s third field goal, Chicago had one last opportunity. Bagent found Rome Odunze for 21 yards and Luther Burden for 8 to move the ball to the Vikings 12.

Following a pair of incompletions, Bagent was wrapped up by Turner on the final play.

“Man, D.T. just keeps showing up,” O'Connell said.

Wentz was 11 for 20 for 143 yards, and Justin Jefferson had three receptions for 55 yards. Wentz got the start with Kyler Murray working his way through the NFL concussion protocol.

“It’s been an interesting offseason for me personally and everything, but I knew I was here for a reason,” Wentz said. “I knew if called upon, I could help this team win games.”

Trailing 6-3, Williams drove Chicago to first-and-goal on the 1 on the first drive of the second half. But Swift fumbled on a hit by Jalen Redmond and Rodgers recovered for Minnesota (2-0).

“Even at the end we had a chance to win the game,” Swift said. “If I don’t give the ball up and we get points right there it might be a different outcome for us. I’ll be better.”

The teams exchanged field goals on the opening drives of the game. Jefferson’s 30-yard reception helped set up Reichard’s 35-yarder, and Williams’ 19-yard run was the big play in Chicago’s drive to Santos’ 50-yard field goal.

Injuries

Vikings: DL Tyrion Ingram-Dawkins suffered a right hip injury. ... Cashman left with 10:35 left in the third but he returned. ... O'Connell said he thinks Murray will clear concussion protocol early this week.

Bears: CB Tyrique Stevenson had a hamstring injury.

Up next

Vikings: At the Tampa Bay Buccaneers next Sunday.

Bears: Host the Philadelphia Eagles on Sept. 28.

President Trump has revealed plans to make his proposed 250-foot arch in Washington, D.C. serve as a "military complex", including areas for military snipers and large amounts of weaponry. Trump said military operations at the triumphal arch are needed to protect national security, in a post on Truth Social.

"At the strong request of the United States Military, and for National Security purposes, I have agreed to convert the magnificent Triumphal Arch... into a top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch," Trump wrote on the social media platform.

Trump added that the arch near the National Mall will "house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage."

The administration's plans to build the arch between Arlington National Cemetery and the Lincoln Memorial have been met with opposition. It would be twice the height of the Lincoln Memorial. More than 100,000 people submitted comments to the National Park Service as part of its review of the arch proposal.

The arch has also faced legal opposition. Earlier this month, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkin ordered the government to provide the court with 48 hours' notice before moving forward with any activity on Memorial Circle.

The order warned any construction or demolition before the NPS issues final authorization would be a violation of the court. A group of Vietnam War veterans and an architectural historian filed the lawsuit alleging the arch would desecrate the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery. The plaintiffs also claim the president doesn't have the authority to build the arch without approval from Congress.

Chutkin's order came the day after Interior Secretary Doug Burgum wrote on X the administration planned to break ground on an arch within two weeks, despite still awaiting final approval from the National Capital Planning Commission and other federal reviews. In his post, Burgum called the proposed arch the "Great Triumphal Arch and Military Observation Deck."

Trump has also framed his plans for a White House ballroom as a matter of national security. Speaking to reporters in March, he said: "the military is building a big complex under the ballroom." Despite opposition from heritage groups, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed construction of the ballroom to continue in a ruling in August.

Trump's Truth Social post on Sunday added: "There will be no facility like this anywhere in the World. Out of the 59 top cities and Capitals, Washington, D.C., IS THE ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD THAT DOES NOT HAVE A TRIUMPHAL ARCH, but it will now and, by far, the greatest of them all!"

Copyright 2026, NPR

Napheesa Collier scored 23 points, Olivia Miles added 21 and the Minnesota Lynx beat the Connecticut Sun 101-89 on Sunday to get closer to clinching the top seed in the WNBA playoffs.

The Lynx (32-10) moved within one win or Golden State loss from earning home-court advantage throughout the postseason. Minnesota closes with a home-and-home set against Indiana.

A big reason for the Lynx's success this season has been the play of Miles. She broke the WNBA rookie record for points in a season that was held by Caitlin Clark. Miles got her 770th point on a free throw with 9:31 left in the second quarter. Clark finished with 769 points for Indiana in 2024.

The Lynx, who had lost three straight games, jumped out to an 11-2 lead in the first 3:30 as Collier had the game's first four points. Courtney Williams, who starred for the Sun for five seasons, had five points during the opening spurt. Minnesota led 27-12 after the first quarter, when Collier had 10 points.

Collier helped extend the advantage to 45-26 on a layup with 3:44 left in the half before the Sun used a 15-4 spurt to get within eight. Collier had a 3-point play with 25.2 seconds left to restore the double-digit advantage.

The Sun hung around behind hot 3-point shooting. They made 12 of their first 19 from behind the arc and were down only seven points early in the fourth quarter. Connecticut finished 15 for 28 on 3s.

The team honored former coach Mike Thibault before the game, its second-to-last in Connecticut before relocating to Houston next season. He led the franchise from its inception in 2003 until 2012.

It was a fitting game to honor him, given his son, Eric Thibault, is an assistant coach with Minnesota along with Lindsay Whalen. She played in the WNBA Finals in 2004 under Mike Thibault. The Sun had many other former players and coaches in attendance, including Tina Charles, Bria Hartley, Taj McWilliams Franklin and Nicki Collen.

The Sun (10-32) have lost five games in a row. Connecticut, which has been plagued by injuries all season, lost Saniya Rivers to one in the first quarter. She didn't return.

Up next

Lynx: Visit Indiana on Tuesday.

Sun: Visit Mystics on Tuesday.

A light rain didn't keep taco lovers away from Lake Street on Saturday.

In the early afternoon, people gathered at Mercado Central for local music, arts and a taco eating contest.

After 4 p.m., the party moved over to El Nuevo Campo for games, puppet making and a 5K run.

Along the way, attendees could visit up to 30 different taquerias on Lake Street and collect stamps for a chance to win a prize at the end of the month.

Rob and Stephanie Liebhart were part of the crowd. Rob even joined in the taco eating contest, though he missed a chance at finishing in the top three.

"We’ve done the taco tour a few times. We’ve lived along Lake Street for about 10 years,” he said.

The mood overall was festive, but patrons still felt the impact of Operation Metro Surge — when ICE agents conducted aggressive immigration enforcement in Minnesota last winter.

This year, the event is focused on promoting solidarity with the business community.

"I always say, it takes all of us to see them into the future, and if we want to see them in the next month, we really need to be intentional with our money and shop at our local stores," Lake Street Council's senior community engagement manager ZoeAna Martinez told MPR.

The event has been a staple for the community, but after the COVID-19 pandemic and the civil uprising following the murder of George Floyd, it took a hiatus but returned this year.

Then, after Operation Metro surge, some businesses were forced to temporarily or permanently close their doors as Lake Street and surrounding communities were a target of the Trump administration's immigration policies.

"Our entrepreneurs just are so resilient,” Martinez said. “[They] continue to face barriers year after year. [They’re] continuing to figure out ways to really pivot their business and adapt.”

"These are families that live here that have come here to make lives for themselves and support their families, and a lot of times it's through entrepreneurship."

The stops included Marsu Pizzeria and Taqueria, a few doors down from Mercado Central. Luis Martinez is the owner of Marsu. The tour kept him busy all day, with a line of people all the way to the door.

"I like this promotion for the Taco Tour. I like all the new people trying the tacos on Lake Street," Luis Martinez said.

During Operation Metro Surge, Martinez said, Minnesotans supported businesses like his.

He said he's trying to keep his prices down for as long as possible. But he still faces the same challenges as any other small business owner: rising supply costs, tariffs and fuel prices.

Back at Mercado Central, Rob and Stephanie Liebhart said they'd love to see even more support for immigrant-owned businesses and restaurants that serve authentic cuisine.

"I don't know if there's a way to do a falafel tour and pita tour and highlight Middle Eastern-type restaurants,” Rob said.

“They used to have a dumpling tour, I think,” Stephanie added. “They used to do that. But they haven't in a few years."

But for these local businesses, what makes the difference comes down to whether the community keeps coming back for more.

Reporters from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico on Saturday said they were denied access to White House grounds after President Trump announced a ban on the three media outlets.

Trump said in a Truth Social post on Friday he was banning these outlets from the White House, citing negative coverage of his administration and saying media outlets shouldn't be able to constantly report "FICTION and LIES" when they cover the president of the United States. He warned other news outlets would follow. It's Trump's latest move in an ongoing battle against the media.

On Friday afternoon, a Bloomberg News reporter asked Trump about the ban at a press conference and whether he was trying to intimidate the press. "No, no, no, no. I dislike dishonest press, like you. I think you're terrible," Trump responded.

He also said: "They purposely write negative news, and they do that because they want to try and diminish the Republicans and a Republican administration." Trump said there was no specific news story that led to his decision, instead it was a frustration that had built up over the last two years.

On Saturday morning, MS NOW, formerly MSNBC, said in a statement on X that their journalists were unable to access the White House grounds. MS NOW reporter Akayla Gardner said on air that she was denied access to the White House, and an officer asked her to "hand over" her badge because it was "disabled."

"I asked why I was not able to get inside," Gardner said. "He said it was above him."

However, Gardner said an MS NOW producer was able to access the grounds. MS NOW said they will continue to report on the president.

"The White House belongs to the American people and the decisions made inside are funded by our tax dollars," MS NOW said in their statement. "MS NOW intends to take any and all steps necessary to defend our First Amendment rights and the essential role of independent journalism in our democracy."

CNN reporter Betsy Klein said she was also denied access Saturday morning. Klein said she has been covering the White House in some capacity since the Obama administration, but on Saturday morning a Secret Service agent took her badge.

"I asked him if he could provide an explanation as to why it had been deactivated. He said he had no further information," Klein said. She said she was referred to the White House press office.

CNN said in a statement on X Saturday that they have "a right under the U.S. Constitution" to report without interference from the government.

"We will not be deflected from our duty to hold the government and other public bodies to account, and we will continue to report on the actions and processes of this administration without fear our favor."

Politico Global Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Greenberger told the newsroom on Saturday that Cheyenne Haslett, a White House reporter, was denied entry to the White House.

"We stand by her and all reporters here covering the White House. As we said yesterday, we will vigorously defend our First Amendment rights," Greenberger said in a statement shared with NPR.

Trump's announcement comes amid a midterm election season where Democrats have an edge — Trump has faced pushback over his unpopular war in the Middle East, a looming affordability crisis, and threats to demolish the John F. Kennedy Performing Arts Center.

White House Correspondents' Association President Jacqui Heinrich said Saturday that denying access to journalists violates the First Amendment and called on the Trump administration to "immediately restore our colleagues' access."

"The American people, through a free and independent press, must be able to scrutinize those elected to power, regardless of whether government officials view it favorably," she said in a statement. "That's why courts have repeatedly held that once the White House provides access to journalists, it cannot deny that access arbitrarily or based on the content of their reporting."

Theodore Boutrous, a leading First Amendment lawyer in the U.S., told NPR that the ban is, on its face, unconstitutional.

Last year, Trump barred an Associated Press reporter from covering two official events because the news service did not refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. During his first term, Trump also barred a CNN reporter. Courts have backed the media both times, but the AP ruling is still being appealed.

Copyright 2026, NPR

Christian Moore hit an infield single with two outs and the bases loaded that bounded off reliever Taylor Rogers' leg to score Zach Neto and give the Los Angeles Angels a 6-5, 11-inning victory over the Minnesota Twins on Saturday night.

Vaughn Grissom hit a solo homer in the ninth off Twins reliever A.J. Minter to tie it at 5.

In the 10th with one out, the Twins’ Royce Lewis hit a shallow fly ball out to Angels right fielder Josh Lowe. Ben Ross tagged at third, but Lowe’s strong one-bounce throw got to catcher Moisés Ballesteros in time for a sweeping tag-out of Ross out at home to end Minnesota’s threat.

In the eighth, Angels’ pinch-hitter Adam Frazier doubled down the right-field line against reliever Yoendrys Gomez to drive in two runs to narrow the Twins’ lead to 5-4.

Angels reliever Tayler Saucedo (1-1) got the win an inning of scoreless relief. Rogers (6-4) took the loss in 1 2/3 innings of work.

Minnesota remains technically still in the race for the AL Wild Card, but has almost no chance. The Twins are at least 6 1/2 games behind five teams for the last wild-card spot with seven games remaining.

The Angels' Jose Siri hit a two-run homer in the fourth and the Twins' Ryan Kreidler launched a solo shot in the fifth.

Twins starter Joe Ryan gave up two runs and seven hits while striking out five in five innings.

Angels starting pitcher Reid Detmers lasted five innings, surrendering four runs and six hits while striking out five. He has 204 strikeouts this season, the most of any Angels pitcher since Shohei Ohtani had 219 in 2022.

Up next

Twins RHP Dean Kremer (3-5, 5.35 ERA) was set to face Angels RHP Ryan Johnson (5-8, 4.88) on Sunday in the series finale.

Marco Reus had a goal and an assists, João Klauss and Pablo Ruiz also scored a goal, and the LA Galaxy beat Minnesota United 3-2 on Saturday night.

Minnesota (7-11-8) has lost four straight and is winless in its last five.

Reus played a free kick from near the left end line to the near post, where Klauss flicked a header inside the back post into the side-net in the 76th minute, then redirected a cross played into the area by Lucas Calegari — known simply as “Calegari” — into the net to give the Galaxy (8-10-9) a 3-2 lead in the 80th.

Marcus Caldeira scored in the 23rd minute and Kelvin Yeboah converted from the penalty spot to give Minnesota a 2-1 lead in the 30th minute. Yeboah has scored in three consecutive games and has six of his 14 goals this season in the past six matches.

Ruiz, acquired Sept. 3 from Real Salt Lake in exchange for $400,000 in 2027 general allocation money, scored his first goal since 2023 to give LA a 1-0 lead in the 12th minute.

Drake Callender had two save for Minnesota.

JT Marcinkowski stopped three shots for the Galaxy.

Up next

Galaxy: Host Colorado next Saturday.

Minnesota: Plays next Saturday at Seattle.

Mitzi Fernandez of Minnetonka already wears glasses, but for a Olivia Miles-inspired goggle giveaway Friday, doubling – even tripling – up on specs was no problem.

“I’m trying to bring out all the Olivia Miles energy to win the game right now,” Fernandez said during halftime, walking the Target Center concourse in her actual glasses with a Lynx baseball cap and her and her wife’s goggles balancing double-decker style on top.

Over 15,700 fans turned out for what was the team’s first game since the FIBA World Cup break. Like Fernandez, thousands sported the goggles that have become a staple in the rookie point guard's distinct look. But in the end, the Lynx came up short, losing 93-81 against the New York Liberty in a possible first-round playoff matchup.

For Plymouth’s Ishabor Makvandi, he’s used to showing his love for Miles and the Lynx loud and proud, dressed up as Miles nearly every game he goes to.

“I just love the energy and the excitement and seeing all the kids with the stuff on their face and all the adults. It's like, I mean, it's like we're all in union, like we're all in unison,” he said.

Another fan, Pam Kremer of Minneapolis, was excited to see the arena full of the thick, black-rimmed goggles. Like so many Minnesota fans, Miles quickly became a favorite.

“When they made the choice, it was like we weren't sure, but she's perfect. She is perfect. She's the perfect point guard, and with Lindsey as her mentor, she just gets better every game,” Kremer said.

Kremer became a Lynx fan over a decade ago. She’s watched Miles throughout her college career, remembering her time at Notre Dame most.

“What a standout she was there,” Kremer said. “She's amazing. She's just a fireball. As soon as she's out there, she goes.”

After nearly a month away, she was ready to welcome the Lynx back with a full house. She said Friday was about how fans “continue to support them, continue to cheer them on, continue to let them know that we're here for them.”

“We wish them all the success that they deserve,” Kremer said.

Sue Sibilski of St. Paul has been a fan since the team’s beginning in 1999. She remembers the highs and lows over the years – including the 2024 championships the Lynx lost to the Liberty – Sibilski considered it “stolen” from Minnesota – after what many consider a controversial foul call.

But Friday, Sibilski said the calls seemed “pretty even” between the two teams.

“I don't think it's the fouls that are determining the game,” she said. “The Lynx just got really cold in the second half, and they weren't making their shots. They're missing layups. They're missing three pointers. And turnovers. Turnovers don't help.”

It was a sentiment head coach Cheryl Reeve echoed herself. In a post game press conference Reeve said the Liberty out-executed their offense and the Lynx gave up easy baskets.

“It doesn't feel very good for sure. You know, sucks to have the record that we do at home. We're not not satisfied with that remotely, but you know, tonight New York was better than us offensively for sure,” Reeve said.

After Friday's game, shooting guard Kayla McBride said the focus will be execution of plays, attending to details and hitting shots.

“They made shots the last five minutes of the game, and we didn't. And that's what the game comes down to, we understand that at this point in the season,” McBride said. “It's just getting back to executing the fluidity and just capitalizing because, I mean, great teams are going to make great plays and we’ve been that team all year long.”

Miles was the leading scorer for Minnesota with 20 points. She said adjusting to this point of the season and refs calls is something she continues to work at as a rookie.

“It’s frustrating at times when you feel like you’re getting hounded everywhere and pushed off your spots and thrown on the ground and stuff,” she said. “But ultimately, like, we can't rely on the refs to to win us the game, and got to go strong and got to finish your contact.”

As for the goggles, Miles said it remains cool to see her impact on fans and the community, especially seeing them embrace and wear proudly one of her trademark looks.

“I don’t wear them for fun, I wear them because I actually need to see, but I'm glad other people wear them and appreciate, you know, the magic or whatever it may be that it brings them,” she said. “Minnesota is such a special place. I'm so grateful to be here, and they really, wrap their arms around their players.”

The Liberty beat the Lynx 93-81 as Breanna Stewart posts 24 points and 10 rebounds

The Liberty’s Breanna Stewart scored 24 points and grabbed 10 rebounds and Jonquel Jones had 18 points and 10 rebounds.

Stewart moved past Sue Bird and into ninth place on the WNBA's career scoring list with 6,806 points. She's five points behind Cappie Pondexter for eighth place.

Stewart also had four assists and three steals. Sabrina Ionescu scored 17 points, with six assists and three steals, Pauline Astier scored 14, and reserve Marine Johannes 13.

For the Lynx, Kayla McBride scored 16, Napheesa Collier 14, Courtney Williams 12 and Natasha Williams 11.

Miles converted a three-point play for a 69-67 Lynx lead with 8:18 left. Stewart responded with a 3-pointer on New York's following possession and the Liberty never trailed again.

New York outscored the Lynx 23-12 the rest of the way.

Despite the loss, Minnesota retained the WNBA’s top seed while the Liberty moved up to sixth.

New York (25-16) has won eight of its last 11. The Lynx (31-10) have dropped three straight for the first time this season.

Correction (Sept. 20, 2026): A previous version of this story misstated the date of the last home game. The story has been updated.

Connor Prielipp allowed two hits in a season-high seven innings and fellow rookie Walker Jenkins homered to lead the Minnesota Twins to a 3-0 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Friday night.

Prielipp (6-7) struck out eight and walked two in his 21st start, throwing 60 of 92 pitches for strikes to help the Twins (72-82) even the four-game series at one apiece. The left-hander is 3-0 in four September starts.

Tommy Nance escaped a jam in the eighth and Travis Adams retired the side in order in the ninth for his third save.

Ryan Jeffers had a sacrifice fly off Grayson Rodriguez (4-8), and Josh Bell singled in a run to give the Twins a 2-0 lead in the first.

Jenkins homered for the third time in his first 52 at-bats to make it 3-0 in the seventh. The center fielder had three of Minnesota's nine hits.

The Angels loaded the bases with nobody out in the eighth against Nance but came up empty. The right-hander struck out Mike Trout and pinch-hitter Josh Lowe — both swinging — before retiring Vaughn Grissom on a flyout to left field.

Rodriguez permitted three runs on eight hits over 6 2/3 innings. Sammy Peralta retired four of the five batters he faced and rookie Luke Murphy pitched a scoreless ninth.

The Angels (59-95) won the opener 5-4 on Wade Meckler's walk-off single in the 10th.

Torrential rain caused mudslides and sent creeks and rivers out of their banks across much of south-central and southeast Minnesota late Friday and early Saturday.

The National Weather Service received reports of more than 8 inches of rain overnight near Spring Valley, more than 7 inches at Lanesboro and Ellendale, and more than 6 inches near Caledonia, Preston, Chatfield and New Richland.

The flooding continued through the day Saturday along creeks and rivers swollen by the storm runoff.

In Spring Valley, Mayor Justin Mlinar reported just after 6 a.m. Saturday that all streets were closed due to flooding. Photos posted to social media showed floodwaters flowing along streets in the city’s downtown, near Spring Valley City Hall.

Some streets reopened by mid-morning as the floodwaters receded.

Officials in New Richland reported flooding in that city, and offered sandbags to residents who needed them. The city urged drivers to not try driving on flooded roads.

“Please respect road closures, barricades, and warnings and our staff and volunteers,” the city reported just after 7 a.m.

The city also offered help finding overnight lodging, for any residents displaced from their homes.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation also reported flooding affecting state highways near New Richland and Spring Valley. The Waseca County Sheriff’s Office released a list of local roads closed due to flooding.

Larger rivers in the region continued rising through the day Saturday, as they absorbed storm runoff from creeks and streams.

In the city of Austin, rising waters on the Cedar River forced the closure of some streets late Saturday afternoon. The river was forecast to crest in moderate flood stage late Saturday or early Sunday.

“The city has roadblocks set up. DO NOT go around barricades. They are up for a reason,” the Austin Police Department posted on social media.

The Root River was forecast to reach minor flood stage at Lanesboro and Houston.

State Highway 16 was closed east of Lanesboro for several hours on Saturday morning after a rain-soaked hillside gave way, sending mud and debris across the road. The highway reopened by mid-morning, but flooding continued along the Root River.

The Old Barn Resort between Lanesboro and Preston reported “severe” flooding of its riverside golf course, and said the course would be closed until further notice.

Other parts of the resort, and downtown Lanesboro, remained open Saturday.

The National Weather Service also received reports of mudslides overnight along State Highway 76 near Caledonia. Police in Hokah reported that floodwaters encroached on State Highways 16 and 44 in town, and that the area around Como Falls was closed Saturday morning.

Find updates on highway closures on MnDOT’s 511 website.

There were no immediate reports of injuries from the flooding.

Find forecast updates on MPR Weather’s Updraft blog.

Some of the communities affected by this weekend’s flooding also saw significant flash flooding earlier this year — on July 2, and again on July 8.

President Donald Trump announced Friday he has a deal with Denmark to bolster the U.S. military presence in Greenland after months of threatening to take the island by force from the NATO ally — an agreement that also keeps the Arctic territory in Denmark's hands.

Trump in a social media post announcing the deal said the emerging agreement "gives the United States permanent control over security, and all other needs, in Greenland, completely addressing ALL of our many U.S. concerns."

He added that with the agreement his administration would "immediately" begin the process of developing a larger military presence on the mineral-rich Danish territory.

The deal came after officials from U.S., Greenland and Denmark quietly negotiated for months behind the scenes, searching for solutions to address some of Trump's security concerns about a territory of roughly 56,000 residents.

For Trump, the Greenland issue had largely been put on the back burner as he launched a military operation to oust former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power and joined with Israel to start a war against Iran.

With the announcement of the pact, Trump is able to tout a foreign policy achievement ahead of the midterm elections. The six-month-old Iran conflict has reshaped the race, undermining Trump's campaign pledge to steer clear of foreign conflicts and challenging Republicans as they cling to narrow majorities in Congress.

The office of Denmark's prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, said the deal will be signed by all three governments next week during the United Nations General Assembly, but parliamentary action is still needed by the Danish and Greenland governments before it can be enforced.

In a statement she said "the agreement recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity" of Greenland and Denmark and upholds both people's right "to self-determination."

Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said the emerging deal benefits all three governments and "recognizes Greenland's interests."

Allies pushed back on Trump's call for the U.S. to acquire Greenland

With his return to the White House last year, Trump called on Denmark to sell the island to the United States, while insisting Greenland is crucial for U.S. security. He pointedly wouldn't rule out taking the island by military force, even though Denmark is a NATO ally of the U.S.

Denmark and Greenland repeatedly said the island is not for sale and condemned reports of the U.S. gathering intelligence there. The U.S. push for Greenland was also fiercely opposed by Russia and much of Europe.

But Trump with the announcement Friday suggested an understanding may have been reached that could bring an end to what was viewed as an existential crisis by Denmark.

"We look forward to working with the wonderful people of Denmark and Greenland toward a magnificent future with respect to this large, and highly strategic, parcel of land," Trump said in his post. "We will be very protective of it!"

Trump had claimed the U.S. needs Greenland to deter threats from Russia and China, and has repeatedly made false claims of Chinese and Russian military forces lurking off the island's coastline.

The agreement bans any non-NATO base in Greenland, limits adversaries from being able to make investments in Greenland and guarantees that China and Russia cannot have a base in Greenland, according to a State Department official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio cheered the statement as a "historic deal" and "huge win" for the United States.

"Greenland will forever be part of the strategic defense area of North America and exclude any adversary from it and the surrounding area," Rubio said. "This deal permanently and completely addresses our national security concerns in Greenland."

The island is crucial to North America's defense

But the U.S. has long had a military presence in Greenland, holding several bases and installations through the Cold War before dialing back its presence.

The U.S. still operates the remote Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, which was built after the U.S. and Denmark signed the Defense of Greenland Treaty in 1951. It supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO.

Greenland sits off the northeastern coast of Canada, with more than two-thirds of its territory lying within the Arctic Circle. That has made it crucial to the defense of North America since World War II, when the U.S. occupied Greenland to ensure it didn't fall into the hands of Nazi Germany and to protect vital North Atlantic shipping lanes.

Despite Trump's repeated aggressive comments toward Denmark about Greenland, Danish officials had repeatedly made clear that they stood ready to work with the U.S. to expand the American military presence and strengthen U.S. commercial interests in Greenland.

Still, Trump's repeated demands for Greenland and threats to take it by force rattled the NATO alliance and discomfited European allies, said Imran Bayoumi, an associate director at the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

"I think Americans really underestimate how damaging it was for the image of the United States in Europe," he said. "I think Greenlanders, Danes, Europeans saw this as a real attack on their sovereignty, and it's going to take a lot of work to repair."

Copyright 2026, NPR

Thousands of people are expected to gather this weekend at Land of Memories Park in Mankato for the 54th annual celebration of Dakota culture called the Mahkato Wacipi.

The Mahkato Wacipi (Mankato powwow) runs through Sunday, Sept. 20, and all are welcome to attend, as the event is meant to bring the entire community together to experience Dakota culture and spirituality through education, traditional dance and song, while sharing a commitment to reconciliation.

Allene Ross serves on the powwow committee on the Dakota Advisory Council. She said while the primary focus is to honor and commemorate the Dakota 38, the 38 Dakota men hanged in Mankato in 1862 in the largest mass execution in U.S. history, the Wacipi is also a place to foster healing and cross-cultural understanding between Dakota and non-Dakota communities.

“It’s to bring light to the Dakota people who are in Minnesota, and or the Dakota who fled Minnesota, and the Dakota that were removed from Minnesota,” Ross said. “It’s also to educate the public and people who are interested in the historical facts around the Dakota history here in Minnesota. It’s to teach our language, maybe some crafts, our arts, and to bring awareness to the issues that are facing the Dakota people still here in Minnesota.”

After the end of the Dakota War in 1862, Union soldiers marched more than 350 Dakota men to a prison camp in Mankato after a military commission tried and convicted them of murder and other crimes, and sentenced them to death. When President Abraham Lincoln was told of the sentences, he reviewed the trial documents and commuted the sentences of all but 38 of the Dakota men. Those 38 were hanged in Mankato on Dec. 26, 1862, in the largest mass execution in U.S. history. Two more Dakota men were executed later at Fort Snelling in 1865.

This year will be the first time that 17 Dakota women’s names, who are called “the caregivers,” will also be read aloud after the grand entry on Saturday night, Ross said. They were the Dakota women who also traveled with the men to the prison camp in Mankato and cared for them, and witnessed their deaths at the gallows.

“We say the names of the Dakota 38 who were [hanged] here in Mahkato, but this year we’re bringing in the names of the women who were also encamped here at Mahkato,” she said. “Their names should always be honored here. …I’m really honored to have that happen.”

If You Want to Go:

What: 54th Annual Mahkato Wacipi

When: Friday, Sept. 18, from 4 to 10 p.m.; Saturday, Sept. 19, from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.; and Sunday, Sept. 20, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Open in all weather, rain or shine.

Grand entries are Friday at 7 p.m., Saturday at 1 and 7 p.m., and Sunday at 1 p.m.

Where: Land of Memories Park, 100 Amos Owen Lane, Mankato, MN 56001

Admission: Elders and children are free; $10 for a button, good for the entire weekend. Cash only.

C.J. Keene | South Dakota Public Broadcasting

In the 1930s, astronomer Fritz Zwicky hypothesized the existence of dark matter, a theoretical substance that physicists believe accounts for 85 percent of all matter in the universe but has never been detected.

Nearly a century later, scientists at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota’s Black Hills, may have just proven Zwicky right. They believe they’ve detected dark matter at their Lux Zeplin experiment site in an old gold mine nearly a mile underground.

If confirmed, it would be a world-class scientific discovery and shake the field of particle physics, although Sanford researchers aren’t quite ready to pour out the good Scotch. Instead, they’re now poring through massive amounts of data to make sure they’re absolutely sure they have what they think.

“What haven’t we thought of? What could this be that isn’t dark matter?” Jaret Heise, director of science at the underground lab, asked aloud.

Researchers, he said, will spend the next few months “scrutinizing the data, wracking their brains for every possible avenue that might confuse this signal as a more vanilla type of event as opposed to a fabulous new type of particle interaction that no one has ever seen before.”

Searching for WIMPs

Dark matter is called “dark” because it is invisible. NASA describes it as “the invisible glue that holds the universe together” and “shapes the cosmos, organizing galaxies and cosmic objects on a large scale.”

Theorizing about its existence is one thing. Proving it is another.

Scientists in Minnesota seemed close to cracking the code in the early 2000s. The Soudan Underground Laboratory, a half-mile below the Iron Range town of Soudan, was a hot spot for dark matter research. In 2009, scientists came close to announcing the discovery of dark matter on Earth. Six months later, the lab announced it was leaving Minnesota for a much deeper site in Canada.

Like the Minnesota project, scientists at the South Dakota site have been searching for weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs. These subatomic particles are seen as candidates for dark matter.

Finding these WIMPs or dark matter signatures is no simple feat. It’s less like finding a needle in a haystack and more like finding a specific grain of sand on a beach.

“A dark matter particle hitting an atom doesn’t give off a lot of energy, but the LZ experiment and other dark matter experiments using Xenon — others using argon — are really chasing this mysterious particle, looking for these very, very faint signatures that would indicate the existence of a dark matter particle,” Heise said.

Xenon and argon, noble gasses from the periodic table, are ultradense in liquid form. When something as small as a WIMP hits their atomic core it creates tiny flashes of light.

To be able to detect these tiny flashes, scientists set up their equipment deep in the Black Hills mineshaft.

‘Path of light’

Trying to prove dark matter exists remains the elusive prize. It interacts very weakly with ordinary matter.

It does exert a gravitational attraction and the effects can be seen among galaxy clusters, they’re “almost impossible to detect close-up. It’d be like trying to measure how the mass of the Eiffel Tower is pulling you towards it when you’re standing next to it. (It is, but very weakly),” according to the University of Chicago.

“Looking out at our solar system and into our universe and trying to understand how stars are rotating, how light is bending around objects we can’t see led to the hypothesis that there must be some matter out there that doesn’t emit light, but is, nonetheless, effecting the rotations and speeds of galaxies, and the path of light,” Heise said.

The Sanford Underground Research Facility findings are being submitted for peer review by collaborative scientists worldwide. They could mean a serious breakthrough if the data confirm this particle interaction as dark matter.

Meanwhile, the work continues.

Heise said there’s only one way to go from believing this could be dark matter, to being the first on Earth to know they’ve seen it with their own eyes. “More data.”

This story comes from the Upper Midwest Newsroom, a public media collaboration between Wisconsin Public Radio, South Dakota Public Broadcasting, Prairie Public in North Dakota and Minnesota Public Radio News made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Public health officials this week confirmed the first case of measles in Minnesota in several months amid a resurgence of the preventable disease across the country.

The Minnesota Department of Health said that an unvaccinated adult in Fillmore County, about 45 minutes southeast of Rochester, is ill with the virus. It’s the 18th case in the state so far this year, and the first since April.

“Anytime that we have a measles case identified, we get concerned about transmission to others because MMR [measles, mumps and rubella] vaccination rates have been dropping since COVID,” said Jayne Griffith, a senior epidemiologist with the Minnesota Department of Health. “It's always a concern when a measles case is identified because the virus will try to seek out unprotected people to infect.”

Griffith said that the Fillmore County case appears to be unrelated to an outbreak in nearby southwest Wisconsin, as the Fillmore resident appears to have contracted the virus while traveling to a number of states across the U.S. But health officials say the Wisconsin outbreak demonstrates how quickly measles can spread from one person to dozens more, especially amongst unvaccinated people.

In the past month, the number of people infected in Wisconsin has skyrocketed from 15 to 166 measles cases.

“It's thought to be the most contagious virus,” Griffith said. “It has the ability to linger in the air for up to about two hours. And the other difficult thing with measles is that it has a long infectivity period, and people are infectious [for] four days before the rash onset.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 96 percent of the measles cases reported across the country so far this year occurred in people who were unvaccinated or had only had one of the vaccine’s two doses, and nearly 20 percent of the cases were in children under the age of five years old.

Measles cases seem to be spiking across the country in recent years, as the anti-vaccine movement has grown. The CDC has reported 3,471 confirmed cases so far this year, already surpassing last year’s total count of 2,289. It’s the highest number of reported cases of measles in the U.S. since 1991.

In Pennsylvania, at least four people have died from measles in recent weeks, including two unvaccinated adults and two infants who were too young to receive the MMR vaccine.

To ensure people are protected through community immunity, also known as herd immunity, more than 95 percent of people must be vaccinated. According to CDC data, only 87 percent of Minnesota kindergartners had been vaccinated in the 2024-2025 school year.

Griffith stressed the importance of getting the MMR vaccine, explaining that it’s been in use for over 50 years and is extremely safe and effective.

“The best protection is to be vaccinated,” Griffith said. “And that vaccine not only protects [those] who received it, but also other vulnerable people in the community, like young infants or pregnant women who did not get vaccinated before pregnancy, or cancer patients. The more people that are vaccinated, the less likely we are to have outbreaks. It's all really interconnected.”

Griffith and other health providers are combating an increase in misinformation that has been rapidly spreading across the country, partly fueled by false claims from top federal government officials. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, for example, has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that childhood vaccines cause autism. Last year, he personally ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to change its longstanding position that vaccines do not cause autism on the agency’s website.

But the tide could be turning within the federal government amid growing nationwide outbreaks and an increasing number of deaths caused by the disease.

Trump's nominee for Surgeon General, Dr. Nicole Saphier, acknowledged in her Senate confirmation hearing this week that the MMR vaccine is "the best tool we have to combat these infections, to save the most lives and to also create population herd immunity." She also said there's no evidence vaccines cause autism.

The symptoms of measles can include a high fever, cough, runny nose, red and watery eyes, and a rash three to five days after other symptoms begin. The illness can be especially dangerous for babies and young children. Serious cases can lead to pneumonia, meningitis, brain swelling and even death.

“There's just measles popping up in every state and there have been some recent deaths as well, and it's just really sad that this is something that can be prevented,” Griffith said.

Carson Wentz will start at quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday, with Kyler Murray still in the NFL concussion protocol and ruled out for the game at Chicago.

Murray was a limited participant in practice all week and simply ran out of time to make more more progress after taking an illegal hit to the head in the first quarter of his debut for Minnesota in the season opener.

Vikings coach Kevin O'Connell said he expects Murray to clear the protocol early next week and be able to play at Tampa Bay on Sept. 27.

Murray took a jarring hit to the side of his helmet that drew an unnecessary roughness penalty on Green Bay safety Javon Bullard, leaving Murray on the turf in the type of defensive pose that can accompany brain trauma.

But the eighth-year player — who signed with the Vikings after being released by Arizona — was eventually able to slowly walk off the field under his own power. He was alert and interacting with teammates in the locker room afterward and looked spry on the practice field this week.

Wentz threw three touchdown passes in relief of Murray to help the Vikings close the game with 29 consecutive points in their 39-22 victory. J.J. McCarthy will be the No. 2 quarterback at Chicago. Against Green Bay, McCarthy was the emergency No. 3 quarterback who can only enter the game if the first two are injured.

The Vikings also ruled out wide receiver Jajuan Jennings, who hasn't practiced all week because of a personal family matter.

Right tackle Brian O'Neill was listed as questionable with a knee injury and running back Jordan Mason is out for at least four games because of a broken thumb.

September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. Ain Dah Yung Center’s American Indian Metro Suicide Prevention Coalition recognized Thursday as Indigenous Youth Suicide Prevention Day with proclamations from the state and city of St. Paul.

The coalition brings together Indigenous community members, organizations, service providers and partners to strengthen suicide prevention across the Twin Cities metro area.

Coalition leader and Ain Dah Yung Center’s suicide prevention coordinator Bryce Premo says the day aims to strengthen community and its role in the lives of Indigenous youth. He says the proclamations “belong to everyone.”

“You don't have to be a therapist or a suicide prevention professional to be a part of prevention. You can be a relative who checks in, a coach who notices somebody is struggling,” Premo said. “Or an elder who shares knowledge with the youth, or an organization that creates space where young people know they belong.”

According to the 2025 Minnesota Student Survey, Indigenous youth in Minnesota experience suicidal ideation at rates nearly twice that of their peers. The demographic has the highest rate of suicide when compared to their peer groups.

School psychologist Tascha Just is a part of the coalition. She says prevention begins with empowering youth identity and sense of belonging through various means, such as cultural resources.

“Thinking about frameworks like the Ojibwe grandfather teachings and thinking about how we can implement different cultural teachings into everyday life,” Just said.

The American Indian Metro Suicide Prevention Coalition focuses on three protective factors: positive identity, empowerment and positive community relationships.

The group represents these factors through an analogy of the three sisters, a trio of main agricultural crops across many Indigenous communities in the United States. The trio consists of corn, beans and squash.

“The collaboration that we see within nature, we can imitate in human activities,” Just said.

Premo says each protective factor is represented by a crop. Positive identity is represented through corn, which grows strong and tall. Empowerment is squash, which grows on the ground and protects the other crops through its foliage. Positive community relationships are represented by beans, which grow together in a pod. When planted together, the trio contributes to each other’s growth.

“That’s the kind of community we're trying to strengthen,” Premo said. “When we're working with those three protective factors—positive identity, empowerment, or positive community relationships—you're working in prevention already.”

Premo says one way the coalition practices community involvement in youth lives is through its Native Youth Resources guide. The second edition features artwork from Ain Dah Yung Center residents. The center serves Indigenous youth, and families experiencing or at risk of homelessness.

Their coalition’s logo was also designed by youth.

“It's that empowering moment when youth feel like — You know, what I created matters,” Premo said. “I feel like that’s a powerful event for everyone involved.”

If you or someone you know is struggling, help is available. Call or text 988 to get connected with trained counselors. The 988 suicide and crisis lifeline is available 24/7.

Chandra Colvin covers Native American communities in Minnesota for MPR News via Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities.

Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned that Russia is planning strikes on countries supporting Ukraine.

Addressing Polish lawmakers on Thursday, Tusk said Russia intends to send drones or missiles into NATO territory and then claim that these incidents are "accidental."

His warning followed a series of incidents blamed on Russia along NATO's eastern flank.

Tusk said that these potential strikes "intend to paralyze NATO" or "at least weaken the alliance's willingness to respond collectively" in an attempt to demonstrate that Article 5 "exists only in theory."

NATO's Article 5 states that an armed attack against one member is considered an attack against all members.

Tusk said he'd received intelligence from NATO, Ukraine and U.S. agencies but did not specify which ones he was citing.

He stressed that "there is nothing to suggest an invasion" but warned that Poland is about to face a real test as one of Ukraine's staunchest allies.

Tusk, who was addressing the Polish parliament on the 87th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, also warned that political shifts within Europe are undermining NATO's commitment to Ukraine.

He appeared to refer to Russia-friendly political parties currently gaining ground in Europe, such as Marine Le Pen's National Rally in France and the far-right Alternative for Germany. Tusk said that although those parties ostensibly invoke symbols of peace, they are calling for the capitulation of Ukraine.

Tusk also questioned whether NATO members in the West were giving any thought to the alliance's eastern flank, pointing out that Poland is more likely to need allied loyalty under Article 5 than Portugal or Ireland due to its proximity to Russia and Ukraine.

But just after Tusk spoke, President Trump announced progress in establishing a permanent U.S. Army base in Poland, where troops are currently hosted on a rotational basis.

"If this happens, the location will be announced very soon," Trump said in a social media post. "This will be a historic step for our Great U.S./Polish Alliance."

A European military official, who spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said two sites in western Poland are under consideration for the base.

Tusk's warning comes at the end of a week of airspace violations and incidents that European countries are blaming on Russia.

On Sunday a Russian drone hit a passenger train in Ukraine just over a mile from the Polish border, shortly after former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and other European security officials had traveled through the area.

On Monday, the Polish military said it retrieved a Russian drone just off the country's northwestern coast, which authorities say was carrying a warhead.

On Tuesday, NATO jets shot down a drone in Lithuania.

European countries are starting to speak up directly about what they perceive to be a coordinated campaign of hybrid attacks on their soil. These incidents include acts of sabotage, cyberattacks or disinformation, but do not reach the bar of an act of war.

Earlier this month, the German government blamed Russian operatives for an attempted drone strike on an airport that serves as a major NATO hub.

Russia's Foreign Ministry denies the accusations, calling them "contrived" and "far-fetched."

But Tusk's warning was as much for NATO as it was for Moscow.

He ended his speech by appealing for unity and a resolute response to any attacks and underscored Poland's own commitment to NATO's defense.

Greg Myre contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.

Copyright 2026, NPR

Duncan Sheik, the Tony- and Grammy-winning singer-songwriter who crafted the music for “Spring Awakening,” has died. He was 56.

Sheik died Thursday night, according to a post on his Instagram page. “The world has a lost a singular talent, and deeply influential voice in music and theater,” the post reads. “His musical legacy will continue to inspire generations to come.”

Sheik had been best known for his lasting radio hit “Barely Breathing” when he turned his sights on Broadway with “Spring Awakening,” resulting in the envelope-pushing show that musicalized teenage angst.

“With the exception of our director, we are all kind of Broadway outsiders. We wanted to shake things up a bit. And we just set out to make this really cool piece of theater,” Sheik told The Associated Press in 2007, as the show swept Tony nominations.

Sheik also tackled musicals based on “American Psycho” and “Alice in Wonderland,” and “Barely Breathing” spent 55 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 16. But he was probably best known for “Spring Awakening,” which ran for over 860 performances on Broadway starting in 2006.

“His deep feeling and his delight gave us so much beauty,” playwright and actor Eisa Davis wrote. “Duncan, thank you for your friendship and for the sublime music.”

‘Spring Awakening’ roused a new side of Sheik — and Broadway

The musical — adapted from a 19th-century play by German playwright Frank Wedekind, with music by Sheik and lyrics by playwright Steven Sater — is frank in its portrayals of incest, abortion and suicide. It's intended partly as a warning that teens need good information about sex to avoid tragic mistakes.

“I don’t mean to be disrespectful to more traditional theater composers,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2015. “I love Stephen Sondheim. But it’s my mission to make sure that the theater is paying attention to what the rest of the world is listening to.”

Sheik and Sater were practicing Buddhists who met while chanting. They were collaborating on Sheik's third album, “Phantom Moon,” when Sater mentioned he was working on a new production. Neither had written a musical before.

“I said to Steven, ‘I’m happy to do this musical, but I only want to do it if the music in the play is the kind that I and my peers can get behind stylistically and relate to and enjoy,’” Sheik told the AP in 2006.

They made a pact: They'd retain the provincial, 19th-century Germany setting but with, as Sater put it, “the characters breaking into pop-contemporary when they sing.”

“Spring Awakening” won eight Tony Awards, including best musical, as well as the Grammy for best musical show album.

“Sheik’s music, spare in its simple orchestrations, lush in the lapping reach of its seductive choruses, embodies the shadowy air of longing that infuses the show, the excitement shading into fear, the joy that comes with a chaser of despair,” The New York Times said in its review.

The show is beloved in the musical theater community for breaking ground in staging and content, alongside the likes of “Rent” and “Hamilton.” It returned to Broadway in 2015 in a well-received production by Deaf West Theatre. An off-Broadway version is slated to open this fall, as is his musical “Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen,” based on Moyoco Anno’s manga of the same name.

The cast of the original show was loaded with breakthrough actors like Jonathan Groff, Lea Michele, Lilli Cooper, Jennifer Damiano, Gideon Glick, John Gallagher Jr., Lauren Pritchard and Krysta Rodriguez, who have each gone on to fame in TV, film and stage. Groff would go on to earn a Tony with “Merrily We Roll Along,” and Michele became a superstar with “Glee.”

Sheik blended musical theater with pop music

Sheik next channeled the music he heard getting past the velvet ropes of trendy, late-1980s Manhattan clubs for a Broadway adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis novel “American Psycho.”

The 1991 novel — later made into a 2000 movie starring Christian Bale — chronicles a homicidal New York yuppie named Patrick Bateman who is obsessed with high-end clothes and beauty products even as he slashes his way through Manhattan. Sheik, who also supplied lyrics, recalled only getting halfway through the book before throwing it across the room as a Brown University student.

For one standout song, “You Are What You Wear,” he reached out to old girlfriends to ask a question: What were you really into wearing in the late ’80s? He put the answers in the tune about high fashion: “Chanel, Gaultier, or Giorgio Armani/Moschino, Alaïa, or Norma Kamali/Should I rock/The Betsey Johnson/Or stick with classic/Comme des Garçons?”

“Duncan is really a genius and an intellectual and brings something both uniquely his but importantly of this period to the stage,” producer Jesse Singer told the AP at the time.

Because Bateman, played onstage by Benjamin Walker, fancies himself a bit of a music critic — spewing mostly inane ruminations about Phil Collins and Huey Lewis and the News — Sheik also peppered his score with sly reworkings of “In the Air Tonight” and “Hip to Be Square.”

“There’s definitely an art to be able to write a song that on one level is a pop song and one that also has to tell a story and keep an audience engaged in terms of a larger narrative arc,” Sheik told the AP in 2013. “When you’re writing a song for the theater, it has to accomplish all this other stuff. It has to work in tandem with all these other agendas and creative impulses.”

The show, directed by Rupert Goold and with a story by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, made its premiere in 2013 in London. On Broadway in 2016, it bombed, lasting less than 90 performances.

“We were all sort of worried that it might be too violent for people and it might seem too misogynist,” Sheik told the AP on the eve of the opening. “But, in fact, the truth is this piece is a critique of a certain way of thinking about things. So in truth it’s better to go all-in.”

‘Barely Breathing’ was nominated for a Grammy

Growing up between South Carolina and New Jersey, Sheik learned guitar as a child and got his first synthesizer when he was 12. He was heavily influenced by Talk Talk, David Sylvian and Nick Drake. His self-titled debut album was released in 1996 and Rolling Stone gave it a four-star review, calling it “a defiant debut — beautiful and benevolent of spirit.”

“Barely Breathing,” from that album, was nominated for best pop vocal performance in 1998 and would be kept alive on TV shows like “Glee” and “Girls.”

Other projects include “Whisper House,” an album and musical — a ghost story that ran in 2010 at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego — and “Legerdemain,” an album that explored the tension between art and commerce. His most recent album was 2022's “Claptrap.”

But for someone who had once been a total stranger to Broadway, he told AP in 2016 that he had a sense of mission.

“I feel like it’s become my project to kind of drag different people who might not normally go to musical theater pieces to come see a piece of musical theater,” he said.

He is survived by his parents; his wife, Nora Ariffin; and a daughter, Ines.

A man accused of shooting and killing three people in a St. Paul apartment building in July has pleaded not guilty.

30-year-old Tsegaab Binessu, charged with three counts of murder, appeared in court Friday.

At the hearing, Judge Kellie Charles said a psychiatric evaluation found Binessu competent to stand trial, after ordering the evaluation earlier in the case.

Binessu’s attorney Joseph Egan requested further psychiatric evaluation Friday, and said he plans to enter a mental health defense.

The shooting rattled the community at the Davern Park Apartments in the Highland Park neighborhood. According to charges in Ramsey County, 30-year-old Tsegaab Binessu had visited the building’s leasing office to ask to cancel his parking contract after selling his car. Employees told him he couldn’t cancel it.

He then allegedly shot and killed three employees: Nansi G. Fuentes Zambrano, 25, of Inver Grove Heights; Dena M. Silcox, 56, of St. Paul; and Adam J. Wilwerding, 43, of Oakdale. Family and friends of the people killed filled the courtroom Friday

Binessu is currently in jail. The judge previously set bail at $10,000,000.

The case is scheduled to go to trial in April. Binessu is due back in court for a hearing in January.

St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her engaged in “offensive and inappropriate behavior” with city employees, but allegations that she sexually harassed city workers or retaliated against them could not be substantiated, the city’s Human Resources Department has found.

The mayor faced a host of allegations over the summer that prompted an outside investigation. A summary of the investigation’s findings was sent to Her by the city’s HR department on Thursday, and publicly released by Her’s office on Friday.

The full report from the outside investigation has not been released.

The allegations included a former deputy police chief telling investigators that Her made what the officer described as “orgasmic noises” while working out in the police gym.

The former officer also alleged Her altered photos displayed at police headquarters, including placing her own portrait over the faces of police command staff.

The officer said that Her taped up images of shirtless Ultimate Fighting Championship fighters that had been modified with the faces of St. Paul police officers, including Chief Axel Henry, who filed a formal complaint in the matter.

In a letter to Her on Thursday, Kamaria Kassim, the city’s human resources director, said her department could not substantiate claims of sexual harassment, inappropriate text messages, sexual noises while exercising or retaliation against a city employee.

However, the investigation also concluded Her had “created and shared” offensive material, “engaged in offensive and inappropriate behavior” with city employees and created “an uncomfortable work environment.”

It called on the mayor to maintain professional boundaries, attend a workplace conduct training and hire “an executive coach at your own expense.”

Responding to allegations in July, Her said, “I recognize that some of my attempts at humor fell short of the standard I expect of myself.”

On Friday, the mayor said in a statement that she “became too informal in my communications and crossed lines that are not consistent with the standards set forth in the City’s Workplace Conduct Policy. I apologize for any discomfort I caused,” adding, “I am gratified that the report finds that the allegations of sexual harassment and retaliation were unsubstantiated.”

Her said she would comply with the steps outlined in the letter from HR.

The police chief’s attorney, Chris Madel, issued a statement Friday sharply criticizing the city’s handling of the investigation findings.

“The city’s so-called ‘summary’ is nothing more than a sanitized, self-serving whitewash of an investigation the city refuses to let the public see,” Madel wrote.

He said he’s aware of at least five witnesses who confirmed that the mayor “made unmistakable orgasm-like noises in the St. Paul Police Department gym.”

“No amount of bureaucratic wordsmithing by the city’s HR department can make witnesses — or what they heard — disappear,” Madel wrote.

A federal immigration agent who shot and wounded a man in north Minneapolis this winter pleaded not guilty in federal court in St. Paul on Friday to charges of lying to the FBI.

On Friday morning, U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Cowan Wright set Christian Castro’s bond at $75,000 with conditions, including that he not break any laws and only travel between Minnesota and Texas. Castro also must stay in his residence from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. and go through a mental health evaluation.

Wright ordered the parties to submit a motion to designate the case as complex and the proposed schedule for the case by Oct. 2.

Castro, 52, is also facing state assault charges for the shooting on Jan. 14. Castro is accused of firing through the closed door of a home and injured Julio Sosa-Celis, an immigrant from Venezuela, after a car chase involving Sosa-Celis’ roommate Alfredo Aljorna.

The judge overseeing the state case set Castro’s bond Thursday at $200,000 with conditions that include pre-signing a waiver of extradition, surrendering his passport and electronic home monitoring. He’s also not allowed to talk with other ICE agents.

Prosecutors in the state case argued that Castro was a flight risk due to numerous phone conversations he had in prison with a Mexican resident about potentially purchasing property there. Castro posted bail and was released from the Hennepin County jail by Thursday evening.

The Department of Homeland Security initially claimed that the federal agent was assaulted by men with a broom and shovel and charged Sosa-Celis and Aljorna. That narrative fell apart and charges were dropped against the two men after footage emerged from a Minneapolis surveillance camera on the street. After being released from Texas jail, Castro was indicted by a federal grand jury on six counts of lying to the FBI.

Castro was arrested in downtown Minneapolis by state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agents on Wednesday. His attorney said Castro had planned to surrender to state authorities. But Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said on Thursday that Castro hadn’t followed directions. State Attorney General Keith Ellison said on Thursday that he was dropping a lawsuit against the state of Texas over Abbott’s failure to extradite Castro.

“I hope I’ll never have to file another like it because we expect and we pray for cooperation between the states, as the Constitution requires,” Ellison said. “But of course, if we ever have to, we won’t hesitate to use the rule of law to seek justice for Minnesotans.”

Mike Trout hit a tying RBI single in the 10th inning, and Wade Meckler followed with a winning RBI single to give the Los Angeles Angels a 5-4 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Thursday night.

Minnesota rookie Walker Jenkins hit a two-out, two-run homer in top of the ninth for a 3-3 tie, and the Twins took a 4-3 lead in the 10th on Brooks Lee’s RBI single.

Kody Clemens’ sacrifice bunt put runners on second and third with one out, but Angels left-hander Blake Weiman (1-1) got Josh Bell to pop to second and, after intentionally walking pinch-hitter Ryan Jeffers, struck out Royce Lewis to end the inning.

Automatic runner Jose Siri took third on pinch-hitter Vaughn Grissom’s fly to left to open the bottom of the 10th. Zach Neto walked, Trout singled off Yoendrys Gomez (2-4) for a 4-4 tie, and Meckler singled off left-hander Kody Funderburk for the win.

The Angels were one out away from a 3-1 victory after hard-throwing closer Ben Joyce struck out Emmanuel Rodriguez and Lewis to open the ninth, but Twins catcher Victor Caratini kept the inning alive with a single to center.

Jenkins, who entered Thursday with an .089 average and one homer in 16 big-league games, then drove a 101-mph fastball just beyond the glove of leaping center fielder Siri for a two-run shot that tied it at 3.

Minnesota’s late rally spoiled a superb start by Angels right-hander Walbert Ureña, who allowed four hits, struck out a career-high nine and walked none over seven shutout innings to lower his ERA to 2.74.

Twins starter Taj Bradley allowed three runs and five hits in seven innings, striking out nine and walking one, but the right-hander gave up four of those hits in a three-run first.

Minnesota’s start to voting Friday begins without a cloud over how ballots sent through the mail are handled, now that the U.S. Supreme Court has turned back potential restrictions.

That brings certainty to an increasing number of jurisdictions in the state that exclusively use mail to get ballots to voters.

In some places, Minnesota voters have been voting by mail for decades. State law allows cities with fewer than 400 registered voters and townships of any size to choose to vote exclusively with mail ballots. There are more than 1,100 precincts in Minnesota where registered voters receive a ballot in the mail automatically.

Jenna Weiss lives in Barclay Township just outside of Pine River, north of Brainerd. Her township is one of 43 Cass County precincts — more than half of its total — that vote exclusively by mail.

“I think it's worked really well,” Weiss said. “It’s convenient in that I get a ballot to my mailbox. I don't have to remember to go to the polling place, which is kind of a benefit."

Weiss said for her rural, remote township, voting by mail makes sense. It can be difficult to find enough volunteers to staff a local polling place. And it's a 45-minute drive to the county seat of Walker.

Weiss said she trusts the mail ballot system, although she has some concerns about the reliability of the U.S. Postal Service as it faces pressure to be more profitable.

"But by and large, I don't really think twice about it,” she said. “I put it in the mail, and I'm pretty confident it's going to get where it needs to go."

Voting by mail has been under scrutiny since President Trump signed an executive order in March. It directed the U.S. Postal Service to use federal citizenship lists in determining which mail ballots it would deliver.

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon objected to that proposal.

“This would have, for the first time in its 250-year history, put the U.S. Postal Service in the position of being the traffic cop for voter eligibility and literally not delivering mail to people who ended up on the wrong list,” Simon said.

Minnesota and other states sued. They argued the changes would interfere with states' authority to run elections and would leave elections officials with little time to comply.

The Supreme Court sided with the states and blocked the Postal Service's new rules for mail-in voting — at least for the midterms.

That allowed elections officials in Minnesota to carry on with the work of preparing ballots to send to voters.

About 20 small cities and townships in Stearns County use only mail ballots, said elections director Laura Laudenbach. She said voter turnout in those precincts tends to be higher.

“Just because it’s right in front of them. It’s a little easier to send the ballot back,” she said. “They have a little time to do their research as they’re voting.”

If they prefer, those voters have the option of casting their vote in person at the county service center, Laudenbach said. And they can track their ballot online to make sure it arrived and was counted.

Still, in Cass County, elections administrator Pamela Smith said opinions are mixed about mail voting, and some voters have raised concerns.

“Whether those concerns are about politics or about trusting the mail system or just a personal preference, I can't really say for sure,” she said. “But those viewpoints are present."

The Trump administration claims that mail ballots are vulnerable to fraud. But Minnesota elections officials say the system has safeguards to prevent ineligible people from voting or people voting more than once. They are confident that ballots are securely processed.

“I think one of the misconceptions is that people can double vote,” said Roxanne Gerads, Stearns County’s elections supervisor. “The system does a really good job of flagging those."

Still, some officials worry that the Trump administration's attacks on mail ballots are creating distrust in the voting system.

"There's no question about that,” Simon said. “This has introduced a level of confusion and at least short-term doubt by a lot of voters, and maybe that was the goal all along."

Still, regardless of how they cast their ballot, Minnesotans typically want to vote, Simon said.

The state saw record-breaking turnout for its August primary. With many key races on the November ballot, officials are preparing for another busy election.

Elections officials like Jory Danielson, administrative services director for Crow Wing County, urge voters with questions to contact the Secretary of State’s office or their local elections office.

"Elections are run by our friends and neighbors and even family members in the communities of both major political parties,” he said. “The checks and balances and the procedures that are in place are there to protect the voter, and to protect the ballots.”

Minnesota’s job growth was effectively flat last month and unemployment ticked up to 4.4 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis. The national rate was 4.4 percent.

That’s according to new job numbers from the state’s Department of Employment and Economic Development for the month of August.

Officials also noted that a smaller share of Minnesota’s population is working or looking for work. The state’s labor force participation rate has fallen every month this year, down to 66.9 percent in August from 68.1 percent one year ago.

DEED Commissioner Matt Varilek said the state’s population is aging and fewer new workers are moving here to replace them, especially after the surge in immigration enforcement efforts earlier this year.

“Our population growth has been boosted by a large number of arrivals from foreign sources, talented people choosing to come to this country and come to Minnesota, and current indications are that that has really almost been turned off entirely,” he said.

On an annual basis, Minnesota’s jobs growth is outpacing the national rate. Over the year, Minnesota added more than 45,000 jobs, a 1.5 percent increase, and the U.S. saw job growth of 0.3 percent.

Minnesota exports up, but maybe not for long

The state also released new export data Thursday. The value of Minnesota's exports rose 14 percent in the second quarter of this year compared to the same period in 2025. Exports rose by 15 percent nationally.

Canada remained the state's largest export market. Costa Rica became a top 10 export country for the first time, driven by a surge in optic and medical products.

Varilek said one of the reasons for growth could be relief from the Supreme Court, which struck down some of President Donald Trump’s tariffs this year. But that relief didn’t last long.

“As we look ahead to current export activity and future quarterly export releases, unfortunately, we now have to contend with a trade war with Canada, featuring tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian imports, and then the Canadians' tariffs on an equivalent level of U.S. exports in response,” he said.

He said the escalating trade war will likely raise prices for consumers and limit Minnesota businesses' ability to sell to Canadians.

MN Shortlist is the MPR News weekly roundup of arts and culture recommendations. This week’s picks include a crop art exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the 27th Children’s Book Festival at the Anderson Center in Red Wing, a 50th anniversary celebration of the Japanese Garden at Normandale Community College and more.

Chroma Zone Mural & Art Festival in St. Paul — Through Sept. 19

Since 2019, the Chroma Zone Mural & Art Festival has commissioned 80 murals across the South Saint Anthony Park and Midway neighborhoods of St. Paul. This year, the festival features six artists from Minnesota, Seattle and Los Angeles. Minneapolis public artist Daniela Bianchini, who participated in the inaugural festival, is back working on a mural on a brick building at 2336 W. Territorial Road.

“This is one of the great things about Chroma Zone: A lot of the artists get to have their own voice, and usually you don't do that in public art. You have to engage with the community and stakeholders and people with money and all that,” Bianchini told MPR News. “Here, we get to do pretty much whatever we want. So, I wanted to celebrate women in community and people being together for the sake of being together, celebrating the fact that we don't have to be working, producing, and doing things all the time.”

Artists have been painting their murals since Sept. 13 and, on Friday and Saturday, there will be a celebration of the completed artworks. Festivities include “alley jams” with local graffiti artists, mural bike and bus tours and a block party that takes place near Bianchini’s mural. (Alex V. Cipolle)

Comic Con at the American Indian Community Housing Organization in Duluth — Sept. 19

Duluth-based American Indian Community Housing Organization joins the lineup of fan conventions this fall with its free AICHO Comic Con. The event will be held at AICHO’s center on Saturday.

Organizers will host a cosplay contest, where people are encouraged to dress as their favorite characters from movies, books, games and shows.

AICHO’s Indigenous First Art and Gift Shop coordinator and event co-organizer Khayman Goodsky said the no-cost event aims to make the event more accessible and better represent of Indigenous communities in media spaces.

“I think Indigenous people are very creative, and so when they do cosplay, I think they really go all out for it,” Goodsky said. The event also includes panels with local artists discussing publishing, mixed media and language revitalization. Breakout rooms will be held for social games and building social connections.

“I want to see everyone connect with everyone else,” Goodsky said.

AICHO Comic Con is open to all ages. It runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Chandra Colvin)

‘Cream of the Crop: The Second Harvest’ at Minneapolis Institute of Art — Sept. 19-Nov. 29

The Minnesota State Fair has ended but crop art mania continues, without the lines. This weekend, the Minneapolis Institute of Art opens its second annual crop art exhibition with 30 works of art chosen from the fair. The museum awarded four pieces with the “Hidden Gem at Mia” prize, which honors crop art that reimagines a lesser-known work in Mia's collection, including “La Petite Bergère – At Night" by Rochester artist Diane Klein.

The “Mia Favorite” prize, which recognizes artistry and creativity, went to “Twin Cities 2026 (Guernica 1937)” by Fridley artist Jennifer Nelson – a reimagining of a painting by Pablo Picasso, one of the most famous antiwar pieces in art history. Nelson made hers in response to Operation Metro Surge and featured imagery of Alex Pretti, Renee Good, Liam Canejo Ramos, whistles and the rebel loon.

“Picasso's is very heavy on the anguish, and I wanted my piece to capture not only the difficulty that that time was, but also the way that people rose to the occasion,” Nelson said. “The loon I have isn't screaming in anguish, but it's stoic and standing firm and kind of putting itself on the line.”

Need more crop art? St. Paul has got you covered. Can Can Wonderland is hosting a “Deviant Crop Art Show” Sept. 20-Oct. 11 with pieces that were “too naughty” for the State Fair and the Boréal Art Loft is showing State Fair crop art through Sept. 28. (Alex V. Cipolle)

Minnesota Children’s Book Festival at the Anderson Center in Red Wing — Sept. 19

Minnesota has an incredible kid lit community, and one of the events that best puts that richness on display is the Minnesota Children’s Book Festival, held every year in Red Wing. Anderson Center executive and artistic director Stephanie Rogers notes that, at 27 years, the festival has been going on long enough that people who attended as children can now bring their own. Held outside (under tents!) on the Anderson Center lawn, the event features nine authors and illustrators of books for kids and preteens. A different author or illustrator will read from their work every half-hour. Visitors can meet the presenters and purchase signed copies; participate in interactive activities including art projects and face painting, or grab a bite from a food truck. This free event runs 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Emily Bright)

Japanese Garden 50th Anniversary at Normandale Community College in Bloomington — Sept. 19

The Japanese Garden is a hidden gem in the Twin Cities, located on the Normandale Community College campus in Bloomington. The 2-acre garden was designed by Tokyo architect Takao Watanabe and incorporates more than 300 plants and trees, including Japanese cherry trees that were specially developed in partnership with the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum to survive Minnesota winters. The Japanese Garden is free and open to the public daily from sunrise to sunset spring through fall; It closes for the year when the pond begins to freeze. Much, though not all, of the garden is wheelchair accessible (details here).

This Saturday afternoon from noon to 4 p.m., there will be a celebration of the garden's 50th anniversary that is free and open to the public. Following an opening ceremony at noon, events include Taiko Drumming and dance performances, a Japanese tea ceremony, garden tours and hands-on activities such as koi feeding, calligraphy and origami.

While you’re there, look for plaques commemorating the work of Japanese Americans in the Military Intelligence Service Language School at Camp Savage and Fort Snelling during WWII. Their interpretation and translation work, at a time when their families were in internment camps, were key to the U.S. war effort against Japan. In the early 1970s, veterans from that school donated key startup money to create the garden.

20th Twin Cities Arab Film Festival in Minneapolis — Sept. 23-27

Mizna is a St. Paul nonprofit that highlights and supports contemporary art, literature and film made by Arab, Southwest Asian and North African,or SWANA,artists. One of Mizna’s annual cornerstone projects is the Twin Cities Arab Film Festival, which runs for five days at The Main Cinema and Walker Art Center. Opening night is Sept. 23 at The Main with a screening of “The Stories” by Egyptian-Austrian filmmaker Abu Bakr Shawky. The festival also includes Minnesota-made films like “Woman Land” and “1001 Arab Futures,” an outdoor screening of a “mystery classic” and a closing reception at the Walker with the film “With Hasan in Gaza,” compiled by rediscovered 2001 footage from Gaza. (Alex V. Cipolle)