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A new boutique skating rink is set to open next week in the empty space where CB2 used to be in the Uptown neighborhood of Minneapolis. James Adams is the founder of Twin Cities Skaters and the owner of the rink.
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The search for two canoeists who went over a waterfall in the Boundary Waters is still ongoing. We'll talk to a BWCA outfitter about staying safe in one of Minnesota's most beautiful - and perilous - destinations.
After last night's heavy rain, we'll hear from MPR's chief meteorologist about what to expect for Memorial Day weekend.
We're continuing our series on the different impacts of George Floyd's murder on Minnesotans. Today, we're zooming in on Lake Street's recovery efforts.
Is roller skating officially back? We'll talk to the owner of the new rink set to open in Uptown.
Plus, we'll hear some words of wisdom from a 99-year-old woman from Minnesota in our Connect the Dot Series.
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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The St. Louis County Rescue Squad is continuing to search for two missing canoeists who went over Curtain Falls in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Saturday. Crews evacuated two other people who were in the canoes and another member of their party who was on shore. Search teams are working non-stop, though they had to take cover from heavy rain and winds last night, according to the rescue squad’s Facebook page. And they expect the water volume in the falls to double due to the rain.
Jason Zabokrtsky is familiar with this area and its risks as a wilderness guide and founder of Ely Outfitting Company. He joined MPR News guest host Nina Moini to describe the area of Curtain Falls and what you can do to stay safe.
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If there’s anyone that fits the bill for our Connect the Dots series it’s Kathleen Tousignant, 99. As part of our series we continue to talk to older Minnesotans as they look back on their long lives and share wisdom and lessons.
Let’s go back to the year 1925. Calvin Coolidge was President. Teaching evolution in schools was outlawed in Tennessee, leading to the legendary Scopes trial that same year. The famed Serum Run by dogsled relay crossed Alaska to bring the diphtheria antitoxin to the town of Nome and surrounding communities. And, on March 12, 1925, Tousignant was born. She now resides in Lakeville. MPR’s senior economics contributor Chris Farrell recently visited with her at her continuing care community complex.
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We are drying off Wednesday after a lot of rain across Minnesota. Severe weather hit southern portions of the state and National Weather Service teams will be surveying damage from a possible tornado in Winona County.
MPR News chief meteorologist Paul Huttner joined MPR News guest Host Nina Moini after a busy night to recap the severe weather and look at the forecast ahead.
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Saturday is the fourth anniversary of the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. The civil unrest that followed his death in 2020 left its mark on the Twin Cities, with fire and other damage along parts of University Avenue, West Broadway and Lake Street. The damage, which the state priced at $500 million, was an added challenge for business owners who were already muddling through the strangeness of a new global pandemic.
Each day this week on Minnesota Now, we’re looking at a different impact of Floyd’s murder on Minnesotans. We’re zooming in on Lake Street with Allison Sharkey, executive director of Lake Street Council and Alicia Belton, one of three long-term owners who are working to bring the Coliseum Building back to life after it burned in 2020. She’s also the architect on the project and owns the firm Urban Design Perspectives.
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May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. If you find yourself near south Minneapolis this weekend, one way to celebrate is with beer: Arbeiter Brewing is one of just 2 percent of breweries nationwide that are Asian-American owned.
On Sunday, May 26, Arbeiter is hosting a festival with food, drinks and performances by local dance and drumming groups, plus music by Minneapolis DJ Jen-E. Brewery co-founder Juno Choi joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer with details on the upcoming Asian Phoenix Festival.
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In the spring of 2020, the streets of Minneapolis and across the globe were filled with cries of “I Can’t Breathe” following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police.
It was one of the largest global activism movements in modern times. This Saturday will mark four years since Floyd’s death. Each day this week, Minnesota Now will look at a different impact his death had on Minnesotans. On Tuesday, the focus is activism and the grassroots work that continues years after the uprising.
For more, MPR News host Cathy Wurzer talked with Leslie Redmond, who was the president of the Minneapolis NAACP at the time of Floyd’s murder and the youngest president ever elected to the role.
She has since left that position and is the founding executive director of the nonprofits Don’t Complain, Activate and Win Back, which is holding a Day of Remembrance for Floyd on Friday.
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Parts of the state are facing severe weather starting this afternoon — our meteorologist joined us with the latest.
Minnesota has one of the highest shares of remote workers in the country. We talked to an analyst about why — and how this is affecting the state.
George Floyd’s murder sparked unprecedented protests across the the Twin Cites. We heard how that energy has carried into 2024.
A recently-passed bill says school libraries may not ban books based on the opinions they convey. A school librarian explained.
And many are celebrating Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with a beer — we learned more about an upcoming festival.
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There were some major bills that did not pass in the chaotic last days of the Minnesota legislative session. One bill that did pass prohibits public and school libraries from banning a book “based solely on its viewpoint or the messages, ideas or opinions it conveys.” It also protects library employees from discipline against them for complying with the new rules.
Librarians have been put in the center of a culture war on books. According to PEN America, 4,349 books were banned from schools between July and December 2023, more than the entire previous school year. And that’s likely underreported. The issue has been playing out in Minnesota, too.
For more on the impact of the new law, MPR News host Cathy Wurzer talked with school librarian and the president-elect of Information and Technology Educators of Minnesota, Rachel Haider.
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New data analyzed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis has found that Minnesota has one of the higher shares of remote workers in the country and the highest in the Midwest.
Haley Chinander is an analyst with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. She joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer to talk about her article breaking down these new numbers.
As a note, Chinander’s views are her own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Minneapolis Fed or the Federal Reserve System.
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Severe weather is forecasted to roll into Minnesota Tuesday afternoon and evening. It has rained somewhere in Minnesota pretty much all day, with showers expected to turn into severe thunderstorms. Much of Minnesota is also under a flood watch, from the international border to Iowa. MPR meteorologist Sven Sundgaard joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer to break it all down.
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Minnesota lawmakers are out of time to pass legislation. One of the bills that didn't make it was the public works infrastructure package, known around the Capitol as the bonding bill. We hear reaction from a group that represents local governments across the state.
It has been nearly four years since the murder of George Floyd. This week, we look at what's happened in that time, starting with diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
And the term “kinkeeping” is taking off online. We find out what it means and why it’s resonating with so many people.
The Timberwolves made it to the Western Conference finals! We meet a fan who traveled more than 5,000 miles to watch Sunday’s game.
Plus, a new book celebrates 40 years of Prince’s “Purple Rain.”
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There’s a phrase that’s lit up across the internet recently — it’s not new, but it’s having a resurgence. The term is “kinkeeping.”
It describes the constant work required to keep a family connected. And the vast majority of that work is done by women. Whether it’s keeping family traditions or buying gifts for holidays and birthdays, much if this work is invisible.
One video on TikTok about kinkeeping has more than 12 million views. The TikTok was posted by posted by Molly Westcott, a student of Erienne Fawcett.
Fawcett is a professor of women and gender studies at Minnesota State University Moorhead. She joined MPR News Host Cathy Wurzer to talk about this relationship glue — and some of the gender inequality involved in producing it.
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This Saturday will mark four years since the murder of George Floyd. The impact his murder had on Minnesota are long-lasting and still playing out today. Each day this week on Minnesota Now, we will look at a different impact. Monday’s segment is one the State of Diversity Equity and Inclusion in workplaces, or DEI.
Sharon Smith-Akinsanya joined MPR News Host Cathy Wurzer to talk about the trends she sees in DEI. She is the founder and CEO of the Rae Mackenzie Group, a local DEI marketing firm that works with companies around the country such as Target and U.S. Bank. Smith-Akinsanya is also the founder of the long-running People of Color Career Fair.
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One of the main tasks of the session was supposed to be passing a bonding bill. Lawmakers fielded more than $7 billion in requests for state and local projects around the state.
But a bill didn’t pass, and now most of those projects are getting no state money.
Without state funding, infrastructure projects across the state including roads, health centers and public works are in jeopardy.
Bradley Peterson is the executive director of the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities. He joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer to share what’s next for cities that were counting on funding.
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The 40th anniversary of Prince’s best-selling album and film “Purple Rain” is next month on June 25 and 27 respectively. And on Tuesday, a new memorabilia- and picture-filled book will be released in honor of the occasion: “Prince and Purple Rain: 40 Years.”
Prince’s story is told by Minneapolis-based music journalist Andrea Swensson, who is also the host of the Official Prince Podcast, a Minnesota Book Award winner and former host of the Current’s Local Show. A long-time reporter on Prince and the Minnesota music beat, she calls her new book a “love letter” to his legacy.
It all began in 2014 when Swensson assembled a 30th-anniversary package for MPR News and the Current.
“And that really started this whole Prince adventure that I’ve been on over the last decade,” Swensson told MPR News on Monday.
“I started covering his career so closely when he was still with us and have done a lot of work around his legacy since we lost him. And I really wanted to take this opportunity to put together something that captured so many of these amazing stories about him, and really spoke to my own personal connection to his music and to his life and what he meant to me.”
April 2017 Remembering Prince at his home and studio
October 2017 Andrea Swensson tells the story of the 'Minneapolis Sound' in first book
Swensson describes the era of “Purple Rain” as iconic and world-building, calling the watershed film unrivaled in rock history. Prince’s influence, she said, is almost impossible to untangle from the fabric of the music industry over the last 40 years.
'Prince and Purple Rain: 40 Years'
Swensson says she has interviewed each member of The Revolution — Bobby Z, BrownMark, Dr. Fink, Lisa Coleman and Wendy Melvoin — at least three times.
“He wanted us to be a gang … and by the time we got to ‘Purple Rain,’ we were,” drummer Bobby Z recalls in the book. Bassist BrownMark affirmed: “We were experts … The way we rehearsed, I mean, ‘Purple Rain,’ I could fall asleep and probably play it. That’s how well we knew the whole set.”
“We’ve had some really, really memorable conversations,” Swensson said. “This was such a pivotal time in all of their lives. Wendy Melvoin was only 19-years-old when she joined Prince’s band. And her very first show is the night that they played at First Avenue and recorded ‘Purple Rain.’”
The book was put together and contributed to by a hyperlocal team, including photography from Greg Helgeson, Tommy Smith III and Nancy Bundt; private archivist Rich Benson; designer Cindy Laun; editor Dennis Pernu and art director Heather Godin. It’s filled with evocative photography, images of ticket stubs, posters and vinyl records, reflective quotes and iconic lyrics — transporting the reader back to the summer of 1984.
Writing the tribute conjured up some unexpected emotions for Swenson.
“There was something therapeutic to me about being able to revisit that meeting that I had with him because we did talk a lot about his feelings about anniversaries ... At the time that we met, he had two new albums in the can he was getting ready to put out,” she said. “So there was something really poignant and a little bittersweet to me to really sit with my notes and my memories of that night and be able to write about it in this way. And it did feel like some kind of full circle moment.”
“Prince and Purple Rain: 40 Years,” including a foreword by Maya Rudolph, debuts on May 21. There is a book release party on June 12 at Electric Fetus in Minneapolis; a pre-order is required.
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The class of 2024 may be one of the most unique college classes. Many of them were high school seniors in 2020 and didn’t get a high school graduation. They then entered college in the height of the pandemic, starting school entirely online. Additionally, they were experiencing fallout from the murder of George Floyd, increasing climate disasters and most recently campus protests surrounding the Israel-Hamas war.
Despite all of that, the class of 2024 has a diploma in hand. MPR News producers Aleesa Kuznetsov and Josh Cobb talked to several college graduates across Minnesota who reflected on their college experience.
To provide more insight on the class of 2024, Evan Johnson joined MPR News Host Cathy Wurzer. Johnson is the Associate Director of Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at the University of Minnesota's MLK program and is also an academic advisor.
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There’s controversy over the upcoming graduation ceremony for Hinckley-Finlayson High School. On Monday, the school board announced the Native American Student Association will no longer have the opportunity to play the Ojibwe Honor Song with its drum group at graduation next Friday.
More than 40 students walked out of class Wednesday in protest. They say that their culture is being silenced, even as Native American students make up about a quarter of the student body. Students say they’ll continue walkouts and silent protests until graduation day.
The district superintendent said in a statement that the reason is to ensure that graduation focuses on graduating students rather than extracurricular student activities. Melanie Benjamin Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe chief executive joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer with perspective on the situation.
- Visa fler