Many Americans are finding it harder to stretch their budgets — and wondering when they’ll feel some financial relief.

Inflation, higher gas prices and difficulty keeping up with bills and other payments — like buy now, pay later loans — are straining household budgets, while tariffs and changing trade relationships, including with Canada, raise concerns about additional costs.

Coming up at 9 a.m. on Monday, MPR News host Angela Davis and her guests talk about why so many people feel financially squeezed, what’s driving these pressures and what they reveal about the broader economy.

And we want to hear from you, too.

Have you been feeling a financial pinch? How’s the economy affecting how you choose to spend your money?

Call us during the 9 a.m. hour at 651-227-6000 or 800-242-2828. 

Guests:

• Chris Farrell is the senior economics contributor for MPR News and Marketplace.

• Catherine Rampell is economics editor at The Bulwark, an independent media company. She is also an anchor at MS NOW, formerly MSNBC, and a contributor to Marketplace. She previously worked as an opinion columnist for The Washington Post and was an economics reporter for The New York Times.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.

The planned merger of North Memorial Health and South Dakota-based Sanford Health is moving forward.

This development follows the announcement by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison on Friday that the two health systems have reached a 10-year oversight agreement after his office reviewed the merger plan, which was first announced in May.

The 10-year agreement is far longer than Sanford’s initial commitment to maintain core services at North Memorial’s Robbinsdale hospital for only two years.

Terms of the agreement include $600 million in investments in North Memorial’s Maple Grove and Robbinsdale hospitals, and maintaining the Level 1 trauma center in Robbinsdale for at least a decade.

Among other terms, the agreement also includes commitments to honor all collective-bargaining contracts, maintain a corporate presence in Minnesota and maintain air and ground ambulance services in the state.

“We have agreed to respect all the collective bargaining agreements that are in place, and there will be no job eliminations associated with this integration, because we all agree that healthcare is fundamentally local,” Trevor Sawallish, chief executive at North Memorial Health, said at a press conference Friday outside of the Robbinsdale hospital.

The oversight agreement states that the combined health system “shall not reduce the scope of reproductive health care and gender-affirming care services” at its Minnesota locations as of the closing date of the merger, “to the extent consistent with applicable law and regulations.”

“We have a ground-breaking agreement to protect Minnesotans," Ellison said in a news release. “The commitments and expressions of strong intent that Sanford Health and North Memorial Health have made to make significant investments in facilities and people and maintain key services in Minnesota — and their willingness to be held accountable to those commitments in an oversight agreement for 10 years — are in the public interest.”

The agreement calls on Sanford Health leadership to hold quarterly meetings with the Minnesota attorney general “to discuss integration, operations, and adherence to the terms of the oversight agreement” for a period of 10 years.

“As one nonprofit health system, we will preserve essential care at Robbinsdale Hospital, expand access to specialty care, invest in our people, create a more resilient emergency and trauma network and strengthen care across rural and urban Minnesota,” Bill Gassen, president and chief executive officer of Sanford Health, said in a news release.

For the past several months, a coalition of organizations has been advocating for a community benefits agreement to protect patients, healthcare workers and Minnesota's healthcare system amid significant federal cuts to healthcare funding.

Minister JaNaé Bates Imari, co-director of ISAIAH, represented the coalition at the press conference outside North Memorial’s Robbinsdale Hospital. She said the merger is “a really good thing” because it guarantees the hospital's long-term viability.

“This hospital serves a significant Black and Brown population, working-class families, Medicaid patients, and people for whom losing this hospital does not simply mean driving a few more miles, it can mean losing access to care altogether,” Bates said.

She said this merger will bring greater stability and investment to the hospital serving the North Minneapolis community.

In addition to its two hospitals in Robbinsdale and Maple Grove, North Memorial has 22 clinics, urgent and emergency care throughout the Twin Cities, as well as medical transportation services in Minnesota.

Sanford Health is the largest rural health system in the U.S., operating hospitals and clinics across the upper Midwest, including Minnesota. The merger marks Sanford Health's expansion from its Sioux Falls base into the Twin Cities market, following a previous deal with Fairview Health Services that fell apart three years ago.

The two health systems had previously said they planned to finalize the merger this year, pending state and federal approval.

Thousands of Minnesota youth are bringing their animals to the State Fair this year along with their families, their 4-H clubs or FFA chapters. It's a big lift to prepare an animal to be judged for a ribbon at the fair, and the Minnesota State Fair foundation has a grant program for first-time fair goers, the BELLE grant. BELLE stands for “Beginning Exhibitor Livestock Learning Experience.” The grant helps pay for travel, animal show supplies and feed for the animals. It also helps set up the first-timers with a mentor.

12-year-old Madelyn Donnelly and her mentor Allison Van Nurden, who is in her first year of college — and last year of 4-H. They both brought their lambs to the Minnesota Public Radio stage at the Minnesota State Fair to talk to MPR News host Nina Moini about their experience as mentor and mentee.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

The union representing Chisago County workers who’ve been on strike for almost four months has ratified a tentative contract agreement.

Amy Perusse, with Teamsters Local 320, said all three groups of affected workers approved the three-year deal on Friday.

“Our folks are very excited to get back to work. This contract resolution gives them the wage and health insurance protections they were looking for, and so they are very excited to end this chapter and get back to serving the community,” Perusse said.

Perusse said the agreement addresses two main sticking points that led to the lengthy strike — including a wage increase of 20.5 percent over three years, and offering health insurance through the Teamsters.

Perusse said the Teamsters health insurance plan is cheaper than that of other workers.

“The county wanted to keep that savings, and we felt that we should be treated and get the same health insurance contribution — regardless of which plan it went to — as other county workers.”

The county said it agreed to an employer contribution to the Teamsters health insurance, with a cap.

The county also said the agreement calls for a wage package with a “3 percent general increase in each of the first two years and a 4 percent general increase in the third year.” Perusse said the union is describing this as a 20.5 percent increase over three years because it’s combining the general increases and step increases from each year of the contract.

About 125 union members have been on strike since May 1 — representing about 30 percent of Chisago County employees. It includes health and human services workers and government center professionals. A small third group of engineering technicians wasn’t on strike, but “we were able to get a tentative agreement and ratify that for their group with the same conditions,” Perusse said.

The strike followed negotiations that had started last fall.

“This historic strike is equaled by the historic settlement,” Erik Skoog, the union’s secretary-treasurer and principal officer, said in a statement. “This was a battle of giants, and our sisters and brothers stood strong and won an amazing settlement.”

At nearly 120 days, the strike — while long — is not the longest public-sector strike in Minnesota history.

A spokesperson for the Minnesota Bureau of Mediation Services said the longest was by city workers in Park Rapids, who went on strike for 240 days. That strike ended in 1977.

Retailer Target pulled a children’s Halloween costume from its shelves Monday after widespread social media backlash, apologizing for selling a garment critics said evoked racist minstrel caricatures.

Critics say the costume, along with its promotional image of a Black child modeling the get-up, is reminiscent of caricatures from Jim Crow-era minstrel shows that embedded stereotypes into popular culture and helped justify discrimination, segregation and racial violence.

“As a company, we know we got this wrong, and we are deeply sorry. The costume is offensive and should never have been part of our assortment. It is no longer available for sale,” Target said in a statement.

“We know this is especially hurtful for our Black guests, team members and partners. Removing the costume is an important first step, and the company is looking closely at how this happened and what needs to change to ensure this won’t happen again.”

The costume misstep happened as Target’s sales have started rebounding from earlier company moves that alienated some customers and from a perception the quality of its stores and merchandise had declined.

It is the latest controversy for the retailer, which joined companies like Meta, Walmart, and McDonald’s in rolling back their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts after President Donald Trump won the 2024 election.

The “Kids’ Glows Under Blacklight Circus Clown Halloween costume,” an orange-and-black circus clown costume, now deleted from the Target website, featured gloves, a top hat and a grinning mask with large teeth.

‘Not simply getting it wrong’

“A Jim Crow-era minstrel costume is not simply getting it wrong. It is a profoundly harmful symbol of racism that should never have been designed, approved, or sold by Target,” said the Rev. Jamal Bryant, a Georgia pastor who led a 40-day “Target Fast” boycott last year. “It shows that Target still lacks corporate diversity among decision-makers and needs concrete internal change.”

In January 2025, the Minneapolis-based corporation ended its three-year DEI program, stopping reports to external groups like the Human Rights Campaign and ended a program focused on carrying more products from Black- or minority-owned businesses, replacing it with a new “Belonging” strategy. The company previously stated that the murder of George Floyd was a catalyst for its DEI initiatives.

Activist-organizers called for a boycott of Target, which lost roughly $12.4 billion in market value by the end of February from January.

Minnesota civil rights activists, separate from Bryant, organized a national Target boycott, resulting in a 33 percent fall in the corporation’s stock prices and wiped out over $20 billion in market value.

Target’s recent recovery

Target has managed a recovery in recent months. The stock closed at $165.44 on Aug.21, a fresh 52-week high, after a strong second quarter. On Aug. 24, Target’s shares closed at $169.89.

Target’s stock is up roughly 63 percent this year, a sharp rebound from the depths of the boycott. The company’s turnaround strategy, launched by new CEO Michael Fiddelke after former CEO Brian Cornell stepped down, includes store refreshes, increased staffing, and more aggressive pricing. Target announced a plan in March to invest $2 billion in 2026, including $1 billion in additional operating investments, with plans to open more than 30 new stores this year as part of its path to 300 new stores by 2035, while investing in over 130 planned full-store remodels.

Bruce Winder, a retail analyst and former retail buyer, says that inventory errors, such as the recent Prada and Gucci controversies, “can happen to the best of them.”

“These things happen over time. I think the most important thing for Target, and they did it, was to quickly take accountability, quickly say sorry, acknowledge that this was a big mistake, and pull the product from the shelves,” Winder said.

Boycott organizers undeterred

Target boycott organizers in Minneapolis, including Nekima Levy Armstrong and community leaders Monique Cullars-Doty and Jaylani Hussein, remain steadfast in their divestment calls.

They have continued to press the company to reinstate its DEI programs and continue its commitments to Black communities, and they say the costume controversy is a refresher on their mission.

“It’s important for people to understand that the Target boycott never ended; that it was indefinite from the beginning, unless and until Target reversed course on its decision to roll back diversity, equity, and inclusion,” said Armstrong, an organizer of the national Target boycott.

“What we’ve seen is Target engaging in PR campaigns: recruiting high-visibility Black ministers to meet with them, partnering with (rapper and businessman) Jay-Z, all types of different shenanigans to deflect from the fact that they abandon their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and capitulation to the Trump administration.”

Hussein, another boycott organizer, said the costume incident was “not surprising.”

“It was almost predictable because of the behavior of Target, and I think this is going to build on the momentum of the boycott. More people are going to be upset,” he said.

“It’s not just an incident with a costume. There are a lot of people right now in this country across many parts who’ve changed their culture of shopping, who have found other places to put their money behind.”

Target Corporation’s stock closed at $163.47 on Aug. 25, dropping 3.78 percent from its previous close the day prior.

Fargo tattooist Meg Felix decided not to raise her hourly rate during or after the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I wanted to be in the same boat as everyone,” she said.

That connection with her clients has helped her maintain their trust, she said. Overall, this year has been good for business, and her clientele has been growing.

But with rising costs and some tariff effects, she raised her hourly rate this year from $150 to $175, an almost 17 percent increase.

“This year I finally decided to give myself a raise because with tattooing, nobody gives you a raise, you make that decision when it feels like the time is right,” she said. “It was just a slight increase to be in competition with the other tattooers as far as their hourly prices.”

Many businesses are in a similar situation, according to a new survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

More than 900 businesses across the Ninth District — which includes Minnesota, Montana, the Dakotas, and parts of Wisconsin and Michigan — responded to the July survey about business conditions.

In the second quarter of the year, most respondents said profits were down compared to 2025, and many said rising expenses are their biggest challenge.

“Some of the commenters wrote that even if their revenues grew, rising costs were just really, really eating away at their profits,” said Haley Chinander, an analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

Over 90 percent of respondents said wholesale prices are increasing and about 70 percent, a growing share, reported raising their retail prices since last year.

“Many of them were also saying they were eating a lot of these costs as to not drive away their customers,” Chinander said.

The survey found another major challenge was government policies. A majority of businesses said tariffs are having a negative effect on business through higher costs and impact on customers. For instance, most of the states in the Ninth District share a border with Canada, and border crossings have been down since Trump’s return to office.

“We did have a lot of mentions of declines in Canadian tourism, and not just tourism, Canadian customers coming over and spending across the border,” Chinander said

The Trump administration’s July announcement of new tariffs on Canada was made in the middle of the survey window. Canada announced Tuesday it would be retaliating.

Statewide policies are having a negative impact on some employers, too. Most businesses surveyed are in Minnesota and some said the state’s new paid leave policy is causing staff shortages and adding administrative costs, such as the time it takes to fill out paperwork and ensure compliance with the law.

“One business even mentioned that they were overstaffing just to plan ahead for when someone goes on leave,” Chinander said.

Across the district, wage growth has been slow, according to the survey. Compared to 2025’s survey, a smaller share of respondents reported having higher wages than they did a year ago. That’s been a trend since at least 2023.

Still, a majority of employers have raised wages in the last year.

“We had a decent amount of comments from smaller businesses mentioning how they really want to raise their wages because they fear losing their staff if they don't,” Chinander said. “One business owner even commented that they cut their personal salary way back just to be able to afford increased wages for their staff.”

Chinander said smaller businesses were most likely to cut wages and more likely to report sharp declines in revenue and profit than larger ones. She likened the situation to the so-called “K-shaped economy,” which describes a purported widening gap in consumer spending between high-and-low-income consumers — although a writer at the Minneapolis Fed found contrasting data for that trend.

“That dynamic seems to be similar to what we're seeing on the business side with larger businesses versus smaller ones,” Chinander said. “The larger ones are faring decently better in these current conditions, while smaller businesses are just grappling with more severe challenges here.”

That gap exists when looking toward the future, too. Smaller businesses were more likely to be pessimistic about profit and revenue for the rest of the year compared to larger ones. For all businesses, the outlook leaned negative, but better than it was a year ago.

“People are generally a little more positive about their expectations than what they recently experienced,” Chinander said. “We saw that again in the survey, over half had experienced profit declines, but under half were expecting those declines to continue for the next quarter.”

In Fargo, Meg Felix feels pretty optimistic about the rest of the year. Not just for her business, but for her husband’s barbershop, too, which is in the same space as her tattoo parlor.

Working in the service industry with a loyal and growing clientele, Jed Felix said both he and Meg have been relatively insulated from twists and turns in the economy.

“I’m fortunate, with barbering, there’s not that much [to buy] once you have your clippers and everything,” he said. “I haven't really felt anything, but I know pretty much every other business in town definitely has.”

They’re insulated, but not immune. Some tattoo supplies from Canada have become more expensive after tariffs. Plus, as a household, their everyday costs are still going up, especially with a three-year-old to feed.

“Groceries are very expensive,” she said. “And we're not getting anything fun. We're getting, you know, your meat, your milk, veggies, stuff like that. We're not splurging, but … we don't have a lot of extra spending.”

The trade war between the U.S. and Canada is facing further escalation as the Trump administration plans to add 50 percent tariffs on Canadian automobiles, parts and steel in the next year.

This would be in addition to a 50 percent tariff hike that went into effect Saturday, after talks with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday proved unsuccessful. Those talks, which were supposed to ease tensions, resulted in increased costs on general Canadian goods like alcohol and hockey equipment.

Canadian cities near the Minnesota border, including Thunder Bay, are bracing for the potential fallout.

While the impact won’t be immediate, “we do know that the longer that these tariffs go on, that the impacts will broaden throughout the economy on both sides of the border,” Charla Robinson, president of the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce, told MPR News.

Listen to the full conversation by clicking the player above.

For six weeks in a row, Minnesota’s corn and soybean health has fallen, per USDA crop progress reports. In many parts of the state, one would need to dig down at least three feet to find much in the way of even ‘adequate’ water. Rather than write just a weather report here, let’s instead turn to landowners directly. The below blurbs are from CMOR, the Condition Monitoring Observer Reports. Effectively, this is ground truth from people who rely on the land.

From Murray County, Minn. on Monday, August 24:

“Murray County is still hurting for rain. A lot of guys have not only started corn silage, but a lot are close to being done if not done already. This is 2-3 weeks earlier than normal. Corn and Beans are starting to look ROUGH! If we don't get any rain for these crops harvest will be starting mid September. Pastures are dryer and dryer everyday. A lot of them have turned brown and farmers are taking livestock home or hauling supplemental feed and water to the pastures for their livestock.”

Crops are: “Very Poor - Extreme degree of loss to yield potential, complete or near crop failure.”

From Clearwater County, Minn. on Thursday, August 20:

“Wheat crops on the west side of Clearwater County where worse yielding and lower proteins., then our crops on the east side of Clearwater County. There are ponds that I've never seen dry. One of our fields has a slow spot swamp in the middle of it and in 2021 it had water in it it does not have water in it this year. The Creeks that feed into the Clearwater River are all dry. Our water hole which is down by one of the creeks that feeds the Clearwater River has now dried up in the last day. We are about 2 to 3 weeks behind where we were in 2021. If we don't get a significant amount of rain shortly it will not be good. And if we get another heat Wave it definitely will be very dry.”

To be as balanced as possible, another report came in on Monday from the small town of Northome, Minn. on Monday, Aug. 24. This writer reports things are fine within a ten mile radius of their home.:

“Normal conditions for this time of year • More green than usual for this time of year • Increased moisture or humidity • Soil moisture is adequate to good • Non-irrigated crops or pastures are doing well”

We also asked the Minnesota Corn Growers Association to provide their thoughts. Here is what they had to say, Tuesday August 25, in a statement for MPR:

“Adequate soil moisture to start the growing season and a great June increased the potential for the 2026 corn crop. But in northwestern, southwestern, and parts of east-central Minnesota, overly hot and dry conditions in July has reduced the potential for the crop. While the parts of Minnesota that have received adequate rainfall—particularly south-central and far southeast Minnesota—are looking at a very strong crop, the statewide average yield could be more modest.”

USDA crop reports for Minnesota show the fall-off for corn and beans the last six weeks, after a very nice start to the growing season. Notice how flat the health was (in a good way) early on:

June 15:

Corn: 81percent good, excellent

Soybeans: 80 percent good, excellent

June 22:

Corn: 79 percent good, excellent

Soybeans: 76 percent good, excellent

June 29:

Corn: 80 percent good, excellent

Soybeans: 78 percent good, excellent

July 6:

Corn: 81 percent good, excellent

Soybeans: 79 percent good, excellent

July 13:

Corn: 84 percent good, excellent

Soybeans: 81 percent good, excellent

July 20:

Corn: 80 percent good, excellent

Soybeans: 80 percent good, excellent

July 27:

Corn: 77 percent good, excellent

Soybeans: 78 percent good, excellent

August 3:

Corn: 75 percent good, excellent

Soybeans: 75 percent good, excellent

August 10:

Corn: 71 percent good, excellent

Soybeans: 72 percent good, excellent

August 17:

Corn: 66 percent good, excellent

Soybeans: 67 percent good, excellent

August 24:

Corn: 64 percent good, excellent

Soybeans: 65 percent good, excellent

Target apologized on Monday and said it had pulled a Halloween costume from sale depicting a circus clown that critics said evoked Blackface and minstrel shows.

The product, sold as the “Kids' Glows Under Blacklight Circus Clown Halloween Costume,” prompted a backlash on social media, with some consumers saying it resembled a racist caricature.

"As a company, we know we got this wrong, and we are deeply sorry," Target said in a statement. "The costume is offensive and should never have been part of our assortment. It is no longer available for sale."

It is the latest optics headache for the U.S. retailer as it tries to right its ship after a stretch of poor sales. The company also faced criticism over its handling of products in its 2023 Pride Collection, and for changes to its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the wake of President Donald Trump's return to the White House.

Target declined to comment on who designed the product — which was sold under the retailer's seasonal Hyde and EEK Boutique brand — or the process by which it was green-lit for sale. In its statement, Target said it was "looking closely at how this happened and what needs to change."

Some Black shoppers, who felt alienated after Target's 2025 DEI rollbacks, expressed fresh disappointment on Monday. Sheletta Brundidge, a Minneapolis-area business leader, views the costume as an indirect result of the DEI decision. "You rolled back diversity," she said, "so who's in the room, now, to say 'hey, this is wrong?'"

Target acknowledged in its statement the costume was "especially hurtful for our Black guests, team members and partners."

Though a Target-owned brand, Hyde and EEK products have been resold on websites of retailers like Walmart and Amazon and the marketplace Etsy. Reuters did not see the item in question on those sites. A Walmart spokeswoman said she had no knowledge of that item being sold. Amazon and Etsy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Target, which has had back-to-back strong quarters, is beginning to see results from efforts to cut prices and freshen its merchandise, with new CEO Michael Fiddelke so far earning plaudits from Wall Street.

But the company — which cannot compete with Walmart and Costco on price — has little room for error when it comes to managerial or optical missteps, said Brett Husslein, an analyst at Morningstar.

"As Target begins to gain traction in repairing its brand reputation, this is exactly the kind of stuff they want to avoid," he said, adding that any headwind — optical, managerial, or macroeconomic — "could lead to further market share losses."

Canada struck back at the United States on Tuesday with retaliatory tariffs on about $20 billion worth of American goods, including steel, dairy products, appliances and farm equipment, as the trade war between the once-friendly neighbors escalated sharply.

The tension threatened one of the world’s largest trading relationships. The new tariffs extended well beyond industrial goods, hitting everyday purchases such as seafood, cheese, clothing, cosmetics and toilet paper, with some facing duties as high as 50 percent.

Canada's retaliation came after the Trump administration imposed 50 percent tariffs over the weekend on Canadian goods following the collapse of trade negotiations. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney accused Washington of trying to subordinate Canada and said U.S. demands during the failed talks showed that Americans wanted to “destroy our major industries."

President Donald Trump intensified the confrontation Monday, telling Canadian leaders to “fall in line” or face consequences “far WORSE” than existing tariffs and threatening new 50 percent tariffs on Canadian vehicles, auto parts and steel.

Trump added another provocation Tuesday, saying the United States was giving “serious consideration” to renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America” in a feud with Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Such a change would be reminiscent of the Republican president’s unilateral action last year by executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

The tariffs will take effect Sept. 8 at rates of 15 percent, 25 percent and 50 percent, with Canada matching the corresponding U.S. tariff rate on more than 700 products such as pulp and paper and electronics. The tariffs on many American products would double from 25 percent to 50percent, with the largest share of the new measures affecting steel and aluminum.

Canadian officials said the goal is not to raise revenue but to protect Canadian companies and reduce U.S. imports.

U.S. steel imports, for example, have already fallen 30 percent since Canada imposed a 25 percent tariff, and the new 50 percent rate is expected to cut them further, Canadian officials said.

Goods facing 50 percent tariffs include some steel and aluminum products, furniture and clothing. Appliances, dairy products including cheese, fish and seafood, and certain steel and aluminum derivatives will face 25 percent tariffs. Existing Canadian countertariffs on U.S. autos will remain in place.

Canada also announced a support package for workers and businesses affected by the dispute worth $7.5 billion in Canadian dollars ($5.4 billion in U.S. dollars).

Canadian officials acknowledged the counter tariffs will raise costs for some businesses and consumers but said they expect the overall economic effects to be moderate.

They said the government has provided more than $30 billion Canadian dollars (US$21.7 billion) in tariff-related support since the beginning of 2025 — far more than it has collected in retaliatory duties — as it tries to cushion the blow from the trade fight.

Canada and the United States have deeply integrated supply chains across autos, energy, agriculture and manufacturing, making a prolonged trade fight potentially costly for businesses and workers on both sides of the border.

Businesses and consumers are caught in the middle, facing uncertainty about how much prices may increase.

Michael Howard II, owner of a furniture business in Warren, Michigan, outside Detroit, said the tariffs will hamper the “ability for us to put food on the table for our family" and affect "the ability for us to give back to our community.”

Howard and his wife started their business a decade ago. They make and sell everything from dining room tables to bookcases.

“To say that we don’t need Canada is just disingenuous,” he said. “It’s dishonest. And it’s just absolutely not truthful. We need our neighbor, but also they need us.”

Carney said Monday that Canada may need to move away from matching U.S. tariffs dollar for dollar and instead use more targeted retaliation aimed at protecting Canadian workers and businesses.

“An attitude at the negotiation table that Canada is a subsidiary of the United States” is “not something we’re going to accept,” Carney said.

Carney was even more blunt in French.

“We learned during the negotiations that the Americans want to destroy our major industries, including autos, steel and aluminum,” Carney said. “That was one of the main reasons we said no. It was a bad deal.”

On Monday, Carney said U.S. negotiators had raised the discoverability of French-language content on streaming platforms, along with French-language labeling rules, as trade irritants. He rejected the idea that those protections were negotiable, saying in French: “For the Americans, questions about the French language, Quebec culture, francophone culture and Canadian culture are irritants. Here in Quebec, here in Canada, they are rights."

In a social media post early Tuesday, Trump wrote: “I would never interfere with Canadians speaking French! In fact, I have never even thought of doing such a stupid thing. This lie was made up by a weak and ineffective Prime Minister in an attempt to gain political support, which he has totally lost, from the people of Quebec. I love French Canadians!”

Farming isn’t usually a job that puts you on stage, in front of an audience. But farmers still have stories to tell — six farmers from around the state will tell theirs at the Minneapolis Central Library Tuesday evening.

The event is called “Celebrating Minnesota’s Farmers: A Love Story.” It’s part of a storytelling series by the global non-profit, Food Tank.

Food Tank president Danielle Nierenberg joined MPR News host Nina Moini to talk about the event along with Anita Fondikum, owner and operator of Shining Lights Farm in Princeton, Minnesota, who is one of the event storytellers.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

Canada will announce retaliatory tariffs against the United States on Tuesday after relations deteriorated sharply Monday, with President Donald Trump telling Canadian leaders to “fall in line” or face consequences “far WORSE” than existing tariffs and Prime Minister Mark Carney accusing Washington of trying to subordinate Canada.

Trump also threatened new 50 percent tariffs on Canadian vehicles, auto parts and steel, while Carney said U.S. trade demands showed Washington wanted to “destroy our major industries,” including autos, steel and aluminum.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne and three other Cabinet ministers are also expected Tuesday morning to share details of supports for workers affected by tariffs. Carney said earlier Monday that Canada may need to move away from matching U.S. tariffs dollar for dollar and instead use more targeted retaliation aimed at protecting Canadian workers and businesses.

“An attitude at the negotiation table that Canada is a subsidiary of the United States” is “not something we’re going to accept,” Carney said.

Carney was even more blunt in French.

“We learned during the negotiations that the Americans want to destroy our major industries, including autos, steel and aluminum,” Carney said. “That was one of the main reasons we said no. It was a bad deal.”

The fiery words from both sides show how U.S.-Canada relations have deteriorated since Carney walked away from trade negotiations with the Trump administration late Friday, triggering the president’s threatened 50 percent tariffs the next day on about $20 billion worth of Canadian goods.

Canada and the United States share one of the world’s largest trading relationships, with deeply integrated supply chains across autos, energy, agriculture and manufacturing, making a prolonged trade fight potentially costly for businesses and workers on both sides of the border.

Carney cast doubt on the U.S.’s dependability, saying Canada was finding reliable partners “everywhere in the world, except in the United States. Except in the United States. And Russia.”

Trump unleashes personal attacks on Canadian leaders

On Monday, Trump came back with further tariffs, warning that he would impose them on Canada's auto industry beginning next year.

“Canada has been ripping off the United States of America for years,” Trump wrote on social media, criticizing what he called the country’s “ridiculously high tariffs” on American farmers.

Carney said Washington’s auto-sector proposals would gradually have the effect of dismantling Canadian production.

“This is the most successful automotive partnership in history,” Carney said, referring to the deeply integrated Canada-U.S. industry.

Meanwhile, Ontario Premier Doug Ford unleashed his own tirade. In an interview with The Associated Press, he said Trump had underestimated Canadians’ willingness to endure economic pain rather than give in to U.S. pressure.

“We’re all in,” Ford said. “Up here, we’re at a fever pitch; everyone’s in for an economic war. They know they’re going to have to sacrifice.”

Trump responded in a social media post by attacking Ford personally, calling him “the less charismatic, intelligent, and overall unimpressive brother of the late, great, Rob Ford,” and once again referring to Canada's prime minister as “Governor Carney.”

Ford dismissed the insults: “If you think an insult from him hurts me? Well, bring it on, buddy, I’m ready.”

Ford is a Progressive Conservative whose party differs from that of Carney, a Liberal, but the two underscore broad political unity in Canada over the trade fight with Trump.

Ford threatens critical minerals and electricity

Ford said “everything is on the table” if the dispute worsens, including cutting off electricity and critical minerals from Ontario.

Critical minerals are increasingly important to U.S. national security and manufacturing. The Pentagon has sought more secure supplies of minerals used in military aircraft, missiles, munitions and electronics as Washington tries to reduce reliance on China, which dominates the mining or processing of several strategically important minerals.

Ford said Canada should also consider increasingly severe retaliation if Trump continues targeting Canadian industries, including oil and potash, while Ontario could raise electricity prices or stop sending power south.

“We power 1.5 million homes and businesses,” Ford said. “Everything’s on the table. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Ford has used electricity as leverage before. During an earlier phase of the dispute, Ontario imposed a 25 percent surcharge on electricity exported to Michigan, Minnesota and New York. Trump responded by threatening to double tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum before both sides backed away.

Auto industry becomes a central battleground

Ford accused Trump of not simply seeking a better trade deal but aiming to hollow out Canadian industries and move production south.

Ford said Trump wants to make Canada a vassal state.

“He wants to bleed out every single sector and bring them down to the U.S.,” Ford said.

The auto sector is especially important to Ontario, the center of Canada’s vehicle manufacturing industry. Plants and suppliers in Ontario are tightly integrated with factories in Michigan and other U.S. states, with parts routinely crossing the border multiple times during production.

Automakers including Ford, General Motors and Stellantis operate major assembly plants in Ontario, and the wider supply chain supports tens of thousands of jobs. Trump’s new threat of a 50% tariff on Canadian vehicles and parts puts that sector directly at the center of the escalating dispute.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Monday that “the only reason Canada has auto production in the first place” was because of the 1960s Auto Pact, under which Canada used access to its market to encourage vehicle production north of the border.

Ford says he opposed preliminary deal

Ford also disclosed that he had opposed the preliminary agreement Carney was considering before Canada walked away from negotiations, and that he was unwilling to restore American liquor to Ontario store shelves as part of an agreement.

“I wasn’t going to put the booze back on the shelves,” Ford said. “I was ready to go out there and call a press conference … and say I’m not buckling over.”

Ford said he understood Washington had sought language late in the negotiations that would have restricted Canada’s ability to negotiate trade agreements with other countries without U.S. approval. Carney has called that demand unacceptable and a question of Canadian sovereignty.

Carney said the dispute also exposed a deeper divide over language and culture, saying protections for French and Canadian culture that Washington views as trade irritants are considered fundamental rights in Canada.

“Who does he think he is?” Ford said of Trump. “You gotta be kidding.”

In the 1980s rural Minnesota was struggling with the farm crisis and the McKnight Foundation launched an experiment — the Minnesota Initiative Foundations.

These six independent regional foundations across greater Minnesota were created to listen to their communities and invest in local economic development.

Over four decades, they’ve distributed hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and loans to help address housing and child care, support entrepreneurs, train up new leaders and create a sense of belonging.

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with the heads of two of the regional foundations about creative solutions to challenges facing rural Minnesota.

Guests:

• Benya Kraus became the president and CEO in 2025 of the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation, which invests for economic growth in 20 counties and one Native community in south central and southeastern Minnesota. She previously worked in advancement at Resource Rural, a national philanthropy that raised public and private funds to invest in rural and tribal communities.

• Brian Voerding was named president of the Initiative Foundation in 2023 after serving two years as its vice president for inclusive entrepreneurship, which is based in Little Falls, Minn. and invests in 14 counties and two Native nations in central Minnesota. He was previously editor of the Winona Daily News and executive director of Engage Winona, a nonprofit that engages and trains people to solve local problems in Winona.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Standing inside his record and vintage shop, Treedome Vinyl and Vintage owner Nathaniel Nelson said he chose to open his record shop and music venue in a historic building wedged between a bar, a coffee shop and an art gallery for a reason.

“Seeing a district that already had that arts community starting to blossom was really intriguing for us,” he said. “And part of the reason why we decided to move to Rochester instead of like Minneapolis, we wanted to be a part of something that felt like it was moving in a good direction.”

But a city council vote last week that clears the way for a potential $23 million new residential project has thrown Treedome’s future into question. The historic storefront with high ceilings and hardwood floors is slated to be the lobby for a new residential development, and it’s unclear how long Treedome will be able to stay in that location.

For the last week, Nelson and other members of Rochester’s arts community have been lobbying Mayor Kim Norton to veto the proposal. But in a statement Monday, she said she would let the council’s 4-3 decision stand. Norton said she believes that the development proposal, which would add a seven-story residential building but retain the historic retail space facades, preserves the historic integrity of structures.

“While I may not agree with all the arguments that the majority made in favor of approval, I believe their discussion was thoughtful and focused on the legally relevant criteria,” said Nelson in a written statement. “My decision is heavily influenced by the integrity of the process and that, agree or disagree, the process and the decision are legally defensible.”

All three buildings are in Rochester’s downtown historic district. The city’s Heritage Preservation Commission rejected the developer’s proposal several times, and the city council’s approval of the plan prompted at least one member of the commission to step down.

Proponents of the plan say that the project could add much needed residential housing to the city. Tenants, they say, are paying below market rate rent because the buildings are older and need updating.

Nelson and other businesses operating in the affected buildings have strenuously opposed the plan, saying it would prompt a downturn in business during construction. Some businesses in addition to Treedome may have to move to less optimal locations with lower foot traffic.

And while the proposed development affects only three buildings, the debate over whether to allow it to move forward exposes broader tensions around Rochester’s ongoing development under Destination Medical Center. Questions about what structures downtown deserve historic status have dogged the 20-year economic development plan.

Meanwhile, small businesses have struggled to secure and maintain a foothold downtown, as rents increase.

Nelson said Rochester’s transformation may be good for neighboring Mayo Clinic and the patients that visit the city. But it’s unclear if all this change is meant to help businesses like his that promote arts and culture thrive.

“When it comes to how music in the arts is represented in this town, there is a degree where it has to kind of fit in that like you know Instagram and boardroom-ready image for what DMC and what the city wants to portray,” he said. “Seeing, you know, a bunch of kids moshing in a record shop isn't necessarily what they want to see.”

The development proposal will face additional hurdles with the city as it moves forward. For now, Nelson says he plans to stay in his downtown space.

The trade relationship between the U.S. and Canada has taken another sharp turn. Sky-high U.S. tariffs on some Canadian goods took effect over the weekend after trade talks between the two countries fell apart. President Trump is now threatening another 50 percent tariff on Canadian automobiles, auto parts and steel starting next year.

Canada says it will retaliate, and Ontario Premier Doug Ford warned that Canada could cut off electricity and critical minerals to the U.S. if the conflict worsens.

That’s a particularly important story here in Minnesota, where Canada is a main trading partner and where people and businesses regularly cross the border in both directions.

Livio Di Matteo is a professor of economics at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario, right over Minnesota's border with Canada. He joined Minnesota Now host Nina Moini to talk about Minnesota and Canada’s trade relationship.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

A national teachers union is calling for a boycott of Target during the back-to-school shopping season, citing the company’s response to the federal immigration enforcement surge in the Twin Cities.

The American Federation of Teachers pressed the Minneapolis-based company to take a stronger stand against ICE earlier this year. Union president Randi Weingarten sent multiple letters to Target CEO Michael Fiddelke asking the company to call for an end to the surge.

In a statement last week, the union said it “did not receive a constructive response,” prompting the call for a boycott.

“We're disappointed that Target has failed to live up to its promises to be a good neighbor to the families who have shopped there for years,” Minneapolis Federation of Teachers Vice Presidents Natasha Dockter said in a statement.

Target was the subject of several protests during the surge of federal agents to Minnesota. Protesters asked the company to speak out against the surge, following reports of multiple people detained by federal agents at Target locations.

In February, a Target spokesperson said the company does not have any cooperation agreements with ICE. The company signed on to an open letter asking for peace and collaboration between state and federal officials; that letter did not directly mention ICE or call for an end to the surge.

A company spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the call for a boycott.

In a statement, the American Federation of Teachers said teachers and parents often spend hundreds of dollars a year on back-to-school supplies at Target and encouraged them to shop elsewhere this year.

A proposal to turn the defunct Minnesota Star Tribune printing plant, one of the few remaining industrial sites in downtown Minneapolis, into a data center has become a contentious and defining issue in the neighborhood.

The Minnesota Design Center and the North Loop Neighborhood Association on Saturday reviewed three sessions of community input collected at a series of workshops last week from more than a thousand Minneapolis residents.

And the first public presentation about the developer’s plans for the site met strong public opposition Wednesday night. Hundreds of residents spilled out the doors of the North Loop Neighborhood Association's meeting room, across the street from the plant.

Local hostility to the plan mirrors rising public skepticism of data centers in Minnesota and around the country as some centers have driven up local utility bills and tech companies have signed secret agreements with cities about future projects.

The developer, Virginia-based Legacy Investing, has already signed a purchase agreement for the property with the Star Tribune and submitted a conditional use permit application to the City of Minneapolis.

The city will decide whether the project moves forward. Data centers have been top-of-mind for city leadership, and the Minneapolis City Council is in the process of updating its zoning rules for the centers.

Legacy Investing does not need the neighborhood association to sign on to the project, but Wednesday evening, two representatives of Legacy Investing attempted to get public buy-in at the neighborhood’s planning and zoning committee meeting.

“We understand how important this is to the community, and we are excited to truthfully work with and collaborate with you to reinvent this portion of the North Loop that we know is so important to this entire constituency,” Ari Chernikoff, vice president of development for the company, said.

Chernikoff and his colleague, Daniel English, pitched what they describe as a small, 20-megawatt, data center that they say wouldn’t strain the local energy grid or use more water than “two to four residential homes worth of water consumption.” That’s a lot less than nearby commercial buildings, Chernikoff said.

Legacy Investing would buy the plant and some land around it. Chernikoff said the data center would be an economic boon to the city, but also “provides an economic engine for these adjacent parcels to allow them to be developed into whatever the city sees as its highest and best use.”

However, scant public details are available about Legacy Investing’s plans for the 13-acre site.

Fernando Burga, senior research fellow with the Minnesota Design Center, facilitated the discussions over the last week and spoke to the crowd of more than 50 people on Saturday. Over 1,140 comments were collected on concerns and ideas for alternative plans for the former Star Tribune publishing plant.

“We considered next steps moving forward through developing other actions, including an engagement hub that will continue the efforts of mobilizing interest around this topic,” Burga said, adding that the design center staff would compile and analyze the input and release its findings next month.

Minneapolis City Council Member Michael Rainville, who represents Ward 3 covering the North Loop neighborhood, was also at the meeting, but told the crowd he couldn’t speak on the potential data center project because city council may need to vote on the issue in the near future.

Jo Vos, co-chair of the neighborhood planning and zoning committee, said Wednesday she requested more details about the proposal and didn’t receive them ahead of the meeting. Typically, she said, developers have given her committee more information.

“We've usually always gotten enough information to make a decision on,” Vos said.

The developers say it’s too early to know which company will make use of the data center. They didn’t present numbers on how much revenue their development would give to the city and they didn’t estimate the number of jobs created.

The skepticism from the public and the committee members was palpable in the room.

“I've worked in a data center in the past. These do not create real jobs,” said North Loop resident Jared Olson. “The construction jobs are transient. Any project there would create construction jobs.”

Burga said the speed of the project is “highly suspect from a development perspective.”

“I'm impressed and surprised by the lack of preparation,” Burga said, going on to say if Chernikoff and English were his students he’d give their presentation a D minus.

The developers, who have also developed a 30-megawatt data center in the Sleep Number building in downtown Minneapolis, said they would work to share more information with the committee.

“Daniel and I are standing in front of you today because this is important to us, right?” Chernikoff said, earning laughs because the developers were video calling into the meeting.

Committee Co-Chair Vos said she supports any plan that preserves the Star Tribune building and emphasizes mixed-use development of the property around it.

However, Vos said the committee didn’t have enough information to decide whether to support the data center plan. “We're kind of like in limbo,” she said.

Ultimately, the committee decided to write a letter capturing the unusual public energy at their meeting, requesting more details from Legacy Investing, and requesting the city slow down its permit approval process for the project.

The full board of the North Loop association meets at 6 p.m. Aug. 26. They’ll decide whether to agree with the planning and zoning committee’s letter asking the developer for more information and asking the city to delay the project by a month.

Matt Bruns, a North Loop association zoning committee member and board member, said “barring some massive amount of data and their plan being complete in the next week” he can’t imagine the board will have enough information to decide if it supports the plan.

Either way, the meeting is sure to be packed.

Correction (Aug. 24, 2026): An earlier version of this story misidentified the amount of power the data center in the Sleep Number building requires. It has been updated.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says his country will initiate retaliatory tariffs against U.S. imports starting Sept. 8. The move came hours after the Trump administration began enforcing 50 percent tariffs on a slew of Canadian goods.

Trade negotiations between the United States and Canada fell apart Friday night, shortly before a midnight deadline for the 50% tariffs to take effect on $20 billion worth of Canadian products.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued a bulletin to businesses Friday warning that its officers would be ensuring importers complied with the new rates starting immediately after the deadline passed.

Carney said late Friday that "Canada will match those tariffs dollar for dollar to protect our workers and businesses."

In a statement shared on social media, Carney said important progress had been made in recent weeks toward "improving Canada's position as having the best deal in the world with the U.S." That progress, however, did not meet Canada's objectives, he said, adding: "As a result, this evening, I have decided to suspend trade negotiations with the U.S. and have directed negotiators to return to Ottawa."

The prime minister blamed the U.S. for the collapse in negotiations. "Last-minute changes in the U.S. proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal," Carney said, concluding, "Canada has what the world wants. And we will not allow any nation to determine our future."

On Saturday morning, in a fresh post on social media, Carney wrote his negotiators had worked "in good faith" for more than a year, and his government would in the coming days "release the details of these new tariff measures, which will come into force the Tuesday after Labour Day."

The U.S., in turn, pointed the finger at Canada. Shortly after midnight, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer responded to Carney with a statement posted on social media saying Canada had "declined to finalize the trade deal under the terms agreed earlier this week."

"Despite the U.S. offer to Canada to receive the best treatment of any major exporter to our market, new demands and walk backs of other commitments by Canada have upended the careful balance reached in the past days," Greer said.

He added that earlier this week "the United States agreed to provide even better treatment to Canada, offering significant tariff reductions on steel, aluminum, autos, and lumber."

"The offer would have led to supply chain coordination on aerospace, complementary actions to address unfair trade practices, critical minerals cooperation, increased enforcement against imports produced with forced labor, and the announcement of formal U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) negotiations," Greer said in his statement.

This is a developing story that may be updated.

Copyright 2026, NPR

A Brainerd company that builds ice fishing houses will pay more than $100,000 to settle a claim that it discriminated against an employee with cancer.

The Minnesota Department of Human Rights investigated the complaint against Timberland, which operates in Brainerd as Glacier Ice House.

The department said the employee took disability leave in 2023 to receive cancer treatment.

During the leave, the employee lost their job as part of widespread company layoffs, but wasn't given the same opportunity as others to transition to other positions in the company, the investigation found.

The department said Glacier company leaders mentioned the employee's medical condition as a factor in their decision.

“No Minnesotan should have to choose between fighting cancer and fighting for their job,” stated Rebecca Lucero, state human rights commissioner.

Under the settlement agreement, Glacier will strengthen its policies and training related to employees with disabilities. The human rights department will monitor the company’s compliance for the next three years.

The employee will receive a settlement of $115,000.

A call to Glacier Ice House's president, Jason Jaeckels, was not immediately returned.

Sierra Nicole Reece recorded the six-second TikTok right before bed, when she was already cozy in her bonnet, glasses on, at her dad’s home in New Jersey.

“Forget Coachella. I'm trying to go to the Minnesota State Fair. They got brand deals for that?”

This was in mid-April, when corporate partnerships with influencers at the California music festival dominated online discourse. Reece was on the job hunt after getting her MBA abroad and had been experimenting with content creation to build up her portfolio in digital and marketing strategies.

She thought nothing of the video and fell asleep.

Then overnight it blew up. On Instagram, the video drew over 4 million views — and attention from Minnesota organizations.

“I’m listening 👀,” reads the top-liked comment from the Minnesota State Fair account.

A Twin Cities-based influencer manager ended up reaching out to Reece. Together, they brainstormed and pitched a brand trip to the Minnesota State Fair and area tourism agencies, which ultimately agreed to sponsor her.

For Reece, a food culture aficionado who had long envisioned visiting the Minnesota State Fair, it was an exciting opportunity. She had enjoyed the Twin Cities during work trips but never had the chance to attend.

“Minnesota State Fair season, every year, I'm locked in. I'm like, ‘Oh my God, what's everybody eating? What are we doing, guys?’ Like that is one of my favorite times of year,” Reece said in an interview with MPR News.

“I've known about Sweet Martha's forever. I probably watched a YouTube video on it a long, long, long time ago,” she added. “That bucket of cookies has just lived rent free in my head for my entire adolescence.”

Growing influencer partnerships in Minnesota

The Minnesota State Fair has gotten more national attention with the growth of social media, according to Maria Hayden, who oversees the enterprise’s social media and marketing.

Over the years, there’s been an explosion of local and out-of-state influencers producing videos on the fair. The food is a major draw.

While the State Fair isn’t necessarily looking to boost its attendance numbers — about 2 million people visit each year, making for big crowds and long lines at times — Hayden’s team has jumped on the social media train, turning to influencer collaborations to reach new audiences and showcase different perspectives.

“There's so many different things you can do and explore at the fair. We want to make sure that we're helping contribute to amplifying a diverse range of things people are interested in,” Hayden said.

Explore Minnesota spokesperson Ben Johnson said the Reece collaboration is part of a larger marketing campaign around the Minnesota State Fair.

“It's really one of those flagship, quintessential Minnesotan events that really touches on so many parts of what makes our state great, and it really speaks to our mission, which is to promote Minnesota as a great place to visit,” he said.

The state tourism agency is charged with economic development: getting people to visit, then stay and create businesses in Minnesota. Johnson said Explore Minnesota has been working with content creators for a decade to drive traffic to the state.

One partnership with a content creator who has a broader Midwestern audience allowed Explore Minnesota to double their average views on a video and garner about fives times their average for interactions, according to Johnson.

“These are new audiences who may not have considered Minnesota as a travel destination, and so we just think that's important and a tremendous return on investment,” he said.

For Reece’s trip, the Minnesota State Fair provided admission tickets and assisted with planning. Visit Saint Paul is covering lodging, food and a stipend, and Explore Minnesota is covering work time, deliverables and expenses.

Johnson said the state agency receives hundreds of pitches a year and is selective about who it works with. Reece not only had a viral moment that the state could capitalize on, but she has an affinity for Minnesota and is based in Atlanta, a major flight market for the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Visit Saint Paul senior marketing manager Ava Diaz called the partnership “a huge win” that benefits the whole state, particularly after the federal immigration enforcement surge over the winter.

“People really value and can see our sense of community here, which is incredible,” Diaz said. “And not only that, like how much our communities uplift and support and advocate for everyone in it and the diversity that we have here.”

Reece plans to partner with local content creators

Two local content creators will be Reece’s guides to the State Fair and collaborators on the project: Sade Young and Mezan Ghebre, who respectively run the accounts “Sade in the Cities” and “FeedMeez.”

“This is going to be three Black women covering a state fair from our perspective, which is like unheard of,” Reece said. She hopes their videos will help support local businesses and be helpful to area residents, too.

“It's the Great Minnesota Get-Together. It's rooted in this idea of community and community building for Minnesotans, and that was at the core of what we’re trying to do,” she said.

A Republican legislator who fielded questions Thursday about the reopening of a detention center in Appleton said the discussions were respectful, even though people have strong opposing views.

State Rep. Paul Anderson co-hosted a town hall forum on the Appleton Detention Facility — formerly known as the Prairie Correctional Facility — which will begin housing people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers later this year.

The federal government bought the 1,600-bed facility, which will result in a loss of local tax revenue for the area. Anderson says that was one of the most common concerns raised by residents.

"I'm really hoping and encouraging folks negotiating that there should be some kind of a hold harmless for the city of Appleton, especially to negate the negative impact of them losing that big a piece of their tax base, that was a big concern of residents," he said to Morning Edition host Cathy Wurzer on Friday.

Appleton city officials have said they expect to lose about 30 percent of the city’s tax base starting in 2028.

Anderson said he and Republican State Sen. Torrey Westrom, who co-hosted the forum, were asked if there’s anything they can do to help the area.

“Well, we can't do anything on our own,” he said. “It has to take a governor signing a bill that the Legislature would pass.”

He added that one possibility is an increase in Local Government Aid for the city.

CoreCivic Senior Director of Public Affairs Ryan Gustin said the company strives to be a “good partner” with local communities.

“To that end, we continue to be in dialogue with local officials about opportunities to partner through memoranda of understanding and other means that support the successful operation of the facility in a manner that is mutually beneficial to the community, CoreCivic, and our government partners at ICE/DHS,” Gustin said in a statement.

Gustin also said the facility will create 525 jobs.

“These positions are expected to include detention and security staff, medical and mental health professionals, case management and programming staff, administrative personnel, maintenance employees, food service workers and transportation staff,” he said.

He added that the starting salary for a detention officer is $32.50 an hour.

News of the reopening of the facility has sparked weekly protests. Earlier this month, residents told MPR News that while they understand the appeal of the potential economic boost, they found the idea of housing ICE detainees in their town “morally reprehensible.”

Anderson said he understands that people have strongly held views on the facility, but “they're not going to stop the national trend of detaining people and deporting folks that are not here legally. So you know, let's work together and make this a positive thing economically for Appleton, even if you don't agree with what's happening there.”

Reporter Jon Collins contributed to this story.

It’s been hot in Hubbard County, and farmer Joe Morgan has noticed.

“It was relentless,” he said. “It was like three weeks of being in the 90s, and that puts a lot of stress on the plants.”

The northwestern Minnesota county has been in a severe drought since June, and it’s affected Morgan’s business, Midheaven Garden. Last week, he showed up to the Red River Market in Fargo without any lettuce, since it was too hot to plant them in the ground.

That’s despite his farm being covered in ways to fight against rapid shifts in the weather. He irrigates his crops when they’re too dry and grows many of them in greenhouses to extend their growing season and protect them from the elements.

At the same time, greenhouses can get hot very quickly, so he’s planning to buy covers to shade them.

“Every year you're trying to make improvements,” Morgan said. “One of them is just to purchase items to act as an insurance policy, to try to have less of a gap. Because two weeks without head lettuce, people are expecting me to have an item … and I want to be dependable and serve my customers.”

Morgan grew up farming this land with his parents and six years ago, after careers in cabinet making and operating heavy equipment, he decided it was time to return. But, farming, he said, is different than when he was a kid.

“It’s just bigger extremes,” he said. “If we get rain, we're going to get a lot of rain in a little bit of time, and then when the heat comes, it comes in a big shot. It's just higher fluctuation than I remember as a kid.”

In Minnesota, climate change is already making the state warmer and wetter, meaning higher temperatures and more rainfall, on average. Experts say it’s not clear what that means for the future of drought in Minnesota.

“In order for you to develop drought, you really need a lack of precipitation and warmer temperatures,” said State Climatologist Luigi Romolo. “That's the perfect recipe for drought. With the models telling us that it's getting wetter and warmer, we don't really have a good sense of how drought might change in the future.”

More rain helps ease drought, but warm weather draws more water from plants, soils and bodies of water, drying out the landscape.

“If the increase in precipitation can't offset the demand that's created by the increase in temperatures, then what we're going to see is more frequent drought and more intense drought,” Romolo said.

As Morgan has already noticed on the farm, climate change is expected to change the nature of precipitation. According to the University of Minnesota, the state is seeing more intense rainfall events than ever before, but is also expected to see longer dry spells and rapid transitions between the two.

“The best thing that folks can do is to come up with drought plans that might take into account all different kinds of possible scenarios,” Romolo said.

National study calls for new drought frameworks

Across the country, climate change is already making drought more difficult to assess and project, because it’s creating new normals, according to Jonathan Overpeck, dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan.

“In the 50s and 60s and 70s, the climate was not changing very quickly, so the statistics of what happened in the past were a good guide to what would happen in the future,” he said. “But now, with human-caused climate change, things are changing really fast, and the statistics are changing.”

That was the impetus for a year-long study conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and chaired by Overpeck.

The 200-page report contains many recommendations for federal agencies on how to better monitor and model drought. For modeling, the report recommends a two-pronged approach. For short-term assessments, it recommends using recent baselines of about 30 years to determine whether there’s a drought.

But long-term drought assessments are trickier, because that involves factoring in changes to many variables — including temperature, water demand and soil moisture — that will be affected by climate change and figuring out what those changes mean for drought.

“We just want to make sure that our models not only get the temperature well, but they also are able to forecast how precipitation is going to change, and how the combination of temperature and precipitation is going to end up giving us what we're dealing with on the land surface or in the rivers,” he said. “So there's some new science and continued scientific research that needs to take place.”

This matters because decisions need to be informed by the frequency and severity of drought. For example, Overpeck said major public safety issues, such as forest fire management, depend on understanding current and future drought conditions.

“We want to be able to give forest managers a better indication of what that situation is going to look like by year going into the future, and then allow the forest managers to come up with strategies for treating the forests either through prescribed burns or thinning, or just letting the fires burn,” he said. “Those are the big choices going into the future.”

Decisions about drought today

Parts of Minnesota have been in drought for months and a small part of the state entered extreme drought this week, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor map released Thursday. That drought extends into North Dakota, which recently announced a drought emergency.

The Red River forms the boundary between the two states, and the Red River Basin Commission nonprofit helps facilitate cooperation between stakeholders who depend on it for business or drinking water. But the available models can make it hard to make decisions.

“At the end of the day, drought projection is notoriously poor,” said Executive Director Ted Preister. “Projection of when a drought is going to come, or going to be alleviated, or how long it will keep going, is still a lot of guesswork. So, the basin commission, we advocate for not waiting for that.”

He said if rainfall gets rarer but more intense, greater investment will be needed to capture water where it falls. That includes building more reservoirs.

“That means you have to have a whole bunch of these retention facilities scattered everywhere, so that if it's a very small, localized nine inches, you can capitalize on that because you have something in the stream that will grab that water and set it off to the side,” he said.

That will be expensive, he said, and at the same time, attitudes need to shift about how water is used by cities, farmers and others in the basin.

“Everybody that is using and counting on water needs to think about, ‘How do we be more efficient with every drop?’” he said.

Some businesses are more impacted by drought than others. Andrew Johnson owns Pelican Paddle Company, which rents kayaks for use on the Pelican River in Pelican Rapids.

But the business has been unable to operate for four weeks because of low river levels. Summer is when kayaks are most in demand, but for the past few years, low precipitation has meant frequent pauses. That’s prompting tough questions about the future.

“It’s hard to rely on something and then you can't make full pass at it through the summer,” he said. “It's definitely something we're thinking might not be viable long term.”

Minnesota’s future

It’s not yet clear how drought will change in Minnesota. But Overpeck said the American Southwest may be a glimpse into the future. The region has been in a historic multi-decade drought.

“The worsening drought situation out there is a canary in the mine shaft for us here in the Midwest because we are going to have really major problems with our forests, with our agriculture, as the climate continues to warm,” he said.

Overpeck said how bad drought gets in the Midwest depends on a variety of factors; not only the variables he hopes get incorporated into new models, but also the decisions people make.

“It's going to be a really hard situation,” he said. “And the public might agree that it's a hell of a lot smarter just to try and work harder to stop climate change because it's climate change and the burning of fossil fuels that's making it so much worse.”

This story is part of our series on Native economic development, "Beyond the Bet."

Gas in Minnesota and around the region is hovering around four dollars a gallon, which often puts a fill-up well north of $50. At the charging station on the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community south of the Twin Cities, entrepreneur Bob Blake said charging an electric vehicle runs about fifteen bucks.

Blake, a member of Red Lake Nation, said the idea for a network of tribally owned EV stations came to him during a pipeline protest in North Dakota a decade ago.

“There was a helicopter coming down and there was all this sand in our faces,” Blake said of the protest. “And I thought to myself, there's got to be a better way to do this.”

The chargers belong to the tribe. Blake's nonprofit, Native Sun Community Power Development, built them and signed them over. It has done the same at 80 charging stations on tribal land across the Midwest, each one owned by the tribal nation where it sits. A developer would normally hold an asset like that and sell the power for decades. Blake does not, which means the revenue stays in rural Native communities. He calls the project Electric Nation.

“If the fossil fuel companies are going to continue to build pipelines through tribal nations’ homelands, then what we're going to do is we're going to build an electric vehicle charging station network pipeline through our communities,” Blake said. “They may win the battle, but we're going to win the war.”

Blake is a little surprised that the project got as big as it did.

“Someone said, ‘Bob, your little nonprofit did an infrastructure project,’ and I was thinking about it, and I was like, ‘Wow, we did do an infrastructure project,’” Blake said. “But that was never the intention.”

Blake said tribal communities don't see the same investments that other communities do.

“It really makes us be more genius, in the way that we have to figure out capital stacks and tax structures and investment vehicles,” he said. “It makes the Native entrepreneur think about two different worlds, because we have to bridge them to put together our endeavors.”

Adam Crepelle is a law professor at Loyola University Chicago who studies the barriers to economic development in Indian Country. Those barriers can include things such as jurisdictional uncertainty, dual taxation, and issues with federal land leasing. He said in the dominant American economy, entrepreneurs often start a business by borrowing against something they own, usually a house and the land it's built on.

“Whereas if you're in Indian Country and you have trust land, that cannot be repossessed because the federal government owns trust land," Crepelle said. “So, that eliminates that source of capital, essentially.”

Blake has used federal grant dollars to fund his projects. Since the start, he said people often see him as just the solar guy. He views it a little differently. He said developing renewable energy is part of his responsibility to his home community at Red Lake Nation. He said his own community, like other tribal nations, continues to struggle with high unemployment and geographic isolation.

"If I can fight poverty with renewable energy and distributed energy resources, then I can make my community healthier," Blake said.

Last fall the Trump administration canceled federal money Blake's nonprofit had been awarded for the second phase of his Electric Nation project. Blake, along with grantees in seven other states, sued the U.S. Department of Energy. Officials there admitted in court that grants were cut based on how states voted in the 2024 presidential election. The funding was restored this summer.

Crepelle said the economic benefits to tribal nations are felt beyond reservation boundaries.

“Whenever tribes do well, it helps the surrounding state,” he said. “It creates jobs for non-Indians too, and it's no good for the state to have a big pocket of poverty. So, whenever tribes win economically, it helps everyone.”

Blake's nonprofit has already started installing more chargers in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

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.

Google is trying to smooth over some ruffled feathers in two small Minnesota towns where the tech giant hopes to build a couple of massive data centers.

Wednesday evening, Google hosted what it called a community celebration in Pine Island, about 20 minutes northwest of Rochester, with free food, live music and family activities.

That same night in Hermantown, outside of Duluth, the company held an open house to answer questions from area residents about the hyperscale data center it wants to build there.

MPR News Rochester-based reporter Molly Castle Work and Duluth-based reporter Dan Kraker gave us a look inside the events.

The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, known as DEED, says the state lost about 1,900 non-farm jobs on a seasonally-adjusted basis.

The finance, government and construction sectors lost the largest number of jobs. Angelina Nguyễn, director of DEED’s Labor Market Information Office, said the share of Minnesotans who have jobs or are looking for work is falling.

“The state's labor force participation rate has been declining every month since January of this year, and yes, we are concerned about that,” Nguyễn said.

Officials say inflation is causing uncertainty and the state's labor market still hasn't fully recovered from Operation Metro Surge. But year-to-year, Minnesota has added 44,000 jobs since last July. That’s an increase of 1.5 percent, outpacing national job growth.

“We again are proud of the resilience of the Minnesota economy and proud of our people in general of how we have withstood the difficulties we face and optimistic about the idea that if not for those headwinds, we'd be growing even faster,” DEED Commissioner Matt Varilek said.

Nationally, the economy lost 23,000 jobs last month.

Minnesota’s hemp farmers have weathered a boom, a bust and years of changing rules. Now, a federal ban on most hemp-derived THC products is the latest blow to an industry they helped build.

For Jeremy Saueressig, that means no hemp in his Hastings fields this year. He’s among the few Minnesota farmers still growing hemp for THC. After growing the crop since 2019, he planted more soybeans instead.

“Missed opportunity,” he said, looking over his fields of soybeans. “The lost opportunity of another year of R and D, another year of moving the market, setting networks.”

That’s because of a looming federal ban on most hemp-derived THC products set to take effect Nov. 12. Saueressig’s hemp crop is typically turned into THC drinks and edibles or CBD products.

Leftover hemp at the farm

Fullscreen SlideshowPrevious Slide

3 of 3

1 of 3

2 of 3

Next Slide

Saueressig is among farmers across the country cutting back on hemp as the market faces uncertainty. Farmers in Colorado, Vermont and Kentucky are making similar decisions, with some cutting acreage, abandoning hemp altogether or being left with harvest they can't sell, according to MJBizDaily.

Saueressig says he’s sitting on 15,000 to 20,000 pounds of harvested plant material from last year that should’ve been sold by now. With the federal ban nearing, buyers are limiting their risk and holding back on purchases, which is driving down demand.

“I know of farmers that are sitting on leftover biomass from last harvest that they are having trouble moving, and because of that sentiment, a lot of farmers are not growing at all this year,” said Dennis Mistrioty, president of the U.S. Hemp Roundtable, a national hemp advocacy group.

That’s creating ripple effects through the supply chain. Burnsville-based Northern Diversified Solutions, a hemp manufacturer, works with about a half-dozen growers in Minnesota including Saueressig to make THC emulsions used in drinks and gummies. All six decided not to grow this year.

“They're not going to grow something that they don't believe they can sell,” said Kyle Marinkovich, founder of Northern Diversified Solutions. His company has supply secured for the next year, but the future is unclear.

Congress works to delay ban as farmers cut down on hemp

The federal hemp ban will limit hemp-derived products to 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container. In comparison, Minnesota limits hemp-derived products at 5 milligrams THC per serving, 50 milligrams per package of edibles, and 85 milligrams in large-format beverages.

The Senate has already voted to push that deadline to Dec. 11 as part of a bill championed by U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, but the House has yet to sign off on the bill and is expected to take it up next month.

The one-month delay would give hemp businesses and farmers a little more time to prepare and also give Congress more time to determine what comes next for the industry.

But the ban has already damaged the hemp-THC market.

“It's been really challenging because innovation and creativity and growth has been stunted by uncertainty,” said Mistrioty, who’s also a hemp farmer based in Milwaukee. “We don't know where things are going to end up this fall, and you don't want to spend money and resources on a long-term payout when that long term might not exist at all.”

In Burnsville, Marinkovich says the uncertainty is affecting his manufacturing business. Northern Diversified Solutions had doubled its business every year since it launched in 2019, but sales are flat this year.

He says that's not because consumers have stopped buying hemp-derived THC products, but because distributors and retailers are ordering less to avoid being stuck with unsold inventory when the federal restrictions take effect.

If the ban goes into effect, it could shutter Marinkovich’s business.

“We would be at best a much smaller operation, and more likely, unless some of our other products could pick up the slack, we'd probably have to shut,” he said. “Yeah, it's dire.”

According to U.S. Hemp Roundtable, the U.S. hemp-derived product market is worth about $28.4 billion. The advocacy groups puts the economic impact of hemp farming at $6.86 billion and says farmers retain a larger share of hemp’s value than they do from traditional crops like corn and soybeans.

“My farmers here in Wisconsin have indicated that per acre, hemp has been more profitable than corn and soybean,” Mistrioty said. He says the crop's smaller scale can also create opportunities for small farms.

Ban is latest blow to farmers who have faced challenges building the hemp industry

Nationwide, commercial hemp production was legalized through the 2018 Farm Bill.

“Starting in 2019, that is when we saw cannabinoid production come onto the scene and really explode,” said Katy Mutschler, who oversees the Minnesota Department of Agriculture's hemp program.

That year, the state licensed more than 350 growers. By 2020, that number had climbed to a peak of 461.

The boom didn't last. Mutschler says the market became oversaturated as more farmers grew hemp for cannabinoids, while the industry struggled to develop enough processing capacity and demand. Prices fell.

Many of those growers eventually left the industry. According to a recent analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, the decline isn't unique to Minnesota.

“After the initial wave of novelty and interest, growing hemp for extracts was less profitable than initially thought,” wrote Joe Mahon, regional outreach director. “While industrial hemp for fiber and seed is relatively low maintenance and grows well in the district’s climate, hemp flower requires a lot more hand-holding.”

On top of all those factors, Minnesota farmers growing hemp for cannabinoids have also faced changing rules under the Minnesota Office of Cannabis Management, which was established after the state legalized recreational cannabis in 2023.

Angela Dawson started growing hemp under her 40-Acre Co-op soon after the 2018 Farm Bill passed. She developed her own strain of hemp to grow, and produced body products and gummies containing CBD.

She struggled to find banks willing to work with a hemp business, in her assessment confusing her with a cannabis business. Then the state’s changing rules around packaging and labeling made it harder to stay afloat.

“We had a customer that was going to order a bunch of the product, and then the rules came and they canceled their order, and so we were left with a whole bunch of product that was not labeled right and didn't have anywhere to sell it to. So that was one big hit,” she said.

Dawson decided to leave the hemp industry in 2024.

In 2025, Minnesota had about 60 licensed hemp growers. Among them was Saueressig, the Hastings farmer who spent years experimenting with strains and techniques to try to improve profitability.

“Historically, looking at the hemp growing and biomass market, it hasn't been very lucrative financially,” he said. “We just have put in enough risk where we can keep going with everything else.”

The lower profit margins, combined with the federal ban and new licensing rules under Minnesota’s Office of Cannabis Management, influenced his decision to take a break from growing hemp this year.

Future for hemp farmers is unclear

For many farmers, the difficulties and uncertainty around hemp have been too much. Dawson is instead moving into Minnesota's adult-use cannabis market and plans to open a dispensary in the Eat Street area of Minneapolis next month.

“We had a really great success when we were growing hemp outdoors and I'm really sad that we're not doing that anymore,” she said. “But you know, we're pivoting with the times.”

Saueressig hopes to plant hemp again next year if the ban is overturned. Current federal law defines hemp as cannabis containing no more than 0.3 percent THC by dry weight. He wants federal lawmakers to raise that threshold to 1 percent, which he says would give farmers more flexibility in what they can grow, improving their odds of success.

U.S. Reps. Angie Craig of Minnesota and Andy Barr of Kentucky have introduced legislation that would regulate hemp-derived THC products instead of banning them, including raising the federal THC threshold for hemp plants to 1 percent by dry weight.

Although hemp hasn't been particularly lucrative for Saueressig, he says the plant has too many potential uses and benefits to give up on it.

“I do see a future for it. I really do,” he said.

It’s the fine print of federal laws that has made — and potentially unmade — the hemp-derived THC industry. Most recently, the U.S. Senate voted to delay a nationwide ban on these products from Nov. 12 to Dec. 11. The move was part of a government funding measure the House will need to approve when it returns from recess at the end of this month.

One of the businesses watching this closely is Bent Paddle Brewing in Duluth. The brewery began selling hemp-derived THC drinks in 2022 and now has a countdown clock for the ban on its website, set to the November date.

Bent Paddle co-founder and CEO Bryon Tonnis joined MPR News host Nina Moini to talk about how he’s navigating the uncertainty and what a ban could mean for breweries in the state.

Correction (Aug. 20, 2026): This story has been updated with the correct effective date of the ban, under the Senate-approved vote to delay.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

Target reported its second straight quarter of comparable sales gains on Wednesday, saying that a merchandising overhaul under the retailer's new CEO is attracting more customers and boosting sales throughout its stores.

The retailer also benefited from a tariff refund of $994 million after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled this year that the Trump administration had overstepped its authority when the tariffs were implemented.

There is a lot of interest in how tariff refunds from the U.S. government will impact retailers and whether those refunds will be used to lower prices for customers.

Chief Financial Officer Jim Lee, when asked about tariff refunds this week, said the company continues to invest in lowering prices. Target reduced the prices of more than 10,000 items over the past year and “there’s more to come even as we’re facing headwinds overall,” Lee said.

Comparable sales, those coming from stores and digital channels operating for at least 12 months, rose 3.8 percent in the second quarter. The company also upgraded its annual profit and sales outlook, citing the solid performance during the first half of the year.

Target is emerging from more than a year of weak comparable sales. A 5.6 percent jump in the first quarter offset a 3.8 percent decline in 2025. The second-quarter gain followed a 1.9 percent drop a year ago.

Target CEO Michael Fiddelke, a 20-year company veteran who became chief executive in February, said the latest quarter was “an important step forward in the plan we laid out earlier this year to open a new chapter of growth for Target.”

Target also reported an increase in the number of customers going to its stores and shopping on its website from May through July.

“We’re encouraged by the progress made so far, and we’re also clear-eyed about the important work still ahead,” Fiddelke said.

In March, Fiddelke unveiled a $6 billion plan to reverse Target’s sales slump and to reclaim the retailer’s reputation as a place to go for affordable yet stylish apparel and home goods.

More than half of Target’s back-to-school merchandise is new, the company said.

That includes a limited-time collection of teen and tween clothes, school supplies and accessories in pastel colors and floral prints from the women’s lifestyle brand LoveShack Fancy. Target also collaborated with Hollister on a dorm decor collection.

Target recruited fashion designer and TV personality Isaac Mizrahi this summer to fill the newly created role of creative director at large. Mizrahi has been brought in to mentor Target designers, advise on product design and innovation, and forge new partnerships.

It is Mizrahi's second partnership with Target. He became the first major fashion designer to collaborate with the retailer in 2002 for a successful run.

Fiddelke is also remodeling Target stores and improving staffing. The company has more than 100 full-scale remodels underway, with a goal of reaching 130 this year, Fiddelke said Tuesday.

During the second quarter, comparable store sales — sales from established physical stores — increased 2.7 percent, while increased same-day deliveries pushed digital comparable sales up 8.7 percent.

Target is one of the first big retailers to report second-quarter financial results, which could give industry analysts and economists another read on whether ongoing price pressures from the conflict in Iran impacted consumer behavior.

The Commerce Department released a report Friday showing weak retail sales in July. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index, also released Friday, showed greater pessimism about the economy this month, likely driven by stubbornly high prices.

Target's overall sales increased in all six of its main merchandising categories, led by double-digit growth in what the company calls Fun 101 — a division that includes consumer electronics, toys, trading cards, sports paraphernalia, books and gaming items.

Net income was $1.87 billion, or $4.11 per share, for the three months ended Aug. 1, easily beating the $2.34 per share that Wall Street had expected, according to a survey by FactSet. It also outpaced last year's $935 million, or $2.05 per share. Yet this year also included millions from tariff refunds, which amounted to $1.65 in earnings per share, Target said.

Net sales rose 5.3 percent to $26.54 billion for the period.

Target now expects sales to increase 5 percent, up from its earlier predictions for a 4 percent gain. It also expects earnings per share for the full year to be in the range of $9.90 to $10.90. Analysts expect $8.52 per share for the year, according to FactSet.

In May, Target reiterated its guidance from March for earnings per share to be near the high end of $7.50 to $8.50.

A tribal nation announced Tuesday it is putting money into a Minnesota-based magnet maker whose technology doesn’t rely on rare-earth minerals. The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community is loaning $150 million to Niron Magnetics to further the company’s plans to open a manufacturing plant in Sartell, just north of St. Cloud, in 2027.

Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community Chair Cole Miller says the company’s manufacturing goals align with the tribe’s cultural values around environmental stewardship.

“We prioritize investments that align with our Dakota values — including being a good steward of the earth,” said Miller in a statement Tuesday. “We recognized Niron's potential early on to benefit the broader Minnesota community and have remained committed to investing in its success.”

The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community is located southwest of the Twin Cities. The tribe’s successful gambling operations have allowed it to begin investing in housing and manufacturing.

Niron Magnetics makes magnets found in everything from cellphones to the equipment used to cool data centers.

In a brief interview with MPR News, Niron Magnetics CEO Jonathan Rowntree said the tribe is a core part of Niron’s success. He said the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community was an early investor in the company, going back to 2016, while the technology used to create the magnets was in development at the University of Minnesota.

“We share a lot of common values,” said Rowntree, pointing to the company’s desire to produce magnets sustainably.

Niron Magnetics uses iron and nitrogen to make its magnets, which it says are abundant and can be sourced domestically. The federal government has also committed $150 million in support of the company’s manufacturing plant.

The plant in Sartell broke ground last September. Rowntree says the plant is designed to turn out 1,500 tons of magnets a year when fully operational. He says the company expects to hire 175 full-time, highly skilled workers through 2027.

Correction (Aug. 20, 2026): A previous version of this story misstated how many magnets the plant would produce.

Neighbors in the North Loop neighborhood of Minneapolis are coming together this week to discuss a proposed data center.

Developer Legacy Investing has signed a deal to buy the old Minnesota Star Tribune printing facility with intentions to turn it into a data center.

Mary Binkley, president of the North Loop Neighborhood Association, and Fernando Burga, a senior research fellow at the Minnesota Design Center at the University of Minnesota, shared more about the workshops they’re holding.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

Correction (Aug. 19, 2026): This story was updated to correct Fernando Burga’s title.