Whether you’re renting, trying to buy your first home, or making a move — many people are finding that affordable housing feels out of reach.

Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari recently pointed to four major factors pushing up housing prices: High interest rates, rising construction costs, regulations and zoning rules, and a shortage of housing overall.

Coming up at 9 a.m. on Thursday, MPR News guest host Catharine Richert talks about what more expensive housing means for renters and buyers across Minnesota — and what policymakers, builders and communities can do to make housing more affordable.

And we want to hear from you, too.

Are you trying to buy a house right now? How’s it going? Do you rent? How are the rising costs affecting you? What do you want to know about breaking into the housing market?

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

Guest:

• Alene Tchourumoff is the senior vice president of Community Development and Engagement for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Her team studies housing affordability and economic trends affecting low and moderate-income households across Minnesota.

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

Puberty is something everyone goes through in life. But it is an uncomfortable topic to talk about for many. A new podcast is putting puberty front and center of the conversation. Presented by Brains On Universe, the podcast is simply titled “Puberty (The Podcast).” It’s designed for kids ages 7-12 and is also a resource for parents helping their kids navigate their changing bodies and brains.

The show’s host and executive producer, Molly Bloom, joined MPR News host Nina Moini to talk about it.

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 the largest jump in comparable sales in four years Wednesday, but a cautious outlook overshadowed convincing evidence that changes under the company's new CEO are resonating with customers.

Customers spent money across all of Target’s main merchandising categories and helped deliver better-than-expected sales. Comparable sales — those coming from stores and digital channels operating for at least 12 months, rose 5.6 percent in the three-month period ended May 2. It was the biggest gain since early 2022, and the first positive read after three consecutive quarters of negative comparable sales.

Target raised its annual revenue outlook, saying it expected momentum to continue the rest of the year. Yet the upgraded sales expectations were still below the pace of the first quarter and investors reacted negatively.

Shares fell 5 percent Wednesday.

CEO Michael Fiddelke, a 20-year company veteran who took over in February, said he remained guardedly optimistic given where the company is in its operational overhaul.

“We’re encouraged to see a strong guest response so far,” Fiddelke said, adding: “We’re maintaining a cautious outlook given the work we know we have in front of us and ongoing uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment.”

In March, Fiddelke unveiled a $6 billion plan to reverse three straight years of sales declines. Target said it would remodel stores as part of an attempt to reclaim its reputation for stylish clothing on a budget, while it improved staffing and worker training.

New collaborations with labels like Roller Rabbit, an apparel and home goods brand known for its whimsical, block-print designs, resonated with shoppers, according to Target.

Target is one of the first big retailers to report financial results and industry analysts are watching closely to determine whether surging gasoline prices due to the Iran war have altered consumer behavior.

The chain was struggling long before the U.S. and Iran attacked Iran in February, however. Customers complained of disheveled stores that lacked the fashionable yet affordable niche that had earned Target the nickname “Tarzhay.”

Fiddelke reshuffled the leadership team at Target and on Tuesday, Target named a former Walmart executive as its new head of supply chain, another problematic area.

Some of Target's problems were self-inflicted. Its decision to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives led to protests and boycotts. And this winter, Target stores became another flashpoint with a federal immigration crackdown in its own hometown of Minneapolis.

Fiddelke acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press in early March that boycotts had taken a toll, but said this week that increased store traffic in the first quarter was broad-based. He noted that more shoppers are picking Target more often, and “that’s a positive sign.”

Analysts, however, say Target's first-quarter performance offers a positive sign for the company.

Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, wrote that the results “represent an early win for Michael Fiddelke and his team.”

Saunders believes Target's lackluster sales had more to do with failing on execution than being caught up in cultural crosshairs like DEI.

“As important as that matter is, and as much as it does have some impact, it has never been the main issue,” Saunders wrote.

Target posted first-quarter earnings of $781 million, or $1.71 per share, for the three-month period ended May 2. That easily topped the $1.47 per share that analysts had expected, according to FactSet, but it was down from $1.04 billion during the same time last year.

Net sales rose 6.7 percent to $25.44 billion, also topping expectations.

For the full year, Target said it expected earnings per share near the high end of $7.50 to $8.50, the guidance it offered in March. Analysts are expecting $8.12 per share for the year, according to FactSet.

Target said it now expects net sales growth to be up 4 percent for the year, up from the previous forecast of 2 percent. That would bring sales to $108.97 billion.

Last month, Minnesota cattle producers were asked to vote on a proposed refundable increase to the state beef checkoff.

On Tuesday, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture announced that the statewide referendum failed, falling three votes short of passage.

Since 1986, cattle producers in the state have been paying a $1 beef checkoff fee for each head of cattle sold. A proposed fee increase would've raised that amount to $1.50, with the option to request a $0.50 refund per head.

According to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, a total of 3,477 ballots were mailed to producers. Out of eligible ballots submitted, 380 ballots were submitted in opposition and 377 votes were in favor.

Currently, half of every dollar generated through the checkoff goes to the Minnesota Beef Council. The other half goes to the national Cattlemen’s Beef Board, the organization that oversees the collection of the National Beef Checkoff.

Both nonprofits use the revenue to help fund advertising, marketing, public relations, education, research and product development aimed at increasing beef consumption at the state and national levels.

The National Beef Council reported that for every dollar collected through the national checkoff, about $13 is returned to producers in higher beef prices due to increased demand.

A spokesperson for the Minnesota State Cattlemen’s Association previously said the increase was intended to keep up with rising operating costs.

A previous $1 checkoff raise was also rejected by producers over 10 years ago, with 63 percent of voters opposed.

In a studio workshop inside the Northrup King Building in Minneapolis, Maria Bartholdi adjusts microphones and cameras while her cohost Meghan Wolff climbs up on the bright colored table to adjust the lighting. Wolff uses a tried-and-true method: duct tape and cardboard.

When you’re running a podcast and YouTube channel, you use what you have to make it work.

While their guests for the night chat about the latest cards and games they plan to play, Bartholdi and Wolff bounce between lights, cameras and the set to prep for their game night, which will eventually be shown to thousands of fans.

The pair are the cohosts for a show called “Good Luck High Five,” a podcast focused on the popular and complicated card game: Magic: The Gathering.

The podcast — where the hosts talk about the various facets and news of the game — has over 13,000 listens per month. And their new “Commander Arcade” YouTube show — where the two invite guests to play a game with them — averages nearly 32,000 views a month on YouTube.

Through their work on the podcast, the two have also become a large influence in expanding the hobby’s reach beyond the white-male demographic that the game is known for, encouraging women and femme-presenting players to shuffle their best decks for complex strategy competitions at the national level.

Friendship, laughs and a love of a game

The friendship preceded the podcast, when Wolff and Bartholdi met at a comedy improv show audition.

“I was like ‘I’m going to make this person my friend,’” Wolff said. The two even set up a shared Google document they used to secretly chat while at work.

They also shared a love of games, and a mutual friend at a board game night showed Wolff and Bartholdi “the best game.”

“He did phrase it like that,” Wolff said.

“It turned out it was Magic: The Gathering. And sure enough, we became immediately addicted to it,” Bartholdi said. “We played on the floor of various parties, ignoring everybody else in the room, just playing Magic. The bug had bit us hard.”

The game has several different formats that can be played by two or four players, but they tend to use 60- or 100-card decks with cards featuring creatures, sorceries and enchantments. Players take turns trying to whittle down their opponent’s health points to zero and be the last player standing.

Each card can have different effects, and players build their cards to craft different strategies. Bartholdi also said the five colors that are a pinnacle of the game design —– white, blue, black, red and green —– have various themes underlining their cards, allowing players to express their identity.

“Like black is all about ambition and control, and blue is about using your intellect to outsmart your opponents, and green is about smashing face with big monsters,” Bartholdi said. “So you can kind of craft a deck that feels in line with your personal identity, which is also something I don't think you can get in any other game that exists.”

The two launched the podcast soon after, first under a different name — Magic the Amateuring — before rebranding as Good Luck High Five. Bartholdi had a background in media production, so they set up microphones on a kitchen table.

While there were other podcasts focused on the game, Wolff and Batholdi saw an opening with a show focused on new players hosted by women and trained with a comedy background.

“Aside from being an all-female podcast, and my memory is not perfect here, but maybe the first all-female Magic podcast, they brought a level of professionalism to the craft that really leveled up everyone around them,” Blake Rasmussen, the director of communications for Magic: The Gathering, said.

“The thing I always appreciate about them is they are very focused on newer players. That's not to say they don't do content for experienced players, but they always do content with the newer player in mind. And I don't think that's as common in the community as it maybe should be.”

Thirteen years and nearing 700 episodes, plus nearly 50 YouTube videos of their new show “Commander Arcade,” the two have created a media company based on the 32-year-old trading card game. They also added a third host on the team, Tyler Mills.

And there are few other shows that can claim the same staying power.

“Many Magic podcasts have come and gone over the years. I feel like there's only one which has been consistently running longer than we have,” Bartholdi said.

The ‘sigh’ that opened doors

Ten years ago, Wolff wrote an article about the challenges of being accepted into the hobby’s community, based on both her and Bartholdi’s observations.

“I wrote an article for a Magic website that was like ‘hey, there’s not a lot of women playing Magic. And here are some experiences that we’re having. It boils down to, people don’t treat you well. So hey, consider treating women better when they’re playing Magic: The Gathering in these spaces,’” Wolff said. “It… didn’t go over great.”

“This article lit a match, and then we threw gasoline on that match by recording a podcast episode about it as well,” Bartholdi said, “which became our most listened to episode of all time.”

It also caused Wizards of the Coast, the company that owns Magic, to pay attention. The company reached out to the pair, asking for advice.

“We had a meeting with them, and we said, ‘Well, you can hire women to be in your Magic event coverage.’ And they're like, who?”

They offered a few names to Wizards, women who made content or had played competitively. At first, they didn’t offer their own names.

“There's no reason why we didn't put our own names on it, except that sometimes, when you're socialized as a woman, you don't put yourself out there like that,” Wolff said.

Fortunately, they reached out and said “actually, us too.”

And Wizards went with them, along with a few other content creators.

Now, both Wolff and Bartholdi are involved in professional event hosting with pro tournaments, travelling around the globe.

“Anytime you tune into a Pro Tour, you’re very likely to see Maria on the broadcast,” said Rasmussen. “She brings that high-level professionalism to the broadcast. And Meghan, who you don’t see on camera, is often working on a lot of our social and web content to bring that to life. Both have been part of the Pro Tour ecosystem for quite some time.”

Since they released the episode about the barriers for women to play in tournaments, Wolff and Bartholdi have seen changes in the hobby, with organizations promoting inclusion, tournaments for players who are marginalized, and people who show up at events to provide safe spaces.

Wolff recently went to a tournament event in Baltimore and was struck by how much the scene has changed.

“It would literally be you'd walk into this room of 1,000 players, and it would be like, I can count the number of like, femme-presenting people here on one hand.” Wolff said. “And I walked into [this event] in Baltimore, and I’m walking around the tables. I had a real moment about it, because the landscape looked so different. There’s so many femme-presenting people playing at this event.”

“Just the change in overall attitude is night and day between 10 years ago and now, not to say there's not more work to be done,” Bartholdi said “Because, of course there is. But it's truly incredible, in that short amount of time, how much headway that we've collectively made.”

Content creation career for a niche hobby

As the podcast grew and the work continued for tournament coverage, Wolff was laid off from a job in 2016. She realized that the work she was doing on the podcast was the same workload as a full-time job.

For Bartholdi, there were tournaments to cover, episodes to record and edit, flights around the world, then rolling into her job right after a flight, sometimes with a suitcase in tow.

“It was exhausting.” Bartholdi said. “So we had to make a decision.”

The two decided on becoming freelancers, with the GLHF podcast and Magic being the main focus.

But that still means playing the cards the economy deals you. Changes in health care policy, being reliant on a product from a completely independent company and being in tune with an audience that donates funds to support their content.

“Ever since we've been freelancing, I have been more in tune with what is happening in the American economy than I ever have in my life,” Wolff said.

“When people think about Magic: The Gathering, if they're not familiar, a lot of them will think of the ‘90s, but the truth is that Magic: The Gathering is bigger now than it has ever been,” Bartholdi said.

According to reports, Wizards of the Coast generated $547 million in operating profits in 2021, and its parent company Hasbro reported that Magic: The Gathering became the company’s first billion-dollar brand in 2022.

That’s even before a huge year in 2025, when sets of cards featuring new characters and art from the long-running Final Fantasy video game series , brought new players to the table. That release generated $200 million in revenue in a single day. The company has also branched out into cards made with intellectual properties with cross-promotional appeal, like Lord of the Rings, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Marvel Comics.

“In 2026 [there] is going to be the most Magic sets released of all time,” Bartholdi said, “Which is good for us as content creators, because there’s a lot of material to work with.”

Wolff said the internet also demands authenticity, so they have to walk a fine line between being excited and being honest about the cards that come out.

“It's a delicate dance,” Wolff said. “We're talking about Magic because we love the game, and we always, at the end of the day, want to be producing a show that is about the joy of the game. We have to balance that with the fact that we also are going to be honest with people. If Wizards makes a bad product that people don't like, we're not going to go out and pretend to like it, because that would be disingenuous.”

But Bartholdi adds that growth in the interest of the game doesn’t mean their shows are secure. She worries that listeners can feel burned out on their hobby — or economic pressures cause hobbyists to pull back on spending.

Even with the success of the podcast, the YouTube channel, and being a tournament announcer, Bartholdi worries about how long it will last.

“Being a woman in an esports space, or even a sports space, who's over 40 is kind of a terrifying prospect, because once again, you have to see it to be it, and you don't see a lot of it,” she said.

She’s also acutely aware that the same standard is never applied to her male counterparts.

“So I’m like, what does that mean for the future? Can you be a woman on the internet past 40? I don't know, but I'm going to try.”

Wolff, with a chuckle, pipes in to reassure her co-host.

“I'm gonna beat the snot out of anyone who tries to tell you otherwise,” she says, laughing with her co-host.

The podcast releases new episodes every Thursday, with new “‘Commander Arcade”’ videos twice a month.

One of professional sports’ biggest spectacles is heading to Minnesota in two years.

The National Football League announced Tuesday that the 2028 NFL Draft will be held at U.S. Bank Stadium, with associated fan events taking place over several days around the Twin Cities and beyond.

“For three days, Minnesota will become the center of the football world,” Mark Wilf, owner and president of the Minnesota Vikings, said in a news release. “The 2028 NFL Draft will give us an opportunity to showcase not just U.S. Bank Stadium, but the energy, hospitality and pride that define Minneapolis-St. Paul and the entire state and region. We have no doubt the community will deliver a world-class event that is unique to Minnesota.”

The Vikings will host the draft in partnership with the NFL and Minnesota Sports and Events.

The draft used to be held in New York each year — but since 2015, it has rotated to different host cities, and the event has grown. This year’s draft, held in Pittsburgh in April, drew more than 800,000 fans.

At Tuesday’s announcement at the NFL Spring League Meeting in Orlando, Fla., Wendy Williams Blackshaw — the president and CEO of Minnesota Sports and Events — was asked whether the Twin Cities can match that.

“Around the stadium, there is room, depending on the stage layout, for somewhere in the 100,000 (range) — and then again, layer on top of that the watch parties, all of the other things that are happening in the community, and we feel really confident that we will have a huge crowd,” she said. “We’re competitive.”

The 2028 NFL Draft will take place a decade after Minneapolis hosted the Super Bowl. Exact dates are yet to be announced.

The 2027 draft will be held in Washington, D.C.

NPR is restructuring its newsroom, including cutting some reporting and editing jobs, as it attempts to keep pace with changing audience habits while adjusting to an era without federal subsidies.

NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher says the network has to fill a gap of $8 million in its $300-million annual budget because of the elimination of federal subsidies for its member stations, which pay NPR to air programs such as Morning Edition and All Things Considered. In a memo to staff, she said the network expects to earn $15 million less in station fees this year and is anticipating a drop in corporate sponsorship revenue.

The network is offering buyouts to approximately 300 employees, mostly within newsgathering desks in the newsroom. Staff of NPR's news programs, including hosts, are not eligible.

The actual number of departing journalists will be far smaller, NPR officials say. They say they will accept up to 30 buyouts but more targeted layoffs would ensue if an insufficient number of employees take voluntary buyouts by next Tuesday, May 26.

Paradoxically, just prior to the announcement of these cost-cutting measures, NPR received a pair of private gifts totaling $113 million — representing the network's second- and third-largest in its 56-year history. Most of that money, however, is dedicated to technological innovation.

Maher also acknowledges a mighty wave of individual contributions following Congress' vote last summer to take back all $1.1 billion it already had committed to public media. Those donations have helped sustain the network and the member stations, though many have announced their own layoffs over the past year.

"The extraordinary generosity of donors across the nation has really mitigated some of the hardest impacts of the loss of federal funding," Maher says. "I am relieved that that is the case. And now it is our responsibility to ensure that we take that gift that they have given us and use this time to get to a place where we are sustainable for the future."

A changing media environment

The network plans to overhaul its app and reshape its user experience across platforms to enrich the experience for listeners, readers and even viewers of its digital and streamlining products. And NPR's senior corporate leaders — some of whom have deep roots in the world of tech — are pivoting from the mantra of "reaching people wherever they are" to encouraging people to use NPR on its own platforms.

"We have to change this organization. We have to think about this audience. We have to think about how they are consuming us. We have to think about the member stations," says NPR Editor-in-Chief Thomas Evans. "We have to keep what I consider to be the last truly independent newsroom in the country healthy and alive and vibrant."

The way major tech companies, especially Google, have integrated AI into search engines and apps means people are presented with AI-synthesized information before individual search results. This has led to a sharp drop in referrals to NPR's website; in some cases they have all but vanished. Some are calling this "Google Zero" or the "Dead Web." Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch recently said on the TBPN podcast that he told colleagues to plan as if Google searches yield no referrals at all to the company's publications, which include The New Yorker.

Currently, NPR has 425 newsroom employees, Evans says. Seven vacancies will be kept open.

Pat O'Donnell, executive director of SAG-AFTRA's Washington-Mid Atlantic Local, which represents hundreds of NPR journalists, commends the network's approach to making job cuts.

"It's not that many," she says. "The fact they were willing to [agree to] more buyouts, and will make fewer cuts for each buyout, means they needed to cut the budget, but were doing it fairly."

Such job reductions represent a familiar tactic for media outlets in financially challenging times. Earlier this year, for example, the Washington Post laid off hundreds of journalists. CBS shed more than 60 newsroom staffers. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution eliminated the jobs of 15 percent of its staff. The Associated Press recently laid off or bought out roughly 60 journalists.

Other changes are in motion. NPR now has one of the more lenient remote-work policies among national newsrooms. The company is negotiating with SAG-AFTRA in an effort to require journalists to work in the office at least three times a week starting in the fall — a requirement that could encourage some to take the buyout. The union is seeking to ease the sting and breadth of those requirements, O'Donnell says.

Leadership shuffles and news desks merge

Evans, a CNN veteran who was named editor in chief last September, says the job cuts are deeper than he, personally, would favor.

Even so, Evans says, the restructuring is warranted.

"My hope and my drive for this is that the journalists in the newsroom at the end of this will be able to still cover the stories that make us uniquely NPR," Evans says. "More quality over quantity. Less content for the sake of content. I want to focus our newsroom on 'capital-J journalism'. That's the foundation of NPR."

He says NPR's National and General Assignments desks next month will merge with a focus on deep dives, natural disasters, and news deserts. NPR's regional bureau chiefs will become part of a new desk that works closely with member station journalists.

Beyond that, Evans says he is merging NPR's desks covering culture, education, religion, addiction and sports to make a society-and-culture desk. He is unifying science and climate coverage in a single desk. And he plans to fold the global health team into the International desk.

"It's just breaking down silos," Evans says.

NPR's Washington desk will expand to include the states team and NPR reporters who focus on power and money. The new desk on power and policy would take in developments on the local, state, regional and national level.

"I think it's a healthier way for all news organizations to look at this country and the state we're in," Evans says, alluding to the political climate.

He also said NPR's Business desk could add positions, as the network wants to create a new daily business podcast to complement Planet Money and The Indicator.

Evans says he has pitched NPR's corporate leadership on reinvesting some money back into the newsroom. Maher says she is hopeful NPR can afford to do so after improvements to the network's digital infrastructure.

They also announced shifts in the news leadership team. Prominent among them: Executive Editor Eva Rodriguez is shifting to become a consultant to the newsroom. She will be replaced by Chief Washington Editor Krishnadev Calamur. His deputy, Dana Farrington, will lead the new politics and policy desk.

Eric Marrapodi, who now oversees news programming, temporarily will move to lead the growth of NPR's video capabilities. Sami Yenigun, now the executive producer of All Things Considered, will oversee broadcast shows and NPR's newscast.

NPR is in the process of hiring a chief content officer to oversee both the newsroom and programming divisions.

Second round of layoffs in recent years

In early 2023, Maher's predecessor, the late John Lansing, ordered a 10 percent cut in staff. NPR was looking at a deficit of about $32 million as corporate underwriters peeled away in anticipation of a recession that never really played out.

Maher argues that Lansing largely shielded the newsroom from the brunt of the cuts, though several podcasts were scrapped and some correspondents took buyouts. (SAG-AFTRA's O'Donnell says she shares that assessment.) As a result, many other functions, such as legal services, were cut back sharply, she says.

"That was the right set of decisions" for that moment," Maher says.

Now, she says, budget realities require her to reduce spending in the core mission of newsgathering as well.

"We have made every effort to preserve the core capacity and strengths of what makes NPR different and distinct," Maher says. "This is never an easy choice to make, to have to cut anywhere near the newsroom."

Before Congress' vote last summer, NPR got roughly 1 percent of its funds directly from the U.S. government. But the network depends greatly on the programming fees that more than 240 member stations pay.

Maher says NPR initially estimated it would come up $30-45 million short – or about 10-15 percent of the annual budget – as a result of the federal clawback. Executives drew up projections for what that would mean. It seemed a brutal task. In comparison, the $8 million cut intended with these buyouts, while a bitter blow, is an absorbable one, she says.

The network has already reworked how it charges member stations for programming in light of the loss of Congressionally appropriated funds for public media, which had provided, on average, about 10 percent of public radio stations' revenue.

Disclosure: This story was written and reported by NPR Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by NPR Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Vickie Walton-James. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

Copyright 2026, NPR

President Donald Trump is moving to dismiss a $10 billion lawsuit he filed against the IRS over the leak of his tax returns, according to a court filing.

Hours after the announcement, the Department of Justice announced an "anti-weaponization fund" as part of the settlement with Trump. In a statement, the department said the $1.776 billion find will allow the DOJ to settle and pay cases.

Ethics watchdogs and Democrats in Congress are trying to intervene.

Trump and the Trump Organization sued the Internal Revenue Service and the Treasury Department in January demanding $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns years ago.

Legal experts described the case as weak, since the leak has been attributed to a federal contractor, not a full-time employee of the U.S. government. That man is currently serving prison time. They also questioned whether the statute of limitations might have expired; the leaks of tax information happened between 2018 and 2020.

But the Justice Department recently told a judge it had entered negotiations to resolve the dispute. That could mean the government Trump leads would be in line to pay him personally.

U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams of Miami is presiding over the case. The judge recently raised her own doubts, citing Trump's own rhetoric that in some ways, he was negotiating with himself as both plaintiff and president.

 "Although President Trump avers that he is bringing this lawsuit in his personal capacity, he is the sitting president and his named adversaries are entities whose decisions are subject to his direction," Judge Williams wrote last month. "Indeed, President Trump's own remarks about this matter acknowledge the unique dynamic of this litigation. Accordingly, it is unclear to this Court whether the Parties are sufficiently adverse to each other so as to satisfy Article III's case or controversy requirement."

There's a process in place at the Justice Department for people who say they've been harmed by the federal government.

In the normal course of business, those claims get evaluated by career lawyers. They rarely involve high-profile criminal investigations like Trump's.

"Some of them are run-of-the-mill, right?" said Rupa Bhattacharyya, a former Justice Department lawyer who evaluated these kinds of allegations. "Postal vehicles get into traffic accidents, Veterans Affairs doctors have malpractice claims brought against them, people slip and fall in federal buildings."

Even in the most serious cases, like ones that involved injuries to people cleaning up after the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001, Bhattacharyya said the payouts almost never amounted to more than $10 million.

Edward Whelan, a prominent conservative lawyer, told NPR it would make sense to pause the litigation until Trump leaves the White House.

"There is a glaring conflict of interest with Trump being on both sides of the claim," said Whelan, a former lawyer at the Justice Department who once clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia. "It is outrageous that he and those answering to him would be deciding how the government responds to these extravagant claims."

Copyright 2026, NPR

For months now, Minnesota soybean farmers have been caught in the middle of an international trade war that's led to a back and forth on whether their product will be sold to one of the world's largest buyers: China.

In November, the country agreed to buy 12 million metric tons of U.S. Soybeans, but it was still historically far below previous counts.

On Friday, during his visit to China, President Donald Trump said he struck a deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the foreign country to buy billions of dollars of American soybeans, and that farmers are “going to be very happy.”

Joe Smentek, executive director of the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association, said it still remains to be seen if the deal will be penned in ink.

“I remain really optimistically — I hope that they are going to be very happy,” he said. “Hearing it from one side is one thing, but not hearing it from the other coming out of Beijing is, you know, kind of leaving us hoping.”

Smentek added that some farms have already lost too much money waiting for buyers, and if Trump’s soybean deal with China happens, it may already be too late for them. “I don't think it's too late yet for everyone. Hopefully, we can correct some things to get back on track,” he said.

Listen to the full conversation by clicking the player above.

A holiday weekend is on the horizon for many Minnesotans, meaning a trip to the lake or cabin for some, or a trip farther away for others.

But high fuel prices amid the war in Iran may curb the appeal of a road trip or a last-minute flight.

Kyle Potter with Thrifty Traveler joined Morning Edition to talk about travel during a tumultuous few months for the airline industry.

“Things have gotten ugly, no question,” Potter said. “The average price of a gallon of jet fuel has hovered around $4 to $4.20 a gallon, so it feels similar” to gasoline. “But that said, the amount of money that airlines spend on jet fuel is absolutely enormous. So, it is hitting airlines incredibly hard, and I think everyday travelers are feeling that too, in the form of higher fares.”

Jet fuel supply, however, hasn’t been an issue in the U.S., despite some shortages in Europe and Asia.

As far as the shuttering of Spirit Airlines and Allegiant Air’s acquisition of Minnesota-based Sun Country Airlines, what it means for consumers remains an open question, Potter said, because it will take a long time for the two air carriers to integrate.

“Will Allegiant, as it swallows Sun Country, still offer the same cheap fares to as many destinations as Sun Country serves from Minneapolis today? That's a big question,” he said. “In the short term, no question, there aren't going to be any significant changes. But longer term, that's where I start to have some questions and concerns.”

Most people who are traveling by air over Memorial Day weekend bought their tickets weeks or months ago, and so there’s not been a major decline in broad, nationwide travel numbers, Potter said.

“I think we're in a weird intermediary period with travel, where it's hard to tell exactly where things are going to go, and, of course, it all hinges on what the prices of jet fuel and, therefore, tickets are in the weeks and months to come,” Potter said.

Listen to the full conversation by clicking the player button above.

High rents. Student loans. A shifting job market. For a growing number of young adults, moving back home isn't a setback — it's a smart financial strategy.

But multigenerational living comes with real financial and emotional complexity.

MPR News host Angela Davis and her guests talk about what's driving the trend and how to make it work financially for everyone under the roof.

Guests:

• Michelle Singletary is a personal finance columnist for the Washington Post.

• Jamia Erickson is a financial consultant with Thrivent, a Twin Cities based financial services organization.

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.

The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Neel Kashkari, said if Minnesotans want housing to be more affordable, we need more homes on the market.

“There's no question that the single most important driver is going to be supply,” he said.

At a recent St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce event, he said four main factors are constraining supply.

1.) Inflation

The cost of construction materials is going up, Kashkari said, making it more expensive to build housing.

“It’s our job to get inflation back down,” he said.

Prices in the building materials and supplies industry are at historical highs, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. And overall, annual inflation has consistently been above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2 percent since March 2021.

“What’s been challenging the past five years is — economists call these shocks — different things keep hitting the economy,” he said. “COVID, the supply chains coming out of COVID, Russia invading Ukraine, (and) now, the war in Iran. These things are all inflationary: one after the other after the other.”

That’s part of the reason that Kashkari, who is serving a rotating term on the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, dissented from that committee’s recent policy statement that signaled future rate cuts.

While rate cuts could stimulate the economy, Kashkari is concerned they’d also aggravate inflation.

2.) Interest rates

Interest rates are another important piece of housing affordability. Lower interest rates would make it cheaper to borrow money to build and buy houses.

While the federal funds rate set by the Federal Reserve influences mortgage rates, Kashkari said broader swings in the economy are pushing up interest rates, too.

For example, the ongoing data center boom has increased demand for investment capital and may be pulling capital away from projects like apartment buildings.

“Hundreds of billions of dollars a year of new investment demand, all else equal, is going to push up interest rates,” he said.

3.) Immigration and labor

Kashkari also cited labor availability as a constraint on construction.

“Obviously, if there are fewer immigrant workers to build homes, on the margin that’s going to make labor somewhat less available, potentially causing some inflationary pressure there,” he said.

The second Trump Administration’s surge of immigration enforcement has likely hit the construction sector particularly hard because a relatively large percentage of undocumented workers were employed by that industry, according to a recent working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

According to the paper, that hasn’t translated to higher wages for other workers, but employers are instead “reducing labor demand overall, including for jobs more often taken by U.S.-born workers.”

4.) Zoning

Kashkari said local zoning regulations are a major hurdle to building more housing. Homeowners have an incentive to advocate for policies that keep prices high in their neighborhoods so their assets keep growing in value.

“When we all do that, you can’t build anywhere,” he added. “Then all of a sudden the home prices skyrocket because we just limit new supply from coming online.”

Kashkari said of the four constraints on construction, policymakers can most directly control zoning regulations if they want to keep prices down.

“You look around the country, there are some regions where it's a lot easier to build,” he said.

He noted that those areas still had to reckon with inflation, labor availability and challenging interest rates.

“But the zoning piece,” he said, “actually can make a big difference on how much new supply you can bring online.”

After more than a decade in northeast Minneapolis, Bauhaus Brew Labs says it’ll close at the end of June.

The operators of the craft brewery and event space posted Thursday on social media that “despite pulling every lever available to us, the financial headwinds have proven to be insurmountable, and we have made the very difficult and heartbreaking decision to close our doors.”

Among the factors Bauhaus cited were increased supply chain costs, shifting consumer preferences and lingering effects of the pandemic. They also pointed to the effects of the recent federal immigration enforcement surge on the Twin Cities’ hospitality industry.

Bauhaus said diversifying into new kinds of products — including hard seltzers, non-alcoholic beer and THC beverages — as well as adding more programming and events, was not enough to overcome those challenges.

Bauhaus Brew Labs opened in the summer of 2014. Its annual Liquid Zoo event is still happening during Art-A-Whirl this weekend, and the brewery said it’s planning a 12-year anniversary and going-away party for the last weekend of June.

“Keeping a brewery alive for 12 years in this city, in this industry, in these times: that is something. We are proud of it, and we are proud to have shared it with you,” the brewery’s statement said.

As gas prices have spiked again this week, some rideshare drivers in Minnesota say they’re struggling to make ends meet.

Uber and Lyft drivers pay for their own gas. With gas in the state now averaging more than $4.35 a gallon, those costs are up — and driver pay rates have stayed flat.

Said Mohamed drives for both rideshare companies. He typically works during the day, with breaks to stop at home and regular days off. But high gas prices have forced him to change that schedule.

“I’m driving more,” Mohamed said. “From 7 a.m. when I leave my house ‘til I go back home about 7 p.m. tonight, I have to stay.”

Mohamed said he’s spending close to $30 a day on gas. That’s for his hybrid car; he said friends and fellow rideshare drivers with fully gas-powered cars are spending up to $45 or $50 a day.

Uber and Lyft both offer discounts and cash-back deals on gas, which they have increased since gas prices began climbing amid the war in the Middle East.

But Mohamed said the benefits are too small to make a difference. Some of them only apply at specific gas stations. Others require drivers to set up accounts on company-issued debit cards. Mohamed said many drivers don’t want to go through the process to do that, or don’t want to keep their income on a company card.

Mohamed said he’s also been avoiding long rides that take him out of the Twin Cities, because he doesn’t get paid for the drive back without a passenger. But when a driver declines too many trips, the rideshare apps’ algorithms send them fewer options — and often lower-paying ones.

Mohamed is part of a group of drivers organizing with the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, to advocate for a rideshare drivers’ union. It would require legal action at the state level; drivers are currently unable to unionize because they are classified as independent contractors, not employees. A bill to allow drivers to unionize did not pass at the state legislature last year.

Mohamed said he wants the chance to negotiate directly with the companies — especially when challenges like high gas prices come up.

“The biggest thing that needs to be changed is, the drivers need to be listened to, and drivers need the same protections as everyone that is working,” Mohamed said.

Organizers are looking ahead to this year’s midterm elections in hopes that changes in the legislature — and possibly in party control — could give the group another chance to push for the law.

Gas prices jumped sharply at many Minnesota stations this week.

The website GasBuddy reports the average price in the state as of Thursday was $4.44 a gallon, up about 22 cents compared to last week.

Twin Cities gas prices are generally more volatile, according to GasBuddy analyst Patrick DeHaan. DeHaan said the state engages in what he calls "price cycling," where gas stations will undercut prices.

"They'll lower prices, even if the corresponding cost does not go down, they will lower prices to have a lower price than their competition. Once stations no longer have room to continue that behavior — that is, once they've lowered prices so far that they might be close to their cost is when prices make that infamous jump that we saw yesterday,” he said on Thursday.

DeHaan said the longer the Strait of Hormuz is closed, the more Minnesota drivers could progressively see prices rising in the weeks ahead.

But DeHaan said the price spike also reflects issues at refineries in the Great Lakes region. A power outage at a BP refinery in Whiting, Ind., caused it to evacuate, and there have been other disruptions, like maintenance that caused some drivers in Ohio to find empty pumps at several stations, according to WKRC.

"Those problems are so significant that they're also having a leeching impact into areas like Minnesota and Iowa as well,” said DeHaan. “We did start to see gas stations in Minneapolis going up to $4.59 a gallon. Part of that is a small impact of the refining issues in your neighboring region,” he said on Thursday.

Many Minnesota counties are seeing prices higher than the state average, including Martin County in southern Minnesota, which is seeing gas at $4.59 a gallon, according to GasBuddy.

SX Decoys sells lifelike replicas of waterfowl that help hunters attract animals like ducks and geese. Scott Butz owns the Fargo-based company and said in the past few years, his business has navigated a lot of challenges.

The COVID-19 pandemic strangled supply chains, raising shipping costs. Recently, spikes in oil prices from the Iran War have done the same. And all the while, he’s been dealing with tariffs, or taxes on imports.

“We did have to do a little (price) increase, but the customers accepted it,” he said.

Butz is sympathetic to President Donald Trump’s tariff strategy, which aimed to incentivize domestic production, raise revenue and reduce the country’s trade deficit.

“We're going to get our money back,” he said.

In February, the Supreme Court struck down some of the Trump Administration's tariffs, ruling that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, does not give the president the authority to impose tariffs.

Shortly afterward, companies that imported goods from overseas and paid those fees began filing for refunds.

But importers are not alone in bearing the costs of tariffs. It’s also the businesses and consumers downstream of them.

“The importer passes along the increase in price to, say, the wholesaler, who then passes it along to the retailer, who then passes it along to the consumer,” said Louis Johnston, an economics professor at the College of St. Benedict and St. John's University.

Johnston said the same kind of dynamic applies in business to business transactions.

But those downstream entities are not getting a refund check.

Shared refunds are ‘hard to imagine’

Allstar Construction replaces roofs and gutters throughout Minnesota and North Dakota.

The company uses imported materials like steel and aluminum, but they’re not the ones actually importing those materials from overseas because they buy from other U.S. businesses.

Allstar’s president, Adam Olson, said it has taken a while for tariff costs to trickle down to him.

His suppliers were working through older inventory of their materials that had not been subject to tariffs, he said, but prices have recently been spiking.

But even though some of the costs of tariffs are being passed down to him, Olson won’t be getting a refund.

“We're not the importer of record, so we're not the ones that are going to be able to apply,” he said. “The refunds are going to start upstream and then hopefully work its way down to the end user.”

But Johnston, the economics professor, is doubtful.

“We don't know for sure, but it's hard to imagine that companies are going to turn around and offer discounts to their customers just because they've now gotten a refund from the government,” he said. “It's possible, it's possible — but I just don't see it as very likely.”

Consumers at the end of the supply chain might also be stuck with some of these costs.

The Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan think tank, estimates that last year, tariffs amounted to a $1,000 tax increase per household.

“I don't really think that consumers should expect to see a lot of movements in the prices this year, in terms of the price actually going down,” said Alex Durante, a senior economist at the think tank.

Durante said most businesses will probably hold onto that money as they wait and see which tariffs stick around and what new ones pop up.

That may make Scott Butz at SX Decoys an outlier, since he’s planning to share the refund with his customers.

“I'm actually going to reward our customers with a big sale this summer,” he said.

But tariff uncertainty continues. Shortly after the Supreme Court struck down the IEEPA tariffs, Trump announced a temporary 10 percent global tariff. A U.S. trade court ruled against those tariffs last week, but that order was temporarily paused while the administration appeals.

So, Butz and other importers are not out of the woods just yet.

Allegiant Air said Wednesday it has completed its purchase of Sun Country Airlines, finalizing a deal that combines two low-cost carriers at a turbulent time for the budget airline industry following the recent shutdown of rival Spirit Airlines.

Las Vegas-based Allegiant said the transaction closed after receiving required regulatory and shareholder approvals. When the deal was first announced in January, Allegiant said it was valued at about $1.5 billion, including debt.

“Today marks a defining moment in Allegiant’s history as we officially join forces with Sun Country,” Allegiant CEO Gregory Anderson said in a statement, adding that the new combined airline is positioned to offer broader access to affordable travel.

The deal comes as both airlines and travelers are grappling with a sharp run-up in jet fuel costs driven by the war in the Middle East, a jump that is already showing up in higher fares and fees across the industry. That increase is hitting low-cost airlines especially hard, since they have less room to absorb rising costs.

The pressure was especially acute for Spirit Airlines. The ultra low-cost carrier shut down after 34 years May 2, its collapse accelerated by the sharp rise in fuel costs following years of financial strain, including heavy debt, repeated restructuring efforts and ongoing cash-flow problems.

Against that backdrop, Allegiant and Sun Country say their tie-up gives them more ways to generate revenue. Along with passenger flights, Sun Country brings into the fold cargo flying for Amazon, as well as charter trips for sports teams, casinos and the U.S. Department of Defense,.

Allegiant says the expanded network is also expected to give travelers more options, especially in smaller and mid-sized markets, with about 195 aircraft serving nearly 175 cities and more than 650 routes.

For now, travelers shouldn’t expect any changes. Both airlines will continue to operate separately, and customers can keep booking, checking in and managing trips just as they do today.

Allegiant said it will take time to bring the two airlines together. Over the long term, the combined company is expected to operate under the Allegiant name and remain headquartered in Las Vegas, while adding new options and connections across its broader network.

Minneapolis–St. Paul, where Sun Country is based, will remain an important hub for the airline.

Rising numbers of Minnesota childcare providers say they are not confident their businesses are sustainable, a concerning new survey shows.

Economic conditions are so difficult that one-third of those responding to the survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and the nonprofit group First Children’s Finance said they’ve had to stop paying themselves in order to pay the rising costs of food and insurance.

“That's always really alarming to me,” Suzanne Pearl, Minnesota director of First Children’s Finance, told reporters Wednesday as the survey results were released.

“I know that happens with a lot of small businesses,” she added. “Your small business is kind of entwined with your life, but I don't know that that's a sustainable way to do business, especially for a sector that's as critical to the rest of the economy as childcare is.”

The latest survey stands in contrast to 2024, when many providers said they were optimistic about rising enrollment and more confident about sustaining their businesses coming off the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2025, though, Minnesota childcare providers saw decreases in enrollment that were exacerbated in 2026 by the surge of federal immigration agents in Minnesota and the new paid family leave program in early January.

The paid family leave program is delaying when families might send their infants to childcare. Infants are the largest revenue source for centers.

“This is another potential change to the childcare market, and we'll be watching over the next few years to learn how the paid leave program impacts the demand for childcare, and how that might, in turn, impact the childcare business model overall,” Pearl said.

Programs saw the largest enrollment decrease for preschool-age children. Pearl said this may indicate a shifting customer base in childcare due to the availability of free or low-cost options for preschoolers.

While food costs have been on a steady incline, insurance was the largest cost increase reported in the new survey.

“We've been hearing for a few years from childcare businesses about the rising cost or even inability to secure business liability insurance,” Pearl said. “In recent months, we've learned of some centers whose insurance carriers have pulled their policies altogether and they had to shut down.”

The ability of families to afford childcare remains a constant worry among the more than 750 providers who provided survey responses from April 8-24.

The vast majority of childcare providers surveyed are part of the Minnesota Great Start Compensation Support Payment Program, a state effort to subsidize pay and benefits of childcare workers. Yet the new results found businesses less confident about the state investment in childcare.

A new, state-facilitated program called Secure Choice is beginning to automatically enroll small business employees, aimed at giving about 300,000 Minnesotans unprecedented access to retirement benefits.

Secure Choice Executive Director Chad Roberts told Morning Edition that the state’s responsibility to help people save — in addition to social security — for life after their careers eases the burden for the rest of the public.

“That social safety net does not have to reach as far, because everybody has their own safety net with retirement,” he said.

More than a dozen states are participating in the program. In Minnesota, the Legislature approved it in 2023, and a staggered rollout began in January and runs through June 2028 based on the number of employees at a business. The default savings rate is 5 percent.

Roberts said the feedback from businesses and employees has been largely positive.

“Employees can opt out, but right now, we're only seeing 16 percent of enrolled employees drop out of the program, and so to us, that's clear evidence that 80-85 percent of Minnesota workers without retirement want this opportunity to save for their own retirement,” he explained.

While money is tight for many right now, “how hard is it going to be at the end of your working career, when you can't generate more income and you don't have anything to buy gas with, to buy groceries with, to pay rent or mortgage with,” he argued. “And money today invested in retirement is worth much more at the time you retire, and so saving a little now gets you a lot later.”

Gas prices are continuing to climb. On Wednesday, according to AAA, the average price in Minnesota was $4.15. It’s averaging even higher in the seven-county metro at $4.24. You may have looked at the price at the pump recently and wished you had an electric car.

But data shows the number of Minnesotans buying electric dropped by 50 percent in the last few months of 2025. From January through October of 2025, EVs made up 8.4 percent of vehicle registrations in the state. In November and December, that dropped to 3.9 percent, according to the Minnesota Automobile Dealers Association.

Association President Scott Lambert said high gas prices are unlikely to reverse the trend. He joined MPR News host Nina Moini for a check-in on the EV industry.

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.

Prominent U.S. executives from Big Tech and Wall Street to agriculture and aerospace are joining President Donald Trump on his trip to China this week, according to a White House official.

That includes Brian Sikes, chairman and CEO of Minnesota-based food and agricultural giant Cargill.

Trump is expected to arrive in Beijing Wednesday to meet with President Xi Jinping. Aside from discussions about Iran, the two leaders are expected to discuss trade and artificial intelligence.

Sikes has served as CEO of Cargill since 2023 and was elected as board chairman in 2024. He’s been with the company for 35 years. Cargill has more than 155,000 employees in 70 countries, including more than 5,000 employees in China.

Cargill has operated in China for decades, with the company listing business interests in agriculture, food products, energy, metals, transportation and other sectors.

Here’s a look at some of the other executives, according to the White House official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Elon Musk

Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, led Trump's Department of Government Efficiency until leaving in the spring of 2025 before the controversial pop-up agency was shuttered in November. The billionaire, who also owns the social media platform X, feuded with Trump last summer in a war of words that included Musk claiming without evidence that the government was concealing information about the president’s association with infamous pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Musk eventually said that he regretted some of his posts on X about Trump.

Since then, Musk has refocused his energy on Tesla and his other companies. Tesla has operations in China and Musk has visited there. He’s also been dealing with French prosecutors seeking charges against him and X for child sexual abuse images on the platform, deepfakes, disinformation and complicity in denying crimes against humanity by the platform’s artificial intelligence system, Grok. There’s also a trial pitting Musk against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

Tim Cook

Cook remains busy as his tenure at Apple winds down. The CEO announced last month that his 15-year reign as the head of the technology company will come to an end on Sept. 1, when he turns the CEO duties over to Apple’s head of hardware engineering, John Ternus. During Cook’s years as the top executive, Apple saw the its market value soar by more than $3.6 trillion during an iPhone-fueled era of prosperity. Cook will remain with the company as executive chairman.

Apple’s reliance on overseas manufacturing required Cook to master the art of political diplomacy, particularly while Trump waged trade wars with China during both his terms in the White House. After persuading Trump to exempt the iPhone and other products from Trump’s first-term tariffs, he faced a more daunting challenge during the current administration.

While insisting that Apple shift its iPhone manufacturing from China to the U.S., Trump imposed some tariffs on the device this time around. But Cook still managed to minimize the fees by shifting the production of iPhones destined for the U.S. market to India and also winning some exemptions after promising Apple would invest $600 billion in the U.S. during Trump’s second administration.

Jensen Huang

Nvidia CEO Huang heads to Beijing just months after the company received approval to sell one of its powerful AI chips to China, with conditions.

In January the Trump administration placed new security requirements on Nvidia’s semiconductor sales to China, but essentially greenlit the export of its H200 artificial intelligence chips.

Nvidia must ensure that there is an adequate supply in the U.S., and the H200 chips must undergo a third-party review before being exported to China, according to new rules set by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security. But the new rules lower the bar for exports.

China won’t be allowed to use the chips for military purposes and is not allowed to import more than 50 percent of the chips sold to U.S. customers.

The H200 is not Nvidia’s most advanced product. Those chips, called Blackwell and the upcoming Rubin, were not part of the approved chips for export.

Kelly Ortberg

Robert “Kelly” Ortberg, a former CEO at aerospace manufacturer Rockwell Collins, became CEO of Boeing in 2024. He’s spent time focusing on Boeing’s recovery, as the aerospace company was dealing with legal, regulatory and production problems and mounting financial repercussions when he took over.

A year ago Ortberg said that he didn’t expect the U.S. trade war with China to forestall Boeing’s financial recovery, nor prevent it from reaching aircraft delivery targets with Chinese airlines that were refusing to accept its planes. Beijing increased its import tax on American goods to 125 percent in April 2025 in retaliation for Trump raising the tariff on products made in China to 145 percent. China’s tariff would more than double the cost of passenger jets that Boeing, the largest exporter in the U.S., sells for tens of millions of dollars. But Beijing is less of a threat to Boeing now that it used to be, as it has started to send fewer of its finished planes there over time.

Boeing has been in ongoing talks with China over a possible large aircraft sale.

Who else is going

• Blackrock Chairman and CEO Larry Fink

• Blackstone Chairman, CEO and co-founder Stephen Schwarzman

• Citi Chairman and CEO Jane Fraser

• Coherent CEO Jim Anderson

• GE Aerospace Chairman and CEO H. Lawrence Culp

• Goldman Sachs Chairman and CEO David Solomon

• Illumina CEO Jacob Thaysen

• Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach

• Meta President and Vice Chairman Dina Powell McCormick

• Micron Chairman, President and CEO Sanjay Mehrotra

• Qualcomm President and CEO Cristiano Amon

• Visa CEO Ryan McInerney

The Minnesota Orchestra welcomed 2026 with its annual “Nordic Soundscapes Festival” in January. With music by Jean Sibelius and Hans Abrahamsen, the festival was a bright spot of warmth during winter.

Lurking in the shadows, however, was the news that the Minnesota Orchestra was in a $4.2 million deficit from its previous fiscal year.

“We have very high fixed costs because we have a full-time orchestra,” said Isaac Thompson, who took over as the orchestra’s CEO and president in October 2025.

In fiscal year 2025, the orchestra had a higher audience attendance than previous seasons, returning to numbers similar to those pre-pandemic. They also saw a bump in revenue and a slight reduction in expenses. Still, the scales didn’t balance for the second year in a row.

“There is a structural kind of disconnect between those; the revenue piece, and the expense piece,” Thompson explained.

A look at new revenue streams

In an effort to close that structural gap, Thompson is exploring other revenue options for the orchestra. He’s been looking at models from other major orchestras, such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

“The Los Angeles Philharmonic has the Hollywood Bowl, which is a huge cash cow for them,” Thompson said.

The Hollywood Bowl is a major amphitheater in California that offers a variety of programs. The Minnesota Orchestra has invested in its own outdoor venue, the Community Performing Arts Center amphitheater in north Minneapolis.

“We’ve invested in that venue, and there will be a revenue piece of that, that comes back to the orchestra,” Thompson said.

The venue is part of the large Upper Harbor redevelopment project and will be operated jointly by the orchestra and music venue First Avenue.

“But also even beyond that, it helps kind of broaden the orchestra's brand into the community,” Thomson said. “We're also looking at opportunities like, what is our role within downtown Minneapolis? How can we activate the areas around Orchestra Hall?”

Putting the art front and center

The organization is also looking at cutting costs by changing hiring practices for personnel brought in for special programs. During certain times in a season, the orchestra has to hire extra musicians to meet the needs of a particular performance.

“When you do a massive Mahler symphony, it requires a different kind of set of forces than when you do, you know, a Haydn symphony,” Thompson said. For example, some of Joseph Haydn’s symphonies can be performed by a couple dozen performers, while Gustav Mahler’s 8th symphony requires over 100 musicians, a choir and several vocal soloists.

Thompson said these decisions will not affect programming, but that the change in process will save the orchestra an estimated $2 million over the next two years.

“There's going to be more due diligence in terms of making sure that we're certainly hiring for each of those pieces, but we're not necessarily going beyond that,” Thompson said.

That decision was part of the recent bargaining agreement that the orchestra and its unionized musicians came to in April.

“The organization is in a financial situation that we all understand, and need to help out as much as we can,” said R. Douglas Wright, the orchestra’s principal trombone and a member of the negotiating committee.

“I think that we've come to an agreement that really threads that needle between the financial issues, but at the same time protecting and growing the art form.”

That sentiment is something that both the musicians and Thompson seem to have in mind.

“[Thompson] has let it be known since he got here that the art is going to be front and center,” said Timothy Zavadil, a clarinetist/bass clarinetist who’s been with the orchestra since 2007.

“He is obviously much more well versed on the financial side of things than we are. We feel like we have a partner in understanding the artistic needs for the organization too.”

How the orchestra’s past affects its future

The new union contract also increases musicians' pay 2.5 percent annually for the next two years.

The agreement is a far cry from the infamous lockout in the early 2010s, triggered by a $6 million deficit at the orchestra. In an effort to shore up the deficit, the orchestra proposed massive pay cuts for its unionized musicians.

When the players rejected that plan, the organization locked them out for 15 months — leading to a whole season of canceled performances. MPR News reported at the time it was the nation’s longest running labor dispute at a concert orchestra.

“I think what came out of the lockout is a strengthening of the partnership between the orchestra and the community,” said Zavadil, who also serves on the union’s negotiating committee.

“I think what we learned after the lockout is that this entire organization — and I am including musicians, staff, board and just as important is our audience — we have all come together and taken ownership of this organization to create something that is bigger than ourselves,” he said.

The U.S. war with Iran has pushed inflation to its highest level in almost three years.

Consumer prices in April were up 3.8 percent from a year ago, according to a report Tuesday from the Labor Department. That was the biggest annual increase since May 2023.

Prices rose 0.6 percent between March and April.

From gas prices to housing, here are three things to know about the rising cost of living.

Gas prices are a big driver

Gasoline prices have jumped sharply since the war began, snarling tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital corridor for energy shipments. The average price of regular gas is $2.50 a gallon, according to AAA. That's up 38 cents from a month ago. The jump in energy prices accounted for 40 percent of the monthly increase in the consumer price index in April.

Rising fuel costs are affecting other prices as well

When energy costs jump sharply, it can have spillover effects. Air fares, for example, jumped 2.8 percent last month and are more than 20 percent higher than they were a year ago, as airlines struggle with a spike in jet fuel prices. The cost of diesel fuel has risen by $1.88 a gallon since the war began. If that lasts, it could put upward pressure on the price of everything that's delivered by truck or train.

Excluding volatile food and energy costs, "core" inflation was 2.8 percent in April.

Housing prices also contributed to higher inflation in April

Housing costs were also a driver of inflation, jumping 0.6 percent between March and April, but some of that is a statistical fluke resulting from the six-week government shutdown last fall. Government number crunchers were temporarily idled in October, so were unable to collect housing prices that month. That's had the effect of artificially lowering the measure of housing inflation. Tuesday's report provides a kind of catch-up.

Copyright 2026, NPR

President Donald Trump says he wants the gas tax to be temporarily suspended as the war in Iran extends into its 11th week and keeps oil prices elevated.

He told CBS News on Monday morning he wants the tax suspended "for a period of time" and would want it reintroduced "when gas goes down."

Asked by reporters in the Oval Office later in the day how long the gas tax would be suspended, the president responded, "Till it's appropriate."

Suspending the gas tax would require an act of Congress. Currently, the tax is 18.4 cents per gallon of gas and 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel.

Regular gasoline cost just under $3 per gallon on average before the U.S. bombed Iran. Now, the average cost per gallon has soared by more than 50 percent to $4.52, according to AAA.

A cost reduction of 18.4 cents would lower that average gasoline cost by around 4 percent. It would bring the cost of a 12-gallon fill-up down by $2.21.

Blockades imposed during the Iran war have stalled the passage of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, causing gas prices to spike. Around one-fifth of the world's crude oil usually travels through that strait.

The potential suspension of the gas tax is a tacit acknowledgment from the White House of the toll that high gas prices have taken on American consumers. Eight in 10 Americans say gas prices are straining their budgets, including overwhelming majorities of Democrats, independents and Republicans alike, according to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll.

In addition, 63 percent of Americans say they blame Trump “a great deal” or “a good amount” for those higher gas prices. That includes more than 6 in 10 independents and nearly one-third of Republicans.

Copyright 2026, NPR

A longtime restaurant near Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul is closing its doors for good next Sunday.

The Downtowner Woodfire Grill on West Seventh Street made that announcement on Monday — saying the closure on May 17 is due to the retirement of owner Moe Sharif after 38 years.

“For nearly four decades, he has proudly served the St. Paul community with dedication and heart,” the Sharif family posted on social media. “Moe would like to extend his deepest gratitude to the city of St. Paul, our amazing staff, and our loyal customers for making this journey so special. The Downtowner has been a true icon in this city — a one-of-a-kind gem that will be deeply missed.”

Sharif operated it as a diner before renovating the space into its current iteration following the arena opening in 2000.

The family said Moe Sharif will continue helping out his son across the street at Burger Moe’s — which is not closing. He’s also planning to spend more time with family and friends, and more time traveling.

Meanwhile, they’re looking for new operators to take over the Downtowner Woodfire Grill space.

“We hope the next torchbearer will continue a meaningful legacy in this space,” the family wrote.

It was a busy Saturday for the staff in the workshop at Perennial Cycle Shop in Minneapolis. Mechanics swapped in new tires, checked brake lines and lubricated bike chains.

Luke Breen has owned Perennial on Hennepin Avenue for 37 years, and while spring brings its fair share of tune-ups, he’s noticed a difference this year.

“We’re seeing a lot of repair bikes coming in. People are pulling their bikes out of their garages. Many people come in to get air in their tires and lube on their chains because they are seeing the gas prices going up.”

While gas prices are causing more customers to consider new ways to get around town, Breen hasn’t seen an increase in new bike purchases — at least not yet.

“At what point does the gas price actually push people to buying bikes? I don't know. I can guess, and it's around five bucks a gallon.” Breen said. “We're not there yet. We're at the point where people are just trying. They're worried that it might happen, and they like to prepare themselves by just getting their bike ready to go.”

AAA listed the average price per gallon of regular gasoline in Minnesota on Monday at $4.17, more than a dollar more than the same time last year.

It all comes down to tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Tankers moved about 20 million barrels of oil daily through the strait in 2025, according to estimates from the Energy Information Administration, a federal research agency.

Even with a tenuous cease fire between the U.S. and Iran, ships carrying 20 percent of the global supply have stopped moving through the strait.

Paul Sankey is the lead analyst for Sankey Research, an independent energy research firm. He says the U.S. has avoided the worst of it by tapping emergency reserves.

“Our view is that it gets worse before it gets better — a lot worse — because of the emergency inventory running down. But so far, they've centered the situation well,” he said.

Sankey says there aren’t viable alternatives to shipping through the strait. Much of the infrastructure for exporting oil was built to travel through ports to arrive at refineries around the world.

President Donald Trump has said he foresaw the spike, and that it is a sacrifice for toppling the Iranian regime.

But even if everything went back to the way they were before the U.S. strikes on Iran, Sankey says a change in prices won't happen overnight.

“It's all a question of physics. You can't conjure a tanker into a different place. These things move at 15 miles an hour,” Sankey said. “So once they decide to go somewhere else. It takes, you know, a lot of time to get them back to where they should be.”

Metro Transit sees bump in riders

The war more than 6,000 miles from the Twin Cities has commuters searching for alternatives to avoid paying at the pump.

For example, Metro Transit General Manager Lesley Kandaras says April saw 4.5 million rides, a 3 percent bump compared to 2025.

"A lot of factors can be at play. Certainly, we know gas prices are higher this year than that time last year, so that could be a factor."

Kandaras says improved security and expanded services could be increasing ridership.

“We also know transit is a really affordable way to get around our region,” she said. “So it would not be surprising if people are turning to transit as one way to save money — not just on gas — but parking, wear and tear on your vehicle and so forth.”

Breen thinks alternative travel options will become more attractive.

“I think people definitely want to use any type of alternative transportation,” Breen said. “But sometimes, everybody needs a little bit of a push, and so when gas prices go up, that is the kind of little push that that will get them over the edge.”

Breen and Kandaras both say commuters should prepare if they plan to switch up. Knowing the bus lines will help if you’re dealing with bad weather on a bike, and a good bike lock is a solid investment.

And anyone wanting to save that extra bit of money may want to consider it, because, as Sankey said, “The situation looks like it’s going to continue for a while.”

People who don’t farm can often have misconceptions about what agriculture is. That knowledge gap bothered Zach Johnson, a sixth-generation farmer from Lowry.

And 10 years ago, he decided to do something about it.

One day in April 2016, he walked into a tractor shed at his family farm, propped an iPad upright, hit record, and introduced himself to the world for the first time as the Millennial Farmer.

In the video, Johnson puts his hands in his pockets shortly after he starts recording. His eyes sometimes don’t know whether to look straight at the camera; regardless, he confidently shares his concerns about the disconnect between farmers and consumers.

“There's a lot of stuff out there on the internet,” Johnson says in the video. “Most of it isn't true. A lot of it's full of half-truths, and it's really hard for the consumers, I think, to really understand what goes on on the farms, what we do out here and why.”

Johnson said he didn’t know who would even watch. But the video ends with him walking to a semi-truck and telling viewers to stick around and see how the spring planting season unfolds.

It was just supposed to be a hobby, Johnson said. The videos were a way for him to talk from the heart to the camera about farming’s ups and downs with minimal editing. But then, a couple of videos the following year exploded, he said.

“By the end of that fall, we really were looking at it, my wife and I, saying, ‘You know, I think this is something.’” Johnson said.

That was the start of what would become a farming channel titan on YouTube, with over a million subscribers and counting.

The Millennial Farmer has led to sponsorships, merchandise, speaking opportunities and a revenue source that brings the Johnsons more money than their own farming does.

But while Johnson is the face of the channel, it took a team to make it as popular as it is today.

The Millennial Farmer team

Becky Johnson, Zach’s wife, believes in his mission to educate people about farm life. After all, at one point in her life she, too, had misconceptions about agriculture.

The Johnsons were high school sweethearts. They met at a party after mutual friends connected them. The two, Becky Johnson said, had a similar sense of humor, which brought them closer.

However, Becky Johnson said they had different upbringings, which meant she didn’t know much about how farming worked.

“I was raised by hippies, people who were on the side of the fence of all the negative things about farming,” Becky Johnson said. “The more that Zach and I grew together and talked together, the more I learned, and I'd be able to understand one side's perspective versus the other and what the disconnect was.”

Her understanding of both sides was an asset in growing the Millennial Farmer channel, which she saw the potential of pretty early on.

“Where I connected the dots was that I was an avid Kardashians fan,” Becky Johnson said. “I made the correlation of the opportunity that we had, and I kind of started to encourage him to do it more.”

She started researching how to make videos go viral, what other big YouTube channels were doing, and offered to edit the videos her husband was recording. That’s on top of being a stay-at-home mom of three kids.

“Zach would get home at 9, 10, 11 o'clock at night. He'd leave an SD card on my desk,” Becky Johnson said. “I'd wake up in the morning, edit the videos, do all the mom things, run the kids here and there.”

With this dynamic, the duo would grow the YouTube channel into a fully-fledged business.

Lucrative side hustles

With the YouTube channel steadily racking up views and subscribers in its early years, Zach Johnson decided to test out selling Millennial Farmer merchandise. He had been on the fence about it because it would be yet another thing to manage. A Nebraska-based seller, though, convinced him to do a test run.

“We came up with some designs, and we said, 'This is for sale for six days ahead of Christmas. At the end of the week, we're shutting it down, and we're going to print everything that sells. This is a one-time deal,” Johnson said.

They sold 2,044 pieces of apparel in six days.

“That was when we made the decision that we're going to commit,” Johnson said.

In addition to merchandise, Johnson has business partnerships with Farmers Business Network, John Deere and LMNT, bringing in hefty sums of cash. He also co-hosted American Public Media’s sustainable-ag podcast, Field Work.

Johnson declined to share specific numbers, but he’s said in the past that the channel earns five times as much as his farm generates. However, he says it’s difficult to calculate the difference because farming profitability bobs up and down. However, Johnson said that since 2018, the channel's revenue has definitely exceeded the farm’s.

However, having this second revenue stream doesn’t mean that Johnson feels set. He’s still at the mercy of the farm economy, which has been struggling as of late.

“Farming hasn't been very good the last couple of years, and 2026 isn't looking great either for row crop farming,” he said. “But everything is up and down, and we're lucky that we have two different things to juggle so that we can manage through that.”

An urban-rural chasm

Emily Krekelberg, a farm safety and health educator with the University of Minnesota Extension, said part of what’s made Millennial Farmer so successful with its audience is that the content is always earnest.

“That is part of the power of social media, that it can give you a window into people's real lives, if they allow you into that, right? And that is something that this channel has done from the beginning, really brilliantly,” Krekelberg said. “It shows the good, the bad, the fun, the boring, and that's what farming is.”

Krekelberg, like Johnson, also believes there’s a gap between farmers and consumers. She said the average person living in a city is up to three generations removed from the farm, so it’s understandable that they aren’t as attuned to agriculture as farmers are. She said Johnson’s work is helping close that gap.

Since the Millennial Farmer’s debut, other farmers, likely inspired by the Johnsons’ work, have also launched their own channels, sharing their slice of life with the world.

Becky Johnson recalled that when they started, they only knew of a couple other farming channels.

“And I don't think they called themselves farming social influencers back then; they were just telling their story,” she said. “Now there's hundreds, there's so many, and we've kind of built this little village of storytellers online. And it's really transpired to be something great.”

Beyond just education, the Johnsons have also used the channel to raise funds to buy equipment for fire departments to rescue farmers stuck in grain bins across the U.S. Minnesota is among the leading states in grain-bin deaths.

“I can say with 100 percent certainty that we saved a life,” he said. “[The fire department] saved a life in Indiana using the equipment that they bought from the funds that we raised.”

Leaving a legacy

One of Johnson’s favorite memories of the channel is getting to film and witness his son, Onyx, drive a combine by himself for the first time.

“That is a proud moment when you, as a father, can cut your son or your daughter loose in a machine and say, ‘Here you go’ and trust them with it and watch them do it,” Johnson said. “You come back a few hours later, and they've got all these acres done. It is very cool, a very proud moment.”

While the Johnsons’ children regularly appear on the Millennial Farmer channel, they make sure the kids are comfortable with being on camera. They can opt at any moment not to be in any particular video.

Still, it’s meaningful for Johnson to have his family be part of the channel. After all, it’s his mission to show what a family farm really looks like.

And that mission seems to resonate with his audience. The video of Onyx driving the combine is the most popular video to date, with over five million views.

As Zach and Becky Johnson celebrate the channel's 10th anniversary, they’re thinking about the future. YouTube has treated them well, but the pair know all good things have to come to an end eventually.

“I don't think it's necessarily something that Zach wants to do forever; it's taxing, you know?” Becky Johnson said.

Instead, Zach hopes there’s something long-term he can do in ag media- something that can generate revenue more consistently than YouTube.

The couple also said they won’t force their kids to farm when they grow up, adding they’re in charge of their own futures. However, the Johnsons hope that the kids recognize the opportunity that farming and even the channel can be.

Who knows? Maybe the Millennial Farmer channel will eventually give way to become the Gen Z Farmer.

North Memorial Health plans to merge with Sanford Health to create a single nonprofit health system. This 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 announced their merger in a joint statement Friday, pledging to invest $600 million to uphold trauma care and emergency services at North Memorial’s Robbinsdale hospital, while also doubling the size of its hospital in Maple Grove.

The deal is expected to be finalized later this year, pending regulatory approval from state and federal agencies.

The proposed move could help stabilize North Memorial’s Robbinsdale hospital, a level one trauma center that is struggling financially. The hospital anticipated receiving about $24 million annually from a legislative proposal aimed at securing funding for HCMC in Minneapolis, but an amendment removed North Memorial from that bill entirely.

“We’ve been open about the financial and regulatory pressures and the rising costs that make it harder to protect access to care on our own. Through a deliberate national search, Sanford stood out as a partner who understands our true value and shares our belief that better — not just bigger — is what matters,” said North Memorial Health CEO Trevor Sawallish in the joint statement.

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

Sanford Health is the largest rural health system in the U.S, operating 58 hospitals and 289 clinics across the upper Midwest, including Minnesota.

“By coming together as one nonprofit healthcare organization, with shared Midwest values and a deep commitment to the communities we serve, we will deliver more coordinated, regionally connected care — ensuring patients can access the right services, in the right place, at the right time,” Sanford President and CEO Bill Gassen said in a statement.

The Minnesota Nurses Association said in a press release that the merger announcement is concerning. “Nurses are closely watching how this may impact contracts and benefits, healthcare costs, local-decision making, and the continued corporatization of healthcare services into increasingly large systems,” the MNA said.

Nearly 600 Maple Grove nurses are preparing to vote on whether to authorize a strike due to unresolved issues in negotiations over their first contract. Meanwhile, nurses at Sanford Health in Bemidji are holding an informational picket Friday as they advocate for a fair contract.

SEIU Healthcare Minnesota & Iowa, which represents more than 1,000 healthcare workers at North Memorial, called the merger in Minnesota “worrisome” for both staff and patients. “It is especially concerning because previous merger attempts by Sanford Health to come into Minnesota have failed due to their values and corporate behavior,” the union said.

Members of SEIU are asking Minnesota’s Attorney General Keith Ellison to provide oversight into the proposed merger.

In a statement, Ellison said that under the proposal, North Memorial Health would retain its corporate structure but become a subsidiary of Sanford Health. His office will review the proposed transaction with the Minnesota Department of Health to assess its impact on patients and healthcare workers.

The Attorney General’s Office is also considering public comments as part of its review to assist in evaluating the proposed merger.

“As we have done and are currently doing with other healthcare transactions, we are conducting a thorough review of this potential acquisition to ensure it complies with the law and is in the public interest,” said Ellison in a statement. “Proposed healthcare consolidation requires careful examination.”

When anglers hit the lakes for Saturday’s fishing opener — a spring ritual in Minnesota — many will bring a high-tech tool that can reveal what’s happening beneath the water in real time.

Forward-facing or live imaging sonar allows anglers to spot fish, track their movement and even watch how they react to a lure. The technology’s rapid rise is transforming fishing and dividing anglers.

Critics say it crosses an ethical line, giving users a significant edge that violates the idea of fair chase. Some worry it makes anglers too efficient and could increase pressure on fish populations.

Others say it’s turning a relaxing outdoor pastime into something more like a competitive video game.

“It's a really polarizing subject,” said Jeff Sundin, a fishing guide from Grand Rapids. “There's people that are really for it, and there's a lot of people that are really against it.”

Supporters view forward-facing sonar as the latest evolution in an outdoor activity that has long embraced electronics, such as depth finders and GPS. They say it can broaden the appeal of fishing to younger generations.

"It's making fishing more fun,” said Tony Roach, a fishing guide in the Brainerd area. “It's bringing people into the fishing world that probably wouldn't do it without the electronics, especially with kids.”

Eyes in the water

On a chilly spring day on Serpent Lake in Crosby, Roach stood at the bow of his boat, watching fish appear as bright shapes on his sonar screen.

The system uses high-frequency sound waves — like an underwater flashlight — to create live images.

Spotting a school of crappies near some weeds, Roach shut off the motor, and he and his partners began casting their lines. Within minutes, they were reeling in crappies and bluegills.

In the past, Roach said anglers would cast blindly and wait for a bite. Now, they can know with absolute certainty where the fish are, then target them directly.

“You can watch a fish come up and hit your bait,” he said. “It's really cool.”

But not everyone is thrilled about how forward-facing sonar is changing the experience of fishing.

Sundin doesn’t use the technology. He said it takes away from other aspects of angling, such as enjoying the scenery and conversation, and puts the focus solely on catching fish.

“It’s not about relaxation anymore,” Sundin said. “It's just, ‘Go, go, go. Let's get this fish.’ Kind of turning fishing into some sort of a sporting event, like a hockey game or a football game.”

Still, Sundin said he’s not sure how long he can hold out, as more customers expect it.

“It’s becoming such a day-to-day staple item for so many of the other guides that there will be a time where it will negatively impact my business if I don't have it,” he said.

Too much success?

Some anglers worry that forward-facing sonar could increase catch rates enough to harm certain species.

Aaron Meyer of the Minnesota Muskie and Pike Alliance is concerned about muskies, which are relatively rare and slow to reproduce.

"I think a lot of people have seen the power of the technology, and a lot of people are very concerned,” Meyer said.

Part of muskies’ allure is they are challenging to hunt and catch. But Meyer said forward-facing sonar makes it much easier. Some anglers swivel their sonar or use multiple units to scan a wide swath around their boat for fish.

"You are using a piece of electronic equipment to see where you otherwise could not see,” Meyer said. “And when you find the creature you're looking for, now you can very accurately target that exact creature.”

More anglers are releasing the fish they catch. Still, there’s concern that repeated captures of any species could increase the likelihood that the fish won’t survive, especially if it’s pulled from deep water. The rapid shift in pressure can cause a condition called barotrauma, which can be fatal.

Surveys suggest the technology is already widespread. Last fall on Gull Lake near Brainerd, three-fourths of anglers targeting walleye reported using forward-facing sonar. Those using it caught more fish.

The Brainerd-based nonprofit Walleye Alliance helped fund the survey, along with others on South Long and Edward lakes.

Adam Mord, the group’s president, said they wanted to know whether sonar was improving catch rates, and whether anglers’ success improved as they gained more experience with it. The survey data confirmed it, he said.

“You're seeing people with this technology for four and five years are way more advanced than the users that just got it a year or two ago,” Mord said.

The Walleye Alliance hasn’t taken a formal position on forward-facing sonar, Mord said. But he thinks more data and discussion are needed.

“We need to respect different viewpoints, but also be willing to talk about this as a state, because it affects all of us,” he said.

A growing trend

That conversation has been happening among members of a technology working group the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources created two years ago.

Forward-facing sonar is the latest advancement in angling tools that have been improving for years, from better trolling motors to comfortable ice houses on wheels, said Marc Bacigalupi, DNR fisheries manager for northwest Minnesota.

The DNR recently sent a mail survey asking anglers what technologies they use and their opinions on forward-facing sonar. The agency also is conducting angler surveys across the state to gather more data, Bacigalupi said.

At Ben's Marine Motorsports in Merrifield, north of Brainerd, owner Ben Nestrud said installing sonar systems makes up the majority of his business. He said it helps both serious and weekend anglers become more efficient, though skill still matters.

"It gets people on the spot faster,” he said. “But if you don't know how to angle or catch a fish, you're not going to catch that fish."

Cost can be a barrier, Nestrud said. A system can run from a few thousand to tens of thousands of dollars.

"It's now becoming more of a country club sport, where it used to be fishing was for everybody,” he said. “That dichotomy is kind of driving the polarization that we're seeing."

Some worry that the cost of live imaging technology will worsen inequality between anglers who can afford it and those who can’t.

Bacigalupi said the disparity has always existed, but forward-facing sonar has “made it more vivid for people.”

“There's always been people with the nicer, expensive boat and more time to use it,” he said.

Are limits needed?

Some conservation groups are pushing for restrictions on the technology for certain lakes or species. Others think that the DNR should limit how many sonar units anglers can use at one time.

Meyer said most anglers know unethical behavior when they see it, but it’s difficult to define and enforce.

His organization supports a bill at the Legislature that would prohibit anglers from using forward-facing sonar on lakes with native muskie populations.

“We understand that a bunch of people already own it, and we're not trying to take it away or make them not be able to have it or use it,” Meyer said. “But we want to protect the resource.”

The DNR is not currently considering adopting regulations on forward-facing sonar, Bacigalupi said, but could do so in the future if they’re warranted.

Since the technology seems to be helping avid anglers catch more fish, the DNR hopes to create an informational campaign about how to ensure that the fish they catch and release will survive, Bacigalupi said.

The Walleye Alliance’s Mord agrees that starting with education and anglers’ commitment to fair play is a good approach.

“I think if we don't do a good job as an angling community of understanding how much damage we can do as humans with this technology, then there may potentially have to be some regulations to protect us from damaging the resource,” he said.

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Ted Turner — the bullish founder of CNN and a suite of other cable channels, not to mention a bison steakhouse, a nonprofit designed to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and an international sports competition — died Wednesday at the age of 87. He had announced just before his 80th birthday that he had Lewy Body Dementia, a degenerative disease that causes dementia and muscle failure.

Turner never seemed at a loss for brass or chutzpah.

"If Alexander the Great could conquer the known world, why couldn't I start CNN?" Turner once told Oprah Winfrey.

He launched the Cable News Network — the nation's first continuous all-news television station — on June 1, 1980 at a converted Jewish country club in Atlanta. The network broadcast news 24/7 from that point on and indeed built a global array of bureaus.

Former CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan says Turner took inspiration from 24-hour radio stations that relayed news headlines, and endless sports highlights on ESPN. Turner remained baffled why the broadcast giants — ABC, NBC and CBS — hadn't launched cable stations.

"To him it was just the most logical thing in the world and he couldn't understand why nobody else was doing it," Jordan says. "So he was going to do it."

Sixteen years later, NBC (in partnership with Microsoft) and Fox would launch sibling cable news channels. Each ultimately found success by embracing strong (though opposing) points of view. Broadcast networks subsequently sought to replicate the original cable ethos with stripped down streaming services.

Turner, a colorful figure with a Southern drawl and rail-thin mustache, had pronounced views himself, often (though not exclusively) of a liberal bent. But he wanted his station to reflect the news, not ideology. He thought human understanding across borders would benefit from reporting on stories and people around the world.

"He was a visionary, a trailblazer, a rabble-rouser, a do-gooder — and he thought there would be a market for it," Jordan says.

Turner often carried a mischievous twinkle in his eye. And his values had been incubated in an earlier era.

Jordan joined CNN in 1982 while he was still in college, working overnights as a desk assistant during his first few years. Back then, Turner often slept in a pull-down Murphy bed in his office above the newsroom. He would come down to the newsroom to grab coffee, Jordan recalls, but did not usually interact with the staff. The first time they met, Jordan says, was because Turner had a guest.

"It was Raquel Welch," Jordan says. "They were both in bathrobes. And Ted was so proud of himself for having such good company that he introduced himself and Raquel Welch to everyone in the newsroom at 4 o'clock in the morning."

"Chicken Noodle News"

CNN has been a mainstay of television journalism for so long it's hard to remember that it was often underestimated in its infancy.

In the 1980s, many people didn't understand what the fuss was about, longtime broadcast journalist Joie Chen recalls.

"Many people didn't even have cable yet. I didn't have cable growing up," says Chen, who joined CNN as an international anchor in 1991. "In those early years, you know, CNN was just considered 'Chicken Noodle News' and Ted Turner was at first just considered a dilettante."

CNN became a training ground for journalists who would be hired by better paying outlets. Chen left CNN in 2001, later working at CBS and Al Jazeera.

"Look, we were young and at times very shoddy, but we were the only game in town and we did some extraordinary things," Jordan says.

Over time, whenever news was happening, CNN was there. CNN broadcasted live when catastrophe struck the space shuttle Challenger and its crew in 1986.

And in 1991, CNN experienced a defining moment — effectively owning television coverage of the first US-led war against Iraq. It was the only U.S. network able to broadcast live from Baghdad as bright flashes from bombs lit the sky.

Anchor Bernard Shaw and Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Peter Arnett were among those CNN journalists who projected calm under fire.

Chen recalls Turner never intended for his journalists to become famous and, she contends, he underpaid his staff.

"We were always told Ted's mantra was, 'You are not the star; the news is the star," she says. She left CNN at the end of 2001.

Competition grows

Even as he struck an exuberant tone, Turner's mood could swing to depression. Turner maintained a friendly rapport with the late Cuban autocrat Fidel Castro while battling battled again and again with rival media tycoon Rupert Murdoch — and even threatened to do so with his fists in Las Vegas, as The Guardian recounted. Murdoch's New York Post in turn questioned Turner's sanity.

On Wednesday, Murdoch released a statement praising Turner's vision for 24-hour cable news.

"His impact as a trailblazer has left an indelible mark on our cultural landscape. He was a great American and friend," Murdoch said.

In later years, as CNN competed not just with other cable channels but digital news outlets and social media, it lagged behind its TV peers in ratings. Executives turned over prime time to higher-rated opinion panel discussions featuring ideological clashes.

Conservatives and pro-Trump commentators repeatedly accused the network of listing to the left.

But it retained its journalistic DNA to a significant extent, rising to the moment as its reporting teams covered political developments, natural disasters and armed conflicts. That was part of Turner's legacy too.

Turner married and divorced three times; his third marriage was to Hollywood and fitness star Jane Fonda in 1991.

He also took on lots of debt – and investors – to make ambitious deals at a time when his main rivals, including Murdoch, were launching all-news cable stations. Eventually, it became too much.

In 1996, Turner sold CNN and the rest of his company, Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., to Time Warner for about $7.34 billion – a move he deeply regretted. A few years later – in 2000 – Time Warner sold itself to AOL, against Turner's wishes. The AOL deal is considered one of the worst mergers in U.S. corporate history. Turner has called it "one of the biggest disasters that have occurred to our country."

In 2001, his marriage to Fonda — a source of strength – ended. And shortly after that, he was completely out at AOL, separating from the company he'd spent a half-century building.

"I lost Jane. I lost my job here," Turner said in a 2012 interview on CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight.

He added, earning laughter from Morgan, "I lost my fortune, most of it, got a billion or two left. You can get by on that if you economize,"

Yet he demonstrated resilience. "You carry on. And I found other things to do."

"Other things to do"

Turner had been finding other things to do for years. He was relentlessly competitive and an accomplished yachtsman — he won the America's Cup sailing competition in 1977.

In the 1970s, Turner bought a television station and made it into the national "superchannel" now known as TBS; He also bought the Atlanta Braves to ensure content for it. The Braves became one of the nation's most popular baseball teams during the generation he owned or ran it; the team appeared repeatedly in the World Series in the 1990s and early aughts.

In 1986, Turner launched the Goodwill Games, an international competition meant to bypass the Cold War fights that had broken out over the Olympics. It lasted until 2001.

In 1997, as Turner was being honored by the United Nations, he pledged to donate a billion dollars to it. With that money, he created what's known as The UN Foundation that has helped the international institution endure.

As the years progressed, Turner created the Nuclear Threat Initiative to secure loose nuclear weapons in the former Soviet republics and elsewhere. He also gave widely to conservation and anti-global warming efforts. His philanthropy helped inspire the "Giving Pledge" of Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and other billionaires – and he was one of the first signatories to it.

He also founded Ted's Montana Grill with hopes of making bison a popular alternative to beef. Turner had been raising bison on his many ranches, and saw the restaurant chain as a way to reach customers while saving the species from extinction.

"I was 10 years old when I first read about them," he told Bethesda Magazine in 2015. "I said then I was going to work hard, see if I can make some money, and then I'm going to buy some land and raise bison and see if I can get the herd back away from the door of extinction."

In his final years, the flamboyant showman retreated from the public eye. Ever direct, he publicly acknowledged his affliction with Lewy Body Dementia, or LBD, in 2018. He spent much of his later life out of the public eye, whether in Atlanta or riding horses and fishing at his vast properties in Montana.

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