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

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

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

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

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

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

Minnesota exports up, but maybe not for long

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

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

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

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

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

The Minnesota Board of Animal Health confirmed that a cow in Brown County tested positive for rabies last week after it was euthanized.

The board said the owner of the heifer noticed the animal behaving oddly on Sept. 1 as it laid flat with its head down. A veterinarian observed the animal the same day and the owner had administered oral medication with bare hands. Another veterinarian examined the animal the following day and also gave it oral medication without wearing gloves.

A third veterinarian examined the animal on Sept. 3 and observed that the cow had uncoordinated hind legs and was high-stepping, vocalizing, hypersalivating and had a high temperature.

The heifer was euthanized and the head was removed for rabies testing at the Minnesota Department of Health Public Health Laboratory. Brain tissue tested positive for the rabies virus on Sept. 8.

Public health officials recommended that nine people who came in contact with the animal and its saliva, including the owner of the dairy cow, the owner’s daughter, two minor children, two of the veterinarians who examined the animal and three assisting veterinary technicians seek rabies post-exposure prophylaxis as a preventative measure.

Experts say the disease is extremely dangerous and life-threatening to both humans and animals.

“A lot of times, it eventually travels up to the brain and will cause encephalopathy and eventually lead to death,” said Dr. Katie Cornille, senior veterinarian at the state Board of Animal Health. “It is a fatal disease, so it’s something that we take very seriously.”

The Board quarantined 13 other cows on the same Brown County farm so they can be monitored for rabies symptoms. More than 40 cattle on the property will also be watched for any signs of rabies symptoms. A horse on the property was also possibly exposed, but it is up-to-date on its rabies vaccinations, along with three vaccinated dogs. They are all under observation as well, while two unvaccinated barn cats that were likely exposed to rabies were euthanized.

Once a domestic animal is exposed, it can take anywhere from two to 26 weeks for symptoms of rabies to develop, depending on the location of the bite and the amount of the virus that enters the body. Most domestic animals that show symptoms will die within three to 12 weeks.

To help prevent spreading the virus and to reduce exposure to other animals, the Minnesota Board of Animal Health places all domestic animals that have been exposed and are unvaccinated under a 45- to 180-day quarantine.

“Every case of rabies is going to be serious,” Cornille said. “I’m sure the individuals that own the animals, they’re handling the loss of the animal, and they don’t want to lose anymore. We want to make sure that if there are any infectious animals that they don’t spread it anywhere else.”

Rabies is most often spread by being bitten by a rabid animal, and health officials say the cow was likely bitten by a rabid skunk or bat.

Skunks and bats are the most common natural carriers of rabies in Minnesota. Multiple skunks were observed earlier this year on a neighboring plot of land that connected to the area where the rabid cow was held.

Wild animals account for the vast majority of rabies cases reported annually in the state, and fewer than 15 percent of cases reported each year are in domesticated species. The most common domestic animals infected by rabies are cattle, cats and dogs — and the symptoms each animal may show can vary.

Rabies prevention

Rabies is a preventable viral disease that affects the central nervous system in mammals and causes encephalopathy and eventually death. It’s most commonly transmitted through the bite of a rabid animal, but can also be spread through saliva.

However, once a person displays symptoms it’s already too late to receive treatment, said Dr. Carrie Klumb, senior epidemiologist at MDH.

“With rabies, once you’re showing symptoms, there’s no treatment that’s been shown to actually work and keep people alive,” Klumb said. “What we have to do is that if you’ve had an exposure to the virus, we need to give you the rabies vaccination before you ever show any symptoms, so that you never show any symptoms and you never develop the disease.”

The situation in Brown County, Klumb said, highlights the need for biosecurity and also prevention, and she urges those caring for farm animals “to take appropriate steps to put your personal protective equipment on before you treat the animal.”

“If you do have an ill animal that you’re caring for, remembering those basic things like: cover your eyes, nose and mouth,” Klum added. “Put some gloves on, call your veterinarian, make sure a professional can come evaluate your animal, or bring your animal into the vet to be evaluated.”

Although the case in Brown County focused on a cow, for Minnesotans Klumb said it’s more likely there will be encounters with a bat. About one percent of bats in the wild are believed to be carrying rabies. About three to four percent of bats MDH tests each year test positive for rabies.

Minnesota’s recreational cannabis market is about to have a lot more cannabis heading into its second year.

The state’s cannabis industry turned 1 on Wednesday, with about $150 million in adult-use sales and a massive increase in the number of cannabis plants tracked by the Office of Cannabis Management. Including medical cannabis, Minnesota generated more than $250 million in sales in the last year.

That surge in cultivation is expected to bring more products and eventually lower prices for consumers starting in the next few months, according to OCM head Eric Taubel.

“The biggest thing that I'm looking at and seeing as proof points of the market moving towards maturity is the 95 new licenses we issued for cultivation sites this summer,” he said. “We’ve gone from almost no cannabis flower available in the state to having retailers that have a decent selection.”

A market still taking shape

The state now has 369 licensed cannabis businesses, according to OCM. Nearly 75 percent of the businesses licensed to grow cannabis are microbusinesses, and 43 percent of licensed cannabis businesses are owned by social equity applicants — people who were disproportionately affected by cannabis prohibition, as well as veterans, farmers and low-income individuals.

Minnesota started its recreational market with two companies serving the state’s medical cannabis program. The industry spent much of its first year working through limited supply, testing bottlenecks and a supply chain that was being built out.

The state also became the first in the nation to sign intergovernmental cannabis compacts allowing tribal nations to operate businesses outside reservation boundaries. Tribal producers helped supply the state’s early recreational market. Those relationships have continued as more state-licensed cannabis comes online, Taubel said.

“The growth of their market and our market — they’re intertwined,” Taubel said. “You can’t have one succeed without the other.”

The number of license holders growing cannabis has since risen to 102 from a year ago, with nearly 500,000 plants in the state’s tracking system. OCM issued the bulk of cultivation licenses this past summer.

The current focus is filling gaps in the selection of specialty products, Taubel said. “We’ve got to fill in some of those gaps, whether it’s vapes, concentrates or edibles.”

Growing cannabis can take three to four months, followed by another 30 to 60 days for drying, curing and processing. That means the increase in plants this summer could start showing up in stores from November into January, said Taubel, adding that he expects prices to fall as supply rises.

Minnesotans will likely see a wider variety of flower later this fall as outdoor-grown cannabis is harvested and comes onto the market, said cannabis industry consultant Jen Reise.

But prices remain high. Minnesota charges a 15 percent cannabis tax on top of the regular sales tax.

“I’m a consumer myself, and $70, including the taxes, for an eighth is a staggering amount of money compared to the black market, or compared to what one can buy in other states,” Reise said. “I think we’re going to start to see prices get a lot better in November, after all of that outdoor flower has been harvested and tested and is available to the public.”

The tax has been a drag on dispensary sales and “tough for both businesses and consumers,” Erin Walloch, owner of CannaJoy MN in Minneapolis, told MPR News on Wednesday.

Can small businesses thrive?

As more cannabis is expected to come, that also means more competition.

In other cannabis markets, small businesses have often struggled to compete with larger companies. Minnesota has made supporting small and social equity businesses a priority, but Reise says the cost and regulatory requirements can make it difficult for entrepreneurs to get started.

“A lot of social equity applicants have not managed to get off the ground because of the dearth of investment dollars,” she said. “It's a real problem, and there's a lot of reasons for that. There's just not a lot of investors who are excited about cannabis after some of the failures in cannabis markets nationally.”

OCM is trying to help through its CanRenew community reinvestment grants, Taubel said. The program awarded $1 million in its first year and directly served more than 350 people.

“We’ve got 10 times that to award this year,” he added.

Reise said the state could do more to support small and social equity businesses. She runs a program through her firm, North Star Cannabis Consulting, that provides technical support to small businesses. She expects the next year to be a test as competition increases.

“We know that small business is hard, and cannabis business is small business on hard mode,” she said. “So this next year is a real test for folks as to whether they can not only open, but continue to move ahead, find efficiencies, and thrive in an increasingly competitive market.”

That competition, she added, could eventually lead to some dispensaries failing or being consolidated as the market matures.

The Small Business Recovery Fund is a $2 million Hennepin County program launched in March to help small businesses recover from losses during Operation Metro Surge. But the fund is shutting down after the county flagged nearly two-thirds of the applications for fraud.

MPR News host Clay Masters spoke with Jeffrey Lunde, a Hennepin County commissioner, about the more than 200 applications flagged for potential fraud and what impact the shutdown means for legitimate businesses.

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

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time in more than three years Wednesday, in a show of its determination to attack stubborn inflation.

The central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point to a range between 3.75 percent and 4 percent. That makes it more costly to borrow money to buy a car, grow a business or carry a balance on a credit card.

"Inflation remains elevated," Fed policymakers said in a statement. "Today's policy action will support a timelier return to the Committee's 2 percent goal."

The U.S. war with Iran has rekindled inflation, pushing oil and gasoline prices higher and driving the price of diesel fuel into record territory. Higher interest rates won't automatically bring lower prices at the pump, but they do signal the central bank's commitment to restoring price stability.

Financial markets had widely expected the rate hike after hawkish comments from Fed chairman Kevin Warsh last month.

"The responsibility for 65 months of sustained, elevated inflation sits squarely with the central bank," Warsh told an audience in Jackson Hole, Wyo. "We must be confident that underlying inflation is moving to our objective, clearly and at sufficient speed. Otherwise, we have work to do."

Still, some economists questioned whether the rate hike would have much effect on price pressures.

"Today's decision reinforces the Fed's commitment to price stability and addresses credibility concerns," said Selma Hepp, chief economist at the real estate data firm Cotality. "The bigger question is whether the Fed risks fighting the wrong inflation battle. A rate hike is unlikely to lower gasoline prices, reduce tariff-related costs, or accelerate homebuilding, but it will further dampen housing demand and delay a broader market recovery."

Gas prices are a big driver of inflation

Annual inflation was clocked at 3.4 percent in August, according to the cost-of-living index released by the Labor Department last week. Prices rose a sharp four-tenths of a percent between July and August, with a surge in gasoline prices accounting for more than a third of the total monthly increase.

The price of diesel fuel has reached an all-time high, averaging $6.31 a gallon on Wednesday, according to AAA. That has the potential to raise the cost of many other goods that have to be transported by truck or train.

Since April, prices have been climbing faster than average wages, so the typical worker's paycheck doesn't stretch as far as it used to.

Forecasts released at the conclusion of Wednesday's meeting show Fed policymakers expect an average of one additional quarter-point rate increase this year and no rate hikes in 2027.

Warsh, who took over as Fed chairman in May, did not offer a forecast. He has generally discouraged such forward guidance, fearing it could tie the Fed's hands and leave policymakers with less maneuvering room.

The bond market is already pushing long-term borrowing costs higher. The yield on 10-year Treasurys topped 5 percent this week. Bondholders are demanding higher returns in response to inflation and the strong demand for capital from both the federal government and private borrowers.

The yield on 10-year Treasurys helps set the rate for many types of borrowing, including mortgages and car loans.

Copyright 2026, NPR

It was meant to be a game changer for the cryptocurrency industry. Instead, a key piece of legislation championed by both crypto executives and President Trump suffered a stinging defeat in the U.S. Senate — and now faces steep hurdles to become law.

The Clarity Act — officially called the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act — has been at the top of the crypto sector's wish list for years. But on Tuesday, the bill failed to clear a key procedural hurdle following entrenched Democratic opposition.

The massive bill — which stretches over 600 pages — would have established the first regulations for the crypto sector in U.S. history.

But opponents saw it as the industry's attempt to encode into law a set of rules they saw as far too lenient on the industry, without enough safeguards.

A version of the bill already passed the House last year, but it has faced a long and torturous road in the Senate as opponents have fought tooth and nail. Now, it faces an uncertain future, as the crypto industry and its backers in the Senate must decide whether to try again at a later date.

Here are 5 key things to know about the Clarity Act — and why opponents are fighting hard to prevent it from ever being passed.

What's in the bill?

Just like with most things dealing with crypto, the details are complicated and a bit geeky. But the measure effectively would have established a clear legislative framework for the crypto sector for the first time in U.S. history.

That would have marked a sea change from today, when crypto regulation can change depending on who controls the White House. Under President Biden, for example, the Securities and Exchange Commission took an aggressive approach toward policing the crypto sector. But that changed radically under Trump, with the agency now led by Paul Atkins, a former adviser to the industry.

"Tens of millions of Americans are investing in products that don't have clear regulatory oversight," said Ryan VanGrack, vice chair of the crypto firm Coinbase, before the vote. "That's an abomination."

"Whether you love crypto or you hate crypto, you should want it regulated," he added. "And this is the best opportunity we have ever had to do just that."

The crypto sector has also grown beyond Bitcoin to include all kinds of cryptocurrencies — such as meme coins. Meanwhile, the technology underpinning Bitcoin and some other cryptocurrencies are also starting to be adopted by the broader financial sector.

The Clarity Act would have formally split oversight of the crypto sector between the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. But — controversially— it would have given the CFTC, a far smaller regulator, the majority of control.

Critics say handing the CFTC the bulk of the reins was the crypto sector's way to avoid heavy regulatory scrutiny. Crypto industry executives denied that's the case, and Trump administration regulators have defended their oversight of the industry.

What was at stake in Tuesday’s vote?

It was effectively a vote to decide if the bill can move forward. It needed 60 "yes" votes to clear that hurdle. Only 49 senators voted "yes" — far below the threshold. Meanwhile, 50 senators voted "no," including all Democrats and four Republicans: Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Jerry Moran of Kansas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Tillis, however, added a motion so that the bill can be reconsidered and brought up again for a vote.

Even if the bill had survived the procedural vote on Tuesday, it was never clear that it had enough supporters in the Senate to pass. And because senators have changed the bill since it passed the House last year, both chambers would still have had to agree on a final version.

The crypto sector had been hoping to pass the Clarity Act much sooner — and has amassed tens of millions of dollars to spend on the upcoming elections. But money hasn't been enough to erase the disagreements that have dogged the bill for months.

Why are Democrats so opposed?

Though not all Democrats oppose the bill, for many a key sticking point has been — and still is — an ethics clause intended to prevent presidents and other elected officials from profiting from the crypto industry while in office. Democrats, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, have argued the clause doesn't do enough to prevent conflicts of interest.

Notably, the Department of Justice would have been tasked with enforcing the ethics clause, which Democrats strongly objected to since they don't believe the agency would provide a meaningful check on a sitting president. The DOJ is currently led by Todd Blanche, who used to be Trump's attorney.

Those concerns intensified after President Trump disclosed he and his family had earned $1.4 billion last year from his crypto ventures — an unprecedented sum for a sitting president.

Before Tuesday's vote. Republicans tried to break the impasse. Over the weekend, they unveiled new language in the bill to prevent federally elected officials and their spouses from issuing their own cryptocurrencies. That would have effectively prevented Trump from continuing $TRUMP, a meme coin he launched early last year — a point Trump agreed to abide by.

Officials would also have had to divest "significant" financial stakes in the crypto sector, a provision that could affect some of Trump's crypto business interests — though critics said the language was loose enough to allow the president to avoid it altogether.

The new language would also have given state attorneys general more ability to bring lawsuits if they suspected a breach of ethics rules.

Are others opposing the Clarity Act?

Yes. Many people in the banking sector — especially community bank leaders — were against it.

One of the main disputes involved a segment of the crypto market called stablecoins. The bill would have allowed these companies to pay interest to their customers.

Banks, though, argued those incentives would have allowed crypto companies to compete for customers' money without being subject to the same regulations as traditional banks.

Crypto companies have disputed that characterization and have argued that these incentives are similar to what many credit card companies offer their customers, such as cash back or points.

Community bankers have been especially vocal. They have said allowing crypto companies to offer these types of incentives would have posed a direct threat to their business and led them to lose customers.

Rebeca Romero Rainey, president and CEO of the Independent Community Bankers of America, said that keeping their customers' money with local banks is critical because it allows them to provide small business and agricultural loans to members of their communities.

"If community banks aren't there, and those local deposits aren't there to fund it, who's going to fund those small businesses and ranchers and farmers?" she said. "I don't think it's going to be the crypto industry."

So what now?

The bill is not dead — at least not yet.

The vote has been a priority for Trump, who has strongly supported the crypto industry. But the crypto industry will likely face a tough time trying to pass it this year, with the November midterms quickly approaching.

It's also hard to say how the Senate and Congress more broadly will change after the midterms. A Democratic takeover of the Senate or the House would make it even more difficult for the bill to pass, leaving the fate of the Clarity Act up in the air.

Copyright 2026, NPR

On an ordinary summer afternoon, one could expect to see a line of cars form at the entrance of the Sky-Vu Drive-In theater and spill out onto the state road just beside it. As people in each vehicle drove by the marquee to pay admission, they’d park in front of the screen as the sun set and the film began.

But now, the two metal poles holding the marquee are bent so far back that the sign is facing the ground. Warped metal and broken wood lie where the screen once stood. It’s the result of a 75-mile-per-hour wind gust that blew through this part of the Red River Valley, according to local weather data.

Chris Novak and his father, Steve Novak, co-owners of Sky-Vu, tread around the wreckage. Two sets of speakers are crushed beneath a pile of wood that no longer resembles a screen. Steve said a worker was about to check the sound system in front of the screen mere minutes before it caved in.

“All of a sudden, boom, the drive-in's gone,” said Steve.

The wind was so strong that it lifted a chunk of concrete that anchored the screen off the ground and threw it 10 to 20 feet away. The destruction happened moments before the venue was set to open for the night. The venue announced on Facebook there would be no showing that night, or for the rest of the season, for that matter. Passers-by offered their condolences and prayers. Chris said he couldn’t sleep for the following five days.

“It was hard to eat. You're just sick to your stomach,” said Chris. “Just a crappy deal.”

Steve called his mom.

“As I was crying, I says, ‘I need you,’” said Steve. “I usually don't call her up, and she lives in Argyle. She came down. The first thing we seen each other, we started crying.”

The damage sets the pair back $250,000, according to their estimates. They expect insurance to cover some of the costs, and through a GiveSendGo account they’ve set up, they hope donations cover the rest.

The financial setback is tough. Especially since business has slowed down over the past couple of years, the Novaks say, and the drive-in industry has changed over the last few decades.

Drive-ins: Real estate disguised as a movie theater

Drive-ins used to be spread throughout Minnesota. Over a dozen could be found around the Twin Cities alone, and the state as a whole was home to over 80.

Dave Kenney, a freelance writer specializing in Minnesota history, said drive-ins were a big part of his childhood. As a teenager, he’d go to the drive-ins with friends — often in mischievous ways.

“Sometimes we would hide in each other's trunks of their cars and sneak in, which was a pretty common thing to do,” said Kenney.

He added drive-ins were a real estate business model at first. People bought plots of land, screened movies on them and waited for their value to grow.

“One of the big drivers of the demise of the drive-ins was the fact that the land underneath them just got to a point where it made sense for the owners to sell,” said Kenney.

The drive-in theaters that remained then had to compete with the rise of VHS, videocassette recorders and, as technology improved, DVDs and Blu-ray Discs. The teenagers who used to frequent drive-ins now had the option to stay at home.

The clientele then transformed from teen posses to groups of families.

“[Drive-ins] had to make sure they had G-rated films or PG things that the parents could be comfortable showing their kids,” said Kenney.

But the family clientele brings its own set of challenges for drive-ins such as Sky-Vu. Many of these venues are far from metro areas, so it could take visitors hours to arrive. And when they do, they still have to wait for the sun to set and the movie to start.

“You can't start the movie in the midsummer until 10 o'clock,” Chris Novak said. “If you're going to start a three-hour-long movie, it gets done at 1 a.m. Most people, our clientele, are between 30 and 60 miles away. That puts them falling asleep around 2:30 in the morning. Who wants to do that?”

Steve Novak added that there was a time when business was so slow that they threatened to close the drive-in unless they received community support.

“We were going to put an X-rated movie out at 3 o'clock in the morning,” said Steve. “And we did. And they lined up and packed the place.”

The theater has since returned to showing family-friendly features, and its bond to the community has strengthened. Many say that without Sky-Vu, Warren simply wouldn’t be the same.

A cinematic beacon for northwestern Minnesota

Lance Pierce, who lives in Drake, N.D., had been looking for a drive-in for a while, with none left in his state. When he found Sky-Vu, he packed his family into their car and drove three and a half hours to get there.

“It was a real treat because not only was the movie going, but the auroras came out that night too. So it was a second show,” said Pierce.

It was a nostalgic night for Pierce, who grew up going to drive-ins in Sacramento, Calif. He called Sky-Vu a “gem” and hopes it rebuilds. If it doesn’t, he says it would be a huge loss.

Visitors to the drive-in, like Pierce, also means visitors to Warren, which is a mere four minutes away. Cody Kobetsky is the owner of Hank’s Sports Bar and Grill in Warren. He said that over the years, people have decided to stop by for a meal before visiting the drive-in. During the summer, he says they often see an uptick in clientele, especially in the hours leading up to a drive-in showing.

“I definitely appreciate that they're drawing people into our community,” said Kobetsky. “That results in us having more business as well.”

Sydni Schroeder, a server at Hank’s, said she used to work at the drive-in as a teenager. She remembers those times fondly, saying it was an opportunity to meet people from all over.

“I was actually flying out of Fargo, and somebody there was like, ‘Oh, you're from Warren?’ and they're like, ‘You know the drive-in?’” Schroeder said. “I just meet people out and about everywhere who have been there.”

Steve and Chris Novak say they have no plans to shut down for good. They say reopening will be a way to honor the memory of Steve Novak’s father, Leonard Novak, who passed away last year. Leonard rebuilt the Sky-Vu the only other time it was destroyed by a twister, in 1975, during a showing of Jaws.

“My dad grabbed me,” recalled Steve. “He threw me underneath the Ford Falcon next to that post there, and he held on to the post, and before you know it, everything was gone.”

The Novaks’ will to revive their drive-in after natural disasters seems to run in the family. Steve imagined what it might be like for his father to hear about the latest destruction of the theater.

“He's in heaven right now, looking down, shaking his head. Like, ‘What more can happen?’” Steve said. “I leave all of a sudden, we've had the projector go down three times, the screen go down twice. It's like, what is going on?”

Steve turned to his son, Chris. “What would he say, pal? What was it?”

“Better you than me,” replied Chris.

The two hope the drive-in will reopen next year. This time, they plan to install steel beams for the screen to prevent future falls.

The Inver Grove Heights City Council voted Monday to allow a data center proposal to continue despite a moratorium on such projects.

The city had been facing a lawsuit filed by the developer of that data center, which Inver Grove Heights officials said could cost the city at least $20 million in damages if it lost the case.

“I really struggle with the idea of continuing this fight,” Council Member Tony Scales said at Monday’s meeting. “Continuing the fight doesn’t mean it won’t happen, it actually means the city and the residents are going to pay a lot of money, and it’s still going to happen.”

Scales had supported the one-year data center moratorium when it was approved in June on a 3-2 vote — and he also voted for the exemption on Monday.

The project in question — a proposed 55,000-square-foot data center on Carmen Avenue East — had already been in the works when the council approved the moratorium. That measure was backed by residents who raised concerns about data centers.

The developer, Florida-based QLevr, then filed a lawsuit in Dakota County District Court in July, arguing that it had “followed all applicable zoning rules to build a permitted data center, only to have the city change course at the eleventh hour and impose a moratorium specifically designed to stop that project in response to misguided public opposition.”

QLevr, along with the property owner, called the moratorium “unlawful.”

City officials said QLevr’s attorneys had offered to dismiss the lawsuit without the city having to pay damages, if the project was excluded from the moratorium.

With the exemption approved, the council is set to consider a site plan application for that proposed data center at a meeting later this month.

The one-year moratorium remains in place for any other data center projects in the city.

Federal officials are suing to force the closure of a pest-infested food warehouse in Minneapolis.

The lawsuit comes after several reports of sanitation issues at Gold Star Distribution, a food company based in north Minneapolis. After an inspection late last year, the company recalled a long list of products, including canned goods, pet food, over-the-counter medications and other grocery items.

Investigators with the Food and Drug Administration had found a slew of pests in the building during the 2025 inspection. According to the lawsuit, they reported nine live rodents, 17 dead rodents “in various states of decay,” several live birds and worms in the building. They also found gaps in walls and leaks in the ceiling.

Gold Star Distribution was selling those products to several corner stores and shops around Minnesota, and some in other states. Most stores are in the Twin Cities area.

The FDA said those pests in the warehouse could have spread salmonella and other illnesses, though there were no reports of illnesses from customers.

Owner Bassam Abu Samrah informed regulators at the time that he had plans to renovate the facility and would consider relocating if renovations couldn’t fix the problems.

But officials said in the lawsuit that those plans won’t do enough to ensure safety in the long run.

“Defendants’ responses failed to provide an adequate pest control plan, including monitoring procedures, and provided no evidence of any structural changes at the facility or plans to relocate,” officials wrote in the lawsuit.

The 2025 inspection followed several previous inspections, dating back to 2012, that found sanitation issues in the building.

Officials also noted in the lawsuit that Samrah’s son had recently received a wholesale license in Minnesota under the business name North Star Distribution. The lawsuit asks a judge to bar any of the company’s employees and “any and all persons in active concert or participation with any of them” from continuing business at the warehouse without bringing it into compliance.

Samrah and an attorney representing him did not respond to requests for comment.

In July, the business told regulators that it planned to shut down operations in August. But the lawsuit alleges that the warehouse still holds food, medications and other goods.

Samrah has signed an agreement this week with federal officials promising to stop all distribution. The agreement outlines several conditions, should Samrah ever attempt to reopen the business. He would need to retain a sanitation expert who would help ensure that the facility is in compliance with federal regulations, and regulators would need to approve pest control plans for the facility.

That agreement has been submitted to the court and is now awaiting a judge’s signature.

In the shadow of Rochester’s iconic Ear of Corn water tower sits a long-vacant site about the size of 10 football fields. The water tower is all that’s left of the former Seneca Foods processing and canning facility that closed up shop in 2018. Olmsted County purchased the property the following year for $5.6 million.

But seven years later, the site is still empty, and county commissioners said that the process to find realistic options to fill the site has been slow, meandering and somewhat controversial.

The Olmsted County Board will discuss the future of the site in its regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday night and it has two proposals on the table. But both are far from being approved and one of them would only fill part of the parcel.

“Trying to find something suitable to put on it has not necessarily been easy,” said Olmsted County Commission Chair Dave Senjem. “Ideas are cheap. Making them work is a little harder.”

Rochester is in a period of transformation. It’s halfway through a two-decade, $5 billion project to redevelop and revitalize downtown alongside Mayo Clinic’s massive expansion — and the city’s population is growing rapidly.

The Seneca Foods site appeared to be an exciting opportunity to meet this moment, as it sits in a prime location just a mile and a half from downtown and is already connected to basic utilities, including water, sewer and electric. But Senjem told MPR News it’s been a surprisingly long slog.

“I've been on the board for nearly four years, and there's been nothing that has really come forward on that property,” Senjem said. “Nobody from the outside has come to the board with any ideas for that property that have been at all feasible from the standpoint of the money recovery or what we might view as public substance.”

Why has the project taken so long?

When the county first bought the site in 2019, Senjem said officials had a plan in mind. The city was going to purchase it to build a transit hub and parking structure for Mayo employees, but the city and county couldn’t come to an agreement, and the plan fell through.

That meant county commissioners like Senjem, who was elected in 2023, inherited a project they hadn’t anticipated.

“Was it initially a good idea for the county to buy this?” Senjem said. “I'm not throwing rocks, but the city backed out, and so now the county is stuck with it.”

Former County Commissioner Ken Brown recalls that the board considered a number of ideas, including senior and low-income housing, a childcare center and even a strip mall with a smattering of small businesses.

But none of those ideas worked out, and Brown said plans then stalled out. There was no clear direction set and when half of the board members retired in 2022, that stalled the decision further.

But two new proposals are up for debate: a new performing arts center and a children’s museum — both of which will be discussed at Tuesday’s meeting.

Competing proposals

Rick Kvam, board president for the Southeast Minnesota Performing Arts Center, said the idea of building a new performing arts center in town has come repeatedly over the years.

Rochester already has two large theater venues in town, but neither can accommodate an orchestra, nor bigger-scale traveling Broadway shows and other similar acts. So the center’s board has proposed an even bigger building — a 2,000 seat venue that supporters say they believe they can fill on a regular basis.

“We think it’s way overdue,” Kvam said. “Every other town of our size in the area has something [like this.]”

But the project would be a heavy financial lift. Kvam estimated it would cost at least $100 million and he believes it’ll pay for itself in the long run. But Kvam said they need time — possibly years — to figure out if it’s feasible. And there’s a lot of skepticism in town that they can raise enough money and that they’d be able to attract the performers they think they can.

Kvam said the county had agreed to hold the site while the performing arts nonprofit figured this out. But then a new proposal came forward which could upend that long timeline.

Rochester’s SPARK children’s museum wants to leave its current location in Rochester’s downtown mall and build a bigger facility for child-centered play and learning on the Seneca site with green space for outdoor exhibits. But its current lease ends in 2030, and the museum needs lead time to design a new museum and develop exhibit plans for the new location.

Former commissioner Brown is now on the Children’s Museum board. He said the museum is ready to go.

“We have a provable business,” Brown said. “We have a viable business. We have a plan. Everything. We're ready to go now.”

It’s unclear if one proposal will emerge as the favorite at the Tuesday board meeting, and if a proposal like the performing arts center is selected, what that timeline could look like.

Senjem said he’s resigned to the possibility that the county may own the land in perpetuity — and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

If the county retains the land as natural space it could become an extension of nearby Graham Park.

“I mean, I could live with an arboretum,” Senjem said.

About 150 doctors at Allina Health’s Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids and its Unity campus in Fridley began a four-day strike Monday after three years of failed contract negotiations.

Dozens of doctors and nurses rallied outside Mercy Hospital in a demonstration held by Doctors Council-SEIU, the union that represents the physicians.

The dispute has been building for some time between doctors and Allina Health. Physicians have been negotiating their first union contract for three years but have not been able to reach a deal. Union officials said Allina is offering less pay than the doctors currently make and is resisting demands for more physician control over decisions affecting patient care.

Doctors said they are increasingly frustrated as large health systems make decisions about staffing, services and patient care without enough input from the physicians who are treating those patients.

Dr. Alia Sharif said physicians are eager for a union contract with Allina.

“We’ve reached a point where we want a contract, so we can go back to doing what we do best, which is take care of our patients,” Sharif said.

Allina said the two sides have made progress after about 50 negotiating sessions. But the health system says any contract has to account for rising healthcare costs.

“We will continue to work with both unions to reach fair agreements, but these negotiations cannot be divorced from the economics that are impacting both patients and healthcare systems,” said Allina Health in a statement.

Union formed after COVID

In 2023, Allina physicians voted to unionize after facing challenging conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The union said that long hours and difficult working environments during the pandemic motivated the doctors to organize. Allina contested the vote, leading to a delay in the federal certification of the union for almost a year.

Dr. John Wust, an OB-GYN at Mercy Hospital in Coon Rapids, said during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, physician input was excluded from business decisions that impacted patients. He said physicians want to preserve their autonomy in patient care and expressed concerns about the increasing influence of AI in electronic medical records.

“We have already seen AI starting to suggest diagnostic codes for patients, and we're concerned that it may start to suggest treatments. And physicians may be pressured by systems to maybe offer treatments that are based more on artificial intelligence than human intelligence,” Wust said.

Hospice nurses also striking

Allina Health is currently in multiple labor disputes.

Around 60 hospice nurses are taking part in a seven-day strike, which began on Friday. These nurses, who provide end-of-life care both in patients’ homes and in facilities, are advocating for higher wages, holiday pay and what they consider reasonable work schedules.

The labor dispute is occurring as Allina Health prepares for a merger with California-based Sutter Health. Last year, Sutter avoided a strike involving thousands of caregivers in northern California.

Hospitals are still operating during strikes

Hospital officials said patients should not assume their appointments are canceled. According to Allina, the hospital is asking other doctors to help cover the gaps.

“Doctors Council SEIU represents about 10 percent of the physicians credentialed to provide care at Mercy Hospital’s two campuses, and not all SEIU-represented physicians will be on strike,” the health system said in a statement. This includes non-union physicians who have hospital privileges.

Healthcare will continue at Allina during the strike along with scheduled procedures and surgeries. The health system said patients will be contacted directly if their appointments or procedures need to change.

One of Minnesota's largest brewers could lose its St. Paul brewery to foreclosure after its lender sued them to collect more than $8 million worth of unpaid debt.

In a lawsuit filed last week, BMO Bank alleges Summit Brewing Company missed a loan payment deadline at the end of last year. The bank then agreed to a forbearance period — holding off trying to collect the loan — until July 31.

But BMO alleges in court filings that Summit indicated in a June letter that it still didn’t have the ability to repay the loan, and that its “liquidity position and operational flexibility continue to deteriorate.”

BMO wants a judge to appoint a receiver who could “take possession of, manage, operate, and property” belonging to Summit, according to the lawsuit.

In a statement to MPR News, Summit CEO Brandon Bland said they will continue to run their day-to-day operations during the proceedings, but he acknowledged the brewery is facing financial struggles.

"Our Board and management team have made substantial efforts over many months to chart a different course for this company," Bland said. “This reflects the difficult capital environment the entire craft brewing industry is navigating, not a reflection of the strength of our brand, our people or our operating model."

Summit said its company leaders have worked with outside advisors over the course of the last year to find alternative paths forward.

"Despite these substantial efforts, the Company and BMO were unable to reach a resolution, and BMO has elected to proceed with the foreclosure action, including its request for the appointment of a general receiver," Summit said in the statement.

Bland said they'll continue to look at every option available to them as the process moves forward.

No court hearings have been scheduled in the case.

Most people have days when they want to quit their jobs. But when that feeling doesn’t go away — when you feel stuck, unhappy or unable to grow — it may be time to seriously consider leaving.

Deciding to quit can be complicated. Before giving notice, there are questions to weigh about your finances, your family, the job market and whether changes at your current workplace could make staying worthwhile.

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with her guests about how to recognize when it’s time to leave a job — and how to prepare for what comes next.

Guests:

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

• LaRae Jome is a psychologist and career counselor with Work-Life Directions in the Twin Cities. She has more than 25 years of experience helping people navigate career decisions, job changes, workplaces challenges and burnout.
  

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. 

Diesel prices in Minnesota jumped again Monday, now averaging more than $6 a gallon across the state amid the ongoing war in the Middle East.

AAA reported Monday’s average was just over $6.07 a gallon — a record high. It’s up more than 10 cents a gallon from Sunday, and an increase of 30 cents over the past week.

The average price of diesel in Minnesota is nearly $2.50 higher than the same time last year.

The national diesel average stood at $6.23 a gallon on Monday.

Meanwhile, AAA reported that gas prices in Minnesota were averaging about $4.23 on Monday. That was down less than a penny from Sunday — but it was more than 25 cents higher than a week ago.

A year ago, gas was averaging $3.04 a gallon in Minnesota.

Monday’s national average was $4.32.

Military conflict and attacks on oil infrastructure in the Middle East have driven up oil prices.

Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz — through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil and gas transits in peacetime — in the opening days of the war with the U.S. and Israel. The Saudis have since used the Bab el-Mandeb Strait — which leads out of the Red Sea -- as an alternate route for crude oil exports.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels said Monday that they seized the strategic islands of Greater and Lesser Hanish in the southern Red Sea, bolstering the Iranian-backed rebels' ability to control the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

The Houthis’ newest takeover, following the seizure of the Red Sea port of Mokha and a strategic island last week, puts more pressure on Saudi shipments and, in turn, global oil supplies and prices.

Farmers are surfing the highs of a corn and soybean price rally last week that boosted crop values to some of the best prices they’ve been at in the last three years.

“It was nice to see a little bump in the markets,” said Jordan Goblish, who farms in the city of Vesta in southwest Minnesota. But he said his local prices haven’t increased much. “Unfortunately, in our area, all the elevators and ethanol plants seem to be full of corn.”

Still, the price spurt is welcome news. However, with diesel prices surging above $6 a gallon, profitability could take a hit. Though, according to University of Minnesota crop economist Ed Usset, those higher costs shouldn’t prevent farmers from making money this harvest.

“Costs are up, so it's maybe not as profitable as it would have been three years ago, with the current prices,” said Usset. “And yet, [with] higher prices, I think your average Minnesota farmer is feeling a lot better today than they have been for a while.”

Why the price and cost surge?

The latest crop estimates for September show that U.S. supply of corn and soybeans remains tight, making both crops more valuable. Prices for both crops dipped slightly following the report’s release but remain high.

At the same time, China has resumed purchasing soybeans from American markets, helping spur a price rally. The country is among the largest buyers of Minnesota soybeans, though it boycotted the crop last year amid a trade tit-for-tat with the U.S.

The ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine has also boosted grain prices. Ukraine is one of the world’s largest exporters of agricultural products, including corn and wheat. Rising attacks on each country’s export ports have diminished their ability to supply the market.

“That impacts perceived availability of wheat and corn in the international market, and that really ignited things in the corn and wheat markets,” said Usset.

Ukraine’s assault on Russian refineries throughout the war has also diminished oil supplies. That, paired with ongoing energy disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, has led to high diesel prices at the pump.

For farmers, these increasing costs represent “another leak in the profitability bucket,” according Mike Steenhoek, executive director at the Soy Transportation Coalition.

“You can’t just really curtail the amount of fuel that you consume,” said Steenhoek. “You have to harvest your crop. You have to transport that crop. And machinery that has diesel engines is the way that that occurs.”

Steenhoek adds that farmers’ costs don’t just stop at the diesel they directly consume. The fuel costs that shipping and rail companies absorb could be passed on to customers or farmers, too.

“Those costs are actually getting passed on to the farmer in the form of a lower price,” he said. “So farmers are usually the ones who are disproportionately paying for this. It's not just the grain handlers who are the shippers' problem. It's actually the farmers' problem.”

Minnesota Farm Bureau President Dan Glessing, who also grows corn, said that while these rising costs do represent a hit to farmers' expenses, he remains optimistic.

“Quite honestly, the rally will get us to that break-even mark,” said Glessing. “Every farm is different on that break-even mark, but it will be for us. We'll be at that break-even or a little better. So that has been encouraging, even with the higher fuel prices.”

Redwood County farmer Jordan Goblish also said he’ll likely make a slight profit from the rally.

“Are you gonna live off that? No. I have like three other jobs that I do to cover some of the living expenses, but yeah, everything is just a little outrageous right now. I can’t believe everything’s so high,” said Goblish.

Goblish had already bought enough diesel earlier in the year to last him halfway through harvest. In retrospect, he said the timing made it a good buy. He’s now running out of diesel, which means soon he’ll have to return to the pump.

“So, with that being said, going into fall, we're going to have a little extra expense with that,” said Goblish.

By Abigail Bottar | Harvest Public Media

On a hot summer day, John Williams is walking through the vegetable farm he manages in central Illinois.

“All these white tubes coming up are tree tubes,” he said, “so they’re little protections for newly planted trees.”

Hazelnut, apple and pear trees run in between the fields and around the perimeter of the property at Sola Gratia Farm in Urbana, Illinois. The farm got funding to plant them through the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a federal agency under the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The trees will help protect the farm’s soil from strong winds and heavy rains, Williams said.

“That’ll help keep more of the soil on our land and less from running downhill,” he said.

NRCS staff in county offices across the nation help farmers like Williams implement practices that prevent soil erosion and improve soil health. On top of providing technical assistance, the agency also allocates grant funding that incentivizes farmers to try conservation practices.

The NRCS was founded almost a century ago in response to the Dust Bowl. But it lost nearly a quarter of its staff nationally in 2025 after President Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts to the federal workforce, leaving many farmers with less access to environmental conservation practices.

“They’ve always been a busy group of people,” Williams said of NRCS employees. “They have who knows how many hundreds or thousands of farmers that they’re working with, and they’re doing a lot with a little.”

In June, the USDA announced the NRCS will undergo "organizational improvements" along with other agencies under the department, although officials haven't indicated what the changes will be. The reorganization will sharpen the agency’s focus on conservation implementation, improve accountability and increase support for field operations, according to a press release announcing the change.

“By aligning leadership and resources closer to the communities they serve, USDA is strengthening service delivery, reducing unnecessary bureaucracy, and ensuring responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars – all while maintaining its unwavering focus on America’s farmers, ranchers and producers,” the press release states.

But conservation advocates argue the agency is already using taxpayer dollars in a sensible, efficient way.

“The NRCS is a really great example of government in action being really effective,” said Chuck Anderas, policy director of the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute, a Wisconsin-based conservation nonprofit.

USDA officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Lost expertise, missed opportunities

Adam Griebie grows corn and soy on his farm in Hutchinson, Minnesota, about 60 miles west of Minneapolis. He was recently working on a project to prevent soil erosion, but then the NRCS staffer he was working with at his local office in McLeod County left the agency.

He was pushed to offices in two other counties to find help, he said, one of which isn’t even adjacent to McLeod County. That sometimes left him driving an hour away, where he felt like he was starting from square one with new NRCS staff.

“You kinda get pushed back to the bottom of the pile when you lose your technician or engineer,” Griebie said.

That’s becoming the new normal at NRCS offices across the country, according to Michael Happ with the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy. He’s the program associate for climate and rural communities at the Minnesota-based nonprofit.

“Farmers have to, instead of driving 20 minutes to their county seat, they’re driving 40 minutes or an hour to the next county over or two counties over,” Happ said, “and then when they get there, they’re running into NRCS staff that are overworked, stressed out.”

Just across the state line, Wisconsin saw some of the steepest cuts to NRCS staff in the Midwest — losing more than 30 percent of its workforce. That’s left some highly agricultural counties without any NRCS staff at all, said Anderas with the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute.

“A lot of beginning farmers and a lot of people that are transitioning to grazing for the first time really rely on the technical assistance that they get alongside the cost share money,” he said, referring to NRCS grants that incentivize farmers to try out conservation practices.

Nationally, 144 counties were left without any NRCS staff after the cuts, former USDA senior staffer Bernie Kluger said.

Their expertise is not cheap or easy to replace, he added.

“That individual expert was an expert on the soils in that county, and they knew the history of the soil in that county,” said Kluger, who worked on NRCS staffing issues under the Biden administration and now works at a D.C.-based consulting firm. “They knew how the local river would flood differently in this county than it does maybe 10, 15 miles down the way.”

Farmers may be able to get assistance from their local soil and water conservation district, but those are often underfunded, he said.

Federal cuts have also wiped out programs and positions that were designed to assist farmers from underrepresented groups, including women, urban growers and people of color, Anderas said. Wisconsin, for example, used to have an urban farm specialist who worked for the NRCS, he said, but that expert has left the position — and there aren't any plans to fill it.

Michael Fields Agriculture Institute was one of many organizations that had a partnership with NRCS to help meet the needs of specific communities, Anderas said. The nonprofit created a program called Wisconsin Women in Conservation in collaboration with the agency to address problems facing women farmers.

“It was wildly successful. It’s being replicated in other states,” he said. “Very meaningful programming for the people involved, and that was cancelled almost immediately after the Trump administration came into office, because it was said that it was discriminating against men.”

Anderas worries these cuts are undoing work the USDA has done to address racism and discrimination in its programming.

“They’re just basically getting the message that the USDA isn’t for every farmer anymore,” he said of underrepresented groups.

Why soil conservation?

The benefits of soil conservation are numerous, experts say. Conservation methods like planting cover crops or perennial trees slow water movement, helping soil stay in place.

“Basically your soil becomes spongier and spongier, and it holds more and more water in the soil,” Anderas said. “And less of that runs off and so you have fewer problems downstream with things like flooding and infrastructure being destroyed.”

A 2022 study estimates Midwestern cropland is losing nearly 2 millimeters of soil every year to erosion, totaling more than 57 billion metric tons over the past 160 years.

Conservation practices can also stop fertilizers applied to crops from dissolving into rainwater and ending up in lakes and rivers, which can contaminate water supplies. A June 2026 report written in collaboration with Michael Fields Agriculture Institute found an acre of perennial grasslands saves more than $200 per acre annually by reducing potential downstream cleanup costs, compared to row crops like corn and soy.

“It pays for itself many times over again,” Anderas said. “The investment that we put in to solve or prevent a problem from happening in the first place is always much, much cheaper than trying to solve a problem after the fact.”

As demand goes up, funding goes down

It’s been feast or famine at the NRCS in recent years. The Biden administration poured more than $19 billion in additional funding for programs at the agency that address climate change, but those funds were rescinded by the Trump administration in 2025.

“You have this demand, you have this proven benefit for farmers,” said Michael Happ with the Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy, “and yet, they’re taking money away from it.”

He recently analyzed how these cuts are impacting the agency’s flagship initiative, the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, or EQIP, which had a 38 percent decrease in grants awarded from 2024 to 2025.

And the cuts might not stop there. The Senate’s version of the Farm Bill proposes a nearly $2 billion cut to EQIP.

That’s left a growing number of farmers competing for dwindling funding, Happ said. EQIP alone saw an 11 percent increase in applicants from 2024 to 2025.

“It seems like conservation as an idea keeps getting more and more popular among farmers,” he said. “We saw an increase in folks lining up out the door to apply for these programs. At the same time, the number accepted went down.”

Staffing cuts have also made it more difficult for small farmers to win contracts, Happ said.

“There’s this incentive now to get fewer and larger contracts out the door,” he said, “because a $100,000 contract is a similar amount of work to a $10,000 contract.”

Not only does that practice make it harder for small farmers to win contracts, it also is less effective, Happ said. Paying 10 farmers $10,000 to address conservation needs can be more impactful than paying one farmer $100,000.

Happ worries this high rejection rate will discourage farmers from applying for conservation funding, he said.

“Some farmers I’ve heard they’ve gotten rejected or they’ve heard of these stories of farmers getting rejected,” he said, “and they’re like, ‘Well, why should I waste my time?’”

That trend is something Adam Griebie has begun to notice in Minnesota, he said.

“There’s a few of my neighbors that we’re all struggling to get into the programs, and then you see other farms that seemingly find it pretty simple to get in,” he said. “And it’s hard to explain why.”

Griebie’s recent experience with NRCS won’t stop him from applying for future projects. But he said he can see why other farmers would be more hesitant or “lose the passion to do the work.”

That, he worries, could damage conservation efforts for years to come.

“We don’t get paid to be good stewards out here,” he said, “and so we really need that extra funding and expertise to try to take care of the land better.”

The Midwest Newsroom’s Daniel Wheaton analyzed Office of Personnel Management data for this report.

Harvest Public Media is a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest and Great Plains. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.

A Virginia-based developer has withdrawn from a deal to transform the former Star Tribune printing facility in Minneapolis into a data center. The proposal drew heavy criticism from residents of the city’s North Loop neighborhood.

Minneapolis spokesperson Jess Olstad confirmed that Legacy Investing withdrew a land use application for the proposed facility, which would have included a 20-megawatt data center as well as other developments at nearby parcels.

“The city looks forward to working with other partners who may wish to look at the future of this site,” Olstad said. The city has not received any additional applications for the site.

Legacy did not respond to requests for comment. Emails to the company bounced back. Legacy previously developed a slightly larger data center in the Sleep Number building in downtown Minneapolis.

The proposed data center drew strong opposition at neighborhood forums last month from hundreds of city residents, who questioned the environmental impacts of the facility. Residents also doubted the facility would bring lasting jobs to the city.

Representatives for Legacy argued that the facility would only use as much water as two residential homes and that the facility would kickstart other nearby developments.

Data centers have become hot topics in Minnesota and across the country as tech companies seek to build the infrastructure for artificial intelligence operations. Earlier this spring, the Minneapolis City Council passed a six-month ban on data centers larger than 350,000 square feet.

The site is still owned by the Star Tribune which “remains committed to maximizing the value of the Heritage Printing Facility for the benefit of our community and our journalism,” Star Tribune Vice President Chris Iles said in an email statement.

Iles and the Star Tribune did not immediately respond to follow-up questions about why the company terminated the purchase agreement or whether any other developers have plans for the property.

Diesel prices in the U.S. hit yet another record on Friday, soaring past $6 a gallon on average as Washington’s war with Iran disrupts the world’s flow of fuel.

The national average of nearly $6.06 is up from $5.85 last week and almost $3.71 this time last year, according to motor club AAA. In Minnesota, the average price reached $5.90.

Higher diesel prices mean more expensive transportation for a long list of everyday goods. That’s because diesel is used for many freight and delivery networks. And some businesses have already passed along steeper costs to consumers in the form of added fees on online orders and packages in the mail.

Shoppers may feel more and more sticker shock, particularly in the grocery aisle. Perishable foods, like meat and produce, face one of the most immediate strains of expensive diesel because they need to be hauled in and restocked frequently — or may be harvested using farm equipment powered by the fuel.

It can take time for those costs to trickle down. But the surge in diesel prices doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon.

Prices at the pump for diesel and regular gasoline — which hit nearly $4.30 on average in the U.S. Friday — closely follow that of crude oil. And oil has renewed its rise recently. This week, both Brent, the international standard, and U.S. crude surpassed $100 a barrel for the first time in months as fighting between the U.S. and Iran escalated again.

Political ramifications may pile up in the meantime. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly tried to downplay the effects of the war he co-launched, said that oil prices likely won’t come down until after November’s midterm elections.

What’s driving the latest jump for diesel

American diesel prices are now over 60 percent higher than they were before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in late February, when the national average sat at about $3.76 per gallon per AAA. Prices quickly climbed as the cost of crude oil — the main ingredient in refined fuel like diesel, as well as gasoline — soared amid supply chain disruptions across the Middle East, notably with most tanker traffic bottlenecked in the key Strait of Hormuz.

Despite some during hopes for peace earlier in the summer, oil has now renewed its climb as fighting once more escalates. And more supply disruptions are piling up. The International Energy Agency reported Friday that Saudi oil production fell to a three-decade low last month due to Houthi attacks on its energy facilities.

And elsewhere, losses in the Middle East have been amplified by the war in Ukraine, as the IEA also noted Friday. Disruptions in Russia’s refining system stemming from intense Ukranian attacks have nearly halted product exports.

When adjusted for inflation, fuel prices have been higher in the past. Ahead of the 2008 financial crisis, for example, diesel hit about $4.74 a gallon, equivalent to $7.20 in 2026, according to the government’s latest data. And 2022’s then-record of nearly $5.82 — reached just months after Russia invaded Ukraine — would be about $6.56 this year when accounting for inflation.

That doesn’t take the pain away from today’s steep prices, which are already bringing ripple effects for the economy and wider costs of living. Drivers are feeling the pain with gasoline, too.

Friday’s average $4.29 for a gallon of regular unleaded is up from $2.98 before the Iran war, although still below the 2022 peak of nearly $5.02 a gallon nationwide.

Diesel has been more expensive than gasoline in the U.S. for decades, and its price has risen at a faster pace before. Some reasons include less flexibility in demand and diesel’s position in global commerce overall. Individual households may find ways to drive less when gas prices are high, for example, but there’s fewer immediate substitutes for networks that rely on diesel to haul goods worldwide.

All eyes on food

Diesel is integral to every part of the food supply chain. It powers farm equipment and fishing boats, as well as the trains and trucks headed to grocery stores.

Fuel accounts for roughly 15 percent to 30 percent of the total cost of food, according to the Independent Grocers Alliance, a grouping of 7,500 global supermarkets. So higher diesel costs often result in more expensive groceries, although it can take a while for energy shocks to wind their way through the supply chain.

Items that need to stay refrigerated while they’re transported are often the first to see prices rise, according to David Ortega, a professor of food economics and policy at Michigan State University. In July, for example, overall U.S. grocery prices were up 2.7 percent compared to a year prior, but seafood prices were up 7 percent and fresh fruit prices were up 4.9 percent.

Ortega cautioned other factors can be at play, too. Lettuce also faced higher transportation costs in July, but a drop in demand due to the cyclospora outbreak caused prices to fall.

Still, consumers could feel more of a squeeze the longer diesel prices remain high.

“Early on, much of the cost increase gets absorbed along the supply chain through existing freight contracts and retailer margins,” Ortega explained last week. “But as contracts reprice and fuel surcharges take hold, more of that cost makes its way to the grocery store.”

Fuel shocks range far and wide

Back in April, e-commerce giant Amazon rolled out a temporary 3.5 percent fuel and logistics surcharge on some third-party sellers. United Parcel Service, FedEx and the United States Postal Service also moved to add fees on some of the packages they ship earlier in the war, citing rising costs for fuel overall.

Experts warn that price hikes could mount the longer diesel remains expensive. A range of other products are also transported by diesel-powered networks, including clothing, cosmetics and furniture.

The ramifications extend beyond consumer goods. Some public transit buses and trains also run on diesel. And diesel generators are often used for backup or emergency power, if not central electricity sources in some remote parts of the world.

Experts warn the consequences could continue to deepen, particularly in African and Asian countries, which rely more on Middle East imports and have already been hit the hardest by energy shocks.

According to the latest data from Global Petrol Prices, diesel prices in Nigeria have surged over 90 percent since late February — followed by nearly 87 percent in Indonesia and 80 percent in Lebanon.

Price tags vary widely between countries, due to factors ranging from fuel taxes to local economic conditions. As of Monday, diesel prices in Nigeria were about $4.95 per gallon (1,730 naira per liter) on average. Meanwhile, the highest sticker price reported by Global Petrol Prices was in Hong Kong, where diesel costs have jumped almost 26 percent during the war and averaged at $17.78 a gallon (nearly 37 Hong Kong dollars per liter) Monday.

A long road of constrained supply — and perhaps higher and higher prices — could be ahead.

S&P Global Energy said Thursday it now doesn’t project crude oil production in the Middle East to return to prewar levels by the end of 2027.

“The market is not returning to calm, it is adjusting to the new normal,” said Jim Burkhard, VP and global head of crude oil research at S&P Global Energy, noting security and logistical challenges continue to limit oil flows.

The towering maple trees and native hazelnut bushes on Salvatierra Farms break up the surrounding corn and soybean fields that sprawl across southern Minnesota.

Small compared with its neighbors, the 63 acres of land was once a conventional row crop farm. Transformed by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, an agronomist and regenerative farmer who grew up in the northern Guatemalan rainforest, Salvatierra Farms embraces crop diversity and natural solutions — no herbicides, pesticides or chemical fertilizers — for its poultry or other operations. He wants it to be a model for others.

Drawing on his formal agricultural education and the wisdom of his Indigenous elders, Haslett-Marroquin's approach to farming has brought together an unlikely network of Midwesterners dedicated to caring for the Earth for spiritual reasons. They include Lakota tribal members, former large-scale farmers and Catholic sisters.

Their shared motivation comes amid rising interest in nature-based spirituality and related societal shifts: a rethinking of modern agriculture, growing secularization, climate change anxiety and intensifying interest in health and wellness.

“These dark green spiritualities — the ones that have a kind of sense of the intrinsic value of nature, of our belonging to it and not superiority over it — are growing rapidly around the world,” said University of Florida environmental studies professor Bron Taylor.

Regenerative farming has deep roots

Eco-spirituality and regenerative agriculture are not new. Nineteenth-century America saw homesteaders pledging to cultivate public land they received for free. In the 1960s, a “back-to-the-land” movement surfaced alongside a new wave of environmentalism. And many of today's approaches to land stewardship are rooted in Indigenous traditions developed over centuries.

These practices, to an extent, were overshadowed as the food system scaled rapidly to feed the growing global population. They are now finding new life on some large conventional farms and among young farmers drawn to the regenerative agriculture movement.

It's “farming in a way that is good for the health of the soil, the health of the land and the health of our people and communities,” explained Rob Myers, director of The Center for Regenerative Agriculture. What that means depends on the farmer. Many in the U.S. practice just one method, like planting cover crops or refusing to till the land to minimize soil disturbance; others take a more holistic approach.

Starting in 2020, Josh Payne, a Missouri teacher turned farmer, transitioned his grandfather's land from row crops to fully regenerative animal grazing and agroforestry, which incorporates naturally growing chestnut trees and other native vegetation into his practices. It's a shift based in his evolving Christian faith and influenced by the writings of Christians like the late Kentucky farmer Wendell Berry, who advocated for embodying the Bible’s teaching that the Earth is a gift from God meant to be cared for.

“My faith helped me understand that what I do is a vocation,” Payne said.

While Haslett-Marroquin doesn't believe in organized religion himself, he sees common ground among all who feel spiritually connected to the land, as he does. He envisions a regenerative system that empowers small farmers and their communities, a global movement that “restores all of creation and gives us a different reason to live and have purpose.”

A spiritual connection began in the rainforest

Growing up poor, Haslett-Marroquin and his brothers trekked into the rainforest to help their father plant crops. Though exhausting work, it awakened his kinship to nature.

“That’s where we lived,” said Haslett-Marroquin, who has Achi and other Maya heritage. “That can uplift an innate intelligence that we are born with.”

When he and his wife moved to Minnesota in the early 1990s, he knew he would challenge the system and farm with what he describes as a spiritual integrity that allows all living things to flourish naturally.

In 2022, Haslett-Marroquin co-founded Tree Range Farms, a group of independent poultry producers who use regenerative farming practices. The farms raise thousands of organic, free-range chickens under growing perennials — harvestable plants like hazelnut and elderberry bushes.

Salvatierra Farms, which doubles as a research and training facility for farmers, is part of that ecosystem. Haslett-Marroquin sees his farm, started in 2020, as the blueprint for a global movement he envisions. “To me, a little bit of knowledge with a lot of wisdom and solid spiritual grounding is where the solutions are going to come from.”

Midwest farmers find healing with the land

Nick Hernandez of the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota is also part of Tree Range Farms' community. In 2016, he met Haslett-Marroquin while seeking ways to reconnect his community to the land through food, and learned regenerative poultry practices from the Minnesota farmer.

“I see food as a way of not only finding healing, both mentally, physically, spiritually, and culturally, but as a way of being able to develop ourselves,” said Hernandez.

In 2020, he started Makoce Agriculture Development, a nonprofit developing and rebuilding Indigenous food systems on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, including a fully functioning farm.

Gail Fuller, a former large-scale farmer who grew genetically modified corn and soybeans on 3,200 acres of family land in Kansas, met Haslett-Marroquin in 2020. They were both presenting at a soil conference in Salina. Fuller was on a journey to give up conventional farming practices, including chemical weed killer, after feeling mentally and physically unwell, and betrayed by the industry he loved.

“When you farm from a kill mindset for how many generations, how can that be a positive on the farmer or on the farm?” said Fuller, who now owns Circle 7 Fuller Farms with his wife Lynette, 50 miles from the land his family farmed for generations.

He now spends most of his days barefoot, working with grazing animals on land he says saved him.

A community grows around ceremony and food

For Haslett-Marroquin, ceremonies are a vital part of his physical and spiritual well-being. That includes the “Halfway to Harmony” summer solstice event hosted at the Organic Compound, a nearby family farm in Faribault, Minnesota.

“When it is all said and done, we are simply expressions of the energy of the Earth and the universe,” Haslett-Marroquin said, leading about 100 people in prayer around a bonfire in June.

The Crombie family, which owns Organic Compound, was among the early recruits to Haslett-Marroquin's extended community. They also were pioneers in embracing the regenerative poultry blueprint on a commercial scale.

They had returned to gardening on family land that was once used for rotational crops, but were looking to diversify in ways that paired well with Haslett-Marroquin’s approach.

“When we play together, when we pray together, when we sing together, when we work on the land together … of course it’s going to heal us,” said Wil Crombie during the solstice gathering. “That’s the future that I want.”

From fielding potential investment calls in his pickup truck to webinars with nuns, Haslett-Marroquin is persistent about realizing his dream of a food system grounded in spiritual integrity.

His latest aspiration is to partner with the Catholic Church. In its global landholdings and the environment-friendly additions to the church’s social teachings in the 2015 document, Laudato Si, he sees potential for change.

In southwestern Wisconsin, the Catholic Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa have been living out the belief that creation is sacred, which has guided their approach to farming for decades, said Sister Julie Schwab.

Today, the 179-year-old teaching community's land is leased to two regenerative dairy farmers as part of the nonprofit Fields of Sinsinawa, which doubles as a training facility for all farmers wanting to learn about innovative agricultural practices.

“The sacred moves through our farms,” Schwab said. “The divine is at work in evolution, which includes our soil, and includes all of life.”

Dunwoody College President Scott Stallman joined MPR News host Nina Moini to explain how the program works and what the college hopes it will accomplish.

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

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

At her alterations business, Skirting the Rules in Detroit Lakes, owner Nikki Caulfield is seeing some indirect effects from tariffs.

The costs of the materials and supplies she buys have stayed stable. However, she sees the price tags on clothing that people bring in for alterations, and those have bigger numbers on them these days.

“We can see it clearest with prom dresses and the price tags that are on them when they come in here,” she said. “As far as I’m aware, pricing has gotten a little bit more expensive.”

Companies are starting to pass along more of their tariff costs to customers, according to a new analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

Looking at data from July, researchers estimated that core inflation, which excludes food and energy, came in at 3.3 percent year-over-year, higher than it would have been without tariffs. By their calculation, it was up to 0.4 percentage points higher.

That was a change from their assessment in April.

“Now with the benefit of four or five months of more data, we are seeing a clearer imprint from tariffs,” said Neil Mehrotra, an economist at the Minneapolis Fed.

Mehrotra made his remarks before the Federal Reserve’s blackout period, which precedes policy meetings.

Where tariffs are hitting prices most visibly

To assess the impact of tariffs, Mehrotra and his co-author Michael Waugh compared how much prices would rise if businesses passed on all of their tariff costs with how much they actually rose using pre-pandemic inflation figures as a baseline.

Some industries passed on the costs more than others.

For example, women's and girls’ clothing saw excess inflation over the last year of 4.66 percent, which is fairly close to researchers’ predicted tariff effect of 4.77 percent.

But household supplies went through almost no inflation above their pre-pandemic average, despite a predicted tariff effect of 1.63 percent.

“It could be that they don't feel the ability to pass through those price increases, so they're seeing lower profits,” he said. “It could be that they're substituting to different suppliers to avoid the tariffs, or it could be that they're finding ways to be more productive to offset the cost of higher tariffs.”

AI Boom also driving inflation

Mehrotra and Waugh also looked at inflation driven by the AI boom.

They note that prices for video and information processing equipment, like memory chips, were up 12.2 percent from July 2025 to July 2026. From 2015-2019, prices for those goods were falling by 6.5 percent each year.

“That category is adding on its own about 0.4 percentage points to core inflation, and so it's on the same order of magnitude as tariffs,” he said.

Reports like these help inform the Federal Open Market Committee, which is meeting next week to set the Federal Reserve’s benchmark interest rate.

In a split vote, it held rates steady in July, with Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari dissenting. He wanted a rate increase, citing high inflation due, in part, to the Iran war and tariffs.

Other costs rising, too

Back at Skirting the Rules, owner Nikki Caulfield said it’s not the rising costs of imported goods that are raising her prices, but everything else.

The store’s electric and water bills are up, and those costs have to get passed to consumers.

And as the owner of a small business who needs to pay herself, Caulfield said when her personal costs increase, like gasoline or groceries, her prices have to compensate for that, too.

She already has thin margins, she said.

“It is not a business you get into if you want to be rich,” she said. “Sometimes I really wonder why I'm doing this.”

The United States is banning dairy products, most alcoholic beverages and motorcycles from Canada, the White House said Tuesday, as the trade war between the two neighbors and longtime allies escalates.

The ban will take effect in three weeks and comes after Canada imposed retaliatory tariffs on $20 billion in U.S. imports earlier Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump also moved Tuesday to shut Canadian products out of large, long-term U.S. government contracts as Canada’s retaliatory tariffs took effect and Prime Minister Mark Carney vowed to speed efforts to reduce the country’s dependence on the United States.

Trump directed the U.S. General Services Administration to declare Canadian products ineligible for those contracts until Canada allows “full and fair reciprocity″ for American products.

Carney said Tuesday Canada’s strategy was about becoming more independent. “It’s about ensuring that no country can hold us hostage. And that we can live how we want to live.”

The rupture has upended one of the world’s closest relationships. On Aug. 22, the U.S. imposed 50 percent tariffs on about 5 percent of Canadian imports, charging that Canada had unfairly treated the American dairy, alcoholic beverage and auto industries.

The U.S. and Canada have long sparred over trade, particularly Canada’s protected dairy market and its subsidies for producers of softwood lumber. But they remained friends and staunch allies.

Under Trump, U.S.-Canada relations have deteriorated rapidly. In addition to imposing tariffs on Canadian products, Trump has repeatedly made inflammatory comments about making Canada the 51st U.S. state. Carney came to power in a come-from-behind political victory last year by promising to stand up to him.

Some Canadian provinces have banned the sale of U.S. alcoholic products — a move that prompted the retaliatory U.S. ban on Tuesday.

Canada is exploring ties with the European Union that could stop just short of membership, a Canadian official familiar with the discussions said.

Options could include expanding existing agreements, negotiating a new treaty or creating other forms of cooperation. The official said Canada is already consulting provinces, territories and labor groups about what a deeper relationship with the EU could look like, but no model has been chosen.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the talks publicly.

Carney is due in Strasbourg, France, next week, where he will attend European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the European Union address Sept. 16 and address the European Parliament the following day.

Canada looks beyond the U.S.

Carney acknowledged the trade actions would cause short-term pain but said they would push Canada to move faster on investment, infrastructure and trade diversification.

“It was easy business, but it meant we relied too much on one economic partner,” he said. “That time is over.”

More than 70 percent of Canadian exports still go to the United States, underscoring the scale of Carney's push to diversify trade. He said Canada’s exports to other countries are rising sharply and are on track to double over the next decade.

Canada retaliates as Trump responds

Carney defended the retaliation, saying Canada could not let American goods enter tariff-free while Canadian companies face U.S. tariffs.

Canada was not seeking to escalate the confrontation, he said, but the tariffs were necessary to protect Canadian workers.

Carney said the larger problem was what Washington had sought in the failed negotiations.

“The most fundamental issue is that the cumulative U.S. demands revealed that they wanted us to become even more reliant on them, not less,” he said. “In too many areas, they wanted dependency, not a true economic partnership.”

The prime minister said Washington sought limits on French-language and cultural protections, influence over future trade deals and terms that would weaken the auto, steel and forestry sectors.

How the trade war ends could carry consequences far beyond Canada, testing whether a smaller U.S. ally can resist Trump’s economic pressure without being forced to yield.

Earlier on Tuesday, a Canadian official said Ottawa did not intend to change course regardless of whether Trump responded with nothing or what the official called a “nuclear response.” The government’s strategy will remain focused on building more at home and diversifying trade abroad, the official said.

The tariffs hit hundreds of American products, including steel, aluminum, cheese, appliances, clothing, cosmetics and farm equipment, at rates of 15 percent, 25 percent or 50 percent. They cover about $20 billion in American goods, roughly 6 percent of the $333.6 billion the United States exported to Canada last year.

Since Canada-U.S. trade talks collapsed Aug. 21, Trump and his administration have imposed additional tariffs and issued a series of threats and attacks portraying Canada as weak and dependent.

Trump’s trade war and repeated talk of making Canada the 51st state have fueled anger across the country. Canadians have sharply cut travel to the United States and boycotted U.S. goods, moves Carney praised as signs of national resolve.

British Columbia Premier David Eby said the province will install new signs at U.S. border crossings reading: “Welcome to British Columbia, Canada. Strong, proud and will NEVER be the 51st state. Sorry!”

“While our kindness is one of our greatest strengths, you should never, ever mistake that kindness for weakness,” Eby said.

Neither side is rushing back to the table

Gabriel Brunet, a spokesman for Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc, said officials from both countries remain in contact even though formal talks have not resumed.

Former U.S. trade official Wendy Cutler said Carney’s public approval rating, now topping 70 percent, gives him little reason to restart talks.

“Clearly, at this point each side does not want to look too anxious to reengage in fear of looking weak,” she said.

Minnesota voters will find a question about public school funding on their ballots this fall. A proposed constitutional amendment would increase the amount distributed each year from the state’s Permanent School Fund — a $2.4 billion investment fund built with revenue generated by state-owned school trust lands.

Supporters say it would provide additional money without raising taxes, but critics say that the increase would only cover a fraction of the broader financial pressures facing school districts.

MPR News host Angela Davis and her guests talk about how Minnesota schools are funded, where that money goes and what voters should understand about the proposed amendment before November.

Here’s a link to a resource to see what will be on your ballot this coming November:

• Minnesota Secretary Of State - What's On My Ballot?

Guests:

• Christine Tucci Osorio is the superintendent for School District 622, which includes North St. Paul, Maplewood and Oakdale.

• Mary Kunesh is a DFL state senator representing District 39 in the northern Twin Cities suburbs. She chairs the Senate Education Finance Committee.

• Marguerite Roza is a research professor at Georgetown University and director of its Edunomics Lab, a research center that studies education finance and how school systems use public dollars.

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.    

Kelly Rand's teenage twin boys playing hockey in St. Paul, Minnesota, are going through growth spurts that force the family to buy new equipment what seems like all the time.

The goaltender’s $400 helmet in 2022 now runs $1,000. The chest protector they got last year for $465 now goes for $900.

For a sport that is increasingly expensive for everything from gear and ice time to travel and coaching, the latest round of 50 percent tariffs levied by President Donald Trump’s administration against Canada was most unwelcome news as they threaten to ramp up prices even more.

“If a kid on the ice breaks a stick, every other parent is looking at that mom or dad going, ‘Ahhh oh, no!’” Rand said. “You feel for them. How many $400 sticks can you afford in one season?”

Hockey sticks and skates are among the more than 550 goods named in the tariffs by the White House. Custom equipment is also manufactured by True Hockey in Canada and imported into the U.S., according to B&R Sports Director of E-commerce John Merola, who said skates and goalie gear fit into that category.

An average stick is now $200, Merola said, with high-end versions ranging up to $400. He noted that Bauer, CCM and True still make many custom items in Canada.

“This not a minor blip by by any means,” Sports & Fitness Industry Association CEO Todd Smith said. “Even if manufacturers have moved over the last several years from Canada to other countries, there’s still healthy amount being manufactured in Canada and, yeah, this 50 percent tariff is a big deal.”

Rising prices and popularity amid production shifts

When Rand’s family bought custom goalie gear a couple of years ago, the entire setup cost $3,300. Skate pairs that in 2016 went for between $80 and $900 are now $200 to $1,230, according to HockeySkates DB, a database that charts the prices from various companies.

Inflation, as well as tariffs on other countries, are behind the price jumps in recent years. The Sports & Fitness Industry Association’s manufacturers sales report said the amount spent on hockey equipment increased 45.4 percent from 2020-25, up to $332.9 million from $228.9 million, dovetailing with increasing participation in the sport.

According to U.S. International Trade Commission data, which does not separate ice and field hockey equipment, gear from Canada made up roughly 8.5 percent of imports last year, fourth behind 52.7 percent from China, 13.2 percent from Vietnam and 9.5 percent from Thailand. Of the 2.1 million hockey sticks imported last year, trade data shows more than 1.5 million (74.1 percent) came from China and 268,000 (12.8 percent) from Mexico, compared to 18,909 (0.9 percent) from Canada.

Chris Douglas, a professor of economics at the University of Michigan-Flint, called it unlikely that stick prices will go up 50 percent across the board, noting Canada’s modest market share, but wonders what will happen if demand increases.

“Maybe that causes the price of hockey sticks to rise somewhat — maybe by $50 or something like that,” Douglas said. “Hockey is expensive with the equipment, ice time and so forth, so maybe there’s a family right on the margin where $50 or $100 in additional cost causes them not to enroll their kids at hockey any longer.”

The question is how long the tariffs will last

When Trump imposed tariffs on China, Merola said that had a bigger impact on business but not right away.

“Bauer, CCM — the big, heavy hitters in the market — came in and said: ‘We’ll absorb these costs. Don’t worry about it,’” Merola said. “And then as nothing happened, they kind of came back and said, ‘We can’t cover this, so we’re gonna have to increase pricing.’”

That wait-and-see approach could happen again this time, delaying how long manufacturers and retailers pass on the increase to consumers. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney saidtrade talks could resume if Washington became serious about negotiations.

Douglas said it all comes down to expectations for how long the tariffs will be in place.

“It’s hard to form expectations of the current tariff regime where tariffs are changing basically every day, it seems like,” Douglas said. “But if there’s an expectation that tariffs are going to be permanent or at least in place for the long term, then I think prices rise pretty instantaneously because the cost of production has risen and that gets passed on to consumers via a higher price.”

Merola thinks long-term tariffs will lead companies to move more production to the U.S., Asia or elsewhere. Roustan Hockey, the last major hockey stick factory in Canada, last week reaffirmed it will keep making them there, despite the challenges.

“We remain committed to our employees, our customers and our manufacturing operations here in Canada,” founder W. Graeme Roustan said in a statement after hosting federal minister Evan Solomon for a tour of the facility in Brantford, Ontario.

The Sports & Fitness Industry Association is advocating for the tariffs to go away, especially given what Smith said was a 7 percent increase in hockey participation in the U.S. over the past three years, a boom attributed to the 4 Nations Face-Off, Winter Olympics and more.

While pointing out the National Hockey League, USA Hockey and teams have contributed significant efforts with learn to play programs that include free equipment and ice time, Smith is concerned about the long-term impact of tariffs.

“This has, obviously, the potential to really stunt that growth,” he said. “It couldn’t be a worse time for tariffs to hit in terms of really having the having the possibility to increase costs.”

The start of a new school year means the big yellow buses are back on the road.

But school districts are facing an increasing strain on their budgets in order to keep the wheels on the bus going ‘round and ‘round.

Last week, Minnesota reached a new record for diesel prices, according to AAA. The price tag on Saturday was $5.75 per gallon — near the national average of $5.80. And the trend is inching toward the $6 per gallon mark.

When diesel is still the main fuel source that powers 87 percent of school buses nationwide, it chips away at budgets.

Schools are grappling with the challenge of skyrocketing fuel prices brought on since President Donald Trump launched the war with Iran last spring.

In May, 56 percent of respondents to a national survey conducted by the Association of School Business Officials International as well as other school and transportation associations said they ran over budget for fuel in the last school year.

St. Paul Public Schools, for example, told MPR News year-over-year fuel costs increased $28,000.

Bethany Bertram, co-owner and CEO of Trobec's Bus Service in St. Joseph. Her company operates about 125 vehicles and runs routes for school districts in Sartell, St. Stephen and St. Cloud.

Bertram said its hard to plan budgets when costs are constantly changing, whether its school districts or a transit company.

“Knowing that they don't have an infinite budget is really important. And being smarter with the decisions that we make as far as controlling our costs is key,” Bertram said.

Bertram said her company has to review its entire operation to keep rising costs in check. And it's not just diesel.

“Fuel prices are certainly something we've been watching for a while now. We're also seeing the costs increase with new equipment, parts, tires, insurance,” Bertram said. “So it's kind of a whole package that every everything that encompasses what it takes to make our business run is going up.”

The national survey also found that bus operators and schools are using creative ways to save on fuel while maintaining operations, like consolidating bus routes, limiting extra activities like field trips and turning off buses rather than idling.

Bertram's done the same.

“We've implemented a zero tolerance idling policy,” she said. “Because idling is one of the biggest wasters of fuel. It's also bad for the environment. If you're not driving, turn the bus off. There's no need to let it run.”

But if fuel prices continue to rise, schools may start to look at more drastic measures to get students to school on time.

By Nicole Grundmeier | Midwest Newsroom and Harvest Public Media

Since completing treatment for breast cancer, Toni Keller tries to stick to a healthy diet — she consumes lots of fruits and vegetables and no red meat.

Keller, 65, moved into Storm Lake Senior Housing in May, a low-income community in the northwest Iowa city of Storm Lake. She spent some of her adult life out of the workforce, which substantially reduced the retirement benefits she now receives.

“I get a whopping $304 a month, because I had a sick child, so most of my time was spent with her,” Keller said.

That Social Security payment isn’t nearly enough to cover Keller’s living expenses, including food.

“After having cancer, you’re eating a little differently, which costs more money to do,” Keller said.

High food prices are pushing some older adults to make difficult budget decisions. That can mean scaling back on produce in favor of cheaper, processed foods, stretching food items longer, or even forgoing medication. In addition, according to AARP, nearly half of older adults who carry credit card debt are using credit cards to buy food.

Nationwide, food prices increased 3 percent from June 2025 to June 2026, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That follows larger spikes during the COVID-19 pandemic, including a nearly 10 percent jump in 2022 ― the largest annual increase in over 40 years, according to the USDA.

Recent changes to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, have pushed food accessibility issues into the spotlight. But the hunger crisis among older Americans often receives less attention than other groups, said Jessica Johnston, a senior strategist for economic well-being at the National Council on Aging.

“So much of the conversation around SNAP and food insecurity really has been around children and families, and older adults really are often a forgotten population on this topic,” Johnston said.

Food insecurity and older adults

While younger Americans might see their wages rise as costs for necessities such as food increase, older adults’ incomes are more likely to be fixed.

Food prices aren’t increasing as quickly as they did in 2022 and 2023. Still, Social Security benefits aren't always enough to stave off food insecurity, said Gina Plata-Nino, director of policy and advocacy at the Food Research & Action Center.

“Your rent didn’t decrease because you turned 60. Your utilities didn’t decrease because you turned 60. Neither did fuel, and neither did food,” she said.

Advocates for older adults fear the situation will worsen, as more Americans lose access to SNAP, the largest food assistance program in the U.S. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed in 2025, tightened eligibility rules for SNAP, including by raising the age at which recipients are fully excluded from work requirements.

As a group, older adults are one of the biggest utilizers of SNAP, Plata-Nino said.

More than 7.4 million Americans ages 60 and up experienced food insecurity in 2023, according to the National Council on Aging. That’s approximately one in 11 older Americans.

Employees of food banks said they’re seeing more older Americans seeking food help.

John Mabry, the chief relationship officer with the Food Bank of Lincoln in east-central Nebraska, said that almost 200 people came to pick up food in Humboldt, Nebraska, on a recent weekday. Of those, at least half were seniors.

“Tough times for young and old right now,” he said in an email.

Mabry said the affordability crisis is real and that the Food Bank of Lincoln is seeing more and more neighbors coming directly to their facility, including many older adults.

“One in six of our neighbors is not sure how to put food on the table,” Mabry said. “Many are seniors who tell us they don’t know how they are going to get by, the way things are going now."

Where seniors are going for help

As food prices climb, community and religious organizations across the central United States have intensified efforts to distribute food to seniors and remove obstacles that might make it difficult for them to get help.

Metro Lutheran Ministry has three food pantry locations in the Kansas City area and other partnerships that help serve residents.

Once a month, people 60 and older can come to the pantries to receive a “senior commodity box” with canned goods, cheese, instant potatoes and other staples. It’s part of a federal initiative.

“We don’t want them to have to make multiple trips down to get their food, get their box, and then come back for food pantries,” said Kimberlye Bernard, Metro Lutheran Ministry’s client services program manager. “So we try to make it like one-stop shopping, because transportation can be a challenge for them as well.”

The consistency of the monthly box is important for people on fixed incomes who are struggling to cope with ever-rising food costs, she said.

Plata-Nino, of the Food Research & Action Center, said older adults who receive SNAP benefits are less likely to be forced to choose between paying a copay for their medicine and being able to eat. The upside doesn’t stop there, she said.

“It also improves mental acumen,” she said. “ … It has positive impacts on individuals being able to deal better with stress.”

Dr. Preeti Malani, a professor of medicine at the University of Michigan who was part of the team that conducts the school’s National Poll on Healthy Aging, said that the consequences of inadequate nutrition can cascade into the broader community.

“If we have 50-year-olds who cannot be healthy because they lack nutrition, they lack good food, then they’re going to have a hard time staying in the workforce, which isn’t good for us as a nation,” Malani explained.

Connecting older adults with the assistance they are eligible to use is a challenge throughout the country, but the problem is worse in sparsely populated areas, according to data compiled by the National Council on Aging.

For example, the proportions of eligible people age 65 or older actually enrolled in SNAP and supplemental Social Security programs are below the national average in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, according to the organization. For 2023, Iowa had the third-lowest rate of SNAP participation, at just 19 percent of those eligible.

Across the central U.S., more than 2 million people age 65 or older were eligible for federal food benefits, but did not use them.

“One of the things that we’ve seen in preliminary data is that areas with lower participation have a lower concentration of community-based supports,” said Johnston, with the National Council on Aging. The organization offers tools to help seniors and others find local resources.

‘We’d probably be in a lot of trouble’

Once a month, a large truck from the Food Bank of Iowa delivers food to St. Mark Lutheran Church in Storm Lake. Volunteers from Friends With Food, a partnership between the church and SALUD!, a multicultural health coalition, bag up the food and prepare it for distribution.

Most of the food is delivered to low-income older adults, many of whom don’t have regular access to transportation. A large delivery also goes to the senior living community where Toni Keller lives.

The residents create their own monthly food pantry in the common room with the donations, laying out potatoes, bell peppers and other fresh produce on the tables, each filing through to shop. Signs in English and Spanish give people instructions on how many items each person can choose.

“I take what I do need and then leave what I don’t need for other people,” Keller said. “Last time was a whole bag of nectarines — absolutely wonderful.”

Keller said she uses SNAP and Double Up Food Bucks Iowa, a state program that matches SNAP dollars spent on fresh fruits and vegetables dollar-for-dollar, for amounts up to $15 per day. The timing of the pop-up pantry is helpful, she added.

“Us older Americans don’t have a lot of money, and it can be kind of hard to get help. I think for a lot of us, if not for this program we’d probably be in trouble,” Keller said, “and it’s nice that this program shows up in the middle of the month.”

Linda Rufus, 67, lives at the same senior housing complex as Keller.

She said she’s had to make some difficult budget decisions.

“I’m thinking about how I’m gonna rob Peter to pay Paul because food prices are extremely high,” Rufus said, “and I have to really weigh out what’s more important or how I can get the most out of a meal.”

She’s changed how she shops for groceries, switching to cheaper forms of protein that won’t strain her wallet.

“I’m a meat eater, so I love steaks. I love lamb chops. I can’t afford those things anymore. Oxtails — I can’t afford those anymore. I basically stick to things like ground turkey as opposed to ground beef,” she said.

Now she frequently eats Hamburger Helper, homemade skillet meals and other instant meals.

Rufus said the pop-up pantry at the senior center has been a big help to her and her neighbors.

“We’re very thankful and grateful to the food banks,” Rufus said, “because if it were not for the food banks supplying us with food, we would be in a lot worse condition than we are.”

This story was produced by The Midwest Newsroom and Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest and Great Plains. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.

The Midwest Newsroom is an enterprise journalism collaboration that includes Iowa Public Radio, KCUR, Nebraska Public Media, St. Louis Public Radio and NPR.

Midwest Dairy’s All-You-Can-Drink Milk stand has operated at a loss since it opened at the Minnesota State Fair in 1955. That’s by design: Minnesota dairy farmers subsidize the stand to keep milk cheap and get it into the hands of fairgoers.

More than 1,500 Minnesota dairy farmers sponsor the stand as a promotional opportunity, allowing Midwest Dairy to keep prices low, according to CEO Corey Scott.

“The opportunity to get milk in fairgoers’ hands is far more important to us than the dollars it takes,” Scott said.

When the stand opened, it charged 10 cents for a bottomless 12-ounce cup of milk, but prices increased. And two years ago, Midwest Dairy increased the price from $2 to $3.

“If you look at our pricing structure, we raise the price about once every decade, which is pretty remarkable,” she said. “If you look across the fair, that’s pretty unheard of, we’re still the most economic item to get here at the State Fair.”

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Scott said the booth sells hundreds of thousands of cups every year and serves 20,000 gallons of milk throughout the fair. All the milk is provided by dairy farmers in the state, including Sauk Centre’s Kate McAndrews, who said she has produced over 12,000 gallons of milk for the stand over the last 20 years.

“We’re very happy to subsidize or to work with the farmers of Minnesota to help make that very affordable for consumers here at the fair,” McAndrews said.

McAndrews said it was a “wonderful” feeling knowing thousands of people are consuming milk from her farm.

“To think that people seek that out and that they want to go back for another beverage or two, but then also to know that what they’re drinking is so healthy — it is just pure milk, so that’s probably the best feeling of all,” she said.

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Most of the staff who run the booth are unpaid volunteers, Scott said. These include co-workers and friends, Erica Elwell and Mary Hedges, who have volunteered at the stand for nearly 12 years.

“I love milk, I love what it does for people, and I’m super excited to be a part of that, so that's something that I feel good serving and that I enjoy,” Elwell said.

Hedges said she loves seeing people she recognizes come back year after year to the stand.

“And I do really like when the teenage boys try to see how many cups they can drink at a time and kind of egg each other on; that's always fun,” Hedges said. “We even had one kid today that was just like chug, chug, chug, and I think he had up to eight cups right in a row.”

Bill Bibisheimer has been buying the stand’s bottomless 12-ounce cup for 40 years. He said he drinks five to six cups of milk every year.

“When I first started coming here, it was a dime,” he said. “I remember when it went to a quarter and then 50 cents; I remember it was two bucks, now it’s three.”

Although he remembers it being 10 cents, the price increase never deters him from what he said is a “State Fair tradition.”

“My two daughters were here with their kids just a little bit ago, so it becomes a tradition at the fair,” he said. “People come to the fair; they either want, you know, be it fried pickles or corn or turkey on a stick. Well, this is my thing right here. I will not come to the fair without stopping here; it’s just a ritual thing.”

You have until Labor Day to grab your glass.

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Newly released data shows that Minnesota has been losing hospital-based obstetrics services at a faster rate than most states in the country, increasing the health risks facing people who are pregnant.

The data analysis by University of Minnesota’s Rural Health Research Center, a national authority on maternal health care access, found that, in 2010, 77 percent of Minnesota hospitals had labor and delivery services. By the end of 2024, 29 hospitals had closed their obstetrics units, leaving just 56 percent of hospitals with labor and delivery units statewide.

Minnesota is one of only eight states and the District of Columbia that lost more than 20 percent of hospital-based obstetric services in that timeframe. It’s part of a nationwide trend of hospitals closing birthing centers across the U.S, especially in rural areas, where labor and delivery units tend to be too expensive to staff for the relatively few babies delivered each year.

University of Minnesota public health professor Katy Kozhimannil, who coauthored the paper, said these closures have dangerous consequences.

“The loss of hospital-based obstetric services is associated with an increased risk of preterm birth, especially in the more remote rural communities and rural counties,” Kozhimannil said. “And this is important because preterm birth is one of the leading causes of infant mortality.”

One reason hospitals in Minnesota are closing down birthing centers at a higher rate than other states is because more hospitals here had labor and delivery units to begin with.

But across the state, and the entire country, obstetrics units, especially in rural areas where birth rates are lower, increasingly cannot pay for themselves. Kozhimannil explained that a greater proportion of patients treated at rural hospitals tend to be on Medicaid, which doesn’t pay as much for labor and delivery services as most private health insurance plans. And rural hospitals also deliver fewer babies overall, so there’s less revenue coming in to pay for fully staffed labor and delivery services.

“There are fixed costs associated with [running an obstetrics unit,]” Kozhimannil said. “Having the beds available for those services, having an operating room in case you need to do a cesarean delivery, and having clinicians, doctors, and nurses and midwives that are there and able to provide the services that are needed during childbirth — the cost of providing all of that needs to be paid every single day, regardless of how many births there are.”

Many of the most recent obstetrics unit closures in Minnesota are concentrated in rural areas. Over the last two years, Mayo Clinic Health System closed its labor and delivery units in its Fairmont and New Prague hospitals in southern Minnesota. Essentia Health closed its obstetrics unit at its hospital in Fosston in northern Minnesota in 2024. And late last year, Mayo Clinic announced it would no longer provide labor and delivery services at Owatonna’s hospital.

According to an MPR News analysis of the University of Minnesota’s rural research center county-level data, 707,000 Minnesotans — nearly one in eight residents in the state — live in a county with no hospital-based obstetrics services.

Kozhimannil said her research shows that pregnant people living in areas without hospital-based obstetrics services also have less access to other prenatal and postpartum services, including breastfeeding and lactation support, midwifery care and doula services.

The situation is particularly concerning in rural Minnesota.

However, even after these hospital-based labor and delivery unit closures, Kozhimannil said Minnesota still has more of them than many other states. As of 2024, more than half of Minnesota’s hospitals still had obstetrics-based services, which is more than the national average. In neighboring North Dakota, for example, 71 percent of its hospitals do not provide labor and delivery services.

In spite of the obstacles present in rural areas, some hospitals are not only able to keep labor and delivery services going, but have thriving birthing centers. For example, Allina Health ended labor and delivery at its Faribault clinic but shifted its physicians and nurses to its nearby Owatonna hospital after Mayo Clinic ended its coverage of the Owatonna maternity ward last November.

And last year, United Hospital District (UHD) in Blue Earth, just north of the Iowa border, more than doubled the number of babies it delivered compared to five years ago. UHD makes it work by cross-training its staff so they can work in other medical units when they’re not needed in labor and delivery, which helps the rural hospital reduce the otherwise high staffing costs.

Northfield Hospital + Clinics and CCM Health in western Minnesota told MPR News they are having similar success with increasing numbers of baby deliveries.

But to prevent more hospitals in Minnesota and across the country from closing labor and delivery services, and to ensure that rural families in particular have access to this essential maternal care, Kozhimannil said that the current health care system needs substantial change.

“The loss of obstetric care in any community is deeply important to the people who live there. If it's a fundamental piece of public health infrastructure, we should be paying for it in that way,” Kozhimannil said. “That, I think, is a broader challenge than any one patient or clinician or community, but together it's a conversation that I think we can start to have.”

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

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