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

By Sarah Fentem | Harvest Public Media

Researchers at an environmental nonprofit say that the number of days with dangerously humid heat is increasing – particularly in the Midwest and South – and that’s affecting people’s health.

Analysis from scientists at the group Climate Central shows the number of days with heat index values above 90 degrees is increasing in parts of the country, making the air wetter and hotter.

“We know that humid heat is increasing with climate change, because as the temperature gets hotter, it also makes the atmosphere's capacity to hold moisture increase,” said Kaitlyn Trudeau, an applied climate scientist with the group. “So you can think of it like a sponge that soaks up water, but as air gets hotter, it's just basically a bigger sponge.”

Climate Central released a tool in May that shows daily data on where humid heat is increasing around the world.

The trend is most pronounced in the Midwest and southern United States. Amarillo, Texas has 22 more extreme humid days per year compared with 1979, while Tulsa and St. Louis have around five more per year.

The heat index takes humidity into account along with the air temperature. Measures that include humidity, wind and other factors are a better estimate of how dangerous hot weather can be, said John Pike, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Norman, Oklahoma.

Sweating is the body’s main defense against overheating, he said. If a person can’t sweat to stay cool, their body temperature rises, which can cause issues with the kidneys, liver and other organs.

When you sweat, that produces what's called evaporative cooling,” Pike said. “If the humidity gets too high, then you won't get that evaporative cooling.”

The weather agency issues heat advisories and warnings when the heat index rises, in the hopes people will take more precautions and be on the lookout for signs of heat stroke.

“It's just really to let people know, just keep an eye on how long you're outside,” Pike explained. “It's also very important to check on the elderly especially if they don't have air conditioning or something in their house.”

Agricultural workers are ‘on the front lines’

High humid heat days are especially dangerous for outdoor laborers such as farmworkers.

“Heat is one of those really, really deadly risk factors for farmworkers, and one of the reasons that farmworkers experience such high rates of illness, injury, and death on the job,” said United Farm Workers Vice President Elizabeth Strater.

Unlike other outdoor laborers who may be paid by the hour, farmworkers are usually paid by how much they harvest, she said.

“These workers have ... a financial incentive to push their body beyond what it's able to endure, and they do that out of economic desperation, because farmworkers are also some of the poorest workers in the country,” Strater said. “Farmworkers are really affected, and very much on the front lines.”

Hydration alone isn’t enough to combat heat illness in humid conditions, she added. Workers need to get out of the heat to lower their internal body temperature.

Humid heat also affects how clearly people can think, Strater said, and that can lead to more accidents on the job.

UFW has pushed for stronger worker protections, including paid breaks and adequate shade, to be written into federal law.

Protection against heat “isn’t rocket science,” Strater said. “We know what it takes to keep workers alive in high heat: They need shade, they need paid rest breaks… they need training and information, not only as to what the danger signs are, but what their rights are. And they still do have a right to refuse unsafe work."

The dangers of humid heat show that focusing on high temperatures alone isn’t enough, said Trudeau, the scientist with Climate Central.

“It’s this hidden danger that you can't really tell just from a thermometer,” she said.

The Minnesota Court of Appeals has ruled that the city of Faribault didn’t have enough information about a proposed hyperscale data center when it decided the project didn’t require a more thorough environmental review.

Archer Datacenters owns property in Faribault and plans to develop it with up to 500,000 square feet of data center buildings on an 84 acre site.

Last August, the Faribault City Council approved an environmental assessment worksheet for the project. City officials decided that a more exhaustive environmental impact statement, or EIS, wasn't needed.

The nonprofit Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy filed an appeal challenging that decision. MCEA argued the city didn't have enough information about potential noise pollution, air pollution from backup generators and greenhouse gas emissions from electricity use.

And it argued the city didn't consider the cumulative effects of other projects that draw on water and energy resources in the area, including other data centers and industries.

The appeals court agreed, saying the city failed to take a “hard look” at the environmental impacts before making its decision.

One example the court cited: The final environmental review lowered the project’s estimated greenhouse gas emissions by 98 percent from the draft version without explaining why.

The court ordered the city to either order an environmental impact statement, or postpone the decision for up to 30 days to get the needed information it lacks.

The Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy called the decision “a win for Faribault and all Minnesotans concerned about the impacts of hyperscale developments in our state.”

“I think it's a big day for residents across Minnesota who have had so many questions about data centers that have been popping up really rapidly and with really huge development proposals across the state,” said Luke Norquist, a legal fellow at the center.

The process for reviewing proposed data centers hasn’t answered big questions people have about their impact on Minnesota residents or the state’s climate goals, Norquist said.

“This decision today confirms that these studies have not been looking closely at those questions at all, and more work needs to be done,” he said

Andrew Wolf, an attorney for the Iverson Reuvers law firm who represented Faribault in the appeal, said the city is “disappointed” with the decision.

“The city takes its environmental review obligations seriously and believes it acted appropriately and in good faith based on the information available at the time,” he said.

Wolf said the city is reviewing the opinion and “evaluating options for obtaining any additional information needed for a decision.”

In a statement, the city said it is “dedicated to ensuring that all development within our community is undertaken responsibly and with careful consideration of potential environmental impacts.”

Jordan Milman, a spokesperson for Archer Datacenters, said in an email that undertaking an environmental review in the Faribault project’s early stages was “part of our ongoing effort to be as transparent as possible.”

Given that the design was preliminary, the review included some estimates and ranges, Milman said.

“While we do not believe an EIS will be warranted, we respect the Minnesota Court of Appeals’ decision that more definitive information is necessary for the city to ultimately make a decision on the matter,” Milman wrote. The final design will include more specific calculations, he said.

The Faribault appeal was one of several lawsuits the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy filed to challenge environmental reviews of proposed data centers.

Last month, a judge in Goodhue County ordered the developer of a hyperscale data center in Pine Island to temporarily halt construction until MCEA’s lawsuit over the project’s environmental review can be heard.

Copyright 2026, NPR

Summer job season is here and many teens and young adults are looking for a chance to earn money, gain experience and build skills.

MPR News host Angela Davis and her guests talk about the state of the summer job market for young workers in Minnesota. They'll discuss where opportunities exist, what employers are looking for and how job seekers can stand out in a competitive hiring environment.

Guests:

• Mark Brinda is the Workforce Development Manager for the City of Minneapolis.

• Oriane Casale is the assistant director of the Labor Market Information Office for the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.

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

During the show, the guests shared this job search resource: ​Jobs in Minnesota | Career Resources | CareerForce.MN.gov

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.

Minneapolis has received national attention for its 2040 housing plan.

But St. Paul is also a laboratory for housing policy. The capital city has experimented with rent control and loosening zoning rules.

And a new data dashboard from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis helps track how those policies are playing out in St. Paul. It illuminates how housing supply and costs are changing rents, production, affordability and stability.

The story that emerges from the data is mixed and doesn’t cohere into a simple narrative.

Here are three key takeaways.

1) Zoning reform is starting to increase housing supply

St. Paul’s 2023 zoning changes (allowing duplexes, triplexes, etc.) are already showing early signs of boosting development, especially near universities.

While still modest, this reform is seen as a step toward easing the housing shortage by allowing denser housing

“It’s a smaller process to add four units here, and five units here, and six units there, relative to adding a 60- to 70- to 100-unit apartment building,” said Libby Starling, senior community development advisor at the Minneapolis Fed. “At the same time, allowing the gentle density in more places does increase the overall housing supply of the city.”

2) Rent control reduced development

The 2021 rent stabilization policy stipulated that property owners could not increase rents more than 3 percent year over year unless they went through a process of justifying the need.

It discouraged developers and investors, leading to a sharp drop in large apartment construction permits.

“At the same time the rent stabilization occurred, there has been a drop off in new construction,” said Starling. “We had a lot of conversations with developers and owners of property who felt like there had been an overall chill in the willingness of capital to invest in the city.”

Despite that shrinking supply of housing, which ordinarily might lead to an increase in rents, rents in St. Paul have fallen about 10 percent (inflation-adjusted) since 2020.

Starling did not have a simple explanation for why that’s the case.

But it is possible that rents might have fallen yet farther if rent control weren’t in play, given the totality of factors.

3) Property tax burden shifting from landlords to homeowners

Falling apartment values have led to landlords paying about 27 percent less in property taxes since 2022.

Meanwhile, homeowners are paying more, with median annual property taxes rising sharply from about $3,400 to more than $4,200.

This suggests a redistribution of the tax burden tied to housing market changes.

Life is coming full circle for the new chief financial officer of Mankato Clinic, as he was delivered by one of the clinic’s obstetricians and saw a pediatrician at Mankato Clinic as a child.

Brandon Janike, 32, returned to the Mankato area last week to help lead one of southern Minnesota’s largest independent, physician-owned healthcare clinics. He was raised on his family’s dairy farm in rural Waldorf in Waseca County.

Janike was delivered by Dr. Mark Taylor, a Mankato Clinic obstetrician who has since retired, at Immanuel-St. Joseph’s Hospital in Mankato. Mayo Clinic Health System bought Immanuel-St. Joseph’s in March of 1996 and renamed the hospital In 2011, but Mankato clinic’s obstetricians still deliver babies there today.

As a child, Janike continued receiving care at Mankato Clinic from his pediatrician, Dr. Donald Putzier, who also is now retired.

Janike earned a bachelor’s degree in athletic training from Minnesota State University, Mankato in 2016. He then worked as an intern under current Mankato Clinic CEO Aaron Johnson. Janike went on to work at Twin Cities Orthopedics and then for seven years at Revo Health in the Twin Cities, where he most recently was the vice president of revenue cycle.

Even though he never strayed too far from his Mankato and his nearby hometown in his decade away, Janike said he didn’t think an opportunity to return to the area would ever come to be.

“I never thought I would have the opportunity to come back,” Janike told MPR News. “When this [position] became available, it’s pretty much a no-brainer, because now I get to help a community. I get to help a clinic that raised me. The opportunity to strengthen rural healthcare in the place that raised me is incredibly meaningful.”

Janike said he’s interested in serving patients in rural communities and making sure they’re able to receive vital medical care. He said he’s troubled by the growing number of rural hospitals that have been closing in recent years, and the dwindling number of physicians willing to come to work in these smaller communities.

It’s important to keep healthcare close to home and that it stays accessible, he added.

“I want to make sure that we’re in a position that we can be around for the next 110 years, and the 110 years after that,” Janike said. “We have a good opportunity to set the footing for that and ground level for that right now.”

Mankato Clinic CEO Johnson praised his former intern, saying in a news release that he’s excited to have Janike join the team.

“Over the years I’ve watched him earn the trust of the people around him, navigate complex challenges, and lead with a steady approach that puts relationships first,” Johnson said. “Bringing someone like Brandon back to southern Minnesota and to Mankato Clinic is incredibly meaningful for our organization, our staff, and the future of local healthcare in this region.”

It can be difficult for food pantries to offer fresh produce, which is more expensive to buy than canned goods. It’s a problem that Churches United, a Moorhead-based nonprofit that runs a local food pantry, has run into.

“Most food pantries run on donations, so, when you start looking at where you're going to spend your funds, obviously spending them on those processed foods, those shelf stable foods, your bang for your buck just goes farther,” Churches United CEO and Pastor Devlyn Brooks said.

Brooks added that when their pantry, named Dorothy Day Food Pantry, does get produce donations, it’s usually from big box stores that are donating food close to its expiration. In other cases, donations come from people who just grew the produce in their own garden.

Leadership at Grand Farm, a Fargo-based ag research center, heard about the pantry’s plight last Fall and decided to grow half an acre of sweet corn for the pantry. It used a plot of sweet corn it had available in its nearby Wheatland, N.D., campus.

“So this was a good opportunity for us to find a key partner that would put this nutritious sweet corn to good use,” Grand Farm ecosystem director Andrew Jason said.

The half-acre could yield anywhere from 7,000 to 10,000 ears of sweet corn. Brooks said the gift is well appreciated, especially as the group expects more people to use food pantry services this year.

“In May alone, we also distributed just under 50,000 pounds of food in one month, and that number already is looking to be trending higher in June,” Brooks said.

The corn will be ready for harvest in August. The harvested food will help feed the nearly 1,500 households the Dorothy Day Food Pantry serves each month, according to Brooks.

"We never get the opportunity to provide produce on that scale,” Brooks said. “This is an amazing gift."

The American job market continues to show surprising strength — good news for President Donald Trump who has taken a beating in the polls over the surging gasoline prices that followed U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran.

Employers added 172,000 jobs in May – roughly double what forecasters had expected – and the unemployment rate remained at a low 4.3 percent, the Labor Department reported Friday.

Job growth was down slightly last month from a revised 179,000 in April.

Hiring has bounced back this year from a miserable 2025, showing resilience in the face of economic uncertainty and painfully high energy prices since the Iran war started in late February.

The job gains are broad-based. Local governments added 55,000 workers, restaurants and bars 48,000, healthcare companies 35,000.

In another sign of job market strength, Labor Department revisions added a combined 93,000 jobs in March and April. Job growth averaged 188,000 a month from March through May, marking the best three months of hiring since early 2024.

“The hiring recession is over. American firms are hiring again,’’ said Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. "The job rebound is happening in almost every industry ... This is encouraging news for job seekers and for the U.S. economy. The labor market has stabilized and is showing early signs of a genuine rebound.’’

With just five months to go before consequential midterm elections in the U.S., Americans have grown increasingly frustrated by rising costs, and it’s unclear if the strong job numbers this year will change their gloomy view of the economy.

Inflation data last week showed that in addition to gasoline, prices for groceries, clothing and electricity are also on the rise, indicating that inflation may be growing more entrenched.

Polls show that Trump’s approval rating on the economy is falling sharply after being reelected largely on the promise of taming inflation.

And despite the pickup in hiring, wage gains were modest. Average hourly wages rose 0.3 percent from April and 3.4 percent from May 2025.

Many young people are still finding it tough to catch a break on a job, and workers who have been laid off have struggled to find another. Nearly 28 percent of the unemployed in April had been jobless for more than six months, the largest share since December 2021.

But the labor market is clearly improving. Last year, employers added just 9,700 jobs a month, the fewest outside of a recession since 2002. Hiring has rebounded, averaging 114,000 new jobs a month so far this year.

Friday's report "really is a positive surprise, particularly given the headwinds from the Iran conflict, which clearly led to much higher energy prices and which are going to act to slow economic activity to some degree,’’ said Ryan Nunn, research director at Yale University’s Budget Lab.

The economy, Nunn said, has been boosted by a surge in investment in artificial intelligence. Also helping are lower tariff rates since President Donald Trump has effectively lowered the massive import taxes he imposed last year – and the Supreme Court in February struck down his most sweeping levies, setting the stage for businesses to get back money they'd paid.

Big tax refunds — the product of Trump’s 2025 tax cuts — have given the economy a lift, offsetting the impact of higher energy prices. But the refunds have mostly been pocketed, and gasoline prices have remained above $4 per gallon since March.

U.S. financial markets retreated after the jobs data was released Friday. Healthy hiring has raised the odds that the Fed's next move will be an interest rate increase, a sharp change from the start of the year when central bank officials had still penciled in two rate cuts for 2026.

Wall Street now expects a rate hike in December, which would be sharply at odds with Trump’s repeated demands for a cut. An increase by the Fed could lead, over time, to higher borrowing costs for mortgages, auto loans, and business loans.

“Higher rates are coming, particularly when inflation is above target and clearly moving in the wrong direction,” said Dario Perkins, an economist at TS Lombard. “The only question is when.”

Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace, which operates 12 grocery stores across New York and New Jersey, is on a hiring spree. President Mike Nelson announced last fall that he wanted to add 1,000 workers over the next year, pushing the company's payroll over 3,500.

Nelson says his problem is finding skilled workers.

“We’re looking for a butcher who can cut meat in the store and engage with our customers and give them cooking ideas and speak to them about what makes the product special,” he said. “You don’t find that everywhere now.”

Like other grocery stores, Uncle Giuseppe’s has benefited as Americans cut back on dinners out as the cost of living marches higher. The company is marketing specials to lure inflation-scarred shoppers, like a $39.99 chicken Parmesan and pasta meal for a family of four that includes a loaf of bread and a salad.

Michael Wieder, the co-founder of the baby products maker Lalo, is also hiring a few new workers.

Wieder is feeling optimistic because he expects $2 million in tariff refunds after the trade policies of President Trump were shot down by the courts. He is planning to use that money for hiring, but gotten less than $50,000 back to date.

He has roughly 20 employees who work in marketing, operations, customer service and other areas for his New York company. He said he's looking for applicants that will embrace artificial intelligence. Lalo has already been using AI tools in areas like marketing and plans to launch an AI tool on Monday that helps parents potty train their children.

“We’re evaluating the type of people we hire in this rapidly changing environment,” he said.

Back in 2020, Kobi Gregory began making scented candles to cope with the stress of distance learning in high school. What started as a hobby quickly became a business with help from her mom, Tasha Harris.

Today, Kobi Co. has a downtown Minneapolis storefront, sells signature candles paired with curated playlists, and hosts popular candle-making workshops.

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with Kobi and Tasha about what it’s like to work together and how they spread self-care through their business.

Guests:

• Kobi Gregory is co-founder of Kobi Co., a candle and wellness company in downtown Minneapolis.

• Tasha Harris is co-founder of Kobi Co. and Kobi Gregory’s mother and business partner.

Do you know a Power Pair?

“Power Pairs” is a series featuring prominent Minnesotans in a close relationship. You may know of them separately but they reveal a new side of themselves when they sit down together. Listen to past interviews here and submit your idea for a future Power Pair here.

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.    

Set a ball down on one end of the Audubon fire station and it’ll start rolling. The sinking foundation will carry it past the firetrucks that barely squeeze into the garage doors. And it will pass the racks that are stuffed with firefighting gear because there’s nowhere else to put them.

Before long, the ball might hit the hall’s torn back walls, where insulation is poking out and officials say mold is spreading. But, most likely, the ball will be stopped in its tracks by the cracks in the garage floor.

The station was built in 1963, the same year the northwestern Minnesota town was incorporated. And the town has needed a new one for decades, said firefighter and former Chief Chris Wiedenmeyer.

“It doesn't meet any sort of standards for safety,” he said.

He’s particularly concerned about the diesel exhaust from the trucks.

Since the trucks are parked right in front of his firefighting gear, Wiedenmeyer’s worried about the carcinogens that latch onto his equipment every time the truck starts. In a modern fire station, the gear should be in a dedicated, ventilated storage area.

“It probably won't be long when cancer will pass as the number one leading cause of death for active firefighters, and a lot of these are being tied back to … what you're exposed to in your own fire hall,” he said.

Replacing the station would cost $3 million, a heavy lift for a town of less than 600 people. So the city council unanimously approved going forward with putting a 0.5 percent sales tax on the ballot. But first, they’d need approval from the Minnesota Legislature.

Unfortunately for Audubon, and more than 30 other local governments with similar plans for implementing new sales taxes, the tax bill passed by the Legislature did not approve any requests for sales taxes this year.

“I basically took it — when it failed again this time — that ‘nobody cares about you,’” Wiedenmeyer said. “‘You’re just taken for granted. You’re going to show up, you’re going to do that job, and we don’t care. We’re not going to support you.’ And that’s a real kick in the gut.”

What happened?

State Sen. Rob Kupec, DFL-Moorhead, introduced the proposal for an Audubon sales tax to the Senate’s Committee on Taxes.

“Some of these fire halls are just outdated, and there's lots of them across the state,” he said. “And instead of them coming and asking for a bonding request, they're looking for a way to fund it themselves.”

One advantage of implementing a sales tax, as opposed to increasing property taxes, is that it allows cities to earn money from people other than residents, such as visitors.

Kupec said the committee only approves requests if they have some sort of regional impact. For example, Audubon’s fire station serves multiple townships outside of city limits.

“Everything basically that came before us that met that criteria, the Senate tax committee OK’d,” he said.

The Senate committee’s version of the tax bill approved 37 local tax proposals, including Audubon’s. Other proposals included taxes to upgrade parks in Vergas, build a new judicial center in Waseca County and replace a Public Works facility in Robbinsdale.

The Minnesota House Taxes Committee also heard proposals, and co-chair Rep. Greg Davids, R-Preston, supported them.

“There are some very, very important ones,” he said. “The state of Minnesota wasn't able this year to give any more money to … cities. So I was of the opinion that, well, we can help these cities by allowing them a local option sales tax to build a fire hall, to build a community center, to build all the different things we looked at.”

But when it was time to finally pass a tax bill at the end of session, the House’s version hadn’t made it out of the committee. After the closed-door negotiations between the Senate and House settled, the omnibus tax bill passed without any approved sales taxes.

Davids wasn’t pleased.

“We put together a very good list of local option sales taxes,” he said. “They were vetted before the committee, and the Democrats in the Senate, the Republicans in the Senate and the Republicans in the House supported the local option sales taxes,” he said.

That leaves one group.

“At the end of the day, the Democrats in the House killed it,” Davids said. “You'd have to ask them why, because no one can figure it out.”

Rep. Aisha Gomez, DFL-Minneapolis, is the other co-chair of the House Tax Committee. She did not respond to MPR’s repeated requests for comment, but at an April hearing, she noted that sales taxes are considered regressive.

That means people with lower incomes pay a higher share of their earnings on the tax because they have less money to start with.

She also said funding public services through local sales taxes reinforces inequities between communities.

“Should only people who live with malls in their community or (a) big retail sales base have community centers? Have fire stations? Have the things in the bill?” Gomez said. “Or should we actually think about how it is that we equitably fund the basic public services that people need in a more thoughtful way?”

After Gomez finished her statement, Davids asked the testifying representative from Crosby, Minn., if the 2,000-person town had a mall, playing off of Gomez’s remark that only big towns with malls can raise money through a sales tax.

The representative from Crosby said no. No mall. But they still wanted a new sales tax to renovate a library, a community center, a park and the town’s city hall.

A long-running debate

Debates over local sales taxes are not new. Minnesota overhauled its tax system in the 1970s, when a series of laws dubbed the “Minnesota Miracle” reduced local taxes by providing more state school funding. It also created the modern Local Government Aid program.

“They put a prohibition in that cities could not enact other types of taxes, and then in the ‘90s this started to switch, where cities were coming to the legislature to get one-off authorization for special projects or different needs,” said Beth Johnston, lobbyist with the League of Minnesota Cities.

She said that’s when the framework was established that cities would have to get approval from the Legislature first before putting the idea before local voters. The process has changed a few times since, but the framework has largely stayed the same.

But the number of requests has been increasing. In 2023, lawmakers approved a record high of 32 new sales taxes.

“They also placed a moratorium on cities being able to come to the Legislature until this most recent legislative session,” Johnston said. “And in that meantime, there was a work group that came together to put recommendations for general authority for cities to collect sales taxes.”

Nothing came of those recommendations, so the two-year moratorium came and went without any changes.

Today, opinion is still split on what to do next. In her statement during the April hearing, Gomez said funding for public services should come out of a “statewide pot.”

By contrast, Kupec said the current system is a good one because it allows local governments to fund projects without costing the rest of the state, and local governments still need to win approval from their voters.

The League of Minnesota Cities wants to go further and give local governments more authority to fund certain capital projects themselves.

“The current process is definitely opaque,” Johnston said, “which (makes it) harder for cities to be able to plan and budget their capital needs.”

Davids would support the projects again next session but said success will probably depend on the result of this year’s elections.

“The Legislature will have a different makeup next year,” he said. “I'd say if the DFL is in control of the House under their current legislators, good luck.”

In Audubon's case, the city also isn’t sure what to do next. City officials said it will be prohibitively difficult to pay for a new fire station without a sales tax.

But Wiedenmeyer is pretty much over it. The fight for a new station is the main reason he stepped down as chief.

“It was a lot of time and a lot of extra work, meetings, township battles, funding battles, everything else,” he said. “All that extra stuff just kind of took a toll on me.”

Today, he’s still on the force as a volunteer firefighter, where he makes $15 a call. But the ongoing unaddressed health risks posed by the old station are weighing down his morale now, too.

“You come home, and you look at your family, and wonder, ‘Why keep doing it?’” he said. “When you get that thought in your head that nobody else cares, why should we keep doing it?”

A Twin Cities research and progressive policy group released new numbers estimating the cost of the federal government’s “Operation Metro Surge” earlier this year. An analysis by North Star Policy Action showed the state's leisure and hospitality sector lost more than 4,000 jobs and a loss of more than $70 million in wages during the first three months of the year.

For more about how the analysis reached those numbers, MPR News host Nina Moini talked with the organization’s research director Aaron Rosenthal.

Trung Pham of Pham’s Deli at the Midtown Global Market in south Minneapolis shared his experience as a business owner with Minnesota Now.

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

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

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

The Minnesota Star Tribune announced Tuesday that it plans to cut about 15 percent of its staff through buyouts and layoffs.

Publisher Steve Grove also said the Star Tribune is exploring a new ownership model — potentially placing the state’s largest news organization, a for-profit newsroom, under the ownership of a nonprofit foundation.

In a message to the Star Tribune’s staff, Grove called the planned job cuts a “very difficult” decision.

“The colleagues leaving us have dedicated years, and in some cases decades, to help build this institution. We’re deeply grateful for their contributions to the Minnesota Star Tribune and to journalism in Minnesota. We would not be where we are today without them,” Grove wrote. “We’re making this decision because it is necessary to position us for growth as a digital media company.

“The business model and organizational footprint that has sustained local news for generations is undergoing its biggest disruption ever. Because we are now a digital media company, our structure and size need to change to reflect that reality, and give us opportunities for more digital growth, which our future depends on,” Grove wrote.

The Star Tribune reported that it employs nearly 500 people, including close to 200 in the newsroom. Grove said the buyouts and layoffs will affect all parts of the company, including the newsroom — but will not include reporters, photographers or videographers.

The news comes just under a month after the Star Tribune staff won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting for their coverage of the mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church and School in south Minneapolis.

Late last year, the Star Tribune closed its printing facility in Minneapolis — outsourcing that work to a facility in Iowa, resulting in about 125 workers losing their jobs.

The Star Tribune Guild, the union representing newsroom employees, issued a statement saying it will fight the cuts announced Tuesday.

“The argument made by Star Tribune management that these layoffs are going to improve our company in any way, shape or form lacks any foundation in reality,” the union wrote. “This is a direct attack on the staff that just won a Pulitzer Prize for our work and has been widely praised — including by management — for its efforts.”

In addition to announcing the job cuts, Grove’s message to staff said Star Tribune leadership has been working with owner Glen Taylor “on a long-term plan for the stewardship of this organization.”

Taylor has owned the Star Tribune since 2014.

“The intention is to explore placing the Minnesota Star Tribune under foundation ownership, similar to other for-profit newsrooms owned by foundations, to expand opportunities for philanthropic donations to support the core business,” Grove wrote. “In the coming months, we’ll be working closely with Glen and our board on building that model that creates new ways for others to join Glen in his commitments to our future.”

Other for-profit news outlets that exist under nonprofit ownership include the Philadelphia Inquirer, Salt Lake Tribune and Tampa Bay Times.

Editor’s note: Star Tribune owner Glen Taylor is the father of Jean Taylor, president and CEO of American Public Media Group — the parent company of MPR News.

Press play above to listen to a conversation between MPR’s All Things Considered host Clay Masters, a journalism professor and a Star Tribune union representative about the layoffs and possible nonprofit move.

In January, money for a tax credit aimed at helping newer farmers ran out in one day. Around 300 farmers were turned away.

However, lawmakers decided to remove the cap on funds for the remainder of 2026, so those farmers and more will be eligible for thousands of dollars in tax credits.

Minnesota’s farmers are aging, and in order for the industry to stay healthy, the next generation of farmers needs to get in the game.

But farming is an expensive, capital-heavy business to get into, even for those who grew up on farms themselves. Land, in particular, is difficult for new farmers to access. Farming families hold on to tillable acres for generations and when land does go on the market, it's expensive.

In 2017, the Minnesota Legislature created the Beginning Farmer Tax Credit to incentivize established farmers to rent or sell equipment, livestock and land to beginning farmers. Beginning farmers are defined as the roughly 25 percent of Minnesota farmers who have been farming for 10 years or fewer.

“I have always tried to pitch it to landlords and people I'm buying land from,” said Zach VonRuden. He grows corn and soybeans and raises steers in southeastern Minnesota.

A younger farmer like VonRuden and an established farmer negotiate a deal, then they apply for the credit together. Then, the established farmer collects the tax credit: up to $7,000 for cash rentals, $10,000 for share rentals and $50,000 for sales.

The program also requires beginning farmers to work with a farm business management instructor and provides an educational tax credit of up to $1,500 for three years to help pay for that.

“I think it gives younger operators a little more opportunity to be a little more competitive in a very competitive land market,” VonRuden said.

His father raised dairy cows for years, but VonRuden and his wife, April, got their own start in farming in 2016. Then they teamed up with VonRuden’s father to raise steers a few years later.

In 2024 and 2025, about 450 asset owners claimed the credit, according to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture. Most applicants apply for the credit for leasing land.

“I love the program,” VonRuden said.

VonRuden used the tax credit twice to rent land in 2021 and 2022, and once to buy land in 2023. In negotiations with landowners, the tax credit was incentive enough for them to agree to multi-year rental agreements, VonRuden said.

“It's touching hundreds of folks throughout the state,” said Jenny Heck, who coordinates the program through the MDA. Heck said Minnesota is one of seven states with a similar program and was the first state to have a credit that incentivizes sales in addition to leases.

Fostering ‘farmer-to-farmer connections’

Heck said the program’s mission is to “get farmland into the hands of the next generation” and “foster farmer-to-farmer connections.” Heck said about half of the rentals and sales are between people who haven’t had a business relationship before, according to her department’s surveys.

The surveys also found about half of the asset owners will pass on their tax credit as a discount to the beginning farmer.

Alex Formo, a row crop farmer from Maynard in western Minnesota, has experienced that firsthand.

“It was definitely a good way to get my foot in the door with the landowners,” Formo said.

About five years ago, Formo reached out to two landowners to negotiate lease agreements. Formo said the tax credit was an “added bonus” for those landowners that has strengthened his relationships with them. Together, they’ve applied for and received the credit for several years.

“When you're helping the landowner, chances are they're going to probably help you also,” Formo said.

One of the landlords decided to share some of the credit money with Formo. The other did not, but Formo is still happy with the arrangement. “I get the opportunity to farm their land. That's what I'm in it for,” Formo said.

In 2023, the Legislature voted to expand eligibility for the program and lower the total amount of available funds from $6.5 to $4 million, though the tuition reimbursement wasn’t capped.

Those changes resulted in farmers being turned away from the program due to lack of funding for the first time. In 2024, about 40 percent of farmers who applied for the credit were turned away, and in 2025, it was more than 50 percent, according to the MDA.

Formo has been lucky; some farmers like him have continued to secure funding because repeat applicants and multi-year leases have been prioritized in the program.

But Megan Horsager, a crop farmer from Montevideo, has been turned away two years in a row.

“Every time, the funding has run out before we've got our application in,” Horsager said.

Horsager said she’s worried that next time her lease agreement is up for renewal, one of her neighbors could approach her landlord with a better offer. The credit could give her a leg up on the competition.

“With any landlord, there's always a chance of them renting it to someone else and not to you,” Horsager said.

What happens when funds run out

After clearing the program’s hurdles three times, VonRuden had also been striking out as of late.

“With funds running out, I've tried to apply earlier and earlier every single year,” VonRuden said.

This year, he applied Jan. 7. Even then, he was a week too late. The application opened Jan. 1 and funds ran out by the next day.

The land owners he worked with were ultimately understanding when the funds ran out, but VonRuden said they “weren’t happy.”

VonRuden isn’t the only young farmer to experience unintended negative consequences of the credit funding cap.

Mark Wehe is a farm business management instructor who works with many farmers who have utilized the Beginning Farmer Tax Credit and tuition reimbursement, including VonRuden.

Wehe said the credit can be a win-win for younger and older farmers. However, if the program isn’t fully funded, something meant to build a bridge between newer and established farmers can do the opposite.

When landlords hear they won’t be getting the credit after all, he said, “then all of sudden they try to charge the young farmer more. It just creates a contentious situation.”

Wehe said some of his colleagues have even been wary of promoting the credit to beginning farmers because of “negative ramifications to young farmers when the credit doesn't happen.”

“That tax credit can be the difference between being able to purchase a piece of land and not,” Horsager said. “It's really frustrating when a program that's out there (is) advertised as, ‘Look, we support young farmers,' but it isn't really working for most of the young and beginning farmers in the state.”

Farmer advocacy

Farmers have been at the state Capitol asking for the credit to be fully funded. Twenty organizations representing Minnesota farmers signed on to a letter to lawmakers that read, in part: “we write to express strong support for lifting the cap on total state funding available to the Beginning Farmer Tax Credit so that no new farmer is turned away from this nation-leading program.”

Ultimately, a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Sen. Aric Putnam, DFL-St. Cloud, successfully lifted the cap as part of a bipartisan tax deal that was signed into law May 27. But the law only lifts the cap for 2026, meaning advocates will likely be back at the Capitol again next year pushing to lift the cap permanently.

Still, the new law is a big deal for the hundreds of farmers who applied for the credit and were denied this year, including Zach VonRuden and Megan Horsager.

Horsager said she spoke with lawmakers about her experience being repeatedly denied for the credit.

“I think what I said actually sunk in and made a difference,” Horsager said. “This is one small step that I am certainly thankful for.”

This is the last year VonRuden and his wife count as beginning farmers, but he said he hopes the cap on funding gets removed permanently and more farmers can benefit from the credit.

“Look into the program, talk to your landlords, try and use it. It can be an advantage for someone that's looking at trying to get into a very competitive field.”

A company with operational headquarters in the Twin Cities is playing a key role in electrifying the international economy with data centers driving much of the business, the company’s executive says.

“You have to have our products. They're essential in this electrical infrastructure build-out,” Beth Wozniak, CEO of nVent, told MPR News senior economics contributor Chris Farrell Tuesday during a luncheon sponsored by the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management.

nVent provides electrical connection and protection system for data centers as well as liquid cooling systems. It’s focused on building a sustainable electrical infrastructure to run data centers and other operations that need lots of power, said Wozniak, who’s also the company’s board chair.

Beyond nVent’s products, Wozniak highlighted the human diversity inside the company. The board of directors has more women than men, which is rare among publicly traded companies. She said her leadership team is also very diverse.

“I think that boards and leadership teams are most effective when you have different backgrounds, different experiences and different industries.” she added. “I think the thing is for us is when you have a diverse company or you've got an inclusive culture, it just attracts more diversity.”

Click the audio player above to hear the full conversation.

General Mills is selling its Häagen-Dazs ice-cream shops in mainland China to an investor group that includes Chinese tea brand Ningji.

Minneapolis-based General Mills said in a statement late Monday that the deal will allow the buyers to exclusively sell the Häagen-Dazs brand in ice cream shops and gifting businesses across mainland China. General Mills will continue to sell Häagen-Dazs ice cream to Chinese retail and food service operations.

Financial terms of the deal weren't disclosed. The deal is expected to close by the end of this year.

General Mills didn't immediately respond Tuesday when asked how many Häagen-Dazs stores it has in China. In its latest annual report, General Mills said it operated 332 ice cream parlors worldwide.

Ningji operates around 3,000 retail tea outlets in China. It opened its chain of stores in 2021 and has received funding from ByteDance, the Beijing-headquartered creator of TikTok, and Shunwei Capital.

Yaling Jiang, an independent Chinese consumer analyst, said Häagen-Dazs has been charging premium prices in China “without delivering sufficient product value or cultural relevance.”

Its line of products — traditional ice cream with higher fat content — has “passed its peak" in China at a time when low-fat, airy gelato options are becoming more common, she said.

Foreign businesses have also been shifting ownership of their operations toward Chinese investors as Chinese consumer confidence has stagnated and economic growth has slowed.

Starbucks said in November that it would form a joint venture with Chinese private equity firm Boyu Capital in a deal worth about $4 billion that allows Boyu to hold up to a 60% stake in its operations in China.

In February, Toronto-based Restaurant Brands International — the parent of U.S. fast food chain Burger King — said it had formed a joint venture with Chinese investment firm CPE to operate and expand the Burger King restaurant chain in China.

CPE invested about $350 million into the joint venture under the deal terms, and owns approximately 83% of the business.

When Miyah Monk of Minneapolis was about 10 years old, the state removed her from the care of her mother and placed her in a foster home. The family provided for her basic needs, but Monk says they gave her little else, so during high school, she worked part time jobs so she could buy herself food and clothing. When she turned 18 and left the foster home, Monk was briefly unhoused until she could find her own place.

Monk, now 23, is trying to build a life for herself. She’s been working off and on and is planning to go back to school in the fall. She also wants to find better housing. She said something that really helped her as she transitioned out of foster care toward self sufficiency was the federal supplemental nutrition program, known as SNAP.

But she and many other young adults in Minnesota who have aged out of foster care lost their federal food assistance benefits on June 1 because of stricter work and education requirements that went into effect as part of what President Trump calls his “One Big Beautiful Bill” act. Now many young adults transitioning out of foster care may struggle to get enough to eat.

“[I’ve] got to find out how I’m gonna get food,” Monk told MPR News. “Where I’m gonna get the food? How much the food is gonna be, on top of just paying bills, still going to school, having to pay for stuff for school? I’m worried about how I’m going to eat, if SNAP is my only way of eating, I’m going to have to find resources for food. How [am I] going to get the resources for the food?”

Minnesotans between the ages of 18 and 24 who aged out of foster care face all kinds of challenges. Many are still struggling with the trauma of what led them into foster care in the first place, and now have difficulty finding safe and adequate housing, enrolling in school, or finding a good paying job. They earn an average of about $575 per month, which is only about a third of what most other people their age earn, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

SNAP was a big help, Monk said. But, she doesn’t meet the new federal work requirements and won’t meet the education requirement until school starts in the fall, so losing SNAP now is a huge setback for her.

“It will give me more challenges in life due to the fact that I’m trying to get in school, and trying to find housing,” she said. “SNAP getting taken away will cause a domino effect for me.”

Many young adults transitioning out of foster care didn’t even receive SNAP benefits. Some didn’t know they were eligible or couldn’t complete the complicated application process.

As a result, a 2024 research study found that 30 percent of these 18 to 24 year olds were already food insecure, according to the Center for the Study of Social Policy. Advocates are worried that number will likely soar now under the new, stricter eligibility rules that require recipients to work or be in school at least 20 hours a week.

Whitney Behle, community engagement manager for Foster Advocates, a Minnesota-based nonprofit seeking to improve the child welfare system, said there are not enough resources to help those who are transitioning out of foster care.

“SNAP isn’t just supporting groceries,” Behle said. “It is supporting the economic crisis that is being faced by many in our community, which is to afford every day living with the lack of supports that they even have in the first place, to engage in this transition to adulthood.”

And Behle said these new federal rules will likely set many former fosters up for failure as young adults, as the loss of SNAP food assistance perpetuates a cycle.

“You lose your grocery money, so now, am I deciding between housing stability and being unhoused?” Behle said. “Am I deciding between keeping gas in my car so I can make it to my job, so I can keep the only other income I have?”

The Minnesota Department of Children, Youth and Families told MPR News in an email statement that the federal legislation restricting SNAP benefits quote “is making it harder for people to get and keep food assistance, as the law expanded SNAP work requirements for youth aging out of foster care.”

But the agency said it did not have data on how many Minnesotans would be affected.

Foster Advocates and some Minnesota lawmakers had pushed for several bills during the just finished legislative session specifically aimed at better supporting foster youth, including those transitioning out of foster care.

Those bills ultimately stalled in committee and weren’t called for a vote before the session adjourned.

Miyah Monk said she’s worried about how these new SNAP work requirements will impact not just her, but other former foster youth.

“This is how we eat, and so to just take everyone off is, like, a lot," Monk said. “A lot of people are going to be in need. A lot of people are going to be hungry.”

Correction (June 2, 2026): An earlier version of this story misspelled Whitney Behle's last name. It has been corrected.

A hospital building in Rochester known for life-saving medical treatment is also home to some fierce airborne predators: Peregrine falcons who live in a rooftop nest, where four fluffy feathered chicks hatched just a few weeks ago.

To welcome the falcon hatchlings, hundreds of patients, staff and friends of the Mayo Clinic community gathered recently in Mayo’s Geffen Auditorium, where member of the peregrine falcon recovery team brought the four fledgling birds from their nesting box atop the Mayo building in downtown Rochester.

Members of the audience selected names for the three-week-old fluffy white chicks. The chicks were then inspected by biologists to make sure they’re in good health.

Biologists also attached small metal identification bands to their feet so Mayo’s falcon team can track them once they leave the nest.

At the end of the ceremony, the siblings — propped up side by side facing the crowd — received a round of applause with the announcement:

“This is your class of 2026: Belle, Vega, Zephyr and Mylo.”

For almost four decades, the Mayo Clinic has raised peregrine falcons. The world-renowned hospital was first approached by the Peregrine Falcon Recovery Program in the 1980s as a potential release site for young captively-raised birds. Mayo Clinic agreed and, within a few years, the birds had started to return to nest on the roof of the hospital.

The species had been nearly decimated due to widespread use of the pesticide DDT. The toxic chemicals built up in the bird’s bodies, impairing the ability of female falcons to lay healthy eggs. The eggs lacked calcium, making the egg shells too thin and weak for embryos to develop properly.

So few falcon eggs were able to survive until hatching that by the mid 1960s, “peregrines were completely gone east of the Rockies,” said Jackie Fallon, a naturalist and biologist with Mayo Clinic’s falcon program.

Recovery efforts began earnestly in the early 1970s, when an ornithology professor at Cornell University founded the Peregrine Fund, which began successfully breeding the falcons in captivity before releasing the birds of prey into the wild.

“We started releasing them in the early 70s out on the East Coast, and then here in the Midwest in the early 80s,” said Fallon. ”And by 1999, they were fully recovered at a population six to 10 times higher than it was before they even became endangered.”

Although the birds are no longer endangered, the peregrine falcon program at Mayo Clinic is widely beloved by staff, patients and the wider falcon-loving community. There is a 24-hour live web cam set up to watch parental falcons Hattie and Orton raise their young, and televisions all around Mayo Clinic’s campus broadcast the live stream for patients and staff.

Fallon said the video cam has drawn fans from across the world, including many in the United Kingdom and the Middle East. One video clip she posted of the falcons yelling at each other has nearly one million views.

Every time she’s on campus, Fallon said she hears from patients about how meaningful the program is. Some even schedule their appointments to align with the falcon's nesting period.

“A big part of it is, usually, if [a patient is] on campus, it can be a very challenging time,” Fallon said, “but watching the camera takes their mind off a test result, especially if they're long-term patients — waiting for a transplant or [have a] long recovery time. They will sit and watch that camera 24/7. We have patients I've met that come every year and take a redo photo with the live falcon I bring on campus.”

Hattie and Orton are the current resident falcons at the Mayo Clinic, having defended their territory in Rochester from competing falcons since 2016. The Mayo community watched Hattie lay four eggs this year via the live stream and watched the chicks hatch about five weeks later.

At this point, the fledglings are still too young to leave the nest, but in about three weeks, they’ll take their first flight. When old enough and strong enough, the four young falcons will leave the hospital’s rooftop and probably won’t return to Rochester, as falcons are known to migrate thousands of miles.

Economic growth in poorer countries may be the best way to protect biodiversity, according to a new study led by University of Minnesota researchers recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Cropland expansion is a major environmental issue, causing habitat loss and climate change. That’s part of the reason why debates about the environment and economic growth often pit the two against each other, said lead author Steve Polasky, environmental economist at the University of Minnesota.

“The standard line is if you make people richer, they’re just going to want to eat more, and they’re going to want to eat more meat, and that's going to be bad for nature,” Polasky said. “But there's a couple of other factors going on.”

The study examines global trends to project how much land will be used for crops in low-income countries under different potential futures. Researchers found that if these countries have accelerated economic development, global cropland demand may shrink

That’s because rising incomes are associated with reduced population growth and higher agricultural yields, meaning more food from less land. Researchers highlight that these trends have already been observed in other countries, such as the United States and China.

“As people become wealthier, we see this: people don't have as many children,” Polasky said. “And then there’s the supply-side: farmers, when they have more resources, and when they are in societies that have more resources, they do better, they increase their yields.”

Those two factors more than offset the change in tastes associated with higher incomes. Polasky said the result told the “hopeful story” that easing global poverty and helping the environment can happen at the same time without relying on diet changes.

“I've been to many workshops where they say we just need to change diets, and that's like one of the hardest things to do,” he said.

Potential paths to economic growth

Polasky and his team highlighted several policies that could help boost developing economies while reducing cropland demand, such as directing more money toward agricultural research in developing countries.

“Why have we seen such large yield increases in Iowa and Minnesota and the rest of the U.S.?” he said. “Part of that is that, historically, we've put a fair amount of money into research and development and into extension, so getting the advances and the better seeds out of university laboratories and into seed companies and to farmers.”

Freer trade could help developing economies, too, Polasky said. If crops are mostly produced in countries with the highest yields and exported to lower-yield countries, that could reduce global cropland requirements and biodiversity loss. But like trying to change diets, that might also be a hard sell in the United States given the Trump Administration's protectionist policies.

“This move towards higher tariffs, more tariff barriers, non-tariff barriers is a move that moves against that and reduces the ability of U.S. farmers to effectively feed the world and take pressure off of land expansion elsewhere,” Polasky said.

Tomatoes, ubiquitous in everything from fast-food burgers to haute cuisine, are taking on a new role beyond the plate: A nagging reminder of rising costs.

Prices for those red orbs have soared more than any other food product over the past year to cement a spot as one of the consumer headaches du jour.

“The tomato has become a symbol of something much deeper,” says Isaac Bernal Carbajo, a New York City chef who lamented life's “simplest pleasures” falling victim to price increases. “Something as basic as buying fresh vegetables is starting to become a serious financial decision for many families.”

Tomato prices are up about 40 percent over a year ago, according to the latest Consumer Price Index, dwarfing increases for other groceries, including coffee (up 18.5 percent), beef roasts (up 17.8 percent) and frozen fish and seafood (up 12 percent), among other products that have become symbols of America’s affordability squeeze.

A separate inflation gauge released Thursday showed that overall prices increased 3.8 percent in April from a year earlier, the highest reading in nearly three years.

Alongside crop yields, experts blame price increases for tomatoes, in part, on two pillars of President Donald Trump’s second-term policies: the Iran war and tariffs. The war spiked gas prices and increased shipping costs. Meantime, the U.S. withdrew from a deal allowing duty-free imports of tomatoes from Mexico, which grows most of America's supply.

Usha Haley, a Wichita State University economist, says it's “a perfect storm of trade policy, extreme weather and Mideast policy.”

American tomato farmers cheered the withdrawal from the tomato deal last July, saying it would help rebuild their shrinking industry. But for consumers, it's been painful. Though the U.S. withdrew from the Mexico tomato deal in July, it took time to see the impact in the produce aisle, with more imports in late winter and early spring.

When the tomatoes arrived, they were slapped with a 17 percent tariff.

“Tariffs are undeniably a big driver of the price inflation,” says Brett Massimino, a Virginia Commonwealth University business professor. “Because the U.S. relies on Mexico for the majority of its tomato supply, any changes in trade policy can have a large impact.”

U.S. tariffs collected on tomatoes ballooned from just $16,424 in 2024 to nearly $4.6 million, according to federal data, a staggering 27,879 percent increase.

As the cost trickles down, outraged shoppers have pulled out their phones in the produce aisle, shooting videos lamenting costs they said quadrupled, with some vowing to plant a garden to avoid prices of up to $8 a pound. But the impact has been most pronounced for businesses that rely on tomatoes as a key ingredient in their kitchens.

MarginEdge, which tracks prices for restaurants, says grape tomatoes have increased most — 65 percent in just a month — but prices have gone up across all types of tomatoes.

Phillip Coles, a professor of supply chain management at Lehigh University, says prices should drop later in the year when domestically grown tomatoes are harvested. Higher prices, he says, will also “induce farmers to increase planting to meet the demand, but this takes longer because of the lead time.”

Meantime, it's translating to a big hit for businesses like Snarf’s Sandwiches, which puts a tomato in nearly every sandwich it makes.

Wayne Humphrey, chief operating officer of Snarf’s, which operates dozens of stores in Colorado, Missouri and Texas, said cases of tomatoes went from costing him $27 to $93 in the space of a year, piled on top of rising expenses for other ingredients including bread and beef, as well as increased labor costs.

“That single ingredient now costs us more than $1.7 million in additional spend annually,” says Humphrey. “The math is getting harder to ignore.”

Australia is suing U.S. conglomerate 3M for more than 2 billion Australian dollars ($1.4 billion) over so-called “forever chemical” contamination from firefighting foam at defense bases, the government said on Thursday.

The government’s largest-ever claim for compensation relates to contamination with per- and polyfluoroaklyl substances, known as PFAS, at 28 bases. Human-made PFAS are commonly referred to as “forever chemicals” because they don't break down naturally.

Australia filed the suit in the Federal Court of Australia against Minnesota-based 3M Company and its subsidiary 3M Australia.

3M said it would fight Australia’s claim.

“3M has never manufactured PFAS in Australia and ceased sales of the products at issue in Australia around two decades ago,” 3M said in a statement. “Despite this, the (Australian) Department of Defense continued to use PFAS-containing firefighting foams for nearly two decades longer.”

PFAS has been used since the 1950s in household and industrial products that resist heat, stains, grease and water. The firefighting foam containing PFAS was effective against fuel fires.

The Australian Defense Department warned residents near its Richmond Air Base outside Sydney in 2018 to reduce their consumption of locally produced fish and eggs, after PFAS was found in nearby groundwater.

Attorney-General Michelle Rowland on Thursday accused 3M of withholding information about environmental risks the foam posed.

“The Commonwealth (of Australia) is seeking more than AU$2 billion ($1.4 billion) in damages to recover significant past and future expenses incurred in investigating and managing contamination resulting from the historic storage and use of this foam,” Rowland told reporters.

Assistant Defense Minister Peter Khalil said his department had already spent AU$1.3 billion ($920 million) on managing and mitigating environmental impacts of the foam. The department had removed 200,000 metric tons (220,000 U.S. tons) of contaminated earth from bases and treated 13 billion liters (3.4 billion gallons) of contaminated water, Khalil said.

“We are prepared to take on powerful corporations when Australians and Australian communities have been impacted,” Khalil said.

The craft beer industry is hurting.

Bauhaus Brew Labs, the decade-old brewery, will soon be the latest in a list of Minneapolis closures: HeadFlyer Brewing closed in April and Dangerous Man Brewing shut down in 2023.

“I want to cry,” said Jana Brom-Palkowski, a Bauhaus employee for most of its 12-year existence. She said the brewery’s closure is a dagger to the northeast Minneapolis neighborhood.

“We've been through a lot in this city and in this neighborhood, and people have continued to show up and support us for so many years,” she said. “How can we walk away looking at that is nothing less than really lucky.”

Smaller taprooms are feeling the light dim on craft beer’s golden age. For over a decade the news about breweries wasn’t last call — it was mostly bottoms up.

The 2010s were a boomtime for craft beer. Taprooms popped up across the country, injecting new life into forgotten places — old factories, warehouses and the like with large open spaces, exposed brick and metal beams. The remnants of the industrial Midwest that sat vacant for decades were once again packed with a new generation of people eager to sip on a crafted lager, hefeweizen or IPA.

So, what happened?

The Brewers Association, an industry group, says there were around 9,000 breweries across the country by 2020. More than 450 taprooms opened that year alone, compared to just 128 that closed.

By 2024, there were more taprooms closing than opening. In 2025, 219 taprooms closed compared to 151 that opened.

It was the worst year since the trade group started keeping track in 2018. Some of those closures included Invictus Brewing in Blaine, Schram Haus Brewery in Chaska and Foremost Brewing Cooperative in Owatonna.

Mike Rulf, the CEO of Dual Citizen Brewing Company in St. Paul, has taken notice of the closings.

Dual Citizen opened in 2018 — near the peak of the craft beer boom. Rulf says they're doing what they can to ward off financial headwinds. That includes crafting their own non-alcoholic beverages and THC drinks.

They also curate a welcoming environment for their Dual Citizen taproom with themed gatherings, game nights and fundraising with local nonprofits, Rulf said.

Each month, the brewery partners with a Minnesota nonprofit called Dual Purpose. The brewery will host events for a gathering of the community.

“This is what we're all about,” said Rulf. “We make it easy for people to get involved, and that's what keeps us going.

“People loved going to these taprooms and learning about beer,” Rulf said. “I still think people like to do that, but I think you have a shift in the culture of drinking that is changing.”

Rulf credited part of the shift to people making health conscious decisions by not drinking as much alcohol.

But there are also more options for those who continue to drink. The market has a plethora of alcoholic seltzers, THC drinks and mocktails.

In 2023, Dual Citizen built a separate brewing facility on the border of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The warehouse is used to can and distribute beer at a larger scale.

“Our biggest challenge is being able to sell beer profitably at scale in what is really shelf shrinking shelf space,” Rulf said.

He said Dual Citizen can produce about 2,000 barrels of beer a year out of the facility. That is miniscule compared to larger breweries with name recognition that can easily put out anywhere from 50,000 to 70,000 barrels.

Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild government and industry relations director Bob Galligan believes breweries are recovering from a multitude of events that was out of their control.

“I think there is an element of burnout that goes unrecognized,” Galligan said. “Obviously, the pandemic was was huge, but also the constant shift in trade policies, the constant shift in cost of goods. I do think that there are some owners who are just choosing to step away because running a small business has never been easy, but under these conditions it's unfair and nearly impossible.”

Galligan said he’s cautiously optimistic about the brewing industry, describing the slowing craft beer market as maturing or “hitting a cruising altitude.” Though he said Minnesota is grappling with a different set of circumstances.

Galligan feels the last three years has been difficult for craft brewers. Aside from regular market forces, Operation Metro Surge cratered outings at taprooms in the Twin Cities over the winter — as much as a 60 percent drop in business for some breweries.

“That's during January, which is already the slowest month of hospitality and beer,” Galligan said. “We can't find a way forward if we can't actually agree as to the fact that this has been impactful.”

Still, other factors are contributing to craft beer woes. In Washington, recent federal legislation threatens the future of THC drink production, which has been a lifeline for some brewers such as Dual Citizen.

A generational shift in drinking habits and views on consuming alcohol is already making breweries less relevant.

Overall, people are drinking less. That’s not lost on Galligan, who doesn’t put the blame solely on Gen Z. He sees the situation as a day-by-day learning experience and that Gen Z will drink what they want.

For now, the Bauhaus staff is aware that their time is running short. With weeks left until the brewery closes in June, Brom-Palkowski sees the laughs — and tears — while patrons share what they’re really losing while belly up to the bar.

“It's the end of an era,” Brom-Palkowski said as she looked out into the open-spaced taproom. “I will always have this family here and people that have really made a difference in my life through art and community.”

NPR has laid off 10 journalists, including some veteran reporters, in an attempt to save money and reorganize the newsroom.

It also is buying out at least 18 news staffers who voluntarily accepted offers to depart, according to three people with direct knowledge. (The people spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of speaking publicly about internal network matters.) The network intends to leave eight empty positions unfilled.

NPR Editor-in-Chief Thomas Evans expressed regret in a note to staff.

"Today has been incredibly heavy, and I want to acknowledge how difficult it is to say goodbye to our colleagues," Evans wrote.

He said the total reductions amounted to 4 percent of NPR's content division, which includes the newsroom and podcasts, and pledged that the network would maintain high standards. No staff of news programs or podcasts were affected.

The moves are part of NPR's effort to grapple with the economic consequences of Congress' vote last summer to eliminate federal subsidies for public media. While NPR relied directly on federal funds for about 1 percent of its budget, the cuts deeply hurt public radio stations who pay for the radio giant's programs like Morning Edition and All Things Considered.

NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher and Evans announced the cuts last week, describing them as targeted and necessary to save $8 million when the network anticipates a drop of $15 million in member station fees. Waves of layoffs have hit public radio and television stations across the country, along with PBS, since Congress clawed back the funding.

Yet in the past year, donors have stepped up to support public radio stations and NPR itself. NPR lodged two of the largest philanthropic contributions in its history this spring. A $33 million gift, contributed anonymously, partly went to help NPR cover $8 million in previously announced emergency relief to stations, the network says.

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

Some NPR News veterans accept buyouts

Among those accepting buyouts are veteran NPR journalists, including National Political Correspondent Don Gonyea, Managing Editor Vickie Walton-James and Investigations Correspondent Joe Shapiro. Each has confirmed their departures. The company is not disclosing the names of those who are leaving.

"Proud of my stories, their impact. Grateful for the best audience" Shapiro, who has been at the network since 2001, posted on Facebook. "Talented journalists will lose jobs. But fewer laid off, we're told, for each who takes buyout."

"People love science," NPR Science Correspondent Nell Greenfieldboyce, who was laid off Wednesday, says in an interview for this story. "It's such a break from the political and economic and often grim news to have something more inspiring and curiosity-driven. I thought it was a great blessing to have the opportunity to give that to people."

Greenfieldboyce has been reporting for NPR since 2005. She says she is philosophical about her own departure as the threat of layoffs has loomed over her three decades in journalism.

"NPR has a great science team. I hope they keep continuing that. And emphasizing that," Greenfieldboyce says. "They have a plan and I think Tommy [Evans] has got good instincts. He's obviously a good news person.

"That's the news business."

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

Copyright 2026, NPR

Xcel Energy customers will be paying more in gas rates this year, according to the independent nonprofit group Citizens Utility Board of Minnesota.

But it’s less than what the utility requested last September. Gas rates will rise by 4.9 percent. Xcel had requested an increase of 8.2 percent, or $63 million a year. Residential customers would see a lower increase of 4.1 percent.

The Public Utilities Commission must approve the settlement for it to become binding.

The board also said that it, along with Xcel, the Minnesota Department of Commerce, the Suburban Rate Authority and the Laborers’ union, have filed a settlement stipulation to resolve the case.

“Today’s settlement resolves all issues for the signatories,” the board said in a press release.

Attorney General Keith Ellison did not join the settlement and will continue to litigate the case.

If state regulators approve the settlement, customers who have been paying an interim rate increase of 6.8 percent since January will receive refunds with interest, the board said.

“While any increase in utility costs is going to be difficult for many people, this settlement is a fair outcome,” said Annie Levenson-Falk, executive director of the utility board. “If it’s approved, customer contributions to shareholder profits will go down and ratepayers will receive refunds.”

Once Xcel filed the petition requesting the increase last fall, that started a Public Utilities Commission proceeding to determine what rate increase would be justified. Public hearings were held around the state.

Consumer advocates say higher rates would hurt Minnesota customers already struggling to pay higher electric bills, along with rising prices for groceries, housing and other costs.

State regulators are expected to hear the case this fall. Members of the public who would like to weigh in may file a public comment by June 12 on the Public Utilities Commission website.

Xcel is Minnesota’s largest electric utility, with about 1.3 million electric customers in the state. It said it needs the increase to improve reliability of its electric system, add clean energy projects, invest in its nuclear plants and prepare for the expected surge in demand for electricity.

Conservation practices such as avoiding tilling and planting cover crops help preserve soil health. Healthy soil leads to healthy crops. But the required equipment can be prohibitively expensive for farmers.

To compensate, the Department of Agriculture’s Soil Health Financial Assistance Program offers grants that help cover the cost of equipment used for conservation practices. This year, the program has awarded nearly $4.7 million to farms and watersheds across the state.

The grant is highly competitive, according to Brad Jordahl Redlin, manager of the Ag Conservation Services section at the Department of Agriculture. The program has been available since 2023, and every year it runs out of funding quickly due to the number of applications, he said.

“We're trying to encourage good soil health management on farms,” Jordahl Redlin said. “Because of all the benefits [conservation practices] provide.”

Planting cover crops helps stabilize the surrounding soil, keeping it in place and preventing high-speed winds from blowing it away. Soil is a non-renewable resource, which means that once it’s gone, it’s gone for good.

Brent Louwagie experienced soil loss about four years ago when strong winds blew through his farm. The soil was tilled, making it loose and susceptible to the wind.

“So I thought, cover crops are supposed to prevent that,” Louwagie said. “I should give them a try and see if they work for me or not.”

They did, but it takes him a while to plant the cover crops because he doesn’t have specialized machinery to plant the cover crop seeds in one go.

He applied for the grant last year and was awarded $16,000 to help him buy a cover-crop seeder. Once he buys it, it should help him save time and money and plant cover crops earlier.

“Cover crops are outside of traditional cash crop practices, so if you're going to do extracurricular things for any reasons, any extra money you can get to soften that financial blow is a big deal,” Louwagie said. “I would still be doing or trying to do cover crops without it, but it would just make it a little bit more difficult.”

Minnesota experiences frequent extreme weather events, some of which put soil at risk.

“These really unpredictable conditions make it hard to manage and armor your soil,” Jordahl Redlin said. “To manage and armor your soil, you need those soil health and regenerative practices in place that the equipment provides for.”

The next grant application cycle opens in August and will stay open for about a month. Then, after review, awardees will be notified in January.

Advocates for nuclear energy achieved a victory at the end of the legislative session when state lawmakers approved funding to study the possibility of building new nuclear plants in Minnesota.

A coalition of utilities, counties, clean energy groups and labor unions pushed the Legislature to fund the study, hoping it will be the first step toward lifting the state's 32-year-old moratorium on new nuclear plants in the state.

They say Minnesota needs nuclear energy to provide reliable power amid growing demand and to meet a state goal of carbon-free electricity by 2040.

“We are operating in an environment where we want to have electricity available all the time under all conditions,” said Darrick Moe, CEO of the Minnesota Rural Electric Association. “And we want to be responsible stewards of doing that in a way that doesn't use carbon.”

The Legislature authorized $500,000 for the Minnesota Department of Commerce to contract with the nonprofit Great Plains Institute for the study. It must be completed by Jan. 30.

The study will examine costs, federal regulations, financial risks and environmental impacts of nuclear energy, including the issue of how to store or reprocess radioactive waste.

It also will look at technological advances for both conventional nuclear power plants as well as smaller, modular reactors that are in development across the U.S. And it will look at the impacts of new nuclear plants on the workforce and communities that might host them.

‘Catalyst for conversation’

Rep. Spencer Igo, R-Wabana Township, sponsored the bill in the House. He said he hopes the study can be a “trusted document” to address people’s questions and concerns about nuclear energy.

Igo noted that a study isn’t a guarantee that a nuclear plant will be built in Minnesota anytime soon. Even if the moratorium was lifted, it would take years or even decades for a new facility to get permitted and built.

But having a nuclear moratorium in 2026 “just feels incredibly antiquated” and puts Minnesota behind other states, Igo said.

“I’m hoping this study can be a catalyst for further conversation that leads us to lifting a moratorium next year, so that we can start investigating,” he said.

Utilities and industries might not decide to go down the path of nuclear, but they should have the opportunity to investigate, Igo said. But right now, “that’s illegal under state law,” he said.

Xcel Energy operates two nuclear plants in Minnesota, at Prairie Island and Monticello, both built in the 1970s. It plans to continue operating them for the next several decades.

The Legislature enacted a moratorium on new nuclear plants in 1994, as part of a compromise to allow Xcel Energy to store nuclear waste at its Prairie Island plant near Red Wing.

Growing interest

As utilities retire coal-fired power plants and shift toward more renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, interest in nuclear has been surging in recent years. Its supporters see it as a constant, low-carbon energy source that could help meet the anticipated surge in demand for electricity for data centers, EVs and manufacturing.

Several U.S. states have recently eased their bans on new nuclear plants. And the Trump administration has been pushing the development of new, experimental reactors around the U.S.

But nuclear energy comes with its own challenges, including high construction costs, safety concerns and the problem of storing radioactive nuclear waste.

Currently, there is no permanent storage site for spent nuclear fuel in the U.S., so it is stored on site at nuclear plants, including Prairie Island and Monticello.

This year’s bill had the support of the Prairie Island Indian Community, which lawmakers from both parties saw as essential.

Prairie Island’s reservation is just 700 yards from a nuclear plant owned by Xcel Energy. Xcel built the plant in the early 1970s without consent from the tribe, which has long objected to the storage of spent nuclear fuel at the site.

Igo said he worked extensively with Prairie Island to craft the bill, and the tribal council supported the final version.

On the last day of the Minnesota Legislature’s 2026 session, lawmakers voted to fund a data collection project to study the spiraling health insurance costs for Minnesota school districts – a first step in reforming the health insurance program for school district employees as a whole.

This spring, more than 40 legislators from both parties co-sponsored a bill to create a single, statewide insurance pool, which would be large enough to more cost-effectively absorb expensive claims and give them more bargaining power against insurance companies.

DFL Rep. Liz Reyer of Eagan, lead author of the bill, told MPR News last month that the plan was to push for the bill to create a health insurance pool during next year’s session, which is a budget year. This year, she said the focus was on passing a companion bill, which would allow legislators to collect data from every school district to assess how much the new plan would cost the state.

“We know that all school districts are offering different benefits, paying different amounts, with different contributions from employees, so the data from this will help us really understand how it's working,” Reyer explained, “and then we'll be able to design a program that holds harmless school districts, so they don't have to pay more themselves.”

Last week, Reyer passed that first threshold. She said she is thrilled.

“It’s a really important step to being able to move forward with launching this new program,” Reyer said. “We needed good data and this is going to give it to us.”

There’s urgency in the education field to reform how school districts access health insurance.

Waseca school counselor Brianna Lawrence, for example, who is expecting a baby, faces an increase in her premium of up to nearly 400 percent after she gives birth to her first child this summer and has to switch to a family plan. She and her husband both work for the district, so now they’re seriously considering having at least one of them leave education and find a different line of work.

“[My husband] is so good at his job as a band director, and I love what I do as a school counselor,” Lawrence told MPR News. “I don't want to change. I don't want to leave this district. They've embraced us. They love us, and we love them. It would be heart wrenching to make that decision to leave, but it no longer is just us wanting to stay that's not enough. We have to see some changes happen for us to be able to stay.”

Insurance costs have long been a problem for smaller, rural districts, because their smaller staff sizes give them less bargaining power in the marketplace. But, in recent years, school districts of all sizes are getting hit by huge health insurance price increases. MPR News reported last year that even Anoka-Hennepin Schools, the largest district in Minnesota, saw premiums go up 22 percent in 2025. Other districts saw even bigger spikes.

There are several reasons for the higher insurance costs, including inflation, an aging population with greater medical needs, and expensive new pharmaceuticals like GLP-1s.The current system, in which school districts individually negotiate plans with health insurers each year, can increase those costs even more.

When the pool of workers is small — like in a 200-person district — just a few serious accidents or illnesses in a year can significantly drive up premiums. The proposed Educator Group Insurance Program, known as the EGIP bill, would create a statewide health coverage plan — one huge health insurance pool for all public school employees, spreading out the insurance risk.

The plan is modeled off SEGIP — the state employee group insurance program that has covered legislators and state government workers for decades. Reyer explained that larger group health insurance plans tend to have significantly lower cost increases over time, because they have more negotiating power on behalf of thousands of employees across the state, and there’s more stability.

“When you have so many smaller to mid size groups, they're much more volatile,” Reyer explained. “Think about it: if you have a group of 20 people, and someone gets really sick or has an accident, that drives [insurance] upgrades for everybody. And it's very unpredictable. [But] when you combine everyone into a group of, say, 150,000 like EGIP would have, then you get stability, because now that just becomes a ripple, rather than something that changes the nature of the group.”

Reyer said data will begin to be collected for the study this summer, and a report should be available at the end of the calendar year, ahead of the next year’s legislative session. That’s when Reyer will push to pass the EGIP bill and make a statewide health insurance pool a reality.

The study will be repeated annually, so that the state has access to up-to-date information as to the costs of the program.

There was little else Eric Samuelson could do but stare at the clouds of dust plowing through his crop farm in Crookston earlier this month.

“Dirt from miles away was up in the air,” Samuelson said. “The visibility was poor; it was just an extreme weather event that really was unsettling.”

Samuelson is no stranger to the windy nature of the Red River Valley. The region, which includes the northwest corner of Minnesota and northeast North Dakota, is mostly flat.

It also doesn’t have many trees, which means there’s not much to slow the high-speed winds sweeping across the valley.

That’s an issue because it’s been a windy Spring, with wind speeds frequently clocking over 40 miles per hour. And on the week of May 11th, those wind gusts reached speeds close to 50 miles per hour on multiple days, according to Crookston weather data.

“When the dirt's blowing to that extreme.. It's just an eerie, sickening feeling in your stomach to watch,” Samuelson said.

Samuelson grows wheat, soybeans, sugar beets and edible beans. He’d recently planted some of those seeds, so seeing the wind blow as hard as it did made him worried some of those seeds had been swept away in the storm.

When the dust settled, he let out a sigh of relief when he saw there wasn’t much damage to his farm.

However, he says neighbors around him have had to replant some of the crop seeds that were gone with the wind.

And still, concerns remain about losing valuable nutrients in the soil that, once gone, are lost for good.

An essential, but fragile part of farming

The uppermost layer of soil, also called topsoil, is often the most productive for plant growth.

There’s a bunch of leftover organic matter, bacteria and other microorganisms from past plants that once grew there, all of which help plants retain water and provide them with vital nutrients for growth.

But it takes centuries for that topsoil to build up, and it’s also very vulnerable to wind.

“It's considered a non-renewable resource, just because it takes so long to build,” University of Minnesota Extension Educator Angie Peltier said. “And unfortunately, as we've seen, it can take next to no time to lose.”

The more topsoil that the land loses, the harder it is for the dirt to retain water for crops to use whenever rainfall is scarce, according to Peltier.

The Red River Valley had recently been quite dry, leaving the earth particularly vulnerable to the high-speed winds that blew through. Peltier said she’d been getting a lot of phone calls about lost soil, and it’ll be difficult to pinpoint how much was lost.

According to Peltier, Minnesota loses about 5.2 tons of topsoil per acre per year. Across the Midwest, topsoil erodes at a rate of about 1.9 millimeters per year.

There are ways, though, for farmers to prevent topsoil loss and protect their ground. Planting cover crops, for example, can serve as a buffer that breaks up the wind before it blows the dirt away. The crops’ roots also stabilize the soil, making it harder for the wind to take it away.

The Red River Valley had once been home to a huge glacier over 10,000 years ago, which then melted, giving way to a tall-grass prairie. Its fertile soil was great for farmers.

But the more wind events like this that occur on the land, Peltier said, the likelier it is for the land to become less productive.

“It was a shock when I first saw the sheer amount of wind erosion in the Red River Valley,” Peltier said. “But [the recent] soil storms were next level.”

The national average for a gallon of gasoline is $4.55, according to AAA; that's a four-year high, unwelcome news for drivers as the U.S. heads into one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.

AAA estimates a record 45 million Americans will travel this weekend, despite high prices for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

Gasoline prices have been elevated since the start of the war in Iran, and there's no sign of relief on the horizon. High prices are angering voters and straining household budgets.

In California, which has the highest gasoline prices in the nation, Gov. Gavin Newsom is openly feuding with the oil giant Chevron, discouraging Californians from filling up at its stations.

Chevron and the state have been in a tense relationship for years; Chevron moved its headquarters out of California in 2024 after complaining about state and local regulations, and is currently buying oil shipped through an offshore pipeline that California has attempted to keep shut down. In the latest salvos, Chevron has posted placards at California gas stations blaming state policies for the high prices, while Newsom's office is telling Californians they can get cheaper gas at unbranded stations.

But where does all this leave drivers? Despite high prices, most Americans are unwilling, or unable, to give up on driving. Americans have been logging more miles since the war with Iran started, according to the analytics company Arity, which tracks driving habits.

What can you do to cut costs? We asked the experts for ideas.

Drive smoothly. Pay less

The key to getting the most miles out of each gallon is driving efficiently. That means smooth acceleration, soft braking and slowing down.

Underinflated tires, heavy boxes in the back seat and an unused ski or luggage rack on the top of the vehicle can also make it less fuel efficient.

Some high-performance vehicles require premium gasoline. But if it's only recommended, you can skip it without damaging the car, according to Consumer Reports' deputy auto editor, Jonathan Linkov. "All cars, except the most esoteric supercars or older cars, can run fine on regular," said Linkov.

Are you considering going electric?

Data suggests that higher gasoline prices have many drivers at least thinking about giving up gas-powered cars altogether.

But the data on sales isn't so clear-cut. New-EV sales are still depressed following the abrupt end of a $7,500 federal consumer tax credit last fall. It's also tax refund season, which can push up car sales of all types, compared with the previous month. CarGurus reports that used-EV sales did seem to accelerate in the month of March, and Cox Automotive reports strong prices for used EVs at wholesale auction, noting that rising gas prices "may have positively influenced demand." On the other hand, data from the sites iSeeCars.com showed no appreciable shift in used-EV sales.

It's not surprising to see a rise in shoppers' interest before a rise in actual sales, especially for a purchase as significant as a vehicle. "What consumers are viewing on the site tends to be an earlier indicator than sales," says Kevin Roberts, the director of economic and market intelligence with CarGurus.

But analysts note that high gasoline prices do motivate shoppers to select for more fuel-efficient or entirely electric vehicles — if prices stay elevated for a long time.

An average driver can save $1,800 a year

The more you drive, the more you stand to save from switching to a battery-powered car, says Janelle London, the co-executive director of a nonprofit called Coltura, which advocates against gasoline. "Across the entire U.S., an average driver doing, say, 15,000 miles a year already is going to save $1,800 a year by switching to an electric car," London says. "But if you're talking about a big driver, somebody who does maybe 25,000 miles a year, they're going to be saving on average $3,000 a year by making the switch."

And as the cost of gas keeps rising, she says, "we're seeing the savings just skyrocket up."

Coltura has an online tool that car shoppers can use to estimate potential savings from going electric.

Those savings vary based not just on how much you drive but also on where you live, thanks to differences in the local prices of gasoline and electricity. Yale Climate Connections recently published a map comparing the price of charging with the price of gasoline, by looking at the cost of enough electricity to take you as far as 1 gallon goes in a similar gas car: In North Dakota, driving an EV is like paying less than a dollar a gallon, but in California it's more like $2.70 a gallon.

Or you can crunch your personal numbers more precisely by comparing the cost per mile using your own electricity rates, local gasoline prices and the efficiency of the gas and electric vehicles you're comparing. (The extremely lazy route? Multiply your home's cost per kilowatt-hour for electricity by 10. That's very roughly comparable to how many dollars per gallon you'd pay to fuel your car. The national average cost for home electricity is $0.17 right now, so, ballpark, that's like paying $1.70 for gasoline.)

Consider factors beyond gasoline

If you're thinking of switching to an EV to save money, there are other factors to weigh as well. Maintenance savings can also be substantial — electric vehicles need new tires and not much else. On the other hand, insurance can be pricey. You might also weigh nonfinancial factors, like how much you value the environmental benefits of an EV or the merits of a quiet ride.

Charging is also crucial. Can you charge at home, which is far more convenient and affordable than charging at stations? If so, will you need to install a dedicated, higher-speed charger, which comes with an installation cost, or can you get by with a standard outlet?

The more you drive and the larger your vehicle is, the more likely it is you'll need to add a charger. The Environmental Protection Agency has a calculator that can help with that decision.

Could you get by without driving at all?

Another option, of course, is to pursue alternatives to driving.

But data compiled by the app Transit shows that ridership was steady for most of March and actually dropped slightly in the week ending April 4.

That's no surprise, says Stephen Miller, the policy lead at Transit; the Easter holiday may have pulled ridership down, and gas prices have been elevated only for a few weeks. "Historically, people only make larger changes that show up as a significant shift from driving to public transit if the price of gas goes up — and stays up," he says. Year over year, transit ridership continues to increase overall, although it has yet to fully recover from the collapse in public transit use at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jerick White, who lives in Houston, bought his first e-bike in March. There were several reasons explaining why he switched from a car to two wheels, but saving on gasoline was one of them. Between the cost of the car, maintenance and gas, he says, "it just became too unbearable, unmanageable and expensive."

He hasn't calculated exactly how much money he's saving, but, he says, it's "a lot of money for sure." One important factor in his decision: White works from home now and lives close to a grocery store and other places where he needs to run errands. Biking around "is very, very reliable if you stay in a neighborhood and you work close by," he says.

If getting an EV makes the most sense for people with the longest commutes, trading out of a car entirely is for the other end of the spectrum: people who don't drive much or take a lot of short trips. Veo, the bike and scooter app, reports that its average trip length is 1.9 miles.

If it works for your lifestyle, White says, biking has benefits in addition to savings on gas. "I feel like a kid again when I'm riding it," he says. "It's very enjoyable." And: "Oh, my goodness, I can avoid the traffic."

Spend more on fuel by cutting more elsewhere

Finally, some folks are willing to spend more at the pump — but cut back elsewhere. High fuel prices were not enough to stop Julie and Vince Rossi from taking their first cross-country road trip in their new recreational vehicle. They sold their house to live in a 22,000-pound RV full time and went on their longest road trip yet, driving from Arizona to Virginia.

Diesel costs even more than gasoline — and its price has gone up faster since the war started — so to afford their now-doubled fuel budget, they're skipping the museums and amusement parks for free attractions. "If we want to continue on this lifestyle, we either look for the lowest prices or we need to cut spending somewhere else," Julie Rossi says.

A previous version of this story ran on April 7, 2026.

Copyright 2026, NPR

Minnesota gained 15,900 non-farm jobs between March and April on a seasonally adjusted basis. That marks the state’s largest over-the-month increase since March of 2024.

The 0.5 percent seasonally adjusted job growth between March and April outpaced the national growth rate of 0.1 percent.

The state's unemployment rate held even at 4.5 percent, while the national rate held at 4.3 percent.

Officials at the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) said that growth would usually be cause for celebration. However, they instead believe it's an “initial bounce back” from the economic impacts of federal immigration enforcement actions at the start of the year.

“So we are not popping champagne over what would normally be a pretty remarkable monthly jobs number,” said DEED Commissioner Matt Varilek.

The sector called Trade, transportation and utilities was among the top gainers. Leisure and hospitality also posted big gains. Both sectors had seen three consecutive months of declines at the start of the year and were particularly affected by federal immigration enforcement actions, according to DEED officials.

Information, education and health service super sectors, though, had small declines.

Labor force participation in the state also fell slightly to 67.4 percent over the month. That marks the fourth month in a row that the state labor force participation rate has dropped. The metric is important because it can be a signal of economic vitality.

Minnesota’s labor force participation rate remains higher than the national participation rate, which dropped by 0.1 percentage point to 61.8 percent last month.

It’ll take time to understand why the labor force is still declining despite recent job growth, DEED officials said. But they suggested it may reflect national trends of an aging workforce and declining immigration.

Varilek noted that the declining effects of immigration might be especially pronounced in Minnesota, given that immigration enforcement agencies have targeted the state.

“One would also expect that there probably are again some Metro Surge impacts if folks may have even left the state or remain just out of the labor market within the state,” Varilek said.

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

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

MPR News guest host Catharine Richert talks about what more expensive housing means for renters and buyers across Minnesota — and what policymakers, builders and communities can do to make housing more affordable.

Guest:

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

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