Dangerously hot conditions swamped much of Minnesota on Monday, with authorities urging people to take precautions to stay safe amid the sweltering weather.

While some Minnesotans stayed inside air-conditioned homes or offices, others headed for pools, splash pads and beaches.

At a wading pool in a north Minneapolis park, Jene Jones watched her son and younger brother splash in the water.

“They’ve been dying to get out here to the pool,” Jones said. “We’re finally out here.”

Others looked for relief in smaller ways: ice cream, shade, water bottles and short breaks from the sun. But officials warned that the heat was dangerous, especially for people without reliable access to air conditioning.

The volatile mix of heat and humidity also helped fuel severe storms across the northern half of the state, with reports of funnel clouds, large hail and damaging winds.

An extreme heat warning was in place through late Monday night for the Twin Cities, St. Cloud, Hinckley, Willmar and Mankato — and until Tuesday night for Rochester and Winona. Temperatures were forecast to reach the 90s — with heat index readings above 100 degrees.

Heat advisories covered much of the rest of central and southern Minnesota.

Rachel Sayre, emergency management director for the city of Minneapolis, said her team was prepared for the dangerous heat, and monitoring for where help might be needed.

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She said people need to take the extreme heat seriously and adjust their plans to stay safe.

“One, really try to limit your activity to morning and evening hours,” she said. “Two, drink way more fluids — and when I say fluids, I mean water, not caffeine, not alcohol — than you think you need. Wear sunscreen, a wide-brimmed hat, take a lot of breaks.”

Hennepin County and Ramsey County both have maps online showing cooling centers available to the public.

The Salvation Army in the Twin Cities said it was opening its seven Twin Cities service centers as cooling centers during the heat wave.

Hennepin and Ramsey counties had online maps showing cooling centers available to the public. In downtown St. Paul, the Dorothy Day Center offered cold water, showers, food and a cool indoor space for people feeling the effects of the heat.

Elizabeth Hager, with Catholic Charities, which runs the shelter, said the center expected to serve hundreds of people.

“The number we’re expecting is likely probably around 600 folks due to the heat,” Hager said. “It's really making sure that folks can come here and get what they need.”

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For people experiencing homelessness, Warren Kettner said places like Dorothy Day are essential during extreme weather.

“It can be very unpredictable,” Kettner said. “Without these places, it would be hard for people to have a clean space, clean body.”

Officials also urged people to check on friends, family and neighbors — especially the elderly — and to make sure pets have a cool place to stay.

Even in the heat, some outdoor work continued. Landscaper Pedro Rivera said that as a native of El Salvador, he was used to temperatures in the 90s, but planned to stop working by midafternoon.

Severe storms

Tornado sirens sounded Monday in parts of central and northern Minnesota, as a line of destructive storms swept across the region.

There were no immediate confirmed reports of tornado touchdowns in Minnesota. But the storms produced wind gusts of 75 mph and dropped half-dollar-size hail at Wadena just after 11 a.m. There were also reports of wind gusts of 60 mph or greater near Foxhome, Tenney and Federal Dam.

As of early afternoon, several thousand homes and businesses were without power across the state.

That same complex of storms produced winds in excess of 100 mph — including reported gusts of 131 mph — as they raced across South Dakota earlier in the morning.

Find more forecast details on MPR Weather’s Updraft blog.

Just before the Twin Cities Pride Parade on Sunday, a small group of city council members and community leaders gathered at Minneapolis City Hall as Mayor Jacob Frey signed the ordinances to repeal the adult bathhouse ban.

“Minneapolis stands with our LGBTQIA+ neighbors — we always will,” Frey wrote on social media about the signing. “That’s why I’m proud to have stood with members of the City Council and community advocates to sign the Bathhouse Repeal Ordinance and Pride in Policy package into law.”

Last week, the city council voted 9-2 (with one abstaining and one absent) to repeal the ban on adult bathhouses and sex venues. Adult bathhouses are community spaces that were historically frequented by gay men in the 1970s and ‘80s where people could engage in sexual activity or relax after going out to bars. They were banned in Minneapolis in 1988 during the AIDS epidemic.

The city initially invited advocates to meet outside 315 1st Avenue North, the former home of the last adult bathhouse in Minneapolis, which was known as the Locker Room Baths and later the 315 Health Club. However, the signing was moved inside due to rain.

Council members Jason Chavez and Elliott Payne made remarks, along with Kat Rohn, the executive director of OutFront Minnesota.

Dylan Boyer, a member of the steering committee for the Safer Sex Spaces Coalition and the development director of the Aliveness Project, told MPR News the bill signing was a “huge day,” and he feels grateful for the support of the city.

“Now the real work begins taking the necessary steps to build a bathhouse,” Boyer said. “I’m looking forward to working alongside the council and mayor's office to ensure public health funding and strategies are a foundational pillar of future bathhouses in Minneapolis.”

Karri Joe Plowman, the founder of Twin Cities Leather who worked on getting the bathhouse ban repealed in 2017, said the vote signals progress, but there’s still a way to go.

“I started working on this issue because I was worried about my queer community's safety. This is a great first step toward making that happen,” he said.

The next step is the council working with staff for zoning, planning and regulation components to create a framework for an adult bathhouse. Any proposed ordinances to establish a framework for licensing adult bathhouses would again go in front of the council for feedback, public hearings and votes.

But for now, those in favor plan to take some time to celebrate and honor their work.

Plowman’s shop in the Uptown neighborhood of Minneapolis kicked off Pride weekend with an announcement they were selling shirts to celebrate the ban being lifted by using archival photos and advertisements from the baths. The shirts are screen printed by Andy Furness, a local graphic designer.

An employee at an adult foster care home in central Minnesota is dead and another man is in custody after a stabbing last weekend.

Shortly after 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Cold Spring-Richmond police were called to a report of an assault in the 400 block of Eighth Avenue North in Cold Spring, southwest of St. Cloud.

The stabbing occurred at St. Luke's Home, a residential group home for adults with developmental disabilities. It’s operated by Catholic Charities of the Diocese of St. Cloud.

When officers arrived, they found a man suffering from a stab wound. Law enforcement and medical personnel attempted life-saving measures, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.

In a statement, Catholic Charities President and CEO Aaron Fisk said, "We are deeply saddened by the tragic incident that resulted in the loss of life of an employee” at the home.

Fisk said Catholic Charities is cooperating with law enforcement and regulatory authorities as they investigate. The employee’s name has not been released.

Police arrested a 33-year-old man at the home. He's being held in the Stearns County Jail. MPR News typically does not identify suspects until they are charged with a crime.

As rural areas across Minnesota grapple with the loss of key medical services and increasing hospital consolidation, one community is fighting back. The city of Fosston in northwestern Minnesota, about 45 miles northwest of Bemidji, wants to hold Essentia Health, the hospital system that took over operations of its local hospital nearly 20 years ago accountable, alleging it has failed to meet the community’s health care needs in violation of its affiliation agreement.

Last week, a Polk County judge ruled in favor of Fosston, allowing the city to take its fight to terminate the local hospital’s affiliation agreement with Duluth-based Essentia to arbitration. Essentia entered into that agreement in 2009, when it took over management and operations of the hospital.

Michelle Landsverk, Fosston’s economic development director, said that the city, which entered into the affiliation agreement alongside the hospital and Essentia, argues that care has deteriorated since Essentia took over, and is seeking to return the nonprofit hospital to local control. The city said that would better serve the city of 1,500 residents and the broader community of about 26,000 people who live within 30 miles of the hospital.

“Fosston is like the little engine that could,” said Landsverk. “It's always been a town that has figured things out, and it's not shy about taking a bit of risk for the greater good, and I think here the greater good is tremendous.”

“If you were going to pick a hill to die on, this is one that really counts.”

Fosston and Essentia have been engaged in a dispute for years over the hospital’s operations and the level of care it provides the community. The conflict reached a tipping point in 2024, when the city first tried to terminate the relationship after Essentia shuttered labor and delivery services in Fosston and diverted labor and delivery to another of its hospitals about an hour away in Detroit Lakes, or its facility even further away in Fargo, N.D. While the city’s first attempt failed, it now alleges that core medical services have worsened even more and is trying to terminate the agreement again.

Katy Kozhimannil, a University of Minnesota public health professor, said that this is a case to pay attention to as it is part of a growing trend of small, rural communities standing up for themselves.

“Rural towns across the country are looking at [how] larger entities, be that hospital systems or AI companies that are building data centers, are engaging with local leaders and with local lands and resources,” Kozhimannil said. “And I think that's a really positive thing…Fosston is really showing us the strengths of collective community voices around issues that are important to them.”

Kozhimannil has been aware of the Fosston case for years. She says community members reached out to her in 2024 to learn more about her rural maternity care research as they sought to prevent the closure of labor and delivery services.

Kozhimannil said rural closures like this can have dangerous implications. Her research shows that pregnant people have worse health outcomes when they have to travel farther distances.

“I know the drive between Fosston and Detroit Lakes,” Kozhimannil said. “It’s a long one to take for people that are in labor or going to give birth.”

The same year that Essentia shuttered services in Fosston, Mayo Clinic Health Systems closed clinics that offered obstetric services in Fairmont and New Prague. An MPR News analysis of new data from the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center found that, as of 2024, 700,000 Minnesotans lived in counties without hospital-based obstetrics services.

The reason for the closures tends to come down to finances. Labor and delivery units require expensive 24/7 staffing, because babies can come anytime of day or night. But the birth rate in rural areas is declining and these hospitals are delivering fewer births, so the units rarely pay for themselves. In fact, many lose money. Rural hospitals also treat a greater proportion of patients on Medicaid, which pays much less for labor and delivery services than private health insurance plans pay.

It also has become much more difficult in recent years for rural hospitals to hire medical professionals, including doctors and nurses who are ob/gyn specialists, to work in small towns.

Kozhimannil said she’s not surprised that there was an uproar in Fosston. And, unlike the typical rural hospital takeover, the city of Fosston has a vested interest in the hospital. The agreement that Essentia entered into along with the hospital and the city includes a provision allowing the city the right to terminate Essentia’s partnership if certain core medical services are discontinued.

But Essentia Health disagrees that the city can terminate the agreement at will and stressed that it has continued to make investments in the Fosston facility in recent years. In April, it broke ground on a $12 million emergency department expansion.

“By continuing to prolong this legal process, city leaders are misrepresenting the basic facts of the agreement and spending limited public resources along the way,” an Essentia Health spokesperson wrote in a statement to MPR News. “While Essentia evaluates its legal options, we will remain focused on strengthening local healthcare, supporting our staff and delivering exceptional care to the patients we have the honor to serve.”

According to court documents submitted by the city, core medical services continued to decline after the obstetrics diversion.

The city alleges that the facilities are chronically understaffed and that physicians and other medical professionals “do not want to work under Essentia’s leadership in Fosston,” and are leaving to seek employment elsewhere. Fosston also accuses Essentia Health of restricting ambulance services, leading to a number of dangerous incidents including an instance in 2024 when a woman with a serious head wound was forced to wait 29 minutes for an ambulance to arrive. When the ambulance did arrive it was from a nearby town, not from the Essentia-run facility less than a mile away.

Landsverk said that while she can’t comment on the specifics of the case, the changes should be obvious even to the casual observer.

“I've been a resident of the Fosston area for 37 years, and the hospital and clinic campus have always been a thriving hub of activity,” Landsverk said. “However, over the last seven to eight years – and drastically over the last five or six years – it's obvious that there's a decline. It used to be if I went to the clinic, I could hardly find a parking spot. Now it's bare. It's a sign, I think, of what's happening inside.”

It’s unclear when arbitration will take place, but Landsverk said it will likely be in late 2026 or in 2027.

Landsverk stressed that they’re not pushing this case to have the city operate healthcare.

“We just want the people who live in this area to have access to high-quality care close to home,” Landsverk said. “I'm really thankful that we have a local group of leaders and stakeholders that care enough to stick their necks out and say this isn't right.”

Kozhimannil said the results of the case could be significant and have implications beyond the Fosston area. While the agreement with Essentia seems to be fairly unique, she says it could help neighboring communities think through similar partnership models to ensure residents’ health needs are getting met.

“I think this court case may help us understand if that's something that carries legal weight, and if it's something that could be a model to be built on,” Kozhimannil said.

Correction (June, 29, 2026): This story has been updated to clarify that Essentia ended labor and delivery services at the Fosston hospital, but not all obstetrics care; and that patients going into labor are diverted to Essentia's facility in Fargo, not Grand Forks, as an earlier version of this story reported.

Dangerous heat is expected to blanket much of the Upper Midwest Monday afternoon, with heat index values climbing as high as 110 degrees. Extreme heat warnings and heat advisories are in effect as one of the hottest days of the summer arrives.

Dangerous heat arrives Monday

Monday will be the hottest and most dangerous day of the week as dangerous heat and oppressive humidity settle into the region. Extreme heat warnings and heat advisories are in effect for much of the area, and anyone spending time outdoors should take precautions.

Monday morning dew points in the 70s point to a steamy afternoon ahead.

Afternoon temperatures will climb into the low and middle 90s under plenty of sunshine, but the bigger story will be the humidity.

Dew points in the middle to upper 70s will combine with the heat to produce heat index values between 100 and 110 degrees Monday afternoon and early evening. These conditions can quickly lead to heat exhaustion or heat stroke if proper precautions are not taken.

Adding to the concern will be the lack of cooling in our overnight temperatures, only further raising the heat stress on our bodies.

The atmosphere will also become extremely unstable during the afternoon as the intense heat and humidity build.

A strong cap in the atmosphere should prevent thunderstorms from developing through much of the day, but that cap begins to weaken later Monday evening as a cold front approaches from the west.

Thunderstorm chances remain relatively low, around 20 to 30 percent, but if storms are able to develop, they could quickly become severe. Damaging winds would be the primary threat, although torrential rainfall and frequent lightning are also possible.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center, there is a slight severe weather risk from the for a majority of the state, and an enhanced risk for the Moorhead and Detroit Lakes area.

While Monday's heat will be the peak of this stretch, the hot and humid pattern is expected to continue through much of the week.

High temperatures will remain well above normal and afternoon heat index values will continue to reach the 90s with some locations approaching 100 degrees. Periodic chances for thunderstorms will also continue as weak disturbances move through the Upper Midwest.

The bottom line is simple: Today is a day to respect the heat. Limit time outdoors during the hottest part of the afternoon, stay hydrated, and have multiple ways to receive weather alerts if thunderstorms develop later Monday night.

Nestled among the pine trees along a stretch of Big Lake Road sits a tiny blue building. If the signs are out on the roadside, the coffee kiosk is open for business.

Jackson Ripley and his family opened the shop MiigWitches Brew in 2024, fulfilling a dream that began years earlier when the COVID-19 pandemic was in full effect. His spouse, Lyz Jaakola, found the kiosk for sale online in 2020, fully equipped as a coffee shop.

“ We had been doing nothing but drinking coffee, being at home, and I'd slowly start getting into more, different variations of coffee with using a mocha pot, thinking about espresso,” Ripley said. “And so I said, ‘Yeah, let's try it.’”

Ripley, 55, wanted to bring quality coffee to his community on the Fond du Lac Reservation in northeastern Minnesota. He and his family’s business have found success while prioritizing community over profits.

“That was kind of like our business mindset is that we would just serve the community and hopefully we’d make a little bit of money.”

‘Close to family, to friends, to culture’

As vehicles make their way down the drive, Ripley often recognizes the car or work truck and is already making the drink by the time the customer pulls up to the window.

Before the kiosk opened, customers living and working in the reservation community would need to press on a few more miles to the neighboring city of Cloquet.

The flagship coffee shop sits on Ripley’s family property on the reservation, about a mile from the tribal community center. His spouse is a tribal citizen of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. Ripley is from the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation in North Dakota.

They’ve raised their family at Fond du Lac. Ripley’s in-laws, who are elders, live with them. His kids work with him at the shop and he can pop out from time to time to address his in-laws' needs.

“I feel like it's important for Native people to give back, or to be there for their families,” he said.

Proximity to family was a motivator in choosing a location for the business. And that’s not rare.

In a survey of 400 Native entrepreneurs, respondents said some of the perceived advantages to opening on tribal lands were financial benefits, familiarity with the location and being “close to family, to friends, to culture,” said Casey Lozar, director of the Center for Indian Country Development at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

‘The heart is always in it’

Miigwech means “thank you” in the Ojibwe language. Ripley credits Jaakola, 57, with the shop's clever name. Combining coffee, language and magic, the name became MiigWitches Brew. The logo is a cauldron with Ojibwe florals.

MiigWitches Brew is expanding. A year and a half after opening the kiosk, the family added another location 10 miles away at the Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College.

Jezlyn Abramowski expertly chats with customers while crafting coffee orders in a space that once served concessions during sporting events.

Abramowski, a Fond du Lac Band member, works as a barista while taking a leave of absence from her university studies. She said she needed time to address her mental health and that MiigWitches Brew is the right place for that.

“I feel like the heart is always in it, and you’re always serving your community, your people,” Abramowski said. “Especially up here on the rez, I feel like it's become a really essential part of our community to have MiigWitches Brew.”

Abramowski finds comfort in working at a business that supports her values and makes space for cultural ceremonies and events.

“Working for an Ojibwe business has been extremely healing for me as an Anishinaabekwe living in the world that we're living in right now.”

Perks that matter

The circle of support also extends to other local small businesses. Ripley sources his coffee beans from a roaster on the North Shore, and he gets his treat supply from a nearby Indigenous baker. For MiigWitches Brew’s signature drink, the maple latte, he gets maple syrup from a local Native farm.

“What we see from our Native entrepreneurs is, really, we prioritize supporting each other over making an outrageous profit,” said Andrea Reese, CEO of the Mni Sota Fund. The Mni Sota Fund is a Native community development financial institution that supports entrepreneurs through business loans and workshops.

“We’re just really rooted in values and culture, so that support of and for our community is really prioritized over anything else.”

Amid the sounds of steaming milk, vehicles pulling up to the kiosk window, and laughter with customers, Ripley has found a rhythm. There are hints that there may be even more opportunities to enjoy MiigWitches Brew in the near future via a mobile coffee shop.

He says he may not be the main breadwinner in his family, but he gets to bring good coffee to his community and he’s present for their kids. And for Ripley, those are the perks that matter.

This story comes from the Upper Midwest Newsroom, a public media collaboration between Wisconsin Public Radio, South Dakota Public Broadcasting, Prairie Public in North Dakota, and Minnesota Public Radio News made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame Saturday.

Reeve was named the Lynx coach in 2009. Since then, she's won four championships and four WNBA coach of the year awards, coached the U.S. women's basketball team to three Olympic gold medals and had six of her players inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame.

MPR News digital producer Anika Besst spoke with Reeve in Knoxville before the induction about what has led her to this honor.

The following was edited for length and clarity. 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.

1) Players love her

CHERYL REEVE: I'm not sitting here, you know, I’m not going to be standing there on the stage tomorrow night without so, so many great players that poured into wanting to be great, right?

As you’re hearing from them, they didn’t necessarily have a choice, you know, like we were going to drive them because we saw greatness in them. And you know, for me, you know, I just feel incredibly blessed, you know, the type of people, and their belief in me to allow me to be myself, that's always been like super important, and yeah.

2) Two coaches drove her early: Coach Bunting and Coach William “Speedy” Morris

ANIKA BESST: Speedy had a quote, he said he “will never not be proud of you.” Can you talk about what that means to you?

CHERYL REEVE: You’re going to make me cry. Oh my goodness, like that’s a man that I think about my career path, he coached me my first two years of college. He was so hard on me, but he was like my dad, and I liked, I was motivated by him.

He was funny, you know, he played pranks on me, and he was just, he was an incredible coach. And so much of, I think, who I am as a coach, you know, that came from that base that he taught us, and you know, incredible, incredible college career that was started off by, you know, two great years with him. It makes me, I mean, I feel proud that he's so proud, and that's all we want to do.

ANIKA BESST: I asked both of them if they take any credit for your coaching. Both told me they take no credit.

CHERYL REEVE: Well, Dawn, and I'll talk about them tomorrow. So, so, yeah, I needed people like Dawn. You don't know that until you're later, until you're older. I needed people like Dawn, who was a badass woman who, competitive as all get out, and she drove us to be great. She showed me what it looked like to be a coach that drove people, you know, to be great, and that was special.

3) She almost chose softball over hoops

ANIKA BESST: The only thing Coach Bunting does take credit for is telling you to not pursue softball.

CHERYL REEVE: It's a great story. I remember we were sitting on the back steps outside the high school gym, and you know, we were doing the scholarship letter thing, and I was really into softball, and what she told me was, you’re better at softball, but basketball has more opportunity, scholarship opportunities, etc. That's what just was the reality at that time, and she was right, and I listened to her.

So I get credit for listening, she gets credit for telling? No, I’ve been blessed. I mean, anytime anybody goes through their career and has a career that I was fortunate to have, there are so many influences along the way that led to this, and Dawn and Speedy were absolutely massive parts of my career, my journey.

4) Her family is her center

ANIKA BESST: How about a massive part of your personal life and your career? Your wife, Carley. I think something that’s really unique is that both of you have created a space that allows for social change and for your players to be themselves. Can you talk about what that’s meant to you?

CHERYL REEVE: I mean, that’s one of the most special things about the relationships about the we have with our players and our organization, and obviously Carley leads in the business space and is more forward facing, you know, with the fans and behind the scenes, and you know all of that. Obviously, I show up to the game, I know there’s fans there, but the synergy that our players and our fans, and obviously the great work that Carley has done for all these years, everyone feeling like they can show up as themselves is probably the most powerful, powerful thing that we've done. I feel empowered by it.

Carley helped me get to that space. You know, early in our relationship, I thought she was incredibly annoying. I'm a little older, so my generation was we didn't talk about things as much, and Carley kind of brought me into a, you know, a newer space of, like, ‘no, own this,’ you know, like ‘we're together, I'm not going to be a closeted girlfriend,’ and kind of like pulled us together into this space.

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, we’ve been a good team going through this together, and that work, I'm here probably because of wins, but the greatest wins, I think, are that space that we’ve been able to empower our players to be their authentic selves.

5) She sees a bright future for the WNBA and might want to be a team owner some day.

CHERYL REEVE: I’m so excited for the next 30 years. I don’t know how many of them I’ll be a part of, you know. I hope, I hope I get 30.

That there is, when I was, 2001 my first season, I believed in this so much, even at a time when we were being told that we weren’t worth a darn. And I believe even more so, obviously, now that we're saying we told you that if we do this and we treat this the right way, this is what we can be. And so that same thing, that same trajectory that the NBA, as a league, is on, is the same trajectory that we have.

I’m excited for what’s next. You know, I’d love to stay in it, in whatever capacity beyond coaching, and you know, would love to own a team and be a part of an ownership group that continues to elevate, and so that my son can see what it’s like to pour into something you’re so passionate about, right? And to be a part of its success.

He’s a huge WNBA fan, he’s like my assistant GM, I mean, he's just so, he's so good and so passionate about it, but it's showing him the fortitude that it takes if you really, really want something.

Minnesota is about to swap comfortable summer weather for several days of dangerous heat and humidity. Afternoon temperatures will climb into the 90s, but the combination of heat and high humidity will make it feel even hotter, with heat index values soaring into the triple digits. Even after the sun goes down, temperatures will remain unusually warm overnight, offering little relief and allowing heat stress to build from one day to the next.

Heat safety for humans and pets alike

While Minnesota is no stranger to warm summer days, this stretch of weather is different because of the combination of high temperatures and tropical humidity. When humidity rises, your body's natural cooling system — sweating — becomes less effective. That's why the "feels like" temperature can be much higher than the actual air temperature.

The risk increases when overnight lows remain in the upper 60s and 70s, preventing our bodies from cooling down before the next hot day begins.

Whether you're working outside, heading to the lake, or simply running errands, following a few basic heat safety tips can go a long way in preventing heat exhaustion or heat stroke. Remember to drink plenty of water, wear lightweight clothing, apply sunscreen, and take frequent breaks in the shade or air conditioning. Small precautions can make a big difference during periods of extreme heat.

Our furry friends feel the effects of extreme heat, too. Make sure pets always have access to fresh, cool water and a shady place to rest. Walk dogs during the early morning or late evening when temperatures are cooler, and remember that hot pavement can burn their paws. Never leave a pet in a parked vehicle—even with the windows cracked—as temperatures inside can become life-threatening in just a matter of minutes.

Make sure to watch for heat-related illnesses. Heat exhaustion can cause heavy sweating, dizziness, nausea, weakness, and muscle cramps. Move to a cool place, drink water, and rest if these symptoms develop.

Heat stroke is a medical emergency. Symptoms can include confusion, hot, dry skin, or loss of consciousness. Call 911 immediately and begin cooling the person while waiting for help.

Stay cool, Minnesota.

In advance of an official review of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement on July 1, some farmers are bracing for possible changes.

“It's so much out of my control,” said Craig LaPlante, a farmer from Fisher in Northwest Minnesota. “I'm a bystander to what the politicians decide to do. That's the hard part of it.”

The agreement, known as USMCA, allows for tariff-free trade among the three nations. However, President Donald Trump has signaled he’s not keen on extending it, as he told reporters a few weeks ago.

"I would rather not have the agreement, but I may sign it,” said Trump. “We do better as a country if we don't have an agreement."

Should the U.S. withdraw from the agreement, it’ll remain in effect until 2036. Still, the president’s comments have added more uncertainty for farmers already contending with a tough ag economy.

LaPlante, who grows a variety of crops, such as soybeans, wheat and winter camelina, said he’s diversified his revenue streams and implemented conservation practices, in part, to cut costs. But that can only go so far given the low prices his crops fetch on the global market.

“We know that everything's going to be a down year,” said LaPlante. “But hopefully we can contain those costs as best as we can.”

Now, with the future of the major trade agreement up in the air, farmers such as LaPlante wonder what could happen to their markets.

An uncertain future

Minnesota has built sturdy relationships with Canada and Mexico over the years. The two nations are among Minnesota’s largest trading partners. The state’s Department of Agriculture Commissioner Thom Petersen said the trade deal between them helps strengthen those relationships.

“I would argue that it's worked well,” said Petersen. “If the United States backs away, that puts a strain on the relationship. That is not helpful. When you don't have a relationship, maybe with the country, then it's every state for itself.”

Close to 160 agricultural and food organizations from the U.S., Canada and Mexico have called for a renewal of the trade agreement.

Petersen said he’s concerned about potential tariffs that could be imposed should the U.S. back out of the agreement. That could raise operating costs for farmers as some necessities are imported from abroad. Potash, for example, is a vital fertilizer for soybeans, which the U.S. mainly sources from Canada.

On top of that, tariffs could also limit farmers’ markets. John Anderson, a pork producer who operates near Belgrade in central Minnesota, said the agreement has helped him sell some of his gilts to neighboring countries. He also says it’s boosted pork exports to those nations statewide. Minnesota is the second-largest pork-producing state in the nation.

And he said that having free trade with Canada and Mexico has meant he’s never had to worry about his product being subject to tariffs with those countries.

“I personally have never lost any sleep over tariffs,” Anderson said. “I lose sleep on a lot of things, but that's not one of them.”

Leaving the trade agreement could also raise food costs for the average consumer, according to University of Minnesota Grain Market Economist Edward Usset. He said that’s partly because some goods are more cost-efficient to get from other countries, such as tomatoes from Mexico.

To make the point, Usset offered an analogy.

“I could cut my own hair, but it's going to look bad,” said Usset. “I'm better off going to someone who knows how to cut my hair and spend my time doing productive things on my end, and trading for that. Trade is a good thing.”

A Purdue-led study funded by the Corn Refiners Association found that tariff reductions under the current trade agreement and its predecessor, the North American Free Trade Agreement, have reduced consumer costs.

The question of whether the trade agreement will be extended is the latest source of trade uncertainty farmers have had to contend with.

It’s one reason LaPlante is glad he’s been phasing his farm out of mass markets and into niche ones.

LaPlante’s farm, which is home to turkeys and geese, will soon include sheep, goats, and cows. He’s also growing apples to sell locally.

He hopes eventually he won’t have to worry about global markets at all.

“If I'm raising grass-fed beef, I'm taking it to a local butcher facility, and that's being sold from farm to the table, and that way I'm protecting myself,” said LaPlante. “[I’m] trying to establish local businesses, local economies to feed local people.”

Jose Canale scored on the first sudden death penalty kick, Orlando Gill made two key saves in the shootout, and Paraguay beat Germany 4-3 on penalties Monday to earn the biggest upset of the 2026 World Cup so far.

The round of 32 match ended 1-1 after extra time. Paraguay took the lead when Julio Enciso scored on a header late in the first half, but Kai Havertz equalized in the 52nd minute for four-time champion Germany.

“We had to analyze every player, every detail. Thanks to that I was able to only miss two penalties,” Gill said afterward. "This is for all the people of Paraguay.”

Paraguay, ranked 34th by FIFA, is the deepest betting long shot to win a World Cup match and did it against 12th-ranked Germany.

The Paraguayans will next face the winner of Tuesday’s match between France and Sweden in the round of 16 on Saturday in Philadelphia. A win in that match would land them back in Foxborough for a quarterfinal match on July 9.

“I think we deserved one more game and to be honest considering everything that was said, everything we went through," Canale said. "What I wan to highlight from our team is how united we are. ... Today was a game we really needed to show our true colors.”

Germany had won six of seven penalty shootouts in major tournaments, including six straight since losing to Czechoslovakia in the 1976 European Championship final.

In the only previous World Cup match between the teams, Germany beat Paraguay 1-0 in the round of 16 at the 2002 tournament. Nearly a quarter-century later, Paraguay has its revenge.

Paraguay had appeared in five previous knockout games but failed to score in each. It advanced only once in those previous occasions, winning on penalty kicks against Japan in the round of 16 at the 2010 tournament in South Africa. It fell that year to eventual champion Spain in the quarterfinals.

Monday was Germany’s first knockout game since the 2014 final in Brazil when the Germans beat Argentina 1-0 to capture their fourth World Cup title. The Germans were eliminated from the group stage at the last two World Cup tournaments.

“We had very big plans for this World Cup. It’s very difficult to disappoint again,” Havertz said. “It was difficult to create chances and keep the pace.”

Paraguay broke the early stalemate in the 42nd minute Monday with some perfect ball movement to setup Enciso.

Miguel Almiron split Germany’s Aleksandar Pavlovic and Nathaniel Brown with a left-footed pass to Matias Galarza. Galarza sent a cross to Enciso, who was unmarked by Germany’s defenders and easily headed it past goalkeeper Manuel Neuer.

In the second half, Havertz took a cross from Florian Wirtz, which he got just enough head on to redirect it past Gill.

And then in extra time, Germany appeared to take a 2-1 lead in the 102nd minute when Jonathan Tah headed in a corner kick by Nathaniel Brown that was just above the reach of Gill. But a video review ruled that Waldemar Anton has pushed Gill to the ground before the shot and the goal was disallowed.

Germany, whose 10 goals in the group stage was tied for the most of any team, struggled to find a way through Paraguay’s 4-5-1 setup. The Germans had 78 percent of the possession in the first half.

As expected, Paraguay was without defender Omar Alderete, who left with an injury in the second half of the team's 0-0 draw against Australia. Canale started in his place.

Laughter and cheers echoed throughout the Tennessee Theatre in Knoxville on Saturday, but not for a comedy show or musical.

Instead, fans of women’s basketball packed by the hundreds to celebrate eight inductees to the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, including Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve.

The 2026 inductee class ranged from WNBA legends Candace Parker and Elena Delle Donne to international gamechangers like Amaya Valdemoro and Isabelle Fijalkowski. Another veteran coach was honored along with Reeve: Kim Muhl of Kirkwood Community College.

ESPN contributor Doris Burke was honored for her contributions as a broadcaster, and a posthumous veteran honoree was awarded to Barbara Kennedy-Dixon, who is one of just eight college players with at least 3,000 points and 1,000 rebounds.

Reeve was named the Lynx coach in 2009. Since then, she's won four championships, won four WNBA coach of the year awards, coached the U.S. women's basketball team to three Olympic gold medals and had six of her players inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame. Saturday was her turn as she became the ninth player or coach from the Lynx inducted.

Lynx great Lindsay Whalen welcomes everyone inside relationship with Reeve

Of all the inductees and their announcers, no one received more laughter than former Lynx player, current assistant coach and Minnesota-native Lindsay Whalen, who introduced Reeve on Saturday night.

Whalen played on the Lynx for nine seasons under Reeve. Whalen is now in her third year as an assistant coach.

She shared a story of a one-on-one preseason planning she had with Reeve while attempting to go vegan nearly a decade ago during the offseason.

“At that point in my career, all the rage in women's basketball was eating healthy: vegan, keto, paleo, macros, micros. I was more into carbos,” Whalen said as the crowd laughed. “I dabbled. I wouldn't say I went two feet in, but I dabbled for two days going vegan.”

Reeve, who was joined by her wife and Lynx head of business operations, Carley Knox, their son, Oliver, and former player Seimone Augustus, broke out laughing even before Whalen began the story, anticipating her comedic abilities.

The duo of Reeve and Whalen won four championships and made it to the finals an additional two times. They also have two Olympic gold medals.

But Whalen said their relationship is bigger than the stats or the accolades.

“None of that would have been possible without the leader to guide us,” Whalen said. “The leader who could see different things in us that we couldn't see in ourselves, push us beyond our comfort zones and help us reach our full potential. Turns out, the potential of that group was something pretty cool.”

‘I am deeply grateful for this game we all love’

Like Whalen, Reeve, an outspoken critic of WNBA officiating, started with a joke.

During her latest visit to the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, she noticed a section dedicated to referees.

“I thought, wow, Hall of Fame officials,” Reeve said. “I'm looking forward to having one in some upcoming games.”

Reeve quickly turned sincere. She thanked her wife, her son, other loved ones, former players, coaches and mentors she had along the way.

She also took a moment to shout out the Lynx faithful.

“The belief, passion and support have made the last 16 seasons unforgettable,” she said. “I am deeply grateful for this game we all love.”

While the accolades undoubtedly got her into the Hall, Reeve said the honor was more personal.

“Oliver, I'm standing up here because our team had a chance to win a lot of games. But I want you to know my greatest win is you,” she said.

Reeve fans (from near and far) make the trip to support

Reeve’s open vulnerability is why Lynx fan Jennie Littleton, 30, of Chattanooga, Tenn., gravitated to her. Littleton, who used to coach, said Reeve is the reason why she ever considered supporting young players in the first place.

“She's what drew me,” Littleton said. “I always wanted to coach, and I really admired her, and she is an incredible inspiration.”

That’s the same for Brittany West, who grew up in Shakopee and now lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where she is an assistant coach at Kirkwood Community College under fellow inductee Muhl.

Sporting a vintage Whalen shirt, West said said she continues to look up to Reeve as she makes her own coaching decisions.

"She's instilled confidence in me in the way that I want to coach, in the coach that I want to be, and, I mean, I've been lucky enough to watch her since I've been 10 or 11 years old,” she said.

Reeve appreciates the past and hopes for the future

Reeve said during her speech she still looks to her own role models, mentors and peers who, all the way back to a $5,000 gig as an assistant coach for the now-defunct Charlotte Sting, helped her become synonymous with the WNBA.

“From 2001 until today, I ate, drank and slept everything WNBA. I experienced teams folding, I collected unemployment, and hearing my dad wonder aloud, when was I going to get a real job,” Reeve said. “Through all the wins, losses and championships, there were the incredible relationships with players that I will cherish forever.”

It was in that season, she said, she “believed in this so much,” even at a time in league history when players and coaches were told they “weren't worth a darn.”

More than two decades into her WNBA career, the Hall of Fame honor comes at a time when women’s basketball is growing and reaching new levels of popularity.

According to Nielsen’s data, the 2025 WNBA season broke viewership records for the second year in a row. ESPN networks aired its most-watched season and postseason ever.

Now in its 30th season, Reeve has more hopes for the coming decades of the league, including possibly owning a team — perhaps even with Oliver’s help.

“He's a huge WNBA fan. He's like my assistant GM,” Reeve said. “He’s so good and so passionate about it, but it's showing him the fortitude that it takes if you really, really want something.”

On a recent afternoon, members of the Inclusive Fire Brigade assembled just outside the Bemidji Fire Department near Engine 7. The 10-member crew laughed and joked while eagerly awaiting their chance to go 50 feet in the air for a bird's eye view of the city, using the engine's extended aerial basket.

According to Bemidji Fire Chief Justin Sherwood, since the program began its monthly meetings in March, participants have worked hard learning fire service fundamentals, like how to carry ladders properly, hand-off fire axes safely and how to work as a team.

As a result, Sherwood felt it fitting to reward them with something they would never forget, a ride in the aerial basket, “to kind of give them a unique taste and a new experience that only firefighters and those close to them get to experience."

"It's more rewarding for me if I'm being honest with you,” he said. “You can see the smiles on everyone's faces.”

Before his turn on the ladder, program participant Nicky Haubrich was a bit nervous. “I’ve got a little bit of butterflies in my stomach, but I got this,” he said.

Once he was tightly secured into the basket alongside firefighter Nathan Brasel, the ladder began its ascent after Haubrich gave the go ahead. “I’m ready, let’s do this!” he said.

A short time later, with both his feet planted safely back on the ground, he couldn’t hold back his jubilation.

“It was amazing!” he said.

Job training with a dose of fun

The Inclusive Fire Brigade is a partnership between the fire department and the nonprofit Lead for Inclusion, whose executive director is Shannon Murray.

She said the organization serves young people, including those with intellectual and physical disabilities.

"We're working to make our communities more accessible and welcoming for folks with disabilities,” she said. “We do advocacy and outreach, and we also have a lot of fun together."

Murray said the pilot program is multifaceted. Participants won’t come out of the program officially trained as firefighters, though soon, brigade members will begin training to become CPR certified. Nevertheless, they learn a lot of skills relevant to any profession, like leadership and teamwork.

"We're working on job skills and hoping to make the fire department more inclusive in its hiring and influence the whole city,” Murray said. “We have big visions of this growing beyond our area too."

Daniel Norton, a program participant, said one of the most alluring aspects of it is the chance at more job prospects, because inclusive employers are hard to find.

“Ultimately you get one of a select few jobs,” he said. “And either you don't like that job, and you try and find another job, and you can't, or you just feel like you're stuck with that job.”

But he has also enjoyed the chance to learn the specifics of fire department work.

During that recent meeting, he demonstrated how he was taught to roll up a firehose properly.

Starting with the hose laying fully stretched out on the ground, Norton grabbed the male coupling and started rolling it inward to the hose. With each revolution, the hose got bigger, until it looked like he was pushing a giant donut.

"The reason you roll the male coupling in is to protect the threads,” Norton said. “So, if it were dropped… the threads are less likely to get damaged than if they were on the outside."

After Norton completed his demonstration, Sherwood, who was standing in the wings, couldn’t hold back his emotion.

“I just heard that whole thing, and it made me so proud,” he told Norton.

The spark that started the program ‘I gotta do it!’

The idea for the program came about a year ago. That's when former Lead for Inclusion board member Asher Geller stopped into the fire department for a tour. And it's then that his friendship with Fire Chief Sherwood began.

"It was actually on YouTube when I first found out about firefighting, and I was all like, ‘That would be something I'd like to do,’ but I didn't know if I was willing to do it or not,” Geller recalled. “And then when I met Sherwood, I was all like, ‘I gotta do it!’”

The 22-year-old said a short time later he pitched the idea of a partnership between the fire department and Lead for Inclusion. Eventually it was approved by Lead for Inclusion’s board and the Bemidji City Council.

Because the Inclusive Fire Brigade is a pilot program, its future isn’t exactly known. After a year, organizers will evaluate and go from there.

“I definitely hope that it can continue, maybe even go as far as starting to bleed into other communities,” Geller said. “It's the first of its kind in probably the entire country, maybe even the world.”

Brigade participant Aiden Warner said she feels like the program's training has empowered her.

"It really helped me to get out more, be more vocal. I used to be quiet, and now I'm able to ask questions,” Warner said. “I'm able to just speak and not be afraid to ask questions or raise my hand to ask them."

Warner said the program has also led her down a path of self-discovery. As an adoptee, she said she now has more courage to connect with her culture: her biological father is from White Earth Nation and her mother, Leech Lake Nation.

‘There is a place for you in the fire service’

Fire Chief Sherwood said he hopes many participants will have the kind of positive experience Warner has.

"This group really focuses on those individuals who have been titled by or labeled with some form of disability,” he said. “My goal… is to simply show that there is a place for you in the fire service, no matter what your role, everything you do to contribute to public safety assists us in creating a safer community."

Sherwood said to create the program’s training regimen, he relied on his background in elementary education from Bemidji State University. He also looked at various programs and curriculum for beginner firefighters from around the nation.

Sherwood took what he liked from them, leaving the rest, then he began laying out priorities, goals and benchmarks.

"I was taught here at BSU that the best teachers are great thieves, and you don't reinvent the wheel,” Sherwood said. “Rather you, kind of adjust, adapt it to your crowd, to your organization, and that's what we did here, firefighter skills, educational skills, and brought it together."

The vice president of the Minnesota State Fire Chiefs Association said at some point, he and Murray would like to share the program they helped create with other fire stations across the state, and eventually the nation.

It's a vision that program member William Duncan said everyone can benefit from.

"It's part of a human existence. Inclusion is when you pass a ball to another person that you may not have known, and then they eventually will pass it to the other person,” he said. “And inclusion is just all about how you treat the other people."

This year’s Fourth of July lands on a Friday, setting up a long holiday weekend filled with celebrations across Minnesota as the nation approaches the 250th anniversary of the United States.

Communities statewide are planning fireworks, parades and festivals, giving residents plenty of ways to mark Independence Day whether at a local park, lakeside or small-town gathering.

Be sure to check MPR News’ Updraft weather forecasts as you make your plans. Here’s a look at where to find events and fireworks across Minnesota for 2026.

St. Paul

The St. Paul Rotary Club will host the capital city's Fourth of July fireworks at Cathedral Hill Park. Food trucks will line Dayton Avenue beginning at 6 p.m., and visitors are encouraged to arrive early to picnic before the fireworks begin at dusk.

Delano

Delano’s Fourth of July celebration runs July 1–4, 2026, with a multi-day festival featuring a parade, fireworks and community events. The 2026 celebration is especially notable, marking Delano’s 150th birthday.

Brainerd Lakes area

Fourth of July events across the Brainerd Lakes Area will mark America’s birthday with a full weekend of celebrations. Communities throughout the region are planning hometown parades, fireworks over the water, live music, family activities, races and festivals in honor of Independence Day.

St. Cloud

Greater St. Cloud will mark the Fourth of July with a full day of events at Wilson Park, ending with fireworks over the Mississippi River at 10 p.m. The celebration includes live music, food vendors and a shuttle from downtown St. Cloud.

Duluth

Duluth’s Bayfront Festival Park will host a full day of live music, food, family activities and entertainment on July 4, capped by a large fireworks display celebrating the nation’s 250th anniversary.

Fargo-Moorhead

Bonanzaville will host a Fourth of July celebration from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., featuring kids’ activities, games, food vendors and an annual parade, with fireworks at dusk.

In honor of America’s 250th anniversary, visitors can also watch an historic printing demonstration and take home a reproduction of the Declaration of Independence.

Marshall

Independence Park will host its annual Independence Day celebration with food vendors opening at 5 p.m., a performance by Kayla Daniels at 8:30 p.m., and fireworks at 10:15 p.m.

Ely

Ely’s Fourth of July celebration begins July 3 with the Rock the Park music event at Whiteside Park, featuring live music, food trucks and beverages provided by the Ely Fire Relief Association.

The festivities continue July 4 with the “4 on the 4th” run and walk, a flag-raising ceremony at the Ely Veterans Memorial and the city’s annual parade at 1 p.m.

Minneapolis

Red, White & BOOM! returns to the Mississippi Riverfront for a full day of free programming and community celebration hosted by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, ending with fireworks over the river at 10 p.m. The event takes place along West River Parkway and Water Works Park.

Eden Prairie

Eden Prairie’s Fourth of July Hometown Celebration spans two days at Round Lake Park, beginning July 3 with Sparklefest, a family-friendly event featuring live music, food trucks, activities and a drone show.

The celebration continues July 4 with food trucks, live music, a World Cup watch party, a flyover and fireworks.

Stillwater

Stillwater’s Fourth of July celebration features live cannon firing demonstrations, free concerts and performances at Lowell Park and Pioneer Park, and a fireworks show over the St. Croix River and Historic Lift Bridge at dusk.

Mankato

Mankato’s Fourth of July fireworks will be held at the Minnesota State University, Mankato Athletic Fields, with the show beginning around 10 p.m. Attendees can listen to a choreographed soundtrack on local radio stations while enjoying the display.

Rochester

Rochester’s 4th Fest: Rochester Celebrates America will take place at Soldiers Field Memorial Park from 5–10:15 p.m., featuring live music, local food vendors, family activities and a fireworks finale honoring Independence Day and America’s 250th anniversary.

More than 100 people just deported from the United States were being held in a hotel when earthquakes struck Venezuela, setting off a scramble to find survivors and bodies buried in the rubble, according to survivors.

A deportation flight from Miami arrived in Venezuela hours before Wednesday's earthquakes. On board were 146 Venezuelans, including 19 women and seven children, according to ICE Flight Monitor, an initiative of Human Rights First, which tracks deportation flights. They were transported to a hotel in La Guaira.

Lisbeth Portillo, 58, said she escaped the rubble from the hotel with about 20 other deportees who walked the streets looking for help. They saw people running, some naked and others barefoot as they emerged from the rubble of the building in La Guaira, one of the areas that was hardest hit in Wednesday’s 7.2 and 7.5 earthquakes.

“We walked about five kilometers, and I cried and cried … there was no communication,” Portillo said in a phone interview from her home in Maracaibo, Venezuela.

They reached a National Guard building, where they had a chance to call relatives.

“I was born again; God gave me a second chance,” said Portillo. “I am traumatized,” she said after a pause, weeping.

The Venezuelan government says more than 1,700 people were killed.

They survived the earthquake the same day that were deported from the U.S.

Portillo was caught up in the Trump administration's drive for mass deportations. In May, ICE Flight Monitor tracked 288 deportation flights to 38 countries, including Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chile and the Ivory Coast.

The U.S. ran 12 deportation flights to Venezuela in May, operating three days a week, according to ICE Flight Monitor. Deportation flights to Venezuela resumed in February 2025 after a 13-month pause.

Portillo said the government took them to the Hotel Santuario La Llanada, where they underwent medical exams and got identification documents. They were told they would go home the next day.

Portillo was staying in a second floor room with 16 other women. She stepped onto a balcony to look at the sea and saw that the sky was black; it was very hot. She returned to the room, laid on a bed, and began to feel herself being shaken.

“I started hearing ‘papa, papa papapa,’, and I saw the women next to me start to fall,” she said, describing the sounds from the earthquake. “They were all screaming for help.”

And almost immediately, the second earthquake.

"I fall and end up buried and covered by a beam, but the shaking shifted everything where I was buried and I was able to get out,” said Portillo, who has bruises all over her body.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to a request for information from the AP.

A video from the Venezuelan government posted on social media showed images of the deportees being received by Venezuelan authorities upon their arrival at the Caracas airport on Wednesday.

Jenny Rodriguez, 24, told the Telemundo network that she was on the flight and taken to the hotel.

“I was trapped under the rubble. A colleague who had been on the same flight came by; I managed to free my hand from the debris, grabbed him by the trousers, and begged for help”, she said. “Thanks to God — and to him — I was able to get out of there.”

Liliana Rojas told Telemundo that she has been trying to locate her 33-year-old partner. The detention center where he was held in El Paso, Texas, says only told that he was deported.

“No one is giving an answer about anything,” Rojas said.

Woman says she feels ‘born again’ after surviving

Portillo, who crossed the U.S. border with Mexico in November 2021 and said had an pending asylum claim, couldn't remember her children's phone number. She called her husband in the United States.

“I said to him, ‘Cesar, I’m alive. Help me.’ And my husband kept saying, ‘It can’t be,’” she said. “‘I’m alive, I made it out of the rubble, I’m alive,’ I told him.”

Her husband called their children, who picked her up and were able to reunite with their mother the following night.

“I was born that day; on the 24th, I was born again,” said Portillo, who lived in South Florida for more than four years.

The U.S. military says a Marine who went missing during a training exercise off the coast of southern California last week was from Minnesota.

Officials with I Marine Expeditionary Force on Monday identified the missing Marine as 21-year-old Lance Cpl. Armando Ortiz Canseco. KARE 11 reported that Ortiz Canseco’s family held a vigil for him on Sunday in Richfield.

Ortiz Canseco was reported missing on Thursday morning from the amphibious transport dock ship USS Anchorage. The search covered about 2,400 square miles and involved three surface ships and 12 aircraft from the Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Air Force, officials said.

Ortiz Canseco was declared dead on Saturday; search and recovery operations continue.

Authorities have not released further details about the circumstances of his disappearance. The incident remains under investigation.

“On behalf of the Marines and sailors of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, I extend our deepest condolences to the family and loved ones of Lance Cpl. Ortiz Canseco,” Col. Richard Alvarez, commanding officer of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, said in a statement. “He earned the title of United States Marine and served his country with honor and commitment. We mourn alongside his family, and we remain committed to bringing him home.”

Ortiz Canseco enlisted in the Marine Corps in April 2023, and received the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal and Sea Service Deployment Ribbon. He was most recently temporarily assigned aboard the USS Anchorage in preparation for a training operation.

“The loss of Lance Cpl. Ortiz Canseco is felt deeply across our entire Navy-Marine Corps team,” Capt. Gary A. Harrington, the commodore of Amphibious Squadron 7, said in a statement. “The amphibious Navy exists to fight alongside the Marine Corps, and a loss to the Marine Corps family is a loss to our own. We are a resilient force, and we continue to stand shoulder-to-shoulder in support of Lance Cpl. Ortiz Canseco’s loved ones and our ongoing recovery operations.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Rescue crews in Venezuela are desperately searching through rubble for thousands of people still missing after two devastating earthquakes struck the country last week. Venezuelan officials say nearly 1,500 people have died, while hundreds of buildings have been destroyed or severely damaged.

Minnesota's Venezuelan community is rallying to support relief efforts. Patricia Aguilar moved to Osseo as an asylum seeker in 2018 after fleeing Venezuela's political and economic crisis. She’s now raising awareness to help people affected by the disaster.

Aguilar said her family escaped major damage, but many others were not as fortunate.

"We're talking about a massive damage, families that lost everything. There are still people alive under the rubble, waiting to be rescued. Entire families have disappeared." Aguilar told Minnesota Now host Nina Moini.

Aguilar said the disaster is compounding hardships in a country already struggling after decades of political and economic turmoil.

"I want people to know that this is a natural disaster happening on top of 27 years of political and economic crisis," she said. "This is just making worse a country that was already broken and damaged."

Across Minnesota, members of the Venezuelan diaspora have begun collecting money, food, medical supplies and rescue equipment for shipment to Venezuela. Aguilar said volunteers have already sent two semi trucks filled with supplies to Miami, where they will be flown to Venezuela.

She said as of Monday morning, more than 600 boxes of supplies are sitting the Twin Cities area, waiting to get shipping to Miami and on to Venezuela.

Still, she said, the greatest immediate need is financial support because supplies can take weeks to arrive. She said volunteers in Venezuela also urgently need protective equipment as they continue rescue and recovery efforts.

As of Monday, donation drop-offs in the Twin Cities are closed to accepting additional supplies because they don’t have enough room until another shipment goes out to Venezuela. In the meantime, Aguilar is urging financial donations.

Aguilar said Minnesota's response has been encouraging and urged residents to continue helping as recovery efforts stretch into the months ahead.

"Please don't see Venezuelans just as strangers from a country in South America," she said. "Venezuelans are neighbors. We've been building lives in Minnesota for more than 10 years. Whatever donation, no matter how small it is, it helps, and we really, really need it."

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

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

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a Mississippi law that allows election officials to count mail-in ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but received up to five days after it.

The ruling is a loss for the Republican Party, which brought the case, ahead of this year's midterm elections.

Eighteen states and territories, including Mississippi, have such mail ballot grace periods. Most of the states are Democratic-led, including California, Illinois and New York. A dozen additional states have grace periods for ballots returning from overseas, like from military members.

These grace periods have historically provided voters time to get their absentee ballots to officials in case there are any issues with the Postal Service — as well as any other unforeseen issues, such as weather events.

But Republicans have been fighting these grace periods in recent years — an effort led by President Trump.

Ahead of the 2024 election, the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign filed legal challenges — including one against Mississippi's law — alleging that these grace periods violate the Constitution. They argued that Congress sets the end of an election, not states.

At the time, many of the lawsuits were dismissed by judges across the country, but the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Republicans, setting up the Supreme Court case.

Trump also signed an executive order last year — which was quickly blocked by lower courts — that required that all votes be received by Election Day during federal elections.

Many state officials, particularly in Democratic-run states with universal mail-in ballot programs, raised concerns about such a requirement.

Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said in a statement last year that more than 250,000 ballots that had been postmarked on time arrived after Election Day during the 2024 election.

"Had this rule been in effect," he said, "those voices would have been silenced, especially in rural areas where mail delivery can take longer."

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

Copyright 2026, NPR

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — President Trump said talks with Iran would resume Tuesday in Qatar, despite the two sides trading attacks in the Gulf over the weekend. Iran did not confirm whether it will participate in the next round of meetings to advance an interim peace deal.

The latest exchange of strikes began when Iran attacked a cargo ship on Thursday near Oman, just outside the Strait of Hormuz, setting off attacks by the U.S. in response and counterstrikes by Iran at U.S. military and naval bases in Kuwait and Bahrain, respectively.

Despite the attacks, Trump wrote on social media Monday that Iran had requested a meeting, and said it will take place in Doha, Qatar on Tuesday.

Qatar and Pakistan mediated the high-level talks between U.S. and Iranian officials in Switzerland two weeks ago, which paved the way for more negotiations on the terms of the deal.

Qatar is also where Iran says it has some $12 billion of its money frozen in bank accounts. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in remarks carried by the local Fars News Agency on Monday that $6 billion of that will be released as part of the interim deal signed with the U.S., in addition to oil sanctions that were temporarily already lifted by Washington.

Iran's deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, however, was quoted by Iranian media on Monday saying that while consultations continue with mediator Qatar, technical talks with the U.S. are not yet planned for this week and will be held only "when the conditions are met." He did not elaborate.

When asked about the current status of Iran-U.S. talks, a senior White House official not authorized to brief the press told NPR on Sunday that technical talks to implement the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran "are on track for the coming days as planned."

The official did not respond to further questions, but added that "deconfliction channels are up and running after the Lake Lucerne Summit," referring to talks led by Vice President Vance in Switzerland two weeks ago.

At the conclusion of those talks, mediators Pakistan and Qatar said the two countries had agreed to establish a communication line "to avoid incidents" in the Strait of Hormuz, and Iranian officials said a "deconfliction cell" was created to monitor a parallel ceasefire in Lebanon between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Weekend attacks test fragile ceasefire

U.S. Central Command says it struck missile and drone sites along Iran's territory bordering the Strait of Hormuz on Friday and Saturday, in response to Iran's attacks on two cargo ships, including one carrying more than 2 million barrels of crude oil.

Iran's attacks on cargo ships derailed U.N.-backed efforts to evacuate thousands of seafarers through a route near Oman following months of war and closure of the vital waterway. Iran's Revolutionary Guard, which was not involved in clearing the route near Oman, warned Thursday that ships that do not coordinate passage with its naval forces "will be dealt with" as violators.

Iran said on Sunday it launched missiles in counterstrikes at U.S. forces in Bahrain and Kuwait, the two Gulf Arab countries Secretary of State Marco Rubio had visited just days earlier to reassure them of the U.S. commitment to their security and to hear their perspectives on the U.S.-Iran interim deal.

The U.S. and Iran accused one another of violating the ceasefire. President Trump warned Iran on Sunday.

"There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started," Trump wrote on social media. "If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!"

Iran's Claims on Strait of Hormuz

Gharibabadi, Iran's deputy foreign minister, said he visited Oman on Monday to exchange views on the future management of the Strait of Hormuz.

A day earlier, during a visit to Iraq, Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi told reporters that commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is supposed to return to pre-war levels within 30 days of the U.S.-Iran preliminary agreement that was signed, but he said the key waterway is under Iran's sole management.

Araghchi added that the responsibility to remove what he described as "obstacles" in the Strait of Hormuz and to ensure it reopens "rests with the Islamic Republic of Iran."

It was not immediately clear if Araghchi was referring to mines the U.S. says Iran laid in the waterway during the war.

Copyright 2026, NPR

Americans have grown less proud of their country's history or the way its democracy works over the past decade, according to a new AP-NORC poll.

Americans’ pride in the U.S. on several key attributes has dropped since 2017 — including the nation's military and its political influence around the globe — according to the survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. This poll was conducted in April, as the United States and Iran fought over the Strait of Hormuz in a prolonged war that started with the U.S. and Israel launching strikes on Iran.

New Gallup polling also finds that only 53 percent of U.S. adults are “extremely” or “very” proud to be an American, the lowest reading in the trend dating back to 2001.

The findings point to a broad decline in patriotic sentiment over a tumultuous period that included most of President Donald Trump's first term, the COVID-19 pandemic and rising inflation that contributed to a backlash against President Joe Biden. That timeframe also covers Trump's return to the White House, where he's taken more aggressive actions on immigration and issues abroad.

Much of the falling positivity comes from Democrats, who have become increasingly disenchanted with the country since Trump's first term.

At the same time, most U.S. adults say that being an American is “extremely” or “very” important to their identity, highlighting an enduring connection, even as some become increasingly critical of the country's past or the government’s current actions.

American pride declines on the armed forces and democracy

Americans' pride in the way democracy works in the U.S. has declined 14 percentage points, falling from 42 percent in February 2017 to 28 percent now.

In addition, Americans' pride in their armed forces has dropped 19 percentage points since 2017, and pride in the U.S.’s history has declined 14 percentage points. In each case, the drop is largely driven by Democrats, with some movement among independents as well.

Karla Galdamez — a 48-year-old Democrat who used to teach U.S. history — believes America has regressed under the Trump administration. While the Californian is not proud of Trump, she is pleased with how far the U.S. has come in 250 years.

“It’s a country that really wanted to be different and really wanted to be better," she said. "Despite some of the very ugly history that we have of segregation and slavery ... if you look at the trajectory of the last 250 years, we’ve done nothing but get better and move toward a more egalitarian nation.”

Only 14 percent of Democrats and 28 percent of independents say they are “extremely" proud to be an American, according to Gallup's new poll, compared with 70 percent of Republicans.

The AP-NORC poll found that Republicans are especially likely to be proud of the nation's armed forces. About 9 in 10 Republicans say the military makes them “extremely” or “very” proud, compared with about 6 in 10 U.S. adults.

Samantha Fulks, a 40-year-old in San Antonio, Texas, says she’s proud to be an American and doesn't hide it. The Texas Republican showcases that pride with an American flag in her front yard — as well as Trump flags in the back yard — and she plans to wear red, white and blue on the Fourth of July. Fulks comes from a military family, and while she believes the country's involvement in Iran is unnecessary, she remains a proud supporter of the military.

“I still support our troops no matter what they do,” Fulks said.

Being an American matters more for personal identity among Republicans and older adults

Matt Stafford, a 39-year-old in Massachusetts, is proud of being an American, even if the U.S. political system frustrates him.

He has a bald eagle tattooed on his back to represent the United States, its freedoms and “all the things we’re supposed to stand for as a country.” But despite that national pride, he often finds himself frustrated by politicians on both sides. Stafford — a centrist who identifies as “politically homeless” — wants Democrats and Republicans to come together to look out for their constituents in middle America.

“I love America, but our biggest problem is how we’re pushing both sides — like the left and the right — to the extremes," he said.

For many Americans, their partisanship is often intertwined with their national identity. The poll finds that Republicans are much likelier than Democrats or independents to say being an American is “extremely” or “very” important to their personal identity.

Younger people are also much less likely than older people to say being an American is highly important to their personal identity. About three-quarters of Americans ages 60 and older say being an American is highly important to them, compared with only about one-third of U.S. adults under 30.

Race or ethnicity matters more to many Black Americans

The AP-NORC survey found that the vast majority of Black Americans — 73 percent — say their race or ethnicity is “extremely” or “very” important to how they see themselves, higher than the share that say that about being an American.

Vincent Harris, a 60-year-old in California, says his identity as a Black man rises above other attributes for him because of how Black men are treated in America.

“A lot of people are scared of Black men just because we are Black and we are male. And that's crazy,” Harris said. “People don't even take you for who you are as a person; they just look at your race.”

About half of Hispanic Americans say their race or ethnicity is highly important to them, compared with 22 percent of white Americans.

Black and Hispanic adults are also more likely than white adults to say their family’s ancestry or country of origin is highly important to their personal identity.

Harris, who identifies as a gay man, says being an American is “a wonderful thing” because of the freedoms that Americans have, despite the obstacles he's had to overcome.

“It’s great to be an American — regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or whatever. As long as you have that freedom of choice as an American, that’s a great thing," Harris said. "Right now, I wouldn’t live in any other country in the world. I’m here. I love it.”

The AP-NORC poll of 2,596 adults was conducted April 16-20 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.

Haeran Ryu recovered from a rough start to secure her first career major title, winning the Women's PGA Championship by two strokes over Ina Yoon on a windy Sunday at Hazeltine National Golf Club.

Ryu shot a 2-under 70 to finish at 13-under 275 and become the sixth South Korean to win the event over the last 12 editions, flashing a big smile after sinking her last putt as friends ran out to douse her in celebration.

The 2023 LPGA Tour Rookie of the Year was also the first major champion in at least the last 60 years to rally from a 10-plus-shot deficit after the first round. Ryu opened Thursday with a 73 in a tie for 70th place, as Yoon shot a tournament-record 63.

Playing her first event in six weeks, Ryu shook off whatever rust she showed and heeded some keen advice from her coach about moving forward.

“You don’t have another problem so just trust your shot and trust your caddie and trust yourself on the golf course,” Ryu said during the trophy ceremony on the 18th green.

Brooke Henderson and Dewi Weber tied for third at 10 under. Three Americans — Allisen Corpuz, Auston Kim and Alison Lee — tied for fifth place, six strokes behind Ryu.

“Haeran played unbelievable today,” Yoon said. “Brooke, I like to play her, play with her all the time. She’s such a nice girl. I learned a lot today, this week.”

LPGA Tour leader Nelly Korda wrapped up a frustrating weekend on the greens with a 73 to finish in a four-way tie for eighth, failing to become the third player to win the first three majors of the season.

The course was closed for most of the morning while a thunderstorm moved through the Twin Cities metro area, dropping more than an inch of rain and pushing all of the tee times back by 3 1/2 hours while players tried to stay focused and loose. That left the greens extra soft and the air especially gusty, making many of Hazeltine’s notoriously long fairways even trickier.

Ryu was five strokes behind Yoon in a four-way tie for second after two rounds and surged to the top on Saturday to take a one-shot lead over Henderson, the third time she’s been ahead or tied for the lead entering the final round of a major.

The 25-year-old Ryu bogeyed three of her first five holes before settling in and flexing her ball-striking muscle on a particularly tough afternoon for putting.

Ranking in the top three on the tour in approach, tee to green, and greens in regulation, Ryu went 4 under over the final 12 holes to separate from the pack in a far more relaxing finish than she was on track for. Four different players held a solo lead over the front nine.

Weber became only the fourth women’s player from the Netherlands to finish in the top 20 at a major tournament, with Anne van Dam the most recent at the 2024 British Women’s Open. Only one player on the men’s side has ever done so.

The 23-year-old Yoon had her best finish on the LPGA Tour, deftly rebounding from a 75 on Saturday and a double bogey on the third hole on Sunday.

“Little disappointed yesterday and today, but I think I did pretty good job being under pressure and it’s just part of golf,” Yoon said. “I think it’s going to be a really big lesson in the big picture.”

Korda turns her focus to the next two majors

Korda made the turn only three shots back and birdied the 10th hole, but her short game fell short down the stretch in similar fashion to the third round. She three-putted five different times at Hazeltine, after posting no more than three in any other tournament this year.

Hazeltine's signature lakeside hole dragged her down, too, with a double bogey in the first and fourth rounds on the 16th. Her second shot from the right edge of the fairway splashed in the water for a costly penalty stroke, and she two-putted the par-4 hole.

With the Evian Championship and Women's British Open next month, Korda can still add a grand slam to what has been a superb season despite some setbacks this week in Minnesota.

“I was just thinking about the way that I played," Korda said, "not like the realistic big picture that everyone is talking about.”

U.S. District Judge David Doty died Saturday, three days shy of his 97th birthday.

In an email to court staff, U.S. District Chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz called Doty "a great man and a great judge."

"He will be deeply missed by all who knew him," Schiltz wrote. "When I visited him recently, he made it clear that he was completely at peace with the fact that his long and remarkable life was nearing its end."

Doty served as a captain in the Marine Corps in the 1950s before spending 25 years as a trial lawyer after graduating from the University of Minnesota Law School.

He was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the federal bench in 1987 and served for nearly four decades. He presided over a landmark NFL antitrust lawsuit in the early 1990s, which paved the way for unrestricted player movement in professional football. A jury found that the league’s limited free agency system for players violated antitrust law.

Funeral arrangements have not yet been announced, but the federal court plans to hold a memorial session in Doty’s honor.

Correction (June 29, 2026): A previous version of this story contained an error about Judge Doty’s tenure as a federal judge. The above story has been updated.

The annual Twin Cities Pride Festival in Minneapolis kicked off Saturday with sunshine.

Rainbows — found in creative outfits, glittery makeup and all sorts of trinkets and flags — covered Loring Park.

Thousands packed the festivities across the 34-acre park, enjoying music, food and stops at over 650 vendors.

More than 500,000 people were expected at Twin Cities Pride events this weekend, according to programming director Kelsey Alto.

New this year was the world’s largest rubber duck: the 61-foot tall Mama Duck. She and her son, Timmy, made their Twin Cities debut at the Pride festival.

Alto said organizers brought the ducks to make attendees smile after the surge in federal immigration enforcement over the winter and legislation nationwide targeting LGBTQ+ people.

“We really wanted to just do something that is queer joy because queer joy is an act of resistance, and I think we all could use a little bit of joy right now,” Alto said.

The weekend’s events started with a reception Thursday for the 2026 grand marshal — represented this year by Minnesota's entire LGBTQ+ community — with a Youth Night for people under 21 on Friday. The festival included a full day of pet-centered programming on Saturday, in addition to a 5K run and parade set for Sunday.

Alto said this year’s theme was “Our Voices, Our Future.”

“It's a dark time for our community, but it's not our first dark time as a community. Pride gives our community a chance to come together, lift up one another's voices, celebrate our resilience especially after the events of the first few months of this year,” Alto said.

Twin Cities Pride 2026

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Hunter Goodman hit three homers and drove in five runs, powering the Colorado Rockies to an 8-5 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Saturday night.

Goodman, who also went deep in his final at-bat Friday, launched a solo shot in the first inning and another in the third off starter Mike Paredes. After grounding out in the fifth, the slugger made it 6-2 in the seventh when he connected for his 25th homer this season, a three-run drive to left-center against reliever Kody Funderburk.

Kyle Karros added a two-run homer in the eighth.

Michael Lorenzen (3-9) allowed two runs and seven hits in 5 2/3 innings to earn his first win since April 24.

Trevor Larnach’s three-run double in the ninth made it 8-5 before Jimmy Herget came on to get two outs for his third save.

Paredes (0-1) gave up three runs and eight hits in 5 1/3 innings.

Jake McCarthy hit a one-out triple in the fifth and scored on Mickey Moniak’s groundout to put Colorado on top 3-1.

The Twins scored single runs in the first and sixth. Kody Clemens' RBI single tied it 1-all in the first. Josh Bell led off the sixth with his first triple since April 5, 2025, with Washington. He scored on Victor Caratini’s sacrifice fly to cut the Rockies’ lead to 3-2.

Up next

Rockies RHP Ryan Feltner (2-2, 4.79 ERA) faces LHP Connor Prielipp (2-5, 5.17) in Sunday’s series finale.

A stormy start to Sunday with thunderstorms before an extended stretch of dangerous heat and humidity settles in for much of the week.

Stormy start, heat building in for the week

A stormy, rainy start to our Sunday as a complex of thunderstorms that erupted across the Dakotas late Saturday afternoon into early Sunday continues marching east across Minnesota Sunday morning. Some of these storms may produce strong wind gusts at times.

Once the morning storms move out, conditions will quickly turn hot and increasingly humid. A warm front lifting north will usher in tropical air, while a layer of warm air aloft is expected to limit additional storm development through the afternoon and evening across much of Minnesota.

Our temperatures will climb into the upper 70s to lower 80s across northern Minnesota, while areas closer to the warm front will warm into the lower to upper 80s. Humidity will also increase throughout the day, with dew points rising through the 60s to near 70, making it feel noticeably more muggy by the afternoon.

The dangerous heat begins on Monday which is our biggest weather story this week.

An extreme heat warning is in effect for Monday as temperatures climb into the mid-90s. Combined with dew points in the 70s, heat index values are expected to reach or exceed 105 degrees.

Although the heat will dominate the forecast, daily chances for thunderstorms remain in place through much of the week. Another round of thunderstorms is possible Monday evening into Monday night, with a slight risk for severe weather encompassing much of the state.

Forecast confidence in the exact timing and location of storms remains low, but any storms that do develop could become strong to severe. The atmosphere will be loaded with heat, humidity and instability, creating the potential for damaging winds, large hail and torrential rainfall.

Hot and humid weather is expected to continue through the workweek and possibly into the holiday weekend. So long to our cooler second half of June, as summer is set to make a comeback with several days of above-average temperatures and uncomfortable humidity.

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers across Minnesota and beyond to find out what books they’re most excited about right now

Jeff Danz of Zandbros Variety in Sioux Falls, S.D., was looking for some escapist fiction when he was drawn to the story of a traveling carnival. He calls Dan Chaon’s gothic horror novel “One of Us” an engaging read with compelling characters that felt like a darker version of a Mark Twin or Charles Dickens adventure.

Set in 1915, the novel follows 13-year-old twins Eleanor and Bolt, who have a flawless ability to read each other's minds. When their mother dies, leaving them orphaned, a rather terrifying man calling himself their Uncle Charlie shows up to adopt them.

They quickly realize Charlie is a con man who expects them to help with his schemes, and the children devise an escape. They find themselves on an orphan train, traveling through the Midwest with dwindling hopes of being chosen, when a man in a red waistcoat with gold epaulets appears and tells the children “I see you.”

He is Mr. Jengling, and he adopts them into the world of Mr. Jengling’s Emporium of Wonders. The traveling carnival world offers a new family in a sometimes-brutal American frontier, as well as opportunities that may cause the twins to grow apart.

And Uncle Charlie is on their trail...

“It ends,” he said, “in an unexpected way that is satisfying, in that it connects a lot of things. It kept me interested the whole time.”

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is proposing to add 46 new lakes, rivers and streams to its list of water bodies that fail to meet state water quality standards.

The waters face a variety of pollution issues, including mercury from coal-fired power plants and industry, sulfate that can harm wild rice and PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” that accumulate in fish.

Lakes, rivers and streams also can lack diverse fish and other aquatic creatures. They can have too many nutrients that cause algae to grow. Or their waters can be cloudy with sediment.

“Essentially, it means that the water body is polluted, and some changes are needed in order to bring that water body back to a state of health,” said Dana Vanderbosch, assistant commissioner for water policy and agriculture at the Pollution Control Agency.

But there are also some signs of improvement. The MPCA is proposing to remove impairments on nearly 50 lakes, rivers and streams. It’s the most the state has removed since it began the list back in 1992.

“We're starting to see that acceleration of de-listings that we've wanted to see for a long time,” Vanderbosch said.

Taking stock of Minnesota’s waters

The federal Clean Water Act requires that the MPCA update the state's impaired waters list every two years. It includes lakes, rivers and streams that don't meet water quality standards.

MPCA staff monitor the waters of each major watershed in Minnesota every 10 years — and more frequently for certain pollutants, including mercury, PFAS and sulfate. Then they analyze the data to see if the lakes, rivers and streams meet state water quality standards.

Lakes, streams and stretches of rivers can appear on the list for more than one reason. So even though a water body is removed for one impairment, such as E. coli bacteria, it still might have excessive nutrients or other pollution.

Many of the new water bodies added to this year’s list have too much mercury or PFAS. But it’s unlikely that's new pollution, Vanderbosch said.

Those contaminants likely have been in lakes, rivers, streams and fish tissue for years but are showing up on the impaired waters list now because of more testing, she said.

Trevor Russell, water program director for the nonprofit Friends of the Mississippi River, called this year’s draft list a sign of "modest progress" toward the state's water quality goals.

In a state with almost 12,000 lakes and more than 100,000 miles of streams, removing 50 water bodies might not sound like much, Russell said. But each two-year cycle, the state is beginning to remove more waters from the list, he said.

“To us, that is a demonstration that the state's strategy for identifying problems and investing in solutions is beginning to work, albeit at a very small scale,” he said.

Despite the progress, the list of impaired waters keeps growing as the state monitors more lakes, rivers and streams. About 56 percent of Minnesota water bodies are impaired for at least one reason, Russell said.

“The increase in the total number of impairments does not necessarily mean waters are getting more polluted, just that we are looking much more closely,” he said.

Efforts pay off

Once a water body is added to the list, the MPCA is required to develop a cleanup plan. It identifies where the pollutants are coming from and how much they need to be reduced.

It can take a lot of work to bring a lake, river or stream back to health, Vanderbosch said. It might require dozens of improvement projects, such as installing fences to keep cattle out of a stream, replacing a failing septic system or repairing an eroding streambank to prevent sediment from washing into the water.

The draft list includes some success stories, like Mound Creek in southwestern Minnesota. It was listed as impaired for low biodiversity, in part due to a dam at Blue Mound State Park, which blocked the passage of fish and other aquatic creatures.

The dam failed during heavy rain in 2014, and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources decided not to rebuild it.

Efforts to restore the creek’s natural flow and ecosystems paid off, and as a result, species like the endangered Topeka shiner minnow are now flourishing.

“It created that connectivity that was needed, and so the fish and the invertebrates were able to just more fluidly travel up and down the creek,” Vanderbosch said.

Minnesota has a unique source of funding to help pay for the monitoring and cleanup of its lakes, rivers and streams. The Clean Water Fund receives money from the Legacy Amendment, a sales tax increase that Minnesota voters first approved in 2008.

The fund has helped support “a robust monitoring of our water bodies to really understand how we target and do these restoration activities,” said Paul Pestano, water assessment manager at the MPCA.

Challenges persist

Despite signs of progress, Minnesota’s waters face continued threats. For example, chloride — mainly from road salt — has polluted several lakes and streams in the Twin Cities metro area. It’s considered a permanent pollutant that can harm fish and aquatic life.

Also, climate change is causing heavier and more frequent rainfalls, which can cause flooding and erosion. And warmer waters can affect fish and other aquatic life.

Russell noted that Minnesota lags behind in developing a standard for nitrate to protect fish and other aquatic life. More than 70 percent of nitrate in Minnesota waters comes from agricultural runoff from cropland, especially commercial fertilizer.

The draft list shows the state is getting better at cleaning up its waters, but “this is the first mile of a marathon,” Russell said. It took more than a century to reshape the Minnesota landscape by tilling up prairies and wetlands and cutting down forests that helped protect water quality, he said.

“It’s going to take a long time to reverse that damage,” Russell said.

A public comment period on the draft impaired waters list is open through July 22.

The MPCA also is hosting virtual public meetings on the draft list on Tuesday for the southern part of the state and Thursday for the Lake Superior region.

The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency will respond to public comments, then submit the draft list to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for its approval.

Despite North Dakota being home to the largest concentration of Icelanders per capita in the U.S., it’s not easy to find traditional Icelandic food in the state’s biggest city.

That is, until married couple Jen and Chris Nelson opened So+Lo’s, offering the famous Icelandic Skyr, pronounced “skeer”, along with other Icelandic-American food.

Skyr is a yogurt-like Nordic staple Icelanders have made since the Viking Age.

Jen Nelson, who was a Moorhead Public Schools art teacher for 22 years, got the idea after falling in love with the food during a 2025 trip to Iceland. She went with a group called Icelandic Roots, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving Icelandic history and heritage.

“My mom is 100 percent Icelandic, and my dad was 50 percent,” she said. “I'm very interested in my heritage. I always have been.”

On the trip, she discovered a love for the simple, yet high-quality food.

“I fell in love with the skyr,” Nelson said. You can buy it at the grocery store, the gas station, they have it at hotels. It's literally everywhere.”

Skyr could easily be mistaken for regular Greek yogurt that could be in your fridge right now.

“It tastes like yogurt, it looks like yogurt, it acts like yogurt,” Nelson said.

However, due to the way it’s processed, it’s technically a type of cheese.

Like yogurt, skyr is made from milk and a bacteria culture, but it is usually higher in protein and lower in fat.

When she came back from Iceland, Nelson taught herself how to make skyr at home. It only needs three main ingredients: skim milk, a bacteria culture and rennet – an enzyme that commonly comes from the stomachs of cows.

But, after mixing the milk and bacteria, the mixture must be kept at over 100 degrees for hours.

After making a few batches, the couple thought it was the perfect opportunity to open a business selling skyr.

“We knew that nobody had skyr,” Jen Nelson said. “We thought that might be something unique to offer to the downtown Fargo community.”

While Nelson has no food industry experience, her husband has a long history of cooking professionally, working in various restaurants in the Fargo area over the last couple decades.

Even so, he said his wife is the undisputed authority on the Icelandic staple.

“Jen is the expert of the skyr, to tell you the truth. I'm learning that from her,” he said.

They decided to open So+Lo's and named it after their two kids, Soley and Arlo.

Now, the Nelson’s make fresh skyr daily at So+Lo’s, topping it with fresh fruit, honey and granola.

How it’s going

Some of the first people to try out So+Lo's menu were members of the Icelandic Klub of Fargo-Moorhead.

“We're thrilled that she's giving it a chance,” said Susan Sigurdson, the club’s president. “She served us pönnukökur the other night, and they were delicious.”

Aside from skyr, So+Lo's serves a few other Icelandic dishes, like rúllupylsa – pronounced roll-a-polsa –, thin slices of seasoned meat, and pönnukökur – pan-no-cooker – Icelandic pancakes.

Sigurdson said much of the Icelandic food she grew up with was passed down from her grandparents and was often the result of necessity.

“They were really basic foods,” Sigurdson said.

The staples included lots of cured and smoked meat and fish, foods that were hearty and could stay edible for a while.

She also remembers skyr.

“My mom used to make it and, as a child, I didn't care for it because it's got a little bit more of a tart flavor and I didn't care for it. I think it’s good now,” Sigurdson said.

Jen Nelson said the goal of the restaurant isn’t just to highlight how delicious Icelandic fare can be.

“Preserving cultural heritage through food, I think, is really big,” said Nelson.

Royce Lewis slipped an RBI single up the middle in the 10th inning and the Minnesota Twins beat the Colorado Rockies 9-8 on Friday night after blowing a seven-run lead.

Lewis had his first career walk-off hit and Minnesota's first of the season.

Pinch-running for Josh Bell at second, Kyler Fedko advanced to third base on a wild pitch by Jimmy Herget (0-2) before Lewis hit a grounder past a diving Ezequiel Tovar at shortstop. The Twins won for the seventh time in 11 games.

Hunter Goodman hit a two-run home run to cap a five-run ninth inning and give the Rockies, who trailed 7-0 after seven innings, an 8-7 lead. Jake McCarthy hit a three-run shot two batters earlier off Eric Orze.

Goodman’s 451-foot shot to left field came off Anthony Banda, who had not allowed a run in his past 18 appearances, but blew a save for the second time this season.

Pinch-hitters Austin Martin and Ryan Kreidler singled with one out for Minnesota in the ninth and a high chopper by Byron Buxton went over the head of third baseman Willi Castro to tie it.

Andrew Morris (3-2) pitched a scoreless 10th inning for the Twins and got some defensive help from his shortstop.

With one out, Tristan Gray fielded a grounder on the infield grass and threw out Tyler Freeman trying to score from third base.

Kody Clemens hit a two-run home run in the first inning for the Twins. Brooks Lee lofted a fly ball just inside the right-field foul pole for a two-run home run in the second.

Trevor Larnach doubled and scored on a Buxton double. Clemens walked and Bell doubled to plate Buxton and Clemens to make it 7-0 in the fifth inning.

Adam Martin remembers taking boxes of Panini stickers and their accompanying World Cup albums to a Formula 1 race in May, shortly after his collectibles shop had received a shipment and long before the tournament was to begin.

The idea was to give them to friends with kids. But what happened next surprised him.

“When I walked in with this box of cards,” Martin recalled, “hundreds of people of all creeds and cultures said something: ‘Where did you get those? How can I get some?’ Those Panini stickers are just that iconic collectible that goes beyond sports collectors.”

The stickers depicting players and teams in the World Cup have been around since 1970, when four Italian brothers paid $1,000 to procure the rights to produce the images. More than 50 years later, the stickers are available in packs all over the world, and fans young and old not only purchase them but also swap among themselves, helping each other fill their keepsake albums.

This year's book is the largest ever, partly due to an enlarged 48-team tournament, with 980 distinct stickers. They've become such a hot commodity that many stores are sold out, and backorders may not ship until the tournament has crowned a champion.

“We've sold an unbelievable amount of the stickers,” said Martin, one of the owners of Dave and Adam's Card World, which has shops in New York and Europe.

“We thought the order we placed months ago would be enough to tide us over,” Martin said. “We've had to reorder twice.”

The building buzz for a World Cup tradition

Panini had produced more than 2 billion packs — each containing seven stickers — by the start of the tournament, said Jason Howarth, the senior vice president of marketing and athlete relations for Panini America. That's quite a feat considering the field wasn't set until April 1.

Most stickers are not valuable by themselves, though older ones — such as the debuts of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo — can fetch hundreds of dollars. The value comes in trying to fill the World Cup album.

“In European and South American culture, completing the sticker album is something almost every child does at some point,” said Matt Blazey, from Milton Keynes, England, whose YouTube channel featuring cards and collectibles has more than 62,000 subscribers.

“Most rediscover it in adulthood,” Blazey said, “when they realize they have adult money, which brings back all of those memories of bringing stickers into school, showing them off to your mates and swapping them to complete the album.”

Indeed, part of the beauty of the Panini stickers is in their accessibility. Each pack only costs about $2 (1.50 euros).

Beginning with the last World Cup in Qatar, though, Panini also began producing variations with special borders that are much more scarce. Suddenly, stickers with red, purple or orange edges became especially sought-after, and collectors have put huge bounties on ultra-rare, black-bordered, 1-of-1s — as in, one in the world — depicting Messi, Ronaldo, Lamine Yamal and other big stars.

Some industry experts believe the black Messi sticker alone could command $200,000 at auction.

“We're tracking and following through social media who pulls the black 1-of-1s,” Howarth said. “Neymar, Leo, Ronaldo — this is probably their last World Cup. What do those stickers sell for? That's going to be a new high mark for the category.”

The challenge of completing the album is real

Sammi Kaewsawang had never participated in the World Cup album experience until this year, when the content creator from Long Beach, California, decided to see how long it would take to physically peel and stick all 980 examples into the album.

By the time Kaewsawang finished with Panama, the last of his 48 teams, he'd been at it for about 7 hours, 47 minutes.

“Now I'm on my second one, helping my fiance's nephew complete his,” Kaewsawang said. “What made the experience so memorable was the people I met along the way. Trading stickers brought me together with fans of all ages.”

That is undoubtedly part of the appeal: Even though Panini has a digital collection available, the sense of community that comes from swapping your doubles for a player you might need brings with it a quaint sense of nostalgia, not unlike the way American kids have collected and traded baseball cards for generations.

Many shops help by scheduling swap meets. Panini itself has a truck at Rockefeller Center in New York, where thousands have shown up in the evenings to trade. Message boards allow fans to connect anywhere in the world, and about 8,000 collectors recently showed up at a stadium in Santiago, Chile, to swap.

“I've made genuine new friends though this hobby,” Kaewsawang said, “and that means more than completing the collection itself.”

The end of the Panini stickers is near, or is it?

Even though Panini stickers have never been hotter — a partnership with Coca-Cola means stickers can be found under labels of certain bottles — the company is facing the end of an era after the 2030 tournament in Morocco, Portugal and Spain.

The Fanatics brand Topps will take over the rights to produce World Cup cards, stickers and other FIFA collectibles, and it's unclear whether the U.S.-based company will produce a similar product as its Italian rival.

“It is a real bittersweet moment,” Blazey said. “From my side, and for probably 90% of collectors at the moment — more so outside the U.S., where Panini is a household name — it's a very sad moment for this to be the end. So many people grew up collecting them, and it's synonymous with their childhood, so the loss of the license is very much seen as sacrilege.”

Yet there is also hope among collectors that Fanatics, which also recently took over the license for the Premier League, can take some of its forward-thinking ideas from sportscards and apply them to a sticker product for the 2034 World Cup.

It may not be the end of an era so much as a reboot.

“We're very privileged to be a significant partner with both Panini and Fanatics. We try not to pick sides,” Martin said. “I think Fanatics will do an amazing job with World Cup products, but I'm not sure they'll be able to capture the cultural impact.”

IRVINE, Calif. — In 2024, Mauricio Pochettino was looking for a job.

With a resume like his, it was not going to be difficult: As a defender, Pochettino played in major professional soccer leagues in Spain and France, and represented the Argentinian national team at the 2002 FIFA World Cup. Then, as a coach, he had managed some of Europe's most recognizable clubs — Tottenham Hotspur, Paris Saint-Germain, Chelsea — and worked with stars like Harry Kane, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé.

By contrast, the U.S. head coaching job was seen by many in the soccer world as a step down in prestige.

For decades, the U.S. has been the supposed "sleeping giant" of international soccer that could never seem to wake up — a country with the population and resources to compete with the powerhouses of the sport in Europe and South America but lacking the culture to do so.

The 2026 World Cup, hosted on home soil, represented a once-in-a-generation opportunity to take a big step toward changing that status quo.

The stakes were through the roof, but the team was stumbling: In the summer of 2024, with less than two years to go before the World Cup, the squad was unceremoniously bounced from the Copa América, a disaster that led to the firing of the head coach.

With the help of deep-pocketed donors, U.S. Soccer swung big and landed the big-name hot-shot coach whose resume was by far the most prestigious — and salary by far the highest — of anyone hired to the position.

Yet it would not be simple to turn things around on such a short timeline. Pochettino acknowledged as much in his introductory press conference, referring to the "amazing project and challenge that we have ahead."

Once he arrived, Pochettino found the situation was worse than he had realized, he recently told reporters. Players did not seem ready or excited about the upcoming World Cup, and much work remained to identify new talent.

Most worrying, he has said, was a culture of complacency among players, especially those who were regulars on the national team. That shocked Pochettino, who is from Argentina, a country that lives and breathes soccer, and especially worships its national team, captained at this World Cup by the superstar Messi.

Argentinian players are "desperate" to play for the national team, no matter the game, he told reporters soon after he started the job.

"In Argentina, a player doesn't choose which game to go to," he said then. "The Argentinian player takes every call-up as though it's the World Cup Final and as though it's his last ever opportunity." Bringing that mindset to the U.S. team, he said, would give them the chance to achieve something important.

To accomplish that meant a speed run on resetting the roster. Regular players were out. New guys were in. Everyone would have a chance.

Over the course of around a dozen camps and tournaments across the 18 months leading up to the World Cup, Pochettino tried out more than 70 players. He asked them all to compete equally, no matter their experience, seniority or the stature of their club team.

At first, the results were ugly.

A string of losses in early 2025 — 0-1 to Panama, 1-2 to Canada, 1-2 to Turkey, 0-4 to Switzerland — had the idea of a deep run in the World Cup feeling like a fantasy. That summer, a dispute between Pochettino and several players, including star winger Christian Pulisic, over whether to participate in a pair of friendlies before the Gold Cup tournament led to Pulisic and others being left off the tournament roster.

Still, in press conference after press conference, Pochettino explained that when building toward something, the process may not always look pretty. "It's hard work and slow work, also — as many have said, the work of an ant, little step, little step," he said a year ago.

But that process has paid dividends. Pochettino turned up several new players who are now on this World Cup roster — including starting defender Alex Freeman and go-to goalkeeper Matt Freese.

It also changed the way players saw each other and themselves, they say. "Culture improves through winning, culture improves through competition," said midfielder Tyler Adams. "Bringing in players that hadn't been in the fold and competing to make sure that no one's getting comfortable is something that we had to — not learn, but there's a respect level for every single person that comes in and around the group, and everyone feels included. And I think that's important."

Then came the results.

Last fall, the U.S. pieced together an unbeaten streak of five games against World Cup-caliber opponents. Then, in the spring, the team played friendlies against a handful of top teams — Belgium, Portugal, Senegal and Germany — and although they won only once, the Americans were competitive when their starting lineup was on the field.

After the final friendly, when a reporter remarked on the team's fluidity and intensity, Pochettino looked satisfied. "Your strategy can be brilliant. But if you don't have the energy, the commitment, the trust, the confidence, all the values that are really important, it's impossible to play well," he said. He and his staff were the same coaches they were a year ago, he continued. "But the priority was to create good culture. There's no other secret."

On the field, the offense looks fluid and aggressive. In the box, where U.S. teams of the past have looked timid, this roster has been decisive. In the first two matches of the World Cup, the Americans scored six goals, double their total from the 2022 tournament in half as many games.

Forward Folarin Balogun, whose two goals against Paraguay made him the first American man to score multiple times in a single World Cup game in nearly a century, credited Pochettino entirely. "The coach was brought in here to give us a structure, a foundation, an identity," he said.

And Pochettino's approach has translated to a new personality for the team on the field, too, says forward Timothy Weah.

"It's that South American grit. When you look at teams like Argentina, Paraguay, when you look at Brazil, the Colombians, they always have that edge because of their mentality," he said. "We were always the good guys, always the nice guys. Now he's teaching us to be the bad guys."

Soon, Pochettino's time with the U.S. could be coming to a close. His contract is up after the World Cup. He has not ruled out a return to U.S. Soccer, but it would surprise no one if he left, either.

Until the day comes, he is enjoying American culture. "I'm in his office yesterday, and he's listening to country music. It's funny to see," said Pulisic. "But then he brings his Argentinian culture, the staff. It's a unique bond with the group for sure."

And suddenly the expectations have grown for the team: A win in Wednesday's Round of 32 match against Bosnia and Herzegovina is now a must, and the U.S. could face Belgium in a possible Round of 16 matchup, or perhaps South Korea or Senegal.

A win would put the U.S. in the quarterfinal, matching the deepest run by the American men in the modern World Cup era. And it would set a new record for the U.S. men's team with four World Cup wins, twice as many as their previous high mark.

The players say, finally, the outside world sees what Pochettino has convinced them to believe all along: Why not us?

"It's a process. It's not gonna be figured out overnight. It's not gonna be figured out in one camp, or sometimes in six months, or 12 months, as fast as everyone wanted it to," defender Mark McKenzie said. "But in this group, we had a whole staff and group of players who knew and had the belief that we could honestly accomplish what we set our minds to."

Copyright 2026, NPR