The Center for Rural Policy and Development is a non-partisan, not-for-profit policy research organization dedicated to benefiting Minnesota by providing lawmakers unbiased information and evaluation of issues from a rural perspective. Julie Tesch, President and CEO of CRPD joins Heidi Holtan and John Bauer on the Thursday Morning Show. They talk about the healthcare problems rural Minnesota communities are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic. Julie explains what her organization is doing to

When the economy "tanked" in 2008, Bill Smith decided to drop his work as an engineer and become a full-time soap-maker. He got his introduction to making soap at a workshop at Itasca State Park 10 years earlier, and had been experimenting to find the best formula ever since. Now he makes over 50 kinds of soap in his kitchen, and keeps the inventory in his basement. His business is called AM Soap Company . About half of Bill's sales normally come from art and craft shows. Unfortunately, spring

In WWII Poland, a teenager shows unbeliveable bravery and humanity by hiding thirteen Jews in her attic while Nazi soldiers live below. The Light in Hidden Places is New York Times best selling author Sharon Cameron’s latest novel and is inspired by the real life teen, Stefania Podgorska .

Abi Dare is a British writer who grew up in Nigeria. She had a comfortable upbringing, but the knowledge that she would eventually go off to school while other girls her age would stay and work as housemaids for families like hers--this stuck with her and eventually inspired her book The Girl with the Louding Voice --the story of Adunni, who against all odds fights her way out of the desperate situations she experiences as a young woman in Nigeria to achieve her long fought goal of receiving an

Liz Moore is a writer from Philadelphia. Her new novel is a work of crime fiction with the emotional intimacy of a family story, set in a real-life neighborhood in Philadelphia notorious for high drug addiction rates. It’s called Long Bright River.

From shopping on Amazon, to chilling with a show on Netflix, and even dating websites, writer Kartik Hosanagar tells us that algorithms, the programming behind how these web applications work, aren’t just “recommending” things to us: they’re guiding our choices. Kartik Hosanager is a professor of technology, digital business and marketing at Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. His new book is A Human’s Guide to Machine Intelligence: How Algorithms are Shaping Our Lives and What We

What We're Reading c ontributor Lily Winter returns with another installment of Forgotten Authors, today we’ll hear about British writer Clemence Dane.

We hear from authors Abi Dare, Liz Moore, and Sharon Cameron --they’ve all got new exciting novels to talk about, and we’ll hear another installment on Forgotten Authors with Lily Winter, this time she re- introduces us to British writer Clemence Dane. Kartik Hosanagar, talks algorithms in his new book, "A Human’s Guide to Machine Intelligence." We revisit one of our What We’re Reading interviews from the fall: Sarah Pinkser’s novel A Song for a New Day imagined a world event very similar to

WOW! We heard from so many people this week! We loved all the incredible reports! Click on the links to hear the beauty that folks are witnessing. What a dreamy time to live in northern Minnesota! Augie's Report from Shevlin includes frogs, leeches and snakes, oh my! Tony on Dixon Lake reports kingfishers among other amazing things! Peyton's report from the Ely 6th graders has all kinds of hope for green things to come! Blackberry school reports robins, ice outs and skunks! North Shore Community

How are all your homemade meals treating you? Feel like trying something new? Like Sauerkraut Soup or Beet Pickled Deviled Eggs with Hot Mustard Dust? We talked with Amy Thielen this week to get some meal inspiration. Amy Thielen is a cook and a 2x James Beard Award-winning writer. Her books are The New Midwestern Table and Give a Girl a Knife (A Memoir). She is also host of Food Network’s Heartland Table and a contributing editor to Saveur magazine . @amyrosethielen Instagram and Twitter