Minnesota Now

A new academic year begins at the end of August. Minnesota college freshmen headed to one Iowa school will be able to pay in-state tuition.

The Iowa Board of Regents recently approved a plan to offer that discount to new University of Northern Iowa undergraduates from six neighboring states.   

The university is in Cedar Falls, which is about a two-hour drive from Rochester. Its tuition deal for students across the Iowa border is one of many strategies that institutions have used as enrollment has dipped around the country.      

Vanessa Miller is a higher education reporter for the Iowa newspaper, The Gazette. She joined MPR News guest host Chris Farrell to talk about her reporting on the tuition deal.

Housing social workers and advocates are facing the fallout of the Department of Human Service’s move to terminate its housing stabilization program due to alleged fraud. DHS found 77 providers with credible allegations of wrongdoing and requested from the federal government cancel the program. By law, the Medicaid-backed program can only be canceled by the federal government.

But there are hundreds of other organizations that were using the program in earnest to help Minnesotans find housing.

Local organization Avivo helps thousands of Minnesotans find stable housing. John Tribbett is a service area director in Avivo’s Ending Homelessness division. MPR News guest host Chris Farrell talked to Tribbett about his reaction when he heard the state was [shutting down the program] asking for the program to be shut down.

Correction (Aug. 13, 2025): An earlier version of this story mischaracterized the status of the Department of Human Services Housing Stabilization Program. Both the written story and the attached audio have been updated.

After allegations of widespread fraud and FBI raids, the state is shutting down a housing stabilization services program funded through state Medicaid. We talk to a KARE 11 reporter who helped break the story.

Many of Trump's planned tariffs take effect this week. We learn how higher taxes on imported products could affect your wallet.

Plus, wildfire smoke from Canada has been spilling into Minnesota. We hear from an expert in Canada about one of the country's worst wildfire seasons on record.

And the biggest losers of the MLB trade deadline may be Minnesota Twins fans. We get the latest on that story and more with Wally and Eric.

Our Minnesota Music Minute was “Dreams Go” by Poliça and our Song of the Day was “When’s It Gonna End” by Clayton Ryan and Molly Brandt.

Even as the wildfire smoke clears out, a different dark cloud is hanging over many Twins fans. Nearly 40 percent of Minnesota’s roster turned over in a series of trades before Thursday's deadline.

The team shed ten players from its major-league roster. That includes star shortstop Carlos Correa, who returned to the top-ranked Houston Astros. The Twins brought on 13 new players. And the shakeup is happening while the team is for sale.

Joining Minnesota Now to explain all this plus other Minnesota sports news are our sports contributors, Wally Langfellow and Eric Nelson.

Nearly half of people who are 50 years or older and who have credit card debt use their cards to pay for basic living expenses. That’s according to a survey by AARP. The trouble with credit card debt is that it is easy to accumulate and hard to get rid of. In the next installment of the series, “Buy Now, Pay Later,” we look at strategies to pay down that debt.

This series is in partnership with Next Avenue, a non-profit news platform for older adults, produced by Twin Cities PBS.

President Donald Trump’s vision for global trade could become a reality this week. Numerous countries around the world are facing the prospect of new tariffs starting Aug. 7. President Donald Trump had threatened to impose the tariffs on Aug. 1 but delayed the deadline by a week just hours before they were supposed to take effect.

Under the current tariff proposal, Americans will see an average tax of 18.3 percent for imported products. That’s the highest rate since 1934, according to the Budget Lab at Yale, a non-partisan policy research center.

As with past tariff announcements and trade deals, there is a chance for things to change. Louis Johnston, an economics professor at the College of St. Benedict, joins Minnesota Now to help us understand where things stand.

The state of Minnesota announced it is shutting down its housing stabilization services program after allegations of widespread fraud. The Department of Human Services temporary commissioner Shireen Ghandi said that their own data analysis has shown that this program does not have the necessary controls to stop bad actors.

The cancellation follows the in-depth investigative reporting on alleged fraud from KARE 11’s A.J. Lagoe. He joined Minnesota Now and talked to guest host Chris Farrell about his reporting.

The state of Minnesota is taking a breath of fresh air after nearly a week-long air quality alert due to wildfire smoke out of Canada. While the state was impacted by the smoke, it is far from the fires on the ground to the north, in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Joining Minnesota Now with the details on the fires, as well as Canada's response to them is Mike Flannigan. He’s the scientific director of the Institute of Wildfire Science, Adaptation and Resiliency at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia, Canada.

Twenty-five people were hospitalized after severe turbulence forced a Delta flight into an emergency landing at MSP. We'll learn from a pilot what passengers can do to stay safe and why turbulence may be becoming more common.

On Friday, thousands of Minnesotans will see their student loan balances grow. We'll learn about big changes to student loans on the horizon with an advocate.

It's been two years since recreational marijuana became legal in the state. We'll talk to a business owner in Duluth on the verge of being the first non-tribal store to sell legal cannabis.

Plus hear from a Minnesota fashion designer on the new season of Project Runway.

Our Minnesota Music Minute was "Leave her Johnny" by Sycamore Gap. 

In our series Thank You, Stranger, we hear the stories of how strangers can make our lives a little brighter, or lift us up in a difficult moment. Sarah Thuleen lost her baby due to a prolapsed cord. With her partner away, a nurse named Pat at the Mother Baby Center at Abbott Northwestern in Minneapolis helped her through the crisis.

Thuleen said Pat advocated for her during a scary process with a lot of unknowns.

Thuleen spoke to Minnesota Now producer Ellen Finn about her experience.