Minnesota Now

On Minnesota Now, we get to hear from so many different people in Minnesota over the phone and in the studio. But we don’t often meet them in the community, where news — and life — happens. In a new series we are calling Out to Lunch, we sit down for a meal with people from Minnesota news and culture to get to know them better.

Our first guest is DFL Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, who received national attention last year while campaigning for former Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz. But she has worked in politics and advocacy since her early 20s, beginning with the Sen. Paul Wellstone’s 2002 campaign. Later, she led Minnesota’s chapter of the Children’s Defense Fund and served in the Minnesota House.

A member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, she is now the highest-ranking Indigenous woman elected to executive office. She met MPR News host Nina Moini at Owamni in Minneapolis.

The Nation’s Report Card is out and it is giving us a snapshot of how students are doing in school. In Minnesota, kids still haven’t caught up to pre-pandemic test scores. We talk to a local school district about the results and how they are trying to make progress.

As deportation efforts from the Trump administration have become more public, it has led to rumors about ICE raids and arrests. We hear from a local organization that is trying to stop misinformation.

Plus is spring coming early? Paul Huttner will join us with more on a winter warm-up.

And we are debuting a new segment on Minnesota Now, Out to Lunch! We sit down for a meal with people in the news in hopes of sharing something you haven’t already heard. Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan is our first guest.

After a deep freeze, Minnesota is experiencing a January thaw that feels almost like spring! MPR Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner joins MPR News host Nina Moini with a look at the forecast.

The Trump administration’s immigration policy promises are leading to rumors of mass immigration arrests in Minnesota, as a push for more deportations reaches cities across the country. It has also sparked a flurry of misinformation shared online.

Social media posts alleging that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents are detaining immigrants in Minnesota have circulated widely in the past two weeks, but many of these reports are unconfirmed.

ICE officials push back on the term “raids.” In a previous statement to MPR News, an ICE official said their officers do not conduct raids and that all arrests are either targeted to a specific person or are the result of encounters during targeted enforcement.

Ryan Pérez, Leadership and Organizing director at COPAL Minnesota, joins MPR News host Nina Moini to talk about this misinformation and its impacts on the immigrant community.

It’s been nearly five years since the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted learning for children. New data known as the Nation’s Report Card shows that across the nation, fourth and eighth graders in 2024 still performed below pre-pandemic levels.

That’s also true for Minnesota. Across the state, students’ test scores did not significantly change from two years prior. The last time the test was conducted in 2022, students around the country showed steep learning losses from the pandemic. Many experts had hoped to see students rebounding from some of those losses in 2024.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which provides data for the Nation’s Report Card, is mandated by Congress and is the largest nationally-representative test of student learning. The assessments in math and reading are given every two years to a broad sample of students in fourth and eighth grade.

For more on these results and what they might mean for Minnesota’s students, MPR News host Nina Moini talks with Julio Caésar, executive director or research, evaluation and assessment for Bloomington Public Schools.

The Trump administration is holding back money the federal government gives out as grants and loans while it reviews spending. There’s confusion about what this will mean for education, health care, and more. A public policy expert joined the show with some insight.

Avian flu has been devastating to many poultry farms and it's now affecting dairy herds around the country. We talked with a veterinarian who said the response has been lacking so far.

We met two people working to document 50 years of Hmong experiences in Minnesota. Their book project may be the first of its kind.

The James Beard nominations are once again spotlighting Minnesota’s food scene. We talked with a nominee for Best Chef Midwest.

Our Minnesota Music Minute is “Siren Song” by Barbara Jean and our Song of the Day is “Settle Up Settle Down” by Orange Goodness.

The James Beard Awards are the Oscar’s of the restaurant industry, and in Minnesota, 11 chefs and restaurants were recently named as semi-finalists. The semifinalist list includes some famous names like Yia Vang, Diane Moua and Gavin Kaysen.

Abraham Gessesse may not be a household name, but he is the chef owner of the St. Paul restaurant Hyacinth and he’s been nominated in the Best Chef Midwest category for the first time. He joined MPR News host Nina Host to talk about what it means to be a semifinalist.

2025 marks 50 years since Hmong people started immigrating to Minnesota. Today, the state is home to a vibrant community of at least 95,000 Hmong Minnesotans.

Through the Minnesota Historical Society and the state Legislature, the Hmong Cultural Center in St. Paul and the Hmong Studies Journal received a grant of nearly $25,000 to publish a special issue of the journal that will commemorate 50 years of Hmong people residing and contributing to life in Minnesota.

It may be the first scholarly book collection to be solely dedicated to the range of Hmong experiences in Minnesota.

Txongpao Lee is the executive director of the Hmong Cultural Center. Mark Pfeifer is the director of programs at the Hmong Cultural Center and the co-editor of the Hmong Studies Journal. Lee and Pfeifer joined MPR News host Nina Moini to talk about the importance of marking 50 years of Hmong people in Minnesota with a book.

On Tuesday at 4 p.m., some federal funding and grants provided to the state of Minnesota will be paused due to an executive order from President Donald Trump. Minnesota gets billions of dollars from the federal government, with a large portion of it going toward issues under health and human services, education and transportation, though not all of that funding is at risk. NPR is reporting that this funding freeze could be as short as a day. State agencies are trying to figure out exactly what this order means.

This announcement from the Trump administration is just one of many that has unclear consequences and leaves a lot of questions on how it will impact Minnesotans.

To help bring some context to the first week of the Trump presidency, Larry Jacobs, a political scientist and professor at the University of Minnesota joined Minnesota Now.

On Saturday agriculture regulators will begin testing milk produced in Minnesota for H5N1 – the virus commonly known as avian influenza or bird flu. The disease has forced poultry farmers to kill about 9 million birds in Minnesota since 2022. Earlier in January, a turkey grower in Dakota County lost nearly 80,000 birds. The situation is also driving up the price of eggs.  

In spring 2024, the disease showed up in cows. Minnesota had its first case in dairy cattle in June 2024 and saw nine total outbreaks that year. No humans in the state have gotten sick with H5N1, but there have been 67 confirmed cases in humans elsewhere in the country.   

Public health and veterinary experts say this problem is not going away. They’re pointing out what they say are missteps in the response so far.

Carol Cardona, a professor in the Department of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Minnesota joined Minnesota Now with her perspective and concerns about the virus.