Minnesota Now

This weekend, the iconic Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, France will reopen, five years after a devastating fire.

People from around the world helped rebuild it, including a timber framer from Grand Marais. Peter Henrikson worked in France for seven months to help construct the new roof. MPR News correspondent Dan Kraker talked to him about the process and how his months of work are now coming to life.

How did you spend your Black Friday? Chances are you found some good deals online and hit a few stores for holiday shopping. Nika Hirsch, 14, has a different Black Friday tradition. And she has hundreds of strangers to thank for supporting her efforts to spread gratitude and raise money for cancer research in her hometown of Northfield, Minn.

For our series Thank You, Stranger, MPR News producer Ellen Finn talked to Nika Hirsch.

It’s been a chaotic week in politics in South Korea, where the president declared martial law and lifted it hours later, after Parliament voted to reject his move. Martial law is the replacement of civilian government by military rule. Now President Yoon Suk Yeol is facing calls for resignation and a potential impeachment.

Minnesota is home to nearly 30,000 people of Korean descent and is the nation’s largest number of Korean adoptees. SeungGyeong Ji is from South Korea and is currently an instructor at the University of Minnesota, specializing in gender and women’s studies. Ji joined Minnesota Now to talk about what she’s hearing from back home.

A manhunt for the gunman who killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson is now in its second day with newly emerged details that could begin to paint what is still a very fuzzy picture of who shot Thompson — and why.

Thompson has worked for the Minnetonka-based insurance company since 2004 and his family lives in Maple Grove. He became the company’s CEO three years ago.

MPR News reporter Nicole Ki is in New York and joined Minnesota Now with the latest on the investigation. MPR News health reporter Erica Zurek shared more about Thompson’s life and career.

Wednesday morning Gov. Tim Walz and legislative leaders received a state budget forecast that was about $1.1 billion less than what they were expecting from the prior forecast. The state budget report shows lawmakers will not have a surplus to craft their two-year budget. Instead, it looks like they may have to take measures to prevent a financial deficit.

What does this lack of fiscal wiggle room mean for the upcoming session? Tom Hanson has poured through budgets like this many times before and joins MPR News host Nina Moini with insight. He served as a finance commissioner at the state Department of Management and Budget under Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

During the 2024 election cycle, it became clear that people were not just getting their information from traditional news organizations, but instead were turning to political influencers on social media or podcasts. And the campaigns tuned into that, making several podcast appearances.

A new Pew Research study confirmed this notion. It found that one in five Americans regularly get their news from influencers on social media. It’s even higher for adults under 30.

But a majority of these news influencers have no news affiliation or journalism background. So it brings up the question, how is this new wave of news affecting media literacy and how people understand the world around us?

University of St. Thomas associate professor of emerging media Yayu Feng joins MPR News host Nina Moini to unpack this question.

We have developments in the brazen shooting death of the CEO of Minnesota-based United Healthcare.

Plus, the state budget forecast is out and lawmakers will have far less wiggle room than they expected. Instead, they are staring down a possible deficit.

A new study finds more and more Americans are turning to influencers on social media to get their news. So what does that mean for media literacy?

Plus, a researcher explains a study that is predicting Minnesota’s winter weather patterns.

Meteorologist Sven Sundgaard has the forecast for the dose of winter weather arriving Wednesday.

And a local musician is celebrating the season in a meaningful way. He is raising money through song to support families impacted by a rare childhood cancer.

Wind and even some snow began to whip wildly in the Twin Cities metro Wednesday morning and much of the state faces a wind advisory for Wednesday afternoon. That plus falling temperatures from north to south are making for a potentially brutal chill this evening. MPR News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard joins host Nina Moini with more on what’s to come, including potential snow for much of the state.

For many, the holiday season is celebrated through music. Minneapolis musician Ben Cook-Feltz wrote an entire album to celebrate with. In one song, he pays tribute to frosty nights, meals with loved ones; in another, he hypes up Christmas vacation. He will celebrate Sunday with his fourth-annual “Holiday Shindig” at the Cedar Cultural Center.

The celebration has a special meaning for Ben: he is a childhood cancer survivor and is donating proceeds from the event to Rein in Sarcoma, an organization that benefits people with sarcoma, a rare bone and tissue cancer. He joins MPR News host Nina Moini to share some of his music.

Parts of the Great Lakes are digging out from a lake effect snow storm that brought six feet of snow to parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania. And the North Shore of Lake Superior will get its own dose of lake effect snow Wednesday.

New research aims to better predict how winter storms will look in the Great Lakes region, which stretches from here in Minnesota to upstate New York.

Abby Hutson, a researcher at the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research (CIGLR) at the University of Michigan, joins MPR News host Nina Moini to explain.