Minnesota Now

On Sept. 11, 2001, Tom Burnett was aboard a hijacked airliner when it crashed in rural Pennsylvania. Tom grew up in Bloomington. He managed to call his wife Deena four times from his cell phone before the plane went down.

Just two months after the terrorist attack, Deena Burnett sat down with MPR News deputy managing editor Lorna Benson. We listen back to their conversation as people gather across the state to remember the nearly 3,000 lives lost on 9/11.

Buck Hill is hosting a remembrance concert. In St. Cloud, the Army ROTC Fighting Saints Battalion is organizing a memorial stair climb. And this weekend Austin, Minn., will hold a 9/11 heroes run.

It’s hard for a lot of people to feel good about their finances and their future. Now there’s a new term for that: money dysmorphia.

It borrows from the term “body dysmorphia,” a mental health condition that causes a person to obsess about a perceived physical flaw.

Money dysmorphia is not an actual diagnosis. Still, there are many people who feel insecure about their finances, even though they actually may be doing fine.

If you feel that way, you are not alone. In fact, a survey earlier this year found 43 percent of Gen Z respondents and 41 percent of millennial respondents said they experienced money dysmorphia.

To understand more about this and where it comes from, MPR News guest host Nina Moini talks with Kim Miller, a financial counselor with Lutheran Social Services.

It’s been almost a year since a suicide cluster hit the University of Wisconsin-River Falls community. Four students died in the span of two months. It was a difficult time for the campus community, which is committed to making sure it never happens again. On Tuesday, school officials are outlining a “suicide postvention” plan.

Laura King is the vice chancellor for student affairs and strategic enrollment and she’s been overseeing this plan. She joined Minnesota Now to talk about how she’s seen last year’s deaths affect campus and what the university plans for the future.

If you or someone you know is struggling, please know trained help is available. Call or text 988 to get connected with a counselor or visit 988lifeline.org to start a chat.

Tuesday night is the first and only scheduled presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. How might it influence Minnesota voters in a tight race? We took a look and heard perspective from an expert on the art of the debate.

Nearly a year after a cluster of suicides at the University of Wisconsin River Falls, school officials are forming a path forward.

On a new Minnesota Now and Then segment, historians remember a Minnesota doctor who made groundbreaking strides in Tuberculosis detection and treatment.

A new art exhibition aims to help us process grief, loss and hope after a pandemic, social uprising and wars across the world.

Between a pandemic, wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and social uprising and unrest in Minneapolis and across the country, the past four years have had Minnesotans thinking about loss and grief a lot.

A new interactive art exhibition opening Thursday in the Prospect Park neighborhood in Minneapolis dares us to begin to process it all. It’s called “Legacy Dream Space” and it includes video projection, theater, digital art and music.

Craig Harris is one of the artists behind the exhibit. He is a composer, theater artist, writer and producer, and he joined Minnesota Now with a preview and to talk about the inspiration behind the exhibit.

So far in 2024 there have been 100 diagnosed cases of tuberculosis in Minnesota. TB is a highly contagious disease that was at one time the leading cause of death across the country. You probably don’t hear about TB much anymore. In Minnesota, that’s thanks in no small part to Dr. Kathleen Jordan.

She worked to detect the illness in children early — before it became active and contagious. As one local historian tells it, Dr. Jordan gave out more than 1.5 million tuberculosis skin tests throughout her career. In September, an exhibit and series of events in Granite Falls will honor that work.

For more on the doctor’s story, Peggy Kvam of the Dr. Kathleen Jordan Project and Jill Heins, a national senior director with the American Lung Association, joined Minnesota Now.

The first and only scheduled presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will be held Tuesday evening.

According to a poll released Tuesday, about 70 percent of Americans are planning to tune in and 30 percent of registered voters are planning to use what happens Tuesday night to decide their vote. University of Minnesota’s director of forensics — another word for debate — David Cram Helwich joined Minnesota Now to talk about how the evening’s debate could influence a tight race.

The presidential campaigns are not pouring advertising money into Minnesota right now. But our listeners and television viewers in western Wisconsin are getting a lot of attention from both presidential campaigns. A longtime Wisconsin political reporter explained what makes the region uniquely competitive.

Gov. Tim Walz’s rising profile has also lifted some new Minnesota laws into the national conversation. We talked about what the future could hold for the universal school meals program.

And we met the owner of a new resort making Boundary Waters adventures accessible for people with disabilities.

Plus, the Vikings had an excellent first game of the season — and Minnesota’s pro women’s hockey team finally gets a name. Our sports guys talked all about it.

Sunday night, the Minnesota Vikings started the season with a satisfying win against the New York Giants: 28 to 6.

That’s a pretty good way for Sam Darnold to start his tenure as quarterback. He told reporters after the game the offensive, defensive and special teams had a lot to be proud of.

For his part, “staying efficient” was the motto.

MPR News host Cathy Wurzer spoke with Wally Langfellow and Eric Nelson about the win, plus other sports news. They are the hosts of the 10,000 Takes sports talk show.

A one-of-a-kind resort is now open in Ely.

North of North Resort and Outfitters was built from the ground up to be accessible for everyone, and that means everyone.

The entire resort is accessible for people with disabilities. And it’s not just the lodging and the saunas that are accessible. It is also offering outdoor recreation programming for people of all different abilities. That’s thanks in part to a big grant it is getting from the state.

MPR News host Cathy Wurzer spoke with Sean Leary, who owns the resort with his wife, Jill.