Minnesota Now

During Pride month, many folks around the state are reminded, or learning for the first time, that gender and sexuality is a spectrum that goes beyond the traditional LGBTQ+ umbrella.

One identity that often gets misrepresented — or even left out entirely — is Two Spirit, an identity unique to Indigenous people.

Yanktonai Dakota poet and New Native Theatre senior artistic producer Charli Fool Bear shared what her Two Spirit identity means to her in a conversation with MPR News host Cathy Wurzer.

In a city struggling to maintain police officer staffing levels, the Minneapolis City Council is holding public hearings on a tentative union contract that would make Minneapolis officers some of the highest paid in the state.

Despite pressure from the mayor and his allies to quickly approve the contract, council members want the public to have time to consider whether the city is getting enough reforms to make up for the additional 20 million dollars it will cost over the next two years.

MPR News senior reporter Jon Collins reported on the nearly four hour meeting on Tuesday night.

Prosecutors Wednesday announced jury bribery charges against three of the defendants in the recent Feeding Our Future trial along with two other people.

MPR News correspondent Matt Sepic joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer to share what he heard at a news conference at the U.S Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis.

We’re well into the official start of summer, and teenagers across Minnesota have a break from their jam-packed school schedules. Between homework, extracurricular activities and part-time jobs, many teenagers don’t have time for much else during the school year — which makes summer the perfect time for those things that get sidelined. Like therapy, for example.

A therapist joined the show to explain why summer therapy for teens can be beneficial. Lexi McMullen is a Moorhead-based family therapist at The Village Family Service Center.

Prince’s album “Purple Rain” turned 40 on Tuesday. The man behind the beat of the album, record producer and musician Bobby Rivkin “Bobby Z” joined Minnesota Now.

Rivkin played in Prince’s band, The Revolution, from 1978 to 1976. After Prince’s death in 2016, he and other members of the band reunited and kept performing.

The band played two anniversary shows on Friday and Saturday to commemorate Purple Rain. Some fans who took part in the weekend’s celebrations got a preview of an upcoming musical based on Purple Rain, the film, where Rivkin is serving as a musical advisor for the project.

On Tuesday afternoon a state senate committee will hold a hearing at the Capitol on what they call a pattern of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incidents at the University of Minnesota since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, as well as the administration’s handling of these incidents.

Included is accounts from Jewish students and community members about what they feel is an anti-Jewish atmosphere on campus. Also up for discussion, the university’s decision to rescind an offer to Israeli historian Raz Segal to lead the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. DFL State Senator Ron Latz, the chair of the committee on Judiciary and Public Safety, joined the show to talk about it.

A state senate committee is trying to learn more about what it calls a pattern of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish incidents at the University of Minnesota. Lawmakers invited professors, students and administration to speak at a committee hearing later Tuesday afternoon. The committee chair joined Minnesota Now.

Forty years ago Tuesday, Prince released Purple Rain. We talked about the album with one of the people who helped make it — and learned about a Prince-themed musical coming to Minneapolis.

If you have kids in your life, you know they are some of the busiest people among us. We talked to a therapist who says summer break is a good time to focus on teen mental health.

We remembered an icon of the Minneapolis folk music scene, “Spider” John Koerner.

On Tuesday, a legendary Minnesota high school coach will be inducted into the National High School Athletic Coaches Hall of Fame.

Gail Nucech started the girls volleyball program in Hibbing in 1969 and holds a Minnesota record of 884 match victories over 44 seasons, including leading the team to 23 state tournament appearances. She also coached gymnastics, basketball, softball and track.

Nucech joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer to reflect on her coaching career ahead of her induction.

Ȟaȟá Wakpádaŋ or Bassett Creek travels from the Medicine Lake in the western suburbs of the Twin Cities to the Mississippi River.

And now, you can hear Indigenous voices from the Bassett Creek watershed area through an oral history project. It’s the first gathering of suburban Indigenous oral histories in the United States or Canada.

MPR News Native News senior editor Leah Lemm joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer to talk more about the stories and the people telling them.

The southern Minnesota town of Henderson is holding an emergency city council meeting Monday night after flooding from the Minnesota River is causing the town to quickly become surrounded by water. Henderson is down to just one road to get in and out of town. Joining MPR News Host Cathy Wurzer is Henderson Mayor Keith Swenson.