A number of community groups in Minneapolis are calling for a cease-fire in Gaza as the war between Israel and Hamas continues to escalate. Hundreds of people were killed Tuesday in a blast at a hospital in Gaza. Protests erupted around the world. Thousands of people have died in both Israel and Gaza over the last week and a half.

To help us put this all into context, Professor Eric Schwartz joined MPR News Host Cathy Wurzer. He is chair of the Humphrey School’s global policy area at the University of Minnesota.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

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We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here. 

This Sunday will be 34 years since 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling was kidnapped by a masked man at gunpoint. It's a story that is seared into the memories of Minnesotans.

For those past 34 years, his mom, Patty, has been the face of the tragedy, the search and the hope through it all. She's become a national advocate for missing children.

Today, she’ll release her memoir. It’s called “Dear Jacob: A Mother’s Journey of Hope.” And it’s co-written with Joy Baker, the central Minnesota blogger who Patty credits with helping solve the case.

Joy and Patty talked with MPR News host Cathy Wurzer.

Information about the war in Israel is at our fingertips. But not all of it may be true. We talk to a local expert about how you can sort fact from fiction.

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett made a visit to the University of Minnesota. We have highlights from her speech that was also met with protest and disruption.

Plus, we head to a farm in northern Minnesota where poultry is their passion.

It’s been 34 years after the disappearance of Jacob Wetterling, and a new book is out Tuesday written by his mother. We have an in-depth conversation with Patty Wetterling about loss, hope and healing.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.   

Picture this scene back in 2010. Jason and Lucie Amundsen went out to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant in Duluth where they lived. They both made a living tapping on keyboards.

Jason pitched the idea of farming pasture-raised chickens. He said, “This is the kind of farm I want to start.” The conversation didn’t go well.

Yet something about the idea must have had staying power, because two years later they started what became the Locally Laid Egg Company in Wrenshall, Minn.

MPR’s senior economic contributor Chris Farrell visited their farm not far from Duluth and learned that there is even more to the farm than chickens.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.   

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

Misinformation about the war in Israel is flooding social media. It’s making it difficult to sort fact from fiction in a war many in the U.S. already know little about.

While there has been plenty of real verified imagery and accounts of the airstrikes and bombings, they have been intermingled with false claims. One was a doctored White House memo claiming to show President Joe Biden announcing billions in aid for Israel.

Even mainstream news outlets have been duped. Unverified reports of babies being beheaded were circulating, and CNN had to make a correction that they were not able to confirm it was true.

Already the information pouring in at your fingertips can be overwhelming during a time like this. To help sort it out, MPR News guest host Emily Bright spoke with Emily Vraga. Vraga is an associate professor at the Hubbard School of Journalism at the University of Minnesota and studies mis- and disinformation.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Both misinformation and disinformation deal with things that are not accurate, things that we can’t prove to be true or that we know to be false. The difference is misinformation is unintentional, while disinformation is something that someone knows to be false and is still spreading to achieve some kind of political, social or financial gain.

There’s a lot of people who really want to get their point of view across and to persuade people that they are on the right side. Propaganda has always been a part of war and disinformation is part of that. Sometimes it goes beyond just revealing facts to actually spread things that they know to be false.

Disinformation is a type of propaganda where people are going beyond just crafting messages that are persuasive, trying to represent only one viewpoint in a very limited way, to actually sharing things that are inaccurate.

We need to be really careful when we’re on social media, and to think about where the information is coming from and who stands to gain from it. People in general want to be accurate, they want to be right. But when we’re on social media, we don’t always have that desire at the top of our mind.

I just encourage people to continue to remind themselves that it’s really important to verify whether the information is something we can trust before sharing it or allow it to affect our beliefs about a topic.

Question anything that is really, highly emotional. If there’s something that is really trying to tug at our heartstrings, that is doing so to advance a particular viewpoint, that’s a time when we should be more skeptical.

Really look at the source of the information. If there is a source provided, double check it. And if there isn’t a source, that's a reason to maybe be skeptical as well and see if you can find other sources that you do trust or reporting on that topic.

Remind yourself that when we start looking at social media that we want to be accurate, we want to be making sure we are relying on the best information, not necessarily on things that make us feel good or feel bad, or really tap into our identity. Putting accuracy at the front of our mind can help us remember to use the tools that I think most of us know we can use effectively.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.   

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

A tense custody battle over two children in Kandiyohi County in west central Minnesota has left the boys stuck in limbo.

Minnesota state law is supposed to prioritize relatives in foster care and adoption. But since 2020, the two children at the center of this story have lived in four foster homes in Minnesota — despite their aunt’s fight to adopt them.

Sara Tiano reported this story for The Imprint – that’s a nonprofit news site covering child welfare – in collaboration with Sahan Journal.

Fungi are miraculous. By breaking down rock and turning it into soil, they made it possible for plants to move onto land 500 million years ago. And they’ve been forming fascinating relationships with plants and animals ever since.

Take forests, where networks of fungi connect to tree roots and trade nutrients back and forth. These networks have gotten more attention in recent years, but there’s still so much we don’t know about them. And scientists at the University of Wisconsin are asking people in states along the Mississippi river for help.

To learn more, MPR News host Cathy Wurzer talked with PhD Candidate Kathleen Thompson with the Forest Fungi Project.

Doctors with Allina Health have voted to unionize. Theirs may be the largest union of its kind. Physicians have been speaking out about persistent staffing shortages in the health system, which operates in Minnesota and Wisconsin. We talk with a member of the new union about what's next.

The COVID-19 pandemic threw everyone — including health officials — into confusion. A Minnesota research team is trying to learn from the mistakes of this pandemic so we're better prepared next time. We talk with two investigators.

Under state law, family members are supposed to get priority in foster care and adoption. But that's not what happened in the case of two boys in Kandiyohi County. We talk with a reporter who's been following their story.

Scientists in Wisconsin are asking people to send them tree roots in the mail. We learn what they hope to find.

The University of Minnesota and the Minnesota Department of Health have been awarded $17.5 million to help develop a national outbreak response network alongside the CDC.

Two of the three co-principal investigators working on the project talked with MPR News host Cathy Wurzer.

Allina is one of the state's largest health care providers. And now their doctors are believed to be the largest crop of unionized private-sector physicians in the country.

Doctors in the Allina system have voted to unionize. More than 150 nurse practitioners and physician assistants also voted in the election and are eligible to join the union.

Dr. Katherine Oyster is a family medicine and OB doctor at Allina Health Cottage Grove Clinic. She talked with MPR News host Cathy Wurzer.