Minnesota Now

Award-winning Minneapolis chef Yia Vang announced plans to open a new restaurant in northeast Minneapolis.

Vinai will open next spring in the Northeast Bank Building, on Second Street Northeast in the Sheridan neighborhood. That’s the space Dangerous Man Brewing announced it would soon vacate. It’s a hot corner — Young Joni and Oro are also in the neighborhood.

Yia Vang joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer to talk about his next venture.

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.

Later this month, community members in Bemidji are planning to gather to search for Nevaeh Kingbird, who went missing nearly two years ago at the age of 15. Hers is one of many cases where Indigenous women and girls have disappeared in Minnesota.

Between 27 and 54 were missing in any given month from 2012 through 2020. That’s according to data from the state Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives Office. The stories of those who went missing weigh heavily on friends, loved ones and others who worry about their own safety.

The Minneapolis organization MIGIZI is bringing together Native American youth to process their connection to this issue through writing. The first round of the program wrapped up in March and the second is scheduled to begin this month. 

MIGIZI’s Lead Media Instructor, Binesikwe Means and a participant in the MIGIZI Speaks program, Kija Dear joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer.  

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.

Minneapolis may soon have a new community safety commissioner. Mayor Jacob Frey named his choice for the position as Hennepin County Chief Judge Todd Barnette.

Barnette has been tapped to oversee not only the police department, but fire and community safety as well. The city has been looking to fill the position since mid-July, when Cedric Alexander gave the city his notice that he would retire on Sept. 1. Now just 10 days later, there’s a new appointment to the position.

MPR News reporters Matt Sepic and Nina Moini joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer to talk about the nomination.

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.

Minneapolis has a new nominee for community safety commissioner. We learn more about Mayor Jacob Frey’s pick announced Monday morning.

Chef Yia Vang shares his plans for a brick-and-mortar restaurant in Northeast Minneapolis.

It has been 22 years since the Sept. 11 attacks. We look back on how Minnesotans commemorated the first anniversary of 9/11.

After 14 years, a Minnesota animal rescue nonprofit has a new name. We talk with the CEO of the organization formerly known as Secondhand Hounds.

During the record-breaking drought of 2021, wells around the state went dry as farms drew six billion gallons more than their pumping permits allowed. One of the main culprits? The potato industry, which has an incentive to drench fields of sandy soil in parts of Minnesota to achieve perfect looking french fries for fast food chains like McDonalds. But corn and soybeans are thirsty crops too.

The New York Times looked at the Minnesota situation in a recent series on water scarcity across the country. The Star Tribune reported earlier this year that the Department of Natural Resources has asked lawmakers for more regulatory power and higher fines for water users who use too much water.

To help us understand the state of groundwater in Minnesota, MPR News host Cathy Wurzer spoke with Department of Natural Resources Hydrologist Ellen Considine, as well as Bob Shimek. Shimek is a member of Red Lake Nation and currently lives on the White Earth Reservation. He’s an Extension Educator with White Earth Tribal and Community College and he’s active on water issues.

Supporters of what’s called the End-of-Life Options Act launched a campaign this week to pass the legislation in 2024. It would give people with terminal illnesses access to medication to end their lives. 

MPR News reporter Dana Ferguson joined the show to give MPR News host Cathy Wurzer the details.

The Vikings open the 2023 season Sunday against Tampa Bay in Minneapolis.

Minnesota was 13-4 last season before losing to the NY Giants in the playoffs, and the team is favored by 5.5 points against Tampa Bay.

To give us their takes on the upcoming season, plus the Lynx, Gophers and more, Wally Langfellow and Eric Nelson talked with MPR News host Cathy Wurzer.

Today's drought monitor is showing the worst drought yet this year. For the first time, parts of the state are in “exceptional drought.” That is the highest level on the scale. And only the second time in drought monitor history that Minnesota has reached that level.

Since mid-August several cities across the state have enacted water restrictions, including, as of yesterday, St. Paul. Officials are asking more than 440,000 customers in 14 cities in the east metro area to cut back water where they can, including a voluntary lawn watering schedule. That's just one impact of the drought.

To explain more, State Climatologist Luigi Romolo spoke with MPR News host Cathy Wurzer.

Ellen Kennedy is on a mission to fulfill her husband’s dying wish — to create options for terminally ill patients that he was denied.

Kennedy’s husband Leigh Lawton for years struggled with multiple myeloma — a form of blood cancer — before he died late last year. He underwent chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant, emergency treatments and had toxic reactions to medications. 

And toward the end, Kennedy said, all he wanted was a medication that would end his life.

“One of the last wishes that my husband expressed was that I would advocate for this option for people who, unlike him, perhaps could choose this at the end of their lives,” Kennedy said. “This was an option that he deeply regretted he did not have. So it was his final request of me. And I felt an obligation to honor that dying wish.”

Kennedy is executive director of World Without Genocide, and ahead of the 2024 Minnesota legislative session she said she’ll urge lawmakers to pass the End-of-Life Options Act, which would make it legal for terminally ill, mentally capable adults to be prescribed and take a medication to end their life.

She joined doctors, chronically ill adults, people who’ve experienced the death of a loved one and others on Wednesday to talk about the proposal and begin campaigning for its approval in St. Paul.

Under the bill, a person would have to get a sign off from two health care providers verifying that they are terminally ill and have a prognosis of six months or less to live. They would also need to be found to be mentally capable of deciding they want to take the medication and not being coerced to take it.

There could then be a separate mental health assessment if either provider has doubts about a patient’s capacity to opt in. If a patient meets all the criteria, a physician could provide them the medication and the patient can choose to take it, ending their life.

Ten other states, along with Washington D.C. have enacted similar measures, and advocates hope Minnesota will become the eleventh.

The bill didn’t get a hearing this year as lawmakers focused on writing a two-year budget and approving a stack of policies that DFLers had been waiting years to get across the finish line.

 But the bill’s authors say they think 2024 will be the year to pass the proposal. Sen. Kelly Morrison, a Deephaven, Minn., Democrat, said she’s working to get the bill set for a committee hearing early in the legislative session and she’s trying to build bipartisan backing for it.

“There’s support for it across all demographic groups, and that includes political parties. So I’m reaching out to my Republican colleagues as well, their constituents want this bill to be passed into law. So I’m hopeful that this will end up being a bipartisan effort,” Morrison said.

Historically, the proposal has had stronger backing from legislative Democrats than Republicans. And with Democrats in control over the House, Senate and the governor’s office, it appears to have a path forward, as long as Morrison can win over her DFL colleagues or pick up a Republican or two to bridge the narrow gap in the Senate.

Some faith organizations and Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life have opposed the bill in years past and say they’ll keep up their efforts to block it going into 2024. They said there needs to be a check-in with a mental health professional required as part of the assessment.

“It’s something that we’re going to try and inform more folks about what the dangers are, and why this is not a road that we should be going down. And we should be working to make sure that patients get all the care that they need, including palliative care and so forth. But that this is a dangerous direction,” said MCCL Communications Director Paul Stark.

The danger, Stark said, is that people who are depressed could choose to end their lives without seeing a psychiatrist or being fully evaluated. Supporters of the measure say that’s unlikely. 

The lawmakers and doctors who have supported the bill said it would help terminally ill patients to end their suffering. They also said that it can help start conversations between physicians and patients about end of life, which can be difficult.

Dr. Joanne Roberts practiced palliative care in Washington — a state that has had a similar law on the books for more than a decade— and she said it helped end the “conspiracy of silence” at the doctor’s office.

“We saw more patients bringing up the issue of end of life care with their doctors, because they felt empowered over the law,” she said. “So we had more conversations around end of life care, no matter what people chose.”

Lawmakers are set to return to St. Paul for the 2024 legislative session on Feb. 12. 

Parts of the state are in a deepening drought and the situation is getting more serious. How much rain will it take to recover? We find out.

A national story highlighted the impact of potato farming on Minnesota aquifers. We learn more about the state of our groundwater.

Supporters of an option for terminally ill patients to end their lives are already preparing to bring a new bill to next year's legislative session. We hear more on what they're asking for.

The Minnesota Vikings begin their regular season this weekend and a Twins rookie just pulled off a historic feat. We talk about the latest sports news.