Minnesota Now

If you're a working parent, you know there's a special kind of stress that hits you right in your gut when you're searching for someone awesome to care for your kids while you're at work. Childcare is a major cost for parents. Meanwhile, childcare workers put in long hours for low pay. In rural northwest Minnesota, a team of professionals has been working together for the past five years to help more people get into the childcare profession and stay there--and they're seeing success.

MPR’s Emily Bright spoke about childcare challenges and solutions with three of those leaders: Maria Steen, Child Care Connections Director with CCAP in Moorhead; Missy Okeson, Program Officer with Northwest Childcare Foundation in Bemidji; and Kim Lage, childcare licenser for White Earth Reservation Tribal Council.

The opioid epidemic is a serious issue in Minnesota. Opioid deaths here have more than doubled since 2019.

Some communities are more impacted than others. Black Minnesotans are more than three times as likely to die from a drug overdose than white Minnesotans.

A new documentary zeroes in on opioid addiction in the East African community. It's called "The Forgotten Ones: Unveiling the Opioid Effect."

You can see the film at a screening this Friday at Macalester college in St. Paul.

MPR News guest host Emily Bright talked with producer Abdirahman Warsame about the inspiration behind the film.

The weather hasn't been kind to Minnesotans this week — we're seeing blazing heat and another air quality alert on top of the overnight storm that left snapped trees and power outages in its wake.

And a study shows that these heatwaves are a direct result of climate change — we talk to a scientist about what it means for the future of Minnesota's climate.

All summer, we've been highlighting festivals happening around the state — this one will encourage you to sing along.

And a new documentary sheds light on opioid addiction in Minnesota's East African community — we hear from the filmmaker.

Categories are a convenient way to organize information — but they come with problems. Rather than represent the world perfectly, they tend to reflect the worldview of whoever created them. And that means other truths get left out or treated as an afterthought, when it comes to people, that can cause real harm.

It Happens Here: The Roots of Racial Inequity on the North Shore takes a closer look at this idea. The series comes to us from WTIP in Grand Marais.

We have a trifecta this week — overnight storms that caused damage, an air quality alert and a major heat wave that'll be swallowing up the state this week.

Of course, we need details. For those, we turn to our chief meteorologist Paul Huttner. He talked with MPR News guest host Emily Bright.

And new research this week suggests heat waves across the country are directly linked to climate change. For more on that news, Bright spoke with Suzi Clark — a postdoctoral associate at the University of Minnesota. She works on the Minnesota Climate Adaptation Partnership, a boundary organization that connects climate research to non-academic audiences across the state of Minnesota.

All summer, we've been highlighting festivals around Minnesota. If you're a fan of music festivals, you might be focused on seeing a few of your favorite acts all in one place. But what if the point wasn't just to take in a performance, but to sing along?

Bo'u Nashir means "Come, Let's Sing!" in Hebrew. And it's the name of a new event series organized by the Minnesota Jewish Community Center.

Riv Shapiro is the JCC's Arts and Cultural Producer. They're organizing the festival in the Twin Cities. They talked with MPR News guest host Emily Bright about it.

You already know we love listening to new music here on Minnesota Now- especially local music! And who better to talk about Minnesota musicians than Diane Miller. She joins us a few times a month to talk local music because she is host of a show called The Local Show on our sister station The Current.

A strong majority of American adults support Congress mandating background checks for all firearms sales and transfers. We get the details on the new national survey suggesting gun rights aren't as polarizing as we might think.

And Minnesotans are among the 30,000 people cycling across Iowa this week as part of the 50th RAGBRAI. We check in from the road with our producer who is along for the ride.

Plus, here in the Twin Cities, it’s fairly routine to hear about lake closures due to algae blooms. But what makes some algae harmful, and others harmless?

Plus, The Current's Diane Miller updates us on the music news we need to know.

A strong majority of American adults support U.S. Congress mandating background checks for all firearms sales and transfers. That’s according to a national survey suggesting gun rights aren't as polarizing as we might think. The survey is from APM Research Lab, which is an investigative division within Minnesota Public Radio and the American Public Media Group. Managing editor Craig Helmstetter joined host Emily Bright to break down the results.

This week, Iowans along a 500-mile stretch of road set up tents and tables to welcome a record-breaking 28,000 bicyclists crossing the state.

The register's annual great bicycle ride across Iowa, known as RAGBRAI for short, began 50 years ago this summer.

Minnesota Now Producer Alanna Elder is biking along with them. She talked with MPR News guest host Emily Bright.