Minnesota Now

On Tuesday morning the Bush Foundation announced its 2023 Bush Fellows. They are 24 community leaders from Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and 23 Native nations who will be eligible to receive a flexible grant up to $100,000 to pursue education. Their work stands to have a profound ripple effect across the region in the areas of mental health, community storytelling, food accessibility, and much more.

MPR News guest host Emily Bright spoke with just one—her name is Nadine Graves. She’s been a Hennepin County Public Defender and is Deputy Director, of Community Legal Services at the Legal Rights Center. She is especially passionate about using storytelling to shift concepts of justice. Her own trauma-filled youth led to a criminal record at a young age. Now, she’s interested in undoing the dehumanization she felt from the criminal justice system.

If the drug company Mallinkrodt files for a second bankruptcy, it could jeopardize opioid settlement payments to individuals as well as state and local governments. Minnesota is part of that deal reached in 2020. The news comes just days after Attorney General Keith Ellison announced finalized settlements with four companies, bringing the state’s total opioid settlement money to more than $560 million. Ellison joined MPR News Senior Producer Emily Bright to talk about settlement money coming to Minnesota and other top stories moving through his office.

Books make great company for our well-earned, long summer evenings in Minnesota. Lately, BookTok-er Zoe Jackson has been taking her reads to one of the beaches in Minneapolis. Zoe reads about a book a week and has more than 57 thousand followers on her TikTok account, @zoes_reads. She also posts about books on Instagram @libraryofzoe. Zoe shared summer reading tips with MPR News Senior Producer and Ask a Bookseller Host Emily Bright.

In celebration of LGBTQ+ Pride Month, throughout June MPR News is featuring stories about transgender and nonbinary Minnesotans making an impact.

We heard from Seal Dwyer, a non-binary licensed marriage and family therapist from St. Cloud, who focuses on helping people heal from trauma that can impact every part of their lives.

Dwyer is a passionate advocate for the LGBTQ+ community, especially young people. She is helping start a queer community center in downtown St. Cloud to provide a safe space and resources. Dwyer ran for St. Cloud City Council in 2022. She also teaches dance and yoga classes that focus on body positivity.

MPR reporter Kirsti Marohn shared a conversation she had with Dwyer.

Minneapolis Public Schools are in financial crisis — and face a $70 million gap in funding once pandemic money runs out. It may lead the Minnesota Department of Education to step in.

That’s according to new reporting from Deena Winter at Minnesota Reformer. Winter talks with MPR News host Emily Bright about her reporting.

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

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You may already know that Pride Month began as a riot against police harassing LGBTQ people at a gay bar in New York City called The Stonewall Inn. Gay bars have long been lauded as safe spaces for LGBTQ people to celebrate who they are and explore their identity. But over the past thirty years, the number of lesbian bars in the U.S. has shrunk from 206 to just about 20. To Northfield author Krista Burton, these closing gathering spaces represent a huge loss. Her new book, ‘Moby Dyke’, follows her journey to visit the last 20 lesbian bars remaining in the country. She joined producer Ellen Finn to talk about it.

Krista Burton will be giving an author talk at Moon Palace Books in Minneapolis on Monday June 12 at 7p.m. along with State Senator Erin May Quade. She will also be at Content Bookstore in Northfield at 7p.m. on Thursday June 15.

Allina Health has paused a policy that allegedly kept people with a certain amount of debt from getting medical care. Listen for more about that.

A queer therapist in St. Cloud is setting out to heal body trauma, we heard about their work.

Minneapolis Public Schools are in financial crisis – and face a $70 million gap in funding once pandemic money runs out. We found out how they're trying to make it work.

The number of lesbian bars in the U.S. have dropped dramatically in recent years. We'll hear from a Northfield author who wrote a book about her quest to visit all of the remaining lesbian bars in the country.

Allina Health has paused a policy that allegedly kept people with a certain amount of debt from getting medical care.

This pause comes after the New York Times published an investigation on Allina, which said that, while the organization would provide urgent or emergency care, it could require those with debt to pay it off in full before they could make new appointments.

MPR News host Emily Bright talks with MPR News health reporter Michelle Wiley about the controversial policy and the allegations that sparked the change.

MPR News host Cathy Wurzer checked in with our sports guys: Wally Langfellow and Eric Nelson. Wally is the creator of Minnesota Score magazine and is the host of the Ten Thousand Takes sports talk show. Eric Nelson co-hosts that show; he’s the Minnesota Vikings reporter for CBS Sports’ Eye on Football show.

Cathy, Wally, and Eric talked about what’s new for the Twins, Vikings, and Lynx, as well as in the world of golf.

Has someone ever taken you by surprise with a kindness that made a big difference in your life? Our series, "Thank You, Stranger," looks at those special people and their impact. To celebrate pride this week, we have the story about a life-changing friendship.

If you have the story of a stranger who meant something to you, leave a voicemail with your story at 612-361-1252, or email us at [email protected].