Breakups can be volcanic, personally and geologically. Professor Jim Cotter teaches geology at the University of Minnesota–Morris and he is returning to Minnesota Now with a story about the near-breakup of the North American continent that gave rise to Lake Superior.

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Can you picture a sturdy stand of tall green pine trees across a flat mossy landscape? Tiny insects called the pine beetle may have a big impact on that beautiful stand of trees. 

Brian Aukema is professor of Forest Insect Science at the University of Minnesota – St Paul campus. He has been studying the Mountain Pine Beetle and the threat it poses to our forests.

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That period of pregnancy when you are moving into motherhood is full of questions, doubts and worries. That can be especially true when you know the health care system is not set up to take care of you the way you need.

Woodbury mom Monica Jones is the founder of the organization Melanated Mamas. She knows Black women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women and she's determined to help.

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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. 

Registered nurses are picketing right now at hospitals in the Twin Cities and Duluth. The 15,000 members of the Minnesota Nurses Association are on strike for the next three days. It is the largest private sector nurses strike in U.S. history.

Host Cathy Wurzer learns about the scene in the Twin Ports from Laura Butterbrodt, the health reporter for the Duluth News Tribune.

Host Cathy Wurzer talks to the new CEO of Planned Parenthood in our region. We hear about a call to ship fresh water from the Mississippi out west, it's the birthday of Prince's Paisley Park, and the latest sports news from our go-to sports guys Wally Langfellow and Eric Nelson.

We've entered the shoulder season between summer and winter sports. So there are a lot of teams playing and a lot to talk about on the sports scene.

Who better to ask about it all than our resident sports pros Wally Langfellow and Eric Nelson?

Wally is the founder of Minnesota Score magazine and the cohost of the “10,000 Takes” sports talk show. Eric is the other host of “10,000 Takes” and the Minnesota Vikings reporter for CBS Sports Radio’s “Eye on Football.”

You’ve probably heard about the extreme heatwave hitting the western U.S. right now. Those soaring temperatures are becoming increasingly common because of climate change. The extreme heat is making a severe drought out west even worse. One suggestion that has created quite a stir is to divert water from the Mississippi River to those drier states. MPR reporter Kirsti Marohn took a closer look at whether this idea could ever become reality.

Thirty-five years ago this month, a complex of unusual, plain white buildings opened in Chanhassen. It was dubbed Paisley Park, and built by Prince.

One journalist called it “a mini Hollywood” — it had 65,000 square feet of recording, film and video space with a sound stage that was more than 12,000 square feet.

For decades, it was a hot spot for musicians and celebrities coming through town. If those walls could talk!

Minnesota author Neal Karlen was a regular at Paisley Park during those party days. He talked with host Cathy Wurzer. Karlen is the author of “This Thing Called Life: Prince’s Odyssey On and Off the Record.”

A new report from two University of Minnesota researchers argues doctors have an obligation to expand and protect abortion access.

Published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, the report frames abortion as a racial justice issue – calling Dobbs v. Jackson, which rolled back Roe v. Wade in June of this year, a “direct assault on racial equity in health care.”

Host Cathy Wurzer talks with two authors of the report, from the University of Minnesota’s school of public health. Dr. Rachel Hardeman is a Professor of Health and Racial Equity, and Asha Hassan is a doctoral student.

Planned Parenthood has named a DFL state representative from Mendota Heights to be its new CEO.

Planned Parenthood North Central States has announced Ruth Richardson will be its new CEO, effective this fall. She succeeds Sarah Stoesz, who announced last year that she would be stepping down after serving for 21 years as the head of the health care and abortion services provider.

The organization now includes 30 clinics in Minnesota, as well as Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Richardson is a two-term state representative of District 52B and is on the ballot for re-election in November. Richardson told MPR News host Cathy Wurzer she intends to seek re-election.

“By design, Minnesota has a citizen’s legislature,” Richardson said. “There are many folks that are within the legislature who have other jobs. We have business owners, we have educators, we have farmers, you know, insurance professionals, real estate professionals.”

If she wins, Richardson would not oversee what Planned Parenthood called “political work” or “lobbying” as long she was in the Legislature. She said she would respect rules in the legislature to recuse herself from votes where there are conflicts of interest.

“There is already a firewall between the nonprofit healthcare side and the political side” of Planned Parenthood, Richardson said. “And that will continue.”

Richardson is an attorney from Mendota Heights and will be the first Black woman to lead Planned Parenthood in the region.

“Reproductive justice and just the human right to health care is something that was really instilled in me as as a child, hearing the birthing stories of my mom and her sisters growing up in segregated Mississippi,” she said.

Click the audio player above to listen to the full episode. 

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.