MPR News with Angela Davis

Minnesota voters will find a question about public school funding on their ballots this fall. A proposed constitutional amendment would increase the amount distributed each year from the state’s Permanent School Fund — a $2.4 billion investment fund built with revenue generated by state-owned school trust lands.

Supporters say it would provide additional money without raising taxes, but critics say that the increase would only cover a fraction of the broader financial pressures facing school districts.

MPR News host Angela Davis and her guests talk about how Minnesota schools are funded, where that money goes and what voters should understand about the proposed amendment before November.

Here’s a link to a resource to see what will be on your ballot this coming November:

• Minnesota Secretary Of State - What's On My Ballot?

Guests:

• Christine Tucci Osorio is the superintendent for School District 622, which includes North St. Paul, Maplewood and Oakdale.
• Mary Kunesh is a DFL state senator representing District 39 in the northern Twin Cities suburbs. She chairs the Senate Education Finance Committee.
• Marguerite Roza is a research professor at Georgetown University and director of its Edunomics Lab, a research center that studies education finance and how school systems use public dollars.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.

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

Community land trusts make it possible for land to be owned collectively while individuals own the homes and businesses on it.

The model grew out of the civil rights movement, when Black farmers in the rural South used collective ownership to build economic independence despite barriers to credit and land access.

Today, community land trusts help preserve affordable housing and commercial spaces while giving communities more control over their future.

The Rondo Community Land Trust in St. Paul is one example. It is working to rebuild community wealth and preserve the legacy of the historic Black neighborhood displaced by Interstate 94.

MPR News host Angela Davis and her guests talk about how community land trusts work, why collective ownership matters and what the model could offer communities across Minnesota.

Guests:

• Mikeya Griffin is the president and CEO of Rondo Community Land Trust, a nonprofit that creates permanently affordable homes and commercial spaces that keep land, opportunity, and legacy rooted in community. She grew up in St. Paul’s historic Rondo neighborhood and is the first African American woman to lead the 30-year-old organization.
• Debbie Montgomery is a community leader who grew up in the Rondo neighborhood of St. Paul. She was the first Black woman police sergeant in St. Paul and the first Black woman elected to the St. Paul City Council. She also served as assistant commissioner for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. At age 17, she became the youngest person to serve on the national board of the NAACP, an organization that works towards equity, political rights and social inclusion of Black people and people of color.

Confidence can be hard to find when you're facing a new challenge, recovering from a mistake or simply hearing that critical voice in your head. But confidence isn't a personality trait. It's a skill that can be developed.

MPR News host Angela Davis and her guest talk about how to quiet your inner critic, learn from mistakes, recognize your wins and take action — even when you don't feel ready.

Guest:

• Cindra Kamphoff is a professor of sport and performance psychology at Minnesota State University, Mankato. She is a certified professional coach and mental performance consultant who founded the Mentally Strong Institute, a firm that provides coaching to leaders and athletes. She also hosts the podcast “High Performance Mindset.” Her most recent book is, “The Confidence Habit: 7 Core Practices to Transform Self-Doubt to Self-Belief.”

The Mississippi River has provided water, food, transportation and a place of connection for generations of Minnesotans. But its history is also marked by displacement, environmental damage and decisions that have often prioritized industry and commerce over communities and the health of the river.

A new documentary, “We Are the River: How the Mississippi Shaped Minnesota,” explores the complicated history of the river and the people who have lived alongside it. Coming up at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, MPR News host Angela Davis talks with her guests about what that history can teach us about caring for the Mississippi today and in the future.

Guests:

• Kate Beane is Flandreau Santee Sioux Dakota and Muscogee Creek. She is the executive director of the Minnesota Museum of American Art, has taught at the University of Minnesota and Minneapolis College and serves on the board of Wakan Tipi Awanyankapi, a nonprofit that oversees two Dakota sacred sites in St. Paul.
• Devin Ashley Brown is the founder of Sovereign Waters, a Minneapolis-based organization that creates culturally responsive pathways to water confidence, environmental connection and outdoor leadership. She works to dismantle barriers that have excluded historically underserved communities from outdoor recreation. She also attempted to be the first Black woman on record to solo the Mississippi River before flood waters ended her trip.
• John Anfinson is a Mississippi River historian, author and former Superintendent of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area. He previously worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and is the part-time river historian at the University of Minnesota’s St. Anthony Falls Laboratory. He is also a founding board member of Friends of the Mississippi River and is active in many other river-related organizations and initiatives.

Many Americans are finding it harder to stretch their budgets — and wondering when they’ll feel some financial relief.

Inflation, higher gas prices and difficulty keeping up with bills and other payments — like buy now, pay later loans — are straining household budgets, while tariffs and changing trade relationships, including with Canada, raise concerns about additional costs.

MPR News host Angela Davis and her guests talk about why so many people feel financially squeezed, what’s driving these pressures and what they reveal about the broader economy.

Guests:

• Chris Farrell is the senior economics contributor for MPR News and Marketplace.
• Catherine Rampell is economics editor at The Bulwark, an independent media company. She is also an anchor at MS NOW, formerly MSNBC, and a contributor to Marketplace. She previously worked as an opinion columnist for The Washington Post and was an economics reporter for The New York Times.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.

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

The first day of the Minnesota State Fair brings a chance to see thousands of creative works made by Minnesotans — including quilts that showcase remarkable skill, artistry and imagination.

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with two quilters about what goes into making a quilt, how quilting has evolved and the community and personal stories that can be stitched into every finished piece.

Guests:

• Brenda Lyseng is a quilter and board member of Minnesota Quilter’s, Inc., a statewide quilting organization. She was the director of the organization’s annual quilt show for five years until retiring from that role in 2024. Before that she was a biology professor and dean with the Minnesota State colleges and universities system.
• Wally Wallestad started quilting four years ago and is a member of the Minneapolis Modern Quilt Guild.

Angela’s guests shared these resources for beginner quilters:

• Melanie Ham’s Beginner Quilting Tutorial Videos
• Minnesota Quilters Facebook Group

A string of foodborne illness outbreaks has raised new questions about the safety of fresh produce. A major cyclospora outbreak has sickened thousands nationwide, salmonella linked to jalapeños has infected more than 100 Minnesotans and recalled alfalfa sprouts grown in the state have been connected to cases of both E. coli and salmonella.

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with food safety experts about what’s behind the recent outbreaks, how produce becomes contaminated and what consumers can do to reduce their risk of getting sick.

Guests:

• Amy Johnston is a food safety expert and extension educator with the University of Minnesota. She develops education and training on safe food handling, preparation and processing for food producers, businesses and consumers.
• Craig Hedberg is a professor in the Division of Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and co-director of the Minnesota Integrated Food Safety Center of Excellence. He studies foodborne-illness surveillance, outbreak investigations and prevention.

In the 1980s rural Minnesota was struggling with the farm crisis and the McKnight Foundation launched an experiment — the Minnesota Initiative Foundations.

These six independent regional foundations across greater Minnesota were created to listen to their communities and invest in local economic development.

Over four decades, they’ve distributed hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and loans to help address housing and child care, support entrepreneurs, train up new leaders and create a sense of belonging.

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with the heads of two of the regional foundations about creative solutions to challenges facing rural Minnesota.

Guests:

• Benya Kraus became the president and CEO in 2025 of the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation, which invests for economic growth in 20 counties and one Native community in south central and southeastern Minnesota. She previously worked in advancement at Resource Rural, a national philanthropy that raised public and private funds to invest in rural and tribal communities.
• Brian Voerding was named president of the Initiative Foundation in 2023 after serving two years as its vice president for inclusive entrepreneurship, which is based in Little Falls, Minn. and invests in 14 counties and two Native nations in central Minnesota. He was previously editor of the Winona Daily News and executive director of Engage Winona, a nonprofit that engages and trains people to solve local problems in Winona.

Thursday will mark one year since the shooting at Annunciation Church and School in Minneapolis when a shooter opened fire during a back-to-school Mass. One hundred and sixteen bullets shattered windows of the building in less than two minutes.

Two children, 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski, were killed. Twenty-eight other people were injured.

On Monday, MPR News host Angela Davis talked with two parents of children who attend the school about how they plan to remember Aug. 27, 2025.

“It's feeling really heavy,” said Brittany Haeg, whose first-grade son was shot last August and spent several days in intensive care. “We have three kids, and they're all very different ages and stages, and they feel very different about how they want to spend the day. And so, I think our day is about contingencies and contingencies for our contingencies. So we have a loose plan and a lot of adults, and we have staffed our house with friendly faces who are going to hang out there, so that we can sort of touch in and touch out throughout the day.”

Haeg co-chairs the Annunciation Light Alliance, a nonprofit founded by parents to build safer communities for children, with Kristen Neville, who founded the organization.

Neville is in a blended family with five children who attend Annunciation Catholic School. Like Haeg, she plans to lean into how her children are feeling. She also said she hopes to spend time with other Annunciation families.

“I think our hope is to be able to spend time together with other Annunciation families. It's a comfort, and I think it's also a part of the healing journey that we have. I have a really strong sense of desire to want to give back to the community on that day, which is very much associated with what Annunciation is asking, right? People come and they ask us, ‘What can we do on this day? What are you doing?’ It's a day really focused on remembrance, but it's also focused on moving your feet and on prayer. And so, I will be doing that, kind of working in the community. There's a really beautiful event that's been planned at Pearl Park by some of our representatives, and so I'll be there packing some kits for youth that experience homelessness right now.”

While reflecting on the last year, Haeg and Neville also talked about continuing their advocacy for changes that keep kids safe.

During the legislative session earlier this year, the Annunciation Light Alliance took a nonpartisan stance and sought a layered approach to preventing gun violence with hopes of gaining support from both sides of the aisle. Parents backed a ban on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines, as well as more mental health support funding, funding for school safety programs and safeguards for children online.

The Minnesota Senate, with its slight DFL majority, passed a comprehensive package with firearm restrictions and school safety provisions in early May.

However, the state House — split 67-67 between parties — did not bring the bill to the floor for a vote. Companion bills also failed to make it out of committee.

State lawmakers passed two laws the Annunciation Light Alliance says will help. One adds guardrails around social media accounts for Minnesota minors. Another requires schools to set up anonymous threat reporting systems, which allow people to report tips about potential threats and help with intervention.

“I think the legislative session was disappointing for some people in terms of what got passed and that the gun violence — some of those efforts didn't get passed,” said Jillian Peterson, executive director of the Violence Prevention Project Research Center at Hamline University.

Peterson said it has been “inspiring” to be part of the Governor's Statewide Safety Council, which Gov. Tim Walz established in December after the shooting to examine and reduce gun violence. Haeg and Neville are also on the council.

“It's commissioners from all different state agencies, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the sheriffs, the chief of police, and it's getting all these people from different perspectives into a room once a month for like a three or four hour conversation about how complicated this is, about the root causes, about mental health and gun access and radicalization and social media, with the goal of putting together a really comprehensive package of recommendations for the legislature,” Peterson said.

Peterson is hopeful that the connections forged on the council will encourage change.

Peterson, who has studied mass shootings for years, said what stands out to her about Annunciation is that people are not focusing on the shooter. Instead, they’re focusing on finding solutions to help children.

“I think to take a tragedy like this and spin it into something incredibly positive about protecting children and about, ‘How do we do a better job of this? How do we hold each other up? How do we take care of each other?’ To me, that's a remarkable conversation to come out of something this horrific.”

As we approach Aug. 27, 2026, Haeg and Neville said they are often asked what people can do to help.

“Sometimes I say just spending time with your own children and being able to be present and a part of their life, so that you can be able to help them continue to grow,” Neville said. “And nurture their environment that they're in when they go to school and are good stewards of the community and really express and represent those values that then can be presented and lived. That I think is something that is really helpful. I also think there is the element of just being engaged within your community on a broader basis, finding opportunities to take action if it's something that you feel called to.”

Haeg added, “Have these conversations in your communities before tragedy strikes. Have it before your Aug. 27.”

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.

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

Your local library has more to offer than a good book. A library card can connect you with job-search help, classes and events, computers, free or discounted tickets to museums and even 3D printing.

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with her guests about the wide range of resources libraries provide, how to access them and how the role of public libraries is changing.

Guests:

• Jennifer Baker is community relations manager for Metropolitan Library Services Agency, or MELSA, which supports eight public library systems across the Twin Cities. She works to connect people with the resources and services available through the region’s libraries.
• Maureen Hartman is the director of St. Paul Public Libraries. She oversees its library branches, mobile library and online services.