RacketCast

How does public transit work in the Twin Cities?

To find out, we invited Metro Transit GM Lesley Kandaras and bus driver Al Chang to our St. Louis Park studio. (Kandaras, a true company woman who has ridden all 60 MT routes, even took the bus there.) Transit enthusiasts should enjoy this convo about the successes, challenges, new developments, and total disinterest in building a subway system surrounding our town's bus and light rail operator.

But first! We engage in the second-ever (and possibly last-ever) installment of "Birthday Breakdown" to celebrate Jay's big 3-8. And here are the stories we gabbed about afterward during What I Learned In Racket...

• Racket’s Year in Review: August 2024-July 2025
• Best Budget Bites: $9.99 Roast Beef Sandwich From Maverick’s Real Roast Beef
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Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at [email protected]. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music!

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For many Minnesotans, it wasn’t just another building on the North Shore—it was the beating heart of the North Shore. Over its 144-year history, Lutsen Resort had hosted countless weddings, family reunions, and friendly ski trips along the the intersection of Lake Superior and the Poplar River. So when the historic lodge burned down in early 2024, many folks were understandably heartbroken.

Then, almost immediately, suspicion around the owner, Bryce Campbell, began brewing. Dire finances. Unresolved inspection violations. Contradictory whereabouts.

The State Fire Marshal’s investigation remains ongoing, but North Shore journalist/author Joe Friedrichs is already hard at work on a longform podcast series called The Fire: A Lutsen Podcast. Friedrichs and his team have assembled almost 30 hours of audio, including interviews with ex-resort employees, fire investigators, Cook County residents, fellow journalists, and even Campbell.

"It's such an important story, and not just for the North Shore—it needs to be treated with respect in terms of production quality," Friedrichs says. "I'm just so interested in it… it's time to do [this podcast]."

You can support The Fire, which is due out this fall, via Kickstarter. Enjoy our conversation with Friedrichs.

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at [email protected]. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music!

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The ghost of Jeffery Epstein, sex-trafficking buddy to the elites, continues to haunt Trump World.

Just this week the Wall Street Journal reported that the Justice Department warned Trump in May that his name is included in the Epstein files. (The White House called this "fake news.") Meanwhile, the drip, drip, drip of previously unknown Trump-Epstein entanglements keeps accelerating—videos, photos, sketches.

To discuss all of this, U.S. Sen. Tina Smith (DFL-Minnesota) joins us on this episode of RacketCast. Smith has positioned herself on the frontlines of the posting wars, sharing eyebrow-raising Trump-Epstein developments with the abandon of a lawmaker who, at 67 and with retirement fast approaching, has few fucks left to give.

But first! Here are the stories we gabbed about during What I Learned In Racket...

• Meet Minnesota’s Rocketman: Inside the Incomparable Life of Ky Michaelson
• Let’s Try Bloomington’s Buzziest Egg Sandwich

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at [email protected]. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music!

This week's RacketCast is brought to you by CannaCon and also by Minneapolis Cultural Districts.

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After Racket's Keith Harris was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2022, he noticed how much the actual experience of having cancer differed from how we typically talk about it. He's joined on the pod today by independent journalist Taylor Dahlin (Wedge LIVE!, Twitter), who was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. Now that both are cancer-free, the two "survivors" (who feel weird about calling themselves that) have a long, breezy chat about disease, death, inconvenience, and other fun stuff.

Before the main event, we fielded three listener voicemails for Dial Racket, which you can contribute to by hitting us up at 619-RACKTIP. And before that, we gabbed about the following stories for our regular What I Learned In Racket segment...

• Minnesota’s Mighty Maker Spaces
• 36 Ways to Make Friends in the Twin Cities
• New 2025 MN State Fair Food: Predicting the Winners and Losers

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at [email protected]. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

War: There's nothing worse. Yet the U.S. can't seem to stop waging it, with our latest target, Iran, being subjected to around dozen 30,000-pound GBU-57 "bunker buster" bombs on June 21. The illegal preemptive attack may have set Iran's nuclear program back by only a few months, according to one preliminary classified report.

One day later, President Trump floated the following via Truth Social: "It's not politically correct to use the term, 'Regime Change,' but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn't there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!" Jeez, when in our recent history has regime change ever backfired?

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), meanwhile, continues to be one of the most steadfast anti-war voices in Congress, writing: “The strikes on Iran, ordered by President Trump and executed without congressional authorization, mark a dangerous and reckless escalation of an already volatile conflict in the Middle East. Military strikes will not bring peace... The American people are tired of endless war. We need to end this madness before more lives are lost."

To hear more from Omar, we contacted the congresswoman via video chat late Thursday for her take on Trump's new war and what can be done to stop it.

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at [email protected]. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music!

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Punter. Activist. Rocker. Writer. Gamer. And, now, politician.

Ex-Viking Chris Kluwe endeared himself to (most) Minnesotans for eight seasons as he booted the ball while fighting for LGBTQ+ rights. From July 3-6, Kluwe will make his triumphant return to this state as a guest at sci-fi convention CONVergence in downtown Minneapolis. Before that, we caught up with him to talk about getting arrested, running for office, life after football, Minnesota memories, and whether or not Elon Musk is a video game poser (spoiler: he sure is).

But first! Here are the stories we gabbed about during What I Learned In Racket...

• How One MN School District Killed Its Right-Wing Book Ban
• Brunch Buds: Bolé Ethiopian Cuisine Bowl(é?)s Us Over
• A Brief History of Alternative Pride in the Twin Cities

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at [email protected]. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 3-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two veteran reporters from The Hill—Sharon Udasin and Rachel Frazin—drop by the pod to discuss their new book, Poisoning the Well: How Forever Chemicals Contaminated America, which dropped this past April via Island Press. You'll learn about the accidental origins of PFAS chemicals, their consumer-facing ubiquity, and the massive health risk they pose to all Americans, including the ones 3M knowingly poisoned in the eastern Twin Cities metro. Fun! (Frazin wanted listeners to know about this forever chemicals regulatory update that occurred post-record.)

Before all that, we debut a hit new segment known as Dial Racket. (Call us! Details below.) And here are the stories we gabbed about during What I Learned In Racket...

• Racket Goes to College: A Week of Student Stories
• How the Twin Cities’ Volunteer-Run Spaces Make it Work

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. • Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at [email protected]. • Have a food/drink, event, or show recommendation? How about a civic hot take? General or specific question? Call 619-RACKTIP (619-722-5847) with your first name + city + 1-min.-maximum voicemail, and we might play it on a future episode. • Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's a Very Special Episode of RacketCast!

No guests this week. Instead, three of Racket's four co-owner/editors—Jay Boller, Em Cassel, and Keith Harris—will share the origin story of our local news, arts, and culture publication, which'll turn four this summer.

All it takes? Four laid-off schmucks with a combined $4,000, plenty of Covid-era unemployment insurance, a dash of good luck, thousands of supportive readers, and the dream of keeping an alt-weekly-style news org alive in the Twin Cities. We think it'll be an entertaining listen for local news junkies, and, selfishly, we hope it'll help juice sales in the final moments of our prize-packed Spring Member Drive.

But first! Here are the stories we gabbed about during What I Learned In Racket...

• After George Floyd’s Murder, MN Companies Pledged Millions. We Asked 14 How Much They’ve Given.
• Food Trucks, Craft Markets, Live Music—Tattoos? At Local Events, Pop-Up Flash Tattoos Are the Hot New Item.
• Flying V Is Where the Hardcore Bands Go to Rage

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at [email protected]. Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The horror Davis Moturi and his wife, Caroline, experienced after moving into a cute white house on Grand Avenue in south Minneapolis has been well-documented. Moturi, a 34-year-old Black man, quickly realized his neighbor, 54-year-old white man John Sawchak, was determined to make his life hell.

Beginning in 2023, Sawchak's seemingly endless assault of racist remarks, violent threats, and disgusting vandalism barraged the Moturi household, according to Davis. He documented all of it, yet he says repeated pleas to the Minneapolis Police Department yielded indifference from law enforcement. Until, finally, Sawchak shot Moturi—the bullet shattered two ribs and embedded itself in his spine. Sawchak wouldn't be arrested until almost a week later.

Today, Moturi is still in physical and emotional recovery. (The prosecution of his assailant has been stalled after Sawchak was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial.) Moturi body remains weakened, but he resolve to expose MPD's failings is as strong as ever. We invited him to share his harrowing story in a longform conversation on RacketCast.

"It has been hell, and people need to know what happened," Moturi tells us. "They deserve to know what happened."

Before all that, we debut a hit new segment known as Movie Minute. And here are the stories we gabbed about during What I Learned In Racket...

• EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: MN Man Shares Name With New Pope
• How Much Would You Pay for the Best Reuben in Town?
• Raising the Sausage Curtain: How Art-A-Whirl Helped Turn NE Minneapolis Into an Arts District

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at [email protected]. Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last fall Racket surveyed 44 Minnesota brewing pros and found that 63.6% believe the industry is in a positive place—not bad!

Last month Racket highlighted Axios reporting that showed a 10.8% boost in Minnesota craft brewery production last year—nice!

But David Berg, the longtime brewmaster at August Schell Brewing Co., isn't convinced by those types of cheery reports, and he recently got all up in our Bluesky mentions to say as much.

"The brewing industry is pretty much in dire straits right now," Berg says. "I think it's a disservice to the industry to present it in any other fashion. It's as bleak as it's been in the 20 years I've been part of it."

Are Minnesota breweries in trouble? And, if so, how much? As the number of craft breweries throughout our state shoots past 237, is the long-murmured-about "craft beer bubble" finally ready to pop?

We got Berg on the horn to pick his considerable beer brain about the darker forces that might brewing on his industry's horizon.

Subscribe to RacketCast wherever you get your podcasts—Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, etc. Wanna advertise on RacketCast? Email us at [email protected]. Special thanks to local band Van Stee for supplying our podcast music!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.