Officer overtime + pushback on North Shore + new cannabis dispensary
| 🌬️ Most of Minnesota will be below the 70-degree mark Thursday. Add to that blustery northwest winds and it will be cool with highs hovering in the 50s for northern Minnesota. Friday should see more sunshine with a pleasant weekend ahead. Get the latest weather news on Updraft. | |
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| Coming up on Morning Edition |
🌲A highlight of any visit to northern Minnesota's Jay Cooke State Park is the squeaking, swaying walk across the rushing St. Louis River on the Swinging Bridge, which is celebrating its centennial. But the wood, metal and stone it's made of now isn't nearly as old. First built in 1924 by the U.S. Forest Service of ropes and logs, the bridge has been rebuilt or reconstructed five times over the last 100 years. Kris Hiller, an interpretive naturalist at the state park near Carlton, and who has closely studied the bridge's history, tells us more.
🎨 And what do a trail of crocheted mushrooms, Nordic folk music and queer theatre have in common? They're all featured in this week's Art Hounds, produced by Emily Bright. |
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| Coming up at 9 a.m. |
🗣️ Have you ever had a conversation about politics that grew into a heated argument or maybe the opposite — froze into a chilly silence? Or maybe you just avoid talking with people who don’t share your opinions on issues you care deeply about.
MPR News with Angela Davis brings you a conversation to help you communicate better in a politically polarized time. This is the latest conversation in a series from Talking Sense, an election-year project from MPR News that aims to help Minnesotans have hard political conversations ... better. |
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| | Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara says officer killed was working overtime |
Minneapolis police officer Jamal Mitchell was working alone and on overtime when he responded to the call that would end his life. But chief Brian O’Hara said the department had extra staff on hand that day that sped up its response, and that there was little a partner could have done to change the outcome.
“He was performing one of the critical staffing shifts that evening that had just begun, after he had volunteered to work overtime for the day shift as well,” O’Hara said. Critical staffing shifts are overtime hours in which officers make twice their normal rate.
The department has leaned on overtime to deal with a persistent staffing shortage. MPD has lost hundreds of officers since George Floyd’s killing by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. O’Hara said staffing is currently down 40 percent. | |
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| | Black-led nature retreat center faces pushback on North Shore |
A nature-based retreat center planned outside Two Harbors aimed at providing a restorative getaway for Black, Indigenous and people of color, is receiving pushback from some local residents over concerns of noise, traffic, and other impacts on their rural “way of life.”
The inspiration for the center comes in part from founder Rebeka Ndosi's own experience. She speaks of falling in love with the North Shore yet never feeling like she could completely relax when she visited.
“I was always very aware that I was being watched as one of very few Black folks up there. And that is something that was a barrier, honestly, to fully taking in what this relaxing and restful experience could be on the North Shore. It’s something that I really longed for.” | |
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| | New adult-use cannabis dispensary opens in Minnesota, closest to Twin Cities |
The closest legal cannabis dispensary to the Twin Cities is opening for business Thursday on a reservation in Cass County. The Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe passed a resolution in August 2023 that allowed for adult-use recreational cannabis sales throughout the boundaries of the reservation.
“The end goal for the tribe through the resolution is to have individual entrepreneurship for individual band members to open up their own dispensaries and grow operations,” Michael Michaud said. | |
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| What else we're watching: |
⚖️ Feds raid home of jailed food fraud defendant amid jury bribe investigation. Abdiaziz Farah is one of 70 people charged with taking part in alleged $250 million scheme to defraud federal child nutrition programs by falsely claiming to have served millions of meals. Farah, 35, is among the first seven defendants to face trial.
🏅 Maple Grove man headed for Paris Olympics to be Gambia’s first taekwondo athlete. “It was one of the scariest moments of my life,” Alasan Ann told MPR News. “Everything you’ve worked for can just be taken away. It helped me not take anything for granted.”
🌊 Once off-limits, Minnemishinona Falls is a scenic, off-the-beaten-path sight near Mankato. The waterfall is a few feet higher than the much-better-known lower falls at Minneopa State Park. It’s just a stone’s throw from a county road — but for many years, it was off-limits to the public.
🎨Art Hounds: A trail of crocheted mushrooms. This week on Art Hounds: Crocheted mushrooms from Lydia Hansen, Duluth-Stämman music festival and “Devoured: Notes on Love and Enmeshment.”
🪖 They were there on D-Day, on the beaches and in the skies. This is what they saw. Securing the Normandy beaches gave the Allies in WWII a solid foothold on the European continent, but the victory came at enormous cost. This story is part of a special series where NPR looks back at its coverage of major news stories in the past.
— Sam Stroozas and Anna Haecherl, MPR News
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