In a year when Senate campaigns in states including Texas, Michigan and even Kansas are drawing national attention and campaign money, the race in Minnesota has been seen just a trickle of outside attention.

Yes, there are candidate ads clogging the TV airwaves, but Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and former sports broadcaster Michele Tafoya have not held many news conferences or big rallies. They will meet for their only scheduled debate on Friday at MPR News.

Tafoya, the Republican, and Flanagan, a Democrat, slogged through a primary race in which more than $20 million dollars was spent by outside groups. That was mostly on the DFL side.

But in the general election campaign, the race has fallen off a cliff financially. As of Friday, post-primary outside spending was in the ballpark of $2 million, according to public records.

Much of that — about $1.3 million — is on pro-Flanagan billboards appearing alongside freeways.

That may be because Republicans have been forced to spend big on many contests in reliably red states.

Some recent polling has shown Tafoya and Flanagan running neck and neck. But parties and groups also rely on internal polls to decide where to deploy money.

National Democrats and Republicans would likely be pouring more money into this race if they thought the Minnesota seat was in play.

Even when Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune was on a farm near Le Sueur last week stumping for Tafoya, he wasn't exactly enthusiastic when asked if the Senate Leadership Fund would be spending money on the race.

“As we think about the map and races, yes, there's more interest, and every day when she's out there and has an opportunity to make her case, and there's a lot of really positive buzz around the country, and obviously translating that into into financial resources and support coming here is something we hope to see happen,” Thune said.

Tafoya was asked how much money she’d need from the fund for her campaign.

“I'm not going to put a dollar number on it. I think they all know what we need and what we’d like,” she said. “I’ll leave it to them to put a dollar number on it. We're going to talk. We haven't had that conversation. We haven’t had that conversation yet, but it's a beautiful day. We still have a few hours. We'll be talking about it.”

Flanagan said last week that polling numbers can be misleading. “Polls didn’t necessarily tell the story in the primary election,” she said about a race she won by double digits.

“I have always run for office like I’m 10 points behind, even when I was unopposed running for the Minnesota state Legislature,” she said. “I simply need people to know the choice in this race.”

She said even if people don’t agree with her on everything, “people just need to know that Michele Tafoya will be another vote for Donald Trump, and I will be a vote for Minnesotans.”

Tafoya has begun airing ads proclaiming herself an independent voice.

“I’m a pro-choice Republican. I’m not afraid to stand up to my party. When Trump is right, I’ll work with him,” she says in ad that shows her speaking direct-into-the-camera. “When he’s wrong I’ll stand up for Minnesota.”

During her event in Le Sueur, she said this is a race where national Republicans should spend.

“This is one worth investing in. We are right there, and we have a message of fresh leadership,” she said. “We have a message of getting rid of the fraud, waste, and abuse that the Walz-Flanagan administration oversaw, and there's no getting around that.”

The runway for national funding is getting shorter as the race barrels toward Election Day on Nov. 3.

In the meantime, both candidates are working to get their messages out.

Flanagan is in on a closing statewide tour, in which she’s doing 30 events across 30 days.

The challenges for her will be having enough cash on hand to be able to keep pace with any big influxes of money Tafoya might get in these last few weeks. She’ll have to be on the defense over the biggest issue Tafoya has used against her — the social services fraud cases that occurred during the Walz administration.

Flanagan has had to confront the fraud question all campaign long. She has said while she’s been a governing partner with Gov. Tim Walz for two terms, she was tasked with other assignments. Flanagan said more should have been done to stop it sooner and protect legitimate programs from being bilked.

Finally, she has to hope for no big surprises in the last three weeks.

For Tafoya, it's about energizing a base that hasn't always been excited about her. Tafoya is popular nationally among many Republicans, but she had a hard time winning over Minnesota Republicans at the party convention in May, losing the endorsement to another candidate.

Tafoya was seen as not in line with some in the party on core GOP issues. On abortion for example, she has said supports "reasonable access" in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Another of those issues is gun laws; she has supported red flag laws in the past.

But she's caught in a tough triangle. She is working to win over the MAGA base, pressing to get national dollars flowing into her campaign and trying to distance herself from an unpopular president.

The MPR News U.S. Senate debate can be heard live at noon Friday on the radio and viewed online.

In an English class for adults in the southwestern Minnesota city of Marshall, about 10 people hailing from other countries are learning about American customs while practicing their grammar and pronunciation. Many of them are here to prepare for the workforce.

Teacher Stacy Abraham leads the class in reciting a paragraph rife with errors that students are tasked with fixing.

Meanwhile, Leonardo Silva is crawling between desks while sucking on his own fingers.

In his defense, he’s just 1 year old.

His mom, Brazilian immigrant Kezya Silva, tried her best during the Thursday morning class to focus on her work while she wrangled him. At one point, she had to take a break from writing notes to breastfeed him.

Besides needing to learn English, Silva is facing another obstacle, one that many other workers in Marshall share: finding affordable childcare.

“Because of my son, I’m not working,” Silva said. “I don’t have anyone to leave him with.”

She’s not alone.

“We have folks that would be in the workforce if they had available and affordable childcare, but that's a shortage that we have,” said Mayor Bob Byrnes. “We do have several childcare centers … but there's still a much larger need.”

Over the last 15 years, Marshall’s labor force — the number of people who have a job or are looking for one — has been declining, down 11.1 percent from 2010. During the same time period, Minnesota’s labor force grew by 7.8 percent.

At the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, where analysts crunch these numbers, there’s no precise explanation.

“There's a huge variety of factors, just like everything,” said Luke Greiner, one of DEED’s regional analysts. “It'd be nice if there was a tidy smoking gun that we could all figure out how to solve.”

It might not be immediately noticeable in the city. Marshall has many small and large businesses, and in August, the city’s unemployment rate was 4.7 percent, slightly lower than the statewide rate.

But the unemployment rate doesn’t include people who have stopped looking for a job altogether. And on the ground in Marshall, many residents said people are staying home because of the difficulty of finding affordable childcare.

Why childcare is hard to find in Marshall

A 2025 report funded by the state of Minnesota estimated that the Marshall area has a shortage of more than 400 childcare spots.

MPR News spoke to three childcare providers in Marshall. All were at or near capacity and said increasing costs, staffing issues and burdensome regulations have strangled supply.

“My waiting list is long, and I'm at capacity for everything,” said Michele Gregoire, owner of Stepping Stones Childcare and Preschool. “I don’t have any openings till ‘28.”

Infant care is the most constrained because there’s high demand to get children into a center early. But it’s also the least profitable because it requires the highest adult-to-child ratio: 1 adult for every 4 infants.

“It doesn't pay in the infant room enough to support that teacher,” said Kari Dahl Condezo, who runs the independent childcare center at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall.

That means the other age groups are already helping subsidize infant care and there’s little incentive to expand, despite how important infant care is to clients and the business itself.

“Typically at a center, the families start as an infant with the program, and they typically never leave,” Dahl Condezo said. “They grow with you and they become part of your family because they keep having, typically, more children.”

And some Minnesota programs that reduce the demand for childcare can have a disproportionate effect on supply, according to Karen DeBoer, who is director of nonprofit Child Care Aware in southwestern Minnesota.

For example, Minnesota has expanded its voluntary prekindergarten program, which offers free preschool to some children. That reduction in demand can hurt childcare providers since they can’t afford to operate with just a few students.

“I have to replace my furniture. I have to have equipment. I have to have materials. I have to have supplies,” DeBoer said. “My expenses don't change overall just because I have six fewer children every day, and for a childcare center, they're having difficulty finding staff willing to work for the wages they're able to pay.”

If they raise those wages, childcare becomes even less accessible.

“The more families have to pay, the more they're going to opt for those cheaper options, and the fewer children that are enrolled in programs,” she said. “It’s just this vicious cycle.”

If the lack of childcare is contributing to the decline in the labor force, it’s also affected by it. Staffing qualified employees was already hard to do and other state policies have made that tougher, according to childcare providers.

While Minnesota's paid leave program may be a boon for workers looking to care for their child at home, it's a headache for many business owners who now need to be able to fill staffing gaps when a worker takes leave.

For childcare providers, that means finding someone with specialized education and training.

“If somebody were to come to you and ask if you wanted to open up another center, the answer would be no, because you can't find staffing,” Gregoire said. “We need it. Marshall needs it. But where are we going to put it? Where are we going to get the staff?”

Another option is family-run, home-based childcare. But providers said complicated regulations have made those harder to run.

“These family care providers, they're just missing,” Greiner said. “We had way more of them before. They've been on a fairly steady decline, and that is a challenge in rural areas because you typically have a larger share of your child care at family-based care versus centers.”

Marshall’s shifting demographics

Changes to the makeup of Marshall’s population may be another reason the labor force is falling.

Marshall is older than it used to be. According to Census data, 11.4 percent of Marshall residents were at least 65 years old in 2010. The latest estimates put that figure at 17.1 percent.

“Our baby boomer population has more or less phased into retirement age,” Greiner said.

And those trends are affecting the childcare industry, too.

“A lot of the family child care (providers) that have closed in Marshall have been a good amount of providers that have been retiring,” said Kim Swalboski, owner of Canoga Park Childcare. “They've been doing it for a long time and finally reached that age, and you just don't have enough new providers, like younger providers, that are entering the field.”

Immigration is part of the reason why, despite an aging population, Marshall’s population has continued to grow.

But immigrants face barriers from entering the labor market, said Greiner, with the state’s economic development department. So even with a higher population, there may be fewer total people actively working or looking for work.

For instance, it is harder to find a job without a high school degree or English proficiency, which foreign-born workers are less likely to have.

“Those two pieces, they serve as a gate to the broader economy,” Greiner said. “If you don't have that GED or high school diploma, those people are basically competing against high school students.”

Adult Basic Education services are available statewide to help people develop skills such as English and math at no cost. Stacy Abraham teaches one of those English classes in Marshall out of Southwest Minnesota State University.

In her eight years teaching there, she estimates she’s helped more than 200 students reach their goals, whether that be getting a specific job certification, a degree or just English proficiency.

Almost all of her students are immigrants, including many refugees, and the classes are grant-funded and offered at no cost.

“In society we don't have that help for people that … have the abilities, they just need a little bit of help,” she said. “It's really fun to just help people and especially people who feel like they're not good at something, or you know, ‘I'm just never going to make it.’”

One of her students, May Htoo, has been learning English for just a few weeks. He said he’s been in the country for 15 years but moved to Marshall this year after being laid off from a job in South Dakota. Now, he’s learning English to help himself get another job.

And Kezya Silva, who brought her son to class, moved to the U.S. last year and started learning English earlier this year.

Abraham said she’s doing very well in the class, even though she mostly attends online. Technology can often be a barrier for other students, but not for her. She uses an AI translator to help her in class, and her pronunciation is advanced compared to other students.

Her goal is to get a job next year, but for now, that’s out of reach.

“On Zoom, she'll mute because her baby is talking or needs something,” Abraham said. “She's like, ‘Oh sorry, teacher.’ I’m like ‘It’s OK, it’s fine! You need to take care of your kid.’”

Marshall’s future

Greiner, with the state’s economic development department, said he’s broadly optimistic about the economy of rural regions like southwestern Minnesota.

“It doesn't take much imagination to wonder, ‘Is the hardest parts of decline behind us?’ he said. “The way I see the region, I see the past, which is not a lot of positive for some of this stuff. And in the future … we have projected population stability, projected job growth. Even though it's real slow, it's not decline.”

He said these communities have a lot to offer, such as valuable land and thriving industries. Marshall itself is a regional hub; Mayor Byrnes estimates that the town’s population nearly doubles during the day as people drive to the city to work at places like Avera Medical Group, Turkey Valley Farms and Southwest Minnesota State University.

And while the town’s labor force numbers haven’t recovered, they’ve at least leveled off in the last couple of years.

“It's too early to say it's part of a trend,” Greiner said. “It's just hard to believe that it would go to zero.”

Special thanks to Danger Boat Productions and the Minnesota Humanities Center for their Sketches of Minnesota events around the state that helped inform this report.

Justin Jefferson highlighted his return to Minnesota's lineup with a leaping touchdown catch, Aaron Jones made up for an early fumble with a pivotal, fourth-quarter touchdown and the Vikings remained unbeaten with a 23-13 victory over the slumping New Orleans Saints on Sunday.

Will Reichard made all three of his field-goal attempts from 40 or more yards for the Vikings (5-0), including a 55-yarder to put Minnesota up 10 in the fourth quarter and all but doom the Saints (1-4) to a third straight loss — all in the Superdome.

Jones finished with 113 yards rushing on 25 carries. Jefferson, who sat out Week 4 with an ankle injury, caught six passes for 79 yards from Kyler Murray, who threw for 229 yards and a TD without a turnover and rushed for 51 yards.

The Vikings, who came in allowing an NFL-low 12.8 points per game, gave up only one offensive touchdown and held New Orleans to 142 yards.

Safety Jonas Sanker returned a fumble 87 yards for the Saints' other TD.

Both teams were plagued by turnovers.

Saints quarterback Tyler Shough was intercepted twice and held to 96 yards passing. New Orleans also lost a fumble — and ultimately, a 7-6 halftime lead — when returner Jayden Price was stripped on the kickoff to open the second half.

Minnesota took over on the Saints 37 and cashed in when Jefferson came down with Murray's 15-yard scoring pass behind three defenders in the back of the end zone.

The Saints turned the ball over again soon after, when Shough threw while rolling right and was intercepted by Byron Murphy Jr. near midfield. But Minnesota’s Myles Price fumbled it back to Sanker, whose return tied it at 13 — a score that held after kicker Daniel Carlson missed an extra point.

Minnesota was threatening to widen a 3-0 lead when Jones lost a fumble on the New Orleans 7. Chase Young recovered, returning the ball to the Saints 34, and the drive culminated with Kendre Miller's 2-yard touchdown run.

Reichard hit his second field goal of the game — from 54 yards — as the half ended.

Drew Brees received his Hall of Fame ring

Retired Saints QB Drew Brees was honored with a ring ceremony at halftime — and also had his name unveiled in the team's Ring of Honor, which encircles the upper deck.

Brees received a rousing ovation as he was introduced on the field, wearing his gold Hall of Fame jacket, and presented his ring by Pro Football Hall of Fame president Jim Porter.

“It has been one of the greatest honors of my life to be able to represent this city, this community, this fan base and our organization,” Brees said. “I will always love you, New Orleans. I will always represent you.”

Injuries

Vikings tight end T.J. Hockenson was helped off the field after hitting his head hard on the turf while being tackled during a 7-yard catch.

Up next

Vikings: Enter their bye week before hosting Indianapolis on Oct. 25.

Saints: Visit the New York Giants next Sunday.

Duncan McGuire scored in stoppage time for the Houston Dynamo on Saturday night in a 2-2 tie with Minnesota United.

Minnesota (7-12-9), which snapped a five-game losing streak, is winless in seven straight.

McGuire, acquired July 10 via trade from Orlando City, scored his first goal for the Dynamo when he flicked in a header that made it 2-2 in the second minute of stoppage time.

Lyle Foster, acquired Sept. 3 on loan, also scored for the Dynamo (13-9-6). Jonathan Bond had three saves before he went off due to an apparent injury. Blake Gillingham replaced Bond in the 75th minute and had one save.

Kelvin Yeboah and Marcus Caldeira each scored a goal for Minnesota. Yeboah has at least one goal contribution in eight consecutive games and has seven goals and three assists in that span.

Foster made his first career start opened the scoring in the 18th minute.

Yeboah's sliding volley off an arcing ball-in played from the left side to the back post by Morris Duggan made it 1-1 in the 48th and Caldeira, on the give-and-go with Cherrion Valerius, slipped a shot between goalkeeper Jonathan Bond and the near post to give Minnesota a 2-1 lead in the 78th.

Drake Callender had three saves for Minnesota.

Up next

Houston: Plays Wednesday at San Diego.

Minnesota: Visits Colorado on Wednesday.

The second Monday of October is Indigenous Peoples Day in Minnesota. The day celebrates Indigenous culture, traditions and contributions.

Events and activities will be held across the state, with some starting over the weekend, including a film screening in Mankato and a weekend-long basketball tournament and festival in St. Paul.

MPR News compiled a list of events happening around the state over the weekend and on Indigenous Peoples Day.

Weekend Events

Twin Cities region

Owámni: Falling Water Festival, Minneapolis

• Saturday, Oct. 10, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Father Hennepin Bluff Park

  The 2026 Owámni: Falling Water celebrates Indigenous culture in Minnesota. The event highlights the cultural and historical significance of Owámniyomni, the Dakota name for St. Anthony Falls, meaning “turbulent water.” Attendees will find food, arts and craft vendors and local organizations.

Native American Heritage Night, St. Paul

• Saturday, Oct 10, 7:30 p.m., Allianz Field

  Minnesota United FC will host Native American Heritage Night, celebrating Indigenous culture with music, dance and community events before a match against Houston Dynamo FC. Grand Casino sponsors the event with a bracelet giveaway and a limited edition Native American heritage designed merchandise by local artist Willard Malebear. Tickets are available online.

“Bowwow Powwow” Performance, Minneapolis

• Sunday, Oct. 11, 1 p.m., Minneapolis American Indian Center

  “Bowwow Powwow” is produced in partnership with Stages Theatre Company and Mni Giizhik Theatre Ensemble. The story, adapted from Brenda Child's book of the same name, follows a young girl from Red Lake Nation named Windy Girl as she attends a powwow, all while her imagination runs wild with imagery of dogs dancing and singing. Tickets can be purchased on Stages Theatre Company’s website.

Indigenous Peoples Weekend, St. Paul

• Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 10 and 11, 12 p.m. to 8 p.m., Battle Creek Regional Park and Recreation Center

  Enjoy a weekend of basketball, art and local shopping at this year’s Indigenous Peoples Weekend by nonprofit Niniijaanis One of Ones. The event begins on Saturday and runs through Monday. Various activities and public health opportunities will be available. A list of weekend events can be found on the event’s Facebook page.

Greater Minnesota

Community Read Discussion, Mankato

• Saturday, Oct. 10, 1 p.m., Blue Earth County Historical Society

  Join Mankato’s Indigenous Peoples Day Community and Mankato State University’s American Indian Affairs for a community reading and discussion of “Big Chief” by Jon Hickey. The contemporary fiction novel explores Native leadership, identity, community and tribal politics.

Film Showing at Centenary, Mankato

• Saturday, Oct. 10, 2:30 p.m., Centenary United Methodist Church

  Watch an episode of the documentary series, “Battle for the Northern Plains,” with the Indigenous Peoples Day Mankato Committee and Mankato State University’s American Indian Affairs. A discussion will follow the screening.

Indigenous Peoples Day Events

Twin Cities region on Monday

Sunrise Ceremony, Minneapolis

• 7 a.m. to 8 a.m., Thomas Beach at Bde Maka Ska

  For over a decade, people have gathered for ceremony and to watch the sun rise on Indigenous Peoples Day. The gathering invites attendees to join in reflection with the community.

Ȟaȟá Wakpádaŋ Water Blessing, St. Louis Park

• 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., Westwood Nature Center

  Join community for the fourth annual water blessing in honor of Ȟaȟá Wakpádaŋ, Bassett Creek. The gathering will include song, land acknowledgement and updates regarding the Ȟaȟá Wakpádaŋ (Bassett Creek) oral history project.

Indigenous Peoples Day Celebration, St. Paul

• 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., American Indian Magnet School

  A celebration with the theme of “We are all relatives” will be held at American Indian Magnet School. Community is invited to enjoy activities, songs and food.

Native American Food Truck Festival, St. Paul

• 12 p.m. to 8 p.m., Battle Creek Regional Park and Recreation Center

  Indigenous Peoples Weekend continues into Monday’s celebrations with a Native American Food Truck Festival, featuring several Native-owned food truck vendors. An art market and various activities will be held at the park throughout the day.

MAIC Indigenous Peoples Day Powwow, Minneapolis

• 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., Minneapolis American Indian Center

  Culture Language Arts Network will hold a powwow celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day. Local artists and organizations will be vending at the gathering.

Indigenous Peoples Day celebrations

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Greater Minnesota (and beyond) on Monday

Indigenous Peoples Day Breakfast and Gladys Ray Award, Fargo, N.D.

• 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m., Indigenous Association’s center

  The Indigenous Association in Fargo will host a kickoff breakfast featuring Indigenous ingredients followed by the 2026 Gladys Ray Award.

Indigenous Peoples Day Gathering, Bemidji

• 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sanford Bemidji Medical Center

  Sanford Bemidji Medical Center will host a public gathering in honor of Indigenous Peoples Day. The gathering will include a blessing, a traditional meal of bison roast and a jingle dress teaching at 1 p.m. A local vendor showcase will be held until 4 p.m.

Annual Youth Led March and Community Round Dance, Duluth

• 10:30 a.m., Harbor City School to Duluth City Hall

  Join community for a youth-led march beginning at Harbor City School followed by a round dance at Duluth City Hall. The gathering honors and celebrates Indigenous culture, knowledge, art, music and community.

Indigenous Peoples Day Lunch and Learn, Moorhead

• 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., Hjemkomst Center

  The Indigenous Association will host a free lunch featuring Indigenous ingredients and a presentation by local Indigenous youth. Registration is required.

Community Celebration, Mankato

• 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., Mankato East High School

  Celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day with planetarium showings, cultural demonstrations and drumming with Mankato’s Indigenous Peoples Day Community and Mankato State University’s American Indian Affairs. The event will have local Indigenous vendors and art. The celebration is free and open to the public.

Indigenous Peoples Celebration, Brainerd

• 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., Gichi-ziibi Center for the Arts

  The Sowing Room and Brainerd Public Schools’ Indigenous Education program will hold a gathering at Gichi-ziibi Center for the Arts. The event includes music, art, storytelling and food. A film screening of Leya Hale’s “Medicine Ball” will follow the celebration. It’s free and open to the public.

Indigenous Peoples Day Celebration, Superior, Wis.

• 4:45 p.m., Yellowjacket Union Atrium

  The University of Wisconsin Superior will celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day on campus with a feast, ceremony, dancing and a lacrosse game. The gathering is free and open to the public.

Indigenous Peoples Day Powwow, Moorhead

• 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., Moorhead High School Gymnasium

  Local school programs will host a powwow in honor of Indigenous Peoples Day starting with a dinner at 5:30 p.m. Grand entry and dance specials will begin at 7 p.m.

Post Indigenous Peoples Day gatherings

Native and Proud, Out and Loud!, St. Paul

• Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2 p.m. to 7 p.m., St. Paul Campus

  Join several University of Minnesota student organizations to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day and National Coming Out Day on Tuesday, Oct. 13. The gathering will begin with a tour of the Native American Medicine Garden followed by keynote speaker Giiwedin at 4:30 p.m. in Pillsbury Hall. The event celebrates two-spirit culture, history and identity.

Chandra Colvin covers Native American communities in Minnesota for MPR News via Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.  

Pope Leo XIV announced Sunday that he would have surgery this week to remove a "localized nodule" in his lung.

Leo said the nodule was found at a "very early stage" with doctors recommending surgery.

"Following their advice, I have therefore decided to undergo an operation to remove it," Leo said during his weekly Sunday noon blessing in St. Peter's Square.

The surgery is due to occur at Rome's Gemelli Hospital, which is the primary location for popes to receive medical attention.

Leo has had no known previous health problems.

"I thank you for your spiritual closeness and entrust myself to your prayers," Leo said to the crowds on Sunday.

According to the American Cancer Society, a lung nodule is a small abnormal area, less than or equal to 3 cm, found during a CT scan of the chest or abdomen. These tests are often conducted as routine screenings for "trauma, heart disease, non-cancer related lung disease, or lung infection."

Most lung nodules are benign. The American Cancer Society said these nodules are "more often the result of old infections, scar tissue, or other causes" and that tests are needed to confirm it is not cancerous. He later posted the message about his surgery on social media.

The Vatican did not disclose whether the nodule was cancerous.

Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said in a statement that "the operation is scheduled for the first days of this week and the estimated post-operative recovery time will be about one week."

Leo's next major international trip is scheduled for early November to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru. It's unclear if the surgery would affect his travels.

During his papacy, Leo has been outspoken about peace throughout the world. He spent part of his Sunday address renewing calls for peace in Ukraine.

"I make a heartfelt appeal to the parties to the conflict to allow the safe transport of grain across the Black Sea," Leo said. "The daily bread of millions of people cannot be held hostage by war."

On Saturday, the Pope also called for the death penalty to be abolished, saying on X that it is "inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person."

"The common good can be safeguarded and the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment: effective systems of detention have been developed that protect citizens while at the same time do not completely deprive those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption," Leo said.

Copyright 2026, NPR

Kirill Kaprizov had three goals and an assist, Matt Boldy scored his first goal of the season in the game's first minute, and the Minnesota Wild spoiled Florida's home opener by beating the Panthers 4-1 on Saturday night.

Wild goaltender Jesper Wallstedt continued his hot start, stopping 29 shots. Wallstedt has been in net for all five of Minnesota's games so far, going 3-1-1 with a .936 save percentage and a stingy goals-against average of just 1.78.

Boldy gave the Wild the lead 53 seconds into the game. Kaprizov made it 2-0 with 13:42 left in the opening period, added his second 5 minutes into the middle frame, and finished his hat trick on an empty-netter with 1:04 left.

Matthew Tkachuk had the goal for Florida (2-1-2), putting home his own rebound for his team-leading third score of the season. The Panthers — who are without Aleksander Barkov and Brad Marchand — have just nine goals in the season's first five games and have led for a total of 8 minutes, 40 seconds in that span.

Jacob Markstrom stopped 25 shots for Florida. The Panthers were 0 for 5 on the power play and are now 1 for 28 on the man advantage to start the season.

The Wild improved to 42-5-2 all-time when Kaprizov has at least three points. He's done it 49 times for the Wild, by far the most in franchise history.

Florida was the last team to play its home opener this season. Each of the first five Panthers games were home openers; Carolina, San Jose, Anaheim and Los Angeles all began their home schedules with games against Florida.

The game was the 807th for Florida defenseman Aaron Ekblad, breaking a tie with Barkov for the most by a Panthers player.

Up next

Wild: Host Vegas on Monday night.

Panthers: Visit Buffalo on Monday afternoon.

More than 70 craft breweries and 1,200 beer aficionados gathered at Boom Island Park in Minneapolis on Saturday for the Autumn Brew Review.

With summerlike temperatures, the event gave fans of craft beer and brewers a chance to connect for one of the last sunny days before the changing of the seasons take hold.

Matt Holton is co-owner of Wandering Leaf Brewing in St. Paul and was at the event. He said attendance this year was solid, but noted the struggles the industry has been facing over the past few years.

“It's a weird time in craft beer. We're seeing more closures than openings, and there's a lot of doom and gloom out there, just with changing consumer preferences. Debt got expensive,” Holton said. “But events like these are [a] really good time for us as brewers to meet with our our peers because we don't often get out of our own tap rooms.”

Holton said he's noticing a return to a collaborative spirit amongst breweries that he felt around the COVID-19 pandemic, although resources and funds continue to tighten.

Jeff Zierdt is co-founder and president of Lupulin Brewing Company in Big Lake, Minn. He's also on the board for the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild, and he said the industry has faced a lot of challenges lately, dating back to the pandemic.

“It goes back to COVID. I mean, people hate to keep hearing that, but you know what? Everyone was on an upward momentum build within the industry, and, all of a sudden, COVID hit,” Zierdt said. “Things changed, habits changed, and since then, we've all been hit — whether it was a turn down in the market from restaurants, a turn down of liquor stores, the entry of THC products into the mix.”

Zierdt says breweries will lean in to some revolutionary ideas, like developing THC products or sharing business operations through collectives — allowing different businesses to support each other, similar to how Fulton, Finnegans, Bemidji and N*RC Sparkling THC joined together to form True North Beverage.

But Zierdt says the biggest thing that will help the local craft brewers is customers showing up.

“You need to keep supporting your local breweries that are local. You need to support them both at their tap rooms, in the liquor stores, at bars, restaurants,” he said. “Because that's what's going to keep a lot of people around, is supporting local.”

The Autumn Brew Review is the brewery guild’s oldest event, celebrating 25 years of bringing craft beer and customers together.

Bob Galligan with the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild said the event is often subject to weather, and with the summerlike conditions, people attended, but passed on traditional fall fare like s’mores and bonfires.

Tim Engelstad of New Brighton and Mandee Lewandowski of Minneapolis went to the event to support local breweries and enjoy the weather.

Englestad was impressed by the vast number of breweries at the event, even though he was aware of some businesses struggling and even shuttering.

"The peak was probably 2012-2016 of breweries. I think it's a little bit of market correction. There were so many about a dozen years ago, but it's still thriving. Obviously, I'm seeing breweries from Austin, Cannon Falls, Chisago City."

Lewandowski said she loves how local breweries support the community, and she wants to return the favor.

“If you can get people out of their house to raise money for good things, and beer’s involved, it's just so smart,” she said. “I think that local organizations and businesses partnering with brewers is just the way to do it. So you feel good. I love drinking for a cause.”

She’s trying not to keep alcohol in her home as much nowadays, but when she does buy beer, she says she focuses on local breweries first.

Scientists say climate change is oftentimes reflected in extreme weather events.

But many Minnesotans may not just be bearing witness, some are experiencing it, through derecho storms, wildfires, flooding and widespread drought, which could all be signs there’s an imbalance.

All of these weather events are compelling a collaboration of organizations in northern Minnesota to address concerns related to climate change.

“We are experiencing longer, prolonged droughts. We’re also seeing some more intense and severe storms here in Bemidji,” said Anna Carlson, an environmental studies professor at Bemidji State University. “We definitely are still reeling from the derecho that happened in the summer of 2025.”

The derecho downed an estimated 9 million trees in Beltrami County. While clean-up efforts have been successful in the city of Bemidji, many fallen trees still remain in remote, hard-to-reach areas of the county.

Carlson said one climate impact local leaders are continuing to discuss as a result of the storm is “the increased level of wildfire risk” amid drought conditions.

According to Carlson, Bemidji State University has been looking at its own contributions to climate change and has developed a plan to reduce carbon emissions at the university.

“It’s really thinking about how we prepare ourselves and our communities in a changing climate,” Carlson said.

Bemidji State University is now expanding its planning around climate change by joining up with the North Woods and Waters Community Resilience Collaborative. It’s a project spanning eight counties in northern Minnesota from the Arrowhead to the Headwaters regions.

The goal of the project is to create a plan for building climate resilience throughout the region.

“Resilience isn’t just about climate change, and it isn’t just about preparing for the next storm or the next flood or drought or wildfire,” Carlson said. “It’s really about whether our communities have the relationships and the knowledge, and capacity to respond to change.”

Sharing strategies and resources

The Arrowhead Regional Development Commission is leading the project. It’s based in Duluth, in a part of Minnesota where climate change may be contributing to the increasing intensity of wildfires.

Sean Bartlett, the commission’s planner, said one of the strategies of the regional resilience collaborative will be having participants draft a preparedness plan. It might outline evacuation routes and communication channels for weather-related emergencies and assign responsibilities to individuals in the community.

“We really know that it's going to be the relationships of the collaborative that are going to be advancing those strategies,” he said.

Bartlett added once the strategies have been identified and put in place, they will be followed for decades to come. And while the plan won't carry any regulatory power, that’s not its intent.

“It’s really going to be tailored more towards the community level,” he said. “So local governance as well as potentially some local community organizations, but really, it's for those who are seeking some guidance.”

Climate impacts don't adhere to borders. Bartlett says that's one reason for making a regional collaborative. He uses the example of the spruce budworm, a species native to the state. He said an overgrowth of Douglas fir has led to a bad outbreak of the pest. And coupled with climate change and a surplus of food, there’s no telling how long it will continue.

Bartlett said regional communication can help with managing it.

“Right now, in the northeast region in the Northland Climate Resilience Collaborative, they are talking about spruce budworm and what sort of response might be to something like that,” Bartlett said. “As spruce budworm migrates, that may be something that the development from the Northland Climate Resilience Collaborative becomes relevant to the North Woods and Waters, and vice versa.”

The North Woods and Waters Community Resilience Collaborative’s final draft will be completed by June of 2029.

Amid growing opposition to Google’s proposed Pine Island data center near Rochester, a major local business organization is voicing its full support for the project.

The Rochester Area Chamber of Commerce, the second largest chamber in the state, announced it is formally backing the controversial massive data center proposal, known as Project Skyway.

Pine Island, where the data center would be built, is about 15 miles north of Rochester, but the chamber’s president, Ryan Parsons, said the economy of the entire region will benefit from new jobs the project will create.

"The job growth that will occur as a result of this in the short term is going to be 700 construction jobs,” Parsons told MPR News. “When we look long term, this will generate a little over 100 new employees in this Google project."

Parsons says this will make the data center the second largest employer in Pine Island after the Land O'Lakes dairy processing facility.

The mega project has been taking a lot of heat recently from southern Minnesota political candidates like DFLer Jake Johnson, who is running to oust Republican U.S. Rep. Brad Finstad, as well as local residents and environmentalists. The fierce community opposition has even spurred some political newcomers to run for local office in Pine Island, as well as in other communities across Minnesota.

The big tech companies behind the hyperscale data center proposals, and their developers, are taking notice of the grassroots opposition to them. Google, for example, recently launched a charm offensive in both Hermantown, near Duluth, and Pine Island, where it is hoping to build enormous data centers. The company held open houses and community celebrations to try to smooth over some ruffled feathers and win over naysayers in town.

Parsons said he’s aware of the opposition to Project Skyway, but he maintains that the immense capital investment and job growth will do wonders for the region.

“This is an outstanding opportunity for a community, especially as they look at what they'll need to continue to grow,” Parsons said.

Google has also promised to invest $24 million into Pine Island schools over the course of 20 years if its project is approved, in addition to the significant amount of property tax revenue the company will pay.

Parsons encourages opponents of the project to learn more about them, explaining that Google and the developer, Ryan Companies, have been very willing to share information, provide resources and answer questions about the proposal.

Critics say that recent openness to sharing details about the projects comes after months and even years of developing their proposals in secrecy, having local government officials sign non-disclosure agreements to keep the plans from being revealed. Google didn’t even acknowledge it was behind the Pine Island project until after the City Council had approved the proposal.

The data center is currently on pause as a judge considers whether the project requires further environmental review.

A shooting that rocked a city in Pennsylvania left nine people dead, police said, including the suspected shooter.

Authorities didn't provide more details.

“I have not seen anything like this in my 28-plus years,” Erie Police Chief Rick Lorah told a local news station. “I’m not sure that the city of Erie has ever seen the loss of life and the devastation that we just witnessed.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro said Saturday he offered his administration's “full support” to Erie Mayor Daria Devlin.

Erie is about 117 miles north of Pittsburgh.

Christa Pike, who survived Tennessee’s attempt to execute her by lethal injection, has been moved back to prison, according to a statement released by her attorneys.

Pike, 50, was discharged from the hospital and is back at the Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, the women’s prison where she was housed for 30 years, her attorneys said in a statement.

“She is grateful to the first responders and her medical team for their care in these extraordinary circumstances. She is continuing to receive medical care at the prison, and we will continue to track her recovery,” her attorneys said in a statement released Saturday.

Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital as the state attempted to execute her by lethal injection on Sept. 30 for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer. Pike had been in a hospital since the failed execution.

The Death Penalty Information Center says Pike is the first person to survive after receiving lethal injection drugs during an execution.

President Donald Trump said he has struck a deal to obtain diesel from Russia, a stunning reversal of years of U.S. pressure on Moscow over its war with Ukraine and an attempt to address high fuel prices ahead of the U.S. midterm elections.

Trump said on social media on Friday that he struck the deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call in which he was expected to discuss a suspected case of plague in Russia. Instead, Trump announced that Russia will immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel, followed by an additional 500,000 tons in November and 1 million tons “immediately thereafter.” Russia will deliver an additional 3 million tons “within a short period of time” after that, he wrote.

Trump’s shocking announcement was in stark contrast to a sweeping Russia sanctions law he signed last month that aimed at clamping down on the oil and gas revenues that fuel Russia's war against Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it “a weak decision, unfortunately, a weak decision by strong partners," according to a statement released by the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington.

Trump announced the deal as his envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner were meeting with Ukrainian officials in Miami to discuss a proposal to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

“I believe our team is simply being used as a smokescreen. And that is certainly not fair. It is certainly not how partners should treat each other,” Zelenskyy said.

Trump's move casts doubt on the likelihood of the White House imposing new sanctions on Russia, given that the law that passed overwhelmingly by Congress directs the administration to target countries that purchase Russian oil and gas. Lawmakers this week had urged the Trump administration to act quickly to use the tools available to help Ukraine.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, along with Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, who is the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the ranking Democrat on the Banking Committtee, called Trump’s announcement a betrayal of Ukraine, the European allies and U.S. national security.

“Enough is enough,” the senators wrote. “The President must end his war with Iran instead of funding Russia’s war machine.”

Gas prices globally have surged as the war in Iran upends the energy sector. While diesel future prices dipped on the news on Friday, the national average for a gallon of diesel in the U.S. remained high at $6.28, according to AAA, after hitting a record $6.52 on Sept. 22.

Trump did not address the sanctions or Russia’s war but said, “Lower prices for Americans, especially our Great Farmers, Ranchers, and Truckers, is my Greatest Priority.”

Trump said later as he left the White House for a campaign rally that he was thankful for the deal. "I want to thank President Putin. To be honest with you, we have massive amounts of oil coming into our country, and it’s diesel, which is what we want. So, thank you," Trump said. He did not answer shouted questions about the criticism from Zelenskyy.

Washington and Moscow offer few details on deal

The White House did not immediately respond to questions about who was paying for the Russian diesel or when it would become available.

A statement from Putin, released by the Kremlin on Friday, said during their call he and Trump dedicated “significant attention to the prospects of resolving the Ukrainian crisis” and also discussed “the situation around Iran and various aspects of bilateral relations.”

Russia “confirmed its readiness to supply oil and oil products to the American and global markets,” Putin said. “I am confident that this will have a positive impact on the entire global economy.”

Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, speaking later to reporters, wouldn't say whether the U.S. made any concessions in exchange for the supplies, or what, if anything, was promised to Russia in exchange.

Trump and Putin's deal draws immediate backlash

Zelenskyy, in a lengthy post online reacting to the deal, said Russia would repay it “with further terror and perfidy.” He cast it as an investment in the war, allowing it to be prolonged.

“It plays into Russia’s hands — allowing it to kill more, wage war for longer, have even less respect for America, and inflict even greater losses and damage on the world,” he said.

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who co-sponsored the Russia sanctions law, said Trump's decision “makes us complicit in Putin’s war against Ukraine." In his scathing statement, Blumenthal invoked the memory of Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally and Russia hawk, for whom the law is named.

“This agreement with a murdering dictator is a stain on our nation’s character, an insult to Lindsey Graham’s memory, and directly contrary to Congress’s intent in our bipartisan sanctions bill," he said.

Rep. Don Beyer, the senior House Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee, called Trump’s announcement “infuriating.”

“This is what we warned anyone who would listen: Trump isn’t the slightest bit trustworthy when it comes to Russia,” Beyer said in a statement on X.

The law Trump signed last month envisions sanctions on Russian officials, banks and a shadow fleet of tankers and bans all new U.S. investment in Russia and the handling of sovereign debt.

It also directed Trump to impose tariffs of up to 100% on the top five importers of Russian oil or natural gas, with an exception for countries that import less than 15% of Russia’s natural gas exports and have taken significant steps to reduce those imports.

The U.S. has not imported Russian oil or gas since 2022, when the Biden administration banned the imports because of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Treasury Department moves to ease diesel sanctions for six months

Shortly after Trump made the announcement, the Treasury Department said it was immediately issuing a temporary license allowing Russian diesel to be supplied to the global market.

This is the latest license the U.S. Treasury has issued regarding Russian fuel shipments since the start of the Iran war early this year. But it is the first to ease sanctions on diesel for longer than the standard 30-day window since the start of the Ukraine war in February 2022.

The license means U.S. sanctions will not apply until April 2027 on deliveries of Russian diesel that has been loaded onto tankers as of Friday.

The extensions underscore how the fallout from the Iran war has boosted Moscow’s ability to profit from its energy exports.

It's unclear how the move will impact oil prices

"What does this do to prices? I think probably not much,” said Clayton Seigle, an energy strategist and expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

But, Seigle said the new deal is a “great benefit to Russia and to Putin,” who are currently trying to offload their summer-grade diesel for the heavier winter and arctic grades that they will need in the coming months.

“It’s kind of shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic,” said Michael Lynch of the Energy Policy Research Foundation, a non-partisan research institution focused on energy and economics.

“If we get diesel from Russia, basically it means that their existing customers are not going to get it and they’ll have to go somewhere else, and that will keep the price basically where it is now,” Lynch said.

Russia, once a major exporter of diesel, has banned exports since July as it has struggled to meet demand inside the country because of Ukraine’s repeated attacks on Russian oil refineries. The International Energy Agency says Russian diesel output has fallen by about 30%.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told state news agency Tass that Russia is “immediately starting to lift restrictions on diesel exports ahead of schedule.” He said Moscow could start supplies to the U.S. this month and Russia’s domestic market will be “fully supplied” with diesel, as well.

Native American heritage nights have become a yearly tradition at sports events in Minnesota. Saturday marks Minnesota United’s fourth Native American Heritage Night, celebrating culture through song, dance and sports-inspired artwork.

Willard Malebear is Hunkpapa Lakota and owns Iktomi Tattoo in Minneapolis. His nonprofit, Art Shelf, shares a space with the shop and holds frequent community nights centered on sober living, artistic freedom and communal connection.

As part of the Minnesota United’s 2026 Artist Collection, Jared Hanks, founder of creative agency Modern Day Me, asked Malebear to create a T-shirt and scarf design that combines Minnesota pride and culture.

Malebear’s design features the Minnesota state bird carrying sweetgrass and sage at the center, surrounded by Indigenous floral art.

“I wanted to select a floral design that kind of touched on both Lakota, Dakota and Anishinaabe culture,” Malebear said.

He said he was inspired by community resilience during Operation Metro Surge and the use of the Minnesota loon as a symbol of strength.

“I wanted to honor the presence of the loon and community during that time but also the Minnesota United logo,” Malebear said. “A lot of times when we think of a bird spirit and medicine, it’s often an eagle. So I tried to position the loon in an eagle position.”

In January, Malebear announced that he had been selected for the competitive Bush Fellowship, which financially supports entrepreneurs and community leaders while connecting them to resources to grow their passions. He said his goals through the fellowship are to keep teaching art in prisons and guide sober tattoo artists through their careers.

“As an artist, it takes off a lot of the stress of having to produce artwork for rent, but now it’s easier to produce passion projects like this one without having to think of the dollar signs,” Malebear said.

In addition to Malebear’s soccer debut, attendees can enjoy Native-led blues-rock music by Corey Medina and Brothers starting at 5 p.m. on the Great Lawn, prior to the 7:30 p.m. game against the Houston Dynamo. In section 230 across the stadium, guest chefs Lee Garman and Dominique Miles of Indigena by Owamni will serve elk and mushroom tostadas.

Only 100 to 150 T-shirts designed by Malebear are available for purchase on Saturday at the Black and Blue Team Store in Allianz Stadium. The first 5,000 attendees will receive a complimentary heritage night bracelet presented by Grand Casino.

Good fire returned to Minnesota Point in Duluth on Thursday, when the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and its partners set a cultural prescribed burn on the narrow strip of land between Lake Superior and the bay.

The day began with a ceremony led by Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa elder Ricky DeFoe. DeFoe began by making a small fire from cedar and birch bark gathered at the point.

“The objective is to connect, reconnect to our Mother Earth,” DeFoe told project leaders along with two dozen tribal and state fire managers gathered for the ceremony.

At DeFoe’s request, fellow Fond du Lac elder Vern Northrup lit the fire, and later used the embers to ignite the burn on Minnesota Point’s 17 acres of woodlands.

The low-intensity fire follows an intense wildfire season in the northeast. Northrup, who spent 25 years fighting wildfire, was there for what he calls the judicious application of fire by fellow firefighters.

“All these different agencies, they’re all doing it for a reason, to manage our environment,” Northrup said. “It needs fire to do that. That’s what’s been missing. That’s why it’s so overgrown. That’s why we have the catastrophic fires we have.”

The burn was a collaboration among the Fond du Lac Band, the city of Duluth, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It took place on protected public lands managed by the state, land where Ojibwe tribes in northeast Minnesota exercise treaty rights.

Bazile Panek, an enrolled member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, leads the project, called Returning the Spirit of Good Fire to Minnesota Point. Panek is CEO of Good Sky Guidance, a consulting firm that helps organizations work with tribal nations.

The project is supported by a three-year cooperative agreement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the nonprofit Minnesota Point 50 serves as its fiscal sponsor. Panek says the project wouldn’t be possible without their partnership.

Northrup says fire will help restore blueberry patches and help the old growth red pine regenerate. Before ignition, he stopped in the burn area to point out blueberry plants growing in the shade without fruit.

“Those are decadent plants that have grown for years, but they don’t have the sunlight,” Northrup said. “We’re going to give them more sunlight and give them a shot of nitrogen.”

He says the forest itself needs the same relief.

“We’re going to help it to breathe,” Northrup said.

Northrup worked throughout the day to protect red pine that he and others identified as culturally modified trees, old growth red pine whose sap was collected to make the pitch Ojibwe people used to waterproof their canoes.

“The red pine provided the best, because you could keep coming back to it,” he says.

Valerie Ross, whose Ojibwe name is Zhaawendaagozikwe, helped DeFoe with the ceremony and spoke for the water. She also helped map the old growth red pine as part of her student research at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College, and she brought her infant daughter to the burn.

“It was just beautiful to walk down the trail and remember being out in the woods looking for samples, and learning about the history, and being an Ojibwe person doing science out there on our own history, and then being able to get results,” Ross said. “It’s a beautiful thing to see.”

Ross says the ceremony that opened the burn matters as much as the fire itself. In her tradition, lighting a fire means asking for help and setting an intention.

“In our way, we believe fire is a spirit,” Ross said. “When we start a fire, it’s like we are asking that spirit to be there. Fire spirits that have been here for thousands of years, help us out. Help us little human beings. We need your help.”

Evan Larson, a professor who studies fire ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, worked with Ross’ research crew. He says prescribed burns allow people to build a healthy sense of climate resiliency.

“So much of the world right now, if you’re paying attention to environmental issues and challenges, it feels so big and so out of reach and so just heavy. And so, this is an act that we can do,” Larson said.

Larson says a burn like this one makes the land itself more resilient to a changing climate. He says clearing out built-up fuel lowers the risk of severe wildfire, and the forest stores carbon as it recovers. He says the burn also gets people outside and engaged with the land.

“All of these pieces are vital to helping shape a culture that is engaged, that is caring, that loves the land and takes care of the land and recognizes that we have that as not just a role, but maybe even a responsibility,” Larson said.

As fire reached the western edge of the burn area, Duluth firefighter Ben Smith filled water bladders from a Duluth fire rig. Crews use the bladders to put out spot fires before they get too big. Minutes before, flames climbed a small birch.

“With just a little water, a couple of squirts, it goes right out, and it saves the tree,” Smith said. “Our overall goal here is to ecologically restore the area, and if we can put a little effort into saving some of the resources, it matters a lot.”

Elder Vern Northrup spent the afternoon tending the red pine trees and educating people.

“Everything you see around here is fire dependent. It’s always seen fire, and it’s just been removed for so long,” he says. “We’re going to change that. Yep, we’re going to change that.”

Northrup says he will return to the point in the future to pick blueberries.

“I’m going to be back here, and I’m going to bring my grandchildren back here.”

Mosques around the state are stepping up security amid a wave of comments from leaders — including President Donald Trump — attacking Minnesota’s Somali American community.

The president posted those comments Thursday after a week of statements from officials and social media chatter blaming the Somali community for violence in Minnesota.

A shooting at a high school football game in Eden Prairie on Oct. 2 that injured two Somali American teenagers helped spark the rhetoric. Law enforcement leaders said the shooting was gang-related and called for a more coordinated response to gang violence in the region, which they say is being perpetrated predominantly by Somali American youth.

The rhetoric intensified Wednesday, after the unrelated arrest of an 18-year-old Somali American accused of planning an attack at the Mall of America.

Minnesota imams meet to discuss mosque safety

The ongoing hostility online has some Somali community leaders worried about mosques and other gathering places being targeted.

Minnesota’s chapter of the Committee on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, held a meeting Thursday for imams around the state to talk about safety plans. Deputy Executive Director Suleiman Adan said that includes communicating to congregations reminders about emergency exits and procedures.

He said he was especially concerned about the president calling on non-Somali Minnesotans to “fight back” against the Somali community in a social media post.

“We cannot simply dismiss that as political rhetoric or the president saying something that he doesn't actually mean,” Suleiman said. “We have seen how quickly hateful language can translate into harassment, into threats and violence.”

Imam Abdulahi Farah said he’s worried about the prospect of violence, too. He’s an imam at Dar al-Farooq mosque in Bloomington, where a far-right group set off a homemade bomb in 2017.

“These words are reckless, they are dangerous, and they have consequences,” Farah said at a press conference Friday, in response to Trump’s comments. “We know what it means when an entire community who comes to worship are made to feel unsafe. Blaming an entire community is not accountability. Scapegoating is not a public safety strategy.”

Neighbors renew patrols started during Operation Metro Surge

Farah spoke alongside a group of Minnesota clergy Friday morning. They called on leaders and neighbors across the state to speak out against racist rhetoric against Somali Americans and to protect the community in Minnesota.

Suleiman said several mosques and Somali businesses have heard from neighbors who plan to patrol outside their buildings and watch for any disturbances or threats of violence, restarting a practice that many retired after the drawdown of Operation Metro Surge. The federal immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota targeted Somalis, among other groups.

The Minneapolis Police Department and the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to requests for comment regarding whether they had seen any particular threats, or whether they are stepping up security around mosques.

Several elected officials also denounced Trump’s statement Friday. Walz — who Trump called an “incompetent thief” in his social media post — said in a fundraising email that the president is lashing out at blue states.

“You’d think the president of the United States would have more important things to do than spend his afternoon trying to turn Americans against each other,” Walz wrote.

Some community leaders and officials said they’re concerned the federal government is attempting to blame the Somali community for violence as a pretext to send federal forces to the state, noting Trump’s promise to Minnesotans that “the federal government come to your rescue.”

Suleiman said he wants to see politicians stand up for all Minnesotans — including Somali Americans.

“Somalis are as Minnesotan as apple pie and the State Fair,” he said. “You should stand up for them, just as you would stand up for any element of your community that is being that is being scapegoated.”

Minnesota has surpassed 127,000 ballots submitted in the early voting phase of the midterm election, marking a big uptick in just one week.

New figures released Friday by the Minnesota Secretary of State's Office show a surge in absentee and mail ballots completed by voters and accepted by local election officials. The total has doubled over the past week.

Most of the ballots were cast via mail. About 48,000 were filled out at in-person locations.

Voting by mail has been under scrutiny since President Trump signed an executive order in March directing the U.S. Postal Service to use federal citizenship lists in determining which mail ballots it would deliver.

Minnesota and other states sued, arguing the changes would interfere with states' authority to run elections and would leave elections officials with little time to comply.

The U.S. Supreme Court sided with the states and blocked the Postal Service's new rules for mail-in voting, at least for the midterms. That allowed elections officials in Minnesota to carry on with the work of preparing ballots to send to voters.

Minnesota doesn't have voter registration by party. Democrats have made a significant early-voting push but Republicans say they are also encouraging voting ahead of Election Day on Nov. 3.

MPR News reporter Kirsti Marohn contributed to this report.

St. Cloud schools are adopting new safety measures at outdoor sporting events that include moving evening games to late afternoon.

The school district says all remaining football and soccer games for the fall season will start at 4:30 p.m. Spectators also must pass through a metal detector, and can bring only small, clear bags. And attendees must leave immediately after the game.

School district officials say the changes were prompted in part by recent violence at other Minnesota high schools, as well as a potential local threat.

"Our main purpose is to make sure kids have a good experience, our fans and our spectators have a good experience at our events,” said Jason Harris, assistant superintendent of secondary education for St. Cloud schools. “We don't want it to be ruined by poor choices from teenagers or adults."

The St. Cloud Police Department said it’s investigating a social media post about a large fight planned at Tech High School's homecoming football game on Friday. No weapons were mentioned in the threat, according to Commander Martin Sayre of the department’s community engagement division.

Harris also said last week's shooting that injured two people outside Eden Prairie's homecoming game was a factor. An 18-year-old has been arrested.

The school district already had metal detectors that it used at last year’s high school graduation ceremonies, but this will be the first time they’ve been used at an athletic event, Harris said.

With the earlier start times, the games should be wrapped up before dark, which is when most problems tend to occur, he said. A few people have complained about the changes, but most have been supportive, Harris said.

“We had families that were appreciative say, ‘Hey, you’re thinking about our safety and you want us to have a good experience. We’d rather you be preventive than reactive,” he said.

The new policies will continue at least through the remaining fall season, Harris said, and could be extended into winter.

Mike Ditka, who won NFL titles as a player and coach with the Chicago Bears, has died. He was 86.

Ditka's family announced the death on Friday in a statement.

“It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved husband, father, grandfather, and friend, Mike Ditka,” The family said. “While the world knew Mike as a Hall of Fame football player, legendary coach, and leader of the Chicago Bears’ Super Bowl XX championship team, we knew him as the heart of our family. Mike will be missed beyond measure and remembered forever.”

Nicknamed “Iron Mike” as a player, Ditka helped revolutionize the tight-end position, then moved to the sidelines and took over as Chicago’s coach. His 1985 team featured one of the game’s most dominant defenses ever. It also had enough outsized personalities to record a rap video, “The Super Bowl Shuffle,” and back up their boasting in the championship game three months later.

After retiring as a coach, Ditka became a restaurateur, pitchman and TV personality, as well as a forceful advocate for improved medical and retirement benefits for former players.

Ditka was tough and gruff, the quintessential Chicago Bear. He did everything from order off the menu to knock defensive backs on their butts with a growl. His adopted hometown reveled in every minute.

Still revered as "Da Coach" and ringmaster of the 1985 Bears, one of the most dominant and perhaps the zaniest Super Bowl-winning team in league history. Ditka was enshrined in the College and Pro Football Halls of Fame and the Bears said during a ceremony in 2013 that his "No. 89" jersey will be the last one retired by the team.

He was born in Carnegie, Pennsylvania, the son of a welder who changed the family name from Dyczko. He grew up in nearby Aliquippa, close to the coal-mining and steel-manufacturing plants that dotted the western part of the state, a big, talented, three-sport athlete and All-American at Pitt whose bruising style made his first nickname, "Iron Mike," a good fit.

Selected fifth overall by flinty Chicago owner George Halas in the 1961 draft, Ditka went on to Rookie of the Year honors, multiple Pro Bowl trips and the 1963 NFL Championship. In the bargain, he and Baltimore's John Mackey changed the tight end position and offensive schemes forever. He was a battering ram of a blocker, but Ditka was just as likely to catch a short pass and pinball through an entire secondary or outrace a lone safety on a deep touchdown throw.

He left Chicago in 1966, playing briefly for Philadelphia and Dallas. He moved to the sideline in 1973 as an assistant to the revered Tom Landry and stayed with the Cowboys for eight seasons, before returning to a hero's welcome in Chicago as head coach in 1982.

Ditka's return to the Bears lasted 10 tumultuous years, including five straight NFC Central titles, the Super Bowl win, a DUI conviction, a heart attack, a long-running feud with defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan and, finally, a new nickname — “Da Coach.”

To Hall of Fame linebacker Mike Singletary, the seeds of what was to come were planted in Ditka’s first meeting with the team. He laid out his vision, saying Chicago would be in the Super Bowl in three years — and many of the players in the room would not be around for it.

“When I first heard him when he walked in the room, to me Coach Ditka had the opportunity to be the greatest coach of all time because he had the fire,” Singletary said at the Bears’ 100th anniversary celebration in June 2019. “I don’t know George Halas coached. But I can imagine that the fire and intensity and passion that Coach Ditka exuded that first day set the tone for exactly what he said: ‘Three years from now, we’re going to be in the Super Bowl.’ And that was 1982. In ’85, we were there and it was because of that vision.”

The public beefs with Ryan mirrored the behind-the-scenes battles that Ditka waged trying to contain a team bristling with outsized personalities.

“It was more than a team,” Ditka once said. “It was a team of characters that had character that played for a crazy man, who let him be crazy and had fun doing it and don't apologize for it ever. I wouldn’t want to be one of these suits walking around on the sideline today.

“I have no desire to be that. I was what I was and they were what they were and, damn, it was fun.”

It wasn't until two dozen players recorded "The Super Bowl Shuffle" — an audacious rap-styled video released three months ahead of the 1986 title game — that the rest of the football world wondered whether Ditka was losing his grip.

His players never did.

"We call him 'Sybil' after that girl in the movie," quarterback Jim McMahon once explained. "You know, the one that had all those personalities. Mike will be calm one minute, then throw a clipboard the next. People don't understand that, but we do."

The Bears demolished the New England Patriots 46-10 in the Super Bowl, but Ditka often said he regretted having McMahon and defensive tackle William "The Refrigerator" Perry run for touchdowns instead of Walter Payton, Chicago's loyal and long-suffering running back.

Ryan departed for a head coaching job in Philadelphia soon after. While the Bears continued to be a contender for most of the next five years, a 5-11 season prompted Ditka's departure in 1992.

After a five-year absence, he returned to coaching with the New Orleans Saints, but failed to revive the franchise. After a miserable 1999 season ended with a 3-13 record — Ditka's worst as either a player or coach — he left the sidelines for good.

His face and demeanor were so familiar by then that a second act became an easy segue. Ditka began building a stable of restaurants and appeared as himself in TV sitcoms from "Cheers" to "Third Rock from the Sun," as well as shows such as "L.A. Law" and "Saturday Night Live."

He also stayed close to the game as an NFL analyst and game-day show personality at ESPN. Ditka's high-profile status also made him an effective advocate to secure improved health and retirement benefits for former players.

His name also circulated for years in Illinois political circles. Though he never ran for office, Ditka described himself as a staunch conservative and was mentioned several times as a possible Republican candidate, including a congressional race against then state Rep. Barack Obama for the U.S. Senate.

Police officers in cities across the U.S. are quick to extol the virtues of real-time crime centers as a game changer that helps them find missing children, monitor large events from the skies and scope out dangerous scenes before putting an officer in harm's way.

Hundreds of police departments have one of these central hubs, which have existed for years. But many are now being powered with AI software, such as Fusus, from the public-safety technology giant Axon.

Fusus, by Axon's own description, is a "rapidly deployable real-time crime center in the cloud." It functions like the brain of a crime center, synthesizing the data it pulls in and allowing police command centers to watch an entire city from one place.

Flock cameras, the automated license plate readers (ALPRs), have faced intense backlash in recent months amid stories of abuse. Yet privacy experts say they're just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to police surveillance.

"I have been watching the debate about Flock with a little bit of puzzlement," says Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, a law professor at George Washington University. "Because real-time crime centers have not just ALPR cameras and sensors, but video analytics and drones and essentially a way to create a visual single-pane-of-glass vision of what's going on in a city, with time machine capabilities where you can go back and investigate crime."

How AI-powered software fuels real-time crime centers

Tools like Axon Fusus, which is a leader in this type of software, also pull in footage and data from police body cameras, law enforcement dashcams, 911 dispatch, gunshot detectors and surveillance cameras, including sometimes those of private businesses that opt in.

Its use is growing fast. In 2024, the technology news site 404 Media reported that just over 100 law enforcement agencies had deployed Fusus, which was then its own company and was acquired by Axon that year. The number of law enforcement agencies using the tool has more than doubled since then, according to Axon.

Police officers in departments that use Fusus told NPR that the tool serves as a time-saver and a force multiplier for their agencies.

"We could put analysts in a room and have them access 40 different systems," says Benjamin Weir, a captain with the Oklahoma City Police Department. "But that slows them down. So the biggest leveraging factor for a real-time information center to be productive is to have software that can incorporate all these things into one usable area."

Quincy Whitner, a lieutenant with the Greenville County Sheriff's Office in South Carolina, says Fusus helped his department find a man who shot a police officer and fled the scene, by combining city surveillance footage with license plate data.

"Instead of having to go to a million different systems, a million different places to find answers, we can get it in one platform in one place somewhat instantaneously," says Whitner.

Privacy concerns when surveillance is easy

But that push-of-a-button mentality is exactly what makes privacy experts nervous.

Rachel Levinson-Waldman, director of the Liberty and National Security Program at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice, says even a few decades ago, there were more hurdles to overcome when police officers wanted to surveil members of the community. They might have to physically follow someone or do a stakeout. It took time, staffing and resources.

"In addition to all of the things that you would want in place requiring some kind of criminal predicate to launch it, there is just this kind of organic friction that imposes some constraints," she says. "As that friction gets lifted, it becomes easier and easier to do investigations, to look at people and even to pull up broad-scale information."

Police told NPR that they understand those concerns but that the good — the potential for stopping and solving crime — outweighs the bad — the potential for misuse and mass surveillance.

"I understand people's concerns, but if you're not up to no good, we're not looking at you. We are looking at people who are committing crimes," says Michelle Iezzi, deputy director of the Operational Intelligence Division at the Montgomery County Police Department in Maryland.

Axon did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But CEO Rick Smith said on the latest earnings call that the company strongly values privacy: "We just have to be thoughtful and understand those concerns and say, 'Look, this is a tool to amplify human ability, not to replace human judgment.'"

But there is broad potential for abuse when a police department is always watching, privacy experts say; surveillance technology can sweep up innocent people by mistake, and it can enable targeting.

"What happens if there is a government that wants to silence a particular group or even a particular person? And you just built the architecture of surveillance that makes that super-easy," says Ferguson, the George Washington University law professor.

Courts are moving slowly in deciding when or if this kind of surveillance crosses a constitutional line. In the meantime, Ferguson says, lawmakers could act by limiting how long data is stored, for instance, mandating regular audits or restricting surveillance near sensitive sites like abortion clinics or immigration courts.

He says those conversations should be happening before a tool ever is used.

Copyright 2026, NPR

Republican U.S. Rep. Brad Finstad and DFL challenger Jake Johnson debated on two southern Minnesota television stations Thursday night. The two are running in the 1st Congressional District, which Finstad has represented since 2022.

During the North Mankato debate, they differed sharply on President Donald Trump's trade policy.

Finstad defended Trump, saying the tariffs are a tool to make sure the U.S. has a fighting chance to trade freely all over the globe.

“The tariff lever that the president used brought new partners to the table,” Finstad said. “We are seeing record exports in ethanol, in dairy, in soybean oil, and we are seeing it now in the market.”

Johnson, a Rochester high school math teacher, argued that the tariffs are one of the biggest failures of the current administration.

“Tariffs are a tax; they're costing people in southern Minnesota more,” Johnson said. “Since the tariffs were implemented, it's cost the average family here in southern Minnesota over $2,000.”

Johnson said if elected, he'll vote to end the tariffs.

Both parties view race as competitive

Outside spending in the southern Minnesota district has ramped up considerably in recent weeks, outpacing the statewide U.S. Senate race as a magnet for group money.

According to data maintained by the Federal Election Commission, more than $2.5 million has flowed into the race. Most of it has been in opposition to Finstad. But this week, a political group tied to House Majority Whip Tom Emmer deployed $600,000 in ads critical of Johnson.

Some groups on the left have boosted spending on field organizing and canvassing in the district that has been in GOP hands since Democratic Rep. Tim Walz departed after winning the governor's race in 2018.

The surge in spending indicates that both parties now see the race as competitive.

During the debate, the two also clashed over immigration and health care.

Finstad said the Trump administration had put $50 billion into rural health care funding, but Johnson fired back.

“The next line in that sentence is they cut 137 billion dollars from rural healthcare in the form of Medicaid.”

However, the candidates agreed that the health care system needs an overhaul.

“We need transparency, we need competition, and we need innovation in our healthcare system,” Johnson said. “And we need to do it looking forward to the next 50 years, not trying to fix a broken system with band-aids that has failed each and every one of us.“

One thing the two have in common: both met their wives while riding the school bus in elementary school. Finstad met his wife in second grade and Johnson in third grade.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Friday named interim police chief Bill Peterson, a 30-year veteran of the department, as his permanent choice to lead the force.

Peterson took over the interim chief job following the resignation of Brian O’Hara in May. During his career, Peterson has worked as an inspector of a precinct, including downtown Minneapolis, and held leadership roles in responding to major emergencies and implementing new training for officers.

“You had already been doing the work, you had already been earning that trust,” Frey told Peterson during a press conference formally announcing him as his nominee for chief of police. “You had already been demonstrating the kind of leadership that we need right now in the Minneapolis Police Department.”

When he was appointed interim chief in early June, Peterson said he had no interest in the permanent position. But Peterson said he saw the opportunity to serve and decided to step up.

“Leadership is not about the position you hold; it is about the people you serve, and the responsibility you accept,” Peterson said. “I recognize the tremendous responsibility of leading this department, and I do not take it lightly.”

Peterson was prominent during a response to a shooting in September at a Minneapolis high-rise where three officers were injured as they confronted and killed a shooter.

A biography distributed by the city noted Peterson has led the department’s response to many major incidents and events, including the Interstate 35W bridge collapse in 2007, the north Minneapolis tornado in 2011 and Super Bowl LII in 2018.

Five progressive City Council members recently sent Frey a letter expressing a preference for a candidate outside the department. They cited fiscal mismanagement in the department that has gone well over budget in recent years and the need to comply with the city’s agreement with the state Department of Human Rights on policing.

“While an external candidate does not offer any guarantees, it improves the likelihood that the next chief of police has experienced and practiced effective, professional policing without a pattern of racism, excessive force, or a record of misconduct with employees or residents,” according to the council members’ letter. “Minneapolis residents deserve this type of leadership and are entitled to it through the significant taxes they pay.”

Frey said consultants hired by the city did consider external candidates but that all four finalists came from inside the department. That was partly due to community input gathered during meetings in the last few months, where he said a “strong majority” of residents said they preferred an internal candidate. .

“The primary reason why is not having somebody guess at what has taken place over the last six years here, but somebody who's lived it quite directly, who understands both the progress that the Minneapolis Police Department has made, and also [have] a deep understanding that we also have a long way to go,” Frey said.

Michelle Gross, president of Communities United Against Police Brutality, said she has deep concerns about whether Peterson will be able to enact change in the police department he’s been a part of for three decades.

”You really cannot change the culture of a department by hiring somebody who is steeped in that department,” Gross said. “It doesn’t make any sense at all to hire somebody who was so much a part of the department’s culture that needs fixing.”

Peterson said he’s well-positioned to address issues like ballooning officer overtime costs due to his experience. He also vowed to hold officers accountable to the public and to embrace transparency about his decisions as chief.

“Over the past 31 years with this department, I have seen firsthand how some of our actions and our failures have caused harm to the people of Minneapolis, and as a result, have broken our community's trust,” Peterson said. “I have seen the lasting consequences … it is an experience I never want this department or this city to go through again.”

But at the announcement Friday, Peterson said encouragement and support from members of the police department and the community led him to accept the nomination.

“When I was first asked to serve as interim chief, I was reluctant. I had spent several years leading the 1st Precinct, building a strong team, and developing relationships with the community,” Peterson said. “I was proud of what we had accomplished and comfortable in that role; I had no intention of becoming the permanent police chief, but when the department needed someone to step forward, I answered that call.”

The Minneapolis City Council will need to approve Peterson’s permanent role. Frey said the vote will likely happen in November.

Relying on the U.S. Postal Service to return a mail-in ballot close to Election Day now comes with an additional risk for many voters — a late postmark that gets a vote rejected.

The risk stems from mailing system changes that began last year. And those changes have pushed some election officials to encourage voters to consider returning their ballots at their local election office or any available drop boxes instead.

The calls to avoid mailboxes also come as trust in the Postal Service delivering mail ballots on time has fallen, and after President Trump pushed to restrict voting by mail for the midterm elections but was blocked by the Supreme Court.

Election officials often use the date of the postmark that USPS stamps on envelopes to determine whether a ballot was sent by Election Day.

About a week before next month's Election Day, USPS says it plans to roll out special postmarking procedures at post offices affected by the changes as part of its "extraordinary measures" policy to boost mail service for federal general elections.

Still, the agency continues to recommend that voters mail back ballots at least a week before their state's deadline. And in states with a grace period for receiving late-arriving mail ballots, USPS recommends stopping by a post office to ask for a manual postmark to make sure a ballot gets postmarked on the same day it's mailed.

How mailing system changes led to the risk of late postmarks

Since April 2025, USPS has been rolling out cuts to daily mail pick-ups and processing changes at certain post offices, especially in rural areas. What USPS calls its "Regional Transportation Optimization" effort is part of a 10-year reorganization plan the agency began in 2021 to try to stabilize its finances.

As a result, USPS may not automatically stamp a date on an envelope the same day it's collected by a letter carrier or dropped off at a post office or a big blue collection box.

As part of its "extraordinary measures" for these midterms, USPS has instructed post offices affected by RTO to separate returned ballots from other mail starting Oct. 26 so that managers can manually add postmarks the day the ballots are collected.

That procedure was not in place during this year's primary elections, which saw increased ballot rejection rates in multiple states.

Elena Patel, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, says she is encouraged by the steps USPS plans to take in the coming weeks to address concerns about late postmarks.

But the situation is still risky for voters, Patel adds, given that it's not clear how post offices will carry out these directives for the first time, particularly in places where staffing may be stretched.

For the general election, an additional 43,000 to 55,000 ballots around the country could be rejected for arriving late because of the RTO effort, according to a new analysis by Patel, who produced the estimates before USPS announced its final extraordinary measures policy.

"These are some of the realities of running a very large postal network on tight finances," says Patel, who once worked as an economist at the Postal Regulatory Commission.

USPS plans to take other ‘extraordinary measures’ for mail-in ballots

USPS has outlined other extraordinary measures:

• Starting Oct. 24, 10 days before Election Day, some post offices may extend their opening and closing times by a half-hour and set up lines or drive-through lanes just for voters who want to get a manual postmark for their mail-in ballot.

• And starting Oct. 26, USPS says it plans to speed up delivery of ballots.

Asked why it is not starting extraordinary measures 15 days before Election Day, as it did for the 2024 and 2022 elections, USPS said in a statement: "The time period for extraordinary measures is carefully considered in advance of each General Election, and it is based on a number of internal factors. The Postal Service has successfully delivered America's election mail for more than 150 years, and we are confident that we will do so again this year."

Still, some eligible voters who rely on voting by mail are between "a rock and a hard place" when trying to navigate the mailing system, says Michelle Sparck, director of Get Out the Native Vote, a voter education organization in Alaska.

No post offices in the state are affected by the RTO effort, but Sparck, a member of the Qissunamiut Tribe of Chevak, says she has come across many absentee voters in Alaska Native villages who had their ballots rejected — an outcome that she fears will discourage some from trying to vote again.

"The No. 1 reason for that was postmarking delays. Now, even on a good Alaskan day with no weather challenges, it doesn't mean we're going to have an operational post office on a business day during business hours," Sparck says. "It's always, always easier said than done to kind of go along with the system's rules. But the system doesn't exactly work for us."

For now, Sparck is encouraging eligible voters to make a plan to be an October voter and not wait until November's Election Day if they can.

"If there is an early voting opportunity in a community," Sparck says, "we're asking people to drop their ballots off with those folks so that it becomes part of the chain of custody."

Edited by Benjamin Swasey

Copyright 2026, NPR

Isaias strengthened into a Category 2 hurricane as it barreled toward the U.S. Gulf Coast on Thursday, prompting orders for tourists to abandon beaches for safer spots inland, sending locals scurrying for gas and groceries and leading fishing crews to secure their boats before the potentially destructive storm's arrival.

The first hurricane of the Atlantic season was forecast to intensify rapidly and cause dangerous conditions in the Florida Panhandle, southern Alabama and southern Mississippi when it makes landfall late Friday or early Saturday. Heavy rain and flooding were possible into the weekend as far north as Tennessee and North Carolina.

"We are expecting Isaias to be a dangerous hurricane when it makes landfall," said Michael Brennan, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

He added: "Today is the day to prepare and get ready and be in your safe place by tomorrow as conditions will rapidly deteriorate along the northern Gulf Coast as Isaias approaches."

Isaias had maximum sustained winds of 105 mph (165 kph), according to the hurricane center, surpassing the 96 mph (154 kph) threshold for a Category 2 storm.

Isaias was headed northeast at 14 mph (22 kph) and was centered about 260 miles (415 kilometers) south of the mouth of the Mississippi River.

A hurricane warning was in effect from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, to the Bay-Gulf County line in Florida, the hurricane center said. A storm surge warning was in effect from the mouth of the Mississippi to the Suwannee River.

Preparations underway

Coastal communities moved quickly to prepare, as Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey ordered non-residents to immediately evacuate Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and Dauphin Island. Videos on social media showed traffic at a standstill on a highway leading out of Gulf Shores, where double-red beach flags signaled water access was closed.

At least four Florida school districts canceled late-week classes, while several counties announced mandatory evacuations for some coastal areas. The governors of Florida and Alabama declared states of emergency for dozens of counties, with Florida's Ron DeSantis saying about 5,000 National Guard troops were expected to mobilize by Friday.

On Dauphin Island, a 15-mile (24-kilometer) barrier island off the Alabama coast, officials encouraged voluntary evacuations, particularly on its popular western section, which is vulnerable to storm surge.

Mayor Jeff Collier said he did not anticipate substantial damage, "but at the same time, these things are very fickle and a little jog here or there, or some last-minute increase in strength — we just have to be prepared for the worst."

Water from the storm surge and high tide could reach heights of 5 to 7 feet (1.5 to 2 meters) in parts of Alabama and Mississippi, forecasters said. Isaias also could dump up to 15 inches (38 centimeters) of rain on coastal areas and spawn tornadoes overnight Friday into Saturday from Alabama to the Florida Panhandle and southwestern Georgia. The hurricane is expected to quickly weaken after coming ashore.

The National Weather Service warned of possible "long-duration power outages."

The hurricane formed late in the season

Isaias developed more than four months into the Atlantic hurricane season and was one day short of tying a 121-year-old record for the area's latest-forming hurricane. That record dates to 1905, when the year's first Atlantic hurricane formed on Oct. 8.

The Atlantic hurricane season has been unusually quiet this year because of a strong El Niño, which disrupts storm formation over the Atlantic. Storm activity has been above average in the Pacific, where Hurricane Simon, which formed as a tropical storm on Wednesday off of Mexico and became a hurricane late Thursday, was forecast to strengthen into a Category 4 hurricane. Farther north, Tropical Storm Rachel was expected to reach Baja California, Mexico, and Southern California this weekend.

Isaias is expected to strike a swath of coastline that's familiar with major hurricanes.

One of the 20th century's worst storms, Hurricane Camille, killed more than 250 people after hitting land near Waveland, Mississippi, in 1969. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 razed neighborhoods in Mississippi, flooded New Orleans and killed nearly 1,400 people. And Hurricane Michael leveled homes and buildings near Panama City, Florida, in 2018.

Oil production and tourism are already affected

Ahead of the storm, oil and gas producers shut down a significant share of offshore production in the Gulf, which accounts for almost 15 percent of crude pumped annually in the U.S.

As of Thursday, about 63 percent of the oil production in the region had been temporarily halted, taking nearly 1.3 million barrels a day off the market, according to the Marine Minerals Administration. It said 121 of the Gulf's 371 manned oil platforms had been evacuated.

With oil prices already high, the production cuts are steep enough to affect markets, though other Gulf hurricanes have caused larger disruptions, said Jim Burkhard, global head of crude oil market research for S&P Global Energy. More concerning, he said, is whether Isaias strikes as a powerful storm near refineries.

As it moves inland, Isaias might also disrupt Saturday's college football showdown between rivals Georgia and Alabama, a game President Donald Trump planned to attend.

In Loxley, a small Alabama community where county officials urged voluntary evacuations, Nichole Eubanks and her husband prepared to ride out the storm on their farm, which is home to dozens of animals, including pigs, donkeys and about 20 rescued cats.

They planned to put contact information on the hooves of their goats, donkeys and pigs in case they got loose.

"It's definitely scary, and you never really know where these storms are going to go and how bad it's going to be until it gets there," said Eubanks, 35.

In the Alabama fishing village of Bayou La Batre, Tony Rice and Lance Connor installed doors on their fishing boat Thursday to protect the vessel. The boat was one of many moored there, and Rice said they planned to move it to a less-crowded spot to decrease the chances of it bumping into others.

In Pensacola, Florida, officials said the airport will close to commercial flights Friday morning. Mayor D.C. Reeves urged residents to check on older adult neighbors and others who might need help.

"Obviously no need to panic at this point," Reeves told a news conference. "This is really about preparation."

Copyright 2026, NPR

MN Shortlist is the MPR News weekly roundup of arts and culture recommendations. This week’s picks include “Sweet Revenge” by the Native-led group Mni Giizhik Theatre Ensemble, a square Brainerd art show and more.

‘Andy DuCett: Home(town)’ at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona — Through Jan. 24, 2027

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The exhibition name says it all: Minneapolis-based artist Andy DuCett has created an homage to his hometown of Winona through a series of art installations that appear like interlocking theater sets at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum. The presentation is the middle ground for small-town mythologies, society and nostalgia.

“It talks about Winona as a small town on a river, as kind of an ‘Every Space, U.S.A,’ but also some of the particularities of Winona and its architecture and its histories and all those sorts of things rolled up into one,” DuCett said.

DuCett and a team of artists he’s tapped (Mark Dion, Allen Brewer, Carolyn Swiszcz, Deb Sokolow, Eric Carroll and Trever Hagen), have crafted a Zamboni, the old Hot Fish Shop, the main street “Toppers Tower” castle and a booth straight out of Rocco’s Pub and Pizza. The unseen inhabitants of this Winona leave traces of their daily life behind, DuCett says, be that new issues of the local paper or other ephemera.

“This exhibition is temporal, and it will start doing things as the calendar gets deeper into the fall,” DuCett said. (Alex V. Cipolle)

‘Sweet Revenge’ at Red Eye Theatre in Minneapolis — Oct. 9-17

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Native-led theater group Mni Giizhik Theatre Ensemble and Exposed Brick Theatre present the world premiere of “Sweet Revenge,” written by Marcie Rendon. A preview show will be held on Friday, Oct. 9, at 7 p.m. at Red Eye Theater.

The play, described as a true crime comedy, follows a middle-aged Native woman named Maggie as she works to make ends meet with her two grandchildren and grandmother while in a south Minneapolis apartment. Meanwhile in their neighborhood, a serial killer targets ice cream truck drivers, which brings homicide detective John into Maggie’s life. It follows themes of family, struggle and community.

Sequoia Hauck is co-founder of Mni Giizhik Theatre Ensemble and the play’s director. Hauck says the play was first written 20 years ago.

“It feels like it's of the time,” Hauck said. “It's set in right now, but it has those notions of, ‘Oh yeah, these things are circular, these things happen again.’”

“Sweet Revenge” showings are held at Red Eye Theater through Sat., Oct. 17. All performances will have open captions and sensory kits. A show with ASL and audio description will be held Friday, Oct. 16, at 7 p.m.

Tickets are pay-what-you-can and are available on Exposed Brick Theatre’s website. (Chandra Colvin)

‘Kunene and the King’ at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis — Oct. 10-Nov. 9

The Guthrie opens previews for its second production of the 2026-27 season, “Kunene and the King,” a day before its first, the popular “Waiting for Godot” closes.

The shows are similar in that they center a relationship between two men. But whereas “Godot” could take place most anywhere, “Kunene” is set in post-apartheid South Africa where Lunga Kunene, a “no-nonsense” Black caregiver, tussles it out with his client, Jack Morris, a privileged white actor preparing for the lead role in “King Lear” while also managing a serious health diagnosis.

The Tony-winning South African playwright John Kani not only wrote the play loosely inspired by “King Lear,” he will star as Kunene (Marvel fans may recognize Kani from his role as T’Chaka in “Black Panther” and “Captain America: Civil War”). Previews start Oct. 10, with opening night Oct. 15. (Alex V. Cipolle)

75th anniversary celebration at Theatre in the Round in Minneapolis — Oct. 10

Since the closing of the Old Log Theater in Excelsior in 2024, Theatre in the Round has been the longest-running theater in the metro area. The Minneapolis theater celebrates its 75th anniversary 7-11 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 10.

Executive director Larisa Netterlund says the party will have a “time tunnel” displaying artifacts from the theater’s history as well as live music and dancing, “an homage to our building's previous life as Bimbo's dance hall and pizza emporium.”

Theatre in the Round moved into the West Bank building, its second home, in 1969, after Bimbo’s had a fire.

“There was four months from acquiring the building to putting on the first show,” Netterlund told MPR News. “There was literally a hole where the stage is because there was a fire, and it was thousands of volunteer hours to turn it into a theater, which I think is just the perfect picture of what Theatre in the Round is.”

Because of its long history, Netterlund says people forget that Theatre in the Round is a community theater.

“People of any level of experience can come in at some place in the theater and learn how it works. So they can come to our workshops. They can come learn how to build sets or costumes,” Netterlund said. “Anyone can come audition.”

The 75th season features shows that are by or about Minnesotans, starting with “The Great Gatsby" in September. The season continues Oct. 23-Nov. 1 with “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane,” based on the novel by Minnesota author Kate DiCamillo. (Alex V. Cipolle)

8x8 Community Art Exhibition at The Crossing Arts in Brainerd — Oct. 13-Nov. 7

What can you do with a blank square canvas? Whatever you like! This summer, the Crossing Arts Alliance distributed nearly 200 blank 8-by-8-inch canvases —the size of a small brownie pan —and invited people to make art.

The resulting 8x8 Community Art Exhibit is a joyful display of diversity: nearly 200 works by artists of all ages, from dabblers to professionals.

The art show is also Crossing Arts’ biggest annual fundraiser: The works are all up for auction, with online bidding running Oct. 18-25. While the exhibit remains open through Nov. 7, people can start to pick up their purchased pieces on Oct. 27, so visit early to see the full display. (Emily Bright)

The hopefuls seeking an open Minnesota seat in Congress differed sharply over the approach to the Iran war, the healthcare system, data center regulation and even whether they had worked in concert in the past.

In a debate Friday between Democrat Matt Little and Republican Eric Pratt for the 2nd Congressional District seat, the two lawmakers also addressed the way Congress should assert its power.

Little went on the offensive early, trying to tie Pratt to President Donald Trump.

“Now he’s a nice guy,” Little said of his rival. “He doesn’t sound like Trump but his politics are one of quiet extremism.”

Pratt pushed back on the characterization and framed it as “just silliness.” He described himself as an “independent voice.”

“I know how to work across the aisle and how to get things done,” Pratt said.

Pratt is a four-term Republican state senator from Prior Lake and a past school board member; Little served as a Democratic senator for a single term ending in early 2021 and was a mayor prior to that.

Pratt and Little overlapped in the state Senate for four years.

Unlike past races in the district, this race has attracted little national attention and outside spending. Since the nominations were locked in by the August primary, less than $500,000 has come in by independent groups, a paltry amount compared with tossup races elsewhere in the country.

The district covers the southern metro suburbs, including Eagan, Burnsville, Apple Valley and Lakeville, and includes all of Scott, Le Sueur and Dakota counties

Current Rep. Angie Craig won reelection in 2024 with nearly 56 percent of the vote in a race that both Democrats and Republicans invested heavily in. She opted against seeking another term and instead sought her party’s nomination for U.S. Senate earlier this year, losing in a primary.

The MPR News debate on “Politics Friday” was moderated by Catharine Richert.

Some highlights of the debate:

Iran War

Asked if they would support additional funding to carry out the almost eight-month-old war, Little gave an unequivocal no.

“I've been very clear that I would leave Iran immediately. We have been lied to,” Little said. “The idea that we are there for nuclear weapons is also incorrect.”

Pratt was noncommittal on the question of war funding.

“I don't want to be in this conflict any longer than we need to. I don't want our men and women in uniform at risk,” he said. “But I also know that we have to make sure that Iran is not allowed to continue what they've been doing.”

Healthcare

Pratt said he would try to bring down costs in healthcare by attacking waste, fraud and abuse and by cutting overhead expenses.

“What I'm hearing from people in the second district is they want to keep choice, but we also need to really look at a system that's going to bend the cost curve,” he said.

Asked to elaborate, Pratt said that could come through limiting lawsuits and focusing more “on preventative care than late-stage care.”

Little advocated for a Medicare-for-all proposal that would transition more to a government system to manage benefits.

“If you switch to Medicare for all, the cost of administration is only two to 3 percent. So there's instant cost savings,” Little said. “Now, is it realistic? There's all sorts of things throughout our history that people have said weren't realistic.”

Data centers

The pair parted ways on the federal government’s role in regulating data center development.

Pratt said he opposes a national moratorium because he said local leaders are better equipped to handle permitting and address water and electricity use.

“One size fits all rarely fits anyone,” he said.

Little said a one-year moratorium is needed to develop an approach that works, criticizing his opponent in the process.

“He's not going to regulate these things at all,” Little said. “Eric Pratt's approach is to put a data center in your backyard, not his.”

Working together

The former colleagues were asked if there was something the other did in the Legislature that they admired.

Little applauded Pratt for working with him on insulin cost control legislation.

“There were a lot of hurdles, a lot of opposition, a lot of money being thrown against us and so I was very proud of Eric Pratt for leading his party on that issue,” Little said.

Pratt distanced himself from that cooperation.

“I'm proud of the insulin bill. That wasn't something that I worked a lot with Matt on,” he said, telling his rival, “Matt, I don’t remember you being in the room.”

Little disputed it. “Eric Pratt is not telling you the truth.”

Then they gave their closing pitches. Voting closes in the election on Nov. 3.

The Minnesota Secretary of State’s race isn’t often top of mind for voters, but the Trump administration’s focus on the state’s elections has renewed attention on what otherwise can be a relatively sleepy race.

Secretary of State Steve Simon, a DFLer, is seeking a fourth term as Republican Tad Jude, Libertarian candidate Chip Tangen and the Green Party’s Seth Kuhl-Stennes try to unseat him. Candidates for the office are grappling with something new — how to approach the Secretary of State’s relationship with the Department of Justice.

Elections run by Minnesota and other blue states have been harshly criticized by the Trump administration. Last month, the Justice Department announced ten people had been indicted for voter fraud, mostly in Minnesota’s 2022 and 2024 general elections, and one in this year’s August primary. Across those three elections, nearly seven million votes were cast.

Last year, when Simon and other secretaries of state refused to hand over private information on their state’s voter rolls, the Justice Department filed lawsuits against them, arguing that it needed the information to ensure ineligible voters are removed from voter rolls. Simon called the lawsuit “a fishing expedition” and a federal judge ultimately dismissed the lawsuit in Minnesota. More than 20 other states have faced similar litigation.

“The action is unprecedented,” said Kathryn Pearson, a political science professor at the University of Minnesota. “The federal government has never had a national voter file, and so this has put secretaries of state into a new position of having to respond to requests from the Department of Justice.”

During President Donald Trump’s second term, Simon has wrestled with the administration over access to that confidential voter data while also defending Minnesota’s election integrity and the state’s access to mail-in voting. Simon said Minnesotans want someone in the Secretary of State’s office with experience standing up to Trump.

“We need someone who will stand up to any and all who will unlawfully attempt to interfere with the freedom to vote,” Simon said. “That means my own party. That means the current White House.”

But his Republican challenger, former Minnesota lawmaker and district court judge Tad Jude, said Simon has politicized the office. If elected, Jude said he would start by having a working relationship with the Justice Department.

“I would certainly want to ensure that the privacy of Minnesotans is safeguarded,” Jude said, when asked whether he would hand the federal government private information on state voter rolls. “I expect to have, at least initially, a good working relationship, and if it gets to the point where there’s a breakdown, I’d hold them accountable.”

On Wednesday, Minnesota’s Republican congressional delegation sent a letter to Simon and Gov. Tim Walz calling for increased election security.

Chip Tangen, who used to be active in the state GOP party but now identifies as a Libertarian, said he’s running to raise awareness for third-party candidates and doesn’t think the Secretary of State’s office should be partisan. Seth Kuhl-Stennes, a union organizer, is also running as a member of the Green Party.

“I don’t expect that we will see independents elected as Secretary of State,” Tangen said. “When the chief election officer happens to be a partisan who plays for one of the two teams, it’s hard for that person, regardless of their intent, to not give the appearance of bias in their decisions.”

Photo ID at the polls?

Jude supports requiring Minnesota voters to have a photo ID in order to cast their ballots. Current law requires Minnesotans to show proof of residence when registering to vote. Thirty-six states require voters to show proof of identification at the polls.

“I want to ensure that only legal U.S. citizens are voting,” Jude said. “If you have people who are not authorized to vote voting in our system, it’s robbing someone who’s a legitimate voter of their vote.”

Advocates for voter ID laws say it would strengthen election integrity, but opponents say the laws could become a barrier to voting.

“When a mini version of that bill was implemented in the state of Kansas a few years ago, before a federal judge invalidated it, they actually held an election under that law. And when they did, 31,000 eligible Kansans, born, raised, voting for years or decades, were turned away and shut out of the election,” Simon said. “Is it worth potentially shutting out and disenfranchising tens of thousands of Minnesotans to catch a few handfuls? That I think is the question and I think the answer is no in that particular case.”

Aside from elections and voter registration, the Secretary of State’s office also oversees the state’s business filling system. Like all other races this election season in Minnesota, the Secretary of State’s race is no stranger to conversations about fraud. Jude wants the office to take a more preemptive approach to combatting fraud in the state's social service programs.

He suggested the creation of a business integrity unit, “which would be a dedicated team within the office to review registration data for fraud indicators and refer red flags to investigators like the BCA or the FBI before fraudulent dollars are billed.”

Simon said the Secretary of State’s office already shares business filing data with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

“We’re not criminal investigators,” Simon said. “We’re giving them the data and providing them with information so that they, the experts, can connect the dots.”

A federal immigration officer shot a Dominican man in the neck as he drove in a car with a 5-year-old boy Thursday afternoon, officials said. The Department of Homeland Security said it was seeking to arrest the man in a “targeted enforcement operation,” but protesters and local officials decried it as an example of the dangers of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

The 28-year-old man, whom city police identified as Oscar Belgal, survived and was treated at a hospital.

DHS did not describe exactly what led to the shooting, saying only that “during the incident, an ICE officer discharged his weapon” and that the man was injured.

But city Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Belgal was pulling into a parking space when a federal officer in plainclothes approached with gun drawn, followed by another federal officer who also wasn't in uniform. Belgal started to pull the car forward, and then at least one of the officers fired seven rounds, hitting the man below his left ear, Tisch said at a news conference near the shooting site late Thursday.

The child was unharmed and with a relative, said Tisch, who noted that city police weren't involved in the operation but heard the shots and responded.

DHS said in a statement that it was seeking to arrest a “criminal illegal alien” with a grand larceny conviction and a history of other arrests. But an irate Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the shooting an outrage.

“There is no justification for what we have seen today,” Mamdani said. He said the federal officers who surrounded the vehicle wore construction vests and masks, making it difficult to identify them as immigration officers.

The mayor, a Democrat, said he had spent two hours Thursday night pressing Republican President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to release the wounded man, to no avail, and urging them to stop immigration enforcement operations in the city. He said that late Thursday night, federal authorities removed the man from the hospital and took him away.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, also a Democrat, said in a statement that she had delivered a similar message to Trump and Mullin by phone.

Videos show aftermath of the shooting

The gunfire erupted around 4 p.m. in Marble Hill, a small part of Manhattan that is attached to the Bronx.

Tisch said that an NYPD security camera had recorded some of the events leading up to the gunfire, but not the shooting itself.

Pedro Almaraz, an employee at a nearby restaurant, said he heard several gunshots and saw a man on the ground surrounded by several officers wearing face masks and vests with Department of Homeland Security branding. Witnesses, he said, were screaming.

Bystander videos and photos posted on social media showed a man sitting on the ground with his hands behind his back, in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. Another video shows New York City police officers picking up Belgal and carrying him into a police vehicle.

Nearby, a damaged car sat blocking the roadway with small holes in two of its windows. Tisch said the shooting left the car with a bullet entry point on its front windshield and an exit point in one of its rear windows.

Heated protest and press conference

At a heated press conference at the shooting scene Thursday night, several local politicians condemned the shooting.

“We are heartbroken and enraged,” said City Council Member Carmen De La Rosa, a Democrat who emigrated from the Dominican Republic and now represents areas including Marble Hill. Some other elected officials cursed ICE and Trump, a Republican.

Demonstrators at the scene chanted, “ICE off our streets now!” and then marched to the hospital where the injured man was being treated. A sizable crowd blocked an intersection at the hospital entry, and as police began to set barricades so that ambulances and other vehicles could pass, some protesters shoved at the barriers and hurled water bottles at officers.

More clashes at the barricades followed, and police made some arrests.

Homeland Security blames ‘sanctuary policies’

DHS complained that its officers “are forced to make arrests at large in the community in unpredictable and dangerous environments” when “dangerous illegal aliens" get released. The agency blamed “reckless sanctuary policies” in Democrat-led areas. There is no clear definition of sanctuary jurisdictions, but the term is generally applied to state and local governments that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

Belgal had been arrested on a robbery charge in 2023, later pleaded guilty to grand larceny and was sentenced to probation, Tisch said, adding that he later was arrested on a drug-sale charge that hasn't yet been resolved. Electronic court records show that Belgal has pleaded not guilty in the drug case.

ICE agents have fired their guns during more than a dozen vehicle stops since last year, killing at least four people and wounding others. In late September, ICE ordered its officers not to engage in high-speed car chases and to make vehicle stops only if they have completed specific training.

Marble Hill resident Alfred Silva, 38, called for federal officers to more clearly identify themselves, saying one was wearing a construction safety vest.

“We need to have better transparency to understand who we’re dealing with, because anybody in the street can just put on a vest and pull out a gun and claim to be ICE,” he said.

“I feel like regardless if you’re left or right, we should understand that this shouldn’t be happening.”

The firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed, the Pentagon said Thursday, a stunning revelation about plans for the first military execution in more than 65 years after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had described it as being “public.”

The Army announced this week that the execution would take place at Fort Hood on Dec. 3 after Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a shooting at the military base in 2009.

Hegseth, speaking to the conservative TV outlet Real America’s Voice on Wednesday, said, “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public.” Officials in the Pentagon clarified Thursday that the execution would be livestreamed and that more details would follow.

The revelation from Hegseth about the public nature of the execution — let alone one as violent as a firing squad — has raised further questions about how the death penalty is carried out in the U.S., especially after the botched lethal injection of Christa Pike in Tennessee.

Experts offer mixed reactions on the plan

Hasan could choose to resist execution and file a habeas petition — a legal request to review the legality of a detention — in civilian court, which could significantly delay the execution, experts said.

“It frankly might outlast the current administration, and who knows if the next one will have the same penchant for executions,” said Eugene R. Fidell, a visiting lecturer at Yale Law School specializing in military law.

Deborah Denno, a death penalty expert and law professor at Fordham University, said livestreaming an execution could make the process “much more transparent” and inform the public about all that capital punishment entails. Those are benefits that she said would be useful at a time when Pike's botched execution has raised fresh questions about the manner by which criminal defendants are put to death for their crimes.

“I think it could possibly be a good idea because it would be transparent and the public would be fully aware that it’s happening,” she said.

When many states have had difficulty carrying out lethal injections due to difficulty accessing drugs or finding medical professionals willing to participate in executions, firing squads are coming to be seen as a less inhumane alternative, said Brenner Fissell, a professor at Villanova Law and vice president of the National Institute of Military Justice.

“Firing squads can be a quicker, cleaner, more precise way to execute a prisoner,” he said. “I don’t think that’s what’s motivating this. There’s a perceived masculinity and military-ness to firing squads that is part of the aura Hegseth is trying to emphasize — the ‘lethality culture.’”

Elisabeth Semel, co-director of the Death Penalty Clinic at UC Berkeley Law, said Hegseth’s announcement raises a host of legal and public policy questions, including concerns for the dignity of the defendant, who will be eligible to view the execution and what the Trump administration has in mind in opting for an unusual spectacle.

Though there has been long-running discussion about the idea of televising an execution, “I don’t recall a situation in which it was instituted by the government. I think that also raises serious questions about what is the motivation of the government,” she said.

“This is a president who’s about spectacle and that’s, I think, precisely the message that he intends to deliver,” Semel said, adding that she was skeptical that the administration had given second thought to the legal and social questions being presented by the decision.

Trump has spoken out against public executions in Iran

Trump, who approved Hasan's execution, has previously been critical of public executions in Iran, at times using the possibility of protesters being killed by the Iranian government as a possible rationale for military action that preceded his ultimate choice to attack Iran on Feb. 28.

“We’ve been told that the killing in Iran is stopping,” Trump told reporters on Jan. 14. “It’s stopping, and there’s no plan for executions.”

In his State of the Union address just days before launching the Iran war, Trump reiterated, “We stopped them from hanging a lot of them with the threat of serious violence.”

The White House on Thursday referred questions about the plans for the livestreamed execution to the Pentagon.

Hegseth was asked Wednesday if Hasan had made any final requests or reached out to the Trump administration. The Pentagon chief replied: “Don’t care. We’ll see him on Dec. 3.”

It's not clear if Hasan will try to appeal

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who held the rank of major, walked into a medical building on Nov. 5, 2009, where soldiers were waiting in long lines to receive immunizations and medical clearance for deployment. He shouted “Allahu akbar” — Arabic for “God is great!” — and opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun. He also shot at the backs of soldiers fleeing toward the parking lot.

Hasan said it was an effort to stop them from going to Afghanistan and killing his fellow Muslims. A military judge barred him from presenting that as a defense during his 2013 trial. Hasan was left paralyzed from the waist down after being shot in the back by law enforcement, and he now uses a wheelchair.

Hasan could seek a lengthy delay of his execution, though given his behavior at trial, he may not want to.

After firing his lawyers and representing himself, Hasan began his portion of the trial by telling jurors he was the gunman. He said little else over the next three weeks, which convinced his court-appointed standby lawyers that Hasan’s only goal was to get a death sentence.

The military called nearly 90 witnesses, but Hasan rested his case without calling a single person to testify in his defense and made no closing argument. Yet he leaked documents during the trial to journalists that revealed him telling military mental health workers that he could “ still be a martyr ” if executed.

Attorney John Galligan, a former military judge who had represented Hasan in several civil matters following his criminal trial, spoke with Hasan on Wednesday but is barred from offering much detail about that conversation. He is not representing Hasan in his criminal case but said he’s worried about his physical health under the plan laid out by officials, and that Hasan has not yet had access to legal counsel.

Galligan said that according to Hasan, the commandant of the facility brought a chaplain but no attorney from either the Trial Defense Service or from his civilian defense when he was notified that Trump had signed off on his execution. Galligan called that a breach of Army regulations.

A spokeswoman for the Army said Thursday that multiple attempts were made to contact Trial Defense Service attorneys, saying they made every reasonable effort and adhered to policy.

“The civilian counsel was not reasonably available to be physically present for the notification on the 5th,” the spokeswoman said, adding that counsel was located in Virginia but did not provide a name.

The spokeswoman also said Hasan has not been kept from contacting and communicating with his counsel.

Hegseth said the military hasn’t executed a service member by firing squad since World War II. The last military execution took place on April 13, 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was executed by hanging.

Amnesty International said in its report on executions in 2025 that it knew of at least 17 public executions — 11 in Iran and 6 in Afghanistan.

Eden Prairie police arrested an 18-year-old St. Louis Park man Thursday in connection with a shooting that injured two people outside Eden Prairie High School during its Oct. 2 homecoming football game.

Police say the alleged shooter was taken into custody without incident around 3:30 p.m. Thursday at Highway 55 and Penn Avenue in Minneapolis. He is being held at the Hennepin County Jail on probable cause for second-degree assault.

The shooting injured two people, ages 18 and 17, and prompted the evacuation of the football game.

Police say the investigation remains active and additional arrests or charges are possible. Anyone with information should contact the Eden Prairie Police.

Editor’s note (Oct. 9, 2026): An earlier version of this story included the suspect’s name. MPR News generally does not name suspects until they are charged with a crime.