Minnesota Now - July 18, 2022

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CATHY WURZER: It's Minnesota Now. I'm Cathy Wurzer. Hospitals are under strain because of climate change. Specifically, ERs are seeing more heat-related illnesses. We'll check in. Folks with long COVID are feeling desperate, and in some cases, seeking risky alternative treatments. We'll find out more.

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Rural food shelves are struggling to keep up with demand. I'll hear what's happening at one Northern Minnesota food shelf. A local disability activist is quietly making waves and helping Minneapolis become more accessible. I'll hear from Carbon Sound, a new music stream celebrating Black music, from rock to jazz to hip hop and more. All of that, and of course, the Minnesota Music Minute and the Song of the Day.

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It comes your way right after the news.

LAKSHMI SINGH: Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Lakshmi Singh. The federal criminal trial of former Trump advisor Steve Bannon is underway. NPR's Ryan Lucas reports the case against Bannon stems from his refusal to comply with a subpoena from the House January 6th Select Committee that's been investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol last year.

RYAN LUCAS: Bannon faces two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena from the House Committee investigating the January 6th attack on the Capitol. One count is for failing to appear before the committee, the other for failing to produce documents in response to a subpoena. The committee wanted to interview Bannon because it believes he has important information about the planning ahead of January 6. But Bannon refused to cooperate with the panel, so the House voted to hold him in contempt. It then referred Bannon to the Justice Department for prosecution, and he was indicted late last year. Now his trial opens with jury selection at the federal courthouse located just down the street from the Capitol. Ryan Lucas, NPR News, Washington.

LAKSHMI SINGH: Ukraine's government is undergoing a security shakeup at the highest levels five months into its war with Russia. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has abruptly fired both the spy chief and the top prosecutor. NPR's Brian Mann says the officials are not formally accused of criminal wrongdoing, but a probe found that hundreds of their staff did commit treason by aiding Russia.

BRIAN MANN: A lot of this appears to be fallout from the loss of Kherson. That's a strategically important city in Southern Ukraine, which Russia occupied early in this war. The fall of Kherson still counts as one of Moscow's biggest, easiest victories. Ukraine officials now allege some government employees, including members of Ukraine's own spy network, helped Russia, provided Russia with crucial information about Kherson's defenses. In some cases, Zelenskyy says some of those people are still collaborating with Russian occupation forces now.

LAKSHMI SINGH: NPR's Brian Mann reporting. Stocks in the US are trading higher following better than expected earnings reports from two big banks. NPR's Scott Horsley has details.

SCOTT HORSLEY: Goldman Sachs says its profits this spring were 48% lower than the same period a year ago, but that's a smaller decline than analysts had expected. Goldman's trading business helped to cushion a steep drop in corporate deal-making. Bank of America also reported better than expected results for the second quarter, thanks in part to strong consumer demand for loans.

Boeing shares gained altitude after Delta Airlines announced plans to buy 100 737 MAX jets. The deal was announced at a big air show in England. Deliveries set to begin in 2025. Gasoline prices fell further over the weekend. AAA says the average price nationwide is now $4.52 a gallon, a drop of nearly $0.50 from the peak last month. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.

LAKSHMI SINGH: The Dow Jones Industrial average is up 73 points at 31,362. The NASDAQ has climbed more than 1%. The S&P has risen roughly half a percent. This is NPR News.

SPEAKER 1: Support for NPR comes from NPR stations. Other contributors include Angi, formerly Angie's List, dedicated to helping homeowners tackle home projects, from everyday repairs to dream remodels. Reviews, pricing, and booking are at angi.com or on the Angi app.

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CATHY WURZER: Around Minnesota at noon, skies are sunny, and it's hot and sticky. Highs near 90 in the North and Southeast, around 101 in West Central Minnesota. Heat advisories are posted. Right now, it's 90 in Madison, Minnesota. It's 88 in Princeton. And outside the Joynes Ben Franklin store in Grand Marais, it's sunny and 61.

I'm Cathy Wurzer with Minnesota news headlines. The weather is the big news. Minnesota's moving into what is traditionally the hottest weeks of the year. It's going to feel like it today and tomorrow. The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for much of Central Minnesota from this afternoon through 6:00 PM tomorrow. MPR meteorologist Sven Sundgaard says the heat index will approach triple digits.

SVEN SUNDGAARD: Actual high temperatures in the mid to upper 90s. That heat index will be right around the 100 degree mark. Dew points are going to be mainly in the 60s, so not quite as high as they could be. But it doesn't take as much when the temperatures are that high. Just basically a hot one across much of the state. Even up towards Duluth today, they could get to near 90 and on many of the [INAUDIBLE] spots. Only the far Arrowhead and way up around International Falls may stay just below 90, but the rest of us are going to bake.

CATHY WURZER: There may be a break with some rain midweek, but Sven says the heat will return for the latter half of the week. In other news, there's a court hearing this afternoon for a murder suspect who caused a fatal crash in Brooklyn Center Friday while he was fleeing police. Hakeem Muhammad was leading police on a high speed chase when his car plowed into another vehicle with five people in it, killing a six-year-old girl.

It's possible body camera footage could be released this week of what happened to Andrew "Tekle" Sundberg, who was shot and killed by Minneapolis police after a six-hour standoff last week. Over the weekend, there was an emotionally fraught gathering of Sundberg's friends and family, which included the woman who lived near Sundberg's apartment, who said bullets he fired during the standoff came through the walls of her apartment, nearly killing her and her children.

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But going back to the weather, because it is our top story. It is a hot day all across Minnesota. Temperatures are reaching nearly 100 degrees in some parts of the state. It's going to be a hot day tomorrow, too. As climate change continues to worsen, many hospitals are seeing an increase in patients struggling with heat-related illnesses.

And a recent report by the Washington Post finds that some institutions are reaching their breaking point. Here to talk more about the increase in heat-related illnesses because of climate change and the impact the increase in patients can have on hospitals is Dr. Anupam Kharbanda, Chief of Critical Care Services at Children's Minnesota. Dr. Kharbanda, welcome to the program. It's a pleasure. Thank you.

ANUPAM KHARBANDA: Thank you. I appreciate being here.

CATHY WURZER: Given a day like today, how common might it be for patients to come into the hospital with heat-related illnesses?

ANUPAM KHARBANDA: On days like today, when it starts to get warmer and the heat index is above 90, we expect that there's going to be an increase in patients to our emergency departments. And this is going to be especially among those families who have a limited access to air conditioning as well as the very young, the types of patients we serve in our pediatric emergency department at Children's.

CATHY WURZER: Have you been noticing, over the past several years, an increase, a tick-up in patients coming in with heat-related illnesses?

ANUPAM KHARBANDA: I think that we tend to see an uptick in patients with heat-related illnesses, muscle cramps, or heat exhaustion in the summer months. And there has been a trend towards warmer, more steamy summers over the past number of years.

And so each year in the United States, about 700 people die from heat-related illnesses, and about a third to 40% of those are in kids, especially children under the age of four. So certainly, we are seeing more of the [? milder ?] cases, especially as the temperatures have warmed in our summers and we've had more of those extreme days.

CATHY WURZER: Dr. Kharbanda, what are some symptoms that a patient might experience with heat-related illnesses?

ANUPAM KHARBANDA: Well, we break up heat-related illnesses into three primary groups. There's heat cramps, and these are patients who are exercising outdoors, our soccer players, our tennis player, our baseball players who get some muscle cramps. Usually, their temperatures are normal, but they'll get a cramp during heavy exercise. These types of patients usually will do fine if they begin to get out of the heat and they hydrate themself up nicely with some water, of course, or Gatorade or other type of electrolyte-based solutions.

The next level we will see is something called heat exhaustion. Heat exhaustion, the symptoms are nausea, vomiting, headache. You'll have a thirst as well as weakness. And if you were to feel their pulse, it would be elevated. So these are the patients or the athletes who are outdoors for a prolonged period of time. They're also going to be the elderly, those over age 65 with any chronic illnesses. And if they have these types of illnesses, they really need to get out of the heat, really begin to hydrate themselves. And if the symptoms don't improve, seek emergency care.

And then the final group that we look at is something called heat stroke, and those patients have neurologic symptoms-- dizziness, they're confused, they'll have delirium. And in the worst case scenario, they can have a seizure. And their temperature is clearly elevated. And these are patients who now have lost the ability to cool themselves through sweating or other mechanisms, and they absolutely will need emergency care.

CATHY WURZER: I'm curious about the treatment protocol for patients when they come in. Obviously, it depends on what stage they're at. But generally speaking, what do you start first?

ANUPAM KHARBANDA: So we always start in emergency medicine with our ABCs, which is your Airway, your Breathing, and your Circulation. We do a good set of vital signs, and we begin with passive cooling. So we'll put ice packs in their armpits, in their groin.

If their temperature is elevated, we'll place an IV and rehydrate them with a cool fluid that begins to help them in cooling down their internal organs. We'll check laboratory studies. And essentially, we're checking the laboratory studies to see if there's any organ dysfunction. As your temperature rises, your core body temperature rises, you can begin to see problems in your ability to clot. And that's what we're checking for with the blood work.

As we begin to get laboratory work back, or if we see they're having worsening symptoms, we begin something called active cooling. Active cooling is a process by which we will put down a tube through their throat or through their nasogastric system to begin to actively cool their bladder and their internal organs to drop their temperature quickly. I would say that's a more rare occurrence.

Most of the time, if you come to an emergency department, you'll get assessed. We'll begin with some oral rehydration solution, some water, Gatorade, a popsicle. We'll get some labs. If you're assessed to be worse, an IV will be placed, of course, and then we'll put those ice packs on you.

CATHY WURZER: With climate change continuing to worsen, what do you see coming your way or with other ERs in the future? Any way to look into the crystal ball and find out will this have an impact on hospital emergency rooms and medical staff?

ANUPAM KHARBANDA: I say it will. And the reason for that is that the people who are most vulnerable for hypothermia or heat-related illnesses are the poor, those with limited access to air conditioning, the very young, as well as those with chronic illnesses, those under the age of four with any type of muscle disorder or a genetic abnormality, as well as the elderly if they have obesity. And those populations, we know, are increasing in our country.

And as climate change occurs and our temperatures rise, those groups of patients will have less ability to control their temperature, right? So if you're in a lower socioeconomic status and you don't have air conditioning and you need to be outside because of your work, this is going to put that population at further risk.

CATHY WURZER: Before you go and to help your staff not be as busy perhaps in the next couple of days, what do you recommend?

ANUPAM KHARBANDA: I think the first place I'd recommend is if you are in days like this for the next week, try to refrain from being outdoors, if at all possible. Once the heat index is above 90, it really can be quite dangerous to be outdoors for any prolonged period of time. And we're at approaching 100, I think, as the weather report was given earlier in the broadcast. If you're going to be outdoors, try to limit the amount of time, but frequent hydration. Make sure you have a lot of water with you, some Gatorade or other electrolyte-based solution to maintain your hydration.

Remember some key things. Never keep kids in cars unattended for any period of time. The temperatures rise very quickly, much more quickly than you ever can anticipate. And I think if you can try to stay indoors, limit your outdoor activities, the frequent hydration will prevent the majority of these cases. Now, for those people who do get into trouble, get inside, drink some fluids, call your nurse triage line.

You are welcome to call the emergency department at the Children's Hospital or our nurse triage lines, and we can guide you through looking at some symptoms, and then triage them there if we need to see you. The key piece I would say for those who need to come in is, if you're unable to keep something down, you're feeling weak, or if you have any neurologic symptoms at all, meaning the dizziness, you feel confused, your family member says they're not acting right, those are the people we want you to bring into the emergency department right away.

CATHY WURZER: All right, interesting conversation, Doctor. Thank you for your time.

ANUPAM KHARBANDA: Well, I appreciate it, and I hope this was helpful.

CATHY WURZER: It was. Dr. Anupam Kharbanda is Chief of Critical Care Services at Children's Minnesota. He mentioned kids in cars. As a matter of fact, just got this little bit of information from NHTSA, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. It just takes 10 minutes in a closed car for the temperature to get to 114 degrees on a day like this. 20 minutes, 124 degrees. So young kids and your pets, do not leave them, of course, in enclosed cars. It's 12:14 here on Minnesota Now.

[MUSIC - KAYCYY, "HOLD YOU UP"]

(SINGING) Baby, someone, ooh. Baby, sober.

Of course, it's our Minnesota Music Minute. This is "Hold You Up" from KayCyy. KayCyy was born Mark Mbogo in Kenya. He moved with his family to St. Paul at a young age. He won a Grammy this year for his work on Kanye West's album Donda.

(SINGING) Baby, hold your ground, far from lost and found. Of course I hold you up, I never hold you down. Far away, oooh. Far away. Yeah, I hate being unaccommodate. Get what you give, it's accommodate. Should you listen, now you accommodate. Yeah, get it all in just one day. Hey, hey, how does it feel getting everything? I know you're not used to everything. You call me, I never just let it ring.

I-I-I-I-I rescued you from the dee-ee-ee-eep. Till we in the shallow so you can use your feet-eet. I can be your legs if you're feeling wea-eak. I mean everything I say. What's minor to you is major to me. If anyone serious, baby, it's me. Your wishes ain't too far from my reach. Baby, someone, ooh. Baby, hold your ground.

I'm Cathy Wurzer, and this is Minnesota Now on MPR News. Let's talk about long COVID. It's a relatively new concept in the medical world. Doctors don't have all the answers about the disease, its symptoms, or most importantly, its treatment yet. It's caused a feeling of desperation that has led some to seek alternative and risky expensive health treatments, just for a chance to feel like themselves again.

That story is familiar to many who have suffered from mysterious chronic illnesses, too, like Katie Thornton. Katie is a freelance multimedia journalist, and she's been reporting on chronic illness and the popularity of risky long COVID treatments, the most recent article in The Guardian. Katie, welcome back to the show. How have you been?

KATIE THORNTON: Cathy, thanks so much for talking with me. It's great to be back. And all things considered, I think I've been doing pretty well.

CATHY WURZER: Good, good. I'm glad to hear that. Hey, let's get some numbers on the table. Any idea how many people are now dealing with long COVID?

KATIE THORNTON: There's an estimate that up to 30% of people who have COVID have some sort of lingering debilitation or lingering illness, some sort of symptoms. And the 30% of people having some lingering symptoms, it's pretty common. I'm sure everybody listening to this show probably knows somebody who is dealing with something lingering from an infection.

CATHY WURZER: Yes, yes, I'm sure that's true. And these are strange symptoms-- they can be strange symptoms-- months after the initial infection, as you know. Who did you talk to get a fuller picture of the problem?

KATIE THORNTON: I had the privilege to speak with a number of folks who are dealing with long COVID who were willing to share their stories with me. Somebody who I think really paints a picture of where I think a lot of doctors are falling short in dealing with long COVID patients is a woman, she's 52 years old. She lives in a small town in South Carolina. She had lost her sense of smell in mid-February 2020 after a visit to New Jersey, so very early on.

But two months after her symptoms began, she started having just very rapidly pounding chest. Her vision was so blurry that she couldn't see, she couldn't drive. And she had just these wild changes in mood that really frightened her. When she went to a doctor and suggested that this might be the fallout from a COVID infection and she brought a printed out study to the appointment, the doctor didn't look at it and referred her to a psychologist and talked about anxiety and talked about depression.

CATHY WURZER: Is this an instance where you wrote about medical dismissal? You used the term "medical dismissal." Are symptoms being dismissed by some doctors, which leads the patients to seek alternative treatments?

KATIE THORNTON: Yeah, absolutely, and certainly not all doctors. But in speaking with long COVID patients, this is something that happened repeatedly to a lot of people who I spoke with. And long COVID is, in many ways, a so-called contested illness. So when an illness is long term and allopathic medicine can't measure or find the physical evidence of a patient's reported symptoms, because of that, some doctors, not all, deem those illnesses not to be real.

Allopathic medicine talks about symptoms and signs. Signs are these medically measurable, identifiable indicators, whereas symptoms are subjective descriptions of what's happening that patients give to their doctors. But a lot of doctors don't necessarily treat based on symptoms. But in this instance with long COVID, that's often all people have to go off of. So when you end up meeting a doctor who is only looking at signs and not looking at symptoms, many people are dismissed.

CATHY WURZER: Hmm, which has got to be frustrating, obviously, because you don't feel good. You're trying to feel better. You're trying to get back to your normal self. So what are these folks looking for? What alternative treatments have they been asking for?

KATIE THORNTON: I think that when folks have felt that they've run into walls within the medical establishment, there's a few different places they turn. I spoke with a lot of people who turned to the internet. And there's also a whole wellness industry that is made to answer people's questions that they have not necessarily gotten in the medical establishment. And as a journalist and also just as an individual, that was concerning to me personally because that opens up this situation that's ripe for exploitation.

In the US, there is just a wildly deregulated supplement market and wellness industry. Every year, Americans spend about $35 billion on supplements alone. And a lot of why that's possible is because of this law called DSHEA. It's the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994.

And basically, it ensured that companies who manufacture vitamins, minerals, amino acids, herbs, and botanicals don't have to prove that their products are effective. They actually barely have to prove their safety. Rigorous safety checks usually only happen if there's a serious incident, like a severe illness or even a death.

After this law was passed, the industry just totally exploded. We think about all of the medical mistrust that has been occurring throughout this pandemic. And at least according to an industry trade group publication that I read, Americans' trust in the supplement industry has actually increased during this global pandemic. Not all of these are dangerous.

Certainly, there is potential for danger. But what I get really concerned about is that these are immensely, immensely expensive products when you start to add them up. And they can also give people a sense of control that if they're told something is going to help for certain things that they're experiencing, they may delay other care.

CATHY WURZER: Who did you talk to about their experiences getting alternative treatments?

KATIE THORNTON: It really ran the gamut. I spoke with many people who turned to online support groups for help. I spoke with somebody who, after spending nearly $10,000 on testing that his doctor had prescribed, decided to turn to the internet. He said he was skeptical, but he also said that he was really desperate. And he joined a Reddit group for people who were suffering from long COVID. He said, "I'll just be frank, if someone has mentioned on a subreddit that it's helped them, I've probably bought it and tried it." So he had spent hundreds of dollars on these supplements and hadn't really had any change in his symptoms.

I spoke with somebody else who had spent an estimated $60,000 out of pocket in, I believe, under a year of trying to manage their long COVID symptoms. And this ranged of everything from trying different supplements to trying new therapies. He contacted a doctor friend who imported stem cells from elsewhere to the US and personally administered them.

And this is the kind of thing that makes me quite concerned is that very few vitamins, for example, and supplements are dangerous in really large doses, at least as far as we know. Some of them can be. But there are other things like doing your own stem cell treatment that can be really risky.

CATHY WURZER: With more individuals being diagnosed with long COVID-- and that's what the experts say we're going to see-- do you see this trend ebbing at all or just increasing?

KATIE THORNTON: The sooner that doctors can take this seriously and regard it as something that even if we may not have the signs to identify and diagnose it, something that is real because so many people are experiencing it. But really, the issue is also that it doesn't just take attention and will. It takes money, and it takes studies, and it takes research. It is possible that some of the alternative treatments that people are being directed to will end up proving helpful. But you have to have those studies. You have to have double blind studies. You have to have large sample sizes. People deserve that.

CATHY WURZER: You, yourself, have had personal experience with chronic illness. So was it difficult to do this story with your background?

KATIE THORNTON: It was difficult to do this story. But the reason I wanted to do this story is because I have seen so many people feel pushed to cures and treatment options that don't have a lot of scientific backing. And I have immense empathy for that because I have done that. I did that for many years of my life. I have a similarly dubious so-called contested illness. I was diagnosed with Lyme disease in 2015. And I repeatedly ran into walls within the medical establishment.

I was told that anxiety was common in young women, so that was probably what it was. All of these different pains and strange experiences that I was having repeatedly was told that nothing was showing up that would indicate that anything was wrong with me. And when I kept running into walls within the medical world, somebody else will be there to answer those questions if doctors can't answer those questions or shut people out.

And there is a whole industry set up to do that. And some of it is very well-intentioned. Some of it does have some scientific backing. But it also is an industry, and there are people who may have a degree of mal-intent or may not be the best informed about the medicine, because it can be a very, very profitable industry as well. And when you're left to fend for yourself in this murky unregulated wellness industry, it's often really difficult to tell what has scientific backing and what doesn't.

What was very revealing to me was that even as I was talking with long COVID patients, many of whom have tried a lot of the same treatments that I have tried at different points in my life, at the same time that I have this well-founded researched skepticism, I suppose, I noticed myself subconsciously taking note, like what have they tried that I haven't tried yet? And even as much as I am informed about this industry and informed about the importance of these studies, there's still something in me that rears its head that just wants to try almost anything to feel better.

CATHY WURZER: It's an interesting story, Katie. A lot of good information, too. Thank you so much for the time.

KATIE THORNTON: Thank you so much for talking with me about it. I appreciate it, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Katie Thornton is a Minneapolis-based multimedia journalist and National Geographic Fulbright Fellow. You can find a link to more of her reporting on our website, mprnews.org.

SPEAKER 2: Support for Minnesota Public Radio comes from Avis Fargo, offering the Avis app, the mobile app that allows you to be in the driver's seat. Locations at Hector Airport and Main Avenue in Fargo. Details at avisfargo.com. Avis Fargo, proud supporter of the arts. Support for MPR News comes from Planned Parenthood North Central States. Planned Parenthood stands behind personal medical decisions and will never back down in the fight for reproductive rights. ppncs.org.

CATHY WURZER: Those of us in the Minnesota media were floored by something that happened on this date in 1986. It was a sultry summer day. KARE 11 helicopter pilot Max Messmer and photographer Tom Empey were up getting shots of the Minneapolis Aquatennial, when Max noticed what looked like a funnel cloud forming over Brooklyn Park. Max is an amazing pilot. He took off, and Tom got shots of the life cycle of a tornado in real time entirely on the air live. That was the first time that was ever seen on TV.

The twister hovered over the Springbrook Nature Center in Fridley for a while. There were flashes from power lines that were being hit. Trees were being sucked up into the funnel. It was wild viewing, and it happened on this very date in 1986. Today, we're simply going to sweat, no storms. Joining us right now is Jeff Jones with a look at the rest of the news. Jeff.

JEFF JONES: Hey, Cathy. Britain's first ever extreme heat warning is in effect for large parts of England. Dry, hot weather that has scorched mainland Europe for the past week is moving north. The high heat is disrupting travel, health care, and schools. The village of Cavendish in Eastern England hit 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit on Monday.

Police in Indiana are calling a 22-year-old man a hero for killing a gunman who opened fire in a mall food court in a suburb of Indianapolis yesterday. Authorities say three people were killed and two were wounded in the shooting. They say the man who stopped the shooter was legally carrying a gun in the mall.

Meanwhile, the white gunman charged with killing 10 Black people in a racist mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket has pleaded not guilty today to federal hate crimes punishable by the death penalty. Along with hate crimes and weapons counts, the 27-count indictment accuses the man of engaging in substantial planning to commit an act of terrorism. It also alleges he took aim at vulnerable older people at the Tops Friendly Market on May 14. The store reopened to shoppers last week.

The sculptor of the iconic Spoonbridge and Cherry has died. Pop artist Claes Oldenburg turned the mundane into the monumental through his outsized sculptures. He died this morning in Manhattan, according to his daughter. He was 93 years old. Spoonbridge and Cherry was installed for the opening of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden in 1988. Other famous Oldenburg sculptures are Clothespin, a 45-foot steel clothespin installed near Philadelphia's City Hall, and Batcolumn, a 100-foot latticework steel baseball bat in front of a federal office building in Chicago.

The Minnesota Aurora are preparing for a championship game. The pre-professional women's soccer team won a USLW semifinal match yesterday in Eagan. Morgan Turner scored the game's lone goal. The Aurora are undefeated in the league's inaugural season. They'll host the championship game at TCO Stadium on Saturday. Their opponent is South Georgia Tormenta FC. This is MPR News.

CATHY WURZER: Glad you're with us here on Minnesota Now from MPR News. I'm Cathy Wurzer. Of course, you know the pandemic continues. Inflation is high. Folks are struggling, especially in rural areas where transportation costs are also very high. That's causing major demand at area food shelves. Ashley Hall is the executive director of the Falls Hunger Coalition in International Falls. She's here to share what's happening in her area. Ashley, welcome to Minnesota Now.

ASHLEY HALL: Thank you so much.

CATHY WURZER: Tell us a little bit about Falls Hunger Coalition. Who do you serve?

ASHLEY HALL: Yeah, we serve a very large county called Koochiching County up in Northern Minnesota. So while our name-- most people think it's just International Falls, it's not. We serve the entire county. It's a very rural county. Most people up here do not have adequate access to a grocery store or to food, period. In fact, the USDA says that almost 20% of the people in Koochiching County are more than 10 miles away from a grocery store, which we know to be probably more than that.

CATHY WURZER: Wow. So a long way to go to get food.

ASHLEY HALL: Yes.

CATHY WURZER: I hear you've seen a big spike in demand since February. Tell us about that.

ASHLEY HALL: Yeah, we've seen a huge spike. It started around the holidays, which is pretty typical. But in February, our numbers really began to jump. We started seeing record numbers across all of our food shelves. We have food shelves across the county, so not just in International Falls. And all the numbers really started to rise. Our food distribution numbers started to rise. And it's been really eye-opening who's walking in our doors and using our services.

CATHY WURZER: Who are these people? And what do you think is causing the demand?

ASHLEY HALL: A lot of the people, we're seeing a lot of senior citizens come in. They are having medical bills, which we know is a huge issue as well, aside from food. We're seeing a lot of families come in, people that you probably wouldn't expect. We always say to people volunteering with us and to our staff, we're never here to judge anybody.

So somebody might drive up in a Benz and need our services, and we have no idea what's going on with them. Like I said, it could be a health issue. It could be they're taking in other family members who are going through hard times. So it's really, really eye-opening, really concerning, really-- I don't even know the words to use right now about who's coming in here.

CATHY WURZER: Do you think that the increase is being caused by the economy? What's going on, do you think?

ASHLEY HALL: I do. Our food bank is Second Harvest North Central in Grand Rapids, and we are in close contact with them. And we've discussed this a lot. And the economy absolutely has a lot to do with it. As we all know, food is expensive. Up here, it's even more expensive because we only have our big grocery stores. We have two of them, but they're owned by one company. Gas is expensive. Our utilities are expensive. So as things go up, most people aren't getting paid more money. They're still living on the same budget. So it's hard.

CATHY WURZER: How are you responding to the need?

ASHLEY HALL: So False Hunger and, like I mentioned, Second Harvest saw this coming in COVID that this might happen, this influx and this need for our services. So we started, back in the end of 2020, adding locations around our county. So we have food shelves or food pantries, whichever you refer them to, in every one of our schools, including our community college. And we've expanded our food distributions to three locations throughout our county. And then even recently last month, we opened up a new full food shelf on the outside of our county in Indus.

CATHY WURZER: Are you having any trouble keeping your food shelves stocked?

ASHLEY HALL: We are not. Second Harvest-- I keep bringing them up because that's where we get 80% to 85% of our food from-- they are doing a tremendous job keeping the food coming through the food bank, which, in turn, comes directly to us twice a month. So the food looks a little different. We talk a lot about TEFAP. That's The Emergency Food Assistance Program, which is the food coming through from the government. And that food is steady. It's obviously not as much as it was during COVID because there was a lot more funding for food, but it's still coming. But it doesn't look exactly the same.

So during COVID, we saw a lot more meat, a lot more canned goods, maybe even fresh produce coming through. Now we're starting to see some different things. We're seeing some snack foods, not quite as much meat, not quite as much produce. It's still coming and we're still getting it, but it looks a little different. And we personally are having to get creative on how we source our food. We do get food, we purchase food from our local grocery stores. We try to get local farmers and gardeners to donate.

But we're having to purchase a little bit more because we know that everybody doesn't eat the same. We are all so different. We all have different medical needs, different cultural needs. And so for us, it's really important that we're providing the food that people need for their diets and want. And so that may mean purchasing food from a store, whereas before maybe we could get it from our food bank or maybe it was donated from a big corporation.

CATHY WURZER: You're, as you say, in the midst of a really large county, a large spread-out county, Koochiching. And I'm sure you're probably classified as a food desert, aren't you?

ASHLEY HALL: Absolutely. It means a little bit something different depending on where you are. But to us, food desert is we use the word over and over again because we want people to really understand what's happening up here. People might have the money to go purchase food, but they might not have the means to get there. And that's what being a food desert really is all about is people can't access the food.

So if you do have the money to purchase it, you might not have the vehicle to get there or maybe you can't drive your vehicle to get there. Or it might be in January in the middle of 40 below temperatures, and it's difficult for you to get there. So all of those are a factor. We don't have a major transportation system up here. We do have one bus, and it literally just runs in the International Falls city limits. So there's not transportation for people to get around and access food or other services up here.

CATHY WURZER: So what are you doing to brace for, say, a potential recession?

ASHLEY HALL: We are doing everything we can in our power, and I know that sounds really cliche. But we had, for example, in our International Falls location, which we refer to as our hub location-- that's where our offices are, our biggest food shelf-- we did have a room in the middle of it that was where we did intake, where we sat down with people and we tried to offer other services, figure out how we can help them get on their feet more.

And recently, I think back in April, we made the decision that we can't do that anymore because we have to use that for storage. So now that room is all-- we have pallets on the floor, we have shelves, and we're just storing the food in there because we're moving so much food every single day and every single week that we had to have that extra storage room. So we are in the process of trying to find a larger location. We all know that takes manpower. It takes money. It's going to take a lot to do that.

But we are in the process of just constantly trying to figure out how we can store more food and how we can access more food. And like you said, because we are in a food desert, how are we going to get that food to people? So do we try to purchase another vehicle or a bus or a van or something to try to get the food out besides our food distributions and our food shelves?

CATHY WURZER: So I'm kind of curious here, Ashley, what's the permanent solution to the problem?

ASHLEY HALL: Oh my gosh, if I knew that answer.

CATHY WURZER: Right.

ASHLEY HALL: We talk a lot about that here. And just like we're all so different in what we eat, we're all so different in what's going to help us get to the next step in our life which will improve our lives. So I don't think it's a one-- it's not a cookie cutter answer on how to solve the hunger crisis, especially in our area. It's loaded. For somebody, it may mean getting a job. For another person, it may mean getting them proper medical. It's just so different.

CATHY WURZER: Here's a final question for you. You've got your main food bank hub that you're relying on. Do you get any help from the county?

ASHLEY HALL: Our county does help financially when we need it. What our county could do for us and the state could do for us specifically is help us with the transportation issue. If we could figure out how to move the people of Koochiching County around in an efficient way, I think that would help so many people across Koochiching County.

If we could find a bus system, something where people can move easier. We have a phenomenal social services network up here, and we all constantly work together. But if people can't access us, it's almost like we're just beating our head against the wall. So I feel like honestly, transportation is the missing link here for us specifically.

CATHY WURZER: Ashley, I wish you well, and I appreciate the conversation. If folks want information and want to help out, where do they call? Who do they contact?

ASHLEY HALL: Absolutely. They can call me. My office number is 218-283-8020. They can find us on our website, fallshunger.org. We have a Facebook. We have an Instagram. I try to be very accessible to people. And we want all the ideas anyone has. If they are listening to this and they're like, wait, have you tried this, shoot me a message, send me a phone call, Facebook, whatever. We want all the help we can get and all the ideas that people have.

CATHY WURZER: Ashley Hall, thank you so much for the conversation.

ASHLEY HALL: Thank you.

CATHY WURZER: Ashley Hall is the executive director of Falls Hunger Coalition in International Falls.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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CATHY WURZER: If you think Minneapolis sidewalks are looking better these days, you have one man to thank. Michael Sack is a 32-year-old South Minneapolis resident, and he's quietly becoming one of the city's leading voices in accessibility issues and disability activism. His work is helping a lot of different people. Producer Gretchen Brown talked with Michael about his work.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

GRETCHEN BROWN: Construction ripped up a curb on Michael's block in South Minneapolis. A year later, it still wasn't repaired. In June 2021, Michael reported the curb through the city website. Nothing happened. Discouraged but not deterred, Michael sent an email to a City Council member at the time last May. Within three weeks, the curb was fixed. He spoke to me through an assistive device.

MICHAEL SACK: I realized that there was a more efficient way to report pathway deficiencies. So on June 24, 2021, I created the group Minneapolis Sidewalk Repair Hunters on Facebook.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

GRETCHEN BROWN: The grassroots group just keeps growing. There's now 142 Minneapolis residents involved. They've reported 48 sidewalk issues, and 29 have been fixed over the past year. Michael is now looking to form a five-person board to further their reach.

MICHAEL SACK: Having an accessible paths is a must, especially in a big city, in order to provide equal and safe access to those who use wheelchairs, other mobility devices, strollers, and for every pedestrian.

GRETCHEN BROWN: Michael has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, and he has always been interested in activism. His 2010 blog Two Men On covered baseball, the Twins, and accessibility issues, and even caught the eye of Twins president Dave St. Peter. When the pandemic hit, though, his activism grew exponentially.

MICHAEL SACK: That July, I contacted the Emma Greenman for State Representative campaign, and they brought me on to help with voting accessibility. The following year in August of 2021, I worked for Sheila Nezhad's mayoral campaign as a disability policy and engagement consultant.

GRETCHEN BROWN: As part of that work, he developed a disability and accessibility plan for Nezhad's campaign and presented a revised version to City Council member Emily Koski. Beyond sidewalks, Michael has written about voting accessibility, transportation, and funding for disability services for local outlets like Southwest Voices and the Star Tribune.

He says the city should develop a better system for searching for and responding to spots in need of repair and allocate city money instead of letting residents pick up the bill. In the meantime, Michael and the Minneapolis Sidewalk Repair Hunters will keep on hunting.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

CATHY WURZER: That was Minnesota Now producer Gretchen Brown talking to Michael Sack. If you're interested in getting involved with the Minneapolis Sidewalk Repair Hunters, head to their website, mplssrh.org.

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12:49. It's a sultry Monday afternoon here on Minnesota Now on MPR News. I'm Cathy Wurzer. There are a lot of great summer music shows happening around the state, and it's a good time to talk about music. Today, we're talking with Julian Green, who has made it his mission to celebrate and explore Black musical expression across musical genres. He's the content director for Carbon Sound, a Minnesota-based streaming service that launched almost a month ago today. Julian's on the line. Hey, Julian. How are you?

JULIAN GREEN: Hey, Cathy. I'm doing well. How are you?

CATHY WURZER: Good. So far, so good this afternoon. Thank you. For folks who have not yet come across Carbon Sound, tell us about it.

JULIAN GREEN: So Carbon Sound is a new stream built in collaboration between the Current and KMOJ the Ice. It's dedicated to the depth, breadth, and influence of Black musical expression across the world and across time. That's basically just a long way of saying we play really good music, stuff like hip hop, R&B, but also going into afrobeats, electronic music, and more, just showing how this Black musical expression is foundational to the canon of all American music and how music from across the world is influencing each other today.

CATHY WURZER: Who's the host?

JULIAN GREEN: So our host is Sannie Brown.

CATHY WURZER: Ah--

JULIAN GREEN: You can catch her--

CATHY WURZER: --yes.

JULIAN GREEN: From Monday through Thursday from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM. A wonderful voice, so much perspective in the music, and we're just happy to have her.

CATHY WURZER: Oh, Sannie's great. She's amazing. By the way, where did Carbon Sound, the name, come from?

JULIAN GREEN: So as an element, carbon is found in everything. There's the carbon cycle. You find carbon in stars, carbon is in us. It's CO2. Carbon is foundational to life across the universe, and it's the common thread to all life on Earth. And that's how we approached the music that we're playing, like what I was just saying about how it's foundational to all music. There's also some other kind of meanings, too, that you could dig into if you feel like it. But I like keeping it a little mysterious.

CATHY WURZER: OK, we'll do that. I think we should listen to some music right now. I know there is a track that you like by artist Ravyn Lenae. It's called "MIA."

[MUSIC - RAVYN LENAE, "MIA"]

(SINGING) Yeah. I'm going to run the town. Ain't nothing in my way, way. If I miss the sun go down, might go to MIA, MIA. I want to make my debut, but just for the night. Doing me is all I can do. You recognize it.

Nice. I like that a lot. Julian, why do you like this?

JULIAN GREEN: I just think it's a really good track. I've been following up with her music for a couple of years now. She went quiet for a bit. She had an EP back in around 2018, 2019, and then didn't release anything for a while. But she just released an album about two months ago. I think it's one of the best of this year. I think in this track, too, you can also hear what I was trying to get out earlier, just that global influence, because it's very much kind of R&B vocals, in my opinion, but you also have that afrobeats rhythm and keys in there, too. So I just like it a lot. It's just a good song to me.

CATHY WURZER: And is she local?

JULIAN GREEN: She's actually from Chicago, so not too far.

CATHY WURZER: That's all right. That's all right. I like that. I like the song, and I like her. By the way, how did you get so involved in music? Do you play? Do you sing?

JULIAN GREEN: It's actually a funny story. I used to play a lot of those Rock Band, Guitar Hero games as a kid. I feel like that's what just got me hooked on music and actually taught me about production, song structure, and stuff. I was like 10 years old listening to Iron Maiden and Metallica, Sonic Youth, and stuff, just because that's what was in the game. And then also listening to a lot of just music like hip hop and R&B as a kid, too.

So all of that kind of just coalesced as I got older and applied just the music nerd side of me that grew as a result of playing that game to hip hop and R&B and all these other genres that I really enjoy. So I'm just a fan before anything else. And in college, I realized that you can actually work in music because--

CATHY WURZER: Yes.

JULIAN GREEN: --they don't teach you that in school. They tell you you have to learn how to make the robots that are going to be taking the jobs at the factories. They don't teach you about the arts. But anyways, when I got to college, I realized that you can write about music for a living, and then you can also DJ, too. I've been DJing for a couple of years now, and it's something that I enjoy doing. But mostly, I just enjoy the radio side of it. I did Radio K all four years of college--

CATHY WURZER: Oh, good.

JULIAN GREEN: --and started there. Hip hop and R&B streamed the Vanguard my senior year. And a bunch of other things, too.

CATHY WURZER: I'm glad you mentioned writing, by the way, because on carbonsound.fm, you wrote about a recent event called the High Cotton Ball in Minneapolis. And it featured an artist called Blue Bone. Tell me about what drew your attention to this.

JULIAN GREEN: Well, I first came into contact with the Blue Bone actually at an event that I was DJing last summer. I was just really struck by his artistry. It's really the only word for it. I mean, he is just like an artist in every sense of the word. And he has so much intention and creativity behind everything that he's doing. The High Cotton Ball was created actually in response to organizations like Afropunk that came to Minneapolis on Juneteenth.

Afropunk actually contacted performers like Blue Bone and other artists that became part of the High Cotton Ball. And in those artists' opinions, they just weren't offering enough and showing enough respect to the city. So they just said, you know what, we're going to have our own event. And that event was the High Cotton Ball. There were about four or five performers, all with dancers, incredible production. There was also the ball event at the end, which was incredible. I watched a lot of Pose, and just to see that in real-- [AUDIO OUT].

CATHY WURZER: Oh, no, we didn't miss-- we didn't lose--

JULIAN GREEN: Really cool. It was really cool.

CATHY WURZER: Was it? Good. Excellent.

JULIAN GREEN: Awesome, yeah. So there was just so much artistry intent. And just, I don't know, it's that entrepreneurial spirit that I see in a lot of local artists was just really exemplified on that night. And I just thought more people needed to know about it because he's one of the best artists in the city, in my opinion.

CATHY WURZER: Now, we heard a little bit of music here at the beginning of our conversation. I know in addition to listening to some new local music, you like some old school stuff.

JULIAN GREEN: Oh, yeah.

CATHY WURZER: Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I'm going to play a little bit of that right now.

[MUSIC - PATRICE RUSHEN, "FORGET ME NOTS"]

(SINGING) Sending you forget-me-nots to help you to remember. Baby, please forget-me-not. I want you to remember. Those were the times we had sharing the joy that we thought would last.

Now, I remember this song "Forget Me Nots." Patrice Rushen, remember her?

(SINGING) Never really was just like a dream.

What do you think, Julian?

JULIAN GREEN: Yeah.

CATHY WURZER: You're laughing at me right now.

JULIAN GREEN: So this is actually one of the-- no, no, no. It's actually a funny story. Sannie, the voice of the stream, she helps out a ton with giving recommendations for older tracks that we want, and then also tracks that are newer but just weren't necessarily on my radar. So this is one of the tracks that Sannie recommended that she's played on her show The Message. Every week on The Message, there's a different theme. And then every day of the week, we take a deep dive into a specific aspect of the theme.

So this was actually for karaoke songs last week. I believe it was on the either R&B or Funk Day. So yeah, her taste and my taste, they kind of come together so that we can cover the older stuff and the newer stuff and just really get into that depth, breadth, and influence that I was talking about earlier.

CATHY WURZER: Right. I love this. OK. Now, before you go, what's coming up in the next week that we should listen to?

JULIAN GREEN: In the next week-- well, last week actually, Steve Lacy, who works a lot with Ravyn Lenae as a producer, released his album. I like it a lot. It's almost kind of Prince-like, in my opinion. I'm afraid to say that because people care a lot about Prince, but I hear the influence. A local artist, Ruby Mitchell, she's a rapper. She just dropped her latest project, first one in a while, last Friday too, which was cool. Beyonce is dropping her album later this month.

CATHY WURZER: Got lots going on [INAUDIBLE].

JULIAN GREEN: There's also the Kendrick Lamar concert coming here later this month and a ton of great shows coming up this week and next week. So it's a lot of things to be excited about. And Carbon Sound is where you're going to hear it--

CATHY WURZER: Excellent.

JULIAN GREEN: --on air and then hear about it on the internet, too.

CATHY WURZER: All right, Julian, thank you. Julian Green is the content director for Carbon Sound. It's a website streaming service celebrating the Black musical expression. It's supported by Minnesota Public Radio and the Current in partnership with community radio station KMOJ.

And thanks for listening to Minnesota Now. Right here on MPR News, 91.1 KNOW Minneapolis-St. Paul. Support for Minnesota Now comes from TruStone Financial, a full service credit union working to improve the financial well-being of its neighbors since 1939, serving individuals and businesses at 23 locations and online at trustone.org. Equal housing opportunity, insured by NCUA.

Where are we in temperature? We're going up, 90 right now. By the time I bet Jeff Jones gets on the air for a newscast, it's going to be 92. Heat advisory is now in effect, lasts until 6:00 tomorrow night. Today's high probably 98. With the humidity, it'll feel more like 102. Overnight low, 75. Still muggy overnight. Tomorrow, hot, humid, 95 for a high. With the humidity, it'll feel like 100. Windy tomorrow, too, wind gusts around 35 miles an hour.