Minnesota Now for July 25, 2022

CATHY WURZER: It's Minnesota Now. I'm Cathy Wurzer. Pope Francis is in Canada today meeting with Indigenous communities. We'll hear why that matters to Indigenous people over there and here in Minnesota. Native American children in Minnesota adopted into white families often grow up without knowledge of their culture. One family shares their story.

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The beloved monarch butterfly, and our official state butterfly, is now on the endangered species list. It's been a long time coming. What tipped this fragile butterfly over the edge? July is Disability Pride Month, and a new film explores a personal story of learning to move again after a spinal cord injury. I'll talk to the filmmaker about her new film Move Me. All of that, the Minnesota Music Minute, and the song of the day. It comes your way right after the news.

LAKSHMI SINGH: Live from NPR News in Washington, I'm Lakshmi Sing. President Biden's symptoms from COVID-19 have now, quote, "almost completely resolved," that's according to a note from his physician. Here's NPR's Asma Khalid.

ASMA KHALID: The president's doctor says Biden has some residual nasal congestion and minimal hoarseness. But he notes the president has responded to treatment well. He's completed his fourth full day of the antiviral drug paxlovid and his pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate, and temperature remain, quote, "absolutely normal." His lungs are also clear.

Biden was diagnosed with COVID last Thursday. He's expected to isolate for at least five days, though the White House has said he'll continue to work in isolation until he tests negative. Asma Khalid, NPR News, the White House.

LAKSHMI SINGH: The Ukrainian military says its counteroffensive in the South is making headway. NPR's Ashley Westerman reports Ukraine is hoping to recapture the Russian occupied Kherson region.

ASHLEY WESTERMAN: In his Sunday address, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces are advancing, quote, "step by step" into the Kherson region. It's been occupied since early in the war. The Ukrainian military says it destroyed several Russian command centers and a Russian air defense system In the region over the weekend. It also continued to strike key bridges, leading Kherson city in an effort to disrupt Russia's supply lines.

Serhiy Khlan is the advisor to the head of the Kherson region. He told Ukrainian media that the counteroffensive operations so far have been successful.

SERHIY KHLAN: [SPEAKING UKRAINIAN]

ASHLEY WESTERMAN: Kherson will surely be liberated by September, he says, and all plans of the occupiers will be destroyed. Ashley Westerman, NPR News, Kyiv.

LAKSHMI SINGH: About 20,000 workers for German airline Lufthansa plan to stage a one-day strike on Wednesday-- likely lead to travel disruptions throughout Europe. We have the latest from NPR's Rob Schmitz.

ROB SCHMITZ: The Union representing Lufthansa employees says ground staff at the company, including those in aircraft maintenance and runway workers, will walk off the job from early Wednesday to Thursday morning. They're demanding a 9.5% pay raise. That strike will cause further travel disruptions during what has been a very busy summer travel season in Europe.

LAKSHMI SINGH: That's NPR's Rob Schmitz reporting. Thousands of people near Yosemite National Park are still under evacuation orders. However, fire crews reportedly have made progress against the 24-square mile Oak fire. At last check on Wall Street, we see that US stocks are mixed.

The Dow Jones Industrial average is up nearly 100 points at 31,993. The S&P is up 9 points, a quarter of a percent, at 3,970. And the NASDAQ is down 21 points at 11,812. This is NPR News.

CREW: Support for NPR comes from NPR stations. Other contributors include C3AI. C3AI software enables organizations to use artificial intelligence at enterprise scale, solving previously unsolvable problems. C3AI is enterprise AI.

CATHY WURZER: Around Minnesota right now, skies are mostly bright and blue. It's pleasant. Temperatures will get into the mid-70s and lower-80s. At noon in Winona, it's sunny and 70. 72 at the Duluth Harbor.

And outside the historic Calumet Inn in Pipestone, Minnesota, it's raining and 64. I'm Cathy Wurzer with Minnesota news headlines. Minnesota-based Cargill and other large poultry producers are being sued by the federal government amid allegations of unfair practices against workers.

The Justice Department alleges the companies have been engaged in a multi-year conspiracy. There's been no comment as yet from Cargill or the other co-defendants. Nurses at Mayo Clinic's Mankato location are voting today on whether to cut ties with the Minnesota Nurses Association. Earlier this month, more than 200 nurses signed a petition to end their union representation.

The son of Twin Cities theater legend and penumbra theater founder Lou Bellamy has died after being arrested last week. Tim Nelson has more.

TIM NELSON: Records from the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office indicate that 41-year-old Lucas Bellamy died in police custody. Care TV said a brief statement from the sheriff's office said he was found unresponsive in his cell. And jail records indicate he died Thursday. Authorities haven't yet offered any details on the cause of his death.

A Facebook post by his sister, Penumbra President Sarah Bellamy, said her brother had battled alcohol and drug addiction for decades and called his efforts to end his addiction heroic. He had been arrested for allegedly fleeing police in Western Hennepin County three days before his death. He was also facing felony drug and firearm charges, a DWI count, stolen property charges, and numerous driving violations.

Sarah Bellamy said her brother had appeared in three Penumbra shows and was an avid outdoorsman, golfer, and devoted father to his son. I'm Tim Nelson.

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CATHY WURZER: And leading the program-- Pope Francis is in Canada this week meeting with Indigenous communities to apologize in-person for the abuses of the Catholic Church against Canada's first people. The Pope wants to atone for the role of Catholic missionaries in the forced assimilation of generations of Native children into Christian culture.

A Canadian commission declared the Catholic boarding schools to be a form of cultural genocide. Here to talk about the significance of his visit and what work lies ahead is Professor Brenda Child. She's the Northrup Professor of American Studies and American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota, and she's also a Guggenheim Fellow for the coming year. Welcome, Professor Child, good to hear your voice again.

BRENDA CHILD: Yes. Thanks so much for inviting me.

CATHY WURZER: The Pope, as you know, publicly apologized for the Catholic Church's role last year. But this is a personal visit this week. Tell me what you take away from the pope's trip to Canada.

BRENDA CHILD: I think it's been in the works for several years. He's up in Alberta, so that means that he's in Cree country. And he's expected to, I guess, apologize in-person for the church's role in Canada's residential schools, which were funded by the government of Canada, but run by the Roman Catholic Church, as well as other church organizations.

So my understanding is that the big Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Canada, in which Indigenous people were very involved, requested an apology from the Pope several years back, I think maybe 2015. And the Pope at the time responded by saying he was ashamed of the church's role in residential schools and promised to visit Canada. So that's partly why he's here this week.

CATHY WURZER: As a historian, how would you describe what transpired back then? And because Minnesota had at least, what, 16 facilities that drew kids from all 11 of the reservations within the state, what's Minnesota's role in this?

BRENDA CHILD: Yeah. Well, Minnesota has a kind corresponding history when it comes to government boarding schools. Actually, in Minnesota, we had one federal off-reservation boarding school over in Pipestone, Minnesota. But we did have a number of schools on reservations, in addition to a school that operated for maybe about a decade over at Morris-- what's now the Morris campus of the University of Minnesota. So we do have a related history. But our histories also kind of depart in significant ways from that of the Canadian residential schools.

CATHY WURZER: Tell me how.

BRENDA CHILD: Well, I think there were a couple of ways in which they were very different. One was this point that I mentioned to you about the federal government and our government boarding schools that Indians attended. There were about 25 of those across the United States.

Now, I'm just talking about the off-reservation federal boarding school system, like Carlisle, like Pipestone, Flandreau, Haskell, those schools. And so those schools were actually operated by the United States in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. And so what you see happened in Canada was a little bit different, in that they had residential schools for Native people.

But the federal government farmed out Indian education to church organizations in Canada. And we did not have the same kind of system. Even though there were expectations at the time that Indian people become Christians, the churches did not run the federal boarding schools. And so you can see with the Pope visiting Canada and why he's not in the United States visiting as well, that that history is a little bit different.

And I'll just mention one other way in which the boarding school system was quite different in the United States and Canada, and that was in the United States during the 1930s under the administration of Franklin Roosevelt, Native children began attending public schools far more than they did residential schools or boarding schools. And the federal government kind of turned away from the boarding school policy in the 1920s, but especially in the 1930s under FDR.

So I kind of look at the boarding school history as being very significant for a half century-- that 50-year period from the establishment of Carlisle when there were still Indian wars taking place in the United States, up until FDR. And so for someone like me, my grandmother, my great-grandfather went to government boarding school. But my mother went to a public school on the reservation at Red Lake.

And so in the United States, public school dominated Indian education after FDR. But in Canada, the residential schools continued for another half century.

CATHY WURZER: I understand some Native elders consider this period of time a disruption, emphasizing the fact that Native people are still here, Native communities are growing stronger. What's your perspective on that?

BRENDA CHILD: For us in the United States, that 50-year period of the history of government boarding schools is the assimilation years. And so children and young people were expected to leave their families behind to take up new occupations, to take up a new lifestyle, to give up their traditional religious affiliations and become Christians, and to, of course, speak English. And all of those things were tremendously disruptive to Native people.

Of course, I like to include in there tremendous genocide-- I would call it that-- of the boarding school era, because this is the great period-- if you look at Ojibwe people, for example, from the Great Lakes-- this was our big era of dispossession, right? So it's not just boarding school. It's like a whole series of things were kind of conspiring against Native people at the time.

So it was a real period of suffering. And when you think of what was going on in Minnesota and the post-allotment era, this is the time when, for example, the White Earth Ojibwe lost over 90% of their reservation. And so it was the great era of dispossession, so that in combination with the boarding school assimilation, was altogether very damaging to Native people.

CATHY WURZER: We're focusing on the Pope, but given what you just said, how can healing come to Native people, many of whom are now elderly who went through the assimilation process? How does it fix the damage done?

BRENDA CHILD: In some ways, you can't ever fix the damage done, right? One of the stories has been about the children who died at government boarding schools. And we know that places like Haskell and some of the government boarding schools had cemeteries attached to them.

Of course, this was a big era of deaths from tuberculosis in the government boarding schools. So that's hard to fix. You know, I have a wonderful vantage point seeing what young people are doing at the University of Minnesota. And I see this incredible interest on the part of young people in Ojibwe and Dakota language revitalization.

There are some young people who've never heard their language spoken until they come to a classroom at the University of Minnesota. But it's not just language, because that's a cultural revitalization as well-- it's a revitalization of spirit and spiritual traditions. So it really makes me very happy to see the interest that the younger generation, I often call them the language generation because of their great interest in that.

But in other, more practical terms, and maybe this is kind of what's going on now with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Deb Haaland, and the Secretary of the Interior being interested in boarding school history, is, like I say, this is our big era of dispossession for Native people. There are things we still can do about that, right? It's not just it's in the past and we can't change what happened, but we can make changes today in terms of the dispossession that Native people experienced.

I'm from Red Lake and, in fact, I'm up in northern Minnesota today. And we have an eastern portion of upper Red Lake that was taken away from us during the assimilation years, during the allotment years, even though Red Lake was not allotted, per se. And so we'd like that back. And so if you talk to Indian people all across the country, I'm sure they would be able to tell you how to make amends for the boarding school dispossession era.

CATHY WURZER: Would, at least in this country, financial reparations be a part of that equation?

BRENDA CHILD: Financial reparations-- the government has-- the US government has the idea that we should always compensate Native people when it turns out that there was-- something happened and native people were dispossessed illegally of their lands, like in the big case of the Lakotas in the Black Hills. But my understanding is that the Lakota people want portions of the Black Hills returned to them.

So reparations in terms of finances, and money, and compensation is one thing. But I think Native people are increasingly interested in having land back as well.

CATHY WURZER: It's always a pleasure talking to you, professor. I always learn a lot. Thank you so very much.

BRENDA CHILD: Thank you for inviting me.

CATHY WURZER: Brenda Child is Northrop Professor of American Studies and American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota. Pope Francis arrived in Canada yesterday. He's expected to leave on the 29th.

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PAUL PAUL: I feel the lighting effects of assimilation in a city native raised by bright light skyscrapers, born with dim prospects, little peace in living as a child, I hid about the fact I wasn't wild like they call my ancestors. Imagine what it'd be to live nomadic off the land and free.

CATHY WURZER: This is the Minnesota Music Minute. This track is called Prayers in a Song by Twin Cities-based musician Paul Paul. He is Ojibwe at Oneida, and he raps in both English and Ojibwe. You can see the video for this song on YouTube and find more of his music on SoundCloud and Bandcamp.

[SINGING]

PAUL PAUL: For being educated, my people think customs originating from the faces of history is deeper than fried bread and contest powwows, tears shed in the sweat lodge press go out to all those I've wronged and who have wronged me, got to treat them like family. Get your money, [NON-ENGLISH SINGING]

CATHY WURZER: Over decades, thousands of Native American children in Minnesota have been separated from relatives, adopted by white families, and often growing up with no knowledge of their identity and culture. As part of our North Star Journey series, Dan Gunderson shares the path one family is traveling to discover and understand a new identity.

DAN GUNDERSON: The day Peggy Mandell listened to a voicemail from her half sister mark the end of one journey and the beginning of another.

SUBJECT: She said, I am pleasantly surprised. I'm shocked.

SUBJECT 2: I was shocked. I mean, I had no idea that I had a sister. I'd always wanted a sister.

DAN GUNDERSON: That's Anita Fineday on learning she was no longer an only child. Fineday, former tribal judge for the White Earth nation, has a long career of advocating for adopted native children. Suddenly, it was very personal. She confronted her mother.

SUBJECT 2: Mom, guess who contacted me? And she immediately spilled the beans.

DAN GUNDERSON: Her birth mother did not respond when Peggy Mandell tried to contact her several months earlier, but Anita Fineday arranged a meeting and a friend recorded the moment.

SUBJECT 2: So hi.

SUBJECT 3: This is Peggy.

SUBJECT: Nice to meet you. I'm so glad that you've done well, been well taken care of. Don't cry. You'll make me cry.

SUBJECT 3: And I want to just thank you. It's been an amazing life.

SUBJECT: Well, I'm glad.

DAN GUNDERSON: Mandell had an elevator speech ready for the meeting. But when she stood in front of her birth mother, emotions overwhelmed her.

SUBJECT 2: I sobbed from a place I don't think I've ever sobbed from before-- just like a floodgate opened.

DAN GUNDERSON: That meeting was in 2015. Eleanor Robertson, now in her 90s, has dementia. So NPR did not interview her. But Mandell says they had time to share family stories and make an uneasy connection. Anita Fineday says she struggled to understand her mother's decision.

SUBJECT 2: She didn't ever tell me that I had a sister. And you think about that, and it's just kind of mind-blowing how someone could keep that from you for 50 years. But she did.

DAN GUNDERSON: The reasons are complicated but rooted in the painful history of Indigenous people in the US. Fineday grew up in Kentucky, and her mother discouraged connections to her Ojibwe relatives in Minnesota.

SUBJECT 2: My mom, she didn't tell people she was Native American or Indian, because she was ashamed.

DAN GUNDERSON: Fineday says that shame was a result of US government policy that aimed to split families and sever connections to Native culture and language. She recalls a moment as a child when she repeated an Ojibwe word to her grandmother, who had spent time as a child in a government boarding school.

SUBJECT 2: And she said, oh no, my girl, you don't want to learn those words. And she showed me her hands where she had scars on her knuckles. She said, that's where the nuns hit me when I spoke Ojibwe. So she said speaking Ojibwe will only get you in trouble.

DAN GUNDERSON: Raised in a Jewish family in the Twin Cities, Peggy Mandell always suspected there was a missing piece to her history. Now, she needed to understand her newly discovered native identity.

SUBJECT 2: It is a lot to wrap my head around. Sometimes it's heavy. How many cultures can I belong to that have been displaced so much and that have experienced so much trauma?

DAN GUNDERSON: Reconciling a new identity is also challenging for Mandell's daughters, Eliza and Margot. They were teenagers when they learned about their Native heritage. Last year, they gathered with their aunt Anita at the Stearns History Museum in St. Cloud to see tangible evidence of that heritage.

SUBJECT 4: This looks like that bag that I have.

DAN GUNDERSON: It's the first time Anita Fineday a has seen a recently discovered trove of her great grandmother's things, held for years in the museum collection.

SUBJECT 2: I might get really emotional. I've heard my mom talk about this stuff my whole life. We just thought it was all gone. What do you guys think?

DAN GUNDERSON: Fineday turns to her nieces, and Eliza Mandell says touching things made by her ancestors' hands is surprisingly emotional.

SUBJECT 5: I can feel the energy. I can feel her spirit. So it feels like a stranger, but also a stranger that I know is within me.

DAN GUNDERSON: As they strive to understand their new identity, the sisters are in different places on that journey, partly shaped by their life experiences. Margot is fair skinned and blonde, likely thanks to her northern European genes. Eliza has dark, curly hair and darker skin that caused people to question her heritage.

SUBJECT 4: People would look at me and say, what are you? They would really say those words. I would also get Latina or Hispanic descent, Middle Eastern. I always was like, why are people asking me that? Because I thought that I was just one thing.

DAN GUNDERSON: Eliza Mandell has immersed herself in Ojibwe culture, seeking out the guidance of elders, being invited to ceremonies, being gifted an eagle feather and a pipe, both powerful, sacred items. Margot is taking a more academic approach, studying the history of Indigenous people and the cultural and spiritual genocide that's now part of her history.

SUBJECT 5: Personally, it's been a little hard for me to be able not feel included, but kind of connect at a deeper level because I don't really look like everybody else.

DAN GUNDERSON: You didn't get the questions about who are you.

SUBJECT 5: Not at all.

DAN GUNDERSON: When we explore this journey more deeply in a later conversation, Margot says she has been struck by the overlap of her Jewish and Native identities.

SUBJECT 5: White settlers and colonizers did everything in their power to essentially exterminate this culture. And I think it's very interesting how there are some similarities with that to the Jewish culture as well, both facing forms of extermination.

DAN GUNDERSON: Eliza has felt rage as she contemplates the struggles of her ancestors. And it fuels her drive to become who she is and explore her culture in a respectful way.

SUBJECT 5: A huge motivational piece for me to continue to learn is the fact that we weren't supposed to be here. Somebody else did not want us to be here. So I transcend that anger into motivation to continue to learn.

DAN GUNDERSON: Eliza and Margot both say they are comfortable exploring their identities at a pace that feels right for them. After all, it will be a lifelong exploration. Peggy Mandell and Anita Fineday are also adjusting to the life altering discovery of a new family. Fineday says she's let go of the anger she felt toward her mother for keeping her from her sister for so many years.

SUBJECT 2: And just focusing on building a relationship on not only do I have a sister. I have a brother-in-law and I have two fabulous nieces.

DAN GUNDERSON: Peggy Mandell says she never gave up and the result has been more than she hoped.

SUBJECT 3: For it's astounding to me how open the heart can be when you're willing, and ready, and even scared. And I was scared. Oh, for sure, I was scared.

DAN GUNDERSON: Peggy and Anita attended an annual powwow that's held in the Twin Cities for Native American adoptees. Peggy says it was affirming to meet other people who understand what she is experiencing.

SUBJECT 3: At the very end of this beautiful ceremony, we all hugged each other. We didn't know each other from Adam. But what it felt like is, hey, guess what? We all matter. And that was an incredibly powerful experience for me.

DAN GUNDERSON: Mandell hopes telling her story will encourage others to persist in the quest to find the missing pieces of their lives. Dan Gunderson, MPR News, Moorhead.

CATHY WURZER: This story was made possible in part by the Minnesota Legacy Amendments Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. To hear more stories in this series, visit our web page, nprnewsandnotes.org.NorthStarJourney.

CREW: Programming is supported by Carlson Capital Management, an integrated wealth management firm offering clients a disciplined investment approach and financial planning to help weather market volatility. Connect with a fiduciary advisor at CarlsonCap.com.

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CATHY WURZER: If you loved Liquor Lyles, a beloved dive bar in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis on Hennepin, you might want to sit down for this. Very soon, there will be Liquor Lyles no more. The building was sold Friday to the owner of the Tilt Pinball Bar, which is by the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Tilt says it'll offer more details soon, but the move will likely include a name change, in addition to the addition of pinball machines. Don't know if the round bar or the red vinyl booths will stay, or the jukebox. Lyles, of course, opened in 1963, was a throwback drinking and music destination for, oh, goodness, decades, before it closed and went up for sale last year.

Around the region at this hour, it is a very pleasant Monday, with temperatures generally in the 60s and 70s. It was a little cool here earlier this morning, with temperatures in the 40s in places like Hibbing. It was definitely sweater weather or jacket weather across northern Minnesota. But right now in Fergus Falls, it's 73 degrees. It's also 73 in Appleton, 71 in Brainerd, also 71 degrees in St. Cloud, 72 in Winona, in International Falls, it's 69, it's also 69 in Duluth. Over the hill at The Harbor, it's 72.

68 in Eveleth, 73 in the Twin Cities. Highs around the region today, mid-70s, lower-80s under sunshine. Looks like we have a chance of showers in western Minnesota tonight. Tomorrow looks like everybody is going to get a little bit of rain-- showers and thunderstorms around the state of Minnesota. Tomorrow's highs in the 70s. Emily Bright is standing by with a look at more news. Emily.

EMILY BRIGHT: Hi, Cathy, good morning. As was mentioned earlier on this program, Pope Francis has arrived at the site of a former Indigenous residential school to deliver a long-awaited apology for the Catholic Church's role in Canada's policy of forcibly assimilating Native peoples into Christian society that led to generations of trauma and abuse. Thousands of survivors, Indigenous elders, and their family members have gathered under a drizzling rain for the historic apology.

About 2 in 3 Americans say they favor term limits and mandatory retirement age for Supreme Court Justices. That's according to a new poll that finds a sharp increase in the percentage of Americans saying they have, quote, "hardly any confidence in the court." The poll from the Associated Press, Newark's Center for Public Affairs Research, finds 67% of Americans support a proposal to set a specific number of years that Justices serve instead of life terms, including 82% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans.

The poll was conducted just weeks after the high court issued high profile rulings stripping away women's constitutional protections for abortion and expanding gun rights. Myanmar has carried out its first executions in nearly 50 years, hanging a former lawmaker, a democracy activist, and two other political prisoners. The executions, announced today, were carried out despite worldwide pleas for clemency for the four men.

State media said the four planned, directed, and organized terrorist killings after the country's military takeover last year. Opposition figures and rights activists say the convictions were politically motivated and condemned the executions. Minnesota-based Cargill is among several major US poultry producers subject to a lawsuit by the Justice Department. The department alleges the companies have been engaged in a multiyear conspiracy to exchange information about the wages and benefits of poultry plant workers to suppress competition for those workers. The companies haven't responded to messages seeking comment. Highs in the mid-70s to low-80s today. We'll have more news headlines at one here on MPR News.

CATHY WURZER: Thank you, Emily. It's 12:29. Minnesota's official state butterfly-- yes, we have one-- the beloved monarch, is now on the endangered species list. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature says the monarch butterfly was moved for the first time to its Red List of threatened species and categorized it as endangered, two steps from being extinct.

Joining us right now to talk about the future of monarch butterflies is UW-Madison Arboretum Director Dr. Karen Oberhauser. Dr. Oberhauser was also at the University of Minnesota, where she was professor and a conservation biologist. Welcome back to the program, Doctor. How are you?

KAREN OBERHAUSER: Thanks, Cathy. It's great to be back here. I'm fine, thanks.

CATHY WURZER: Good. I'm glad you're here. Say, I was a little surprised to hear this news last week because of all the efforts underway to help the monarch. What's happening?

KAREN OBERHAUSER: Well, you're right that a lot of people are doing a lot of things to help monarch butterflies. But the problem is that there are a lot of negative things going on at the same time. So basically what's happening with monarchs right now is we're kind of holding our own thanks to the efforts of a lot of people. But holding our own isn't enough. We're not at a number that's going to be sustainable in the long-term for monarchs.

CATHY WURZER: What are the main dangers for the monarch butterfly?

KAREN OBERHAUSER: Well, there are two big things that are affecting them. And first is habitat loss. So monarchs need habitat throughout their annual cycle of breeding up here in the summertime, and then migrating south to sites in Mexico, and then overwintering in Mexico and coming back. So they need habitat available to them over this large, large space.

And the other thing that's a problem for them is weather. Weather conditions during any phase of that annual cycle can be positive or negative. So for example, in one big storm in Mexico, 60% to 80% of the monarchs can be wiped out. And hot and dry summers are bad for them. And, unfortunately, climate change models predict a higher frequency of conditions that aren't so good for monarchs.

So those are the two big things. There are other things that can kill them as well. So for example, pesticide use is a problem. When people spray insecticides, those insecticides can not only kill the harmful insects, but they can kill other beneficial insects as well. Monarchs can be in collisions with vehicles when they're flying next to or across roads.

They can be killed by a lot of predators and parasites. So there are a lot of things out there that can hurt monarchs.

CATHY WURZER: Wow. In 2020, as you know, US wildlife officials found that monarchs were threatened with extinction, but they decided not to add them to the endangered species list, because they said conservation of other species took priority. Do you think in hindsight, that was just not the right move?

KAREN OBERHAUSER: Well, no, I agree with that decision. Certainly, what they said is that they weren't listing, and that's correct-- that their numbers are declining to the point that the population has a good chance of being wiped out. But like you said, there are a lot of other species that are even worse off.

So while the Endangered Species Act in the United States would have provided legal protection for monarchs, and this designation doesn't really have any legal protection from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, this does kind of really clarify the fact to people that monarchs are in trouble and that we need to do what we can to help them.

And I think the other thing that's really important to understand is that when we do things to help monarch butterflies, a lot of other species come along for the ride. So it's not just monarchs that are in trouble right now, it's all of the other species that they share habitat with-- or not all, but lots of them. So we really need to do what we can for monarchs to help other species as well.

CATHY WURZER: I was going to ask, to that end, what happens if the monarch were to become extinct? Maybe some people would shrug and say, it's just a butterfly. But what happens if that were to occur?

KAREN OBERHAUSER: Yeah. So that's a really interesting question. Of course, we don't know, because it's never happened before. But one thing that we know would happen is that we would lose a species that people really care a lot about. And this species makes connections between people and the natural world that very few other species do.

So when we as humans start to lose those things that connect us to the natural world, I think we've lost something really important. And if we do lose monarchs, it really means that we're doing a pretty bad job at protecting the natural world. So I think it would be a symbol that things are really not right in the world if we lose monarchs.

CATHY WURZER: What, realistically, can be done to help the butterfly get off the endangered species list? We've got people who are planting pollinator gardens and letting their lawns go more natural. And that's wonderful, but what else needs to be done?

KAREN OBERHAUSER: Sure. Well, those things are really important. And doing habitat restoration on both small and large scales can really help monarchs. And especially in the face of climate change, if we have lots and lots of habitats that spread over large areas, it's more likely in any given summer that monarchs will find the conditions that are good for them.

So for example, last summer, we saw that we had really hot and dry conditions in the West. And things were just burning up, literally. The East was pretty cool. And in the Midwest, things were pretty normal. So if we have habitat over large, large swaths of land, somewhere, monarchs will be doing OK. So habitat is key.

The other things that people can do are help us study them. There are lots and lots of monarch monitoring programs that people can join. In fact, we have an international monarch monitoring blitz that's coming up starting on July 29. So this is something people can look up online and find out how they can monitor monarchs, whether they're in Canada, or the United States, or Mexico. People can support organizations that are working to create habitats. So if people don't have their own lawns, or gardens, or areas that they can turn into habitat, they can support, either monetarily or with volunteer help, their local nature center, or statewide organizations, or national organizations.

And finally, people can spread the word. If you're listening to this and you care about monarchs, you can talk to your family, and your friends, and your neighbors, and tell them to do their part as well.

CATHY WURZER: Yeah, some good steps there. And I'm wondering, even if those steps are taken, is there any way when you have a species on this list, is there a timeline to when scientists think extinction is possible? How close are we, I guess, in terms of years, perhaps, if that's even possible to look into a crystal ball?

KAREN OBERHAUSER: Yeah. Well, whether for good or for bad, I don't have a crystal ball here. And sometimes having a crystal ball might get kind of depressing. But I think that, really, there's a lot of chance events involved.

What the problem is with monarchs is if the numbers are very low and we have a catastrophic event-- say, in the overwintering sites in Mexico-- that kills off a lot of the monarchs, if we go from low to even lower, there's a chance that the monarchs wouldn't be able to recover. So what we want is to get the population back up to the point where there won't be such a big risk of that happening.

So right now, holding our own isn't quite enough. We need to do better. And of course, the goal of putting a species onto the endangered species list is that we do things to help it and we're able to pull it off of that list. And we've seen that happen with the Endangered Species Act in the United States, where species have been removed from the list.

Unfortunately, sometimes, they go extinct. But in some cases, they stop being endangered. So that's always the goal with this kind of recognition. But I can't give you a timeline for either the good news or the bad news.

CATHY WURZER: All right. But I appreciate all the information, though. Thank you. It was great talking to you again.

KAREN OBERHAUSER: Thanks a lot. It was good to talk with you as well, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Dr. Karen Oberhauser has been with us. She's the director of the UW-Madison Arboretum. Prior to that, she was at the University of Minnesota, where she was a professor and conservation biologist.

CREW: Support comes from Crayola Experience Mall of America, where kids and their families can color and imagine a world that's all about Crayola crayons. 20 hands-on activities, including melted wax drip art. Visit Crayola Experience at Mall of America.

CATHY WURZER: I could go for some melted wax drip art right now. 12:44. Hey, today marks the first day of Minneapolis's Black Business Week. The event will run for six days and feature a number of opportunities to support local Black-owned businesses. Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal reporter Patrick Rehkamp is back to talk about that story and the rest of the top business news of the week. Hey, Patrick. How are you?

PATRICK REHKAMP: Hey, Cathy. I'm doing well. Thanks for having me.

CATHY WURZER: Good. Well, thanks for coming back. Tell me more about Black Business Week.

PATRICK REHKAMP: Yeah, so the city of Minneapolis is supporting this. And it's a host of different events across the city, runs from today through July 31. It's six days. And it's sort of anything and everything Black business. It's a lot of events around roundtables, networking events, clinics, and best practices.

They're primarily taking place in parts of South Minneapolis and North Minneapolis. The best bet is to just check out the city's website or go to ARS to see all the different events, because there's quite a few of them. And what's the focus here? It's been the second time that they've done this.

They did it back in 2019 but the COVID-19 pandemic forced a two-year hiatus. And what do we know? We know that consumers have been more inclined to seek out Black businesses to buy from. But they faced a lot of issues during the pandemic-- whether it's protests, pandemic-related issues, they've been impacted pretty hard.

We also know that the number of Black businesses in Minnesota have grown over the past decade, but Black owners face a lot of barriers that their counterparts might not when it comes to growing their business for the limit to access to procurement and contracting. So this event is really out there to help showcase a lot of these different Black businesses, raise exposure, and just overall support the economic health of the Black community.

CATHY WURZER: The Black unemployment rate, as you know, remains stubbornly high in Minnesota, despite the state's unemployment rate shrinking last week to yet another record low. Tell me a little bit more about that.

PATRICK REHKAMP: Yeah. So last week, the jobs report came out. And Minnesota's unemployment rate dropped to 1.8% in June. That is another record low since they started tracking data back in 1976. Some good news and bad news.

Overall job growth pretty flat. We only gained 100 jobs in the month of June-- not a ton. And we've recovered about 81% of the jobs lost since February of 2020, right before the pandemic. However, the state has data models that predict that gap will be entirely closed by the end of the year. Wages are going up.

Hourly wages on average grew about 5.2% over the year. That's good. But when you compare it to 9% inflation, that's not great. And if we break it down by race, there's still quite a few discrepancies. The unemployment rate for Black community rose 7.4%.

It fell to 3.1% for Hispanic Minnesotans, and it was 2.4% for white workers overall. We know that more people are entering the job market, though. The unemployed are becoming employed, which is what's causing this record drop overall.

CATHY WURZER: Say, tell me a little bit more about what's happening in the housing market. I'm kind of curious.

PATRICK REHKAMP: So it's a little nuanced here. Existing home inventory in the Twin Cities is growing. And the number of sales are down compared to a year ago. But the median sale price for homes continues to increase. We saw median home price in June of $380,000.

That's a 9% jump from the same month in 2021, and nearly a quarter higher than June 2020. What we're seeing out there is rising interest rates are causing things to sort of slip down. We saw Twin Cities had a little over 8,000 homes for sale at the end of the month. And that's 10% more than last June.

But overall sales figures are slowing, people are going to spend more for houses as the interest rates go up. It's still pretty messy out there. If you have the money, though, there's a little bit more inventory.

CATHY WURZER: Say, before you go, UnitedHealth is going to drop out-of-pocket costs for multiple prescription medications like insulin, albuterol. How did they come to that decision?

PATRICK REHKAMP: Yeah, so let me give you a little bit of a backstory here. I don't know how much your listeners are going to know, but UnitedHealth Group is a health insurer based out of Minnetonka. And it is the largest publicly-traded company in the state of Minnesota by leaps and bounds. Annual revenues could be $300 billion this year-- that dwarfs any of the other local giants like Target, Best Buy, 3M-- much, much bigger.

They had their quarterly earnings. They earned about $800 million in the quarter-- not bad. And what we saw was they had net revenues of more than $5 million. And they said, OK, for our members that are fully insured, we're going to drop out-of-pocket costs for a lot of drugs-- epinephrine, albuterol, insulin was the big one, though, that they announced.

They know this is a contentious issue. And they said, fine, we'll pick up the tab for it as long as you're a fully insured member. The cost of insulin has drawn the ire of Republicans and Democrats across the country.

CATHY WURZER: Patrick, good report. Thanks so much.

PATRICK REHKAMP: Thanks for having me.

CATHY WURZER: Have a good week.

PATRICK REHKAMP: You too.

CATHY WURZER: That was Patrick Rehkamp. He's a reporter for Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal. Check him out online.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

July is Disability Pride Month. More than 61 million Americans live with a disability. That's about 1 in 4 adults. Here's something else to ponder-- we can all be affected by a disability, be it temporary or permanent, at some point in our lives, especially as we're getting older.

Kelsey Peterson is among those whose disability occurred because of an accident. Kelsey was a yoga instructor and dancer who dove into Lake Superior near Madeline Island back in 2012 when she was 27. She jumped into a shallow spot headfirst and broke her neck in three places.

The accident left her paralyzed from the chest down. Kelsey is a dancer, choreographer, writer, and filmmaker. And she co-directed a very personal documentary called Move Me that's been garnering praise at film festivals across the country, including this year's Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival. Kelsey is on the line. Good to have you with us.

KELSEY PETERSON: Thank you so much for having me.

CATHY WURZER: A very personal film, as I mentioned. How have you had to reconstruct your identity after the accident?

KELSEY PETERSON: Oh man, it's been a long process, that's for sure. I identified as an able-bodied woman for 27 years of my life. And so even when I started this film, I didn't identify as a person with a disability. That took me a while to get there and to see that as a good thing, and a beautiful thing, and a complicated thing all at the same time, you know?

But it's an ongoing process, I think, to shed these layers of ableism that we've acquired throughout our entire lives. And to have them revealed while you are sitting in a wheelchair is really bizarre and surreal. But I think it's just about, for me, being honest and gentle with myself and just digging into who I am as a woman with a disability, as a person with a disability, and connecting with my community more to figure that out, you know?

CATHY WURZER: Kelsey, I really want to continue this conversation, but we're clearly having some technical problems right now. You sound a little broken up. So what I'm going to do here is we're going to put a pause in this particular conversation, my producer is going to call you and try to get you on the phone. Is that OK?

KELSEY PETERSON: Yeah, that sounds great.

CATHY WURZER: We'll call you right back. In the meantime, I'm going to talk to listeners about the forecast here because I have your time. In case you are just tuning in, I know it's a beautiful day. It's going to be a pleasant rest of the week till you get to the weekend. And the hot and humid weather will come back.

Now, for today, sunshine, mid-70s, lower-80s for a high. We have this disturbance coming through tonight. Chance of showers in Western Minnesota-- again, nothing severe, just garden variety. And then for tomorrow, almost everyone's going to see some showers, maybe a little bit of thunder. Showers and thunderstorms across the region, highs generally in the 70s.

Right now, temperatures in the 60s and 70s, except for Grand Marais. Grand Marais, you're at 50 degrees. Kelsey Peterson is back on the line right now. I'm hoping the line is a better one, Kelsey. How are you doing?

KELSEY PETERSON: Hi.

CATHY WURZER: Hey.

KELSEY PETERSON: Sorry about that.

CATHY WURZER: There you go. No, this is just something-- our technical gremlins are at it again today,. You were talking a little bit before we had to make the switch there about your identity-- kind of reconstructing your identity after this accident. And I'm wondering here-- you had the courage in this movie to talk about the entirety of living with a disability.

And I'm glad to see you talked about your sexuality. Very, very few people talk about sexuality and the disabled. Why was that important for you to explore that in this film?

KELSEY PETERSON: My sexuality has always been something that I've been proud of, honestly, and that I've always really enjoyed. And that curiosity and that exploration has been a big part of me enjoying my humanity and digging into who I am as a person more holistically.

So I think, especially in this political climate, I think it's really important to put it out there, that I'm a woman with a disability who enjoys sex. It's like, how dare you? But I feel like not sharing that truth would have been doing a disservice to multiple communities, you know?

CATHY WURZER: Why is it such a taboo subject, do you think, especially when you talk about folks with disabilities?

KELSEY PETERSON: Oh man. We could have a conversation about this for a long time. But I think it's one of those really deep white supremacist, multi-layered, ablistic things where if you don't fit into a certain category, that your sexuality isn't valid, and it isn't important, and nobody wants to talk about it, or hear about it, or see it. And if I can speak my truth and help break some of those narratives down and build up healthier, more accurate, positive, loving new ones, then I'm going to do that.

CATHY WURZER: By the way, speaking of breaking down barriers, did you also have to run, or maybe I should say myths, perhaps, did you have to overcome the-- I think one of my friends who is disabled calls it the super crip myth-- that you are kind of almost a superhuman overcoming your disability? Is that something that you had to deal with in this movie?

KELSEY PETERSON: Yeah. I think we all, those of us with a disability, especially visibile disabilities, deal with that where there's this other thing called inspiration porn. And it's easy to be put in this one-dimensional box and be seen as this sort of one-dimensional character who isn't human-- really, it's dehumanizing.

So I think the more we can have these conversations and sort of serve as a bridge between me personally try to serve as a bridge between the able-bodied and disabled world will help to, I think, humanize disability and those of us who are constantly trying to prove, hey, we're just human living in a different kind of body comparatively speaking, you know?

CATHY WURZER: How healing was it for you to do this film?

KELSEY PETERSON: Very, and really unexpectedly. I didn't know the amount of healing I was going to go through when I did this. And I didn't know the healing that I had to be done, right? I think a lot of us, you don't know what you're still needing to understand-- you don't know what you don't know.

And at the same time, my dad got sick while we were filming. And so I had to process a lot of that. I don't want to say too much for people who haven't seen the film. So it was like I was grieving, and healing, and going through this big catharsis and therapeutic process throughout production and post-production, which was really beautiful and complicated. And I'm super lucky that I had a team to support me in that so I could bring my most vulnerable self forward.

CATHY WURZER: And by the way, as a yoga instructor, I'm still betting you have a yoga practice. Did that help?

KELSEY PETERSON: Yes. It's interesting-- I have a small yoga practice in the morning, and it's definitely one that I'm working on expanding. I'm actually starting to teach again up here on Madeline Island where I live. Because other than Matthew Sanford, whose classes I'm starting to take again, I don't know a lot of people who teach accessible, adaptive yoga. But I think my meditative process was probably the biggest for me. Meditation really helped me stay centered, and grounded, and open to what I was going through, and really listen to myself.

CATHY WURZER: And by the way, Kelsey, for folks who've not seen the film, where can they see it?

KELSEY PETERSON: So we'll be on Independent Lens on November 7.

CATHY WURZER: Good.

KELSEY PETERSON: And other than that, we're going to be at Portland Film Festival in October. So yeah-- as of now, those are the options. And hopefully there will be more soon.

CATHY WURZER: Independent Lens, that's fantastic. Kelsey, I've appreciated the conversation. I'm so sorry about the technical problems early on in our chat. Thank you so much and best of luck to you.

KELSEY PETERSON: No, thank you so much. We're surrendering to the flow, we're going with the flow. It's all good.

CATHY WURZER: That's exactly right. All right, take care of yourself. Thank you. Kelsey Peterson, she's the co-director and subject of the documentary film Move Me. She is the Co-director, Choreographer, and Dancer on A Cripples Dance. It's a live music and dance production featuring differently abled artists.

Glad you've been with us here on Minnesota Now. By the way, if you have comments or questions about what you've heard on the air or if you have ideas about who we should talk to, well, we've got an email address for you. MinnesotaNow@MPR.org. We read all of your messages. I'm glad you've been with us. I hope you have a good rest of your day. This is MPR News.

Support for Minnesota Now comes from True Stone Financial Credit Union, dedicated to giving back to the community since 1939. Full service banking is available at 23 locations and online at TrueStone.org. True Stone is an equal housing opportunity lender insured by NCUA. Sunshine, 73 degrees right now at MPR News, 91.1 KNOW Minneapolis Saint Paul.

It's going to be a decent rest of the day. The high should top out at around 80. Southwest winds 5 to 10. A little warmer overnight-- it got a little chilly overnight, didn't it? Mid-60s for an overnight low tonight. Tomorrow, upper-70s for a high. I mentioned showers and thunderstorms-- we're going to see that here in the Twin Cities-- at least at this point, a 50% chance, which would be nice.

30% chance for additional rain in the evening. We clear out Wednesday, mostly sunny skies Wednesday with a high of 80. Thursday mid-70s, hot and humid, though, by the weekend.