Minnesota Now for Sept. 26, 2022

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TIM NELSON: It's Minnesota Now. I'm Tim Nelson. The US House has passed a $2 billion plan to curb crime. We'll get the crime fighting details and a read on the likelihood that it'll pass the Senate. Early voting is also underway for more than 200 public offices across the state. We'll hear more about what local polling is saying about the issues that voters care about.

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And the annual Nobel Conference at Gustavus Adolphus College this week is focused on the impact of inequality on young people's mental health. We'll talk with the conference organizer about their impact. And a newly opened woodworking space is dedicated to those not traditionally included in the medium. We'll visit the studio. All that and more, including the song of the day in the Minnesota Music Minute, right after the news.

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LAKSHMI SINGH: Live from MPR News in Washington, I'm Lakshmi Singh. Many Floridians, especially residents in the Tampa Bay Area, are launching into a new week in hurricane preparation mode. The storm named Ian is expected to rapidly strengthen into a major hurricane. There is still a lot of uncertainty about its path. But today, Hillsborough County is under mandatory evacuation orders. Elsewhere, residents are being urged to find safer ground. The region is getting ready for torrential rains and heavy floods. The storm could also produce tornadoes.

As of 11:00 AM Eastern, Ian was about 100 miles west of the Cayman Islands, with top sustained winds of 80 miles per hour. It is expected to get stronger. MPR's Rebecca Hersher reports abnormally warm ocean waters in the storm's path toward Florida.

REBECCA HERSHER: Hot water is like fuel for tropical storms and hurricanes. Heat is energy that helps the storm get big and powerful. And hotter water also makes it more likely that a storm like Ian will suck up a lot of moisture, which can mean catastrophic amounts of rain when the storm hits land. Forecasters expect that Ian will move over the Eastern Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday and Wednesday. The water there is about 85 degrees, more than three degrees above average for this time of year. Climate change is causing ocean temperatures to rise. Forecasters say people living on the West Coast of Florida should prepare for potential flooding and wind damage and always have an evacuation plan. Rebecca Hersher, MPR News.

LAKSHMI SINGH: Edward Snowden, the former intelligence contractor who fled to Russia to avoid espionage and other charges in the United States, is becoming a Russian citizen. Today, Russian President Vladimir Putin granted citizenship to Snowden, who has been living in Russia for several years. Snowden is wanted in the US for leaking classified material on the NSA's surveillance operations in the US and worldwide. Some supporters have said Snowden is not a traitor but a whistleblower. Pfizer and BioNTech are asking the Food and Drug Administration to authorize the first booster shot against the Omicron variant of the coronavirus for young children. Here's MPR's Rob Stein with details.

ROB STEIN: The companies are asking the FDA to authorize their COVID-19 Omicron booster for kids ages five to 11. The booster is already available for those age 12 and older. The companies want the FDA to authorize the booster for younger kids based on data the companies collected from adults who got a booster that targeted earlier Omicron sub variants while the companies test the newer Omicron booster on children. But Moderna is also seeking authorization of its Omicron booster for kids ages six and older. It's unclear how much demand there will be from parents. Only about half of kids ages five to 11 got the first booster using the original vaccine. Rob Stein, MPR News.

LAKSHMI SINGH: From Washington, this is MPR News.

SPEAKER: Support for MPR comes from MPR stations. Other contributors include National Geographic expeditions, trips with Nat Geo experts to more than 80 worldwide destinations, including safaris, cruises, and train journeys. Natgeoexpeditions.com/explore.

JOHN WANAMAKER: For MPR News in the Twin Cities, I'm John Wanamaker. The Republican leader in the Minnesota Senate today called for the head of the State Education Department to step down following news of a massive fraud ring at a nonprofit that was supposed to provide meals to Minnesota children. Senate Majority Leader Jeremy Miller said education commissioner Heather Mueller was dishonest at a series of Senate hearings about Feeding our Future. The nonprofit is at the center of a federal investigation. And dozens of people have been charged for allegedly laundering $250 million through the group.

Miller, a Republican from Winona, said Minnesotans deserve answers about the scheme. Department of Education leaders and the Walz Administration have defended their response to improper payments at Feeding our Future. And they've said they acted early to report their suspicions to federal authorities. They said they've been unable to provide much detail about the state's response because they were complying with an FBI investigation.

Advocates for people with disabilities are meeting today in the Twin Cities in hopes of sharing concerns with politicians from all parties. One of the organizers Judy Moe, who is disabled, says caregiver and housing shortages are big problems for the disability community, along with finding employment. In addition to highlighting those concerns, Moe says she wants candidates to know that they are not paying enough attention to people with disabilities.

JUDY MOE: A good portion of their events are not even accessible. We cannot go to them. And so even when we want to show up for them and go to meet and greets and to fundraisers, a lot of the time, we just simply can't go, which says to people with disabilities that we're not welcome in the political process. And that's really what I'm looking to change.

JOHN WANAMAKER: The event begins at 6:00 PM IN Veterans Park in Richfield and will be accessible. A fire yesterday caused major damage to a shuttered middle school building on the Iron Range. WDIO TV in Duluth reports it happened at the former Connor Jasper Middle School in Bovey, near Grand Rapids. Photos and video posted online from the scene shows flames and black smoke billowing from part of the school complex as crews battled the fire yesterday afternoon. Parts of the building appeared to have collapsed. WDIO reports the school was closed back in 2014. There were no immediate reports of injuries or cause to that blaze. This is MPR News.

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TIM NELSON: So members of Congress, Omar, Craig, and Phillips, were among those in the US House that passed four bills Thursday authorizing grants for law enforcement hiring, training, as well as mental health first responders. It was a contentious set of policies that show differences in ideas about how to make our streets safer. Now, these bills have a slim chance of passing the Senate. But I wanted to talk with Michelle Phelps about what they could mean to Minnesota. Phelps is a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota. Welcome back to Minnesota Now, Michelle.

MICHELLE PHELPS: Thank you for having me.

TIM NELSON: So let's talk about these four bills first. What's in them?

MICHELLE PHELPS: Sure. So there's a number of bills that are being proposed. And the most recent news was the Invest To Protect Act. And that would increase funding for smaller police departments. There's also a couple of bills that are in the works in the House, although haven't passed the House yet, that attempt to do things like fund community violence intervention programs and to help train and dispatch mental health professionals to respond to emergencies involving behavioral health, like the new VCR units in Minnesota. So there's quite a few different bills that do quite different things.

TIM NELSON: So you mentioned that Invest to Protect Bill. One of the big features here is money to increase hiring in police departments, particularly those with fewer than 200 officers. We know there's a shortage of officers out there. Can money fix this?

MICHELLE PHELPS: I mean, I think the research says, in some ways, it depends what you do with the money. And I think that's what's been behind a lot of the divides in the House, particularly among the Democrats, is what is this funding actually going towards? How much of it is about increasing the number of officers for these small departments? How much of it is about increasing accountability measures? And what is our goal?

When we say is this money going to fix it, what is the "it" that we're trying to fix? So is it the issue of the rise in homicides in 2020 that's continued into 2021? Is it the problem of police violence? Or is it a shortage of officers? And so depending on what you think the goals are, the money might address different aspects of the problem.

But to answer the question of do more officers reduce crime rates, there's a whole criminological literature for decades that attempts to look at that question. And in short the answer seems to be that if you put more officers on the street, that that can, with the right kinds of deployments in the right kinds of places and the right kinds of tactics, bring down the homicide rate.

But most of that research has focused on big cities, not the kinds of small departments that are the target of this funding. And that research shows that there are costs with that strategy as well, namely that you have more Americans, particularly Black Americans, who are arrested for lower level offenses. So increasing [INAUDIBLE] money for policing can bring down homicide rates in some context. But it also carries substantial costs.

TIM NELSON: You talked a little bit about those smaller departments and addressing other issues in bigger departments and bigger cities. Based on your research, what do those bigger departments, like the Twin Cities, what do they need to make changes?

MICHELLE PHELPS: In the Twin Cities, particularly in Minneapolis, the department is facing a really unique set of circumstances that aren't well replicated anywhere else. We were the epicenter of this mass racial unrest and reckoning after the murder of George Floyd. It is also a context where there have been stark divisions across political leaders about how to move forward with the former city council arguing-- some members of the former city council arguing that we ought to disband the police department.

We're also in the process of negotiating a consent decree with the state and also in the midst of this DOJ investigation. And at the same time, the force is down to unprecedentedly low numbers, below the mandatory minimum written into the charter in the 1960s, because officers have departed, not because the department was effectively defunded. So a place like Minneapolis is facing a really unique set of circumstances. We're also attempting to hire a new chief and building this new structure for the Department of Community Safety that will be the sort of overarching home for the police department.

So if you ask what's happening in Minneapolis, we have a staffing crisis. We also have a mass organizational redesign. And the department is still really working on addressing some of the training and hiring and promotion and oversight mistakes, frankly, that led to the murder of George Floyd. So there's a lot happening in big city departments, particularly Minneapolis. But much of that is happening in other departments, too, as we start to think about, is it possible to shrink the role of the police and really reduce police violence, especially lethal police violence?

TIM NELSON: Now, you mentioned a couple of other things there, violence interrupters one of them. Minneapolis has had some experiments with that. Is that the kind of things that these bills are aimed at?

MICHELLE PHELPS: So community violence intervention initiatives I think have really risen in popularity over the last two years. And one of the reasons is because they are an attempt to break past the continual cycle where we've had police violence and then community outrage about police violence and then a political response that has attempted to increase spending on policing in order to reform police departments. I mean, critics have rightly pointed out, why do we keep funding police departments when they fail?

And so the violence interruption initiatives attempt to take residents' real concerns about safety and particularly risk of violent victimization seriously but through this alternative route by sending people into the community, who are not law enforcement, who are trained in how to intervene with young people, who are the most likely to be both the victims and the perpetrators of violence, and to interrupt these cycles of violence, so when somebody is harmed in the community, trying to prevent retaliatory violence that can spin out in this network effect.

The preliminary research on these programs is mixed in terms of how much they're able to bring down crime rates and how much they're able to change social norms in really high violence communities. But I would say that their evidence base-- given how recent they are and given how poorly they've been funded, the evidence base is actually fairly strong for them. And I'm excited to see the federal government starting to support these alternatives.

And I would say the same is largely true for these mental health responses to emergencies. Many of those programs are still getting up off the ground, like the VCR unit in Minneapolis, even though versions of these kinds of programs have existed in places for many years. And so I think the federal funding is an attempt to try and think about, how do we resolve these problems without calling in the police?

TIM NELSON: So Democratic representative Cori Bush of Missouri voted against these bills last week. He said in a statement that it would give more than a quarter billion dollars to police without addressing the crisis of police misconduct. There's obviously the example of the 1994 Crime Bill and its consequences, divided Democrats during the 2020 election. Does she have a point? I mean, could this have some unintended consequences going forward?

MICHELLE PHELPS: I think what she's pointing out, and I agree, is that in the wake of the historic protests after the murder of George Floyd, there were all of these calls for really transformational police reform and really new ways of thinking about how to hold police and departments accountable for police violence. And we have largely seen in action at the state level in Minnesota and at the federal level to enact these more significant restraints on police behavior. And so I think, for some, the idea that we're going to spend more money on policing is really an affront to those protests and the protesters because they haven't been paired with these more serious accountability measures.

TIM NELSON: Real quick, what are the chances of this moving through the Senate now?

MICHELLE PHELPS: I mean, I think to the extent that this is seen as a victory for the Democrats, I think it's going to be really difficult for it to make it through the Senate. I think the only thing that is likely to make it through the Senate is a bill that increases funding on police spending with very few accountability strings that both Democrats and Republicans can then claim as a victory coming into election season to say they are the ones that are attempting to respond to the rise in homicides by funding law enforcement. And so I think whatever we get will be a really weak compromise that is unlikely to address the concerns of representative Bush.

TIM NELSON: Well, we'll watch and see what happens. That was Michelle Phelps. She's a professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities.

[MUSIC - NOW, NOW, "SGL"]

(SINGING) You call me crying, the middle of the night. I'm on my knees. You've got me praying for a sign. It's all wrong. She's looking for a fight. Just say my name and I'll come running. Don't get me wrong, I hear your reasons.

And that's our Minnesota Music Minute. This is Now, Now with SGL, a song they released in 2018. The band formed in Blaine in the early 2000s. And they're now based in Minneapolis.

(SINGING) Pick it up, baby, if I'm moving too slow. I got the seat back, windows up. Just say it, I'm yours. Now, every word is heavy. Tell me what you want to know. You're my shotgun lover and I want it all. Every time we talk all night, you've only got one foot in the river. Baby, why? If only I could read your mind. You've got your finger on the trigger, baby. Give in to me. I hear your reasons. You get along over the weekends. But I got it bad. Yeah, I'm not sleeping. And every time I hear her name my heart is breaking.

And this is Minnesota Now. I'm Tim Nelson. So have you voted yet? Early voting started Friday in this year's midterm elections. You have until November 8 to cast your vote. There are more than 200 political races across the state from the school board to Governor that you can mark a ballot for. For those curious about the issues driving people's votes and just who might win these races, we turn to the Minnesota Poll Watch, run by the APM Research Lab. Craig Helmstetter is the managing partner of the APM Research Lab and joins me now. Welcome, Craig.

CRAIG HELMSTETTER: Great to be here, Tim.

TIM NELSON: So we're about to talk about some polling data. But ever since that 2016 presidential election, when heavily favored Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump, there's been a lot of doubt cast on polling. Why should we believe these numbers? Can we trust them?

CRAIG HELMSTETTER: Well, yeah, the polls were off by a couple of percentage points back then, unfortunately in the wrong direction. But since then, the polls got it right in 2020. They were still off by a couple of points but really close. So I think, yeah, we can trust polls. They're really the best thing we have to give us a snapshot of where voters are at.

The biggest criticism that I get at polls when I'm talking about them is, hey, you only talked to 400 or maybe 800 people. How can that possibly represent the opinions of all of Minnesota? And the simple response is, well, did you have any chili this weekend maybe when you were watching the Vikings?

Did you have to eat the entire pot of chili before you decided whether it was good or not? There is this thing called sampling. You don't even have to eat a whole bowl. You can have a little spoonful, and it'll give you a good idea of whether that's good chili or not. And so similarly with surveying, you don't have to talk to every single person in the state to get a good idea of what voters are thinking.

TIM NELSON: And speaking of talking to them, I mean, a lot of us are familiar with the phone ringing and someone asking us some questions. But it's a different age. How are these polls done these days? How do you get in touch with people and make sure you're getting the right people and a good representation of class, race, and gender?

CRAIG HELMSTETTER: Excellent question. And the truth of it is there's all kinds of different ways. Some polls are done by mail. Some are done by phone. Some are done by a computer. Some are even done by text messages these days. So it's a wide variety. And so what I tend to look at is not what's the means by which these data were collected, but what's the track record of the pollster?

And for that, polling is one of these places where you can compare survey results to actual outcomes and see how close you are. And I, fortunately, don't have to put together those comparisons because FiveThirtyEight has done that. And so I tend to look at FiveThirtyEight's pollster rankings.

Just for example, KSTP does a lot of polling here in Minnesota. They have an A-rated pollster that collects all of their data by computer. We just did-- the Minnesota poll, we partnered with Star Tribune, KARE 11, and Minnesota Public Radio here. And the pollster we used is an A-minus rated pollster. They do all of their surveying by telephone. So any kind of way can work.

TIM NELSON: Speaking of that poll, midterms are often seen as a referendum on the sitting president, the party in power. What are you hearing about the election environment in Minnesota?

CRAIG HELMSTETTER: Well, the environment here, there's a lot of talk about how Biden's disapproval ratings might be dragging down the prospects for Democrats nationally. And so Biden is what they call underwater nationally. His disapproval ratings are higher than his approval ratings. So yeah, he's underwater. What does that look like in Minnesota? Here, things are a little bit different. The situation is not so dire for Democrats. Instead of being underwater, Biden's approval ratings are roughly tied with his disapproval rating. So he's kind of treading water.

And then if you look a little bit further, so what are people thinking about Governor Walz? How do those approval ratings look? And Governor Waltz is actually doing better than Governor-- than, excuse me, President Biden. Governor Walz's approval ratings are about 10 percentage points higher than his disapproval. So he's above water, as we would say. So that dire warning for Democrats that, nationally, Biden is underwater, that doesn't apply quite so strongly here in the state.

TIM NELSON: What about Governor Walz? It's been a harrowing public policy environment here for the last couple of years. What do people like or dislike about him? What are you hearing?

CRAIG HELMSTETTER: Well, in this survey, the Minnesota poll that we were talking a lot about-- got a lot of coverage here on Minnesota Public Radio last week-- we had put together a question that asked about 10 issues and said, which of these is really motivating your vote for governor?

And you're right, there were some issues that seem to be weighing him down because the people who are in favor of his competitor, Scott Jensen, those folks were saying that, hey, inflation and economy, those are really important. And a number of them also cited crime as a big issue. So those were the things, apparently, that people who are opposing Governor Waltz have top of mind.

TIM NELSON: Obviously, we will find out in November who wins. We're not necessarily in the business of forecasting. But with the governor's approval rating, over 50%, does he stand a good chance of being reelected?

CRAIG HELMSTETTER: Yeah. The snapshot is looking pretty good for the governor right now. He's leading in the poll that we did by seven percentage points. The poll that was actually right before that, the most recent poll in the state, was a KSTP poll, as I mentioned. And he was actually leading by 18 points in that poll. We don't know, necessarily, if that might have been an outlier of some sort. But certainly two polls, two done by high quality pollsters, right in a row showing Governor Walz with a lead puts him in a good place.

TIM NELSON: And of course, there are a lot of other statewide offices on the ballot, attorney general, Secretary of State, state auditor. They also have Democrats as incumbents. How competitive are those other offices?

CRAIG HELMSTETTER: Well, in terms of the Secretary of State's race, is another one that we look at, Steve Simon is ahead of Kim Crockett in that race. So that's not a huge margin. There are a number of people who are undecided. But seems to have a lead there. On the other hand, if we turn to the state auditor's race and the attorneys general's race, both of those races are tied up here as we get close. So there are some percentage point differences. But we always take into account margins of error. And when we look at those, those two races are tied. So it's going to be an interesting and exciting election.

TIM NELSON: And Minnesota still has eight congressional seats, at least for the time being. Anything interesting there? Which ones are competitive?

CRAIG HELMSTETTER: Well, we have-- what we look at on this Minnesota Poll Watch feature, we don't have a lot of political polling at each of those eight different districts, but we do have national forecasters who want to predict who's going to control Congress. And so they do a lot of modeling to figure out who they think is going to win. And we have three seats, Dean Phillips in the third, Betty McCollum in the fourth, and Ilhan Omar in the fifth, who forecasters feel that it's pretty much a lock. Those incumbent DFLers are going to hold on to their seats.

And then on the flip side, we have Tom Emmer in the sixth, Michelle Fischbach in the seventh, and Pete Stauber in the eighth, that they feel are locked up for to hold on to those Republican seats. We have one other sort of brand new incumbent down in the Southern District, district one, where Brad Finstad is favored to hold on to that seat. So the real exciting one, of course, is the race between Angie Craig, the incumbent DFLer, and Tyler Kistner for district two.

TIM NELSON: Great. Thanks so much for the insight. Craig Helmstetter is the managing partner at the APM Research Lab. For more details about election polling and forecasting results, you can find the poll watch page right at the top of the election 2022 page on mprnews.org.

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TIM NELSON: And it's chilly here in Saint Paul, 55 degrees, Northwest winds at 15 miles an hour. It's 52 in St. Cloud, 49 in Bemidji, 53 in Rochester. And outside Castle Danger Brewery in Two Harbors, it's 50 degrees. High should be in the low 60s in the southern part of the state and in the 50s in the northern half of Minnesota. We may be in for some frost tonight and maybe even a hard freeze in northern Minnesota. But it should warm up by the weekend.

Keep listening to MPR News this week. On Wednesday at noon, there's another public hearing for the January 6th committee in their case against former President Donald Trump. We'll have live coverage and analysis here on MPR News. Coming up today on Minnesota Now, we'll flashback to the 80s for our song of the day. And we'll hear about a conference here in Minnesota all about mental health for young people. But first, John Wanamaker is standing by with news headlines. Hey, John.

JOHN WANAMAKER: Hey, Tim. Hurricane Ian is nearing Cuba on a track to strike Florida as a category four as early as Wednesday. Tampa and Saint Peterburg among-- Saint Petersburg, I should say, among the most likely targets for their first direct hit by a major hurricane in a century. Ian is already getting stronger and is forecasted to move quickly over Cuba's western tip today. It will then turn northward and slow down over the warm Gulf of Mexico water's conditions, ripe for brewing the strongest hurricanes. Forecasters say the storm surge could reach 10 feet. Hundreds of thousands of people could face mandatory evacuation orders.

The Brothers of Italy party has won the most votes in Italy's national election. The party has its roots in the post World War II neo-fascist Italian social movement. Georgia Maloney has taken Brothers of Italy from a fringe far right group to Italy's biggest party. Maloney is poised to lead Italy's first far right government since World War II and become its first female premier.

British currency has taken a plunge, sliding against the US dollar, to touch an all time low. Financial markets are alarmed at new Prime Minister Liz Truss's emergency budget measures to jumpstart the economy. The sweeping package is likely to cost tens of billions in extra borrowing and amounts to a risky gamble to stave off a looming recession. The currency story is playing out against a wider backdrop of the dollar's rally.

The slump threatens to worsen Britain's cost of living crisis, pushing up the cost of imported items. It's also meant that drivers are paying more for gasoline since the beginning of the year, as the pound has been slumping. But that nervousness is not only felt in Europe and Britain. Here in the US, markets are down across the board. The major indexes, the Dow off one and a third percent, the S&P down about 1.2%, and the NASDAQ down one half of 1%.

The Biden administration is using Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to investigate environmental discrimination by state agencies and others that receive federal funds. Experts say it's a seismic shift to use the Civil Rights law to go after environmental discrimination. In one example, the EPA has agreed to investigate allegations that Louisiana officials discriminated against Black residents by failing to control air pollution in parishes that are packed with refineries and petrochemical plants. That's a region some call Cancer Alley. This is MPR News.

TIM NELSON: And this is Minnesota Now. I'm Tim Nelson. There's been more talk in recent years about the mental health of young people, how that's impacted by social media, for example, or by the pandemic. This Wednesday and Thursday, September 28th and 29th, you can attend, in person or virtually, an entire conference devoted to the topic. With us now is Lisa Heldke, director of the Nobel Conference at Gustavus Adolphus college in Saint Peter where she also teaches philosophy. This year's conference explores mental health inequity in young people. Professor Heldke, Lisa, I'll call you-- we go back for years now at Gustavus, my alma mater-- welcome to Minnesota Now.

LISA HELDKE: Well, thanks for welcoming me, Tim.

TIM NELSON: So let's start with the basics. For those who aren't familiar with the Nobel Conference, what is it?

LISA HELDKE: We are in our 58th year, I'm proud to report. And the Nobel Conference started when Gustavus asked the Nobel Foundation in Sweden for permission to name our brand new science hall the Nobel Hall of Science. That was back in the early 60s. At that time, they had a gathering. They invited every living Nobel laureate. And something like 28 people made their way, their difficult way, to the south part of the state to join in a big symposium.

People had so much fun that they said, let's make this an annual event. The college went to the Nobel Foundation in Sweden and said, would it be OK if we call this the Nobel Conference? And at the time, they said sure. This is an honor that they continue to grant to us. We hold this very close to our heart because it's not something that the Nobel Foundation hands out on a regular basis. In fact, we're the only thing in the United States that has that honor. So every year, it is a science and ethics conference. One of our past presenters called it the Lollapalooza of science.

TIM NELSON: Now, you've had a lot of different subject-- a really wide range of topics down there at The Aesthetic Dimension of Space in 1980, Virus, The Human Connection in 1998. I know you're a food philosopher in part. Making good food was the topic in 2010. This year, it's mental health and equity in young people. Why tackle this subject now?

LISA HELDKE: Right. Well, we had no idea, Tim, when we chose this topic how incredibly timely it was going to be. We start planning for the conference at least two years in advance. And this topic began as an exploration of autism spectrum conditions about four or maybe even five years ago. And as the topic got closer to being up in the queue, when we knew two plus years ago that it was going to be the topic, it started morphing. And people started saying there's a whole range of mental health challenges that young people face. And we ought to focus on them.

But we had most of our speakers chosen, believe it or not, by January of 2020. And then a couple of months later, of course, everything blew up. And we started realizing that this topic was way more timely than we realized, culminating, perhaps, in the December 2021 report by the US Surgeon General saying that mental health of young people is a crisis.

TIM NELSON: Now, you're going to have seven presenters at this year's conference. Tell us a little bit about who they are and the different perspectives they're bringing to the question of mental health in young people.

LISA HELDKE: Right. We have a range of people. Primarily, their degrees are in some aspect of psychology. Although, in addition, we have one person who's actually an economist by training. They include someone who was part of something called the Loneliness Experiment, which was sponsored by the BBC and three universities. They explored the question-- they did this giant worldwide survey of, who's lonely, and why? And the startling discovery was young people were among the most lonely.

We have a couple of presenters who are really exploring the question of online racism, online racist discrimination, including Brendesha Tynes, who's been doing this work for more than 25 years. Really since people started communicating with each other on the internet, she's been exploring the ways in which racist images and racist language shape the lives of young people, particularly African-American young people. Also Priscilla Loi, who's looking at the ways in which, for instance, let's see, being inside of a supportive community if you are, say, an immigrant or a member of a minority community can actually serve as a inoculation when you confront racist language, microaggressions, and other forms of racist discrimination.

Right from the University of Minnesota is our own G. Nic Rider, who is going to explore the ways in which positive communities that accept you for who you are are transformative important for trans youth, for gender nonbinary youth, for gender nonconforming youth. I haven't hit everyone, but that's a good sampling.

TIM NELSON: Great. And how do you pick these people? I mean, working under the Nobel name, obviously, you have to have some high standards.

LISA HELDKE: Right. And every year, the committee-- we have a committee that meets. And that committee includes people who are really experts in the field from Gustavus and then other people who, usually I'm in this category, people who are just interested in a topic and want to learn more. We set up a set of criteria. And those usually include things like having earned national or international recognition for their work. Oftentimes, we love to get a Nobel laureate in our mix or someone who has received some similar kind of Prize, the Right Livelihood award, the Field Medal in Mathematics, that sort of thing. This year, Joe Gone, Joseph Gone, who is at Harvard University, is a Guggenheim Fellow, for instance.

This group, honestly, it trends a little bit younger than some year's Nobel Conference presenters. They are people who have received the awards for being the outstanding young scholars in their field, the outstanding graduate students. We have a couple of people who are assistants just sliding into the associate professor level.

And this was intentional on the part of the committee because they realized that these were the folks that were doing the kinds of research that they wanted showcased at this conference. These are the people that are asking about, how do identity and technology, identity and social media, come into connection with each other? How do they clash? How do they collide? How do they support each other? So as I said, this year's group is perhaps a little bit newer in their career. So let's put it that way.

TIM NELSON: Now, there's an online version of this, and an in-person version of this, and a podcast version of this as well. You host a podcast. What's that about?

LISA HELDKE: I do. It's called ScienceWhys, Questions at the Confluence of Science and Ethics. And we started it, really, as a way to have an opportunity to have a longer conversation with our presenters for a few reasons, one of which was really to dig into that question of, how do they see the relationship between science and ethics in their work, something that's, again, the heartbeat of the Nobel Conference?

But also, we wanted our students and high school students who might tune into this to learn about, how did these folks come to be the people that they are? Their paths are anything but straight and direct. So one of our presenters, for instance, spent some time as a high fashion model, spent time in Paris as a model, not something you necessarily think of when you learn that someone has a PhD in psychology.

Somebody else, Joe Gone, hopped through a couple of different institutions before he finally found a home where he wanted to study. So for me, part of the joy of that podcast is really to dig in to say, how did you become the you that you now are? And then also just a great opportunity for me, the philosopher, to say, so how do you understand the ethical implications of your scientific research?

TIM NELSON: And of course, I want to ask real quick, we've got about 30 seconds here, what's next year's conference going to be on?

LISA HELDKE: Insects, little body, big impact. And we're really excited about that one. And by the way, there will be a Nobel laureate, Michael Young, who received the PhD in physiology or medicine for his work on circadian rhythms in fruit flies. Fruit flies, as I'm sure you know, Tim, are the most winningest Nobel laureates ever. They've won it five times.

TIM NELSON: Fantastic. Lisa Heldke is a professor of philosophy and director of the Nobel Conference at Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter. More information on the conference can be found at gustavus.edu/events. And later today on All Things Considered, we'll hear more about the conference from G. Nic Rider, professor at the Institute for Sexual and Gender Health at the University of Minnesota.

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TIM NELSON: And this is Minnesota Now. I'm Tim Nelson. A new study suggests a warming climate will have a drastic impact on fish populations in Minnesota lakes. The study used a large database of fish kills to model the impact of warming lakes on fish in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Dan Gunderson reports.

DAN GUNDERSON: Simon Tye is a PhD candidate in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Arkansas. He's the lead author on this study that examined the connection between a warming climate and fish kills. A fish kill is when many, sometimes hundreds of fish, in an area die in a short period and wash ashore.

SIMON TYE: We were mainly curious how many of these mass fish die offs might happen under future climate change.

DAN GUNDERSON: The study is the largest database available on fish kills and projections on warming water temperatures. Assuming the current pace of climate change does not slow, Tye says the computer models predict a 600% increase in fish kills by 2100.

SIMON TYE: It's pretty drastic. It's pretty startling. And it's worrisome for the future of fish across those lakes.

DAN GUNDERSON: University of Minnesota Professor Nick Phelps helped compile the fish kill database. And he explains what a six-fold increase would mean in Minnesota.

NICK PHELPS: Right now, we estimate that there's about 500 fish kills a year here in Minnesota. The conservative estimates from this research suggest that by the end of the century, there will be several thousand fish kills happening each year here in the state.

DAN GUNDERSON: The change will be gradual over decades with a significant increase noted in the next 30 years. Phelps says warming water increases the risk from the most common causes of fish kills.

NICK PHELPS: The main causes of fish kills here in the upper Midwest are infectious disease and low oxygen. Those are both exacerbated by warmer water.

DAN GUNDERSON: Warming water holds less oxygen. And warmer water stresses fish, making them more susceptible to disease. Tye says they don't yet fully understand the impact on juvenile fish and fish reproduction. And more research is needed to know the ripple effects of warming water on complex lake ecosystems.

SIMON TYE: There are many detrimental effects on the juveniles and embryos and eggs, which we're not going to register in our data sets because nobody's out there recording that.

DAN GUNDERSON: Warming water is a threat to cold water fish species, like salmon, trout, or cisco. But Tye says there's also a significant threat to warm water fish species.

SIMON TYE: Most of the documented deaths were of bluegill and sunfish, major game fish in the region. Those deaths were primarily attributed to a lower dissolved oxygen concentration.

DAN GUNDERSON: As fish kills happen more often, it will become more difficult for fish populations in a lake to recover, says Phelps. If this prediction is borne out through the rest of this century, Minnesota lakes will be very different.

NICK PHELPS: There's going to be a shift from a walley, perch dominated system to a bass, bluegill dominated system as the water warms. And that's because of the impact on reproduction and food availability and everything else. The way we'll see that change happen over time is likely through mortality events, these fish kills.

DAN GUNDERSON: The researchers say these effects could be mitigated if temperatures don't rise as much as predicted. And there may be management techniques to keep bodies of water healthy as the water warms, helping reduce the stress on fish. But Tye says such a substantial increase in fish mortality will be difficult to manage.

SIMON TYE: It will probably stretch the resources of Department of Natural Resources because if there's thousands of lakes that are increasing in temperature, there's only so many that we can devote our time to rehabilitate. So it simply could become too much of a mess for us to theoretically clean up.

DAN GUNDERSON: Tye says, based on the computer models run for this project, he believes the projections in the study are conservative, not a worst case scenario. Dan Gunderson, MPR News, more ahead.

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TIM NELSON: And this is Minnesota Now. I'm Tim Nelson. It's 12:49 PM. So woodworkers out there, you know the whir of the woodshop.

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There's the smell of it, the sound of it. There's nothing like it. But not everyone is traditionally welcome in a woodshop. A Minneapolis shop dedicated to marginalized genders is changing that. Fireweed Community Woodshop reopened last weekend after shuttering during the pandemic. MPR News reporter Grace Birnstengel is here to tell us more. Welcome back to the show, Grace.

GRACE BIRNSTENGEL: Thanks for having me, Tim.

TIM NELSON: So what got you in there?

GRACE BIRNSTENGEL: So I live in South Minneapolis. And I was familiar with the shop back when it was called Women's Woodshop. I knew it was really popular. And to my knowledge, it was pretty unique. You don't actually have to have any experience to take classes there. And I was pretty bummed when they lost their first base in the few months of the pandemic because I knew it was really popular. And a couple of people mentioned to me that it was reopening. And I have several friends who work in the trades and are not men. So I know from them how masculine that world can be, and therefore, how important spaces like these are.

TIM NELSON: Talked a little bit about the trades. Not all of them are the same. Woodworking and carpentry, what's the difference here?

GRACE BIRNSTENGEL: So they're not the same, but there's an overlap in the skills. Carpentry is constructing houses or buildings or other structures and then putting the appliances in and stuff. And woodworking is making things out of wood.

TIM NELSON: And what kind of things are they making at Fireweed? What are they working on down there?

GRACE BIRNSTENGEL: So they generally have three types of classes. There are furniture classes where people are making tables or stools. They have craft classes. At Fireweed, they make baskets, wooden boxes, bowls, wooden toys. And then there are really practical classes that are geared toward renovation. There are a lot of first time homebuyers that go to Fireweed for classes. And one is called Be your Own Handy Person. There's also a Power Tools 101. And then I also want to add that there's a sliding scale for payment. And most classes also have two seats saved for people of color to take them for free.

TIM NELSON: And it's not just reopening. It's getting a little bigger here. Location, I think, much larger, right? What are they doing with it?

GRACE BIRNSTENGEL: So in their old space in the Standish neighborhood, all their tools were on wheels, and they had to be rearranged constantly because it was so small. And this space is triple the size. It's also in a more central location. It's right off the Franklin Avenue Bridge in Prospect Park. And it's really accessible by bus and bike, which I know is something that was important to them for the new location.

I was there the other day. And it's a really beautiful space that has huge windows. It used to be an upholstery shop. So the front of the shop is all these big windows. And you can see the bridge. And there was a sunset. It was one of those pink sunsets the other day that we've been seeing. So it's a great spot.

TIM NELSON: Much better than the shop at Coon Rapids High School, where I went, the cinder block bunker where I learned to do woodwork.

GRACE BIRNSTENGEL: I hope so.

TIM NELSON: But this place is doing quite well. I understand it was very popular before the pandemic.

GRACE BIRNSTENGEL: Yeah. I was told 1,000 students every year, usually, and about 100 classes and 40ish instructors, all-- mostly, I should say, women and nonbinary instructors.

TIM NELSON: And I believe you said you were at a table making class on Wednesday. Are these stationary tools, hand tools? What's actually going on there?

GRACE BIRNSTENGEL: So there were seven students. It's a mix of stationary tools and hand tools, half and half I would say. The students were in their third week of the class. And they were milling the wood they were going to use for their tables, which means, to my understanding, using tools to shape the lumber into wood you can-- or excuse me, shape the wood into lumber, that's the way it goes, that you can use for tables. It was really chill, just people-- they were confident, confidently using power saws, helping each other out. It was a great environment.

And I was really curious what types of people were drawn to that space. And the founder, Jess Hirsch, she said that there's four different categories of people that tend to take classes. It's friends that want to take a class together, not necessarily even woodworking, but that's what they landed on. Sometimes people want to switch careers and get into the trades, so they take a class there.

Woodworking class in high school, like you mentioned, Tim, a lot of the times, young girls or nonbinary people feel unwelcome in those classes or maybe pushed out because they're pretty masculine, like I said earlier. And then there are also people who have-- say they have access to the tools from family members but were never taught how to use them and want to take advantage of that.

TIM NELSON: So I've been at a couple of these places. The Minneapolis Tool Library, I've been to their shop. It's nice. What makes this place different? What brings folks to this one?

GRACE BIRNSTENGEL: Well, I think it's the safety and the support that they can get in that environment and knowing that you can come in, no skills needed, and-- I actually talked to one of the co-chairs of the board there who also teaches spoon carving for people of color. They have classes that are just for people of color. And then she also was taking the class on Wednesday. So here is Vanessa Walton talking about why the space is so important.

VANESSA WALTON: I am really thankful for the space. I'm thankful for our community. I really want to welcome people to come here. We certainly are geared towards women and nonbinary people, but we have classes that are open to all genders. And we try to create spaces that are specifically also for BIPOC folks, too, so they can learn from instructors who represent their communities. I just want to make it clear that we are open, and we are here, and we welcome all people. And so we really want you to come down and take a class, check out our space.

GRACE BIRNSTENGEL: That's awesome.

TIM NELSON: Spoon carving, an art after my grandmother's heart. The pandemic was really hard on a lot of these places that depended on a lot of people to support them, places that help people come together. How does this place make community beyond its walls?

GRACE BIRNSTENGEL: So they didn't actually completely shut down during the pandemic. They switched to doing some Zoom classes where they could. But obviously, Zoom is not an ideal environment for learning how to do woodworking. And most people don't have power saws at home.

TIM NELSON: Hard to be hands-on on the laptop there.

GRACE BIRNSTENGEL: Exactly. So I think it's really community building in that people are together, have actual access to the tools, and can give each other feedback on their projects. And I asked the founder, who I mentioned earlier, Jess Hirsch to tell me more about what you just asked. And here is her on that.

JESS HIRSCH: It is so supportive. People will clap for you after you use the table saw for the first time. If you have inhibitions about a tool, you can ask for multiple demos. We can do dry runs without the machine on.

It's never a space to judge or watch each other in a negative way. We're just learning from each other. And that nurturing space is really cultivated by our instructors and pretty naturally by other students. It's a really supportive place. And I think just due to the goals of the people coming to the shop, I think it maintains that throughout.

TIM NELSON: You talked about power tools here. Do people have to have experience to go to this place?

GRACE BIRNSTENGEL: No. They don't. No experience is necessary for most of the classes. I think some of them you're required to take Power Tools 101 beforehand. But most of them, you don't have to have experience. And everybody there is really nice. So don't be intimidated if you want to take a class. And their website is fireweedwoodshop.org, which has a list of their roster of classes.

TIM NELSON: And that's Grace Birnstengel, a reporter here at Minnesota Public Radio News. Thanks for sharing.

GRACE BIRNSTENGEL: Thank you, Tim.

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TIM NELSON: Thanks for listening to Minnesota Now. I'm Tim Nelson in for Cathy Wurzer. We love hearing from listeners. If you have ideas for the show or Minnesotans we should talk to, maybe issues we should know about, send us a note. We're at Minnesota Now at mprnews.org. We read every email and every forecast, too, whether you like it or not. It's getting colder out there. It's 58 degrees in St. Paul, 56 in St. Cloud, 59 in Moorhead, and 59 in Albert Lea.

In northern Minnesota, highs will be in the 50s today. In the South, it'll be in the low 60s. We should get to 62 degrees here in Saint Paul. Tonight, even colder. We should get some frost in the northern half of the state. We can look forward to the end of the week, though. It looks like it's supposed to warm up into the 70s by the weekend. You don't have to turn on your furnace quite yet. Have a great day.

SPEAKER 6: Stay in touch with local news and weather with the MPR News app. Listen to live radio, read stories, access podcasts, get updates from our team of meteorologists. And enable alerts so you always know when there's breaking news. It's free, works for Apple or Android. Go to your App Store and search for MPR News.

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TIM NELSON: And this is MPR News, 91.1 KNOW Minneapolis Saint Paul. It's 59 degrees here in Saint Paul. It's breezy, Northwest winds at 16 miles an hour. Tomorrow, another chilly day. Might want to bundle up if you're going to be outside. We'll only get to 59 degrees. If you want to learn more about any of the stories you heard on today's show, you can head to our website. It's mprnews.org. Thanks for listening. I'm Tim Nelson. I'll be back here tomorrow.