Rising rent, tuition and grocery bills push more college students to food pantries

Rising grocery, rent and tuition costs are making it harder for many college students to afford food and a growing number are turning to food pantries. More than 10,000 University of Minnesota students visited the U's food pantry last fall.

Minnesota Senate Democrats passed their catch-all elections bill for the year on a party-line vote Thursday. The bill includes measures to shield home addresses of politicians for safety. It also makes voter intimidation and harassment of election officials a felony.

Minneapolis will add a commemorative street name on the city's north side to honor Birdell Beeks. The City Council voted Thursday to add her name to a street sign near the site of her death. Nearly 10 years ago Beeks was killed by a stray bullet while she sat in her minivan with her granddaughter.

A bill introduced at the Capitol Thursday would change how suspicious deaths tied to domestic violence are investigated. The bill is named for Allison Lussier, a 47-year-old Indigenous woman found dead in her Minneapolis apartment in February 2024. Her death was initially ruled suspicious; police later investigated it as a homicide. Lussier's family has accused Minneapolis police of ignoring signs of domestic violence.

A recent Minneapolis auditor's office review of the investigation found procedural errors and gaps that weakened the police response. The bill from Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton, would require investigators to look for a history of domestic abuse in any death initially ruled an accident, suicide or overdose.

Scientists are working to identify what's causing some lake trout in Lake Superior to be severely underweight. They've found a growing number of emaciated lake trout in the deepest part of the lake, more than 1,000 feet down off the shore of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Several theories are under investigation, including contamination and disease.

Go deeper with the latest edition of the Minnesota Today newsletter.

As 2 in 5 college students experience food insecurity, more of them rely on food pantries

A random bullet killed Birdell Beeks; her daughter wouldn't let her name die

Report critical of Minneapolis police handling of Lussier death and Moturi shooting

Researchers perplexed by growing numbers of 'zombie' fish deep in Lake Superior

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