The crew of NASA's Artemis II mission are safely back on Earth after a nine-day mission took them on a trip around the moon and back, sending humans deeper into space than ever before.

To come home safely, the crew — NASA's Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — and its capsule had to endure near-record-breaking entry speeds and temperatures up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Orion spacecraft spent 13 and a half minutes falling through the atmosphere, hitting a top speed of more than 30 times the speed of sound.

Orion performed as designed. The capsule's heat shield protected the crew, and a series of parachutes helped the capsule gently splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego.

With that landing, the mission came to a close, clocking more than 700,237 statute miles, said Artemis II entry flight director Rick Henfling.

Four members of the U.S. Navy Dive team pulled the crew from the capsule. Helicopters plucked them from a raft outside their spacecraft — called the porch — and within 24 hours of splashdown, they'll arrive at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"We did it. We sent four amazing people to the moon and safely returned them to Earth for the first time in more than 50 years," said NASA's Lori Glaze, who leads the Artemis programs. "To the generation that now knows what we're capable of: Welcome to our moonshot."

The crew's flight path took them around the far side of the moon at around 4,000 miles above the surface.

The crew made a number of geological observations and took thousands of photos to help scientists better understand what the moon is made of – and where it might have come from.

But perhaps the most profound vantage point came from looking back at home.

"Trust me, you are special, in all of this emptiness," said Glover, "This is a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call The Universe. You have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist together."

The Artemis II mission was a critical test flight for the Orion spacecraft, which will carry future Artemis astronauts, including those that will venture to the lunar surface.

The crew tested key systems of the spacecraft — its life support system, maneuverability, its heat shield, the toilet. What NASA learns from this flight will set future lunar missions up for success.

"Part of our ethos as a crew, and our values from the very beginning were that this is a relay race," said Koch "In fact, we have batons that we bought to symbolize physically, that we plan to hand them to the next crew, and every single thing that we do is with them in mind."

That next crew will come soon. NASA administrator Jared Isaacman accelerated the Artemis program, charging the agency with launching an Artemis mission each year.

Even before the Artemis II crew splashed down, work had begun at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to prepare for the next mission.

NASA engineering operations manager John Giles oversees the Crawler-Transporter, the massive vehicle that moves the mobile launch pad, and the SLS rocket that launches Orion, from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch site. His team is preparing to move the launch platform for Artemis II back into the Vehicle Assembly Building next week to begin putting together the rocket for Artemis III.

"We really haven't had too much time to relax and reflect on Artemis II, other than thinking what a perfect accomplishment it was," said Giles. "Moving right into Artemis III. No rest for the weary. It's moving on."

A key part of the Artemis III SLS rocket — the core stage fuel tank — is heading to Kennedy Space Center later this month. Parts of the solid rocket motors are already there.

Artemis III aims to launch next year. It'll stay in Earth orbit while testing spacecraft that are designed to land humans on the moon. The following mission, Artemis IV, could bring humans to the lunar surface, for the first time since 1972.

Copyright 2026, NPR

The fishing opener is just weeks away, and state health officials have updated their guidelines on how much fish is safe to eat from lakes and rivers across the state, in an effort to better protect Minnesota anglers and others from harmful pollutants including mercury and PFAS.

The updates from the Minnesota Department of Health include recommendations to eat smaller walleye and northern pike, because older, larger fish tend to contain more mercury.

The revisions also for the first time include specific guidelines for northeast Minnesota, where mercury levels in fish are among the highest in the state, and new suggested limits for the Vermillion River in Dakota and Scott counties in the southern Twin Cities metro area, where PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” have been found in fish.

The changes in the mercury guidelines aren’t because of an increase in levels of the toxin, although mercury levels in Minnesota’s fish have been slowly but steadily growing for the past 30 years. Rather, they’re based on a new analysis of mercury data going back to 1967. It also represents an effort to simplify the recommendations by limiting the number of lakes and rivers with waterbody-specific guidelines.

Public health officials are trying to thread a needle that recognizes the health benefits of eating fish– which contains omega-3 fatty acids that help with heart health and brain function– while also keeping people safe from certain toxins. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin to the brain which can impact learning and memory in a fetus during pregnancy, and can continue to impair the brain through infancy and childhood.

“But we also know that, especially people that are pregnant and planning pregnancy, if they're eating moderate amounts of fish low in contaminants, that often their infants have better neurodevelopmental outcomes,” Angela Preimesberger, MDH’s fish consumption guidance program lead, told MPR News. “And so that's why we don't want people to stop eating fish.”

Health officials offer more restrictive guidelines for people who are especially sensitive to the toxins, including children under 15, and people 15 and older who are or could become pregnant, along with those who are breastfeeding or plan to breastfeed.

In Cook, Lake and St. Louis counties in northeast Minnesota, the new guidelines for sensitive groups recommend that people:

–Do not eat muskie, northern pike 26 inches or longer, or walleye 18 inches or longer

–Limit consumption to one serving per month of bass, catfish, lake trout, northern shorter than 26 inches, walleye shorter than 18 inches, and yellow perch

–Limit consumption to one serving per week of bullhead, crappie, inland trout, lake herring (cisco), whitefish, and sunfish (such as bluegill)

For the general population, the new guidelines recommend:

–no more than one serving per month of muskie

–no more than one serving per week of bass, catfish, lake trout, northern pike, walleye and yellow perch

–no more than two servings per week of crappie and sunfish

–no more than four servings per week of bullhead, inland trout, lake herring, and whitefish

Health officials also added length-based guidelines for walleye and northern pike. Sensitive populations should not eat more than one serving per month, and the fish should be less than 20 inches long. In northeast Minnesota, officials recommend those groups eat walleye and northern smaller than 18 inches.

Some lakes with higher mercury levels in northeast Minnesota have more restrictive guidelines. The department of health added 17-inch guidelines to nine lakes in northeast counties, following questions from MPR News and other media.

Those lakes include Mit Lake in Cook County, and Crane, Colby, Esquagama, Lower and Upper Comstock, and Lower and Upper Pauness lakes, all of which are in St. Louis County.

But those recommendations don’t go far enough for some, especially for Crane Lake, a huge lake on the edge of Voyageurs National Park that’s a popular destination for anglers.

Large walleye tested in Crane Lake contain much higher for levels of mercury than what’s considered safe, especially for sensitive groups. Despite that, the new regulations there are less restrictive than the 15-inch walleye limit that was previously recommended for sensitive groups.

“The mercury is really high in those walleyes. There should be an advisory that tells pregnant women not to eat them,” said Eric Morrison, a volunteer with the Northern Lakes Scientific Advisory Panel.

Morrison would like to see state officials list average mercury content in fish in various lakes, so people can know what they’re eating.

The Department of Health’s Preimsberger acknowledges it can be confusing to figure out which fish is safe to eat, so she recommends checking specific lakes and rivers before going fishing.

“Check before you go and see if there are any guidelines for the particular water body where you're going to fish, whether it's a lake or a river, and then you'll know how many of those fish you can safely eat.”

Mercury is emitted into the atmosphere from coal-burning power plants and other industrial facilities outside of Minnesota and within the state, including six huge taconite plants in northeast Minnesota, which are the state’s largest mercury emitters.

It falls to the earth in rain and snow, and then runs off into waterways, where it’s converted into a toxic form that works its way up the food chain, bioaccumulating in fish. Larger and older fish accumulate more mercury.

In Cook, Lake and St. Louis counties, several factors contribute to lakes and rivers having fish with higher mercury concentrations than elsewhere in the state.

The region, which includes the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, has abundant mucky, microbe-rich wetlands, which provide ideal conditions for mercury methylation, the process that turns mercury toxic.

New PFAS guidelines

Health officials have also added consumption guidelines for fish caught in the Vermillion River from headwater streams in Scott and Dakota counties, including the South Branch of the river, to the Hastings Dam, due to PFAS contamination in the waterway.

PFAS are human-made chemicals that do not break down over time and have been widely used for decades to make products ranging from cookware to clothing to carpet. They’ve been linked to harmful impacts on child development, including low birth weight in infants and a weaker immune system in children. They may also cause changes in liver function and increase cancer risks in people of all ages.

“Eating fish is not your only route of exposure to these contaminants,” said Preimsberger, “but where we find these levels are elevated, we encourage people to eat fish in other water bodies.”

The fishing season for trout in inland streams in Minnesota opens Saturday. The fishing season for most other species in Minnesota opens Saturday, May 9.

Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, is set to host peace talks today with negotiators from Iran and the US, including Vice President J.D. Vance. It's the culmination of weeks of frantic diplomacy by Pakistan's leaders, who pitched the city as the venue for talks even before they took the lead as a key mediator that both the U.S. and Iran credited for helping broker a two-week ceasefire.

The meeting has put Pakistan at the center of the biggest story in the world, spotlighting its normally sleepy capital that has been preparing for days for high-profile delegations to arrive. Ahead of the talks, many in Islamabad were still trying to get their heads around the fact that their country's diplomatic efforts actually worked. "I'm a bit surprised," says 19-year-old Khizra Zaheer, standing in a parking lot of a shopping area near the center of the city. "When did Pakistan get so influential?"

That has been a central question in the past three weeks as Pakistan transitioned from a quiet go-between to an active participant in negotiations between the US and Iran, pulling in leaders from Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and China to support its peace efforts before putting forward a ceasefire plan. The true significance of Pakistan's intervention only became clear when both sides agreed to a pause shortly after a down-to-the-wire plea from the country's prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif.

President Trump and Iran's foreign ministry went on to name Sharif and Pakistani army chief Asim Munir, in their ceasefire announcements. "That was a very rare concurrence, because no other country enjoyed the same kind of trust from both parties," says Rasheed Wali Janjua, director of research at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute, a national security think-tank. "It's a fair assessment to say that both parties are looking for a way out."

Now, Pakistan faces another difficult task during its Islamabad talks: trying to get them to reach an agreement that can turn a fragile ceasefire into something that lasts. If the talks succeed, it could lead to "radically changed perceptions of Pakistan" in the world, says Ishtiaq Ahmad, professor emeritus at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad. That global relevance, especially in the eyes of the US, is something that Pakistan has pushed for, even as it has struggled with political and economic volatility at home. "There is a disconnect between Pakistan's diplomatic achievement and the situation back home," Ahmad says.

There are also potential sticking points for the Islamabad talks that could derail Pakistan's ability to act as a broker of lasting peace, including the Strait of Hormuz and Lebanon – which has come under Israeli attack even after Sharif declared it was covered by the ceasefire. Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam sought Pakistan's help directly on Thursday to bring an end to these attacks.

Daniel Markey, a senior fellow with the South Asia program at the Stimson Center, says Pakistan's political leadership doesn't see Israel as "a force that it wants to reckon with," in part because its policies are deeply unpopular there. Islamabad does not recognize Israel diplomatically, and any signs in the past of that political chill easing have been met with public fury.

So, talks in Islamabad have instead focused on dialogue between the United States and Iran. The U.S. delegation, led by J.D. Vance, and Iran's delegation, led by parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, arrived in the capital Saturday. Pakistan's prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, and foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, are expected to facilitate the talks.

They, along with Pakistan's army chief Asim Munir and intelligence chief turned National Security Advisor, Asim Malik, have been main players in the country's diplomatic efforts – the official details of which were kept under tight wraps until a ceasefire was announced. The exact plan for Saturday's meeting has also been heavily guarded, even up until the morning it is set to take place.

Residents of Islamabad have instead been left reading between the lines about the role their city will play. Earlier this week, a five-star hotel in Islamabad was cleared of its guests for "an important event," and the government declared a two-day holiday on Thursday and Friday, without providing a reason. A more decisive nod to the "Islamabad Talks" is a slew of billboards that have quietly popped up around the city showing Iranian, American, and Pakistani flags side by side.

Islamabad was in many ways built for a moment like this; It's a government city arranged in a neat rectangle that has all major roads leading to the Red Zone, a diplomatic sector housing government buildings and most embassies, which regularly gets cordoned off with hulking shipping containers during moments of heightened security.

On Friday before the talks, the usual containers were absent, but there were other signs that something is underfoot in Islamabad: lines of barbed wire, concrete barriers, and police cars blocking roads – forcing diversions that left commuters stranded. Cars careened the wrong way on major highways to avoid traffic jams, and police frantically waved down their drivers to turn them back where they came from.

Muhammad Waseem, 43, stood on the side of a blocked road with his son, trying to find a motorbike rider who would pick them up and bring them home. He said the inconvenience is a small price to pay for Pakistan's role in the peace process.

"Peace talks are going on, so for this we should compromise."

Copyright 2026, NPR

According to the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District, forecasting mosquito counts “is like trying to predict if there’s going to be a storm in July.”

But the tax-payer funded organization projects that 2026 mosquito counts will be average overall. But it will be another high year for cattail mosquitoes, a species that was responsible for a mid-summer spike in mosquito activity last summer.

And Alex Carlson, the public affairs manager for the taxpayer-funded organization, noted potential concerns for a different species, the Western Encephalitis Mosquito, which is most responsible for transmission of West Nile virus to humans in Minnesota.

Carlson said last year set records for West Nile virus cases: 50 in the Twin Cities and approximately 120 statewide.

He said his organization is concerned about seeing a similar trend this year.

"The species that transmit those diseases usually peaks later in the summer, but last year, they peaked earlier, around mid to late July,” Carlson said. “So, we’re going to be monitoring those species and see if they’re active again this year, and do our best to hopefully mitigate any health issues that they might cause."

Carlson said the virus, which infects the nervous system, is hard to self-diagnose because it presents with flu-like symptoms including fever, nausea, and body aches and pains. He recommends anyone with a lot of mosquito bites who has these symptoms, or who thinks it’s anything other than the flu, seek medical care.

Carlson said mosquito control activity will begin as early as the end of next week.

“So people might start seeing our helicopters out, and then also our staff will be out starting next week, so you'll recognize us with our safety vests that say “public health mosquito control” on the back,” he said.

Tick projections

Carlson said the forecast tick numbers will also be on par with past years.

“But the change for this year is we’re projecting there might be a slightly higher risk of Lyme disease,” Carlson said. “Ticks have multiple years that they survive, and last year's larval ticks were showing a later emergence than normal and higher rates of Lyme disease.”

Carlson said the organization is already seeing evidence that deer ticks, which can transmit the disease to humans, are active.

He recommends anyone venturing outdoors during May and June, when nymph tick rates are at their highest, exercise extra precautions.

Carlson said anyone who develops a bullseye rash or flu-like symptoms after a tick bite, should seek medical attention.

Three Minneapolis environmental activists started a hunger strike Friday, in a push for the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners to close the county’s trash incinerator.

Natasha Villanueva stopped eating as of Friday morning. She lives in the north Minneapolis neighborhood adjacent to the Hennepin Energy Recovery Center, known as the HERC, and she worries about the pollution from the site.

At a press conference outside Hennepin County Government Center Friday morning, she said she’s contacted her commissioners and shown up to several public meetings to ask questions about the incinerator and push for a closure plan. She said she hasn’t gotten a satisfying response from her elected officials.

“We have come to this point because no action has been taken,” Villanueva said.

The Hennepin County board made a plan in 2023 to close the HERC between 2028 and 2040. But activists say the board is working too slowly toward that plan. They say the air pollution from the incinerator needs to stop sooner — especially given its location in north Minneapolis just outside downtown, in a neighborhood where pollution levels and asthma rates are already high.

The hunger strikers say they plan to drink only water during the strike and not eat until the board meets their demands. They’re asking the board to call a vote to commit to a closure by the end of next year. They also want the board to form a community task force to decide what to do with the site after it closes.

Nazir Khan is the director of the Minnesota Environmental Justice Table, one of the organizations pushing for the closure of the HERC. He’s also going on the hunger strike. He said it’s meant to escalate pressure on the board to set that vote.

“All we need is one commissioner to call the votes,” Khan said. “The only way to get them to do that, since they don’t care about the people, is to wake enough people up so this becomes a crisis for them.”

The third striker, Joshua Lewis, said he’s looking at the hunger strike as both a political and a spiritual action.

“No community should have to organize a hunger strike just to demand the right to breathe clean air,” Lewis said. “No child should grow up under a sky marked by waste infrastructure and political neglect.”

The three hunger strikers, joined by a few dozen supporters, went into the commissioners’ offices on Friday to deliver a letter from Villanueva outlining the plan for the strike and their demands. Villanueva asked a front desk worker if she could speak to her commissioner, board chair Irene Fernando; the employee said none of the commissioners were in the building.

Villanueva said she’s frustrated by the lack of response. She said she also did not get an answer when she reached out to Fernando to inform her that she was starting the hunger strike.

“It was part of a pattern of disregard for constituents, and to me, that’s unacceptable and led to our escalation,” Villanueva said. “We deserve a response from our elected officials.”

Fernando’s office did not immediately respond to request for comment from MPR News.

In a statement sent to MPR News, commissioner Heather Edelson said she shares the goal of closing the HERC, but that it will take time.

“I care about the people behind this movement, and I am genuinely concerned for their health and safety,” Edelson said. “A hunger strike is a serious and risky step, and I hope we can continue this conversation in a way that keeps everyone safe.”

The county’s plan to shut down the HERC says a significant reduction in solid waste is needed first. Some of the steps toward that — including banning recyclable and organic materials from landfills and reducing single-use plastics — would involve policy changes at the state level.

About half of the county’s trash currently goes into the HERC. It’s burned to produce electricity, which Xcel Energy buys.

Facilities that convert waste into energy are meant to repurpose trash and divert it from landfills. But activists say it’s not worth the air pollution that comes with burning trash — especially in a residential neighborhood.

Commissioner Edelson said the county needs to avoid putting more waste into landfills.

“Because landfills are not a viable long-term solution given our climate and equity goals, we must first build a stronger, more sustainable waste system, and that work is well underway,” Edelson said.

Hunger strikers say they’re working with a medical team to monitor their health as the strike continues. They’re planning to keep reaching out to their commissioners and set up protests outside the county government offices to keep the pressure up.

Winona County’s main IT system is still down as of Friday, but it’s bringing individual systems back online in a phased approach following a cyberattack to its network Tuesday.

Ben Klinger, Winona County Emergency Management Director, told reporters Friday morning that county operations remain open and staffed, but some services are slower than normal. As systems are verified and deemed secure, they’ll gradually come back online.

“We train and plan for situations like this, and those plans are working,” Klinger said. “Early in the incident, we made the decision to take parts of our network offline to contain the threat. The step was necessary to protect our systems, even though it created a disruption. While technology is a major part of how we operate, it is not the only way we operate. The work of Winona County continues with or without computers.”

Klinger said a lot of county processes are currently being done with pen and paper. However, services within the Department of Motor Vehicles and Vital Statistics are currently unavailable. The DMV, for example, requires an internet connection with the state to operate. If there’s an immediate need from these departments, Klinger said residents can go to neighboring counties for assistance.

Emergency services have been operating without disruption since the cyberattack began Tuesday.

The county is being supported on site by the Minnesota National Guard cyber protection team and is also receiving assistance from third-party cyber security and data forensics teams. At the county level, Klinger said its IT staff have been “working around the clock since this began.”

“This is detailed, methodical work — identifying affected systems, securing the network and restoring operations safely,” Klinger said. “Progress is being made.”

This is the second time Winona County has experienced a cyberattack already this year. Klinger said the systems were restored after the January attack, but that investigation is still ongoing. He said the attacks appear to have been committed by different cybercriminals.

Klinger addressed the question he said many are asking at the press conference: How does something like this happening again?

“The reality is cyberattacks are not unique to Winona County,” Klinger said. “They are happening across the country — to governments, hospitals, schools and private businesses. They are complex and evolving events. What matters is how we respond. And I can tell you this, the people working on this, from our local staff to state and federal partners, are committed to seeing this through.”

According to the state’s 2025 Cybersecurity Incident Report, attacks against federal, state, and local governments are rising in frequency and sophistication. In recent years, the city of St. Paul and Rochester Public Schools have been targets of attacks. The report indicates that 269 public entities and government contractors in Minnesota reported possible cybersecurity incidents last year.

“Cyber attackers have gotten really good at hacking humans,” said John Israel, the state of Minnesota’s chief information security officer. “They're finding ways to really trick people. They've turned this into a business operation with very mature teams that are focused on finding vulnerabilities, exploiting them and getting to the maximum impact that they can.”

Israel said that these criminal agents are financially motivated and relentless. They’re generally focused on encrypting and locking down IT systems and stealing data that they can hold hostage – threatening release if the organization doesn’t pay the ransom. Israel said the perpetrators are often part of overseas groups.

Klinger said because the investigation is ongoing, authorities cannot say if the hackers accessed county residents’ personal or financial information nor if the cybercriminals are demanding a ransom.

“We do not want to release any of that type of information [that could] jeopardize the investigation,” Klinger said in an email to MPR News. “Our goal is to hold the criminals accountable.”

In the meantime, Klinger said Winona County is working to strengthen the security of its networks and build even more firewalls into its system to prevent future attacks.

Klinger said he doesn’t yet have a sense for when the attack will be completely resolved, but he’s hoping to know more by next week.

Anthony Edwards had 22 points, with a key 3-pointer late, Terrence Shannon Jr. scored 23 points off the bench and the Minnesota Timberwolves snapped the Houston Rockets' eight-game winning streak with a 136-132 victory Friday night.

Amen Thompson had a career-high 41 points and Kevin Durant added 33 for the Rockets, who have clinched a playoff berth but are still playing for postseason seeding. The Timberwolves are also heading for the playoffs with the sixth seed in the Western Conference.

Minnesota led by 10 with about four minutes left before Houston used an 8-2 run, with four points from Alperen Sengun, to cut the lead to 132-128 with about a minute to go.

But Edwards hit a 3-pointer a few seconds later to push the lead to 135-128 and send the home fans streaming toward the exits.

The Rockets led by five before Minnesota used a 13-4 run, with the first eight points from Donte DiVincenzo, to take a 116-112 lead with about eight minutes to go.

Reed Sheppard made a basket for Houston, but Minnesota scored the next seven points, capped by a 3 from DiVincenzo, to push the lead to 123-114 midway through the quarter.

The 37-year-old Durant has scored 2,026 points this season, making him the oldest player to reach 2,000 in a season. He passed Karl Malone, who did it in the 1999-00 season when he was 36. It’s Durant's eighth season with at least 2,000 points and the first since 2023-24.

The Timberwolves played without Julius Randle, who missed a second straight game with right hand soreness. They used a balanced scoring attack to get the win with seven players scoring at least 15 points.

Rumors and social media posts have launched endless theories about trades, draft picks and player contracts for the WNBA. But one thing is certain: this season will look much different for the league.

Here’s what is known going into Monday’s draft, which is at 6 p.m. on ESPN.

Core designation for Napheesa Collier

On Tuesday, the Lynx extended a core qualifying offer to Napheesa Collier. This all but guarantees that the veteran, an unrestricted free agent, will remain in Minnesota.

Core designation gives a team exclusive negotiating rights to a player. For the player, it comes with a baseline contract of a one-year deal worth the supermax. Under the new collective bargaining agreement, that’s $1.4 million in 2026, though Collier could negotiate different terms. That’s an increase from a supermax of $249,000 in 2025.

Teams can only have one cored player at a time. The Lynx have six other free agents: Alanna Smith, Kayla McBride, Courtney Williams, DiJonai Carrington, Jessica Shepard and Natisha Hiedeman.

Smith, who continued to prove beneficial to the Lynx throughout her two years with the team, voiced interest in exercising her free agency when she recently spoke to media in Australia.

“I’m open to any opportunity, I think. Like I said I think it is about best fit. You know, I have loved Minnesota, but a lot of teams are looking different this season,” Smith said. “I think I am doing a disservice to myself if I wasn't exploring at other opportunities.”

Rebuilding greatness?

Last season ended devastatingly for the Lynx. Collier suffered an ankle injury during the playoffs. She’s spent the off season recovering from double ankle surgery. The timeline of when she will be cleared to be back is unknown.

Carrington sustained a foot injury last season and is expected to be back for the start of the season.

In the expansion draft, the Lynx lost two players. Bridget Carleton, a veteran Lynx forward, was selected as the No. 1 overall pick by the Portland Fire. The Ontario native played with Minnesota since she was drafted by the team in 2019. She was a key starter for most of the past two seasons.

The Lynx also lost forward Maria Kliundikova to the Toronto Tempo.

On Monday, the Lynx have the No. 2 overall pick. Unlike last year, there's no clear No. 1 pick like Paige Bueckers. Instead, there's a host of talent to select from: UCLA's Lauren Betts, UConn's Azzi Fudd, LSU's Flau'jae Johnson and TCU's Olivia Miles. There's also Spanish player Awa Fam, who Lynx Coach Cheryl Reeve had previously identified as a player to watch.

As for players from Minnesota, some mock drafts have UCLA’s guard Gianna Kneepkens from Duluth going in the first round.

Rumors, rumors are so fun

If there is one word to describe the excitement heading into the WNBA draft Monday, it’s possibility.

And all those possibilities lead fans to speculate and share rumors.

Recently, a host of rumors and trades have drawn attention. A balloon company in Minnesota posted and quickly deleted a promotional video on social media earlier this week of a design they made for the Lynx. In the post, a green, navy and blue balloon arch framed shining giant letters that said “Welcome Nneka,” arranged in the team’s practice facility.

ESPN’s Alexa Philippou quickly shared that the former WNBA MVP Nneka Ogwumike was only on a visit with the Lynx, like she was doing with a number of teams.

Ogwumike has had fun with it, remixing famous TikTok trends on her Instagram with the caption “my [for you page] is getting a little too personal.”

On Thursday, Ogwumike sent fans theorizing again after she shared a post thanking the team she’s been with, the Seattle Storm, announcing her departure. It came out Friday morning that Ogwumike intends to return to the Los Angeles Sparks.

Fans of the StudBudz were sent reeling Friday morning after Natisha Hiedemann, one half of the Twitch streaming and basketball star duo, posted a gallery of Lynx photos with a caption saying, “With love.”

No other details have been shared.

Rumors aside, one thing is certain. The WNBA will look much different this season.

State of Minnesota officials said they are making progress in their effort to revalidate nearly 5,600 medical care providers across the state amid federal accusations of widespread fraud in the program that provides health insurance coverage to low income residents.

The Trump Administration froze more than $259 million in Medicaid funding to the state, and it is threatening to withhold billions more annually over fraud concerns. Last month, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approved the state’s corrective action plan, a decision called “encouraging” by state officials.

Nonetheless, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has refused to release the money, and a federal judge this week declined to block the Trump administration from continuing to withhold funds.

In a briefing Thursday, Minnesota Medicaid director John Connolly said the decision was disappointing, but the corrective action plan is underway. The state is evaluating a total of 5,583 Medicaid providers in the 13 service areas that have been determined as having a high-risk of fraud. That includes checking their licenses and conducting unannounced inspections.

So far, 550 health care providers have completed the process and have been approved. About 2,500 providers — a little less than half — have not responded yet or have incomplete applications. And 160 have been disenrolled — Connolly said most of them were inactive.

“We're approaching disenrollment much more aggressively than we have in the past, but it's imperative that we meet the federal government's requirement to execute this corrective action plan,” he said.

Late last year, then-U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson alleged that $9 billion in fraud had been committed by Minnesota Medicaid providers, but he provided no evidence to back up the figure and state officials have said they don’t know how it was reached.

“We don't yet have a number, so we don't know that to be true, and numbers that are placed out there at this point are speculative, because investigations are continuing,” Connolly told reporters in February.

He added Thursday that, so far, inspections of Medicaid providers haven’t found evidence of widespread fraud.

“We're finding providers doing the work that they said they would do, and of course, operating as they stated in their paperwork,” he said. “That is the vast majority of providers in the program, and what we found to date in the site visits.”

Connolly added it is critically important that the federal government restore the funding as soon as possible.

“More than 20 percent of Minnesota's population relies on Medicaid for life-saving and life-affirming health care services,” Connolly told reporters Thursday. “We have to ensure we secure the funding for those necessary services.”

The state should complete the revalidation process by the end of May, Connolly said. But it's not clear when the federal government will release the money and how much future funding will be withheld.

“(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) Administrator (Mehmet) Oz and the vice president signaled that they could very possibly do this again in future quarters, in which case we would have another set of deferrals and another set of documentation requests,” he said. “So, this could go on for many quarters.”

Connolly said despite the potential funding shortfall, there won’t be an immediate impact on the services themselves or revalidated providers.

“At some point in the future, should there be a financial or cash flow impact of the state as a result of these actions, it would take an action of the legislature to to stop financing or to stop including that service or benefit in the program,” Connolly said.

The lawsuit was brought by Minnesota-based Hines Immigration Law and nonprofit The Advocates for Human Rights, which argued that Somali asylum seekers were being singled out and moved quickly through the system, sometimes with little notice.

The law firm claimed that since January, the government had placed cases involving Somalis on a separate, faster docket.

“The Somali Fast-Track Policy — which truncates the timeline for non-detained Somalis and their attorneys to effectively prepare their cases and will very likely result in the removal of Somali immigrants who are eligible for protection — irreparably harms plaintiffs, legal service providers with a collective mission of working to ensure access to full and fair proceedings before the immigration courts for as many noncitizens as possible,” reads the lawsuit complaint.

In the ruling, the court said there is some evidence that these cases have been accelerated. But U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols found that the groups bringing the case had not shown enough legal grounds to justify emergency intervention.

And he suggested that the firm’s Somali clients could make a strong challenge in court.

“The unrebutted record does suggest some form of coordinated effort directed only at nondetained Somali aliens,” wrote Nichols. “But the effects of that effort are felt most directly by the aliens themselves, who are not parties before the Court, and who have their own avenues to challenge removal decisions that violate their constitutional or statutory rights.”

The case continues, leaving the faster timeline in place for now.

Red Lake Nation College announced Thursday that it received a $7 million unrestricted donation. It says the gift from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott’s foundation, Yield Giving, is the largest in the college’s history.

The tribal college has two campus locations — one in northern Minnesota and another in Minneapolis.

The school’s board and president say the school will invest the money into a permanent endowment fund, which they say will guarantee the school's financial stability well into the future — following Ojibwe teachings to visualize how today's decisions will impact the next seven generations.

“This is historic and this fund will end the poverty cycle for our college. The key is to put it all in a new fund, and let it grow and build, so we can get it to a point where we can use it to support us for anything we need,” said RLNC board chairman Delwyn Holthusen Jr.

Holthusen says the money in the endowment will only be used in “extreme emergencies.” If money were to be taken out, school leaders say it will be paid back with interest, to allow the fund to continuously grow over the next several decades.

Tight internal restrictions have also been placed on withdrawals. According to a press release, college board members must all agree to taking out funds from the endowment.

Chief Dan King is RLNC’s president. He says the endowment is the start to “ending poverty” for the college, which receives a quarter of its funding from private donations annually.

“I am so proud of our RLNC Board for having the courage and vision to look out for the long-term financial sustainability of our current and all future RLNC students,” King said.

After 35 years, the school estimates the endowment will reach $224 million.

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

In Minnesota, the final step to becoming a U.S. citizen is becoming harder to reach.

Oath ceremonies – once large, celebratory events – have dropped significantly in both size and frequency over the past year – as the federal government delays or cancels some of them.

For many applicants, that means waiting without a clear timeline after already being approved for citizenship.

Just over a year ago, Minnesota regularly held large, public naturalization ceremonies, often with hundreds of people at a time.

Amy Perna, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Minnesota, says that has changed dramatically.

She says there used to be about four ceremonies each month, but now it’s down to just one – a drop the U.S. District Court of Minnesota has also confirmed.

The number of new citizens coming through those ceremonies has also fallen.

“In March of 2025 the League registered 1,037 new citizens to vote. The following month, in April of 2025, we were down to 214. This year, there are even less so. In January of this year, we registered 38 new citizens to vote. February was 40, March was 52,” Perna said.

That’s a steep decline from roughly 500 people per ceremony just a year ago to just a few dozen today.

Perna says the change has been noticeable and emotional.

“It's really, it's sad for us. It's sad to see the numbers dwindle so much, and to wonder why,” she said.

The League, which has registered new citizens to vote at ceremonies for decades, says it has not received a clear explanation for the shift.

A slowdown seen nationwide

The changes in Minnesota reflect a broader pattern.

Federal officials have canceled a growing number of naturalization interviews and oath ceremonies in the Twin Cities and across the country in recent months.

Immigration attorney David Wilson says the slowdown is showing up clearly in his caseload.

“Back in October, there was a series of oath ceremonies that were scheduled and then were suddenly canceled without any explanation,” he said. “And it wasn't just one or two. It felt like all of them.”

Since then, he says, very few of his clients have actually made it through – only two out of about 100 who haven't been scheduled for a ceremony.

"The number is growing every day. There is a large contingent of people out there in the cities who were expecting to become citizens in 2025 and are still waiting at this point in 2026 just to do the ceremony,” Wilson said.

And even earlier steps in the process appear to be slowing down.

Wilson points to increased scrutiny from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

“There is a backlog building. The agency is doing some extra vetting. It's clear that they're asking different questions than they used to."

What’s behind the slowdown

In a statement to MPR News, USCIS says the agency is implementing “rigorous screening and vetting processes,” including expanded background checks, stricter English requirements, and efforts to ensure applicants demonstrate “good moral character.”

Nationally, some policy changes have included pauses or additional reviews for certain groups of applicants, contributing to delays.

Wilson says he’s seeing signs of that increased scrutiny in practice.

“The agency is doing some extra vetting. They're asking different questions than they used to,” he said.

Legal pressure may be building

As delays stretch on, some applicants are starting to push back in court.

Wilson says people who have already been interviewed may have legal options.

“The 120 day clock has run for most of these people,” he said, referring to a federal provision that allows applicants to seek judicial action if a decision isn’t made in time.

He expects to see more lawsuits in the coming months.

In some cases, federal judges can step in and complete the naturalization process themselves.

Stuck at the final step

The delays are especially significant because the oath ceremony is required to officially become a citizen.

“You are not a U.S. citizen until you take the Oath of Allegiance,” according to USCIS guidance.

For many applicants, reaching that point takes years.

Perna says the ceremony marks a major life milestone.

“It marks the end of a long journey and the beginning of another one.”

But when ceremonies are canceled or delayed, that moment is put on hold.

Wilson says that uncertainty can take a toll.

“They were told they were approved, they got a notice when they left the interview. You know, ‘you've been approved, everything looks great. We'll contact you for the ceremony.’ And subsequent to that, they're told ‘your ceremony is canceled,’ but they're not told why.”

An uncertain path forward

For now, ceremonies are still happening in Minnesota – but on a much smaller scale.

Advocates say the lack of transparency has made it difficult to understand whether the slowdown is temporary or part of a longer-term shift.

And for those waiting to take the oath, the finish line remains just out of reach.

A federal judge in St. Paul on Thursday gave the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security until May 1 to provide the court with evidence related to the Jan. 7 killing of Renee Good. The decision does not make the material public.

The order from U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan stems from the case of Roberto Muñoz-Guatemala, an undocumented immigrant whom a jury convicted of using his vehicle to drag and injure ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Bloomington on June 17, 2025.

Immigration authorities had sought to deport Muñoz-Guatemala, 40, after he pleaded guilty in 2023 to repeatedly sexually assaulting his 16-year-old stepdaughter. In a criminal complaint affidavit, federal prosecutors said that local authorities did not honor an immigration detainer request for Muñoz-Guatemala.

Prosecutors said that Muñoz-Guatemala dragged the agent about 100 yards in the course of about 12 seconds. Ross suffered a “substantial wound” on his right arm that required dozens of stitches.

Nearly seven months later, Ross killed protester Renee Good in Minneapolis. Trump Administration officials have claimed that Ross fired in self-defense, but video shows Good turning her vehicle as she drives away from him.

Over prosecutors' objections, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Bryan ordered the government to turn over unredacted investigative materials from the Good shooting as well as Ross' personnel file to a magistrate judge. The magistrate judge is expected to review the evidence to determine if Muñoz-Guatemala can use any of it for his defense at sentencing or to request a new trial. Muñoz-Guatemala is being held in the Sherburne County Jail.

In a February motion to request the evidence, defense attorney Eric Newmark writes that any interview that investigators may have conducted with Ross after the Good killing “could have bearing on Ross’ motive or intent when he approached [Muñoz-Guatemala’s] vehicle and escalated the situation using force and could potentially form the basis for a new trial.”

In his order, Bryan notes that the U.S. Sentencing Commission Guidelines provide that if a “victim’s wrongful conduct contributed significantly to provoking the offense behavior,” a defendant could be eligible for a reduced sentence.

In March, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison sued the federal government in an effort to force the Trump Administration to share evidence with state investigators related to the killings of Good and Alex Pretti, and the nonfatal shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis.

State auditors this week said they have “significant concerns” about the Department of Natural Resources’ plan to rollout a new app-based system that will allow hunters, fishers, boaters and users of off-road vehicles to purchase licenses on their smartphones.

“I think there’s issues all over the place,” said Joe Sass, IT audit director for the Office of the Legislative Auditor, which released a special examination of the system Wednesday.

The electronic licensing system, or ELS, was originally planned to launch in March of last year, but it has experienced significant problems and delays throughout the development process.

According to the audit, part of the problem is the sheer amount of data that must be handled by the new system.

“If we just look at hunting and fishing licenses, we have about 2.7 million transactions every year. That’s a huge amount of data,” said Kelly Straka, fish and wildlife division director for the Minnesota DNR.

The DNR has not announced a new date for the launch of the system, but are planning to begin a “phased launch” sometime this spring, after the state fishing opener on May 9.

The first phase will include hunting and fishing licenses and the next phase will incorporate boating and off-road vehicle licenses.

“You don’t want to roll it out right before a big opener, right? That’s a huge load on a new system,” said Straka.

The auditors warn that if the issues are not addressed before the launch, many individuals could run into issues when applying for permits. He notes that veterans, those with disabilities, applicants under the age of 16, and non-Minnesotans are especially likely to experience problems with the system.

“These slightly atypical but certainly very common scenarios are potentially more problematic,” said Sass.

The OLA audit indicates that PayIt, the technology company the DNR hired to help develop and implement the app, is partly to blame for the slow launch of the new licensing system.

“The vendor has certainly missed deadlines and is providing a platform that is not ready for go live,” said Sass. “At the same time, it’s the agency’s responsibility to make sure that they’re holding their vendor accountable, enforcing the provisions in the contract, and really getting the system that functions and that Minnesotans deserve.”

The DNR has responded to the OLA’s concerns, saying in a memo that employees and the vendor are working to address the issues flagged in the audit, but the DNR is still moving forward with the plan for the phased launch.

The Minnesota DNR’s Kelly Straka says the app will be ready for hunters and fishers to buy licenses in the near future.

“I feel confident that we will be launching this system shortly after the fishing opener,” said Straka. “I’m confident that we're going to check those boxes certainly before we officially set a date for launch.”

NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen were ensconced in the Orion space capsule when they dropped into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego at 8:07 p.m. Friday. The USS John P. Murtha is stationed near the splashdown zone to help recover the crew.

To get back to Earth, the space capsule had to withstand predicted temperatures of about 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit and slow down from nearly 25,000 miles per hour — or more than 30 times the speed of sound — to a gentle 19 mph or so before splashdown.

The roughly 13-minute journey from the top of the atmosphere to the surface is like "riding a fireball through the atmosphere," NASA astronaut and Artemis II crew member Victor Glover said before the maneuver.

But, he said, it's also a necessary one.

"We have to get back," Glover said. "There's so much data that you've seen already, but all the good stuff is coming back with us."

The crew of four, who looped around the far side of the moon on Monday April 6, took photos and made observations as they passed over the lunar surface. The crew is set to bring that data and more back to the team on the ground.

Nell Greenfieldboyce and Central Florida Public Media's Brendan Byrne contributed to this report.

Copyright 2026, NPR

Defending champion Rory McIlroy picked up where he left off a year ago.

For a couple other big names at the Masters, just making the cut is no guarantee.

McIlroy and Sam Burns enter Friday's second round tied for first after opening with 5-under 67s at Augusta National. Those within striking distance include past champions Patrick Reed and Scottie Scheffler, plus a few others who have come close here in Justin Rose, Jason Day, Shane Lowry and Xander Schauffele.

Further back, a couple LIV Golf stars aren't yet certain of making the weekend. Bryson DeChambeau shot 76 on Thursday, and Jon Rahm was two shots worse.

“It's a hard golf course," Rahm said. "Some of the players might have been able to manage a respectable round, but when you have no feel with the swing whatsoever, it’s just not an easy one.”

McIlroy shot one of his best first rounds ever at the Masters, seemingly unburdened by the pressure of the year's first major after finally winning it last year to complete the career grand slam. Afterward, however, he said — gratefully — that he still felt some nerves.

“I was anxious just like I always am on that first tee. It’s the first round of major season, the first round of the 16 most important rounds of the year,” McIlroy said. “I’m thankful that I felt the same as I always have. I think it would be worrisome if I didn’t feel that way because it definitely still means something to me.”

Burns was at 5 under, and that matched his performance on the four par 5s: an eagle and three birdies.

By the end of Thursday, there were some ominous signs, including a dry forecast that could toughen up Augusta National. Aside from McIlroy and Burns, only three players shot in the 60s.

The par-5 15th hole yielded the fourth-most birdies (21) on day one, but it was also the site of some of the day's biggest blowups. Danny Willett, Fred Couples and Robert MacIntyre made quadruple bogeys there, and Reed's second shot went so far past the green it ended up in the pond that's famously part of the par-3 16th.

“With that hole playing a little bit downwind, even though it wasn’t much wind, you had to land it a pace or two on the green at the most if you wanted to hold it with your second shot,” Scheffler said. “Stuff can happen quick around this place, and it’s really hard.”

Scheffler (70) was 3 under through three but didn't make another birdie the rest of the day. He's tied with Rose, Schauffele and Lowry, all of whom have finished in the top three at Augusta National but have never won.

Reed, Day and Kurt Kitayama shot 69.

DeChambeau, Rahm, Viktor Hovland (75) and Patrick Cantlay (77) better get moving if they're going to be relevant this weekend. MacIntyre (80) is in even worse shape after fuming through a back nine in which he sent an eagle putt clear off the green on No. 13 and shot a nine on 15.

President Donald Trump's administration this week acknowledged it made a significant error in figures it used to help justify a fraud probe into New York’s Medicaid program, a glaring mistake that undercuts a federal campaign to tackle waste, mostly in Democratic-led states.

The error, one of at least a few misrepresentations in its description of the program, prompted health analysts to question how many of the Republican administration’s sweeping anti-fraud efforts around the country were based on faulty findings. It also reflected a common criticism that’s been made of Trump’s second administration — that it tends to attack first and confirm the facts later.

“These numbers could have been cleared up in a phone call, so it’s really slapdash,” said Fiscal Policy Institute senior health policy adviser Michael Kinnucan, whose recent analysis called attention to the Trump administration’s inaccurate claim.

The mistake appeared in comments made last month by Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, in a social media video and in a letter to New York’s Democratic governor announcing the fraud investigation.

Oz claimed that New York’s Medicaid program last year provided some 5 million people with personal care services, which assist people in need with basic activities like bathing, grooming and meal preparation. That would add up to nearly three-fourths of the state’s 6.8 million Medicaid enrollees.

“That level of utilization is unheard of,” Oz said in the video, adding in his post that New York needs to “come clean about its Medicaid program.”

But the real number of New Yorkers who used those services last year was about 450,000, or between 6 percent and 7 percent of total enrollees, CMS spokesman Chris Krepich told The Associated Press this week in the agency’s first public acknowledgment of the error. He said the agency misidentified New York’s approach to applying billing codes and had since refined its methodology.

“CMS is committed to ensuring its analyses fully reflect state-specific billing practices and will continue to work closely with New York to validate data and strengthen program integrity oversight,” he said in an emailed statement.

Krepich said the probe was ongoing as the administration still has concerns with New York’s oversight of personal care services and the Medicaid program and is reviewing the state’s response to last month’s letter. CMS had raised other flags about New York’s program, including that it spends more per beneficiary and per resident than the average state, has high personal care spending and employs so many personal care aides that the job category is now the largest in the state.

Health analysts said the state's high spending reflected both high costs for services in New York and a policy choice to provide robust at-home care. Cadence Acquaviva, senior public information officer for the New York Department of Health, called Oz’s initial mischaracterizations “a targeted attempt to obscure the facts.”

“New York State remains committed to protecting and preserving vital Medicaid programs that deliver high-quality services to New Yorkers who depend on them,” she said.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul said, “The initial claim by CMS was patently false, and we are glad they now admit it."

“Governor Hochul has been clear that New York has zero tolerance for waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid, or any other state programs, and will continue her efforts to root out bad actors, protect taxpayer dollars, and safeguard the critical programs that New Yorkers rely on,” spokesperson Nicolette Simmonds said.

New York probe is part of a larger crackdown

The Trump administration’s investigation into New York comes as it has similarly approached at least four other states, including California, Florida, Maine and Minnesota, with investigations into potential health care fraud. The anti-fraud effort appears to be expanding as voters in the upcoming midterm elections say they’re concerned about affordability.

Trump last month signed an executive order to create an anti-fraud task force across federal benefit programs led by Vice President JD Vance. As part of that project, Vance announced the administration would temporarily halt $243 million in Medicaid funding to Minnesota over fraud concerns, a move over which the state has since sued.

Kinnucan, the analyst with expertise in New York’s Medicaid program, said he’s concerned that the Trump administration’s adversarial approach to targeting fraud in some states “politicizes” a conversation that should be a team effort.

“We want to think collaboratively among all the stakeholders in the program about how we can actually fix it,” Kinnucan said. “We don’t want to have fraud be this political football.”

Oz made other claims New York advocates say are inaccurate

In his video, Oz made at least two other claims about New York that Medicaid advocates and beneficiaries say distorted the facts.

In one instance, he said the state recently made its screening for personal care eligibility “more lenient by allowing problems like being ‘easily distracted’ to qualify for a personal care assistant.”

Rebecca Antar, director of the health law unit at the Legal Aid Society, said the opposite was true — that the state in a rule change that went into effect last September instead made its program requirements more stringent. She said being “easily distracted” doesn’t appear anywhere among them.

Krepich said the administrator was referring to whether New York’s standard for personal care services was “sufficiently rigorous.”

“When standards are overly permissive, it risks diverting resources away from individuals with the highest levels of need and placing long-term pressure on the sustainability of the Medicaid program,” he said.

Oz in the video also referred to personal care services as “something that our families would normally do for us, like carrying groceries.”

Kathleen Downes, a 33-year-old who has quadriplegic cerebral palsy and uses personal care services in New York’s Nassau County, said she was offended by the notion that all Medicaid beneficiaries have family members who are willing and able to help.

Downes, who has been disabled since birth and needs personal care help for things like showering, using the toilet and eating, said she hires both her mother and outside assistants for personal care services, so her aging mother doesn’t have to take on those tasks full time. She said her mother did the labor unpaid for years, precluding her from pursuing other career opportunities.

“He’s assuming that everybody wants to and can just do it for free forever,” Downes said. "And that’s not feasible for a lot of people.”

The Dallas Wings traded Diamond Miller to the Connecticut Sun for Rayah Marshall on Thursday in a swap of frontcourt players.

It's the second time that Miller, the No. 2 overall pick by Minnesota in the 2023 WNBA draft, has been traded in less than a year. The Wings acquired Miller from the Lynx last August.

The 25-year-old Miller averaged 3.9 points and 2.0 rebounds in 15 games for the Wings, who tied Chicago for the league's worst record last season at 10-34. Her career averages are 6.5 points and 2.2 rebounds.

Marshall was the last pick of the second round at No. 25 overall last year and averaged 1.7 points and 1.7 rebounds in 15 games for the Sun, who finished just one game better than Dallas and Chicago.

The Wings have the No. 1 pick in Monday's draft after getting Paige Bueckers in that spot last year. Bueckers was honored as rookie of the year after averaging 19.2 points, 5.4 assists and 3.9 rebounds.

Jason Robertson scored his 42nd goal with 9:25 left and the Dallas Stars held on for a 5-4 win over the Minnesota Wild in a physical and entertaining preview of the upcoming playoff series between the Central Division foes.

Wyatt Johnston, Mikko Rantanen and Colin Blackwell each had a goal and an assist for the Stars, who now at 106 points are four ahead of Minnesota. They were already locked in as first-round opponents, but both still have three regular-season games left to determine home-ice advantage.

Kirill Kaprizov had two of Minnesota’s three power-play goals, giving him 45 goals overall and matching his single-season franchise record at 19 power-play goals. Mats Zuccarello had three assists.

But the Wild had their four-game winning streak snapped in an uncharacteristic way. It was their first regulation loss since March 2024 when leading going into the third period — 61-0-4 in that span.

Minnesota had another power-play chance after Rantanen’s slashing penalty with 2 1/2 minutes left, but failed to score even with an extra skater after pulling Filip Gustavsson out of the net.

Stars goalie Jake Oettinger had 27 saves. Gustavsson stopped 15 shots.

Johnston’s 44th goal with 4:26 left in the first made it 1-0, and was the only Dallas lead until Robertson scored. Rantanen had the tying goal in the third.

Kaprizov put the Wild up 2-1 with 16 seconds left in the first, then extended that to 3-1 on another power-play goal at the 6:39 mark of the second. Blackwell scored and then assisted on Cameron Hughes’ first career goal for Dallas before Ryan Hartman’s power-play goal with 9 seconds left in the second put Minnesota up 4-3.

Stars defenseman Miro Heiskanen never returned after being knocked hard into the boards by Hartman late in the first period. Before that, Heiskanen had hit the puck that deflected off the stick of Joel Ericksson Ek into the face of the Minnesota center who left the ice and also didn’t return the game.

Wild: Play the second of three consecutive road games Saturday at Nashville, which is trying to stay in a playoff spot in the West.

Stars: Play their home finale Saturday against the New York Rangers, the last-place team in the Eastern Conference.

Just wait until the Dallas Stars and Minnesota Wild are playing in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs.

They set quite a tone in a preview that came with a week left in the regular season. The Central Division foes, already locked into a first-round matchup, were ready to get after each other even before the best-of-seven series they will play at the start of the postseason.

“That’s probably exactly what you’re going to expect. Guys finishing hits, taking hits to make plays,” said Jason Robertson, whose 42nd goal with 9:25 to play was the game-winner for the Stars in a 5-4 victory on Thursday night.

“For sure,” Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said. “You knew there was going to be some emotion in the game. They’ve been trying to hunt us down for months, and it’s given them some fuel.”

Wyatt Johnston, Mikko Rantanen and Colin Blackwell each had a goal and an assist for the Stars, who overcame a two-goal deficit and now at 106 points are four ahead of Minnesota for home-ice advantage. Both teams have three more regular-season games before their playoff opener.

There were nine roughing penalties in the game — five against the Wild, four for Dallas — and plenty of other scuffles involving multiple players.

“Every time these two teams play each other it always is a hard-fought battle,” said Wild coach John Hynes, whose team had its four-game winning streak snapped. "You saw some emotion in the game, and I think that is to be expected.”

Until they meet again

The remaining games for the Stars are all against Eastern Conference teams, the next two against the teams at the bottom of the standings — their home finale Saturday against the New York Rangers before going to Toronto. Dallas finishes at playoff-bound Buffalo. which has ended an NHL-record 14 seasons of futility.

The Wild stay in the West, starting at Nashville and ending at home against Anaheim — two teams fighting for playoff spots. They go in between to St. Louis.

Wild’s quick power

Kirill Kaprizov had two of Minnesota’s three power-play goals, giving him 45 goals overall and matching his single-season franchise record at 19 power-play goals.

Kaprizov put the Wild up 2-1 with 16 seconds left in the first, and 14 seconds into the penalty. He extended that to 3-1 on another quick power-play goal in the second, only 16 seconds into the man advantage.

After Dallas got even, Ryan Hartman’s power-play goal with 9 seconds left in the second period put Minnesota up 4-3.

But even that wasn't enough for the Wild. They had their first regulation loss since March 2024 when leading going into the third period — 61-0-4 in that span.

Minnesota had another power-play chance after Rantanen’s slashing penalty with 2 1/2 minutes left, but failed to score even with an extra skater after pulling Filip Gustavsson out of the net.

“How we played, we should have gotten a better result. I felt like we were playing very good,” Gustavsson said. “We went 2-2 against them.”

Their other regular-season matchups

Dallas won 5-2 when Minnesota on Oct. 14, in the Stars home opener a week into the season.

Minnesota won both games it hosted, 5-2 on Dec. 11 and a 2-1 overtime win March 21.

Some hurts

Stars defenseman Miro Heiskanen never returned because of a lower-body injury after being knocked hard into the boards by Hartman late in the first period.

Gulutzan didn't have an update on Heiskanen after the game, but said he didn't expect him to play in the next game.

“We’ll have him looked at tomorrow and the next day,” said Gulutzan, who was asked if he was worried about the defenseman's playoff availability. “Honestly, I don’t know, but any time there’s an injury, especially your top guys, it’s concerning.”

Before he got hurt, Heiskanen had hit the puck that deflected off the stick of Joel Ericksson Ek into the face of the Minnesota center who left the ice and also didn’t return the game.

President Trump accused Tehran on Thursday of falling short of a days-old ceasefire agreement between the United States, Iran and Israel. The reopening of the strait was the main U.S. condition to suspend the 40-day bombing of Iran and followed Trump's threats of wide-scale destruction.

"Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing Oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz," Trump wrote in Truth Social. "That is not the agreement we have!"

The ceasefire has so far had minimal impact on the movement of hundreds of vessels that have been stuck in the region since the start of the war in late February.

Despite the tri-lateral agreement, Iranian officials closed the strait on Wednesday, saying a massive Israeli air assault on Beirut violated the terms of the deal. The strikes killed more than 300 people.

As of Friday morning, only 7 percent of the normal average traffic had been restored, according to Hormuzstraitmonitor.com, a site that aggregates maritime data.

Casting further doubt on the endurance of the truce were continued Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon on Friday and attacks by Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

The Gulf also saw continued strikes, with drone attacks against Kuwait's "vital facilities" on Thursday night. Kuwait's foreign ministry condemned "the heinous attacks" launched by Iran and its proxies, adding that they undermined the ceasefire agreement. Iran's Revolutionary Guard denied it was behind the attacks.

High-level talks between the U.S. and Iran are slated to start on Saturday in Islamabad, with the mediation of Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. Pakistan's government acted as an intermediary between Washington and Tehran to secure the two-week ceasefire.

The U.S. delegation will be led by Vice President Vance. Iran has yet to announce who will be its lead negotiator.

Israel and Lebanon are set to begin direct talks next week, according to the U.S. Department of State. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday his country would continue to fight Hezbollah despite the U.S.-Iran ceasefire.

Here's more news on Day 42 of the Iran war:

Strait of Hormuz | Israel-Hezbollah strikes | Ukraine Shahed drones

Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz draws broad condemnation

Iran's blockade of the vital waterway has made it difficult to track the exact number of ships that have traversed since the start of the war, but it's clear that passage has slowed to a trickle. Hormuzstraitmonitor.com, a site that aggregates maritime data, reported that seven vessels have sailed through in the last 24 hours. Another five appeared to be in transit as of Friday 6 a.m. Eastern Time.

Lloyds List, which tracks maritime intelligence data, reported on Thursday that more than 600 vessels are stuck in the Middle East Gulf region. The near-total stoppage has set back operations to such a degree that "even if traffic returned to pre-conflict levels tomorrow, it would still take more than 10 days to move all vessels out of the gulf," the London-based shipping news journal estimated.

Since the war began, Iran has been issuing warnings to idling ships telling them they risk attack if they attempt to travel through the strait without permission and, in some cases, hefty payment of $1 million or more. The threats have left operators confused and frozen, unwilling to attempt passage, due to safety fears and uncertainty about Iran's new fee system. Questions about who to pay, in what currency, and the legitimacy of a new toll process remain unclear.

Before the war broke out, Iran had no control over the strait. An average of 120 to 150 ships sailed through unimpeded every day, and it was a toll-free international waterway.

Iran's chokehold in the Strait of Hormuz was also condemned by Gulf and European countries. Sultan Ahmed Al Jabar, the United Arab Emirates minister of industry and advanced technology, criticized Iran's tight grip on the channel, in a LinkedIn post on Thursday. "This moment requires clarity. So let's be clear: the Strait of Hormuz is not open. Access is being restricted, conditioned and controlled," he said.

"Iran has made clear – through both its statements and actions– that passage is subject to permission, conditions and political leverage… That is coercion," Jabar added.

He noted that the strait, which lies between Iran, Oman and the UAE, is a natural passageway — meaning it was not built or financed by any state — that is governed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Under that framework, transit is guaranteed "as a matter of right; not a privilege to be granted, withheld or weaponized."

Trump, however, appeared to support the idea of a new toll system early Thursday morning, hours before walking back his stance. He told ABC News that he was "thinking of doing it as a joint venture" with Iran and called it "a beautiful thing."

He added: "It's a way of securing it — also securing it from lots of other people."

Later in the day, the president lashed out at Iran over the idea that Iran had already begun collecting fees. "There are reports that Iran is charging fees to tankers going through the Hormuz Strait — They better not be and, if they are, they better stop now!" Trump wrote in a social media post.

It's unclear if the president now opposes the toll system altogether or if he's unhappy that the U.S. seems to have been carved out of a potential revenue stream. The post came hours after European and Gulf-region allies explicitly stated they are against any tolls or restrictions on the shipping route.

"There is no international agreement where tolls can be introduced for transiting international straits. Any such toll will set a dangerous precedent," a ‌spokesperson ⁠for the U.N.'s International Maritime Organization told Reuters on Thursday.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni also weighed in, saying, "Full restoration of freedom of movement in the Strait of Hormuz is needed, and it must not be subject to any restrictions."

Israel and Lebanon to meet in Washington as Israel and Hezbollah trade fire

Multiple Israeli airstrikes were reported by Lebanese local media early Friday in and around Tyre, a big city on the Mediterranean coast that's south of Litani River, the zone where Israel has said it wants to take Lebanese territory. Lebanese state media also said there have been airstrikes & artillery attacks in border villages, where Israeli troops are holding positions. The Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said it fired RPGs at various Israeli positions inside Lebanon.

The strikes followed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's vow on Thursday to continue attacks against Hezbollah, but also to begin direct talks with Lebanon's government.

"Following repeated requests from the Lebanese government to open peace negotiations with us, last night I instructed the Cabinet to begin direct negotiations with Lebanon to achieve two goals: First, the disarming of Hezbollah. Second, a historic, sustainable peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon," Netanyahu said in a video address Thursday.

The U.S. State Department confirmed it will host a meeting next week to discuss ongoing ceasefire negotiations with Israel and Lebanon.

There has been disagreement among the countries involved in the ceasefire as to whether attacks on Lebanon are a part of the agreement. Hezbollah and its backer Iran, as well as mediating country Pakistan, say the agreement does include Lebanon. But Israel and the U.S. have disputed that.

President Trump said he asked Netanyahu in a phone call Wednesday to reduce his country's attacks on Lebanon. "I spoke with Bibi and he's going to low-key it. I just think we have to be sort of a little more low-key," Trump told NBC.

Vice President Vance, who will lead a delegation to Pakistan for Saturday peace talks with Iran, said earlier that the Israelis were looking "to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon, because they want to make sure that our negotiation is successful." He added: "That's not because that is part of the ceasefire. I think that's the Israelis trying to set us up for success."

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has pledged to restrict weapons to "legitimate forces only." Lebanese President Joseph Aoun says he wants a ceasefire first, followed by direct negotiations.

Israel and Lebanon have fought several wars. They do not have diplomatic relations and treat each other as enemy states. Direct negotiations between the two countries would be historic.

Lebanon, meanwhile, is still reeling from the Israeli strike on Wednesday. Emergency teams continued to pull victims from rubble on Friday, as families shared pictures of missing loved ones on social media and authorities tried to match lists of missing people with bodies. A Lebanese NGO published instructions for what people should do if they find a parentless child. Hospitals called for blood donations as they rushed to treat over 1,000 people injured in the strikes.

Ukraine’s Zelenskyy says its forces helped shoot down Iranian drones

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed Friday that Ukrainian teams sent to several Gulf countries have helped take down Iranian attack drones.

Ukraine has sent more than 200 anti-drone experts to the Middle East to help defend countries from Iranian strikes in retaliation for the U.S.-Israel war on Iran.

Zelenskyy said he had seen video footage from the Gulf of Ukrainian weapons taking down Iranian Shahed drones, which have struck several sites, including U.S. bases in the Middle East over the last month.

He did not say in which Gulf countries the Ukrainian teams shot down these drones, citing security reasons.

In the last couple of weeks, Zelenskyy has visited the region and signed defense deals with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Russia has been using Shahed drones to strike Ukrainian cities nearly every night since its invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. Ukraine has developed expertise to destroy them through electronic jamming as well as using small, cheap interceptor drones to blow up the Shahed drones.

Lauren Frayer in Beirut, Lebanon, Aya Batrawy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Joanna Kakissis in Kyiv, Ukraine, Jackie Northam in Maine, Danielle Kurtzleben, Michele Kelemen and Tina Kraja in Washington, and Vanessa Romo in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Copyright 2026, NPR

Flying by the moon, witnessing an eclipse, and traveling farther from Earth than any humans have before: The four astronauts of NASA's Artemis II mission have hit many milestones since launching from Kennedy Space Center nearly 10 days ago.

Now, if all goes according to plan Friday, they'll have completed their most important one: making it home.

The crew's Orion space capsule is scheduled to enter the atmosphere at 7:53 p.m. ET, just southeast of Hawaii. About 13 minutes later, it should splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego.

To make it there, the spacecraft will first have to punch through the Earth's atmosphere at about 25,000 miles per hour and experience temperatures upwards of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

As mission pilot and NASA astronaut Victor Glover put it: It's like "riding a fireball through the atmosphere."

The trip home

The Artemis II crew — Glover, his NASA crewmates Reid Wiseman and Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — have been preparing for the return home for the past few days, which includes packing up equipment and reorienting the spacecraft for an ideal trajectory that will land them safely in the Pacific at 8:07 p.m. ET.

On return day, the crew will wake up at 11:35 a.m. and begin reconfiguring the Orion capsule for reentry. They will make an additional course correction to fine-tune the return trajectory at 2:53 p.m.

Before entering the atmosphere, the spacecraft will need to ditch its service module — which housed thrusters, solar panels and other spaceflight hardware for the mission. Orion will separate from the service module at 7:33 p.m., which will then fall back to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere.

Orion, if all goes well, will avoid that fate. The spacecraft is set to begin its 13-minute plunge through the atmosphere at 7:53 p.m. During that time, it's expected that the crew will lose communication with Mission Control for about six minutes.

Much of Orion's speed will be lost as it plummets through the atmosphere. As the capsule nears the Earth's surface, a series of parachutes will help it to slow down even further, to a mere 20 miles per hour upon splashdown.

The USS John P. Murtha is stationed near the splashdown zone and will help recover the crew. A team will head out to the floating capsule and install an inflatable raft just below Orion's side hatch. The crew will be examined by a flight surgeon, then helped out of the capsule. From the transport ship, they will hitch a ride back to Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Risk of reentry

There's always risk when returning from space. Glover said that he has been thinking about this portion of the mission since he was selected for it back in 2023, and he's been looking forward to it ever since.

"We have to get back," he said from the Orion capsule Wednesday. "There's so much data that you've seen already, but all the good stuff is coming back with us. There's so many more pictures, so many more stories, and, gosh, I haven't even begun to process what we've been through."

To get back, the capsule must hit the atmosphere at a precise angle.

"Let's not beat around the bush," said Jeff Radigan, Artemis II's lead flight director. "We have to hit that angle correctly. Otherwise, we're not going to have a successful reentry."

All eyes will be on the heat shield — this is the piece of hardware beneath the capsule that protects the crew from the extreme temperatures during reentry. NASA tested it out on Artemis I, the previous, uncrewed mission, and found that the heat shield wasn't performing as designed.

NASA mission planners and the Artemis II team worked on a way to mitigate that risk. Instead of "skipping" through the atmosphere like Artemis I, this mission would hit the atmosphere steeper and faster, limiting the time the spacecraft spends in those fiery, energetic moments of reentry.

"It's 13 minutes of things that have to go right," said Radigan. "I have a whole checklist in my head that we're going through of all the things that have to happen."

Mission success

The Artemis II mission is a key flight test for Orion, and thus far, mission managers have been pleased with the results. The spacecraft has taken humans farther from Earth than they've ever been, breaking a record set by Apollo 13 astronauts in 1970.

The crew tested the manual control of the spacecraft, which will be needed for future missions that will dock with a lunar landing system. The mission tested the spacecraft's life support systems and ability to keep four astronauts comfortable within the confined space.

Artemis II returned humans to the moon for the first time since the Apollo program over 50 years ago. And while some astronauts back then did see the far side of the moon, the Artemis II crew was able to observe it from a vantage point never before seen by humans. Their images and geological notes will help better determine what the moon is made of and where it came from.

While some of the astronauts' observations may help scientists understand the distant past, others will help mission managers better plan for the future. Case in point: The crew tested out the very first toilet to go to the moon, and it quickly ran into issues during flight. Multiple times during the trip, the crew had to use manual urinals instead. The issue, NASA said, was not with the toilet itself, but the system that dumps the urine overboard when it gets full.

The Orion capsule will return to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida after the mission, where engineers will examine the spacecraft after its flight, including a closer look at the spacecraft's plumbing. The team will be picking apart the spacecraft to see how it performed — and make any necessary changes ahead of the next mission, Artemis III, set to launch next year.

Copyright 2026, NPR

This week’s lineup leans toward proximity, with several events designed to bring audiences closer to the work itself. From studio-based festivals and in-development musicals to open artist spaces and interactive cultural programming, the emphasis is on direct engagement rather than distance.

International Festival of Minnesota at St. Paul RiverCentre in St. Paul — April 10–11

The relaunch of the former Festival of Nations brings more than 70 communities together for food, performance and hands-on activities. Returning after a multi-year hiatus, IFest-MN offers a large-scale, all-ages way to experience global cultures in one place.

‘The Full Monty’ at Frey Theatre in St. Paul — April 10–19

Theatre 55 stages “The Full Monty” with a cast of performers over 55, shifting the emphasis toward aging, resilience and humor. Set in Buffalo, the production follows a group of unemployed men who turn to an unlikely solution, balancing comedy with questions of dignity and vulnerability.

Puppet Lab Festival at Open Eye Theatre in Minneapolis — April 10–19

Open Eye’s Puppet Lab Festival showcases new work developed over a six-month residency. The resulting pieces range from experimental to interactive, offering a look at how contemporary puppetry is created and performed in the Twin Cities.

‘The Postman’s Daughter’ at Illusion Theater in Minneapolis — April 11–25

A new musical in development from Minnesota-connected composer Justin D. Cook, “The Postman’s Daughter” centers on the relationship between a new mother and her mail carrier. The production continues Illusion Theater’s focus on developing locally rooted work.

‘Once Upon a River 2026’ at The Historic Auditorium in St. Croix Falls — April 12

Created by Dan Chouinard, “Once Upon a River” combines music and storytelling in a program tied to Earth Day themes. The event brings together performers and audiences for an evening focused on the St. Croix River and its surrounding landscape.

‘Mississippi Valley Orchestra: Fantasy’ at The O’Shaughnessy in St. Paul — April 12

Mississippi Valley Orchestra’s “Fantasy” program features works by Debussy and Bartók alongside Germaine Tailleferre’s “Ballade.” The concert highlights a mix of familiar and less frequently performed repertoire.

‘St. Paul Spring Art Crawl’ across St. Paul — Through April 12 (and April 17–19, April 24–26)

The Spring Art Crawl opens studios and exhibition spaces across multiple neighborhoods, including Cathedral Hill and Hamline Midway. Visitors can explore artist studios, pop-ups and galleries throughout three weekends.

Taken together, these events offer a range of ways to engage, whether you’re moving through a large festival, settling into a performance or stepping inside a working studio.

A new play about the Hmong experience comes as fears remain within the community, following a months-long immigration surge that has forced some immigrants to go into hiding.

“It's just a hard time to make any kind of work,” said playwright Katie Ka Vang, who wrote “HMong Futures: The Future of Us,” which is set to officially open on April 11 in St. Paul.

Vang spent months developing the story for “HMong Futures,” holding community engagement events where members of the Hmong community across generations could share their input about what the show should tackle.

“I always feel like each play kind of teaches me something different,” Vang said. “Even though we're in different generations, we still want similar things. But the way it's done is different.”

The day before “HMong Futures” was supposed to have its first public reading as part of a new works festival, Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents on Jan. 24.

With a show titled “HMong Futures,” concerns about safety for the Asian community led Theater Mu to cancel the reading.

“It was one of the most, if not the most challenging things that I've ever had to do as an artist,” said Fran de Leon, Theater Mu’s artistic director.

In a Zoom meeting with the “HMong Futures” team after the reading was canceled, de Leon remembers sitting in silence.

“They had been so strong and so resilient and stalwart, and in that moment when we had the thing that we love most taken away from us, there was so much pain and betrayal,” de Leon said.

Even though tensions are still high following Operation Metro Surge, Theater Mu is still moving ahead with the premiere.

“This play talks a lot about healing… it just felt right that we would say we're going to go on,” de Leon said.

‘HMong Futures’ in the present

“HMong Futures: the Future of Us” takes place in 2031. It follows three generations of Hmong women on their family farm in Minnesota, where past family drama and generational trauma drive the story.

Throughout the play, however, granddaughter Maly tries to teach the family to navigate hard discussions through NVC — nonviolent communication, which emphasizes empathy and vocalizing one’s needs.

“I don't think that I could ever have this conversation with my grandma,” said actor Melody Her, who plays Maly, noting that discussions of feelings is a struggle for parts of the Hmong community.

“This show is all about Hmong futures… I hope that the audience can, you know, see that this is a possibility,” Her said.

All My Relations Arts gallery in south Minneapolis presents a new solo exhibition by a Lakota artist.

Denver-based artist Danielle SeeWalker says her exhibition, Uŋči Said So, was inspired by the uŋči, or grandmothers, and elders in her life, and their way of storytelling.

“We as Native people, we really take it serious when our grandmas say something. That's it,” SeeWalker said.

SeeWalker, a citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, describes her paintings as having loud explosions of colors, using bright greens, yellows and oranges. Many works feature expressionist portraits of women with a striking feature — a single realistic eye.

“The eye kind of sets the tone, the mood, the vibe of the story — of what the painting is about,” she said.

In one artwork, titled “They Whisper About Her & She Knows,” SeeWalker portrays the experiences of Native women who have experienced lateral violence in their lives.

“Her eye creates sort of a somber-like [feeling] — she's disappointed, maybe sad, frustrated,” said SeeWalker.

Another work, inspired by her own life, shares the experience of raising a child who has mixed heritage. Two figures fill the canvas — a mother with dark hair and a child with lighter hair.

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“It's exploring this idea of identity based on how we look, being mixed race,” she said. “It's a special, personal piece.”

For SeeWalker, having her artwork showcased in All My Relations Arts gallery feels special. The gallery is run by the Native American Community Development Institute, which is headquartered in what is known as the American Indian Cultural Corridor in Minneapolis. The gallery provides a space for both seasoned and upcoming Native artists to share their creations.

She says Native community members often relate to her artwork, which she finds rewarding.

“I have been inspired by and really representing and telling our stories in a way that we don't often hear being told in a public way,” SeeWalker said. “It's art for the people, for our community.”

Uŋči Said So is the first exhibition at the gallery this year. During the immigration enforcement surge, the gallery was used as a donation center for supplies.

Juleana Enright is the gallery and programs manager. They are a member of Lower Brule Lakota Tribe.

Enright says SeeWalker’s storytelling welcomes the community back into the All My Relations Arts gallery.

“It just has a way of really healing something in our soul, really connecting us to our ancestors, and really moving us forward into the future,” Enright said.

SeeWalker sees storytelling as innate and as a tradition to be passed down within Native communities.

“I think a lot of my paintings — people will see it for what it is visually, but when they really dive into what it's about, I think it kind of brings a whole new context to some of these paintings and pieces of artwork,” she said. “That story is probably the most powerful part of it.”

An opening reception will be held at All My Relations Arts gallery on April 10 at 6 p.m. The gallery is located off Franklin Avenue East in south Minneapolis.

SeeWalker’s exhibition will be on display through June 6.

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

Brooks Lee hit a tiebreaking two-run single in the eighth inning for the Minnesota Twins in a 3-1 victory to complete a four-game sweep of the Detroit Tigers on Thursday.

Mick Abel pitched six scoreless innings and Josh Bell went 3 for 4 with a home run for the Twins, who posted the first four-game sweep in Major League Baseball this season. The last team the Twins swept in four games was the Athletics in June 2024.

Gleyber Torres tied the game in the seventh with a sacrifice fly for the Tigers, who lost their eighth consecutive road game. They lost center fielder Parker Meadows in the eighth after a head-to-head collision as left fielder Riley Greene caught Bell's fly ball.

Eric Orze pitched a perfect ninth to become the fifth different Twins pitcher to record a save in 13 games this season, after Garrett Acton went two innings for his first career win.

Abel struck out seven batters and stranded seven runners, including five in scoring position as the Tigers lost their eighth straight road game. Minnesota has surrendered two first-inning runs in 13 games. Only Cleveland (one) has allowed fewer in the major leagues.

The Twins (7-6) moved above the .500 mark for the first time since they were 36-35 last June 16.

The Tigers, who finished a stretch of 10 of 13 games on the road, took the best batting average in baseball with runners in scoring position into the game and went 0 for 11 in those situations.

Up next

Detroit hosts Miami in a three-game series starting on Friday. Chris Paddack pitches for the Marlins, and Keider Montero takes the mound for the Tigers.

Minnesota begins a three-game series at Toronto on Friday. Simeon Woods Richardson pitches for the Twins, and Patrick Corbin makes his season debut for the Blue Jays.

The fire was started in a bathroom at Westwood Elementary on March 31. Students and staff had to evacuate the building.

The school has been closed since the fire for extensive cleaning and safety testing, and won't re-open until Monday. St. Cloud Superintendent Laurie Putnam said repairing the damage will cost an estimated $2 million.

Minnesota state law prohibits children under age 10 from being prosecuted in juvenile court. Police have forwarded the investigation to the Stearns County Attorney's Office to review and consider other alternatives for the student.

Westwood students are learning remotely this week. The district also is partnering with the Boys & Girls Club of Central Minnesota to provide emergency child care to families.

Some community organizations, such as the Great River Children’s Museum and the St. Cloud YMCA, are offering free admission and activities.

“The level of care and coordination from our community has been extraordinary,” Putnam said.

Minnesota lawmakers introduced bipartisan bills this week in both the House and Senate to increase Hennepin County sales tax revenue to fund HCMC and provide additional financial assistance to North Memorial and other healthcare facilities.

During a hearing of the state’s House Taxes Committee Thursday, lawmakers discussed House File 4841 which aims to address HCMC’s dire financial situation. The bill was introduced by chief author Rep. Esther Agbaje, DFL-Minneapolis and co-author Rep. Danny Nadeau, R-Rogers. Numerous individuals testified in support of the bill.

The proposed plan is the first draft. It suggests repurposing the county’s existing 0.15 percent sales tax, which is currently used to pay off bonds for Target Field’s construction, into a 1 percent sales tax. This change could generate about $340 million annually for HCMC, with the remaining funds allocated for ballpark-related investments. Hennepin County requires legislative approval to reallocate these funds as a health care tax to cover ongoing expenses.

“Everybody in the legislature, both parties, know what an important asset this facility is in Minnesota. And there's a lot of support to make sure that we help the hospital be successful, but what that looks like now is just beginning,” said Rep. Nadeau, in an interview with MPR News earlier this week, discussing how the bill will evolve as it moves through the legislature.

Rep. Aisha Gomez, DFL-Minneapolis, co-chair of the committee, said in a statement before the hearing, “I’m proud that the House DFL is leading the way with a strong, workable, bipartisan, and permanent solution to this immense issue. While the precise details of the legislation will likely shift, as long as the House DFL has a say, we will not end this session until we have passed legislation that saves HCMC.”

A safety net hospital under strain

Hennepin Healthcare operates HCMC, which is both an adult and pediatric trauma center and a teaching hospital. The safety-net hospital provides care to more low-income and uninsured patients than any other facility in Minnesota. In 2025, HCMC saw nearly 115,000 patients from across the state, including over 100,000 emergency department visits each year, with many referred from rural and regional hospitals.

Due to a projected $50 million operating loss in 2026, the health system has already cut five medical programs, eliminated about 100 full-time positions, and reduced patient beds by 100, capping the total at 390.

But the financial situation extends beyond the shortfall. Like many hospitals in Minnesota, HCMC has struggled with budget constraints for years and is expected to face $1.7 billion in losses over the next decade due to rising uninsured rates in the state and changes to federal policy, including Medicaid cuts.

HCMC provides 20 percent of all uncompensated care in Minnesota, which refers to hospital services provided to patients without payment. Additionally, Hennepin Healthcare is owed more than $100 million from UCare, one of the largest health insurers in Minnesota, which closed it’s operations last year.

Hennepin County Commissioner Jeffery Lunde, who chairs Hennepin Healthcare’s Hospital Board, told MPR News in February that the health system has reached a critical junction.

“If we do not get approval for the tax, HCMC will be closing. There isn't a question,” Lunde said. “We cannot raise Hennepin County property taxes to cover the gap.”

Workers and lawmakers push for action

Earlier this month, health care workers urged state elected officials to prioritize legislative solutions to protect HCMC from closing. HCMC staff members, nurses, residents and frontline workers, including paramedics and interpreters from across the Twin Cities, demanded that Minnesota lawmakers introduce bills to fund the hospital.

They said that failing to finance HCMC represents a “failure of how we choose to fund care in this state and across America," and without legislative action, underinsured and uninsured patients will face disproportionate impacts.

Rep. Agbaje, said in an interview with MPR News that she has been hearing from colleagues, both Republicans and Democrats, that they do not want the hospital to fail, so she expects this bill to progress.

Rep. John Huot, DFL-Apple Valley, participated in the committee discussion today. He emphasized the need for the legislature to consider a “bigger option”.

“I hate that we're depending on a ballpark tax because we all know in a recession, people don't go to the ballpark,” Huot said. So, I think this is a great bandage, but we need a trauma dressing.”

If you log into prediction markets like Kalshi or Polymarket today you could wager on whether Iran will conduct a nuclear weapons test this year, who will win the Masters Tournament and when Taylor Swift will get married.

The online markets offer opportunities to stake claims on countless future events – from the mundane to the mainstream to the macabre. They’ve taken off in popularity and they generate billions of dollars in transactions.

Minnesota lawmakers say the sites have bypassed state gambling laws and created some legal gray areas around who can participate. They’re aiming to make it a felony to host or advertise a prediction market here.

“In addition to circumventing state regulations on gambling, prediction markets open up placing bets on almost anything from elections to wars to natural disasters,” Rep. Emma Greenman, DFL-Minneapolis, said, “and by allowing anonymous bets on war policy in some cases, it creates an enormous ethics concern. It also makes these markets vulnerable to cheating and manipulation by anonymous insiders.”

Predictions on the sites are not considered bets in the traditional sense because they involve buying or selling contracts among site users. And that’s what’s made the markets tough to clamp down on.

Greenman said Minnesota should act quickly to mitigate potential harm.

“In the last year, we have seen the explosion of this,” Greenman said. “I do think if we wait another year, the negative public health impacts on teenagers, particularly but also the disruption that it has to our legal framework that we regulate gambling on, will be pretty extreme.”

At a House Commerce Committee hearing on Thursday, the Minnesota Family Council, Joint Religious Legislative Council and Freedom Foundation of Minnesota spoke in favor of reeling in prediction markets.

“Prediction markets are the wild west of gambling. It's virtually unregulated, and should be considered illegal under Minnesota's existing gambling laws,” said Freedom Foundation of Minnesota CEO Annette Meeks.

After discussing it on Thursday, the House Commerce Committee set Greenman’s bill aside for now. The Senate State and Local Government Committee advanced a companion bill Thursday on a voice vote.

Some legislators say it’s a fight Minnesota isn’t best suited to pick.

Rep. Nolan West said he agreed the markets are concerning but he worries about litigation that other states have encountered when trying to constrain the platforms. Judges are weighing cases from Arizona to New York and other states in between.

“Perhaps they would rule that the states have the right to regulate it,” Blaine Republican said. “Until that happens, all we're doing is engendering taxpayers to pay for litigation costs that we very likely will lose if any recent court case is determining it.”

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is behind some of the lawsuits, arguing the federal government has jurisdiction to put up guardrails, not the states. The companies themselves have lodged lawsuits, too.

The proposal has bipartisan backing in both chambers. That’s important because any bill needs support from both parties to pass the narrowly split Legislature.

“I think this is something we do not want in Minnesota,” bill sponsor Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, said. “And so this bill would clarify that our law on bets that these types of futures contracts would be illegal under our laws, which I think they are. But this is clarification.”

The Minneapolis City Council on Thursday voted against reappointing Community Safety Commissioner Todd Barnette to his post.

Mayor Jacob Frey said he plans to veto that and keep Barnette in the job.

The council voted 7-6 against reappointing Barnette. Council members voting against his reappointment took issue with his communication with the council, and cited concerns with the police department during his tenure, including the department overspending its budget by $20 million in 2025.

Council member Robin Wonsley said Barnette hasn’t done enough in the role to advance alternatives to policing.

“Year after year, this office has failed to do anything meaningful to advance public safety beyond policing, and time after time, it's become clear that it's just simply not a priority for this administration,” council member Robin Wonsley said.

Frey had renominated Barnette. At the council meeting, he said Barnette’s experience as a prosecutor and the chief judge in Hennepin County are valuable to the role. He said Barnette has been an effective leader in emergency situations, including the shooting at Annunciation Church and School.

“He has this unbelievable sense of integrity, and I can tell you that during some of the hardest moments, especially over this last year, having that sense of calm and clarity in the room saved lives,” Frey said.

The city created the job and the office in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020, amid pressure to reform public safety. The office oversees the city’s police, fire, emergency response and neighborhood safety efforts.

At a press conference after the council’s vote, Frey said council members who opposed his reappointment did so out of “vote trading and political gamesmanship.” He said he believes opponents voted out of frustration with the structure of the Office of Community Safety, and with his policies as mayor.

“It certainly was not about public safety in the city of Minneapolis,” Frey said.

Barnette said at the press conference that he wants to keep the job.

“I feel like I've had a really great opportunity to work on safety for the city,” Barnette said. “I think we built a really good foundation, when you look at the responses we had, especially to annunciation, where all of the training came into play.”

Barnette was appointed in 2023. He was the second person on the job; his predecessor retired after a year.

The council will need a two-thirds majority — nine votes — to override the veto.

At its meeting Thursday, the council also reappointed Kristyn Anderson as city attorney and Margaret Anderson Kelliher as city operations officer. Anderson was reappointed on a 10-3 vote, and Kelliher on a narrow 7-6 vote.