Minnesota

Polar explorer Ann Bancroft might be winter’s biggest champion. But Bancroft, who’s set records traveling to the North and South Poles, and crossing Antarctica, says the key to surviving our coldest months is to tap your inner child. 

The Arrowhead 135 winter ultra race tests athletes like no other competition. Some run it to test their survival savvy. Others come to test their spirit in the frozen, lonely North Woods. Every competitor has a story.

Food security advocates were at the Capitol pushing for speedy passage of a state emergency food relief bill, with $5 million to feed Minnesotans in need.

Blizzo, Clearopathtra, Han Snowlo and five other newly named plows will soon be clearing snow from state highways. The Minnesota Department of Transportation unveiled the winning names Wednesday. Blizzo came in second to “Yer a Blizzard, Harry.”

DNR officials believe the nearly 400-pound bear was hibernating in a culvert when it was forced out by melting snow. It wound up stuck in deep snow beside a road and farm fields. Passersby apparently tried to feed and dig out the bear.

Minnesota is an attractive target for catalytic converter thieves. A series of proposals to head off their theft and resale is on the move at the Legislature.

Calls for police reform have stepped up again after Tyre Nichols was fatally beaten last month by officers in Memphis. MPR News Host Angela Davis talks about the future of policing with two Black Minnesota police chiefs, Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges and Eagan Police Chief Roger New.   

The Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled Monday in favor of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, and ordered the city of Cohasset to reconsider whether a more detailed environmental review is required for a proposed wood mill.

For our Winter Play series, where MPR News staff try winter activities new to them, Bemidji bureau reporter Mathew Holding Eagle III drove further — and maybe flew further — than anyone else as he tried winter kiteboarding.

Minnesota sits at the intersection of several ecoregions, making it a prime place to catalog bees, some so tiny they can only be identified through a microscope. The University of Minnesota and the DNR are working now on a definitive list of the state’s native bees.