Greater Minnesota

The influx of Hmong-Americans into Walnut Grove, Minn., gave the community a boost, but two decades in, they’re facing the same challenge as other rural parts of the state: How do you give young people a reason to stay?

Of the 65 students taking part in the White Coat Ceremony on Friday to welcome the class, 18 percent are Native American. These doctors-to-be could help address a shortage of American Indian physicians nationwide that some say has reached "crisis" levels.

A small but growing number of Karen refugees are migrating from the Twin Cities metro area to put down roots in places like Albert Lea, Austin, Marshall and Willmar in Greater Minnesota.

A nationwide shift of customs officers to the Mexican border last year forced northern crossings to cut hours. That’s frayed the fabric of daily life in Roseau, Minn., where local leaders are not confident of a return to normal.

Some quick thinking and bold driving by deputies and a local fireman helped avert disaster Wednesday as the bus plowed through Granite Falls after the driver suffered a medical emergency. No one was hurt.

About a quarter-mile offshore from Duluth's Leif Erikson Park, a hearty band of volunteers has carved a skating rink unlike any other on the frozen surface of Lake Superior.

For medical and financial reasons, a growing number of rural hospitals have stopped delivering babies. That's adding risks to rural birth, and making it that much harder to keep people in small-town Minnesota. Grand Marais sees that firsthand.

Nearly 100 years after the publication of "Main Street," some residents are working to preserve Nobel Prize-winning writer Sinclair Lewis' place in the town's history.

Minnesota's amphipod population has been in decline for more than 20 years, and scientists say only five percent of wetlands where they could live actually have a healthy population. Now, they're studying them intensely in an effort to save them.

In the early 2000s, the Keystone XL oil pipeline became one of the most powerful symbols in the fight against climate change. And since then, it's not just local landowners fighting pipelines in their backyards anymore. It's environmental groups, Native Americans tribes, farmers and ranchers, and a crucial addition to the alliance -- climate change activists. But how did it begin?