December 15, 2023 - MPR’s Gracie Stockton reports that the Minnesota Department of Transportation announced that its plow-naming event will return for a fourth year. The contest offers people the chance to submit ideas and vote to pick eight winners, with the winning names going on plows in each of MnDOT's eight districts around the state. Some plow drivers are hoping more Indigenous names make the cut.
November 3, 2023 - MPR’s Melissa Olson reports that conservators and artists have worked nearly a year to restore a work of art created by artist George Morrison half a century ago. Morrison’s vision is felt by the people who helped to restore his work, and by those redesigning the building where the mural lives.
October 5, 2023 - MPR News Host Cathy Wurzer talked with Abe Del Rio, the founder of the Minnesota Bigfoot Research Team, which heads up the conference.
September 7, 2023 - MPR’s Melissa Olson reports on Lower Sioux Community exploring reconciliation through an 'honor tax.' The Mni Sota Makoce Honor Tax was created as another way Minnesotans and Dakota people could build relationships.
August 28, 2023 - MPR’s Alex V. Cipolle presents a profile of Jim Denomie, an Ojibwe painter who died in 2022. Cipolle visits Minneapolis Institute of Art to view “The Lyrical Artwork of Jim Denomie,” which has transformed into a posthumous survey of the latter half of the famous colorist’s career; one that skewered mainstream histories and purveyors of injustice, from Fort Snelling to Standing Rock, while championing the joy and resilience of Native communities.
August 10, 2023 - Morning Edition’s Cathy Wurzer interviews Sergey Karachenets, a 24-year-old University of Minnesota med student who spent two months behind the front lines in Ukraine. Karachenets had no military experience but wanted to give back to the country where he was born.
June 6, 2023 - On this segment of ChangeMaker series, MPR’s Nina Moini interviews Davin Sokup, the first trans man elected to office in greater Minnesota. Sokup, 36, has served Northfield as an at-large council representative since January 2023. He’s also a Minnesota State Senate staffer as well as a woodworker and carpenter. Sokup speaks to getting involved in public service and for people to begin dialog with a trans individual to better understand each other.
May 30, 2023 - MPR’s Catharine Richert reports on a support group at Minnesota Correctional Facility-Shakopee that is tailored to the specific grief incarcerated women feel that's often overlooked by society. In this Shakopee prison, women grieve lost children…and work toward redemption.
May 1, 2023 - On this segment of North Star Journey, MPR’s Jacob Aloi talks with Hmong shaman Billy Lor and others about shamanism and its importance in the Hmong community.
December 23, 2022 - MPR’s Hannah Yang profiles the Dakota 38+2 riders, as they make trip honoring ancestors. The group travel hundreds of miles on horseback to honor 38 men hanged in the largest mass execution in U.S. history. The ride also remembers the many others who died as a result of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862.