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By Leah Fabel, KFF Health NewsListen to a conversation with Leah Fabel on MPR News guest host Catharine Richert by using the audio player above. High school senior Joshua Yang understands sacrifice. When he was midway through 10th grade, his mom survived a terrible car crash. But her body developed tremors, and she lost mobility. After countless appointments, doctors diagnosed her with Parkinson’s disease, saying it was likely triggered by brain injuries sustained in the wreck. At 15, Yang, an aspiring baseball player and member of his school’s debate team, took on a new role: his mother’s caregiver. Researchers estimate that Yang, now 18, counted among at least 5.4 million U.S. children who provide care to an adult in their home. As state officials eye federal Medicaid funding cuts that could drastically reduce home care services for those who are disabled or have chronic health conditions, many predict that number will rise. That’s bad news for kids: Studies show that when young people take on care for adults with medical conditions, their health and academic outcomes decline. At the same time, their loved ones receive untrained care. “It all fell to me,” said Yang, whose sisters were 9 and 10 at the time of their mom’s accident, and whose stepdad worked nights. His grades fell and he quit after-school activities, he said, unable to spare the time. Early on, Yang found reprieve from a personal care nurse who gave them supplies, such as adult diapers, and advice on items to purchase, such as a chair for the shower. And for about a year, Yang was able to work for a personal care agency and earn $1,000 a month caring for his mom — money that went toward her medication and family needs. But at the beginning of 11th grade, a change to his mom’s insurance ended her personal care benefit, sending him into a runaround with his county’s Medicaid office in Minnesota. “For a solid month I was on my phone, on hold, in the back of the class, waiting for the ‘hello,’” he said. “I’d be in third period, saying, ‘Mr. Stepan, can I step out?’” A report published in May by the U.S. Government ability Office reminded states that National Family Caregiver Program grants can be used to assist caregivers under 18. However, the future of those grants remains unclear: They are funded through the Older Americans Act, which is awaiting reauthorization; and the istration for Community Living, which oversees the grants, was nearly halved in April as part of the reorganization of the Department of Health and Human Services under President Donald Trump. Additionally, if Congress approves proposed cuts to Medicaid, one of the first casualties likely will be states’ home- and community-based service programs that provide critical financial relief to family caregivers, said Andrew Olenski, an economist at Lehigh University specializing in long-term health care. Such programs, which differ by state but are paid for with federal dollars, are designed to ensure that Medicaid-eligible people in need of long-term care can continue living at home by covering in-home personal and nursing care. In 2021, they served almost 5% of all Medicaid participants, costing about $158 billion. By law, Medicaid is required to cover necessary long-term care in a nursing home setting but not all home or community care programs. So, if states are forced to make cuts, those programs are vulnerable to being scaled back or eliminated. If an aide who makes daily home visits, for example, is no longer an option, family caregivers could step in, Olenski said. But he pointed out that not all patients have adult children to care for them, and not all adult children can afford to step away from the workforce. And that could put more pressure on any kids at home. “These things tend to roll downhill,” Olenski said. Some studies show benefits to young people who step into caregiving roles, such as more self-confidence and improved family relationships. Yang said he feels more on top of things than his peers: “I have friends worrying about how to land a job interview, while I’ve already applied to seven or eight other jobs.” But for many, the cost is steep. Young caregivers report more depression, anxiety, and stress than their peers. Their physical health tends to be worse, too, related to diet and lack of attention to their own care. And caregiving often becomes a significant drag on their education: A large study found that 15- to 18-year-old caregivers spent, on average, 42 fewer minutes per day on educational activities and 31 fewer minutes in class than their peers. Schools in several states are taking notice. In Colorado, a statewide survey recently included its first question about caregiving and found that more than 12% of high schoolers provide care for someone in their home who is chronically ill, elderly, or disabled. Rhode Island’s education department now requires every middle and high school to craft a policy to caregiving students after a study published in 2023 found 29% of middle and high school students report caring for a younger or older family member for part of the day, and 7% said the role takes up most of their day. Rates were higher for Hispanic, Asian, and Black students than their white peers. The results floored Lindsey Tavares, principal of Apprenticeship Exploration School, a charter high school in Cranston. Just under half her students identified as caregivers, she said. That awareness has changed conversations when students’ grades slip or the kids stop showing up on time or at all. “We know now that this is a question we should be asking directly,” she said. Students have shared stories of staying home to care for an ill sibling when a parent needs to work, missing school to translate doctors’ appointments, or working nights to pitch in financially, she said. Tavares and her team see it as their job to find an approach to help students persist. That might look like connecting the student to resources outside the school, offering mental health , or working with a teacher to keep a student caught up. “We can’t always solve their problem,” Tavares said. “But we can be really realistic about how we can get that student to finish high school.” Rhode Island officials believe their state is the first to officially caregiving students — work they’re doing in partnership with the Florida-based American Association for Caregiving Youth. In 2006, the association formed the Caregiving Youth Project, which works with schools to provide eligible students with peer group , medical care training, overnight summer camp, and specialists tuned in to each student’s specific needs. This school year, more than 700 middle and high school students took part. “For kids, it’s important for them to know they’re not alone,” said Julia Belkowitz, a pediatrician and an associate professor at the University of Miami who has studied student caregivers. “And for the rest of us, it’s important, as we consider policies, to know who’s really doing this work.” In St. Paul, Joshua Yang had hoped to study civil engineering at the University of Minnesota, but decided instead to attend community college in the fall, where his schedule will make it simpler to continue living at home and caring for his mom. But he sees some respite on the horizon as his sisters, now 12 and 13, prepare to take on a greater share of the caregiving. They’re “actual people” now with personalities and a sense of responsibility, he said with a laugh. “It’s like, we all know that we’re the most meaningful people in our mom’s life, so let’s all help out,” he said. KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

It’s still early in the season at Cedar Crate Farm in rural Waldorf, but Dan Zimmerli and a few of his employees are already getting their hands dirty, digging up and picking vegetables for this weekend’s farmers market in Mankato. “I got two kinds of scallions this year, just like your typical, you know, white scallion,” Zimmerli boasts as he picks them. “And then I couldn’t resist. There’s these purple scallions, and they’re beautiful.” Zimmerli, 38, and his crew are also harvesting an assortment of herbs, lettuce, cabbage and kohlrabi, among other produce staples. “So, these are the first carrots of the year, which I’m excited about,” Zimmereli said with a shovel in hand on a recent sunny and warm day. “We do normally harvest most of this with a tractor, but in order to get our tool into the ground, we have to do a little bit by hand.” Sarah Vanryswyk, left, and Dan Zimmerli prepare to wash carrots in the newest building at Cedar Crate Farm. Zimmerli received funding to build the new structure that allows him to wash and store the produce grown on the farm. Jackson Forderer for MPR NewsThe veggies and greens are grown underneath plastic tarp-covered tunnels, which allows them to be planted in early March, extending Minnesota’s relatively short growing season on this 3 acre parcel he farms with his wife Lara. This harvest, Zimmerli said, is already better than last summer’s when record-breaking rainfall and flooding in southern Minnesota destroyed thousands of dollars worth of his crops. “I thought we were done for. I thought we were gonna have to try to buy back CSAs (community ed agriculture subscriptions) and that I was gonna have to get a job in town,” Zimmerli said. “I’m glad I was wrong about that. We were not done for.” What saved the farm was a federal food aid initiative called the Local Food Purchase Assistance program, or LFPA. It provides grants to schools, food shelves, senior centers and other groups that feed the hungry so they can buy produce from local farmers. Katey Witt, left, and Sarah Vanryswyk harvest heads of lettuce for an farmer's market at Cedar Crate Farm in rural Waldorf, Minn. on May 29. Jackson Forderer for MPR NewsThe Minnesota Department of Agriculture says the state received $8.14 million from the Biden istration last year for the program. The MDA then awarded 55 grants awarded to non-profit organizations, tribes and government entities, to purchase food sourced from more than 180 farmers and suppliers statewide, including Zimmerli’s Cedar Crate Farm. Dozens of more farmers also supplied food from purchases through food hubs and cooperatives, and this food has been distributed through more than 94 distribution locations, including: food shelves, social service programs, healthcare organizations, senior living centers and living facilities, preschools and manufactured home communities, according to the MDA.  Minnesota had signed an agreement for about $4.7 million for another round of the federal LFPA program. But the Trump istration eliminated the program in March. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told Fox News that the LFPA is a COVID-era initiative that is ”non-essential. But Zimmerli disagrees, saying even though it was a small percentage of his income, every dollar counts. Especially after experiencing one of the most tumultuous summers of his farming career, he realized there didn’t seem to be a safety net for smaller family farms like his.  “I think that kind of underscores how at a federal level, farms like mine are basically just not ed at all and you look at the ending of the federal LFPA program,” Zimmerli said. “That’s just kind of like the cherry on top of where the values lie for the USDA.” A list of vegetables that were harvested at Cedar Crate Farm on the table in the wash area.Jackson Forderer for MPR NewsWhere things are nowLast week, Gov. Tim Walz signed agricultural legislation that includes a provision to replace a little of that federal funding. The state level program is being funded at $700,000 per year for fiscal years 2026 through 2029 — a total of $2.8 million.  State Agriculture Commissioner Thom Petersen said it’s not a lot, but it’s a step in the right direction.  “I am very pleased with the legislature,” Petersen said. “The bill and the that they had because we have things in there for biofuels and livestock farmers, but we also have the state LFPA, Farm to School programs, urban agriculture grants, all types of different things to fit agriculture for all of Minnesota.” Minnesota Democrats criticized the Trump istration’s cut to food aid. U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar told MPR News it’ll hurt small, family-run farms and rural communities the most. “It is the scariest time since I’ve been in the Senate for agriculture, and a lot of it has to do with these kinds of cuts,” Klobuchar said. “So for many reasons, these cuts are really concerning for our state.” Breathing room Different varieties of lettuce grow in one of the greenhouses at Cedar Crate Farm in rural Waldorf, Minn. Jackson Forderer for MPR NewsAs Dan Zimmerli continues to harvest and prepare for the farmers market he says he’s relieved that the state is replacing some of the federal funds, but he still feels uneasy about the future. “I think the LFPA program at a federal level was a way to provide almost like some breathing room for small farms like mine, where there was just a little more  certainty, in an uncertain profession,” he said. “You’re never guaranteed to get a crop of anything.” Zimmerli said the one lesson he’s learned is to never underestimate how resilient small farms can be. Whether it’s floods, droughts or cuts to government funding, he’s used to the unknowns.   Erica Zurek contributed to this reporting.

President Trump announced plans to double the tariff on imported steel while visiting a US Steel plant in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania.Rebecca Droke | Getty ImagesPresident Trump is doubling down on steel and aluminum tariffs. Starting today, the tax on imported metals is set to jump to 50 percent, twice what it was yesterday. The president announced the latest trade war offensive Friday, while visiting a US Steel plant outside Pittsburgh. Trump told a crowd of hard-hat wearing steelworkers that a super-sized tax would help keep cheap, imported steel out of the U.S. market. "[It] will even further secure the steel industry in the United States," Trump said. "Nobody is going to get around that." Many more people work in companies that use steel than make it The higher tariffs likely will provide a boost for domestic companies that produce steel and aluminum. But for every steelworker in America, there are about 80 people working for companies that use steel. And their costs are about to go up. "How is it that you're supposed to buy the most expensive steel in world in the United States, and compete with global competitors who have access to world market pricing," asked H.O. Woltz, who runs a company in Mount Airy, N.C. that twists steel wire into cables used to reinforce concrete. During the first Trump istration, Woltz's company was doubly squeezed — paying more for raw steel while competing with finished products from other countries that didn't face a tariff. This time around, the Trump istration is taxing some of those finished products as well. Still, Woltz worries the higher cost of building materials might put some construction projects on hold. From auto parts to machinery, many businesses use steelAnd that's just the beginning of the tariffs' potential fallout, which affects many other industries. "The ripple effects go into auto parts, motorcycles, machinery and equipment that we use in mining — many, many different products," says Katheryn Russ, an economist at the University of California, Davis, who studied the effect of steel tariffs during the first Trump istration. Researchers estimated then that rising steel and aluminum costs resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of downstream manufacturing jobs. "When there's a tariff on steel, that can drive up the cost for producers who use steel as an input to make other stuff. And that can prompt them to pull back on hiring," Russ says. ‘It’s a lose-lose for American consumers’Today's tariffs, which are higher and more far-reaching, could also show up in higher prices at the supermarket, for everything from canned soup to a six-pack of soda pop. "We know that we as can-makers these increases on to our customers—the food producers and soft-drink makers and the beer brewers—and they'll that on to the consumer as well," says Robert Budway, president of the Can Manufacturers Institute. "It's a lose-lose for American consumers." In raising the steel and aluminum tariffs, Trump did not rely on the 1977 emergency statute he's used for many other tariffs, which are the subject of an ongoing court battle. Instead, he cited the authority of a different statue — Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 — which is designed to protect national security. There are factory owners who are bullish about Trump's trade policies even if it costs them. Drew Greenblatt's company makes wire baskets and other steel products at plants in Michigan, Indiana and Maryland — and he's looking to buy a fourth factory in New Jersey. While steel tariffs have increased his raw material costs, Greenblatt says he's not worried about it. "Our foreign competitors are either going to have to build a factory in America, or they're going to have to start buying from guys like me," Greenblatt says. "So what's going to happen is you're going to see is a tremendous increase in American manufacturing." “It makes planning super difficult”Many forecasters disagree, warning that Trump's overall trade war is likely to lead to slower economic growth and businesses fear the same. "You can build all the walls and implement all the tariffs that you want to, but at a point, you don't get away from the fact that the Chinese are driving this whole world market," says Woltz, the North Carolina manufacturer. While Trump's overall trade agenda is supposed to promote domestic manufacturing, a survey released this week showed factory orders and output being dragged down by tariffs and the often unpredictable way they've been rolled out. "Maybe Trump wakes up tomorrow and changes his mind," Woltz says grimly. "It makes planning super difficult." Copyright 2025, NPR

WorldPride 2025 is in full swing in Washington, D.C.Mark Mahon | Capital Pride AllianceFriday marks the closing weekend of WorldPride, an international festival that is being held this year in Washington, D.C. There are many events taking place, including concerts, a human rights conference and D.C.'s annual Pride Parade. The last time WorldPride was in the U.S., in 2019, it was held in New York City, and attendance was estimated at more than 5 million. Corporate sponsors included T-Mobile, L'Oréal, Delta Air Lines, JPMorganChase, Starbucks, the NBA and WNBA. But this year, festival organizers say attendance and funding have been affected by the Trump istration's policies and rhetoric toward trans people and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. In his first week in office, President Trump issued executive orders targeting DEI. One such order called for the termination of "illegal DEI and 'diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility' (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government, under whatever name they appear." He also signed an order banning transgender people from the military. Then, in February, President Trump announced he would be taking over the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Capital Pride Alliance, the organizers of WorldPride DC, proactively moved WorldPride events scheduled to take place at the Kennedy Center to other locations. Additionally, the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington, D.C., was told a May concert scheduled for WorldPride with the National Symphony Orchestra would not go on as planned. The orchestra told NPR the decision was made before the leadership changes because of financial and scheduling reasons, but it drew the attention of those in the LGBTQ community. Attendance is downPeople typically travel to WorldPride from around the globe. Past festivals have taken place in Copenhagen, London and Sydney. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Washington, D.C.'s local Pride festival but it's the first time the city is hosting the international event. The organizers, Capital Pride Alliance, planned more than 300 events over the course of three weeks beginning in mid-May, including dance parties, films, Drag Story Hour, events for LGBTQ military personnel and, one of the key features of past WorldPrides, a human rights conference. The big closing ceremony this weekend includes a parade and a concert with a massive lineup of performers that includes a "Global Dance Party" with Jennifer Lopez, plus another concert featuring Cynthia Erivo and Doechii. "We anticipated bookings to be much higher at this time for WorldPride and do know that the climate, the concern for folks internationally to travel to the United States is real," said Ryan Bos, executive director of Capital Pride Alliance. The Gay Men's Chorus of Washington, D.C., said some choirs from abroad opted to stay home instead of participate in its international choral festival, organized for WorldPride. The Trump istration's "anti-trans and anti queer policies made a lot of people, especially those in foreign countries, feel like they weren't welcome here," said singer Zac, who requested that NPR only use his first name since he works for the federal government and feared retaliation for criticizing the istration's policies. Some local attendees might also stay away. As a city with a high number of military personnel, D.C.'s Pride always includes events for LGBTQ service . But Bos fears some of them might be afraid to celebrate publicly. "A lot of our service are being forced back in the closet because they're afraid of being who they are at their work. And that is just extremely disheartening," he said. Companies are in a ‘tough spot’Past D.C. Pride sponsors including Booz Allen Hamilton, Comcast and Deloitte declined to the international version of the festival this year. The companies did not respond to NPR's request for comment. A recent survey by Gravity Research found that more than a third of roughly 200 Fortune 1000 companies planned to decrease their of Pride events this year. "Companies overall are in a very tough spot," said the firm's president Luke Hartig. Hartig said companies that do business with the government are especially wary, now that Trump has signed an executive order banning what he calls "illegal DEI" initiatives. "Federal contractors are in a particularly precarious place when it comes to Pride, because Pride is so closely integrated into broader DEI efforts," said Hartig. "And I think for a lot of companies celebrating Pride just comes a little too close to the danger zone where the istration might be targeting them on DEI more broadly." Pride began as a protest march and Pride festivals continue to be political. They're also celebratory. This weekend in D.C., there's a parade on Saturday and a march and rally on Sunday. Baptiste Fruchart has attended a number of Pride festivals. He says this year, he's in a "fighting mode." "I think for the first time in many, many years, I'm not parading, I'm marching," he said. "It's a very different approach for the first time in a long time. Everything's under threat right now." Jennifer Vanasco edited the audio and digital versions of this story. Copyright 2025, NPR

On her first day of class at Minneapolis College, Lolita Spotted Thunder Granados, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, sat in front of Shaneesa Scheckel, a younger Lakota student. Like Spotted Thunder Granados, Scheckel was enrolled in the college’s nursing program.  Spotted Thunder Granados complimented Scheckel’s beaded earrings. The two women struck up a conversation and, in a matter of minutes, realized Scheckel’s grandmother was Spotted Thunder Granados' godmother. Scheckel’s grandmother and Spotted Thunder Granados’ mother were close friends. They had attended school together at Holy Rosary Indian Mission, a boarding school on the Pine Ridge Reservation, more than a half-century earlier.  Overhearing their conversation, fellow student Montana Moore, whose father is also Lakota from Pine Ridge, spoke up and introduced herself. Within a short time, the small, informal cohort welcomed Nicole Poitra, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. Nursing graduates Lolita Spotted Thunder Granados (left) and Shaneesa Scheckel embrace after reciting the Florence Nightingale Pledge during a ceremony at Minneapolis College.Ben Hovland | MPR NewsLike Spotted Thunder Granados, Poitra was a non-traditional student who had entered nursing school well into her fifties.  The four women have spent the last two years ing one another as they worked toward earning their degrees. They say that the connection to one another and the sense of community fostered by the program faculty helped them excel in the program.  “Many Natives don’t understand that it’s an attainable career,” said Spotted Thunder Granados. “I’m so proud of us.” The pinning ceremony is a long-standing tradition that welcomes nurses into the profession. At Minneapolis College, the pin hangs on the end of a ribbon and is placed around the neck of each graduate by someone important to them.  The four women led the pinning ceremony at Minneapolis College. They stood arm in arm, reading a land acknowledgement — a statement respecting Indigenous peoples as the stewards of the land on which the college was built. The four remained on stage for a few more minutes as the Hehaka Ska Drum sang an honor song for the of the graduating class of 2025.  Nursing graduate Lolita Spotted Thunder Granados is pinned by her godmother Theresa Tibbitts during a ceremony at Minneapolis College.Ben Hovland | MPR NewsScheckel’s grandmother, Theresa Tibbetts, traveled from South Dakota to celebrate both her granddaughter’s and her goddaughter’s graduation. Theresa placed the pin around her goddaughter’s shoulders and tied an eagle feather in her hair. It was the first time Theresa had seen her goddaughter Spotted Thunder Granados since she was a baby.  While the program regularly enrolls Native American students, the four graduates have attributed their successes in the program to the they received from one another, family and friends, school advocates and faculty.  Spotted Thunder Granados said it was a significant moment for those from Native communities who may not have believed they could pursue a career in nursing.   “There’s been a lot of mistrust and historical trauma in health care,” said Spotted Thunder Granados, who has worked as a clinical assistant at Children's Hospitals in Minnetonka for the past several years.  An eagle plume affixed to a handmade medicine wheel pin is displayed in Lolita Spotted Thunder Granados’ hair after her graduation from the nursing program at Minneapolis College.Ben Hovland | MPR NewsNationally, American Indians make up 0.5 percent of ed nurses, according to the 2024 National Nursing Workforce Survey.   The four graduates comprised more than 10 percent of the students who graduated from the program in 2025, according to Kathy Rumpza, associate vice president of marketing and communication for Minneapolis College.  ‘It gives you, like, power’Nicole Poitra said she entered nursing because she feels “at home” caring for people. Her desire to become a nurse came from her experience caring for family . For Poitra, that translated into wanting to help people feel less afraid in hospital and clinic settings. “I feel like they just need someone to feel empathy to bring them up and make them feel like they’re not alone,” Poitra said.   Still, she said, the program proved challenging for her as a non-traditional student.   “I am 55 years old,” said Poitra. “It was a struggle for me to stay in the program.” Nursing students stand to recite the Florence Nightingale Pledge during a ceremony at Minneapolis College.Ben Hovland | MPR NewsPoitra said the she received from a student advocate helped her remain in nursing school.  Spotted Thunder Granados agreed with her friend, saying the program is rigorous, “Nothing compares to nursing, nothing.” “They break you down. They humble you. They crack you up. And, like, they get into your mind. They teach you,” said Spotted Thunder Granados. “Then they build you back up again.” Shaneesa Scheckel agreed, “Your life is not your own when you’re in nursing school.” Each of the graduates recalled moments when they had to sacrifice attending family milestones to remain in the program. Each had a story about missing a wedding or a funeral. They recounted the stories of classmates who had given birth and returned to class within days to take a final.  Montana Moore recounted moments when she felt like giving up. She said it was their cohort that helped her during some of the more challenging moments.  “Then you call up one of your buddies from the class, and they say, I’m feeling the same way. They say let’s just do it,” Moore said.  Nursing graduate Shaneesa Scheckel smiles as her mother Christy Tibbitts pins an eagle plume to her hair during a ceremony at Minneapolis College.Ben Hovland | MPR NewsLikewise, Scheckel said the sense of comradery helped her to graduate. “I could not have done it without everyone in our cohort,” Scheckel said. “Like we all have each other’s backs. It gives you, like, power.” ‘Holistic learning’Each of the graduates pointed to the work of one faculty member in particular who was instrumental in helping them complete their degree program. All four graduates said professor Kendra-Ann Seenandan-Sookdeo helped them recognize their strengths and vulnerabilities as professional assets.  Professor Kendra-Ann Seenandan-Sookdeo, pictured on May 30, teaches in the nursing program at Minneapolis College.Melissa Olson | MPR NewsSeenandan-Sookdeo has taught nursing at Minneapolis College for the past decade. She refers to her students as “change agents.” “We learn together, alongside each other. And the important thing is finding out that that little spark,” said Seenandan-Sookdeo. “And with that comes a whole story, a whole big melody of stories.” Moore said Seenandan-Sookdeo helped her see her challenges as a professional asset. Moore has struggled with chronic pain for years. One day, she arrived to class with the help of a walker.   “She would just say, ‘How much better of a nurse is this going to make you? You’re going to know so much because you’ve been through it,’” Moore said.  The experience helped Moore transform how she viewed her abilities.  “She was able to help me take all of the things that have happened in my life and the pain and use it as something to propel me forward and actually start viewing it as a blessing,” Moore said.  “It’s the lived experiences that’s the distinguishing factor. It’s not the textbook. The distinguishing factor is what you’ve lived,” said Seenandan-Sookdeo.  Seenandan-Sookdeo placed the pin around Moore’s shoulders during the school’s pinning ceremony.   Nursing graduate Montana Moore smiles as fellow nursing student Lolita Spotted Thunder Granados pins an eagle plume to her hair during a ceremony at Minneapolis College.Ben Hovland | MPR NewsSpotted Thunder Granados recognized Seenandan-Sookdeo’s emphasis on holistic learning as aligning with her family’s cultural values.  “Kendra-Ann really introduced that concept of holistic nursing. So, because of that, it made it more achievable,” said Spotted Thunder Granados. “I think she really brought that cultural aspect to the classroom.” Poitra said it also meant Seenandan-Sookdeo expected each of the students to perform well academically. “I had Kendra-Ann for clinical, and she was no pushover,” said Poitra. All four graduates plan to move forward with their education by enrolling in programs that will enable them to work in nursing istration.   Nursing graduate Nicole Poitra accepts smudging sage from Aubrey Hendrixson, who is the American Indian Success program coordinator at Minneapolis College, after a pinning ceremony.Ben Hovland | MPR NewsSpotted Thunder Granados said she’s excited to begin working. She’s also currently applying for positions in her chosen field. She will her fellow graduates in filling the need for nurses statewide.   “It was worth it because of the knowledge we now have. It makes you think differently about things, like the ability of the body to process and filter. It gave me more respect for human life,” Spotted Thunder Granados said. 

A large federal law enforcement presence drew protests in south Minneapolis on Tuesday. Officials from the FBI, ATF and Department of Homeland Security gathered with tactical vehicles outside the Taqueria y Birreria Las Cuatro Milpas restaurant at Lake Street and Bloomington Avenue. Agents carried out a simultaneous search at the restaurant’s location on 78th Street in Bloomington. The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, in a statement posted online, said the operation was for the execution of a search warrant as part of a criminal investigation. “The incident was not related to any immigration enforcement,” the sheriff’s office reported. It said its deputies partnered with federal agencies to execute “multiple search warrants at multiple locations in the metro area.” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey posted a statement that the operation “was related to a criminal search warrant for drugs and money laundering and was not related to immigration enforcement,” and he said that no one was arrested. While Minneapolis police were at the scene once the operation started, Frey said their presence was only for crowd control. The FBI told MPR News that the agency was “conducting court authorized law enforcement activity,” and that it did not have any other information to share. Fullscreen SlideshowPrevious Slide5 of 5Federal agents push a bicycle out of their way as tensions escalate between agents and protesters during an operation near Bloomington Avenue and Lake Street in Minneapolis on Tuesday.Kerem Yücel | MPR News1 of 5Federal agents react to the escalating crowds during a law enforcement operation near the intersection of Bloomington Avenue and Lake Street in Minneapolis on Tuesday.Kerem Yücel | MPR News2 of 5Community protest as federal agents, including officers with the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), conduct an immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis, Minn., on Tuesday. Tensions flared as heavily armed agents faced off with demonstrators following the arrest of a local resident.Kerem Yücel | MPR NewsNext SlideBut the operation in south Minneapolis happened amid intensely heightened concerns about federal immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota and across the country — concerns that prompted protesters to gather in the area. Some of those protesters attempted to block law enforcement vehicles from leaving the area on Lake Street. MPR News journalists at the scene witnessed protesters throw tires and other items in front of departing vehicles. FBI tactical officers ride armored vehicles on E. Lake Street during an immigration-related operation that led to tensions with community , on Tuesday. Kerem Yücel | MPR NewsAt least one law enforcement officer appeared to deploy a chemical irritant in response. There were no immediate details on any injuries in connection with Tuesday’s law enforcement action, or subsequent protests. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara walks down E Lake Street in Minneapolis as protesters clash with federal agents on Tuesday.Kerem Yücel | MPR NewsMinneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara was seen walking with federal agents at the scene. Minneapolis police said they were not given any advance notice of a federal operation in the city; the department said it responded to the area once the operation was underway, and after the crowd had gathered.

The Minnesota Department of Health confirmed two new cases of measles in the Twin Cities metro area Monday. The cases are unrelated; one involved community exposure at the Mall of America. These are the third and fourth confirmed cases of measles in Minnesota in 2025. Investigators from the health department said an unvaccinated child from Dakota County who had not traveled outside of Minnesota in the past month and had no known exposure was infected. “Anytime we confirm a case of measles unrelated to travel that has no known source it is worrying,” said Jessica Hancock-Allen, infectious disease division director at the Minnesota Department of Health. Health officials said the child was infectious while at the Mall of America theme park on May 24. People who were at the mall between 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. may have been exposed to measles and should monitor themselves for any symptoms that develop between May 31 and June 14, as the virus typically takes 10-14 days to incubate before symptoms first appear. Those who have not received the combination measles-mumps-rubella, or MMR vaccine should quarantine and monitor for symptoms. Exposed individuals who have been vaccinated do not need to quarantine, but they should still watch for symptoms. Symptoms of a measles infection include high fever, cough, runny nose and watery eyes followed by a full body rash. The disease can be especially dangerous for babies and young children. There is no specific treatment for measles, and the virus can lead to severe health problems, including pneumonia, encephalitis, brain damage, pregnancy complications and death.  A second reported case involved an adult from Washington County who was exposed to the virus during a domestic flight outside of Minnesota. The health department says it does not know that person’s vaccination status.  Both people infected are recovering at home, and local health departments are actively reaching out to those who may have been exposed to either case. Health officials emphasize that vaccination is the most effective way to protect against measles and prevent the spread of the virus. The MMR vaccine is typically istered in two doses. The first dose of the vaccine is recommended at 12 to 15 months of age and may be given in combination with other vaccines. The second dose is recommended between 4 and 6 years old. The vaccine has been in use for over five decades and is considered safe and effective by the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It usually provides life-long protection.  “Measles spreads easily, and it finds those who are vulnerable,” Hancock-Allen said. “The time is now for families to make sure their children are up to date on their immunizations to protect them from this potentially serious disease.”

At Xcel Energy’s Sherco Solar project near Becker, thousands of solar s stretch across a field of native plants and flowers. If those plants grow too tall, they could block the sun and keep the s from producing full power. So the vegetation needs regular trimming. Xcel is getting help from an unusual labor source: hundreds and soon thousands of sheep, which graze beneath the solar s and keep the vegetation tidy. Last week, a truck pulling a trailer bumped down a gravel road past endless rows of solar arrays. A crew jumped out and attached a metal ramp to the back of the trailer, then opened the gate. Hundreds of sheep and lambs clambered down the ramp, spread out into the field and started munching beneath the solar s. A flock of sheep rushes towards Xcel Energy’s Sherco Solar 1 site to graze on native, pollinator-friendly forage.Paul Middlestaedt for MPR News“By the end of the project, there will be several thousand sheep out here,” said Briana Beck, project supervisor for Minnesota Native Landscapes or MNL, an ecological restoration company based in Otsego.  MNL is contracting with Xcel Energy to provide the sheep grazing at Sherco Solar, Minnesota’s largest solar energy farm near Becker, which started producing power last fall.  Xcel is building this massive solar project to replace some of the electricity generated by the nearby Sherco coal-fired power plant, which it’s retiring by 2030. Eventually, Sherco Solar will have 1.6 million solar s and will generate enough electricity to power about 150,000 homes. Jerrod Nohner, grazing operations manager at Minnesota Native Landscapes, carries a lost lamb toward the rest of the flock.Paul Middlestaedt for MPR NewsThese days, most large solar projects have pollinator habitat planted underneath the s. The native plants and flowers bees and butterflies. Sheep are a cost- and time-saving way to manage vegetation and keep the plants from growing over the solar s, said Luke Molus, operations manager for Sherco Solar. “They graze all day long,” he said. “If you had someone come out here to actually cut the grass and mow it down, it does take a lot longer and is a little more expensive.” So far, the sheep are doing a “fantastic” job, Molus said. “The (vegetation) is getting trimmed down to what we need, and it's looking great,” he said.  Sheep are being used as an environmentally friendly option that can remove invasive species and reduce the need for herbicides at Xcel Energy’s Sherco Solar 1 site.Paul Middlestaedt for MPR NewsGrazing animals on a solar farm is an example of agrivoltaics, a growing practice of pairing renewable energy with agriculture that provides mutual benefits.  More than 113,000 sheep grazed 129,000 acres of solar farms last year, according to the American Solar Grazing Association. That included 500 sites in 33 states. Minnesota Native Landscapes has sheep grazing on about 50 solar farms in Minnesota, plus others in Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin.  MNL owner Joe Schaffer said he expects the demand for solar sheep to grow. The U.S. needs about 10 million acres of solar s in the coming decades to meet the nation's net-zero carbon goal.  Sheep are being used as an environmentally friendly option that can remove invasive species and reduce the need for herbicides at Xcel Energy’s Sherco Solar 1 site.Paul Middlestaedt for MPR News“Almost all has vegetation or forage growing on it, and it's always going to be fenced in,” Schaffer said. “So they’re super perfect for grazing large quantities of sheep.” Beck said sheep are ideal to manage a restored native prairie, which bison grazed long ago. “Obviously, you cannot bring bison into a solar field. They’re a little bit too big,” she said. But sheep are small enough to graze underneath the solar s. They forage on a variety of plants, and they can get into cracks and crevices that are tough for a mower to reach, Beck said. “They can get in those small spaces where you'd have to do hand trimming,” she said. “They're physically removing the vegetation, which means there's less thatch buildup. And the thatch buildup can be a fire risk, which is a big concern on solar.” A lamb makes its way through Xcel Energy’s Sherco Solar 1 site to graze on native, pollinator-friendly forage.Paul Middlestaedt for MPR NewsSheep’s hooves aerate the soil, and their manure acts as a natural fertilizer — all contributing to a healthier prairie, Beck said. “If you improve the soil, then you’ll have healthier, more diverse habitats, which s more pollinators,” she said. Bees and butterflies help neighboring farmers by pollinating their crops. MNL also partners with local producers to give them access to solar farms to graze their animals, Beck said. “That helps a lot with acceptance in the local community, if (farmers) can see the benefits directly to them,” she said. A sheep looks out of a trailer before being released to graze at Sherco Solar.Paul Middlestaedt for MPR NewsResearch studies also have found that solar grazing can lead to happier and healthier animals, who prefer the shade provided by the solar s. When it’s complete, Sherco Solar will cover almost 5,000 acres of former potato fields, and will be one of the largest restored prairies in Minnesota. The sheep are expected to be around for a long time to keep it in shape, Schaffer said. “As the site grows, so too will the flock,” he said.

Much of Minnesota woke up Tuesday to a thick blanket of haze as the sight and smell of smoke from Canadian wildfires continued spreading across the state. Air quality readings early Tuesday were in the “red” and “purple” categories — meaning “unhealthy” and “very unhealthy” — across most of eastern Minnesota, including Duluth, the Twin Cities, St. Cloud and Mankato. The air quality index for Minnesota as of 6:30 a.m. on Tuesday showed unhealthy "red" and "purple" conditions across most of eastern Minnesota.Minnesota Pollution Control AgencyUnder those conditions, people should limit time spent outdoors and limit prolonged or heavy exertion. The MPCA posts current air quality conditions on its website. The additional wave of smoke from major wildfires across Manitoba and Saskatchewan is sweeping across Minnesota on northerly winds behind the cold front that triggered showers and storms in the region on Monday. Rain continued for parts of Minnesota on Tuesday. Minnesota Pollution Control Agency forecasters said the rain “has the potential to help clean the air, but is not expected to altogether eliminate poor air quality.” An air quality alert continues for Minnesota, extending into western Wisconsin, through noon Wednesday. The MPCA said conditions are expected to gradually improve across the state, from northwest to southeast, later Tuesday into Wednesday. The MPCA said forecast models indicate the smoke may stay near, or north of, the Canadian border later this week. Air quality indexMaroon is the most-serious category of the six levels of the air quality index, followed by purple (very unhealthy), red (unhealthy), orange (unhealthy for sensitive groups), yellow (moderate) and green (good). Fullscreen SlideshowPrevious Slide3 of 3Smoke, haze and rain obscure the view of the Minnesota Capitol from downtown St. Paul on Tuesday.Andrew Krueger | MPR News1 of 3Traffic moves along Interstate 35W as smoke from Canadian wildfires and rainfall obscure the Minneapolis skyline in Minneapolis, on Tuesday.Kerem Yücel | MPR News2 of 3A seagull rests on a swim area buoy on Lake Nokomis as smoke from Canadian wildfires lingers in the air.Kerem Yücel | MPR NewsNext Slide

You might assume historians spend their time digging through archives and dusty bookshelves, but for park historian Jade Ryerson, that’s not always the case. “I think that sometimes the perception of a historian might be as more of a ‘desk ranger’ than a ‘park ranger,’” said Ryerson. Ryerson is the park historian with the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, which runs through the heart of the Twin Cities. It’s a “partnership” park, meaning the National Park Service owns just a small portion of the land that makes up the park, so it partners with private homes and local governments along the river to provide programming. In this case, the service owns just 67 of the 54,000 acres that comprise the 72-mile-long park. Programming is facilitated by rangers like Ryerson, who has been a historian with the park service for a year and a half. As a historian, her job definitely includes digging through documents, but the work can often be little more hands-on. ”There’s no shortage of opportunities to uncover something that’s special about the river, and no shortage of stories when there’s 12,000 years of time that we cover,” Ryerson said. “And so history provides a lot of ways for us to sort of act as detectives.” Sometimes that detective work involves finding and caring for historic sites along the Mississippi River, talking with local and tribal governments, or exploring archives to find river stories park rangers can bring alive during programming. “If you see yourself reflected in its story, you’re also going to want to care about it more,” Ryerson said. “There’s a reason why we’re here today. It’s because people intentionally chose to seek out this river and to build up a city around it. This is some place that can tell America’s story.” Park historian Jade Ryerson sits in a kayak on the Mississippi River during a paddle with the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area park ranger program.Courtesy National Park Service | Ally ShewThis conversation is a part of our Job Interview series, where we talk to everyday Minnesotans about the rewards and challenges of their work. This interview has been lightly edited for style and clarity. Click on the audio player for the original radio version. Official title: Park historian at the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area What I actually do: I’m a storyteller. A great day at work: The coolest things that I think I’ve found in our park archive are honestly just the stories that are about the people that have lived here and that have interacted with the river. And so, for example, I’m thinking about like Robert Hickman. He was a freedom seeker from the south. He traveled up the Mississippi River to seek his freedom here in Minnesota, and he actually was able to establish one of the first African American congregations in the state. A not-so-great day at work: The hardest part of my job is when we have to cancel a program because we spend so much time behind the scenes to build these experiences for people to enjoy. So, it can honestly be such a bummer when there’s bad weather or something. What I’ve learned: This job has taught me a lot about how we don’t get anywhere alone. I think about the way that the river looks now. A lot of people had to really care for this place and to clean it up and to make it somewhere that’s pleasant to be.

Already behind schedule, Minnesota lawmakers aim to complete a new state budget this week and head off the possibility of a government shutdown a month from now. The final pieces of budget legislation are coming into focus. Once the last details are locked in, Gov. Tim Walz intends to call a special session. He told MPR News last week that he was aiming for Wednesday, but that could easily slip until later in the week.  Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth and House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman said they want to see it happen by Wednesday. They said the final bills were being fine-tuned to match the agreements made. “We're still hoping for Wednesday, but we are waiting for the revisor to finish drafting Health and Human Services,” Hortman said of the bill that always reaches hundreds of pages due to its scope and complexity. “We want Wednesday, and we want the revisors to draft, draft, draft.” The Legislature failed to complete much of the $66 billion two-year budget by a May 19 session adjournment deadline. Since then, small sets of negotiators have met mostly behind closed doors. That’s meant stakeholders and the public in general have had to scrape for details. And for some lawmakers on the inside, they add the process has been difficult for them as well. “It was very difficult,” said Rep. Erin Koegel, a DFLer who helped fashion a final transportation plan. “There's lots of egos and it was a very hard process. It was uncomfortable and it was tense. And I'm hoping that maybe some lessons were learned this year, and we can go forward in a little bit more of a civil manner." The Republican co-chair of the House Taxes Committee told MPR News on Monday that he doesn’t think the proposal structured by Walz advisers and legislative leaders can . “We put five months of thought into something they put five minutes of thought into, and I know which one's going to be better,” said Rep. Greg Davids of Preston. “I'm just not sure why any Republican would even consider voting for this. I don't think it would House or the Senate.” What's unusual about the Capitol now is that the House is tied between Democrats and Republicans. The working groups are chaired by three lawmakers — a Democrat from the Senate and House and a Republican from the House. The legislation they’re writing will be voted on in public during that yet-scheduled special session.  Legislative leaders are hoping for an in-and-out session that takes one day or close to that. But this year has been full of surprises and it wouldn't be a shock if lawmakers unhappy with the agreements drag it out to make a point or try to send things back to the bargaining table.  Most budget spreadsheets and policy agreements are online although a few bill drafts are still to come.  An education finance bill popped up Monday. A tax bill was posted over the weekend.  The tax bill is 12 pages in total, meaning most items in dispute were tossed overboard. It’s a sharp contrast to last year’s tax package that ran more than 1,400 pages and has attracted lawsuits for the inclusion of so many items that only loosely connect to the tax code. The empty Minnesota House chambers at the Minnesota State Capitol on Monday.Clay Masters | MPR NewsThe transportation plan Koegel worked on reflects a $115 million cut in the next two years and a bit more than that two years beyond that. The Spring Lake Park DFLer said her goal was to minimize cuts to mass transit.  But there were other pinch points that kept the transportation bill open for weeks, from discussions about emissions to the structure of mass transit.  As part of the agreement electric vehicle owners will foot more of the transportation bill. EV owners will pay a surcharge to basically kick in money they're not paying in gas taxes.  Initially, that had been a flat amount. The final plan determines the surcharge based on a formula that factors in vehicle value and age.  The minimum fee at first will be $150 for full-electric cars and $75 for plug-in hybrids.  But that could shift later as lawmakers study a charging system fee. The "skinny" tax bill tapers exemptions for data centers. They won't be able to avoid taxes on electricity use as they have before.  The cannabis products tax goes up from 10 percent to 15 percent. Davids said the fact it raises taxes overall is a nonstarter for him. “It's massive tax increases, and that's not what our caucus is supposed to be about,” he said in a telephone interview. In the education bill — at more than $25 billion it’s one of the biggest expenses in the state budget — there are changes to calculations for various per-student allowances. The bill includes more money to implement literacy curriculum changes. There’s also a new task force set up to examine special education costs and look for ways to lower the rapid growth in those. Districts will be expected to develop and implement cardiac emergency response plans for sudden cardiac events on their properties; those would have to be in place by the 2026-27 school year and there is grant money in the bill to aid with the anticipated costs. Aside from when this special session will happen, it’s difficult to assess if there will be enough votes to all these bills. The 67-67 House creates an unusual dynamic and a 34-33 Senate led by DFLers doesn’t leave much room for defections either. The risk of a partial government shutdown and state employee layoffs next month remains for areas without enacted budgets. Layoff notices have started to go out to meet legal requirements for workers who could be furloughed. As some remote-work employees start shifting back to office assignments under a Walz directive, state employee union leaders say the one-two punch is a lot to handle. Leaders of the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees wrote a memo to rank-and-file late last week under a bolded heading of “Facing next week might feel scary.” “We know these coming days will be hard,” it reads. “The people running the state didn’t give you the respect of a plan, but we’ll make sure you’re not left in the dark. You keep Minnesota running.”

Minneapolis police are investigating a shooting at Boom Island Park that left one person dead and five injured by gunfire Sunday night.  At a news conference Monday morning, police Chief Brian O’Hara said calls reporting shots fired started coming in around 9:30 p.m. Sunday. Officers responded and found about 100 people in what O’Hara called a “very chaotic scene.”  Investigators believe there had been a large gathering at the park and an altercation led to gunfire. O’Hara said there were likely multiple shooters.  Police found three people injured in the park and another injured person in a car near the park entrance. All were taken to nearby hospitals. Two other people injured by gunfire transported themselves to the hospital. A woman who was shot died at a hospital from her injuries. One of the other victims suffered life-threatening injuries. The remaining victims sustained non-life threatening injuries.  Police officers survey evidence markers at Boom Island Park in Minneapolis on Monday, June 2, after a shooting on Sunday night.Ben Hovland | MPR NewsPolice also said another person was injured in the melee surrounding the shooting, but was not shot. All of the victims were adults. Police have not shared their ages or other identifying information.  O’Hara said officers remained at the park Monday morning, catag an extensive scene. “There are literally hundreds of pieces of evidence that they are going through,” O’Hara said. “It’s obvious that a whole lot of rounds were fired here.”  A large number of friends and family of the victims went to Hennepin County Medical Center after the shooting to check on victims, and police provided crowd control at the hospital. O’Hara said police are following up on multiple leads. He said victims are cooperating with the investigation and asked anyone with information about the incident to come forward. Use the audio player above to listen to a conversation with Minnesota Now host Nina Moini and Minneapolis police Chief Brian O’Hara. The conversation was produced by Ellen Finn.

Turtles are on the move in Minnesota right now, as they embark on their quest to nest and lay eggs. But that also means their natal homing instinct takes them across roadways and into the path of cars. While data on exactly how many turtles are injured or killed by vehicles annually is hard to nail down, turtle populations as a whole are declining, and roadway mortality is a significant factor, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. Sisters Kelly Olson and Katie O’Halloran decided they could make a difference after Olson witnessed one too many turtle tragedies. After moving from downtown Minneapolis to a suburban home near Medicine Lake, inadvertently situated between two marshland areas, Olson started doing turtle sweeps and making sure they crossed the road, seeing them frequently impacted by cars. “And one day, I just really hit a breaking point. I saw two turtles that had been hit right next to each other, and they had both survived the hit, but were beyond the point of being able to be transported to a rehabilitation center,” Olson said. “That moment really ignited something within me, and I haven’t turned back since.” A turtle stands beside a road near Rice Lake in Breezy Point, Minn., on June 14, 2019. Courtesy of Deanne TrottierOlson said there aren’t enough herpetologists, road ecologists or biologists to track the road mortality of turtles, so she hoped to use the power of community. With help from her software developer sister, O’Halloran, the pair created TurtlTracker. “This app is really for who we're calling the ‘conservation novice,’” Olson explained. TurtlTracker, which is currently in beta testing in Minnesota, allows s to track movement patterns and migration in addition to road mortality. With AI, the app will flag turtle hotspots, but Olson said exact locations won’t be shared with s to prioritize data security. The TurtlTracker app is in beta testing with a launch planned for July. https://turtltracker.com/ Courtesy photoThe sisters hope to expand the app nationwide and are in the midst of creative fundraising to it and keep it free for all s. The launch also comes at a time of heightened criticism around climate and conservation. “I think we are all sick of the negativity,” O’Halloran said. “We have noticed people want to make a difference, they just don’t know how. We feel we can use technology they are already familiar with in their everyday lives in a way that makes a significant difference.” Olson agreed. “Anecdotally, the biggest thing I’ve been hearing is, you know, thank you for validating that this is an issue, and thank you for making me feel like I'm not crazy,” she said. More than 2,000 people turned out for a “Turtle Fest” on Sunday at French Regional Park in Plymouth. HerpMapper, TurtlTracker and Minnesota Zoo folks were on hand with educational activities and conservation tips. “I heard so many stories of people having turtle rescue kits in their cars, protecting nests in their own yard. It was really beautiful to see and fun to connect with the community,” Olson said. More than 2,000 people turned out for Turtle Fest on Sunday, June 1 at French Regional Park in Plymouth. HerpMapper, TurtlTracker and Minnesota Zoo folks were on hand with educational activities and conservation tips.Courtesy photo | Photo by Benjamin Muller“Seeing the ion and hearing the individual stories was so powerful,” O’Halloran added. “We intend to use technology to centralize those efforts and collectively empower people to make a difference as a community.” TurtlTracker has another “Turtle Social” planned for July 13 at 56 Brewing, where the head brewer and environmental biologist will be serving a turtle-themed beer. “We’re either going to call it the ‘hoppy snapper’ or ‘slow and steady.’ So more to come,” Olson said. More than 2,000 people turned out for Turtle Fest on Sunday, June 1 at French Regional Park in Plymouth. HerpMapper, TurtlTracker and Minnesota Zoo folks were on hand with educational activities and conservation tips. Courtesy photo | Photo by Benjamin Muller

In this image taken from video released Sunday, June 1, by a source in the Ukrainian Security Service shows a Ukrainian drone striking Russian planes deep in Russia's territory.AP | Ukrainian Security ServiceUkraine attacked Russia with a series of drone strikes on military air bases deep in the Russian heartland on Sunday — an operation that appeared timed to influence a new round of Russian-Ukrainian ceasefire talks set to take place in Istanbul Monday. After more than three years of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, this carefully planned attack, intended to hit bombers that launch missiles on Ukrainian cities, was celebrated by Ukrainians, who called it "Operation Trojan Trucks" on social media. Ukraine's Security Service smuggled first-person view drones laden with small explosives onto trucks driven deep into Russia. The operation was recognized by Ukrainian officials as a much-needed win. "The enemy has been bombing our country almost every night from these aircraft, and today they actually felt that retaliation is inevitable," Vasyl Malyuk, the head of Ukraine's security services, said in a statement. The drones — deployed from trucks parked along highways in proximity to Russian military installations — were used to strike 41 heavy bomber jets in bases as far away as Murmansk in Russia's Arctic north and Irkutsk in Siberia, more than 2,700 miles away from the Ukrainian border. Malyuk said the drones were hidden under the roofs of wooden cabins placed on trucks. These roofs were opened remotely, and the drones flew out to hit the Russian bombers, he said. "Our strikes will continue as long as Russia terrorizes Ukrainians with missiles and Shaheds," he said, referring to the Iranian-designed drones that have played a central role in Russia's aerial assault on Ukraine In this undated photo provided by the Ukrainian Security Service, head of the Security Service Vasyl Malyuk studies a photo of a map of Russia's strategic aviation location in his office in Ukraine.AP | Ukrainian Security ServiceIn an earlier statement about the operation, officially dubbed "Spiderweb," Ukraine's security service claimed it destroyed $7 billion worth of Russia's strategic aviation with the strikes — about a third of Russia's strategic cruise missile carriers Russian officials downplay impactNews of the operation was the talk of both Russia and Ukraine. One video posted online showed the drones take off from a truck bed parked along a highway as the Russian narrator let obscenities fly. Another shows a Russian serviceman swearing into the camera as planes burn behind him. One pro-Kremlin military blogger referred to the attack as a "Russian Pearl Harbor." In his evening video address on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the "perfectly prepared" operation using 117 drones had been planned for more than a year and a half under the nose of Russia's security service. "Our people operated in different Russian regions in three time zones," he said. "And our people were taken out of Russian territory on the eve of the operation. Those who helped us are safe." Russia's Defense Ministry later confirmed the attacks on the military bases but played down their impact — claiming "only several pieces of aviation technology caught fire." The ministry also said its forces had thwarted additional attacks on three other bases and made several arrests — without providing details. It added no one had been injured in the attacks. Neither the Ukrainian or Russian claims on the damage occurred could be independently verified. Russian trains derailThe drones were far from the only violence over the weekend. At least seven people were killed and more than 104 injured after a bridge collapsed on a enger train traveling through western Russia's Bryansk region Saturday night — sending debris and several trucks onto the train compartments below. Images shared on social media showed stunned engers trying to climb out of smashed carriages in the dark. Meanwhile, Russian railway authorities say a separate rail bridge collapsed in the neighboring Kursk region hours later — derailing a freight train and injuring several crew . Russia's Investigate Committee said it had launched a criminal probe into both incidents on terrorism grounds — but pulled back on initial claims the bridges had both collapsed due to planted explosives. In this photo released by Russian Emergency Ministry Press Service telegram channel on Sunday, June 1, 2025, emergency employees work at a damaged bridge in Russia's Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine.AP | Russian Emergency Ministry Press ServiceStill, several prominent Russian politicians were quick to blame Ukraine and suggest it was reason enough to continue the war at any cost.  "Our answer will be a buffer zone so large that it prevents the penetration of terrorists onto our territory in the future," wrote Andrei Klishas, a senior member of Russia's upper house Federation Council. While Ukrainian authorities did not comment on either train derailment, Ukraine's military intelligence did confirm a hit on a Russian military train moving supplies in an occupied part of the Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia. Russian drone strikesRussia also carried out attacks — launching more than 470 drones and several missiles at targets across Ukraine, in what Ukrainian authorities said was the largest single-day air assault since the war began. The most deadly: what Ukraine's army said was a "missile strike on the location of one of the training units" — killing a dozen soldiers and injuring more than 60. Ukraine's military rarely confirms losses and did not disclose the precise location of the training camp, though Zelenskyy said in his evening address that it was in Ukraine's central Dnipropetrovsk region. The commander of Ukraine's armed forces, Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi, submitted his resignation after the attack "out of a personal sense of responsibility" for the casualties. "An army where no one is held responsible for losses dies from within," he wrote on his Facebook page. Ukraine has also accused the Kremlin of massing some 50,000 troops at its border near Sumy in northeastern Ukraine in advance of a possible summer offensive — even as Kyiv and Moscow have engaged in some of their first direct peace talks in over three years amid pressure from the Trump istration. Peace talks The weekend action came as both sides geared up for a second round of negotiations in Istanbul on Monday. The two sides are expected to discuss so-called "memoranda" — essentially counter proposals outlining for any future peace accord. Writing on social media, Zelenskyy said his priorities for the talks include a full and unconditional ceasefire, the release of prisoners and the return of abducted children. President Trump has been a strong advocate for the direct talks — saying their progress, or lack thereof, will do much to determine the future of U.S. engagement in the Ukraine conflict. Even as Trump has threatened sanctions against Moscow over its perceived slow-walking of the negotiations, he and his istration have also made clear they believe Ukraine should accept it cannot beat its larger neighbor militarily and make concessions. Yet if Moscow was seen as driving the of negotiations, political observers in Moscow suggested Ukraine's surprise drone operation had at least undermined that dynamic for now. "The Ukrainian delegation is headed to Istanbul clearly not feeling itself the 'losing side of the war,' wrote Moscow-based analyst Georgi Bovt in a post to social media. Bovt reminded that Trump once told the Ukrainians they "don't have the cards right now" to negotiate a favorable end to the war. "Apparently, they found them," added Bovt. NPR producer Hanna Palamarenko contributed to this report from Kyiv. Copyright 2025, NPR

James Henriksen with Colorado State University, holds up a water sample for Harvard colleague Braden Tierney. The bag is teeming with microbes that they hope may help solve some of humanity's big problems.Ari Daniel | NPRThere are places where the Earth's inner rumblings burble to the surface — like Iron Spring, located just outside the bustling town of Manitou Springs in central Colorado. Every few seconds, a burst of water surges out of a narrow pipe, splashing into a concrete basin that's partly dyed a bright orange. "Whenever I see that color, I look very carefully because sometimes it's not chemistry that's forming that rust. It's biology — an entire world of unexplored and undiscovered microbes", says James Henriksen, an environmental microbiologist at Colorado State University. Henriksen uses a metal file to sample the microorganisms teeming invisibly and improbably in the colorful puddles atop the basin. "Just like birders are constantly looking for birds," he says, "I'm constantly looking around for evidence of the things that we can't see — the microbes that are everywhere." This uncanny ability of microbes "to survive and thrive in these unusual places," says Henriksen, got him wondering whether these miniscule organisms may hold the solutions to some of humanity's biggest problems. One of Henriksen's former undergraduate students and current lab , Kyndal Prahl, explains the idea is "taking the smallest parts of the world that you can't even see and manipulating these microbes for a bigger purpose." So they and a small team of researchers have set out on the tiniest of treasure hunts to find remarkable microbes that can help bail us out of our many messes — and it's led them to places both remote and rather familiar. Microbial alchemy"Microbes are nature's alchemists," says Braden Tierney, a microbiologist at Harvard Medical School. "They are capable of taking just about any compound or chemical anywhere in the world and turning it into something else to survive," he says. "Basically, they're transforming all the stuff that we might see as inert, metallic or wasteful into something that they can use to live." This allows microbes to thrive in some of the most inhospitable places imaginable — like under high pressures or in the super cold or where it's really salty. The microorganisms living in these challenging environments are called extremophiles. Several years back, Tierney began wondering whether he could harness these remarkable abilities of microbes somehow. He had run across a study from a bay next to the Aeolian island of Vulcano off Sicily, containing a series of shallow, volcanic vents, "just spewing carbon dioxide naturally into the ocean," he says. And Tierney thought, "Wow, I'll bet there are microbes there that are really good at consuming CO2." So he and a small team ed up with the Sicilian scientists to return to the bay to sample the water for microbes. "We ended up almost immediately finding a microorganism that was remarkably efficient at consuming carbon dioxide," he says. They affectionately call it Chonkus. "To put it very simply, it grows fast and it sinks," says Tierney. And that means that Chonkus absorbs more carbon dioxide and then drops to the bottom where it can be collected and disposed of easily. This made it an ideal candidate for scaling up to, perhaps, one day, suck down large amounts of planet-warming CO2 from the air. This discovery encouraged Tierney to believe that there must be other microbes out there doing any number of untold, remarkable things that humans could make use of. So he and Henriksen co-founded a non-profit called The Two Frontiers Project to search for microorganisms that might pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to help mitigate climate change, grow crops in hostile environments, help dying corals mount a comeback, capture rare earth metals for human use and clean up hazardous waste sites. Their mission is straightforward. "We travel to sites all around the world where there is microbial life," says Tierney. The hunt has taken the team to coral reefs in the Red Sea, the soils of the Mojave desert, springs across Colorado, and the volcanic vents off Papua New Guinea. "Unusual places can be some of the most interesting places to discover something different," says Henriksen. In fact, Tierney says he and his team have already isolated microbes with "a wide range of physiologies" that are similarly "unique and useful" to Chonkus. That includes other bacteria that are capable of grabbing carbon out of the air and still others associated with corals that appear to produce antibiotics. The group suspects there are other helpful microbes out there, but they're thinking they may not need to travel quite so far to find places that are unusual. They've now turned their attention — to people's homes! At Colorado State University, Jacob Hall and Emma Lopez work up a set of samples collected recently while Kyndal Prahl looks on. All three have spent a portion of their undergraduate years collecting and analyzing microbes.One person’s sludge is another person’s startup"You run into the slimes and goops everywhere in my profession," says Chris Beuret, who teaches construction management at Colorado State University and worked in maintenance facilities for years, including Colorado, California and on ships in the Gulf of Mexico. Beuret says he's seen innumerable pipes clog and drip pans fill with goo, which are often the telltale accumulations of microbes. The character of the slime varies by geography. For instance, in Florida, HVAC contractor Brian Orr has filled entire buckets with "this gelatinous glop." Recently, due to changes from copper to aluminum tubing, he and his team started observing something more akin to "elephant snot — a clear or white sort of goo that would build up really, really fast." Henriksen first got the idea to search these sludges in the nooks and crannies of homes for microbial heroes when he ran across a paper that "had to be horrifying for the person and hilarious for the scientists. This person had slimy tentacles that kept growing back out of their showerhead." He concluded that "the weird slimy things in showerheads, stuff growing in dishwashers, and hot water heaters, they're really strange environments." And they may also be extreme environments as well, which could have pressured microbes into finding ways of grabbing carbon out of their surroundings to grow and survive. In other words, maybe something that holds a secret to reducing CO2 levels — is your roommate. The Two Frontiers Project, in partnership with a global citizen science platform called CitSci, is now reaching out to homeowners nationwide to survey their domiciles for interesting goos. They've already received 120 inquiries, from which they've solicited 47 curious snots and brews. Emma Lopez, a rising senior at Colorado State University who works in Henriksen's lab, puts it like this: "It's the idea that anyone can be a microbiologist." As with all their samples, the researchers will sequence the DNA of these microbes to census the organisms, search for new species, and determine whether any of them might be useful to humans. Krista Ryon is the Director of Operations at The Two Frontiers Project where she runs the group's genomic sequencing. She says that certain colleagues of hers are charged with keeping the billions of cells they collect alive and growing. "Whereas I immediately kill them where I open up the cells and I extract the DNA out of them," she says. "But we do that in order to form this picture of this community that's in the entire sample." From microbial discovery to deploymentThere's still a ways to go, however. Even if they are able to find another microbe or two with a superpower that humans can take advantage of, there's no guarantee these microorganisms can then be put to use to actually help. "Microbes are amazing at what they do," says Lisa Stein, a climate change microbiologist at the University of Alberta. "But can we get their processes into a system that's economically competitive that we can scale and deploy?" For instance, "once you have a microbe that eats carbon, you still have to do something with it," says Holly Jean Buck, an environmental social scientist at the University at Buffalo. Even if a microbe can trap carbon, "the carbon has to go somewhere," she says. There are a range of potential destinations, including mineralizing it as rock, storing it in the soil, or using it to produce fuels, but these are at different stages of development. The approach that The Two Frontiers Project is taking, along with other groups doing similar work, isn't entirely new. Stein says scientists have bio-prospected for novel microorganisms for decades. In her view, this is "a shot in the dark because we have extensively covered many of these ecosystems in the past." But Stein acknowledges that microbes are constantly evolving, especially in the face of a changing climate. And she hasn't seen anyone sample in homes like this before. "Kudos to them for having that idea," she says. "That's pretty innovative right there." Buck agrees that the effort is worth serious consideration. "I'm glad they're looking into it," she says. "I think all innovation involves some amount of uncertainty around what will pay off." Still, the best way to bring down CO2 levels probably won't be found in your shower head, but by reducing emissions. Carbon capture efforts have so far proved to be energy-intensive and difficult to scale. Back at Colorado State University, Henriksen agrees that the path from microbial discovery to widespread deployment is a long one. "We have to be focused on things that can work in the real world," he says, "not just discovering organisms that are interesting for their own sake." He enters the walk-in refrigerator where he stores all the samples that he and the team have collected — from the volcanic vents and mineral springs half a world away to the condensation tubes and freezer drip lines in people's homes. It's a living library of microbes. "I look at these shelves of little tubes and each one I know is just packed with DNA or microorganisms that can do amazing things," says Henriksen. "You just have to go out and explore — go out and discover." Copyright 2025, NPR

In every corner of Minnesota, there are good stories waiting to be told of places that make our state great and people who in Walt Whitman’s words “contribute a verse” each day. MPR News sent longtime reporter Dan Gunderson on a mission to capture those stories as part of a series called “Wander & Wonder: Exploring Minnesota’s unexpected places.” This spring has been a new experience for Tim Dufault. He isn't repairing machinery or waiting anxiously to plant crops on his farm in northwestern Minnesota. Standing in his front yard listening to a chorus of bird calls, though, he still gets the itch. "In the spring, you hear those red-winged blackbirds singing, and it just smells a little warmer,” he said. “Oh, man, your blood gets going again.” Northwestern Minnesota farmer Tim Dufault farmed 44 years on land first purchased by his great-grandfather. As he parks his tractor for the last time, he's helping young farmers struggling to get access to land. Dan Gunderson | MPR NewsA fourth-generation farmer whose great-grandfather bought the family’s first tract of land from the railroad in 1885, Dufault faced a question as he readied to retire: Who should work the land? His three children had fulfilling careers outside farming and weren’t interested in taking over.  Rather than cash out to a corporate interest, he cut a different path. This spring, Dufault, 65, is giving six young farmers access to his land in Gentilly Township. He hopes to cultivate a new generation of farmers who’ll stay rooted in his community. Rather than sell or rent his Polk County land to corporate interests, retiring farmer Tim Dufault chose to rent the land to six young farmers.Dan Gunderson | MPR News"The last thing I want to do is to rent to somebody that doesn't shop local,” he said. “And these guys are all going to be local. They're going to raise their kids in the school districts. They'll be on the school boards, or the church boards." He picked young men he felt were good farmers who were trying to expand. "I wanted to keep it to guys that are just starting.” ‘He could have named his price’Access to land is one of the biggest challenges for young farmers. The average age of Minnesota farmers is 57, so the transition to a younger generation is accelerating.  Dufault decided to rent his crop land to young farmers, rather than one large operator that might be willing to pay a bit more per acre to farm the land.  Alex Prudhomme is one of six young farmers renting land from retiring farmer Tim Dufault. Prudhomme said access to land is a constant struggle for young farmers like him who did not grow up on a farm. Courtesy Alex PrudhommeIt is getting “harder and harder every year” to find land to rent, said Alex Prudhomme, one of the six young farmers renting a piece of the Dufault farm, which runs about 1,100 acres total. “Tim could have named his price, and I know people were knocking at his door,” said Prudhomme, 32, who’s been farming for about 12 years. “For a guy like that to do what he did, spread it out amongst a few young farmers, you can't even put it into words how much that means to some of the smaller guys who have a seriously uphill battle to climb.” Alex Prudhomme take a break from spring planting with daughters Dakota, Charlee and Ronnie. Prudhomme is renting farmland from retiring farmer Tim Dufault near Crookston. Courtesy Alex PrudhommePrudhomme hopes to buy his first farmland this year, but there are challenges with rising prices and competition from large farmers and investors who see farmland as a profitable holding for the future. ‘Life beyond farming’Dufault and his wife Marlene will still live on the farm. They enjoy the bucolic setting and he enjoys caring for the spacious yard. The stress of farming is what led him to retire while he's still healthy and on solid financial ground, but he's still going to miss the routine. He’s familiar with every square foot of the land after a lifetime of planting and harvesting wheat, corn and soybeans. "You can't beat being in a tractor going up and down the field,” He said. “It's just something about putting a seed in the ground and watching it grow and harvesting it, there's just such fulfillment with that.” On the other hand, he won’t miss the combine breaking down in the middle of harvest, the markets crashing when he’s trying to sell grain, or a hailstorm that wipes out a beautiful crop. “Those are the days you wish you were doing something else," he said. Tim Dufault talks about his collection of Minnesota Vikings memorabilia that fills the walls of his garage. He chose to retire from farming but is working to help young farmers work and stay in his community.Dan Gunderson | MPR NewsDufault still has work to do preparing for a July auction to sell off most of his machinery but he’s planning to buy golf clubs, and he recently tried his hand at pickleball. “I might have to get in the pickup and go to town," he said with a chuckle. He also went to hear an author speak in the middle of the day, an unthinkable use of time in the past 44 spring seasons. “There's life beyond farming," he said, although he its with a smile that he’ll still be watching the crops grow.  And wishing a good harvest for his young renters.  “I when I was at their point in my career, it's like you were just hungry to get a piece of ground. So they've got that optimism, that drive, and I know those guys are going to be successful.”

At the Al Lenzmeier Boys and Girls Club, students move from art station to art station. They paint with water colors, make bracelets or create eccentric designs with tie dye. It’s the vision of 16-year-old Satiza Garcia-Anderson and her peers. She wanted to give young people in St. Paul space to express themselves without pressure. “I never grew up in a really stable home,” Satiza said. “I was enrolled in dance, and I did art on the side, and I reflected upon that, and I was like, well, some kids aren’t comfortable talking about how they feel, so why not let them show that?” Satiza Garcia-Anderson, 16, started ARTE because she thought young people in her community needed space to express their feelings without talking. She leads the program with her peers at the Al Lenzmeier Boys and Girls Club in St. Paul.Kyra Miles | MPR NewsThe program, ARTE: Art, Reflect, Talk and Empower, is part of the Boys and Girls Club of the Twin Cities’ Changemaker Challenge, started post-pandemic and after the murder of George Floyd to give younger people an opportunity to lead problem solving efforts based on a researched topic that impacts their community. This year’s topic was mental health. “I think there’s misunderstandings for us as adults as to how much kids really understand themselves and their needs,” said BGCTC President and CEO Terryl Brumm. “We've seen this evolution and approach of young people coming together and creating solutions that really create change in their community, defining mental health, not as this overwhelming problem that can’t be solved.” Satiza saw a particular need in communities of color where there is an ongoing stigma against seeking help for mental health. She said her male peers especially feel that way. Young students at the Al Lenzmeier Boys and Girls Club in St. Paul tie dye tote bags and t-shirts at one art station during the ARTE program.Kyra Miles | MPR News“They grew up and they were raised like, don’t show emotions, don’t cry, men don’t cry,” she said. “And so I think I’ve really seen a change within the vulnerability of the males here, and I’m really happy about that too.” Moses Crew, 18, helped Satiza work with the young boys at the club — mainly through the art of basketball. Crew found he could improve his own mental health while helping younger kids with theirs. “Most people feel like nobody’s gonna come save them,” Crew said. “And it does feel like that. Sometimes that’s the case, nobody's gonna come save you. So you just have to get into the mindset of, ‘I have to help myself.’” Since September, the kids have organized and fundraised to buy art supplies. Over the last few months Satiza’s work with her younger peers created a showcase they displayed in the Boys and Girls Club gym. There’s a clay smiley face and a watercolor of a basketball. A few paintings of trees and cartoon characters. It’s not always deep stuff, but Satiza believes when kids feel good about their art, they benefit. Students at Al Lenzmeier Boys and Girls Club present their artworks created through the ARTE: Art, Reflect, Talk and Empower program.Kyra Miles | MPR News“Like, as far as mood, because I see a lot of the kids usually come here [and] be very quiet and not speak,” she said. “But this program helped a lot of them get out of their shell. I really, really appreciate that, and I see it and I’m so grateful that I got the opportunity to help them feel confident enough to speak out or show out whatever they want.” As part of her own art therapy, Satiza likes to paint, dance and sing. At the showcase she performed “A Change is Gonna Come” to an audience of her peers. She said she hopes change does come for her community, one masterpiece at a time.

While addressing the Libertarian Party national convention in 2024, President Trump promised to free Ross Ulbricht, a former tech entrepreneur incarcerated for creating a dark web site called Silk Road that was used by drug traffickers. "If you vote for me, on day one I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht," Trump said, sparking applause.Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesPresident Donald Trump has long called for escalating the U.S. drug war against Mexican cartels and wants tougher penalties for dealers selling fentanyl and other street drugs in American communities. "I am ready for it, the death penalty, if you deal drugs," Trump said during a meeting with state governors in February, where he said dealers are too often treated with a "slap on the wrist." But despite his tough rhetoric, Trump has sparked controversy by pardoning a growing number of convicted drug dealers, including this week's move to grant clemency to Larry Hoover, 74, who was serving multiple life sentences in federal prison for crimes linked to his role leading the Chicago-based Gangster Disciples. Already during the early months of his second term, Trump has granted clemency to at least eight individuals convicted on federal drug charges. Some, including Hoover, have extensive criminal records involving violence and gun charges. "There's a lot of mixed messages and mixed signals [from the White House] which creates sort of chaos and uncertainty," said Jeffrey Singer, a drug policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank. "On the one hand you're threatening even tougher penalties on people who deal in drugs, while on the other hand you're releasing drug dealers from prisons." The case of Larry Hoover and the Gangster DisciplesRon Safer, a former U.S. attorney in Chicago who helped prosecute of the Gangster Disciples during the 1990s, said he was shocked and dismayed by Trump's decision to commute Hoover's sentence. He pointed out that Hoover's gang was one of the largest and most violent drug syndicates in the U.S., operating in 35 states according to the U.S Justice Department. Hoover himself was convicted of state and federal charges including murder and use of a firearm while trafficking drugs. "Larry Hoover was the head of perhaps the most pernicious, efficient drug operation in the United States," Safer said. "They sold over $100 million of drugs a year in the city of Chicago alone. They were responsible for countless murders. They ed their drug territories with ruthless violence." Hoover was first incarcerated in 1973 after being convicted of murder. In the 1990s, he was convicted of federal charges linked to his role directing the Gangster Disciples. Hoover is now expected to be transferred from a federal supermax prison to a state correctional facility in Illinois, where he'll remain behind bars, for now, because of the state-level murder conviction. Hoover has sought clemency from Illinois officials before, though his latest bid for parole was rejected overwhelmingly by a state review board in December 2022. But a White House spokesman, commenting on background because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly, told NPR the Trump istration expects Illinois officials to follow the federal government's lead by freeing Hoover. "There have been many advocates saying the time [Hoover] served in prison was adequate," the spokesman said. Amid calls for tough punishments, clemency for high-level drug traffickersTrump's clemency for Hoover and other drug offenders follows a pattern that began during his first term in the White House. While promising tough action against drug dealers, Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of at least 13 people convicted of federal drug crimes between 2017 and 2021, including high-level dealers linked to violence or convicted of operating major trafficking rings. In 2020, Trump's istration also freed a senior Mexican military official arrested by the U.S. Drug Enforcement istration in Los Angeles on charges he helped cartels traffic drugs into the U.S. Under pressure from Mexico's government, officials in Trump's Justice Department dropped prosecution of General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda. In the first month of his second term, Trump also pardoned Ross Ulbricht, a former tech entrepreneur serving a life term in federal prison for creating Silk Road, a dark web internet site that became a major conduit for drug traffickers. "Ulbricht also demonstrated a willingness to use violence to protect his criminal enterprise and the anonymity of its s, soliciting six murders-for-hire in connection with operating the site, although there is no evidence that these murders were actually carried out," federal prosecutors said in a statement after Ulbricht was sentenced in 2015. Commenting on background, the White House spokesman said there is no contradiction between Trump's tough-on-dealers rhetoric and his decisions to free some individuals involved in drug trafficking. "The punishment does not always fit the crime," the spokesman said. "The president is open to seeing if these people are worthy of redemption." Some critics of the U.S. drug war offered cautious praise of Trump's use of presidential authority to free drug offenders. "President Trump's potential decision to grant clemency to people with drug convictions offers a crucial lifeline to those affected and affirms what communities have long known: Criminalization of drugs is ineffective and harmful," said Kassandra Frederique, head of the Drug Policy Alliance, in a statement sent to NPR. But Frederique is critical of Trump's wider stance on drug policy. "These individual acts of clemency starkly contrast with the istration's broader tough-on-crime rhetoric and its ongoing efforts to dismantle lifesaving health services," Frederique said. Some view Trump's pardons as "transactional"During his final days in office, President Joe Biden pardoned thousands of offenders, many of them incarcerated on federal drug charges. Biden said the move reflected his growing unease with the drug war. "This action is an important step toward righting historic wrongs, correcting sentencing disparities, and providing deserving individuals the opportunity to return to their families and communities after spending far too much time behind bars," Biden said. Drug policy experts interviewed by NPR said it's difficult to find a coherent philosophy behind Trump's use of clemency. According to the Cato Institute's Singer, Trump's pardons often appear "transactional" and often reflect the influence of powerful individuals. "He actually promised in front of the Libertarian Party convention that if he was elected he would pardon Ross Ulbricht. That was a promise he made hoping to get from Libertarians," Singer said. "It's not like there's an ideological thread running through [Trump's] decisions." During that campaign appearance in 2024, Trump openly linked his plan to commute Ulbricht's sentence to his bid for the White House. "If you vote for me, on day one I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht to a sentence of time served," Trump said, sparking applause from Ulbricht's ers. The release of Larry Hoover, meanwhile, was championed by the artist Ye — formerly known as Kanye West — who thanked Trump this week on the social media platform X. "WORDS CAN'T EXPRESS MY GRATITUDE FOR OUR DEVOTED ENDURING PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP FOR FREEING LARRY HOOVER," Ye wrote. During his first term, Trump pardoned and freed Alice Marie Johnson after the reality TV star Kim Kardashian called for her release. Johnson was convicted in 1996 and sentenced to life behind bars for her nonviolent role as part of a Memphis, Tenn., cocaine trafficking ring. Earlier this year, Trump appointed her to serve as his "pardon czar." In a social media post, Johnson, too, praised the president's latest round of pardons. "Today 26 deserving individuals were granted clemencies and pardons. Each one represents a story of redemption, rehabilitation, and resilience," Johnson said on the platform X. "Their second chance is a second shot at life." Copyright 2025, NPR

Joe Walsh, who has Alzheimer's disease, is accompanied by his wife, Karen Walsh, to an appointment at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Joe is receiving an experimental therapy to treat Alzheimer's.Jodi Hilton for NPR‎Joe Walsh, 79, is waiting to inhale. He's perched on a tan recliner at the Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. His wife, Karen Walsh, hovers over him, ready to depress the plunger on a nasal spray applicator. "One, two, three," a nurse counts. The plunger plunges, Walsh sniffs, and it's done. The nasal spray contains an experimental monoclonal antibody meant to reduce the Alzheimer's-related inflammation in Walsh's brain. He is the first person living with Alzheimer's to get the treatment, which is also being tested in people with diseases including multiple sclerosis, ALS and COVID-19. And the drug appears to be reducing the inflammation in Walsh's brain, researchers report in the journal Clinical Nuclear Medicine. "I think this is something special," says Dr. Howard Weiner, a neurologist at Mass General Brigham who helped develop the nasal spray, along with its maker, Tiziana Life Sciences. Whether a decrease in inflammation will bring improvements in Walsh's thinking and memory, however, remains unclear. The experimental treatment is part of a larger effort to find new ways to interrupt the cascade of events in the brain that lead to Alzheimer's dementia. Two drugs now on the market clear the brain of sticky amyloid plaques, clumps of toxic protein that accumulate between neurons. Other experimental drugs have targeted the tau tangles, a different protein that builds up inside nerve cells. But fewer efforts have tried to address inflammation, a sign of Alzheimer's that becomes more pronounced as the disease progresses. Dr. Brahyan Galindo-Mendez, right, isters an eye-tracking test to Walsh after his treatment.Jodi Hilton for NPRA diagnosis and a quest for careOnce Joe Walsh has finished inhaling the experimental medication, he gets a cognitive exam from Dr. Brahyan Galindo-Mendez, a neurology fellow. "Can you tell me your name please," Mendez asks. "What's your name?" After a pause, Walsh answers: "Joe." "And who is with you today?" Mendez says, glancing toward Walsh's wife, Karen. "We'll do that," Walsh replies. "What's her name?" Mendez persists. "Her name," Walsh echoes. "That's her name. That's my wife." Walsh is unable to put a name to the woman he's been married to for 36 years. In 2019, a PET scan confirmed that Joe Walsh had Alzheimer's. It took Karen Walsh years to get her husband into a research study that would offer him an experimental treatment.Jodi Hilton for NPRKaren Walsh began to notice a change in her husband back in 2017. "He was struggling to find the right words to complete a thought or a sentence," she says. The couple went to a primary care doctor, who said that if Walsh turned out to have Alzheimer's, he should enter a research study in hopes of getting one of the latest treatments. Then the doctor referred Walsh to a neurologist. In 2019, a PET scan revealed extensive amyloid plaques in Walsh's brain, confirming the diagnosis. "As much as I was in shock," Karen Walsh says, "the words were ringing in my head: 'ask for the research.'" So she began looking for a clinical trial. But in 2020, COVID arrived in the U.S., shuttering hundreds of research studies. By the time the pandemic subsided, Walsh's Alzheimer's had progressed to the point where he no longer qualified for most studies. A novel drug for inflammationIn late 2024, Karen brought Joe to Dr. Seth Gale, a neurologist at Mass General Brigham and Harvard Medical School who promised to look for a research study Walsh could enter. Before long, Gale received a query from a colleague looking for a patient with moderate Alzheimer's disease to take part in a trial. He called the Walshes. The research involved a monoclonal antibody called foralumab that was being tested on people with inflammatory diseases including multiple sclerosis. Foralumab nasal spray, above, is being tested as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease by researchers at Mass General Brigham.Jodi Hilton/for NPRMS occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks the protective covering around nerve fibers, causing inflammation. And foralumab was producing promising results in MS patients. "It induces regulatory cells that go to the brain and shut down inflammation," Weiner says. Those regulatory cells reduce the activity of microglia, the cells that serve as the primary immune system in the brain and spinal cord. Weiner thought foralumab might help with another condition that causes damaging inflammation in the nervous system. "I've always been interested in Alzheimer's disease," Weiner says. "I lost my mother to Alzheimer's disease." Most efforts to treat Alzheimer's involve clearing the brain of the disease's hallmarks: sticky amyloid plaques and tangled fibers called tau. But increasingly, researchers are seeking ways to tamp down the inflammation that accompanies those brain changes, especially as the disease progresses. "Once people have Alzheimer's, the inflammation is driving the disease more," Weiner says. Dr. Howard Weiner, a neurologist at Mass General Brigham, is studying foralumab for treating diseases including multiple sclerosis, COVID, ALS and Alzheimer's.Jodi Hilton for NPR‎The approach worked in mice that develop a form of Alzheimer's. But in order to treat Walsh, Weiner's team had to get special permission from the Food and Drug istration through a program called expanded access. The program is for patients who can't get into a clinical trial and have no other treatment options. When the FDA approved foralumab for Walsh, he became the first Alzheimer's patient to get the treatment. Six months later, the drug has dramatically reduced the inflammation in Walsh's brain. But no drug can restore brain cells that have already been lost. It will take a battery of cognitive tests to see if Walsh's memory and thinking have improved with the treatment. Karen Walsh, though, sees some positive signs. Although her husband still struggles to find words, she says, he appears to be more engaged in social activities. "A couple of guys come pick him up once a month, you know, and they take him out for lunch," she says. "They sent me a text after saying, 'Wow, Joe is really, really laughing, and very involved.'" After three months of treatment, a PET scan showed that the inflammation in Walsh's brain had decreased dramatically.Jodi Hilton for NPR‎Walsh himself seems happy to stay on the drug. Between non sequiturs, he manages to put together a complete sentence: "It's easy enough to take it, so I do it, and it feels good." A clinical trial of foralumab for Alzheimer's disease is scheduled to begin later this year. Copyright 2025, NPR

On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.  Michelle Tuplin of Serendipity Books in Chelsea, Mich., recommends the YA novel “Come Home to My Heart” by Riley Redgate. "Come Home to My Heart" by Riley Redgate.Photo courtesy: Union Square & Co.It’s a queer coming-of-age story about first love. Within five pages, Tuplin says, she found herself caring so deeply for these characters that she didn’t want to put the book down. The story moves back and forth between the points of view of Gloria and Xia, two high schoolers in a small South Carolina town. They aren’t looking to become friends, let alone fall for each other. Xia is determined to fly under the radar and keeps up her protective self-isolation. Popular Gloria comes from a Christian family who kicks her out when she tells them she’s gay, leading Gloria to sleep in the school’s theater while keeping her situation hidden. Tuplin says: Gloria is desperate to please her parents, desperate to be what she considers good and how that has been defined by her church. She feels like she’s a good person, but then she also wants to be true to her queerness. The story deals with important subjects, but also it's so beautifully told. The way the homelessness happens and is described, it just feels like it could happen in any small town in America. And I just cared so deeply. I was immediately engaged. Bookstore lover bonus story: Tuplin shared a lovely story of her small town of Chelsea, Mich., coming together. When her bookstore moved to a new location recently, she asked for community help. Some 300 people answered the call and stood shoulder to shoulder, handing books down the line from one location to the next. Not only did they move over 9,000 books in two hours, but they were able to re-shelve the books in their proper places in the new space!