Minnesota Now: May 5, 2026

This is Minnesota Now. I'm Nina Moyni. During Operation Metro Surge, thousands of Minnesotans were sent to detention centers in Texas. In one case, a woman with an ovarian cyst says she's been denied medical care. Representative Angie Craig went to visit her. We'll talk to the Congresswoman about her experience. In another immigration case, a Brooklyn Park man detained for more than three months may avoid deportation, thanks in part to a last-minute pardon from the state. Plus, we'll check in on the Minneapolis Emergency Rent Relief Program and how much money has gone out so far. A new book is sharing a different framework for research that centers often underserved communities. We'll talk to the author, Brittany Lewis. All that and more headed your way after these top news headlines. Live from NPR News, I'm Lakshmi Singh. Voters are heading to the polls in Ohio and Indiana today for primary contests. NPR's Stephen Fowler reports previous decisions made about redistricting will play a role in key races. After an effort to redraw the U.S. House map in Indiana failed last year, President Trump now seeks to oust several incumbent Republican state senators who helped defeat the plan. In Ohio, new House maps were required by law. Those minor changes make re-election slightly harder for two Democrats and easier for one Democrat. While the primaries for Ohio's Senate and governor's races aren't competitive, Trump's record low approval ratings coupled with Democratic enthusiasm has both parties looking ahead to an expensive clash in November's midterm contests. Stephen Fowler, NPR News. Michigan is holding a special election for state Senate in the 35th district, which determines control of the state's upper chamber for the remainder of the year. Democrats are attempting to retain their slim majority. Georgia officials are attempting to block the Justice Department from getting hold of the full roster of thousands of volunteers and staffers who worked the 2020 election. The president Trump alleges was rigged against him. The DOJ's request went public yesterday when Fulton County officials filed a motion challenging the subpoena. The Trump administration's view appears to be that the U.S. ceasefire with Iran is still holding, despite the latest clashes. At the Pentagon today, General Dan Cain, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Iran has fired at commercial vessels nine times and seized two container ships since the start of the truce. Cain also says Iran's recent acts of aggression are below the threshold of restarting major combat operations. President Trump at the White House a short time ago. Nobody's going to challenge the blockade. And I think it's working out very well. We're going to see. I can say this. Iran wants to make a deal. President Trump taking reporters' questions after signing a proclamation restoring the Presidential Fitness Test Award. It is getting more expensive to use residential air conditioners in the summer. NPR's Rebecca Herscher reports the cost of cooling an average house has risen by more than a third since 2020. The cost of cooling your house is rising because electricity prices are going up. That's because of a combination of higher fuel costs, increased electricity demand from AI data centers, and inflation. A new report from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association warns the cost of cooling an average home in the United States will be about 8% higher this summer compared to last summer. The high cooling costs come as millions of people in the U.S. are already struggling to afford basic food and transportation, with high gas prices and grocery prices straining family budgets. Rebecca Hersher, NPR News. This is NPR News. Support for NPR comes from NPR stations. Other contributors include United States Postal Service, dedicated to putting reliability at the core of USPS Ground Advantage to help businesses operate smoothly. More at USPS.com slash Ground Advantage. Across the state today, highs in the 40s, 50s, chilly air is sticking around for a few days. more seasonable temperatures headed our way for the weekend. I'm Nina Moyni with these Minnesota news headlines. An update to a story we brought you yesterday. The Minnesota Senate has voted to ban assault-style weapons in high-capacity magazines. Dana Ferguson reports. All Democrats were in favor and all Republicans were opposed to the limits on sales or transfers of the weapons. The same measure boosts grants for school safety measures and mental health services. Senator Zaynab Mohamed said it's needed action after the school shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church. This is a complex problem without a single solution. The students and parents we have heard from do not want us to choose between banning weapons of war and investing in school safety. This isn't either or. We need both. Senator Steve Dreskowski says it wouldn't solve the problem. Truth is that guns don't kill people. Bad people kill people, whether they use guns or knives or cars or poisons. Democrats have a one-vote edge in the Senate. The bill lacks a clear path in the Tide House. I'm Dana Ferguson at the Capitol. The state agency that has struggled to contain fraud is getting another shakeup at the top. Erica Zurich reports. Governor Tim Walz has announced new leadership at the Department of Human Services. a day before a Minnesota Senate committee planned to hold a confirmation hearing for Shereen Gandhi as commissioner. Under the new structure, Gandhi was asked to move into a deputy commissioner role to oversee Medicaid programming. DHS's John Connolly will serve as the interim commissioner. Connolly also appointed the department's general counsel to deputy commissioner. In a statement, Governor Walz says the leadership changes were put in place to improve oversight and to protect Medicaid services for Minnesotans. Sotans. I'm Erika Zurich. During Operation Metro Surge, thousands of people detained by federal immigration agents ended up getting put on a plane and flown to detention centers out of state. According to an analysis by our partners at Sahan Journal, 3,400 people were flown to Texas. As of early March, 530 remained there. It's unclear now how many are still in detention as of today. One detainee's experience has gotten the attention of lawmakers. First reported by the Minnesota reformer, Andrea Pedro Francisco of Burnsville has a tennis ball-sized ovarian cyst. She was scheduled to have surgery to treat the cyst, but was detained before it could happen. While in ICE detention, Andrea says she has not gotten the medical care she needs for her cyst. Democrat U.S. Representative Angie Craig, whose district includes Burnsville, went down to visit Andrea at Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas. This was yesterday. Congresswoman Craig joins me now to talk about her experience. Thank you for your time this afternoon. Thank you, Nina. As I mentioned, you went down to meet with Andrea Pedro Francisco. Was it difficult to get to meet with her? And what did she tell you about the care she's now receiving? Well, the most difficult part was we had been trying to see her for a couple of months, and we had to wait until a measles outbreak had subsided in Camp East Montana. But we were able to meet with her yesterday actually at the El Paso Processing Center where she's now been moved. She's still in an enormous amount of pain. It really was just a heartbreaking situation where now for more than two months, she's been denied the care that Minnesota doctors have said that she's needed since she was detained by ICE. Did she say she's in need of surgery or what did DHS officials tell you about her medical care and what she's receiving? Well, we were finally able to get medical release records from to ICE. And so it's been a little bit confusing to Andrea and her attorneys, as well was to us yesterday because at Camp East Montana, she was examined by a physician and they determined that she no longer had an ovarian cyst. However, now that she's been moved to the processing center, again, because of her severe pain, she was sent outside that facility for an ultrasound just about three days ago. And they did conclude that she indeed does still have the ovarian cyst, that she was scheduled to have surgically removed in Minnesota just six days after she was detained by ICE. So, look, these are some of the most notorious detention centers in the country. And what I saw there and, of course, what she has experienced, just being told that she didn't have a cyst, now she's told she does have a cyst, and we're just trying to work to make sure that she gets the medical care and surgery that she needs. physicians have written in to ICE to say this is a very dangerous situation with someone with a tennis ball-sized ovarian cyst goes untreated. So we're going to keep working to push for ICE to get her the treatment that she deserves. We did get some bad news this morning, unfortunately, from Andrea's attorneys, her humanitarian parole request was denied today. So unfortunately, they are not going to parole her back to Minnesota to get the treatment that she needs, and we'll obviously await her attorneys to decide what the next steps are. What about other Minnesotans in detention centers in Texas? Do you know how many Minnesotans are there? Is anybody tracking the numbers? Well, I asked that yesterday. I was able to tour Camp East Montana as well as the processing center. And what I got from them is they could not tell me how many Minnesotans were being held in the facility right now. They obviously felt like they were overwhelmed with Minnesotans during Operation Metro Surge. That was relayed to me from some of the people who were around at the location yesterday. Yesterday, they felt very overwhelmed with, and frankly, I don't think they got a heads up that Operation Metro Surge was going to be put in place and this number of detainees would be coming into their care. And really, to give you a sense of what I experienced yesterday, there are three examination rooms for the, you know, 800 people being detained, which is just inadequate. And, you know, we have seen a fivefold increase in deaths while in ICE detention in this country, really numbers that we haven't seen in more than two decades. And, you know, it's my goal to make sure that Andrea isn't another one of those statistics. So they wouldn't tell us how many Minnesotans were here. They told us to follow up with the Office of Congressional Affairs and that they would try to get us those numbers. Just lastly, Congresswoman, you are in a race for a U.S. Senate seat, and immigration has become pretty central to the race that you're in. In March, you shared you regretted your vote in support of the Lake and Riley Act, which is a federal law that expanded who could be detained by ICE, including undocumented immigrants accused of low-level crimes. I believe Andre does not have a criminal record. You were also one of a few Democrats who signed on to a resolution that included language expressing, quote, gratitude to ICE officers. Both of those votes have led to criticism. What did this trip symbolize for you as it relates to your voting record? Well, think about what this administration has done. only about 10 percent of the folks detained under Operation Metro Surge had any kind of criminal background or record at all. This isn't what the Trump administration said they were going to do. But what I will tell you is that I have accepted and said to Minnesotans that I regret that vote, even if they aren't using that particular law to detain individuals, giving this administration any additional capacity to detain individuals is something that I regret. And as an elected leader, as someone who ran for public office to help my constituents, I think it's really important for us to hold ourselves accountable and be honest with the Minnesotans that I represent and to those that I seek to represent as the next U.S. senator. You know, I'll just end with this. My time with Andrea yesterday was incredibly personal. I spent 40 minutes with her, and she expressed to me that she's incredibly sad to be away from her family and friends and her brothers and sisters at church where she plays the bass guitar and the piano. She'd love to be able to hug her mom especially again. And the word she said that had the most impact to me is, we may be poor, but we were together. And as the congresswoman from the 2nd District and as someone who could serve as the next U.S. Senator from Minnesota, what I took away most from this visit is the fact that we need to be a country that respects our history of welcoming immigrants into this country. And my resolve to fight for comprehensive immigration reform for people like Andrea, who were brought here at 16 years old, had no criminal background or record, paid taxes and contributed to our community. We can accept this administration cruelty and that we need to fight with all of our might for comprehensive immigration reform in our country And that my commitment to Minnesota Congresswoman thanks so much for your time Thank you That Congresswoman Angie Craig of Minnesota 2nd District A Brooklyn Park man spent more than three months in the El Paso detention center's representative Angie Craig visited. At Chandy, who goes by Ricky, was recently transferred to Louisiana and scheduled for a deportation flight this week. But his removal from the U.S. is on hold. A federal appeals court issued a 14-day pause in his deportation. On the same day, Minnesota leaders held an emergency meeting and pardoned him for the 1992 crime that led to his deportation order. Whatever happens next could hold lessons for other immigrants who are seeking pardons to avoid deportation and recover their permanent status in the United States. NPR News producer Alana Elder has been following this story for us and joins me now. Hi, Alana. Hi, Nina. Can you start by telling me about Chandy's case? Yeah, so Chandy was born in Laos and he came to the U.S. as a refugee with his family when he was a child. When he was 18, he was charged with second-degree assault in Cottonwood County and he was sentenced to three years in prison. And then after he got out, he was given a deportation order, but Laos would not accept him. And this was true for many refugees who were convicted of crimes who were from Laos and other countries that weren't accepting deportees from the U.S. at the time. So over the years, he tried unsuccessfully to overturn his deportation order. He applied for clemency last year before agents detained him at his home on January 24th. And he was flown to Camp East Montana in El Paso and later transferred to the El Paso Processing Center. Now he's in Louisiana, like you said. And family and friends say he really turned his life around since his conviction. He works for the city of Minneapolis as an engineering technician. And his son, Alex Sayasunthan, is in the Air Force. He said this on Friday. He was always bringing people together. He was always an optimistic, go-lucky person. He was always able to provide for everybody. And he was a grill master as well. I can't really think of any other times where there was an ounce of pessimism in my father. Basically, in the end, my dad wanted me to live the life that he never had. And I believe my father has done very well in that. And I would not be half the man I am today without my father. Alex was one of several people who spoke on his father's behalf at a hearing of the Clemency Review Commission. It's the body that recommends decisions to the pardon board, which actually decides who gets a pardon in Minnesota. What else happened in that hearing, Alana? Well, dozens of Chandy's supporters filled the room. He was expected to make his case to the commission himself. But a day before the hearing, he was transferred from El Paso to a different detention center in Louisiana. He was scheduled for a deportation flight. So a slew of family, friends and co-workers voiced their support. And family friend Tim Blaylark read Chandy's statement in his place. Over the years, I have worked hard to grow into a better person. I often remind myself and others to think before acting and not to make decisions based on emotion. Lessons I wish I had understood at 18. If I could speak to my younger self, I would tell them to slow down, think clearly, and choose a different path. There are opportunities for victims to speak at these hearings, but none did. And the commission voted 6-0 to recommend clemency to Governor Tim Walls and the Board of Pardons, which also includes Attorney General Keith Ellison and Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson. So why did the Board of Pardons hold an emergency meeting? Chandy was scheduled for deportation this week, and the board acknowledged they would have probably granted his pardon anyway because of the evidence of rehabilitation that he showed. But Walls said the state moved up its timeline because Chandy was, quote, swept up in the federal immigration surge. Also yesterday, an appeals court ordered a 14-day pause in Chandy's deportation. His lawyer said that he filed that request on Friday before the pardon was granted. And Chandy's not the only one who asked for a pardon due to immigration concerns, right? Right. There were several others who told the Clemency Review Commission that immigration factored into their requests. For immigrants who had lawful status in the U.S. and then lost it due to a conviction, pardon can be the best way to get that stability back. At least five people said in the hearings on Friday that they were at risk of deportation. One other besides Chandy was in ICE detention. Another man had been arrested during the federal surge and was later released. The commission voted to recommend clemency in all five of those cases, except in one, it recommended pardoning some crimes, but not a kidnapping conviction that they viewed as more serious. And Wall said after the emergency pardon board meeting yesterday, the pardon board will consider these cases in their entirety during its regular meetings. And I would like to note on this, just in order for removal does not mean you're going to be granted a pardon. It certainly depends on many factors, rehabilitation being one of those, acceptance of what you did, inputs from the community, all those things matter. The pardon board next meets in June. What do you know about how the federal government will respond to this? Well, the Department of Homeland Security has not responded to a request for comment as of now. A former immigration judge I talked to said that when he was on the bench, he only saw a few of these cases, but they were pretty straightforward. And once someone has a pardon, if they had legal status before and it's an eligible crime, he said judges didn't have much discretion. There have been some major shakeups in immigration court, though. Lots of new judges and Chandy's lawyer said the federal government will likely contest his pardon. Thanks for staying on this for us, Alana. Thanks, Nina. Alana Elder is a producer for NPR News. It's our Minnesota Music Minute, the local group called Sounds of Blackness with their song Black Butterfly. They're on the long lineup that was announced today to support the return of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis to the grandstand stage at the Minnesota State Fair this August. A genius has been a suit to love I'm Nina Moiney. Thank you so much, as always, for choosing to spend your noon hour with Minnesota Now. We appreciate it. Today is new member day of NPR Spring Member Drive, meaning your monthly gift is matched for a full year for all new and current sustaining members. Remember, if you're a sustainer, you can always crank up your support. Today's a good day to do it. Matches all day long. Another great reason today is awesome is because politics editor Brian Baxter is joining me to help me pitch. Thanks for being here. So we meet again, Nina. So we meet again. Brian, you know I'm a huge fan of your work, your team. Shout out Dana Ferguson, who people hear on this program almost daily because she's – I think she might live at the Capitol. I'm not sure. Peter Cox, Matt Alvarez, Kate Kelly. You all have been nonstop for basically years and we just we appreciate you so much. Thank you for doing this today. Nina, you know what? Just listening to the first two segments of this hour, it just reminded me of the importance of what we do. We were all very busy watching everything unfold earlier this year with the immigration actions that were taken. And we're not letting it go. We're continuing to follow up on it. Just Alana Elder's story just now, the interview with Congresswoman Craig that both got at this woman in detention and connected it to her U.S. Senate race, which, of course, is going to be the big thing in our future is this election season is really important. and it just goes to show that we're here with this trusted local news and community connections and that's the value of member support and that's why we come to you a few times a year to ask for member support to ask you to maybe kick in a little more as you said crank it up crank it up and today it's a great day to do it because of this match that you talked about it really is nprnews.org is the way you do it or if you like to talk on the phone you want to talk Someone still just takes a few minutes, 800-227-2811. And you know, you're right, Brian, that is the power of local news and the treasure of local news is, for whatever reason, so many national and international stories have been happening in our backyard here in Minnesota. And you see people coming in from all across the world, media, national media. They're gone now. They're gone now. And here we are following up, fortunate to be able to follow up with how are people doing, how are individuals doing, how are communities doing? what's going on at the state, local, federal level to try to balance out what's happened here and maybe help people to get through this time. So that's what we do. And it doesn't stop. The work doesn't end for us. We know that the people listening really value this. We also know most of the folks listening are not members yet. So what a wonderful opportunity today when your monthly gift is going to be matched for a full year. 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A lot of times people listen, they think, oh, someone else will jump on this or I'll jump on this later. Now is really the time to make whatever you give go as far as possible. And it really is about just assessing, I think, what this service means to you, what value it has for you, looking at your budget for the month, and then deciding what makes sense. Think of all the other things that you subscribe to and go to nprnews.org or call 800-227-2811. Nina, this is a great time of year also because we hear from members about why they give or what's important to them. Denise in Robbinsdale, just to your point, I pay for Netflix, podcasts, New York Times. It's about time I pay for the service I use the most. It's a great way to look at it. You know, you turn it on. We're here for you. You go to the website. We're here for you. No paywall. But that does come at a cost. And we're hoping that members will chip in what they can to help make things go. NPRnews.org or 800-227-2811. And you know what else is cool, Brian? You know, I guess people can share a Netflix account. But the way that our service works is when people go to nprnews.org, it's free of a paywall. So you're actually giving a gift to all of your neighbors as well as supporting the work that we do here. It's ensuring that when breaking news is happening so fast and it's a daily grind of what is going to happen today, everybody is able to go to nprnews.org and see what's going on. everybody is able to listen to our programming or stream our programming or look at our social media content that's also really remarkable and award-winning. And where else can you go for a conversation like you just had with Congresswoman Craig, about seven or eight minutes of her talking about what she's seeing, why she's there, what she's up to. You know, it wasn't a, you know, scream fest that you sometimes get in other places. Brooke in Bloomington says, I love the news being delivered by journalists with integrity and calm voices. That's what we offer here. You You know, we're not the splashiest sometimes, but we deliver the news what you need. And that's why I love your program, Politics Friday, which is on at noon. Yeah, you know it's my favorite. It's on at noon on Fridays when we are not on. So we're on Monday through Thursday at noon and then Politics Friday throughout this time. And as things are ramping up with the upcoming election, you really embody that on the program. So I encourage everyone who's not already listening to tune in at noon on Fridays as well. Give what you can. Please support us. It means the world. Whatever you can, it makes a difference. NPRnews.org on this new member day. Your gift will be matched for a full year or 800-227-2811. And thank you. Well, it's been two weeks since the city of Minneapolis opened applications for emergency rent relief. The fund was created after some immigrant families couldn't pay rent because they were too scared to leave their homes and go to work during Operation Metro Surge. The $2 million rent relief fund is being administered through Hennepin County along with three partner organizations. We're going to check in on the progress of this program for you. Will Lehman is the Area Manager of Homelessness Prevention for Hennepin County. Thanks for being with us, Will. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. We're also really glad to have Jackie Perez, vice president of programs at Clues, Minnesota's largest Latino-led nonprofit organization and a community partner organization, again, helping to disperse some of these rent relief funds. Thank you for your time as well, Jackie. Yeah, thank you for having me. I'd love to start with you, Will. Hennepin County does, handles rental assistance year-round. So I'm curious to know how this emergency funding fits into the work that you're commonly doing. Yeah, absolutely. Eviction prevention has actually been a long-standing commitment of ours here at Hennepin County. We and our partners work in conjunction through a coordinated system called RentSELP Hennepin. That is an emergency rent assistance system that connects tenants facing eviction to one-time financial assistance to keep them in their homes and catch up on rent. And the reason emergency rent assistance is so critical is that 90 of evictions in our community are due to non of rent So really this is an economic issue more than anything else And it going to be cash that will help tenants to stay in their homes Coming into this year... Oh, go ahead. No, no, go ahead. What was going on this year? Yeah, coming into this year, our county has committed $10 million towards emergency rent assistance through our Rentel Penit Bin system. And we are so grateful to our partners at the City of Minneapolis who have augmented our funding capacity in response to impacts from Operation Metro Surge to the tune of $2 million. And so our portfolio this year is now at $12 million for the rest of 2026. OK, and I wanted to it actually leads into my question. Do you know how many applications have been processed, how much money has been given out for rental assistance out of this $2 million or specific to Metro Surge? Yeah, absolutely. So we are serving through all of our funding streams, tenants who are impacted by Operation Metro Surge across the entire county, including Minneapolis and overall across our system this year. We've pushed out more than three million dollars in emergency rent assistance, impacting more than 700 households facing eviction through the city of Minneapolis allocation specifically, which rolled out on April 20th. We've pushed out $150,000 already, serving 35 households, which means we're on pace to spend about $300,000 per month. Jackie, as time passes here, what are you seeing in terms of just the need for folks? It's hard to imagine if somebody couldn't pay their rent up until this point that what that situation would look like for them or how long that is stretching beyond when there was the greatest presence of federal agents here. How has the need evolved in this past month or so, I wonder? Yeah, well, the need continues to increase. It hasn't, the number of calls that we receive hasn't leveled up. So we continue to see, for example, just since this funding got released, we received 175 requests for assistance. And out of those, we screen and about $60,000 in requests has been awarded with an average request of about $2,500 per family. However, we are very intentional, given the restrictions of this funding, we're very intentional about ensuring that we don't turn people away if possible. So though some of our funding does have strict requirements, we do everything we can to bridge the gap for individuals who don't qualify for this restricted funding using internal resources with the goal of ensuring that no one falls through the cracks due to city or county restrictions. Okay. Will, how does it work specific to this funding for folks? Who can apply? How much can they receive? I understand it's like whatever the need for that individual is. It's not a strict dollar amount for everyone. That's exactly right. We are administering assistance so that we can fully prevent a household's eviction, which means we typically don't establish a cap on assistance outside of an overall cap of $10,000 or 10 months of rental arrears. And the way it works is such that a resident can reach out to any of our access points, whether it be one of those three providers administering the city of Minneapolis dollars or any of our other 20 plus access points across the overall rental PNAPIN network. Those requests are funneled through our application system, and the applications are processed centrally through the county, and we are the ones administering those payments. Payments go directly to property managers. That's our best assurance that those payments will directly prevent the eviction. And Jackie, do you think there are still people afraid to seek help or afraid of sharing information or skeptical of any sort of government funding in that way? What are you seeing there? Yeah, absolutely. There is fear, but we've done a really good job of building relationship with the community. And so we're an organization that they know they can trust and come to. We've always approached housing as part of a broader vision of family stability. So this isn't new work for us. and we've also found a way to make the process as seamless as possible so the initial application for us is less than two minutes and we assign a housing navigator that goes through the entire process with each household given that the families that we serve require high touch guided support to navigate those requirements and documentation. Okay. Considering just all of this work, Will, what are you seeing in terms of evictions? Are they going up right now? Or what are you seeing at the county level? It sounds like many have been prevented. Yeah, certainly. Again, as mentioned earlier, we've prevented more than 700 evictions already in 2026. Globally, looking at the sort of landscape of eviction risk in Hennepin County, we have not seen that eviction filings have increased so far in 2026. However, that is relative to 2025, which happened to be the highest year on record for our county in terms of, excuse me, eviction filings and eviction judgments. So we're very concerned about the overall level of eviction risk and coming into this year. Certainly would anticipate there could be further increases further down the line. I do want to point to mutual aid as a critical response of the community and grassroots level that won't necessarily show up in our evictions data, but certainly have prevented a number of eviction filings so far this year. And as mutual aid dries up over the coming months, we may see an increase in eviction filings later this year. And of course, we remain committed to responding to any such increases. Jackie, as you're talking with folks, what are you hearing? Because we know this idea of, you know, in Minneapolis, the city council and the mayor are going back and forth about trying to, you know, make some changes to some of the eviction filings or processes to give people some more time. And a lot of people are trying to figure out what is the best way to help people right now. I mean, do these eviction pauses help or are people have obviously relied a lot on mutual aid, although I don't know if that's still going to be as as fervent or, you know, as readily available as it was the past few months, because that can't be, you know, sustained forever. What do you think in terms of solutions? Can there be a combination? Yeah, I mean, you know, this isn't new, right? Like I said. So one of the things that we've had a crisis. Housing, just in general, the cost of living has gone up. Rent has gone up. And we've seen it a lot with our homelessness, specifically in Minneapolis. So yes, removing some of these restrictions does help, but it is a systemic issue and one that it's going to require a lot to change and turn the tide. Our role in rental assistance comes through strong partnerships with Hennepin County and other local partners. So it is something that we're going to have to continue to do. And, you know, ensuring that our families can access these resources in a way that is culturally responsive, linguistically accessible and rooted in trust is key for many of the communities that we serve. Absolutely. Part of ongoing work. Thank you both so much for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Will Lehman is the Area Manager of Homelessness Prevention for Hennepin County, and Jackie Perez is the Vice President of Programs at CLUES. Support comes from the St. Croix Valley Pottery Tour, a regional event featuring handmade pottery, May 8th through 10th, with 67 potters from 20 states exhibiting at seven studios in the St. Croix Valley. More information at minnesotapotters.com. Now we're going to get some national and international news headlines with Emily Reese. Hi, Emily. Hi, Nina. U.S. military leaders say a ceasefire with Iran remains in effect a day after Tehran was blamed for new attacks in the Strait of Hormuz and against the United Arab Emirates. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a news conference today that the ceasefire is not over. Risks of the war reigniting flared yesterday as the U.S. tried to force open the Strait of Hormuz for commercial shipping. The U.S. military said it sank six small Iranian boats targeting civilian ships. Separately, the UAE said Iran attacked it with missiles and drones. President Donald Trump's deals with drug makers requiring many of their U.S. prescription prices to drop could save the economy $529 billion over the next decade. That's according to the first analysis of what's known as the most favored nation policy from the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Democrats have said they want more details about the agreements made between drug makers and the government. Trump says his prescription drug pricing plan is critical for Republicans in the November midterm elections. And recent court rulings on abortion pill access are reigniting that contentious political issue in a midterm year. A federal appeals court restricted male access to mifepristone pills, a common abortion method, but the Supreme Court temporarily restored access yesterday. It's too early to say whether the rulings will affect the outcome of races this year when issues around affordability are expected to take top billing for voters, but advocates on both sides of the issue hope it will sway voters their way. Mexico City is sinking nearly 10 inches every year, making it one of the world's fastest sinking metropolitan areas. That's according to the two newly released satellite imagery from NASA. The sprawling megalopolis with a population of some 22 million was built upon an ancient lakebed. Over the decades, groundwater pumping and urban development have dramatically shrunk the aquifer. So Mexico City have been sinking for more than a century, leaving many buildings visibly tilted to the side. Nina. Thanks, Emily. I love the word megalopolis. Isn't it a good one? Yeah. I kind of stopped when you said that. Thank you so much, Emily. Anytime. Emily Reese, just one of the amazing people that keeps this show on the road, so to speak. Today, it is day two of NPR Spring Member Drive. Today is new member day, which is amazing because your monthly gift is going to be matched for a full year. Whether you become a sustaining member for the first time today or you're already a sustainer, you can go to NPRnews.org or call 800-227-2811. You can begin to give monthly or you can up your already sustaining membership. We really appreciate it. And that gift will be matched for a full year. This is so exciting. We had to bring Brian Baxton. Wow, Nina, that's a good deal. I know. You're a busy guy, and you're taking the time to be here with us today just to tell us about all the amazing, the service that we are providing and how important it is. Nina, you and I like to share. We share an hour. We share a studio, and we share a dedication to keeping our audience up to date on everything. We do. And now we're asking the audience to share a bit. Whatever amount you can give, whether that's $5 a month, $10 a month, $50, $100, you get to name it. That's the beauty of it. is that you get to decide what the value is to you. But today, we're matching that. You're doubling the fun. It's so good. How could you not? The way to do it is nprnews.org or call 800-227-2811. For folks who haven't done it before, which is the majority of folks listening, you go to nprnews.org. There's a Donate Now button. Really simple. You go on there. You enter your information in. 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I love Minnesota Public Radio because it is focused on high-quality journalism and public media. I feel more strongly connected. That's a good one. But it's strongly connected to my state community through the wide variety of efforts and initiatives like the Friday morning weather chats, the regional reporting, Politics Friday. Thanks, Benjamin. The appetite segment and more. I mean, just he listed just the range of things we do. The arts team, the regional reporters out there giving you things from every corner of the state, some moments of delight, serious topics. We do it all. And we can't do it without you. Absolutely. NPRnews.org or 800-227-2811. I like that you touched on the amazing gift that we have of our regional bureaus and our reporters all across the state. I don't know if people realize that not a lot of newsrooms get to have that anymore. We're so fortunate to have people working and living in communities all across Minnesota. And here on Minnesota Now, we have this full hour of Minnesota news, which is such a precious gift. And we always ensure that we include everybody from all across the great state of Minnesota because we are all interconnected. And what's happening in Duluth and what's happening in the Twin Cities and Moorhead and Mankato, all of us are connected. And I think that that's just part of what makes this service count and why we're so fortunate to bring news from every corner of the state and really the region. And I think that's why people from all across the region and world are listening. So what does that mean to you? Give an amount that makes sense for you. Show what you care about and what you value. And your monthly gift is going to be matched when you give today for a full year. It's really the time to do it. NPRnews.org or 800-227-2811, Brian. And you mentioned just a few of those cities. Let's go over the map. Oh, don't do it. We have Rochester. We have Mankato. We have St. Cloud and up into Brainerd. Christy Marone is up there covering that. We have Duluth We have Moorhead We have Matthew holding you up in Bemidji you know all over the state What other services are doing that right now It really something unique and something that our member support allows us to do And we're expanding our presence in some of these places. We have extra reporters in Moorhead, extra reporters in Rochester. I'm sure that Jane Helmke, our boss, will put extra reporters wherever she can if the money is there. And that's why whatever you can give to help support that mission, just call 1-800-227-2811 or go to nprnews.org. It's really easy to become a member. We don't ask much of you. We're not asking you to come to meetings. There's no secret handshake. We'll handle the meetings. Believe me. But we are getting a lot of value from the member support, and we're turning it back to the members. Absolutely. It's not just about surviving for us. It's about thriving and continuing to set intentions and set the bar even higher. That's what you're contributing to. And today, your monthly gift is going to be matched for a full year. Take advantage of it. NPRnews.org or call 800-227-2811. Every little bit counts, and we appreciate it. Programming is supported by the College of St. Benedict and St. John's University, two distinct campuses seamlessly connected for one transformative education. There's more to explore. Plan your visit today at csbsju.edu. On this program, we regularly learn about research that's aimed at understanding social issues to make people's lives better. My next guest says too often institutions study communities without including them, and their findings never reach the people they're supposed to help. Brittany Lewis is out with a book today that outlines a different framework. It's called Building a New Table, a community-centered handbook for transformative social change. Brittany Lewis has a Ph.D. in urban studies, and she's founder and CEO of Minnesota-based Research in Action. She joins me now. Thanks so much for your time, Brittany. Hello. Hello. I wonder, with all of the work that you've done, I wonder when you realized that it was time for a book or a handbook like this to be out in the world. I guess I'd be honest. I feel like this book was always needed. I feel like I needed it when I was figuring out who and what I wanted to be as a leader. And because it didn't exist, I had to figure out for myself the best way to lead pulling from so many different toolkits where one really wasn't speaking to the intersections that community really needed. Hmm. Yeah, I can't tell you how many times I've talked with people over the years from all different communities who say, we just want a seat at the table about issues that are pertaining to where I live or my community. And I think that what you've noticed and pointed out is definitely not something new. It's always been around, but I think that there's more openness to people admitting that that gap exists. I wonder what it looks like when research does not effectively include communities and what it looks like when it does. Could you kind of break that down for us, like in action, what it looks like? A hundred percent. I think we are most used to a traditional research approach that is extractive, that kind of dives into communities, extract information and makes meaning of that information separate from those communities. We're also used to a history of harmful research from whether it's the C.D. Institute or we're talking about boards or commissions who define an agenda, make a reading of a community and then funnel resources in that direction without the community present. I think we are most used to that. I would argue that the equity and action model, which I feature in this book, illustrates what happens when we don't do that. And there's a number of examples of projects that we have led at Research in Action that has moved change. For instance, in 2018, I led the Evictions in North Minneapolis project, and that work moved a number of things. We moved folks getting rid of what is a self-pay policy in Hennepin County, which required shelter guests to pay to stay. It prompted the Pollack Family Foundation to put up half a million dollars to redesign Hennepin County Emergency Assistance, because that was the place in which folks would actually cry or show emotions because they had to ask for help. And it was a dehumanizing process. We've also been able to work at the legislature with a lot of advocates to question why it was taking up to 30 days to hear back about your emergency assistance application where you could actually get evicted in housing court in less than two weeks. So our actual timelines didn't match. That's a great example. Thank you. And I also feel that I hear a lot of people talking about how research is sort of driven by a lot of competition for grants, timelines, and really kind of restrictive ways of measuring success or effectiveness. How do you deal with those pressures when you're talking about deeper community engagement? How do I deal with those pressures? Research in action takes a model of building kind of in-depth relationships with our partners. We don't take on projects that are not committed to the type of practice and policy change that we are. So we might not be the organization for you because we understand to do deep, intentional community based work does take time. So for the folks that have come to me and said, I got six months to pump out this thing to prove something to a board, we don't work with those folks. So I'll just name that as true, because if I'm going to live my values and I'm going to live the ethics of the change that I seek in the world, what I take on has to actually mirror that. That's a it's a bold stance in that a lot of people try to conform to what they are already seeing happening in society and they kind of are trying to maybe fix an institution from within. You know, a few years ago, many institutions were incorporating diversity, equity and inclusion, DEI into more of the research. Obviously, over the last year, we've seen cancellations of grants with even mentions of those terms in many cases. Do you see an opportunity here to refocus the work that happens so it's maybe less performative and more impactful? A hundred percent. Building a new table is exactly about that. we are not invested in performative engagement, performative research that simply mesmerizes problems. We are unapologetic about supporting, whether it's local government, local communities, and organizers, moving conversations. And it's not impossible to do. I think the challenging part of it, if I were going to be honest, is less the technical sides of what I do, but the people work. meaning half of our model is about how we acknowledge historic harm how we process how do we build those harmed relationships in the process and then grow in our self-awareness because the reality is to actually create the change we're all seeking our culture has to change so whether it's the organizational culture whether it's the like culture of leadership whether it's the culture of how we even interpreted or understood the policy or practice in and of itself. That's where I think that the real work, in my opinion, happens because, you know, we can write a great report, but if you have people at a table who aren't willing to move it, it does nothing. Yeah. I mean, this is really, really the truth, right? It's a, this is people work and it's long-term work and it's, it's not something you can just perform because you're not going to see real impactful results. Before we have to move on, Brittany, I want to make sure that we talk about your launch events that are coming up. You have one tonight, I understand, at the Loft Literary Center in downtown Minneapolis. Is there still space available? How can people engage with your work? Yes. So tonight at Open Book Downtown Minneapolis, we have our book launch event. Doors open at 6, program at 6.30. You can still register online and or no register in person. We are super, super excited for the launch of this book. We have a great program organized for everyone. And we really want folks to be able to take this as an active tool. This book features a series of both lessons and concrete examples that we can add to our toolkit. And it also really helps people think about what does it mean to fail well and recover because we're all going to make mistakes. Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time, Brittany. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Brittany Lewis is the author of Building a New Table, a community-centered handbook for transformative social change. Programming supported by Minnesota Aurora FC. Minnesota Aurora's women's soccer season kicks off Thursday, May 21st at TCO Stadium. Tickets and more information at mnaurora.com. Minnesota Aurora FC for community by community. NPR's spring member drive is on and today is new member day, meaning your monthly gift will be matched for a full year. I'm joined in the studio by our politics editor, Brian Bax. Brian, sometimes our team jokes that it's like an emotional ride every day on our program here. We're going a lot of different places. It's fun to have you here for it. Well, I'm glad you mentioned going places and with your last guest talking about connections because we're not always just doing this from the studio. We've taken Politics Friday on the road. All Things Consider has been on the road. I understand you're going on the road soon. We are headed to Moorhead, yeah, at the end of this month. So people can see what we do live and in person. It really helps bring down that wall that sometimes people feel like we're just talking to them through their car radio or whatever. We're real people doing real work to keep our neighbors informed. And that's what public radio, public media is all about. And that's why a few times a year, come to you and say, do you have another $10 a month, maybe $5 a month, whatever you got. Whatever you got. We would take it. And this is a perfect time given the match for new and sustaining members that every dollar you put in today will be matched for a year. Absolutely. 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And that's what's so cool is people, a lot of people tell me they will listen to Minnesota Now on the podcast version while they're fixing dinner, you know, for their kids. There are so many ways to engage with our content. I want to talk about our amazing digital team and our social media videos. And there's growth happening despite a lot of unprecedented challenges. And the reason that that continues is because of our members and people who decide to step up to the plate and say, this means something to me. This has a value, and I'm going to put a dollar amount on that value because I care about my state and my neighbors. Today, your monthly gift is going to be matched for a full year. And if you are a sustainer and you crank that gift up, it'll be matched for a full year. Go to nprnews.org or call 800-227-2811 to get that done. And everything people love about NPR News is powered by community. Absolutely. It's for community by community. Let's build that community up even more. Give now at nprnews.org or 1-800-227-2811. What does it mean to you? This is a service that we value so much. You know, we come to work every day and we remember how fortunate we are to be able to have the resources that we have. The technical directors, audio engineers, several producers, several digital producers, several wonderful editors. So, I mean, the list goes on and on. It's not what you hear on the air. A lot of people are helping Brian and I out to be able to bring you this service. So think about what it means to you. Put a dollar amount on it. Get it done today because your monthly gift is going to be matched for a full year on this new member day. Take advantage. Go to NPRnews.org or call 800-227-2811. Brian Becks, thank you for being here today. It was fun. We appreciate you and we appreciate all of you. Thank you so much for listening. That's going to do it for us on Minnesota Now. Tomorrow, you may have seen wild turkeys wandering the streets of your neighborhood recently. We'll talk to a wildlife biologist about what those turkeys are up to. We really cover it all here on Minnesota Now. Hope you'll join us back here tomorrow at noon.