Year: 2018

Cities Speak: Closing Urban-Rural Divide to Achieve Equity

EXCERPT: “Far from being an ‘urban only’ issue, both urban and rural communities in Minnesota struggle to achieve racial equity and immigrant integration. Two efforts within the state, Thriving by Design and One Minnesota Equity Blueprint, are working to spread the facts about these shared challenges, create opportunities to tackle them together and address the urban-rural divide as ...

Park Rapids Enterprise: Minnesota kids take part in chemical exposure study

EXCERPT: “The Minnesota Department of Health is conducting a study on chemicals that may harm development in children, and volunteer families from Becker County are among those taking part. The Healthy Rural and Urban Kids Project measures preschoolers’ exposure to metals, air pollution, diesel exhaust and different agricultural and home pesticides through urine samples provided by ...

Opioids or meth? The addiction epidemic part 3

  Thad Shunkwiler, assistant professor in the department of Health Science at Minnesota State Mankato, joins us again this week for part 3 of our discussion on addiction. We have already covered how methamphetamines are the drug of choice in Greater Minnesota these days, and a shortage of licensed treatment providers is leading policymakers to think ...

Houston County News: Southeast Minnesota is poised to grow over the next 25 years; here’s what a group of cities wants to do about it

EXCERPT: “There will be 50,000 more people living in southeastern Minnesota in the next 25 years. There will be 44,000 more jobs. And there will need to be 14,000 more housing units. That’s according to an economic forecast study released Tuesday by the Southeastern Minnesota League of Municipalities, a municipal organization of 65 communities in Dodge, ...

St. Cloud Times: In tight labor market, companies with increased holiday demand may struggle hiring workers

EXCERPT: “If employers thought they were having a hard time hiring this year, companies looking for seasonal holiday workers are expecting an even tougher time finding help. According to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, there are more job vacancies in greater Minnesota than unemployed people for the first time since DEED started tracking job ...

Opioids or meth? The addiction epidemic part 2

  Thad Shunkwiler, an assistant professor in the Department of Health at Minnesota State University, Mankato, joins us again this week, this time to talk about the issue of substance use treatment providers. Minnesota has many programs to incentivize other health care professionals to practice in rural Minnesota, but not treatment providers. On top of ...

West Central Tribune: Walz, Johnson stick to common themes in Willmar forum

EXCERPT: “The views of Minnesota’s future provided by its major candidates for governor could hardly be more different. During a 90-minute forum Tuesday in Willmar, they stuck to some main themes. Democratic-Farmer-Labor candidate Tim Walz returned frequently to his plan to build coalitions and find solutions to problems that work for the state as a whole. Republican ...

MinnPost: How immigration is changing high school sports in Greater Minnesota

EXCERPT: “Practice is still on for this late-summer weekday afternoon, despite barely escaping a rainstorm that passed through this southern Minnesota city of 13,000 people in the last few hours. Nearly 60 teenage boys are already here, stretching and getting ready to begin. The school’s girls soccer team, of which about 50 students showed up ...