Was it really less just a few days ago that the Minnesota Timberwolves seemed primed to make a serious push up the Western Conference standings for the first time in this season? 

The Wolves had won a season-high five straight games to close out January with a  record of 27-21, just a half-game out of 6^th place that would provide them with a hall pass to skip the play-in tournament and avoid the ignominy of potentially not even qualifying for the postseason. Better yet, they were just a game-and-a-half out of 4^th place, a spot that would ensure home-court advantage for the first round of the playoffs. 

Seven of their next eight games were at home, the first three against eminently beatable opponents, beginning with the Washington Wizards, owner of the worst record in the NBA and in the midst of their second 16-game losing streak of the season. Then a day off and a matchup against the Sacramento Kings, a team whose star player, De’Aaron Fox, had enervated the franchise by asking for a trade. Another day off and then a contest with a Chicago Bulls squad who had won just two of its previous 10 games. 

Even the ever wary and weary Wolves fans had to concede there was an available window that just might permit some sunshine to permeate their dusky hopes. 

Hah.

It was suddenly time for the remarkable good health the Wolves enjoyed for most of the past two seasons to go kaput. That strained groin muscle forward Julius Randle had pulled 10 minutes into the game against the Utah Jazz to close out January was going to keep him on the sidelines for a while. And superstar guard Anthony Edwards, who didn’t miss a game in calendar year 2024, was hollowed out of the picture by an illness. 

Randle and Ant were added to the absence of guard Donte DiVincenzo, hobbled by a torn ligament in his big toe back in late January. And then Naz Reid jammed his fingers in the first half against the Wizards and became the last of the Wolves’ top four scorers to tap out of action. 

OK, but the Wizards were still posed to be an inconsequential obstacle, eh? Six wins in 47 games. Not one, but two 16-game losing streaks already this season. Yeah, the Wolves had played cat-and-mouse with them, grabbing the lead for only 49 seconds near the end of the first half, but never really letting the game get out of hand. And when Minnesota went on a 16-5 run in the fourth quarter to go up by three with 7:27 left to play, the natural order of things re-clicked into focus.  

For a brief moment. Then the downtrodden Wizards stirred for a 9-0 run of their own to make it 99-93 with just a little under four minutes left to play. They never trailed again, icing the victory when forward Kyle Kuzma twice isolated on the Wolves best on-ball defender, Jaden McDaniels, and turned both possessions into buckets. 

Then the Kings came to town, reeling from the announcement that Fox had indeed been traded just hours before, too soon for the players Sacramento had acquired in the deal to make it to Minnesota. Rotation player Kevin Huerter had also been dealt. 

As for the Wolves, Ant was suited up and mostly ready to go. Naz, his jammed fingers taped, was alongside him in the starting lineup. Rudy Gobert, Mike Conley and McDaniels filled out a quintet that logged 200 minutes together as a unit last season, allowing just 102.1 points scored per 100 possessions. But the short-handed, in-transition Kings scored at a rate of 177.8 points per 100 possessions before the first wave of substitutions arrived a little more than nine minutes into the game. 

But once again the score stayed agonizingly close into the fourth quarter, the teams separated by no more than six points in the final five minutes. And once again the Wolves stumbled – the final was 116-114, Sacramento. 

Citing “bad chemistry” for a team’s underperformance is usually the hallmark of lazy analysis. “Chemistry” itself is an ineffable and elusive thing that is prone to a wide array of definitions. I regard good chemistry as a synergy, a cohesion greater than the sum of its parts, arising from a shrewd assembly of complementary pieces that are further catalyzed by shared confidence, faith and trust. The less those elements exist, the more likely it is that the synergy will be stymied.

Do the Wolves suffer from poor chemistry? If you examine how the team performs when it matters most, the answer is yes. 

The NBA defines “clutch” situations as the times when the teams are within five points of each other in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime. It is when the outcome of the game is more or less a tossup, there for the taking – or the giving away. 

Over their first 50 games of the 2024-25 season, amounting to a total of 2,410 minutes played, the Wolves have outscored their opponents by 151 points. They have been pretty consistent in earning that advantage, going plus 36 in the first quarter, plus 39 in the second quarter, plus 35 in the third quarter, and plus 43 in the fourth quarter. They are minus 2 in their two five minutes (10 total) of overtime. 

Too often, however, they fall apart in the clutch. 

Specifically, in 107 minutes of clutch play, they have been outscored by 55 points. Remember, by definition, clutch minutes can only occur near the end of the fourth quarter or overtime, which makes the disparity in the team’s performance with the game on the line rather than when the pressure is less intense, even more dramatic. 

Here’s the math: Overall, the Wolves outscore their opponents by 41 points in the 610 minutes comprising their 50 fourth quarters and two overtimes. But since they are outscored by 55 in the 107 clutch minutes, that means they outscore the other team by 96 points in the 503 minutes of their fourth quarters and overtimes that aren’t clutch situations. 

Failing to deliver in the clutch has had a significant impact on the course of their season. Thirty-one of the Wolves’ first 50 games this season have included some clutch minutes – the most in the NBA. The Wolves’ record in those games is 13-18, compared to their 14-5 mark in the 29 games that aren’t close near the end of the game. They lead the NBA with 13 losses in games in which they have led in the fourth quarter.

Because the clutch minutes vary from game-to-game, blinking off when a team pulls away by more than five points (and back on if the narrow margin returns), the Wolves are tied for fifth in the 30-team league for the sheer amount of clutch minutes at 107. The sample sizes vary wildly – from the mere 35 minutes logged by the terrible Wizards and the 48 minutes teams are able to contest the dominant Thunder, to the 117 minutes played in the clutch by the Houston Rockets. Consequently, offensive and defensive ratings (the amount of points scored and allowed per possession) can be skewed.

That said, in their relatively robust sample size, the Wolves rank 24^th in defensive rating, allowing 116.8 points per 100 possessions, and 27^th in offensive rating, scoring just 100.5 points per 100 possessions. Their net rating – points scored minus points allowed per 100 possessions – of -16.3, is better (or less worse) than only the Wizards and the Utah Jazz, the two teams with the worst overall won-lost records in the NBA. 

Put simply, the two teams who perform worse than the Wolves in the clutch perform terribly in a lot of non-clutch time as well. In fact, among the bottom nine teams in clutch-time net rating, only the Wolves have a winning record overall. (The Milwaukee Bucks, 21^st is clutch net rating at minus 6.9, but with an overall record of 26-22, is the next worst clutch performer among “winning” teams.) 

On a team-wide basis in the clutch, the Wolves are grossly underperforming the rest of the league and their own non-clutch play at both ends of the court, which is why this feels like the fault extends not only to the players logging the most clutch time, but to the way President of Basketball Operations Tim Connelly has constructed the team and the way Coach Chris Finch has operated it. 

That said, Edwards is the team’s unquestioned go-to star when it matters most and his performance on offense reflects the team’s incompetence at that end. For example, the Wolves overall shooting percentage and accuracy from three-point range both take a dive in clutch situations. They are 46.3% shooters from the field overall (16^th in the NBA) and 40.7% in the clutch (22^nd). And from behind the arc, they fall from 38.3% accuracy overall (3^rd best) to 25.3% (28^th) with the pressure on. 

As the dominant locus of the offense, it is not surprising that Ant (who has logged 102.5 of the 107 clutch minutes, missing only the Wizards game due to illness), is likewise tumbling, from 44.6% overall to 39.4% in the clutch from the field, and from 42.1% overall to 28.2% in the clutch from long range. 

There is a lot more to be said about clutch minutes – Naz has just two three-point attempts, missing both, in his 23.6 clutch minutes and owns a ridiculously skewed net rating of minus 43.9. Conley is 2-13 from the floor and 1-8 from three-point territory in his 46.3 clutch minutes, yet he only played clutch minutes in 17 games and the Wolves were 10-7 and a mere minus 4 in plus/minus during his time on the court.

My take on the clutch minutes fiasco is that it is a symptom of the Wolves lack of chemistry thus far this season, in which dysfunction has made them less than the sum of their parts. And there are a lot of reasons why it has occurred. 

Begin with the major trade that happened just before training camp. I don’t disagree with it, for reasons discussed in multiple prior columns, but the timing was harmful. It disrupted the unique harmony Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns had created (designed by Finch) in the “double-bigs” lineup. It compelled not only the readjustment of supplanting Karl-Anthony Towns with Randle as the starting power forward, but altered the way Naz, McDaniels, Conley and even Joe Ingles would be deployed. 

Another reason why the Wolves aren’t thriving in pressure situations this season is because there is more ambient pressure on them in general. Last year’s 56-win campaign was a season-long party, made even more piquant by its unexpected excellence. This season, the team entered with the NBA’s second-highest salary, including big raises kicking in for Ant and McDaniels, plus an extension for Gobert. Randle and Naz have player option years on the table next season. 

The overall expectation was, if not a return to the Western Conference Finals, a standard of play that was among the elites in the conference. The fan base had a taste of consistently marvelous play, ticket prices spiked. Ant was supposedly “the face of the NBA.” It was, and is, a lot. 

Then there is the deployment of personnel. To accelerate familiarity and quicken research, Finch hewed to an eight player rotation, and even with the recent onslaught of injuries and absences, leans in that direction. But the grizzled veterans Conley and Gobert, both stellar pros who deserve respect, are having off-years and don’t deliver as reliably, especially in the clutch. 

Meanwhile, first-round lottery pick Rob Dillingham has shown enormous promise – and inconsistency. Finch, under the same gun of delivering last season’s caliber of play, plays tug of war with his support and faith. Josh Minott had an excellent preseason, barely played the first couple months, and is now in the doghouse for defensive lapses. Luka Garza has been “developing” forever but isn’t reliable. Right now Jaylen Clark is the development success story because Finch prioritizes ball pressure and he’s been delivering. 

There is, of course, a chicken-or-egg quandary to young player development. Can the Wolves sustain expectations and capably bring these bright talents along? That’s tough under any circumstances and particularly thorny at the moment, when injuries open the rotation but provide a narrower margin for success. 

Already this season we have had the notorious spat when Randle wouldn’t deliver the ball to Gobert and Rudy pouted and acted out; Ant calling out his team for lackluster play just before Thanksgiving, and Finch caustically getting on his troops after a losing streak in January. In all of these cases, the team rebounded admirably. It remains a collection of high-character individuals. Folks in limbo, like Randle, Naz, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Joe Ingles, have been pros willing to adapt to uncomfortable changes. 

But adjusting to those changes hinders synergy. Ditto injuries, which, to be fair, the Wolves have mostly been lucky with the past couple seasons. Ditto the pressure of repeating last year’s standard. The NBA is rife with teams that made a leap and then took a step back. 

The wider lens is that all this can change, in a blink or inexorably, until you see the blooms. Just a few days ago, the Wolves seemed primed for an 8-game winning streak. Now it is comparatively bleak. But this too could change. 

We’ll know it has if they suck it up in the clutch and begin winning tossups.

Britt Robson

Britt Robson has covered the Timberwolves since 1990 for City Pages, The Rake, SportsIllustrated.com and The Athletic. He also has written about all forms and styles of music for over 30 years.

The post Shocking losses following winning streak frustrate Minnesota Timberwolves fans appeared first on MinnPost.

Via the Associated Press and KARE 11: The U.S. Department of Education is investigating five universities, including the University of Minnesota, over reported antisemitism. It’s part of President Donald Trump’s promise to take a tougher stance against campus antisemitism and deal out harsher penalties than former President Joe Biden’s administration, which settled a flurry of cases with universities in its final weeks.

Paul Walsh at the Star Tribune is reporting federal customs personnel in the Twin Cities intercepted more than $1 million worth of gas-powered engines that officials say were shipped illegally from China.

Jane McClure at My Villager reports US Internet’s request to provide services in Highland Park from a new facility on Randolph Avenue will be heard by the St. Paul Planning Commission Feb. 7 with a recommendation of support from the Highland District Council.

Via Bring Me the News: Minnesota Wild forward Ryan Hartman has been suspended for 10 games for roughing the Ottawa Senators’ Tim Stutzle during Saturday’s game in Ottawa, Ontario.

Via FOX 9: Protests against Project 2025 and President Donald Trump’s executive orders are planned for Wednesday at state Capitol buildings in all 50 states.

Also from the Star Tribune: Organizers of the Minnesota Yacht Club festival at St. Paul’s Harriet Island Regional Park announced Monday that the lowest-priced general admission passes for their July 18-20 lineup are already sold out, less than a week after going on sale.

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It’s hard to tell these days whether or not the Minnesota Legislature is in session. Technically it is, except for the House, but it’s complicated and you can read a whole 1,500-word column on this topic and come out little-the-wiser. (Thank you for your service, Peter Callaghan.)

One thing’s for sure about going to the State Capitol: compared to six years ago, it’s easier to park your car. One blessing in disguise around the COVID aftermath is that, with the majority of government staff  at home, demand for parking is down. This is important because where you park is a badge of honor among State Capitol denizens. Proximity to power forms a hierarchy that comes with rank and/or seniority, and there are few more obvious displays of this power than car storage. 

This is probably one reason why state capitol areas have a bad urban design track record, offering acres of parking and poor land use. A video last year by urban journalist Ray Delahanty (aka City Nerd) ranked all 50 state capitols in terms of urban quality; St. Paul landed 10th from bottom. Delahanty’s video describes how the damage done by the government campus “is mitigated a bit by the I-94 spaghetti that blocks it off from downtown [but that the Minnesota Capitol area]  really demonstrates the corrosiveness of bad state capitol urban form.”

By contrast, great state capitol areas — Delahanty calls out Sacramento and Boston — are surrounded by destinations, neighborhoods, walkable streets and quality public space. I am partial to Madison, myself, but St. Paul’s Capitol area leaves a lot to be desired on all of those fronts (at least if you value public spaces that actually attract people).

The worst capitol areas are plagued by parking lots, often a challenge for state government because, for one thing, they’re almost always seasonal enterprises. (There are only nine full-time legislatures in the U.S.) For months they lie dormant, then burst into hyperactivity when sessions begin. Politicians, staff, lobbyists, constituents, and advocates of all stripes descend on the state capitols with their cars, all demanding convenient parking. 

Likewise, because they’re based on geography, political assemblies are inherently dispersed, with  officials coming from all corners of the state. (Fun fact: the best way to traverse the 400 miles to St. Paul from District 1, up in Kittson County, is to fly.) This is partly why the quest for parking has been a generational endeavor for politicians, staff, and the Department of Administration officials who oversee facilities. For example, before COVID, building a new $66 million parking ramp was a key Department of Administration request, but that has died down in an era when most state workers stay home most of the time. 

I reached out to both the state Department of Administration and Capitol Area Architectural and Planning Board (CAAPB) staff to ask whether parking policies have changed in the post-pandemic era, but the answers seemed vague.

Erik Dahl, CAAPB executive secretary, is working on a “rule making process,” complex legal administration, to “update parking standards” in the area. According to Dahl, they are trying to encourage “the gradual return of workers at lower SOV split [and] seeing reduction of surface lots in favor of a structured approach, and increased use of transit.” In addition, CAAPB has been looking at “eliminating parking minimums, if the market demonstrates how car storage or mobility is handled with an innovative approach.”

Meanwhile, according to an Administration spokesperson, there are about 1,400 parking spaces currently on hiatus due that might one day return. According to communications director Julie Nelson, with lower daily demand, they have also  released 600 parking spots from daily contracts, converting them to meters or flexible arrangements.

On the ground, the most marginal surface parking lots around the Capitol have disappeared. Both Lot C and Lot X are now at least temporarily absent. (Lot X is part of the mystifying “Sears Site” situation, currently mothballed after being renovated as either a reality program production studio or the backdrop for a seasonal outdoor asian market.) Lot C, on the other hand, has been removed and subsumed by the demolition of the historic Ford Building, something of a historic preservation travesty along University Avenue.

That said, there are still plenty of surface ramps and garages to be found around University and Rice. In addition to the three large public, multi-story ramps, you’ll find lots Q, W, U, K F, and H waiting to take your money and offer your car temporary refuge. (This is not to mention the guarded lots for highest levels of staff and elected officials.)

Post-commuting plan needed

After a century of increasing demand, it would seem that there’s finally enough parking around the Capitol. I would hope this fact would help decision makers pivot to a different model of development in the area, one predicated on density and inter-connection rather than far-flung commuting. 

Indeed, if you look at the Capitol area plans, especially the (high quality) 2040 Capitol Area Comprehensive Plan, that’s the idea. Theoretically, the future of the Capitol area should be more integrated into the surrounding community, with more restaurant and commercial establishments to support the public space, filling into the old acres of surface asphalt.

That said, conflicting post-COVID trends make that reality hard to envision. Even more than downtowns, the Capitol area suffers from a lack of density and vitality. One state worker recently  told me about how, on returning to work after months away, they found that the coffee and vending machines had been removed. For most of the year, the Capitol area offers a lunch vacuum, at least for those unwilling to walk 2/3 of a mile into downtown.

This is a common catch-22 regarding  returning to the office. For people who actually go into work, there’s often little reward other than quietude. Thus many people go into the office to get away from people, precisely the opposite of the normal office rationale centering on networking and propinquity. This leads to a self-reinforcing cycle: fewer daily workers leads to fewer amenities, disinclining people to return to “in-person” work, leading to fewer amenities and so on. With government workplace tending  toward deference to employee demands, the already sparse State Capitol area in St. Paul has become a commercial desert. 

Of course, given the unpredictability of government these days, everything I’ve just written could turn out to be completely wrong. One of President Donald Trump’s first orders in office reads thus: “Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of Government shall, as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis.”

It’s difficult to believe this will actually occur, or that the rationale might be anything other than to demoralize federal staff, but it does illustrate the fragility of our assumptions about the future. In other words, stay tuned. Maybe government parking lots will make a comeback.

Bill Lindeke

Bill Lindeke is a lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Geography, Environment and Society. He is the author of multiple books on Twin Cities culture and history, most recently St. Paul: an Urban Biography. Follow Bill on Twitter: @BillLindeke.

The post The new realities of post-COVID parking at the Minnesota State Capitol appeared first on MinnPost.

Time is so strange. 

The year 2015 seems like a lifetime ago, and it also feels like yesterday. That was the year marriage equality became law of the land after the U.S. Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges ruled that same-sex marriage was legal in all 50 states. I remember that moment so vividly, and yet the time before it seems so distantly far away. 

In “Sanctuary City,” a play by Martyna Majok, the characters can’t even imagine what national marriage equality might look like. It’s set in a post-9/11 landscape. Toward the end of the play, the characters mention that gay couples can now marry in Massachusetts after that state’s Supreme Court decision in 2004. But they can’t even conceive of a time when marriage would be legal in all 50 states. 

The characters also don’t talk about the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, a never-passed law that would have granted temporary residency to undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. as minors. And the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which has protected 500,000 undocumented people from getting deported and provided them legal work authorization since Barack Obama first initiated the program by executive order in 2012, hadn’t happened yet. 

I was feeling upset when I went to go see Frank Theatre’s production of the play. There’s just been a lot in the news that has been stressful, and the particular news article I read before heading to Open Eye Theater happened to be about the University of Minnesota saying that it will comply with court-backed ICE immigration orders. This, despite the U’s statement on its website saying, “we encourage and welcome all students to apply, regardless of immigration status.” (In response, University students, faculty, staff, and community members have started a petition). 

Because “Sanctuary City” is a period piece, I began to remember what it was like back in the aughts, before Obama became president, before DACA, before the Affordable Care Act, and before marriage equality. And yet while the play’s historical context is a key part of its framework, its resonance to our current political climate felt exceedingly present.

Majok’s play was set to have its world premiere off-Broadway in 2020, but was cancelled during previews because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It eventually opened at the Lucelle Lortel Theatre in 2021, and more recently had a run at Steppenwolf in Chicago in 2023. Now, Frank Theatre’s production at Open Eye takes place as the Trump administration unleashes executive orders targeting undocumented immigrants. 

I don’t know how to really talk about this play without letting one or two spoilers slip through, so please proceed reading with caution if that will irritate you. 

At the heart of the story are two people whose parents immigrated to the United States when they were young. With a bit of luck, one of them becomes a citizen before they turn 18 after their parent’s successful naturalization process. The other does not. If fate had taken a different turn, they might have fallen in love. Maybe they could have gotten married, which would have provided perhaps an easier pathway to citizenship for the friend who was undocumented. 

As I watched the first half of the story, I thought that was what was going to happen. The two characters plan a marriage of convenience, and for a moment I thought the narrative might turn into a plot like the 1990 Gérard Depardieu and Andie MacDowell movie “Green Card,” which I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve seen many times. As you may recall, in the movie, the two leads have a fake marriage in order to aid Gérard Depardieu’s immigration process, only to actually fall in love with each other. “Sanctuary City” is not that story though.

Majok constructs the play in two acts that are starkly different from each other in tone and structure. The first half of the play features two actors – Stephanie Anne Bertumen as G, and Clay Man Soo as B. The scenes are very short and go back and forth in time. We see very little furniture, and the actors employ miming to indicate the objects they interact with and the world that surrounds them. 

The lighting design, by Tony Stoeri, is stark, and Dan Dukich’s moody sound design creates a sense of urgency in Brechtian episodic mini-scenes. 

The scenes mostly take place in the apartment where B lives at first with his mother and then alone. Escaping the chaos of her mother’s abusive relationships, G becomes a frequent visitor, often entering B’s room through the fire escape. The audience watches a growing intimacy between the two friends, though something (it’s not revealed what, at first) prevents them from becoming romantic. 

In contrast to the minimalism of the first act, the play’s second act looks a lot more like realism. It takes place in the same apartment as the first act, but now the audience can see the furniture, and the whole set is lit. Instead of short scenes that employ repetition and time experimentation, Majok develops one longer scene with an Aristotelian arc and climax. The audience also gets introduced to a third character – a gay law student named Henry, played by Keivin Yang, who is B’s boyfriend. 

I’m not exactly sure why Majok divides the play into such structurally divergent halves. The only thing I can think of is that the first act’s episodic, experimental structure adds to a feeling of confusion the characters both feel. The uncertainty of their futures and of their relationships with each other is mirrored in a script that is at times difficult to follow. In contrast, everything is made clear and apparent in the second act, and the three people have nothing to do but hash things out between the three of them.

Honestly, I strongly disliked all three of the characters by the end of the play. While I could understand each of their grievances – with the world and with each other – I wasn’t able to root for any of them because of their rotating list of character flaws – whether that be bigotry and manipulation, dishonesty and insecurity, or bullying, depending on the character.

That’s not to say the actors weren’t good in the roles. I found each of them very believable, both before and after the structural break halfway through. 

At some point as I was watching the second act unfold, getting angrier and angrier at the three characters, I realized these people are all behaving badly because their situation is so impossible and ugly. In the world in which these characters lived, there were no good options for undocumented people who were brought to this country as children. There also weren’t good options for LGBTQ people who loved each other and wanted to marry. 

The one thing I did miss in their development was any cultural references or language. Majok, who immigrated to the U.S. from Poland herself, intentionally doesn’t specify in the script what country the characters are from, and doesn’t include any signifiers about their ethnicity. I understand why she might do this, but I also wondered about what we didn’t understand about  the characters with these layers unexplored.

In any case, the play, and Knox’s direction of it, did get me riled up enough to want to talk about the play afterwards, and has had me thinking about it since. As it has in the past, Frank Theatre has chosen a play that engages with a pressing issue at large, and asks its audience to grapple with ideas through the art of theater.

“Sanctuary City” runs Thursday, Feb. 6 (sold out), Friday, Feb. 7 and Saturday, Feb. 8 at 7:30 p.m., Sunday, Feb. 9 at 2 p.m., through Feb. 23 at Open Eye Theater, 506 E. 24th St., #3732, Minneapolis, $30. More information here.

Sheila Regan

Sheila Regan is a Twin Cities-based arts journalist. She writes MinnPost’s twice-weekly Artscape column. She can be reached at sregan@minnpost.com.

The post Exploring the life of the undocumented and gay in ‘Sanctuary City’ appeared first on MinnPost.

No.

An email response from the Office of Vital Records at the Minnesota Health Systems Bureau confirms that birth certificates are the jurisdiction of the state where an individual was born. Because of this, Minnesota’s Office of Vital Records can only work to help people amend birth certificates if they were born in Minnesota. Other states have varying requirements for amending a birth certificate, along with filing fees.

If someone was born in Minnesota and wanted to change the gender on their birth certificate, they must have a letter from a physician indicating that they are receiving care associated with gender transition, or a court order to change gender on the document. Some other states, including neighboring Wisconsin, only allow a gender marker change to someone’s birth certificate if they have undergone gender-affirming surgery. Kansas and Tennessee do not currently allow gender to be changed on birth certificates.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

MinnPost partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs.

Sources

• Minnesota Office of Vital Records: Email correspondence
• TotalLegal.com: How Do I Make Changes to or Amend My Birth Certificate?
• Kansas Department of Health and Environment: Can I amend my birth certificate to align with my gender identity?
• Advocates for Trans Equality: ID Documents Center
• Advocates for Trans Equality: Tennessee Identity Documents
• Minnesota Department of Health: Change a Birth Record
• Minnesota Department of Health: How Do I Make Changes to or Amend My Birth Certificate?

The post Is it possible to change the gender on your birth certificate in Minnesota if you were born outside the state? appeared first on MinnPost.

Rural America faces many challenges that Congress and the federal government could help alleviate under the new Trump administration.

Rural hospitals and their obstetrics wards have been closing at a rapid pace, leaving rural residents traveling farther for health care. Affordable housing is increasingly hard to find in rural communities, where pay is often lower and poverty higher than average. Land ownership is changing, leaving more communities with outsiders wielding influence over their local resources.

As experts in rural health and policy at the Center for Rural and Migrant Health at Purdue University, we work with people across the United States to build resilient rural communities.

Here are some ways we believe the Trump administration could work with Congress to boost these communities’ health and economies.

1. Rural health care access

One of the greatest challenges to rural health care is its vulnerability to shifts in policy and funding cuts because of rural areas’ high rates of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries.

About 25% of rural residents rely on Medicaid, a federal program that provides health insurance for low-income residents. A disproportionate share of Medicare beneficiaries – people over 65 who receive federal health coverage – also live in rural areas. At the same time, the average health of rural residents lags the nation as a whole.

Rural clinics and hospitals

Funding from those federal programs affects rural hospitals, and rural hospitals are struggling.

Nearly half of rural hospitals operate in the red today, and over 170 rural hospitals have closed since 2010. The low population density of rural areas can make it difficult for hospitals to cover operating costs when their patient volume is low. These hospital closures have left rural residents traveling an extra 20 miles (32 km) on average to receive inpatient health care services and an extra 40 miles (64 km) for specialty care services.

The government has created programs to try to help keep hospitals operating, but they all require funding that is at risk. For example:

• The Low-volume Hospital Adjustment Act, first implemented in 2005, has helped numerous rural hospitals by boosting their Medicare payments per patient, but it faces regular threats of funding cuts. It and several other programs to support Medicare-dependent hospitals are set to expire on March 31, 2025, when the next federal budget is due.
• The rural emergency hospital model, created in 2020, helps qualifying rural facilities to maintain access to essential emergency and outpatient hospital services, also by providing higher Medicare payments. Thus far, only 30 rural hospitals have transitioned to this model, in part because they would have to eliminate inpatient care services, which also limits outpatient surgery and other medical services that could require overnight care in the event of an emergency.

Services for pregnant women have also gotten harder to find in rural areas.

Between 2011 and 2021, 267 rural hospitals discontinued obstetric services, representing 25% of the United States’ rural obstetrics units. In response, the federal government has implemented various initiatives to enhance access to care, such as the Rural Hospital Stabilization Pilot Program and the Rural Maternal and Obstetric Management Strategies Program. However, these programs also require funding.

Expanding telehealth

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth – the ability to meet with your doctor over video – wasn’t widely used. It could be difficult for doctors to ensure reimbursement, and the logistics of meeting federal requirements and privacy rules could be challenging.

The pandemic changed that. Improving technology allowed telehealth to quickly expand, reducing people’s contact with sick patients, and the government issued waivers for Medicare and Medicaid to pay for telehealth treatment. That opened up new opportunities for rural patients to get health care and opportunities for providers to reach more patients.

However, the Medicare and Medicaid waivers for most telehealth services were only temporary. Only payments for mental and behavioral health teleheath services continued, and those are set to expire with the federal budget in March 2025, unless they are renewed.

One way to expand rural health care would be to make those waivers permanent.

Increasing access to telehealth could also support people struggling with opioid addiction and other substance use disorders, which have been on the rise in rural areas.

2. Affordable housing is a rural problem too

Like their urban peers, rural communities face a shortage of affordable housing.

Unemployment in rural areas today exceeds levels before the COVID-19 pandemic. Job growth and median incomes lag behind urban areas, and rural poverty rates are higher.

Rural housing prices have been exacerbated by continued population growth over the past four years, lower incomes compared with their urban peers, limited employment opportunities and few high-quality homes available for rent or sale. Rural communities often have aging homes built upon outdated or inadequate infrastructure, such as deteriorating sewer and water lines.

One proposal to help people looking for affordable rural housing is the bipartisan Neighborhood Homes Investment Act, which calls for creating a new federal tax credit to spur the development and renovation of family housing in distressed urban, suburban and rural neighborhoods.

Similarly, the Section 502 Direct Loan Program through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which subsidizes mortgages for low-income applicants to obtain safe housing, could be expanded with additional funding to enable more people to receive subsidized mortgages.

3. Locally owned land benefits communities

Seniors age 65 and older own 40% of the agricultural land in the U.S., according to the American Farmland Trust. That means that more than 360 million acres of farmland could be transferred to new owners in the next few decades. If their heirs aren’t interested in farming, that land could be sold to large operations or real estate developers.

That affects rural communities because locally owned rural businesses tend to invest in their communities, and they are more likely to make decisions that benefit the community’s well-being.

Congress can take some steps to help communities keep more farmland locally owned.

The proposed Farm Transitions Act, for example, would establish a commission on farm transitions to study issues that affect locally owned farms and provide recommendations to help transition agricultural operations to the next generation of farmers and ranchers.

About 30% of farmers have been in business for less than 10 years, and many of them rent the land they farm. Programs such as USDA’s farm loan programs and the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program help support local land purchases and could be improved to identify and eliminate barriers that communities face.

We believe that by addressing these issues, Congress and the new administration can help some of the country’s most vulnerable citizens. Efforts to build resilient and strong rural communities will benefit everyone.

Randolph Hubach is a professor of public health at Purdue University. Cody Mullen is a clinical professor of public health at Purdue University.

This article is republished from The Conversation.

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During his first week in office, President Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris climate agreement, declared an energy emergency, renewed his vow to “drill, baby, drill,” and began dismantling American climate policy. That has left environmental advocates looking to states to lead the nation’s efforts to burn fewer fossil fuels — and a report released Wednesday shows there is much more they can do.

One of the most powerful tools at each state’s disposal is the ability to work with utilities to encourage energy efficiency. But, the report from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, or ACEEE, details how only 26 states, along with the District of Columbia, have established a so-called “energy-efficiency resource standard,” or EERS. These targets, set by legislators or utility regulators, require utilities to implement programs — such as weatherization or rebates on appliances — that cut energy consumption by a certain amount each year.

“There is more work that needs to be done,” said Jasmine Mah, a senior research analyst at the Council and an author of the report. Since 2012, just three states have added such a standard, while New Hampshire, Ohio, and Iowa repealed theirs in favor of less ambitious or scaled-back programming. Arizona is also pursuing a rollback. Mah says the report is aimed at state policymakers and regulators, who could shift that tide. 

“We hope that highlighting the positive impacts of having an EERS in place would encourage states to pass a policy,” she said. An earlier ACEEE report found that, as of 2017, states with an energy-efficiency resource standard saw four times the electricity savings as states without one. In 2023, states with such a plan accounted for about 59 percent of the U.S. population but 82 percent of the savings.

“States aren’t doing this just because of climate change,” said Barry Rabe, a political scientist at the University of Michigan who studies energy and climate politics. “There is an economic advantage.”

Fossil-fuel friendly Texas, Rabe noted, was the first to adopt an EERS in 1999. But efficiency can become less of a priority when energy supplies are abundant and costs are stable. “The decline in interest,” Rabe said, “has in some degree coincided with the massive increase in natural gas use in the U.S.” 

Still, the Council also found that many states have gone beyond baseline policies and implemented what the report dubs “next-generation” initiatives that aim to lower greenhouse gas emissions, spur electrification, serve lower-income populations, and reduce consumers’ financial energy burdens. All but four of the 27 states (including D.C.) with an energy-efficiency resource standard have implemented at least one such effort, but only nine have adopted all of them, leaving plenty of room for growth. 

“We found that low-income targets are the most common complementary goal related to efficiency standards,” said Mah. “[But] not many states had provisions for energy affordability.”

The report spotlights five states that have been particularly effective at employing these programs. Illinois has targeted using only clean energy by 2050. Massachusetts aims to install half a million heat pumps by 2030. Michigan mandates that utilities dedicate at least 25 to 35% of their energy-efficiency funding to programs serving low-income customers. Utilities in New York and Minnesota have capped the portion of a customer’s income that can go toward utility costs at 6 and 4%, respectively.

President Trump’s push to repeal the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, likely won’t impact state EERSs because they are generally funded through fees added to utility bills. “We see that as probably the best way to bring significant funds,” said Justin Brant, the utility program director at the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project. 

Critics of Arizona’s EERS, which was adopted in 2010, point to the $3 billion cost to customers. “Utilities should select the most cost-effective energy mix to provide reliable and affordable service, without being constrained by government-imposed mandates that make it more expensive for their customers,” said Arizona Corporation Commissioner Nick Myers in a statement last year. But the state’s largest electric utility found that, in 2023, EERS investments reaped about twice as much in returns as was spent. 

“We’re saving money for all customers, even those who aren’t participating,” said Brant. 

The IRA does provide nearly $9 billion for energy-efficiency and electrification programs, almost all of which is distributed via states and could be used on next-generation programs, like those serving low-income households. That money has already been awarded. But the Republican-controlled Congress could roll back federal tax credits for energy efficiency and electrification, which indirectly make it easier for states to achieve their energy-efficiency resource standard and next-generation goals. 

Brant says he would add another policy to the Council’s “next-generation” wishlist for states: programs that encourage customers to spread out the timing of their daily energy use. Lower peak demand means power plants don’t need to be as large and that, he said, will be especially critical as renewable energy becomes an increasing part of the country’s electricity mix. 

“​​Time shift is not something that this report looked at,” he said. “I think that’s another piece that needs to be prioritized.”

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/energy/almost-half-of-us-states-havent-done-the-bare-minimum-to-cut-utility-bills/. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

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Nick Lentz at WCCO reports: “The Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office is looking for a 46-year-old inmate who escaped police custody Sunday afternoon.”

Adam Uren at Bring Me the News reports: “A teenage boy is dead after a shooting in St. Cloud early Sunday morning.” 

Mara Gottfried at the Pioneer Press reports: “Jason Jensen is used to helping other people — as both a Lakeville police officer and a hockey coach – but now the police and hockey communities are rallying around him and his family since he was seriously injured in a fall during practice.”

Briana Bierschbach at the Star Tribune reports: “Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is sitting on more than $1 million in campaign funds if he chooses to seek a third term as governor in 2026.”

Nick Halter at Axios reports: “Metro Transit said it gave 47.5 million rides last year, a 6% increase over 2023 … but (t)hat’s still down 39% compared to 2019, when the agency reported 77.9 million rides.” 

Matt Sepic at MPR News reports: “After years of investigation, charges and guilty pleas, a central figure in the Feeding Our Future case appeared in federal court in Minneapolis as jury selection, which started Monday morning, wrapped up by late afternoon. The panel of 16 people includes four alternates.”

David Pierini at North News reports: “(A) new apartment complex towers over a neighborhood. The residents want it torn down.”

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WASHINGTON — Although they’ve been paused for 30 days, President Donald Trump’s tariff threats showed how dependent Minnesota is on trade with Canada and Mexico.

According to the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, about half of Minnesota’s exports went to those two countries and China in 2021, up from about one-third in 2002. And the chamber said trade between Minnesota and Canada grew about 39% from 2019 to 2021.

Those Minnesota exports would suffer if the nations Trump has threatened with tariffs follow through with their own threats to impose retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods.

And the huge list of U.S. imports from the countries subject to the new tariffs — which range from cars and wine to pharmaceuticals — would be subject to substantial price hikes, fueling inflation, as U.S. importers pass the cost of the new tax along to consumers.

A trade war with the United States’ closest neighbors and allies was forestalled when Trump reached deals with Mexico and Canada, which would have been subject to 25% tariffs on Tuesday.

But on Tuesday, 10% tariffs will be placed on Chinese goods, which already bear tariffs.

Under the terms of Trump’s agreement with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico would send an additional 10,000 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and the United States would aim to stop U.S. trafficking of high-powered weapons to Mexican drug cartels.

An agreement with Canada took two phone calls between Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who had said he would lodge a protest at the World Trade Organization against the new U.S. tariffs, seek redress under the USMCA and impose more than $155 billion worth of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports.

In a posting on X, Trudeau said he “had a good call with President Trump” on Monday afternoon and suggested the pause on tariffs on Canadian goods was in response to Canada’s agreement to target the flow of fentanyl across the border into the United States.

But while a trade war has been postponed, the threat of an economic upheaval still remains.  

Canada’s retaliatory tariffs would be applied to more than 1,000 American products — from agriculture commodities to clothing and shoes to high-tech products. The list also includes paper products and other goods exported to Canada by Maplewood-based 3M.

“3M is reviewing the recently announced tariffs,” the company said. “We are continuing to monitor the situation.”

A USMCA fact sheet says that in 2019 Canada was Minnesota’s largest export destination and Mexico was the state’s second destination of the state-produced goods, accounting for a combined $7.2 billion in export sales that year.

Trump said he plans to extend tariffs to other nations — including European Union countries — and that they are needed to raise money for the U.S. Treasury. But most economists say U.S. consumers will pay for the cost of the tariffs, not foreign exporters.

“Families are already struggling with high prices and across-the-board tariffs will make it worse,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who supported tariffs on foreign steel she said was dumped at lower prices to hurt domestic producers.

“Tariffs should be applied with scalpel-like precision with specific goals,” Klobuchar said. “Instead, the president is using a sledgehammer and it’s going to clobber our economy.”

Well-traveled pigs

Minnesota’s farmers would be hard hit if there’s a trade war with Canada.

When Trump instituted smaller tariffs on certain imported goods and imported steel and aluminum, Minnesota farmers were hurt by plunging commodity prices and a drop in exports.

Trump was forced to tap a Great Depression-era program, the Commodity Credit Corporation, to pay farmers $28 billion as recompense for their losses.

The USDA estimated that those payments constituted more than one-third of total farm income in 2019 and 2020.

Minnesota Farm Bureau Federation President Dan Glessing said he hoped Trump’s more recent tariffs threats are merely a “bargaining chip” the president is using to seek concessions from allies.

Glessing said the state’s farm economy could survive a new trade war “as long as it does not drag on too long.” But he said the disruptions in the market come at a bad time — on the heels of a two-year slump in U.S. farm exports.

Klobuchar called Canada “a key economic partner for the northern states” and that tariffs on potash from that nation would sharply increase fertilizer costs for Minnesota farmers.

Trump’s tariff policy also raises other questions because of the close relationship of Minnesota’s farmers with their counterparts to the north.

Canada has an agreement with Minnesota pork producers that send piglets to grow into hogs in Canada. These hogs are shipped back to Minnesota and processed into meat products. Some of those pork products are exported back to Canada.

“When you think of how much back-and-forth there is (in the operation), those tariffs could be considerable,” Glessing said.

Ana Radelat

Ana Radelat is MinnPost’s Washington, D.C. correspondent. You can reach her at aradelat@minnpost.com or follow her on Twitter at @radelat.

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Kirsten Mitchell at WCCO News talked with Minnesota business owners taking part in “A Day Without Immigrants,” a nationwide initiative happening Monday aimed at demonstrating the vital role immigrants play in the U.S. economy and protesting recent anti-immigrant policies.

Katie Wermus at FOX 9 has some early tallies from the Minnesota State Patrol on the overnight and morning snow effect on traffic. So far, there have been 83 crashes, four injury crashes, one fatality, 21 vehicles off the road, five vehicle spinouts and one jackknifed semi.

Allison Kaplan at Twin Cities Business interviews north Minneapolis entrepreneur Houston White about Target Corp.’s rollback of some DEI initiatives.

Feven Gerezgiher at MPR News talks with trans University of Minnesota student Micah Leroy after several right-wing commentators criticized his videos on social media related to a gender-affirming operation, drawing hateful attention and leading Meta to shut down his accounts on Instagram and Facebook.

Susan Du and Jessie Van Berkel at the Star Tribune are reporting Minnesota’s rollout of one of the nation’s first Medicaid-funded programs to help people find and keep housing has been deeply flawed, according to some providers.

Via Bring Me the News: A goalie mask designed by Mdewakanton Dakota artist Cole Redhorse Taylor and worn by Minnesota Wild goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury has been purchased by the Minnesota Historical Society and is now on display at the Minnesota History Center.

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