Recent content from Jennifer Brooks
Brooks: In the red spaces on the election map, the DFL makes its pitch
The 11 offices outside the Twin Cities are places to organize volunteers, hold meetings and distribute yard signs ahead of next year's midterm elections.
Brooks: At the bison auction: Sold to the buffalo-est bidder
Once home to huge herds, Minnesota now has about 5,000, maybe 10,000 bison, depending on who's counting.
Brooks: Minnesota schools begin to part ways with outdated mascots
Minnesota, thousands of whose citizens fought and died to preserve the Union, is home to at least half a dozen high schools with Confederate mascots.
Brooks: Photographer seeks to show young women what real beauty is
The hope is to start chipping away at years of Instagram messaging about which of their selfies are good or bad; which of their features are flattering or flaws.
Setting the record straight on long-ago offenses
Sometimes, a misdemeanor can feel like a life sentence.It wasn't much marijuana. Enough to roll a few joints.Enough to slap a college student with a…
Brooks: Spirits in the steel at Minnesota's memorials to the World Trade Center
That broken beam in Marshall, Minn., is as close as most of us will ever get to ground zero.
Brooks: Fort Snelling archaeologists offer the public a chance to dig into history this weekend
Nothing connects you with history like holding a piece of it in your hand.
Brooks: Fort Snelling archaeologists offer a chance to dig into history this weekend
Nothing connects you with history like holding a piece of it in your hand.
Brooks: Minnesota school boards are at the breaking point
It was always a thankless job. Then came the pandemic, and a thankless job turned joyless.
Up, up and away to your (adjective) Day at the Minnesota State Fair!
After a no-fair year, the Minnesota State Fair is back. Whether you're planning to get vaccinated, mask up, and attend — or if you're sitting this one out — here's your chance to fill in some blanks and remember what makes Great Minnesota Get-Togethers so great.
Brooks: Back in the Day Festival prepares for day of joy near George Floyd Square
The 11th annual gathering promises good food, great music, local vendors, drum lines, double-dutch jump rope exhibitions and joyous reunions.
Brooks: Minnesotans aren't sure they want to get together at the Great Minnesota Get-Together this year
The delta variant is surging just as the fair is drawing thousands of people with very different comfort levels on the issues of masks, vaccines and eating horse paste.
Brooks: Small Minnesota cities hit or miss a crucial census benchmark of 5,000 strong
Census Man always knew he could count on Circle Pines.For one last time last week, City Council Member Dean Goldberg donned his cape, his mask…
Brooks: Jennifer Carnahan wants you to remember the real victim here: Jennifer Carnahan
Jennifer Carnahan wants you to remember the real victim here.The FBI had swooped in to arrest top GOP donor Anton "Tony" Lazzaro on child…
Brooks: In Minneapolis's arsenic triangle, East Phillips residents ask council for a greener future
What Minneapolis wants is not what East Phillips needs.
Brooks: Vaxxed but not relaxed? Minnesotans debate whether they'd feel comfortable at State Fair
For 3 million fully vaccinated Minnesotans who did everything right, Jennifer Brooks asks: Is it still OK to get that Pronto Pup?
Brooks: Twin Cities shops take a shot at protecting customers from COVID
More than a dozen Black-owned barber shops and salons across Minnesota have thrown open their doors to the federal Shots at the Shop initiative.
Brooks: A love letter from Jim Ramstad's hometown(s)
If you want a measure how beloved a public figure is, look to see how many different places stake a claim to them.
Brooks: Heat waves, smoke clouds and the battle to breathe easy in Minnesota
The climate is changing, and not for the better: Our bodies are choking on Canadian wildfire smoke, roasting through heat waves, then choking on wildfire smoke again.
Brooks: In Crystal, a monument to a little boy lost
If a playground seems a strange place to remember a murdered child, imagine how much worse it would be to forget.
Researchers follow trail of sex trafficking to Minnesota massage program
Something seemed very wrong at the American Academy of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine.There was a locked closet with student files the registrar could not access.There…
Brooks: A change of law, a change of heart, on the anniversary of Philando Castile's killing
The Minnesota Legislature changed the law to ban lunch shaming for good five years to the day after he died.
Brooks: Minnesota Historical Society looks to the future
In the worst days of 2020, MNHS was urging Minnesotans to be mindful of the history we're living through.
Brooks: The Women of West St. Paul give to the maxi
It was a protest that started with a creep who crept through the night in 2018 to dump a box of maxi pads on the doorstep of West St. Paul's first female mayor.
Brooks: Let Derek Chauvin's sentence be the start of the conversation
Sometimes there's no neutral ground. You stand with your neighbors or you stand against them.
Brooks: In Minneapolis, all roads lead away from Dight Avenue
Charles Fremont Dight lived in a tree and wrote fan letters to Adolf Hitler and founded the Minnesota Eugenics Society.Minneapolis named a street after him.It…
Brooks: Twin Cities Pride festival set to return after a long pandemic year
An event that usually requires six months of meticulous planning came together in a matter of weeks.
Brooks: Deona Knajdek fought so Minneapolis wouldn't look away from its pain
Deona Marie Knajdek took to the streets.Winston Smith Jr. was dead, gunned down by law enforcement on the same day city work crews plowed through…
Brooks: Metro Transit trains a new generation of bus drivers as commuters return to the commute
Experience has taught transit officials that their next bus driver could come from anywhere.
Bids roll in for a piece of the Roller Garden in St. Louis Park
Fans are eager take home a piece of the past.
Brooks: A Minneapolis neighborhood gives public thanks to Public Works
For 11 years, Mark Clark greeted neighbors and visitors to the Loring Park Greenway. Off to a new assignment, he was invited back for a party by the neighborhood.
Brooks: Orange farm in Minnesota landed PPP loan with little scrutiny
Pro Publica's review of federal Paycheck Protection Program loans turned up "fake farms in absurd places"
Brooks: A year in the life of the city that killed George Floyd
It is hard to move on when it feels like it is not over.
Brooks: Fishing opener offers the first big get-together, after year apart
Minnesotans were back together on Saturday — vaxed, relaxed and newly unmasked.
Brooks: Historic vote at Minnesota Legislature shifts the debate on marijuana
People have gotten more comfortable with cannabis in recent years. Institutions have not.
Brooks: How the census heroes saved Minnesota a seat in Congress
The state that never takes the last bite of anything snagged the last available seat in the U.S. House.
Brooks: Masked up and vaxed up, Minnesotans are ready to have fun again
A Minnesotan walks into a bar.Orders a beer and takes a seat at a table crowded with friends and happy dogs and covered with bingo…
Brooks: After attack on mosque, Moorhead refused to let hate have the last word
Volunteers drive in from miles away to help the cleanup.
A second chance for veterans gets a second chance at the Legislature
Not every county has the resources to set up a veterans courts of its own. The Minnesota Legislature could change that.
Brooks: Art thief makes off with a piece of Grand Marais history
"Woman Hauling Sticks" was a crowd pleaser at the Johnson Heritage Post Art Gallery.
Brooks: Eager salons 'ready to cut that COVID hair'
The personal services industry, which includes businesses like salons, spas and barber shops, lost more jobs to the pandemic than any other industry in the state.
Brooks: Hitting the road to get the vaccine
Getting an appointment is still a matter of good timing, good luck — or very good neighbors.
Brooks: Lil Nas X satanic panic disrupts Minnesota launch of children's book
Sheletta Brundidge tells how song inspired autistic son's journey to speech.
Brooks: The quest to get more Minnesotans to see themselves as doctors
There's something invaluable about finding one who's shared your experiences, who understands things about your life without needing to ask.
Brooks: He lost his job and his popular podcast, but not his sense of humor or hope
"The Hilarious World of Depression" host John Moe is back with a new podcast.
Brooks: A teen shares the story of her long wait for help
People talk about the stigma of mental illness, but it's really just discrimination: treating someone differently because their illness makes you uneasy.
Brooks: Planting the seeds for a great Minnesota get-together
A great many things have to come together before a Great Minnesota Get-Together, and almost none of them can wait.
Brooks: For those baseball retirees whose careers ended too soon, the better pay and benefits came too late
Tom Johnson and 873 other retirees struck out and walked away with nothing from the pension plan
Brooks: Minnesota churches build faith in COVID-19 vaccine, give shots of hope to those in need
Sometimes the people who need health care most are the ones who trust the health care system least.
Brooks: For a second year, pandemic hits the Friday fish fries
A few, like Our Lady of Peace in Minneapolis, had enough space and willing volunteers for the Friday fish fry to carry on — as carryout.
Brooks: Inclusive baseball league puts out the call for Minnesota coaches and players
Alternative Baseball is a place anyone with special needs can come and know they won't be judged and they won't be alone.
Brooks: In north Minneapolis, an internship becomes a vocation
The North Side needed someone needed to keep the work going. Will Wallace had the workforce.
Brooks: Par for the course as Park Board debate over Hiawatha course continues
For years, the Park Board has reviewed proposals to restore part of the watershed around Hiawatha while still preserving the park for the public to enjoy. Next week, the board will hold the latest of many public hearings on the updated master plan for the site.
Brooks: When Minnesotans couldn't go to the museum, museums came to us
You can sit on your couch in Minnesota and tour the Museu de Arte in São Paulo.Or you can get up off your couch…
Brooks: Minnesota legislators vote to denounce violence at U.S. Capitol – most of them, anyway
For almost two hours Monday, lawmakers talked over each other and past each other and around and around the events of Jan. 6.
Brooks: University of Minnesota students learn the comfort of sharing comfort foods
In the bleak early days of the pandemic, as Americans cocooned themselves in jigsaw puzzles, half-sewn face masks and bubbling tubs of sourdough starter, student…
Brooks: Minneapolis police union chief Kroll goes out with a whimper
The cop who made Minneapolis less safe is walking away from the job.Lt. Bob Kroll, president of the Minneapolis police union, plans to retire at…
Brooks: Hennepin County tosses a lifeline to small businesses battered by the pandemic
Help went to more than 4,600 small businesses and nonprofits hurt by the shutdowns, recession and unrest of the past year.
Brooks: After the coup at the Capitol, the storm rages on
You can't say this is not who we are. This is exactly who some of us are and always have been.
Brooks: Lutefisk a 'Happy Meal for 2020'
Where there's a will for lutefisk — or lutfisk, if you trace your roots to Sweden rather than Norway — there's a way.
Want to give snow saviors a name? Enter the name-a-plow contest
With plow appreciation at a seasonal high, MnDOT is launching an effort to help Minnesotans form an even deeper bond with their friendly neighborhood plow.
Brooks: This year, give the gift of COVID status
The line for a COVID-19 test is nobody's idea of the Happiest Place on Earth."This isn't Disney," said Shawn Baxley, vice president of field operations…
Brooks: A second chance for veterans gets one last chance at Minnesota Legislature
A bill about second chances gets its last chance at the Minnesota Legislature on Monday.The Veterans Restorative Justice Act would steer veterans — struggling…
Brooks: Minnesota GOP needs to learn from past, look to future
The generation that rebuilt after Watergate watches the next generation face its own stinging defeat.
For adoptive families, 2020 was the perfectly imperfect time to open hearts and homes
The four newest members of the Dubra family crowded around the screen, waiting for the judge to make it official. “All right, everyone. I’m…
Homeless outreach workers help the veterans who need more than our thanks
Minnesota counted at least 308 homeless veterans on Veterans Day 2020, 100 more than last year.
Brooks: In some states, they bury the hatchet — literally
A Delaware tradition offers a template for the rest of us in times when we agree on very little.
Brooks: Will legalization of pot in S.D. waft to Minnesota?
Lots of issues split along partisan lines — blue against red, liberal against conservative, us against them — but not marijuana. Never marijuana.
Brooks: If you need a break from politics, remember the penguins!
At the Como Park Zoo, someone is piloting a remote-controlled shark around a tank for no other reason than to make a penguin happy.
Brooks: Reaching every Minnesota voter, when every vote counts
In a democracy, they say, the people end up with the government they deserve. Minnesotans worked hard this year to get out the…
Flap over Minneapolis deputy chief's 'white boys' comment missed point
Minneapolis Police Deputy Chief Art Knight gave half a quote to the paper the other week.He was talking about a defunct diversity program that used…
Brooks: A runner with heart gets back in the race after a year of healing
Last October, an irregular heartbeat sent Tyler Moon into cardiac arrest near the 8-mile marker of a 10-mile race in the middle of Summit Avenue.
Brooks: Minneapolis has first memorial to survivors of sexual violence
The new Survivors Memorial, at Boom Island Park, is a reminder that survivors surround us, like veterans of some forgotten war.
Brooks: Minnesota's last competitive sport is the 2020 census
Each response is an affirmation: We're here, our children are here, we count.