Catholics mourn the death of Pope Francis, cardinals around the world are preparing to travel to Rome to begin the solemn tradition of choosing a new pontiff.
And when the prelates gather at the Vatican in the coming weeks to elect a new Bishop of Rome, Francis, who died at age 88 on April 21, stands to have an outsize impact on the vote.
That’s because, unlike some of his predecessors, Francis has appointed the overwhelming majority of clerics who can cast a ballot in the conclave — namely,
members of the College of Cardinals who are under age 80. He crossed a crucial threshold in September 2023, when he finally appointed enough voting-eligible cardinals over the course of his papacy to constitute more than twothirds of voting members in a conclave, the margin required to elect a pope under the current rules. And according to an analysis by Religion News Service, as of April 21, of the 135 members of the College of Cardinals eligible to vote, 108 — 80% — were appointed by Francis. An additional 16.3% were appointed by Pope Benedict, and only 3.7% were tapped by Pope John Paul II.
By Stacy M. Brown
Pope Francis, the first Latin American pontiff and a global voice for the poor, immigrants, and the environment, died Monday at age 88. Cardinal Kevin Farrell announced his death from the Domus Santa Marta, the Vatican residence where Francis chose to live instead of the Apostolic Palace. “At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the home of the Father,” said Farrell. “His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of his Church.” Church bells rang across Rome as word
spread. The pope had been hospitalized since mid-February with double pneumonia, marking his longest hospitalization during his 12-year papacy. Despite his declining health, he finally appeared before thousands in St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday.
Born Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on December 17, 1936, Francis was the son of Italian immigrants. A former chemical technician, he entered the Jesuit order in 1958, was ordained in 1969, and rose through the ranks to become Archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 and Cardinal in 2001. Elected pope in 2013 following Benedict XVI’s resignation, Francis quickly distinguished himself with a reformist tone. He rejected the
papal palace and wore simpler vestments. He condemned economic exploitation, called for urgent action on climate change, and made the inclusion of migrants, the poor, and LGBTQ+ Catholics central to his mission. However, his papacy also deepened tensions within the Catholic Church, especially in the United States. While Francis urged compassion and social justice, many American Catholics—particularly white conservatives—supported political figures whose policies ran counter to the pope’s teachings. In a February op-ed for the National Catholic Reporter, writer Alessandra Harris addressed the disconnect: “We are living in a time when self-professed Catholics are not only turning a blind eye to evil but have elect-
ed and are supporting President Donald Trump, who is against diversity, against immigrants, against the poor.” Harris cited a long history of racism in the Church, from segregation and exclusion in Catholic schools and neighborhoods to the silence of Church leaders during Jim Crow and beyond. She noted that 59% of white Catholics voted for Trump, writing that “the Catholic Church is once again siding with white supremacy or hoping to benefit from its proximity to whiteness at the expense of people who are Black, Native, noncitizens and LGBTQIA+.” Though Pope Francis spoke forceful-
The Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ) says its mission to end multi-generational poverty is based on building a culture of achievement in North Minneapolis. The agency says wealth gaps between Black and white communities are historical, persistent, and increase with age. The average wealth gap between Blacks and whites ages 18-34 is $24.8K, rising to $261.2K by the time Black adults reach age 55 if unaddressed.
Wealth Builds aims to close this gap early, creating a pathway to social and
economic mobility by coupling NAZ’s holistic set of prenatalto-profession services with financial education and critical capital at every developmental stage of a young person’s life.
By Stacy M. Brown
Newly released data from the Jail Data Initiative have provided the first national look in more than 20 years at the offenses driving America’s massive jail churn, and the findings raise serious questions about the priorities of the criminal legal system. The last
comprehensive offense data for local jails came in 2002, leaving researchers and policymakers in the dark. But the Jail Data Initiative, in partnership with the Prison Policy Initiative, has now compiled data from 865 jail rosters across the country, offering a detailed portrait of who’s locked up — and for what. The data shows that more than 7.6 million jail admissions occurred in 2023. One-third of those—over 2.7 million—were for misdemeanor offenses,
charges often as minor as sitting on a sidewalk or jaywalking. That figure dwarfs the 20% captured in the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ single-day snapshot of jail populations, a discrepancy explained by
shorter stays for people booked on misdemeanor charges.
“This new dataset reveals what the single-day statistics can’t — that low-level offenses remain a dominant driver of
incarceration,” said Emily Widra, the report’s lead author. The report also exposes how probation and parole violations
Rev. Jamal Bryant is urging Black Americans to keep the pressure on Target by continuing the national boycott that began as a 40-day economic “fast.”
The move, sparked by the retail giant’s decision to end its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, has already cost the company an estimated
$12 billion, Bryant said.
“Because of your fast, Target has lost $12 billion,” Bryant told his congregation. “I am so grateful that there is power in
/Photo by Samuele
Photo by Owen JC Smith Jails Packed with Minor Offenders, New National Data Shows
Karl O. Benson
Photo by Jann Huizenga
At The Legislature
House speaker sees sticking points in budget negotiations, remains optimistic
By Rob Hubbard
House Speaker Lisa Demuth (R-Cold Spring) is looking for some unity, and she believes the Legislature and Gov. Tim Walz can find it.
Speaking after Tuesday’s House floor session, Demuth said she believes it’s important for the governor to “pull everyone together,” and that she sees Wednesday evening’s State of the State address as a fine opportunity to do so.
“We’re looking forward to what he has to say,” Demuth said.
That said, negotiations continue between cochairs of some House committees on their final omnibus bills. Demuth identified a pair of sticking points.
“On the health bill,
we’re kind of stuck on the insurance for those who are here illegally,” she said. “For MinnesotaCare, families that qualify get their health insurance from the state. Typically, 90% of that dollar amount is paid by the feds and the state pays 10%. In this case, health care is provided at no cost to people who are here illegally. But that’s 100% on the backs of the state’s taxpayers, because there is no federal match.
“It was projected that there would be 5,000 people taking advantage of that, but we now know that there are 17,000. We’ve got to pull that back. … But what we’ve heard from Democrats is that that’s a non-starter for them. … I’m not exactly sure where the governor stands on it.” In a Monday statement, Senate Majority Leader
Erin Murphy (DFL-St. Paul) said: “There are very few issues on which hospitals, doctors, nurses, religious organizations, labor unions and insurers agree and speak with one voice. Stripping insurance coverage and health care access from undocumented Minnesotans is one of them. This proposal does financial harm, costing people more in the form of increased premiums and uncompensated care. Denying care is an affront to human dignity. That is wrong.”
Demuth said that negotiations have hit other sticking points.
“In pre-K-12 education, it’s unemployment for hourly workers,” she said. “The state has put a lot of money in for that unemployment. …
Those are hourly workers who had temporary jobs, whether they were a few months or a few hours. It doesn’t line up with regular unemployment for sea-
sonal workers, in which companies are paying into the unemployment trust fund. Schools do not do that, so it’s completely different. … The chairs are working really hard on that.”
As for agreed-upon budget targets, that’s a work in progress, Demuth said. “We haven’t finished putting together global targets at this point, but you’ll see the work coming out of the House this week and into next.” “I don’t see a reason we should go past May 19, but it’s going to take practical ways of coming together,” Demuth said. “The governor has expressed concern about what federal cuts could do to a state budget. But we’ve got to get control of our state budget spending first, then look at solutions if that comes to pass.
“That would be a rea-
son to potentially bring us back for a special session. After the state work is done, though.” She said she remains optimistic about how the session will play out.
Higher education panel approves finance and policy bill
By Todd Abeln
Facing a committee base increase of zero, college students could nonetheless get more money for schooling.
The omnibus higher education finance and policy bill contains $3.97 billion in spending for the 2026-27 biennium; however, to align with budget targets set by House leaders, its increase over February’s forecast base is zero.
HF2312, as amended with a delete-all amendment, was approved Monday by the House Higher Education Finance and Policy Committee on a split-voice vote. Sponsored by Rep. Marion Rarick (R-Maple Lake), a committee co-chair,
the bill next heads to the House Ways and Means Committee.
“We had to make hard choices,” Rarick said. “I’ll just tell you negotiations were not easy.”
Rep. Dan Wolgamott (DFL-St. Cloud), the other committee co-chair, agreed. “If you (Rarick) were the full chair of this committee the bill would probably look different and if I were the full chair of this committee the bill would certainly look different. Any good compromise not everyone’s happy with it and that’s very clearly the case here.”
Despite its zero target, the bill calls for an additional $33.45 million for the state grant program, that help students from low- and moderate-income families pay for
higher educational expenses. Also called for is an additional $10.53 million for the Office of Higher Education, $4.5 million for the Minnesota State system and $4.31 million for the University of Minnesota.
To offset the increases, nearly $8 million per year for the University of Minnesota and Mayo Foundation Partnership is not funded.
Total biennial funding for Minnesota State would be $1.76 billion, the $4.5 million increase going towards emergency assistance grants to students.
The University of Minnesota is to receive nearly $1.5 billion, with an increase of $26.26 million above base for general operations. Of that, $15.26 million is one-time
funding in fiscal year 2026 to an ALS research partnership with the Mayo Clinic, $3 million in new funding for the St. Cloud medical school campus, and $1.5 million for emergency assistance grants to students.
“While I am glad that the two co-chairs have reached an agreement that doesn’t cut either of these organizations,” said Rep. Tina Liebling (DFL-Rochester), “I think that none of us should feel really good about that because we are passing a budget here that that increases costs for students. That is something I really don’t want to do.”
The state grant increase is offset by not funding proposed Office of Higher Education base appropriations for summer academic enrichment, aviation loan forgiveness, stu-
• allow Minnesota State universities to offer applied doctoral degrees in cybersecurity;
• amend requirements for Minnesota postsecondary institutions regarding procedures for adjudicating campus sexual misconduct allegations;
• allow the Office of Higher Education to carry forward unspent non-grant operating appropriations into the next biennium; require Minnesota State and request the University of Minnesota to ensure that all North Star Promise-eligible
students receive resident tuition rates; • clarify that a student who has completed the degree requirements for their first baccalaureate degree is no longer eligible for the North Star Promise scholarship, even if the student has not yet graduated with that baccalaureate degree;
• increase the required costof-training employer match for dual training competency grants for large employers from 25% to 50%; and expand the Tribal college supplemental grant assistance program to provide financial assistance to Tribal colleges based on beneficiary students (i.e. Minnesota resident
Combined public safety, judiciary budget bill heads to House Floor
By Tim Walker
The session’s second omnibus budget bill heading to the House Floor is a twofer.
The House Ways and Means Committee merged the House judiciary and public safety finance budget bills Tuesday before approving the package as HF2432. The merger aligns the bill with the Senate committee structure, making it easier for potential conference committee activity. Together, HF2432 would appropriate $2.23 billion for public safety ($50 million above February base) and $1.43 billion for the judiciary ($30 million increase) in the 2026-27 biennium. Rep. Paul Novotny (R-Elk River), a public safety committee co-chair with Rep.
Kelly Moller (DFL-Shoreview), is the sponsor.
The judiciary portion of the bill comes from HF2300, sponsored by Rep. Peggy Scott (R-Andover), who co-chairs that committee with Rep. Tina Liebling (DFL-Rochester). It would fund the courts, civil legal services, Guardian ad Litem Board, Tax Court, Uniform Laws Commission, Board on Judicial Standards, Board of Public Defense, and Human Rights Department. Judiciary policy changes in the bill would establish private privileges for participants in restorative justice victim-offender conferences; allow courts to charge fees for private attorneys to access court documents; modify the definition of “custodian” in orders of protection; and modify procedures for
foreclosure sales.
The public safety portion would fund the Corrections and Public Safety departments, Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission, Peace Officer Standards and Training Board, Private Detective Board, Ombudsperson for Corrections, and Clemency Review Commission.
Public safety policy changes would create a Minnesota Victims of Crime Account; make it a crime to knowingly cause or permit a child or vulnerable adult to be exposed to, have contact with, or ingest fentanyl; extend the statute of limitations for first-degree arson from five to 10 years; require prisons to maintain an ample supply of opiate antagonists (Narcan) to enable staff to rapidly respond to opioid overdoses; and
executed
House remembers former Rep. Mary Murphy, votes to rename library grant program in her honor
By Rob Hubbard
Former Rep. Mary Murphy (DFL-Hermantown) was a teacher whose life was a lesson.
After 12 years as a history and social studies instructor at Duluth Central High School, she decided to demonstrate to her students the essentials of government by running for the Minnesota House of Representatives, winning election in 1976, and continuing to teach until her 1997 retirement.
She became the House’s longest-serving woman and the state’s second-longest-serving legislator, her tenure stretching to 46 years. On Monday, Murphy — who died on Dec. 25, 2024, at age 85 — received tributes from several of her former House colleagues and a proclamation from Gov. Tim Walz.
“She’d be so proud of all the women and what they’ve done in this space,” said Rep. Leon
Lillie (DFL-North St. Paul). “There weren’t even women’s bathrooms here when she started.”
With red carnations adorning many a desk in the chamber in honor of a representative who advocated for beautifying the space, members shared stories of Murphy before passing legislation recognizing one of her most passionate pursuits, renaming the state’s construction grant program for libraries in her honor.
For the traditional opening prayer, former Rep. Julie Sandstede (DFL-Hibbing) read the Douglas Wood children’s book, “Old Turtle” — Murphy did the same in May of 2022 — before six members read a House resolution praising Murphy’s life and service.
House Speaker Lisa Demuth (R-Cold Spring) and Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman (DFL-Brooklyn Park) then presented a signed copy of the res-
olution to members of Murphy’s family before seven more legislators read a proclamation from Walz that similarly celebrated Murphy’s life and work and declared Monday as Mary Murphy Day in Minnesota. Before passing the bill that would rename the state’s library construction grants program in Murphy’s honor by a 132-0 vote, several members shared fond memories of working with her, including some who thanked her for her mentorship.
“Mary the gardener taught us that you can’t be blown over by the wind in these spaces when your roots are planted really strong,” said Rep. Liish Kozlowski (DFL-Duluth).
Others praised her for crafting well-woven speeches that would always find their way back to her central point.
“Every story she told, we all walked away with a lesson, better for having listened,” said Rep. Kristin Bahner (DFL-Ma-
while the person is an inmate of a local correctional facility.
Grove).
always knew she was voting from her heart,” said Rep. Duane Quam (R-Byron). “And Mary had a true and wonderful heart.”
Photo by Andrew VonBank
Co-chairs of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Paul Torkelson and Rep. Zack Stephenson, confer before the start of a busy hearing Tuesday.
Photo by Andrew VonBank
Rep. Kelly Moller and Rep. Paul Novotny present the public safety finance bill to the House Ways and Means Committee April 22
Photo by Andrew VonBank
Rep. Leon Lillie reads a House Resolution acknowledging the exceptional life and service of former Rep. Mary Murphy April 21 while members of Murphy’s family listen in the well of the House Chamber
Insight 2 Health
How does your brain create new memories? Neuroscientists discover ‘rules’ for how neurons encode new information
By William Wright Postdoctoral Scholar in Neurobiology, University of California, San Diego
By Takaki Komiyama Professor of Neurobiology, University of California, San Diego
Every day, people are constantly learning and forming new memories. When you pick up a new hobby, try a recipe a friend recommended or read the latest world news, your brain stores many of these memories for years or decades.
But how does your brain achieve this incredible feat?
In our newly published research in the journal Science, we have identified some of the “rules” the brain uses to learn.
Learning in the brain
The human brain is made up of billions of nerve cells. These neurons conduct electrical pulses that carry information, much like how computers use binary code to carry data.
These electrical pulses are communicated with other neurons through connections between them called synapses. Individual neurons have branching extensions known as dendrites that can receive thousands of electrical inputs from other cells. Dendrites transmit these inputs to the main body of the neuron, where it then integrates all these signals to generate its own electrical pulses.
It is the collective ac-
tivity of these electrical pulses across specific groups of neurons that form the representations of different information and experiences within the brain.
For decades, neuroscientists have thought that the brain learns by changing how neurons are connected to one another. As new information and experiences alter how neurons communicate with each other and change their collective activity patterns, some synaptic connections are made stronger while others are made weaker. This process of synaptic plasticity is what produces representations of new information and experiences within your brain.
In order for your brain to produce the correct representations during learning, however, the right synaptic connections must undergo the right changes at the right time. The “rules” that your brain uses to select which synapses to change during learning – what neuroscientists call the credit assignment problem – have remained largely unclear.
Defining the rules
We decided to monitor the activity of individual synaptic connections within the brain during learning to see whether we could identify activity patterns that determine which connections would get stronger or weaker.
To do this, we genetically encoded biosensors in the neurons of mice that would
light up in response to synaptic and neural activity. We monitored this activity in real time as the mice learned a task that involved pressing a lever to a certain position after a sound cue in order to receive water.
We were surprised to find that the synapses on a neuron don’t all follow the same rule. For example, scientists have often thought that neurons follow what are called Hebbian rules, where neurons that consistently fire together, wire together. Instead, we saw that synapses on different locations of dendrites of the same neuron followed different rules to determine whether connections got stronger or weaker. Some synapses adhered to the traditional Hebbian rule where neurons that consistently fire together strengthen their connections. Other synapses did something different and completely independent of the neuron’s activity.
Our findings suggest that neurons, by simultaneously using two different sets of rules for learning across different groups of synapses, rather than a single uniform rule, can more precisely tune the different types of inputs they receive to appropriately represent new information in the brain.
In other words, by following different rules in the process of learning, neurons can multitask and perform multiple functions in parallel. Future applications
This discovery provides a clearer understanding
of how the connections between neurons change during learning. Given that most brain disorders, including degenerative and psychiatric conditions, involve some form of malfunctioning synapses, this has potentially important implications for human health and society. For example, depression may develop from an excessive weakening of the synaptic connections within certain areas of the brain that make it harder to experience pleasure. By understanding how synaptic plasticity normally operates, scientists may be able to better understand what goes wrong in depression and then develop
therapies to more effectively treat it.
These findings may also have implications for artificial intelligence. The artificial neural networks underlying AI have largely been inspired by how the brain works. However, the learning rules researchers use to update the connections within the networks and train the models are usually uniform and also not biologically plausible. Our research may provide insights into how to develop more biologically realistic AI models that are more efficient, have better performance, or both.
There is still a long way to go before we can use this information to develop new therapies for human brain disorders. While we found that synaptic connections on different groups of dendrites use different learning rules, we don’t know exactly why or how. In addition, while the ability of neurons to simultaneously use multiple learning methods increases their capacity to encode information, what other properties this may give them isn’t yet clear. Future research will hopefully answer these questions and further our understanding of how the brain learns.
The sudden dismissal of public records staff at health agencies threatens government accountability
By Reshma Ramachandran Assistant Professor of Medicine, Yale University
Mass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services are continuing as the agency makes good on its intention, announced on March 27, 2025, to shrink its workforce by 20,000 people. Among workers dismissed in early April were several teams responsible for fulfilling requests for access to previously unreleased government data, information and records under a federal law known as the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA.
At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the offices that fulfill such requests have been eliminated, according to press reports. In 2024 alone, CDC received 1,800 requests for access to public records. At the Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health, which together responded to almost 14,000 requests in 2024, multiple teams of FOIA staff were fired. FOIA offices at other HHS agencies were affected, too.
Most people may never file a public records request with a federal agency. But the fact that anyone is allowed by law to do so enables the public to hold government accountable and has catalyzed important government reforms. FOIA requests at federal health agencies have been particularly consequential. They have pushed companies to take unsafe drugs off the market, led to reforms that prevent unnecessary delays in communicating public health risks, and prompted policies that lower prices and improve access to taxpayer-funded health technologies.
I am a health services researcher who studies the effects of public health regulation, and I have observed how the transparency enabled by FOIA can benefit patients, clinicians and researchers. Although HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has stated that federal public health agencies will embrace “radical transparency,” closure of these offices suggests otherwise.
What is an FOIA public records request?
The Freedom of Information Act was passed in 1966 to increase government transparency in response to a rise in government secrecy during the Cold War.
The law requires agencies within the federal government’s executive branch to proactively publish certain procedural and other materials and to publicly disclose certain types of information. It also requires the federal government to disclose any documents that don’t fall into those categories in response to a written request, as long as they are not exempt due to issues of national security, foreign policy or business interests.
Any member of the public, citizen or not, can file a FOIA request.
Notably, private companies are the top requesters. They use FOIA to gain competitive advantage, support litigation and become familiar with regulations and policies that affect their business model. The next most frequent requesters are everyday people. After them come law firms, which are often supporting private companies, followed by the news media and nonprofit organizations.
What can FOIA requests to federal health agencies reveal?
FOIA requests to HHS agencies have led to significant shifts in public health regulation and policy.
In one example from the early 2000s, researchers and media outlets filed FOIA requests to the FDA related to a drug called Vioxx, or rofecoxib. The drug, manufactured by the pharmaceutical company Merck, was approved by the FDA as a supposedly safer alternative for osteoarthritis pain. But the documents revealed that Merck had significantly downplayed the drug’s increased risk for heart attacks and strokes.
Information disclosed through these requests prompted congressional investigations that led to new laws requiring companies to report results of all clinical trials in a public online database – including when trials show that treatments have no meaningful benefit or are unsafe.
The new laws also authorized the FDA to require companies to conduct additional safety studies after a drug’s approval. This means the agency can take faster action to prevent patient harm by adding warnings to drug labels, issuing warnings of potential harms directly to doctors or withdrawing unsafe treatments entirely.
Importantly, FOIA enables ongoing oversight. In 2021, my colleagues and I published an investigation that used FOIA to determine whether the FDA and NIH were enforcing those clinical trial transparency laws. We found that companies had failed to update thousands of clinical trials in the database with their results, and that the FDA and NIH were doing little to compel them. Using the FOIA data as evidence, we successfully petitioned the FDA to step up its enforcement and to publicly list the companies that were still not complying. There are countless other examples of how stakeholders have used FOIA to hold the government accountable. FOIA requests filed by lawyers, news outlets and citizens of Flint, Michigan, in 2016 revealed that state and local public health officials withheld information about the contamination of the city’s drinking water. Their secrecy potentially delayed response measures that could have prevented a recurrent disease outbreak.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, FOIA requests to HHS agencies filed by news outlets and nonprofit organizations revealed that despite billions of taxpayer dollars and other resources invested into COVID-19 vaccine development, the U.S. government had waived away their ability to take future action and not negotiated terms to ensure affordable access if companies later hiked up prices.
What now for FOIA at HHS? The sudden dismissal of FOIA teams at the CDC, FDA, NIH and other federal public health agencies will limit these agencies’ ability to respond to new and ongoing requests as required by law. This will worsen an already hefty FOIA backlog at HHS agencies.
Cuts to FOIA staff also hinder the public from using this law to examine and potentially challenge recent agency actions under the new administration. On April 5, 2025, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed several FOIA requests on the involvement of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, in disbanding the FOIA team and on the CDC’s reported suppression in March of an expert assessment of the Texas measles outbreak. Based on the automated response – which read that FOIA staff had been placed on administrative leave and could not respond to requests – the group filed a lawsuit challenging the FOIA office closure, arguing that it violates the Freedom of Information Act and other administrative law. Limited staff capacity may also curtail agencies’ ability to proactively disclose information, such as data on drug efficacy and safety posted by the FDA. Patients and clinicians access such information to make decisions about using and prescribing medications.
HHS representatives have stated that they will re-
sume FOIA processing, centralizing the various agency offices under HHS in a more streamlined approach. Whether such an office with significantly diminished capacity and a lack of agency-specific expertise will be able to effectively and efficiently respond to the over 50,000 requests for records received annually remains unclear.
A pattern of barriers to public input and accountability FOIA is far from a perfect tool for achieving transparency in how the government regulates health and biomedical research and policy. In fact, at least at the FDA, FOIA is costly and inefficient – partly, as my colleagues and I have written, because of the agency’s self-imposed, burdensome protocols. But without an enforceable replacement strategy, it is the only tool available to the public. The Trump administration has taken several other steps to reduce transparency of federal public health agencies, leaving the public with limited formal avenues outside of the courts to weigh in on agency actions.
On March 3, 2025, HHS rescinded a long-standing policy requiring it to solicit public comments on regulations related to public property, loans, grants, benefits or contracts. Advisory committee meetings where agencies convene independent experts to provide recommendations and where public stakeholders can provide input have been canceled or postponed.
Additionally, the newly formed Make America Healthy Again Commission led by Kennedy has met behind closed doors and without prior public notice, attended only by select, aligned members. It remains unclear if future meetings will be public.
Not only is closure of FOIA offices across HHS agencies yet another blow to government transparency, but it also prevents the public from holding agencies accountable and pushing for changes that improve health.
Neurons that fire together sometimes wire together
Flint residents protest outside the Michigan State Capitol in January 2016. Shannon Nobles/Amsterdam News via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
Greater Twin Cities United Way (United Way) said it is awarding $9.8 million to 98 local area nonprofits aligned with its vision of a community “where all people thrive regardless of income level, race or place of residence.”
The selected nonprofits are focused on ensuring people across the nine-county metro area have access to stable housing, food security, educational success and economic opportunity, United Way said in a press statement Wednesday.
Funding through United Way’s Community Investments grants will support people experiencing poverty.
In addition to grant funds, organizations will receive capacity building resources, such as programmatic technical assistance or consultative fundraising services, as well as facilitated connections between nonprofits and other funders, nonprofits, and community leaders – all toward the goal of supporting our region’s nonprofit sector and the people they serve.
In addition to grant funds, nonprofits will have ac-
cess to United Way trainings, convenings, and capacity building services.
Additional “beyond the dollar” support includes capacity building resources, such as programmatic technical assistance or consultative fundraising services, as well as facilitated connections between nonprofits and other funders, nonprofits, and community leaders – all toward the goal of supporting our region’s nonprofit sector and the people they serve.
Community Investments grants will begin July 1, 2025.
These new investments come amid a continuing regional cost-of-living crisis that is putting further pressure on families. Data from United Way’s 211 Resource Helpline shows increased demand for housing assistance, food programs and other resources that help families meet their essential needs. Furthermore, data shows that 36% of Minnesotans are living paycheck to paycheck, or ALICE: Asset-Limited, Income-Constrained, Em-
ployed.
“The nonprofit organizations in our Community Investments portfolio bring a unique depth of knowledge about the challenges facing our region,” says Shannon Smith Jones, Senior Vice President of Community Impact at Greater Twin Cities United Way. “Working in close partnership with these passionate and innovative organizations, we can ensure that families throughout the Twin Cities have the resources they need to thrive.”
Nonprofits supported by Greater Twin Cities United Way are working within one or more of the organization’s five impact areas, meant to reflect the areas of greatest need in the nine-county metro area:
Stable housing, ensuring all families have a safe, stable and affordable place to call home.
• Food security, providing people with access to food that is nutritious, culturally relevant and affordable.
Join
John Wilgers
Shannon Smith Jones
Ranking Member Maxine Waters slams Trump Administration’s approval of Capital One-Discover merger
Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, last week blasted the Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC) and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System’s (Fed) decision to approve the Capital One’s acquisition of Discover.
“The Trump Administration’s approval of the Capital One-Discover merger will create yet another ultra-wealthy megabank in America that our
nation’s consumers, small businesses, and working-class families cannot afford. This merger will create a $637 billion bank, making it the sixth-largest bank overall and the nation’s largest issuer of credit cards. Let’s be clear, when the biggest financial institutions get even bigger, they become too big to manage, and many have broken the law by defrauding millions of their customers – all the while they rake in billions of dollars of profit while their CEOs get big-
ger bonuses.” Waters said. “The truth is, Capital One and Discover were already doing that before this merger. Last year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Capital One for cheating millions of their customers out of $2 billion in interest payments. Unfortunately, the Trump Administration dropped this suit and let the bank off the hook. Similarly, regulators took an enforcement action against Discover after the bank ‘recklessly
engaged in unsafe or unsound banking practices’ by overcharging small businesses excessive interchange fees for 16 straight years. “It’s abhorrent that our nation’s regulators ignored the many concerns that not only and I and other Members of Congress raised, but more importantly, those of everyday consumers who will be negatively impacted. In fact, a staggering 91% of the 6,132 comments regulators received from
By Nicole M. Bennett, Ph.D.
A
ed an unusual spike in potentially
data flowing out of the agency’s network in early March 2025 when staffers from the Department of Government Efficiency, which goes by DOGE, were granted access to the agency’s databases. On April 7, the Department of Homeland Security gained access to Internal Revenue Service tax data. These seemingly unrelated events are examples of recent developments in the transformation of the structure and purpose of federal government data repositories. I am a researcher who studies the intersection of migration, data governance and digital technologies. I’m tracking how data that people provide to U.S. government agencies for public services such as tax filing, health care enrollment, unemployment assistance and education support is increasingly being redirected toward surveillance and law enforcement.
Originally collected to facilitate health care, eligibility for services and the administration of public services, this information is now shared across government agencies and with private companies, reshaping the infrastructure of public services into a mechanism of control. Once confined to separate bureaucracies, data now flows freely through a network of interagency agreements, outsourcing contracts and commercial partnerships built up in recent decades.
These data-sharing arrangements often take place outside public scrutiny, driven by national security justifications, fraud prevention initiatives and digital modernization efforts. The result is that the structure of government is quietly transforming into an inte-
grated surveillance apparatus, capable of monitoring, predicting and flagging behavior at an unprecedented scale.
Executive orders signed by President Donald Trump aim to remove remaining institutional and legal barriers to completing this massive surveillance system.
DOGE and the private sector Central to this trans formation is DOGE, which is tasked via an executive order to “promote inter-operability be tween agency networks and sys tems, ensure data integrity, and facilitate responsible data col lection and synchronization.”
An additional executive order calls for the federal government to eliminate its information si los.
By building interop erable systems, DOGE can enable real-time, cross-agency access to sensitive information and create a centralized data base on people within the U.S. These developments are framed as administrative streamlining but lay the groundwork for mass surveillance.
Key to this data re purposing are public-private partnerships. The DHS and other agencies have turned to third-party contractors and data brokers to bypass direct restrictions. These intermediar ies also consolidate data from social media, utility companies, supermarkets and many other sources, enabling enforcement agencies to construct detailed digital profiles of people with out explicit consent or judicial
oversight. Palantir, a private data firm and prominent federal contractor, supplies investigative platforms to agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Department of Defense, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Internal Revenue Service. These platforms aggregate data from various sources
es AI systems produce that sound convincing but are incorrect, made up or irrelevant. Minor data discrepancies can lead to major consequences: job loss, denial of benefits and wrongful targeting in law enforcement operations. Once flagged, individuals rarely have a clear pathway to contest the system’s conclusions.
Digital profiling Participation in civic life, applying for a loan, seeking disaster relief and requesting student aid now contribute to a person’s digital footprint. Government entities could later interpret that data in ways that allow them to deny access to assistance. Data collected under the banner of care could be mined for evidence to justify placing someone under surveillance. And with growing dependence on private contractors, the boundaries between public governance and corporate sur-
veillance continue to erode.
Artificial intelligence, facial recognition systems and predictive profiling systems lack oversight. They also disproportionately affect low-income individuals, immigrants and people of color, who are more frequently flagged as risks.
Initially built for benefits verification or crisis response, these data systems now feed into broader surveillance networks. The implications are profound. What began as a system targeting noncitizens and fraud suspects could easily be generalized to everyone in the country.
Eyes on everyone
This is not merely a question of data privacy. It is a broader transformation in the logic of governance. Systems once designed for administration have become tools for tracking and predicting people’s
behavior. In this new paradigm, oversight is sparse and accountability is minimal.
AI allows for the interpretation of behavioral patterns at scale without direct interrogation or verification. Inferences replace facts. Correlations replace testimony. The risk extends to everyone. While these technologies are often first deployed at the margins of society – against migrants, welfare recipients or those deemed “high risk” –there’s little to limit their scope. As the infrastructure expands, so does its reach into the lives of all citizens.
With every form submitted, interaction logged and device used, a digital profile deepens, often out of sight. The infrastructure for pervasive surveillance is in place. What remains uncertain is how far it will be allowed to go.
Books, Art & Culture
You made a fool of death with your beauty
Sharing Our Stories
By W.D. Foster-Graham Book Review Editor
By Akwaeke Emezi
How often do we
hear others, when talking about relationships, answer with, “It’s complicated”? Have we used that phrase ourselves? Trust and believe, such is frequently used in romance novels when it comes to navigating the road to a happily-ever-after, especially when we throw different cultures into the mix. That being said, I bring to you
Akwaeke Emezi’s You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty, a novel commended by the New York Times.
Five years later, 29-year-old artist Feyi Adekola is dealing with the PTSD that
resulted from a car crash and fire that claimed the life of her husband. It has colored any attempts men make to get close to her, physically and emotionally. When her BFF Joy pushes her to finally take a chance and get out there, she hooks up with Milan, then becomes involved with Nasir Blake, a friend of Milan’s.
Nasir Blake is looking for his forever soulmate, and he is everything a sistah could want in a man, yet Feyi keeps putting up roadblocks. When he invites her to his father’s island estate for a vacation and an opportunity to do an exhibit of her art, she accepts, but not without an abundance of persuasion on Nasir’s part.
She soon discovers that Nasir’s father is none other than Alim Blake, a fabulously wealthy celebrity chef. When she meets the mature brotha, she finds herself having the hots for him.
In a private conversation after a few days, Alim and Feyi share their
Tapestries
Threads Dance Project continues its tradition of amplifying new choreographic voices with Tapestries 9.0 - a program highlighting emerging choreographers. This year’s production features original works by Colin Edwards, Rachel Lieberman, and Hannah MacKenzie-Margulies, alongside repertory by Artistic Director Karen L. Charles.
The Emerging Choreographer Program performanc-
es are: 7:30pm Friday, May 2, 7:30pm Saturday, May 3, and 2pm Sunday, May 4 at The Southern Theater,1420 Washington Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55454
The program includes excerpts from Let America Be America, Charles’ powerful work inspired by the chant “Make America Great Again” and the reality that America has never been great for everyone. Through spoken word and dance vignettes, the piece highlights the joys and struggles of
grief over the deaths of their respective spouses, including that Alim is bi and Feyi had a past fling with Joy. While Nasir is doing his best to win her favor and get her to date him, Feyi is a boiling cauldron of guilt and confusion from her attraction to his father Alim.
As the sexual tension builds between Feyi and Alim, and the reality of the impossible situation they’re in looms over them like a nimbus cloud, it is only a matter of time before matters come to a head…
Will there be a second chance for Feyi and Alim? Or will everything shatter like glass?
Emezi weaves a complex tale of a woman dealing with ghosts from her past and caught between a father and his son (how messy), desperately seeking to remind herself that she is alive after her husband’s death. The reader wonders if, given the challenges, there will even be a happily-ever-after. Emezi also lets us know this is
an Afrocentric cultural novel, with Feyi’s Nigerian roots and Joy’s Ghanaian ones, not to mention how Feyi constantly changes the color of her braids. In addition to the triangle between Feyi, Nasir, and Alim, we have Joy, Feyi’s outspoken lesbian BFF who keeps going after unavailable women in her search for love.
And let us not forget how Emezi incorporates food as a love language in the story.
You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty is available through Amazon, Atria Paperback, and Barnes and Noble.
Thank you, Akwaeke, for a romance novel that keeps us guessing until the end, and characters who give us soulsearching complexity. empowerment you give in your work and in your stories. This is what legacy is all about.
9.0 at The Southern Theater
“the America that is” and “the America that could be.”
Tapestries 9.0 Selected Works Colin Edwards explores the manifestation of unity and the circadian rhythms of sisterhood, revealing the ebb and flow of connection through the contrasts of night and day. Rachel Lieberman is trying to make sense of time. Collaging text, textile, and movement–memories, griefs, and missing pieces–she is asking everybody: how did I get here, and where are we?
Hannah MacKenzie-Margulies indulges in Millennial nostalgia, reflecting on memories that refuse to fade and futures that failed to materialize, set to a soundtrack of high school anthems resuscitated from home-burned CDs.
