Campaign 2026 underway
Ellison faces contender Schutz for MN Attorney General Champion announces reelection bid DFl’s Reeves challenges Omar for Congress
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison last month announced he is seeking reelection to a third term as the state’s top lawyer.
Lawyer Ron Schutz, an adviser to former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, said he is challenging Ellison for the seat to address violent crime and fraud in government programs.
Ellison said voters can expect he would stand up against Trump in a new term. He said his office has filed more than 40 lawsuits against Donald Trump since January.
“We can't have somebody who thinks that it's just great to let Trump whatever do whatever he wants to do,” Ellison said. “We can't have
somebody who's rolling out the red carpet for Trump policies. We need somebody who says we're going to uphold the law. Everybody has to obey the law, including the president.”
“I'm running again because I believe that there's still so much more to do to protect Minnesotans family budgets, so much more to help
people afford their lives. We still have prescription drug prices that are beyond what people are able to afford. Housing prices are going up, and of course, people, a lot of workers are facing issues like wage theft and misclassification fraud,” Ellison said in an interview last month
MacKenzie Scott’s billion-dollar defiance of America’s war on diversity
By Stacy M. Brown
There are moments in American life when truth steps forward and refuses to be convenient.
MacKenzie Scott has chosen such a moment. As political forces move to strip diversity from classrooms, silence Black scholarship, and erase equity from public life, she has gone in the opposite direction. She has invested her wealth in the communities this country has spent centuries trying to marginalize. cHer most recent gifts to historically Black colleges and universities have surpassed $400 million this year alone. These are not gestures. They are decla-
rations. They say that the education of Black students is not optional, not expendable, and not dependent on the approval of those who fear what an educated Black citizenry represents. And she is not the only woman doing what America’s institutions have refused to do. Melinda French Gates has invested billions in supporting women and girls worldwide, ensuring that those whose rights are most fragile receive the most assistance. At a time when this nation tries to erase Black history and restrict the rights of women, two white women, once married to two of the richest white men in the world, have made clear where they stand. They have said, through their giving, that marginalized people deserve not just acknowl-
edgment but investment. At Prairie View A and M University, Scott’s $63 million gift became the largest in the institution’s 149-year history. “This gift is more than generous. It is defining and affirming,” President Tomikia P. LeGrande said. “MacKenzie Scott’s
investment amplifies the power and promise of Prairie View A and M University.” The university said it plans to strengthen scholarships, expand faculty research, and support critical programs in artificial intelligence,
Dr. Benjamin Chavis celebrated as ‘Father of the environmental justice movement’
Dr. Benjamin Chavis, president/ CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), was celebrated as the father of the environmental justice movement at the Mississippi Statewide Environmental Climate Justice Summit, organized by Jesus People Against Pollution (JPAP), October 2426, 2025, headquartered at Tougaloo College.
Aaron Mair, the first African American president of the Sierra Club and an early environmental justice leader from Albany, NY, celebrated Chavis for his contribution to the movement, specifically cit-
ing his 1987 study, Toxic Waste and Race in the United States of America.
“What really gave [the environmental justice movement] force was the Toxic Waste and Race study pro-
viding a foundational, as they say, evidence-based approach which could then be replicated by frontline communities,” said Mair.
Mair described how Chavis bravely demanded that
the environmental poisoning of Black and poor communities must be looked at through the lens of civil rights, creating the movement that is now known as the environmental justice movement.
“During the 1980s, you couldn’t make just an allegation of discrimination; you had to prove it. You had to statistically show that it existed,” said Chavis. “Nobody ever asked, was there a correlation between the proximity of toxic waste facilities, toxic emissions, and climate emissions to public health?”
Karenna Gore of the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary traced
Council Member Jamal Osman carjacked in South Minneapolis
Minneapolis Police arrest two juveniles in carjacking crime spree and two adults in separate incidents
November 11, 2025 (MINNEAPOLIS) Minneapolis City Council Member Jamal Osman Tuesday night was carjacked at Lake Street and Portland Avenue. Police said the carjackers arrived in a Subaru and parked in front of Osman’s Volkswagen Atlas. Two men approached Osman, one threatening him with mace, and the other claiming he had a firearm, then stole Osman’s Atlas and fled the area in both the Volkswagen Atlas and the Subaru Legacy.
Minneapolis Police
Chief Brian O’Hara today said two juveniles were arrested for a carjacking crime spree that concluded with the theft of Osman’s vehicle.
In reference to the carjacking involving Council Member Osman, Mayor Frey said, “I spoke with Council Member Osman last night to offer my support, and I’m grateful he’s okay. While crime may be trending down, incidents like this are a reminder that we still have a lot of work to do to improve public safety. I look forward to working with Council Member Osman toward that end.”
Two adults were also arrested following a separate carjacking and pursuit.
“These incidents that occurred yesterday and early this morning are all disturbing,” said Chief O’Hara. “But they also demonstrate the effectiveness, coordinated efforts, and the commitment of the police
time to
officers who responded urgently to apprehend these violent offenders.”
Between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., November 10th, officers from the First, Fourth, and Fifth Precincts responded to a series of incidents believed to be connected that involved three stolen vehicles: a red Subaru Outback, a grey Subaru Legacy, and Osman’s white Volkswagen Atlas.
The series of incidents ended with arrest of
aru hatchback with juveniles wearing medical masks inside the vehicle driving recklessly near North Community High School at 1801 James Avenue North. Then shortly after 5pm
By Farah Nibbs
Professor
Assistant
of Emergency and Disaster Health Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
as a Category 4 storm. The parish of St. Elizabeth – known as Jamaica’s breadbasket – was
The country’s Rural Agriculture Development Authority estimated that 45,000 farmers were affected by Beryl, with damage estimated at US$15.9 million. One great story in your inbox every afternoon Try our Substack In Cuba, the power grid collapsed during Hurricane Oscar in October 2024, leaving 10 million people in darkness. When Melissa arrived, it struck the same fragile infrastructure that Cubans had barely begun to rebuild.
Haiti’s fragile situation before Hurricane Melissa cannot be overstated. The island nation was still reeling from years of cascading disasters – deadly hurricanes, political instability, gang violence,
Jamal Osman
By Siena Gleason Black Press USA
Keith Ellison Ron Schutz
Ilhan Omar Latonya Reeves
Bobby Joe Champion
Dr. Ben Chavis, center, honored during the Mississippi Statewide Environmental Justice Climate Change Summit 2025.
Credit: AP Photo/Matias Delacroix People walk through Santa Cruz, Jamaica, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025, after Hurricane Melissa passed.
Credit: Created in ChaptGPT for BlackPressUSA / NNPA
Philanthropist and novelist MacKenzie Scott’s gifts to historically Black colleges and universities have surpassed $400 million this year alone.
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent
The math says no:
Why a 50 year mortgage fails Black buyers
Columnist
By Haley Taylor Schlitz, Esq.
At my parents’ kitchen table, affordability was a truth you could prove with a pencil. You circled the numbers, asked what they meant for next month and five years from now, and only then did you sign. That is why a 50 year mortgage feels like a trap dressed up as help. It makes the monthly line look gentler while multiplying the cost that follows a family for decades. For Black households already seeing ownership slip, that is not a bridge to wealth. It is a bill that outlives the moment we needed stability most. When the White House floated the idea of 50 year mortgages as an answer to high housing costs, the pitch sounded simple. Lower monthly payments. But the math tells a different story. On a typical home, the monthly payment dip is modest while the total interest balloons by hundreds
of thousands of dollars, and equity arrives painfully slowly. A first time buyer around age 40 would carry that note to age 90, which is beyond average life expectancy. That is not a plan for wealth building. It is a plan for lifelong debt.
Even the politics around the idea show how unserious it is. After allies hyped 50 year loans as a complete game changer, the President publicly shrugged that they might help a little. Housing experts across the spectrum warned that a 50 year note does nothing to fix the real problem, which is supply. You cannot finance your way out of a shortage. A longer clock on debt does not pour a single foundation or add one starter home to a block that needs them.
There is also a reason our system sets guardrails. Mortgages that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can buy or insure are limited to 30 years under the rules and federal law.
A 50 year mortgage would sit outside those protections as a non qualifying product unless Congress rewrote the statutes. Loans outside the standard box tend to cost more because they are harder to sell to investors.
wants to continue to build on his strong record of improving the lives of children, families, and business owners who live and work in his district.
Champion chairs the Jobs and Economic Development Committee and made history in 2023 when he was the first Black Minnesotan elected Senate President.
He said, “I have had a front row seat to the historic progress we’ve made to balance the budget, create good paying jobs, make going to college more accessible and affordable, strengthen our economy, protect voting rights, keep families together, and protect workers.”
But, “Minnesota families are struggling and there is
Calling that affordability asks families to trade safety for the appearance of savings.
For Black families, the timing could not be worse. Black homeownership fell to 43.9 percent this year, the lowest since 2021, while Black unemployment rose to 7.2 percent. When incomes get hit and savings thin, slow equity is not just inconvenient. It is a wall. The longer it takes to own more of your home, the longer it takes to turn that equity into a college semester for a child, a lifeline for a small business, or a cushion when life turns. Stretching debt across half a century makes that ladder even harder to climb. Minnesota shows that markets can look different when leaders choose the work over the headlines. Earlier this year, Minnesota was cited as the best place in the country for young people to own a home, with more than half of households under 35 owning. That did not happen by accident. It is zoning that allows smaller homes and gentle density. It is production and preservation. It is fair access to credit and targeted help for first generation buyers who do not have family home equity to borrow from. In other words,
it is policy and practice that shorten the road to equity, not inflate it. Affordability starts at the roots. Build more homes and fix the bottlenecks. But the first foundation is a living wage. When paychecks cover rent, groceries, and child care and still leave room to save, families can step toward a down payment. We should also ease the burdens that eat those savings by advancing student loan reform and medical debt reform, and by protecting the right to organize for better pay and benefits. Invest in training pipelines and stable supply chains, and you lower costs without asking a generation to carry a mortgage into old age. Real affordability also means targeted tools for families long shut out. First generation down payment assistance recognizes that the bank of mom and dad did not exist for many of us. Small dollar mortgages keep buyers from paying cash they do not have or turning to expensive alternatives for lower priced homes. Strong appraisal oversight and fair lending enforcement fight the bias that still shows up in valuations and underwriting. Credit
that
so much more work left to do,” h said. “I am all in to continue fighting for change – to build more housing, to make sure our communities are safe, to ensure we have strong public schools, to keep creating good jobs and ultimately to make sure Minnesota is a place where you can work hard and get ahead.”
Champion was first elected to the State Senate in 2012 after serving two terms in the Minnesota House of Representatives, a successor to Keith Ellison, who was elected to US Congress 5th District, MN.
Champion also serves on the Finance Committee and the Rules and Administration Committee.
Senate District 59 covers North Minneapolis, the North Loop, and portions of Downtown and Southeast Minneapolis.
Champion said his parents migrated to Minnesota from the South in search of a better life. He describes himself as a true product of his community, being born and raised in North Minneapolis. He graduated from Macalester College and earned a Juris Doctor from the William Mitchell College of Law.
All of Minnesota's executive officers will be up for election, as well as one United States Senate seat, Minnesota's eight seats in the United States House of Representatives, all the seats in the Minnesota Senate and the Minnesota House of Representatives, November 3, 2026.
Primary elections to nominate major party candidates and several judicial and local primary elections will be held as needed on August 11.
Walz seeks 3rd term Incumbent two-term Democratic Governor Tim Walz is running for re-election to a third term in office. Since the adoption of four-year terms in 1962, no Minnesota governor has been elected to a third term.
Lisa Demuth, Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives from district 13A, leads a field of high profile republicans challenging Walz, including:
Scott Jensen, former state senator from the 47th district and nominee for governor in 2022
• Kristin Robbins, state representative from district 37A
Ryan Wilson, attorney and nominee for state auditor in 2022
Kendall Qualls, healthcare technology executive, nominee for Minnesota's 3rd congressional district in 2020, and candidate for governor in 2022
Jeff Johnson, former St. Cloud city
Patrick Knight, food company CEO
• Brad Kohler, retired mixed martial arts fighter
Phil Parrish, teacher and perennial candidate
Flanagan, Craig vie for DFL Primary endorsement for US Senate Minnesota Lieutenant Gov. Peggy Flanagan is seeking the DFL endorsement for the US Senate seat held by Tina Smith, who announced in February that she would not be running again, so she could spend more
time with her family. Congresswoman Angie Craig, giving up her House seat, is also seeking to win in the DFL Primary election.
The two veteran politicians lead a field of 10 candidates for the Senate seat, including three Democrats, five Republicans and two independents.
DFLer Reeves challenges Omar
Minneapolis resident Latonya Reeves last week launched her campaign for Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, chllenging against incumbent Ilhan Omar.
Reeves, a Democrat, says her top priorities are housing, healthcare and public safety. She is a member of the Democratic National Committee and has held a number of local DFL leadership roles.
Reeves has also served as vice chair of the Minneapolis Community Commission on Police Oversight.
Omar has represented the 5th Congressional District since 2019. Her campaign said in a statement, “She has brought over $54 million in community project funding to address housing inequities, food insecurity, and support for veterans. She looks forward to continuing to serve the Fifth District.” Republicans Dalia Al-Aqidi, who ran against Omar in 2024 and lost, and John Nagel, a 30-year veteran of the Minnesota State Patrol, are also challenging Omar.
“This deal does nothing to stop healthcare premiums from doubling for tens of millions of Americans or stop 4 million people from losing their coverage. It allows Trump to continue violating the law and withhold funds that Congress already approved. And in an egregious last-minute maneuver, this bill attached language that allows eight Senate Republicans to extract millions of dollars from taxpayers by suing the government for investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election,” she said.
“The public rightly recognizes that Trump and
On the Trump government shutdown, Omar last week said, “My Progressive Caucus colleagues and I unanimously voted against the Senate deal on government funding today, just as we unanimously opposed the partisan House bill in September. Progressives were clear from the beginning of this fight: the American people need Congressional Democrats to demand real relief, not empty promises.
Tim Walz Lisa Demuth Angie Craig Peggy Flanagan
Democrats are digging in harder 8 Dems side with Republicans to end shutdown
By April Ryan
In the aftermath of eight Democratic U.S. Senators defecting from the party on the government shutdown, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries says, “We plan to fight” the proposed Senate agreement in the House. All that is needed is for three Republicans to vote no when the deal reaches the House. At this point, it is unclear whether three House Republicans will stand with the House Democrats, as Jeffries says, “they have been on vacation for the last seven weeks and are still not back in town.”
Last night, the eight Senate Democrats joined the Republican Party in voting to reopen the government on a procedural
basis. Now, Senate Democrats are working on a strategy for their next moves to win on their original quest to fund expiring insurance subsidies. The agreement reached last night would fund the government through January 30 and include full-year funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP (https://www.npr. org/2025/11/09/nx-s1-5603417/ full-snap-benefits-trump-statesorder), through September 30, 2026, or the end of the fiscal year.
The NAACP President and CEO, Derrick Johnson, has submitted letters to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries expressing “grave concern with actions of the congressional Majority and several Senate Democrats regarding the healthcare needs of everyday Americans.” Johnson says,” The government shutdown weaponized the poverty of 41.7 mil-
lion (12.3%) of Americans in need of SNAP food assistance against 44 million Americans who obtain health coverage through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace and Medicaid expansion. Although ACA premium tax credits expire in December 2025 along with the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act, the Majority and Executive Branch chose earlier this year to prioritize roughly 1,000 Billionaires by passing a $4 trillion tax cut and failing to renew the ACA Premium Tax Credits.”
The NAACP offered the House and Senate leadership a list of demands.:
Guarantee that healthcare coverage continues uninterrupted for 44 million Americans.
Extend the ACA Premium Tax Credits beyond one year to ensure a long-term solution, not a short-term fix.
Prioritize affordability and access, not just coverage. Premiums, deductibles, and networks all matter.
Ensure the budget
deal reflects the values of the American people, many of whom are represented by the same officials who denied them food assistance and healthcare as political theater.
Exercise Constitutional authority to ensure the current administration follows the rule of law in the appropriations process.
The NAACP letter concludes with the statement, “Congress has a responsibility to govern in a manner reflecting the American values of fairness.”
Today, there is a 3 pm virtual meeting of the House Democratic Caucus. Meanwhile, Congressional leaders from across the country are subject to a 48-hour callback from their home districts to Congress if there is movement on the government shutdown in the House. Currently, there is no guarantee on flights due to numerous cancellations resulting from a shortage of air traffic controllers during the shutdown.
James Watson exemplified the best and worst of science – from monumental discoveries to sexism and cutthroat competition
By Andor J. Kiss Director of
the Center for Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics, Miami University
James Dewey Watson was an American molecular biologist most known for co-winning the 1962 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for discovering the structure of DNA and its significance in transferring information in living systems. The importance of this discovery cannot be overstated. It unlocked how genes work and gave birth to the fields of molecular biology and evolutionary phylogenetics. It has inspired and influenced my career as a scientist and as director of a bioinformatics and functional genomics research center.
Watson was also an outspoken and controversial figure who transformed the way science was communicated. He was the first high-profile Nobel laureate to give the general public a shockingly personal and unfiltered glimpse into the cutthroat and competitive world of scientific research. Watson died on Nov. 6, 2025 at age 97. Watson’s pursuit of the gene
Watson attended the University of Chicago at age 15, initially intending to become an ornithologist. After reading Erwin Schrödinger’s book of collected public lectures on the chemistry and physics of how cells operate, “What is Life?,” he became interested in finding out what genes are made of –the biggest question in biology at the time.
Chromosomes – a mixture of protein and DNA – were known to be the molecules of heredity. But most scientists were convinced that proteins, with 20 different building blocks, were the likely candidate as opposed to DNA with only four building blocks. When the 1944 Avery-MacLeod-McCarty experiment demonstrated that DNA was the carrier molecule of inheritance, the focus immediately shifted to understanding DNA.
Watson completed his doctorate in zoology at Indiana University in 1950, followed by a year in Copenhagen studying viruses. He met biophysicist Maurice Wilkins at a conference in 1951. During Wilkins’ talk on the molecular structure of DNA, Watson saw preliminary X-ray photographs of DNA. This prompted him to follow Wilkins to the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge to pursue work into uncovering the structure of DNA. Here, Watson met physicist-turned-biologist Francis Crick and developed an
immediate bond with him over their shared research interests.
Soon, Watson and Crick published their seminal findings on the structure of DNA in the journal Nature in 1953. Two other papers were also published in the same journal issue on the structure of DNA, one co-authored by Wilkins and the other co-authored by chemist and X-ray crystallographer Rosalind Franklin.
Franklin took the X-ray photographs of DNA crystals that contained the data necessary for solving the structure of DNA. Her work, taken together with the work of the Cavendish Laboratory members, led to the 1962 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine awarded to Watson, Crick and Wilkins.
The prize and the controversy
Although they were aware that Franklin’s essential X-ray photographs circulated in an internal Cavendish Laboratory summary report, neither Watson nor Crick acknowledged her contributions in their now famous 1953 Nature paper. In 1968, Watson published a book recounting the events surrounding the discovery of the DNA structure as he experienced them, wherein he minimizes Franklin’s contributions and refers to her in sexist language. In the book’s epilogue, he does acknowledge Franklin’s contributions but stops short of providing full credit for her role in the discovery.
Some historians have argued that part of the justification for not formally recognizing Franklin was that her work had not been published at the time and was “common knowledge” in the Cavendish
Laboratory because researchers working on the DNA problem routinely shared data with one another. However, the co-opting of Franklin’s data and its incorporation in a formal publication without attribution or permission is now largely viewed as a well-known example of poor behavior both in science and in the treatment of female colleagues by their male counterparts in professional settings. In the decades since the Nobel Prize was awarded to Watson, Crick and Wilkins, some have recast Rosalind Franklin as a feminist icon. Whether or not she would have endorsed this is uncertain, as it is unclear how she would have felt about being left out of a Nobel Prize and written about disparagingly in Watson’s account of events. What has become clear is that her contribution was critical and essential, and she is now widely regarded as an equal contributor to the discovery of the structure of DNA. Future of science collaboration How have attitudes and behaviors towards junior colleagues and collaborators changed in the years since Watson and Crick were recognized for the Nobel Prize?
In many cases, universities, research institutions, funding agencies and peer-reviewed journals have implemented formal policies to transparently identify and credit the work and contributions of all researchers involved in a project. While these policies don’t always work, the scientific environment has changed for the better to be more inclusive. This evolution may be due to recognizing that a single individual is rarely able to tackle and solve
complex scientific problems by themselves. And when problems occur, there are more formal mechanisms for people to seek mitigation.
Frameworks for sorting disputes can be found in author guidelines from journals, professional associations and institutions. There is also a journal called Accountability in Research that is “devoted to the examination and critical analysis of practices and systems for promoting integrity in the conduct of research.” Guidance for scientists, institutions and grant-funding agencies on how to structure author attribution and accountability represents a significant advancement in fairness and ethical procedures and standards.
I’ve had both positive and negative experiences in my own career. These range from being included on papers when I was an undergraduate to being written out of grants to having my contributions left in while I was dropped from authorship without my knowledge. It is important to note that most of my negative experiences occurred early in my career, likely because senior collaborators felt they could get away with it.
It’s also likely that these negative experiences occur less often now that I am upfront and explicit with my expectations regarding co-authorship at the outset of a collaboration. I am prepared and can afford to turn down collaborations.
I suspect this mirrors experiences that others have had, and is very likely amplified for people from groups that are underrepresented in science. Unfortunately, poor behavior, including sexual harassment, is
still happening in the field. Suffice it to say, science as a community still has a long way to go – as does society at large. After co-discovering the structure of DNA, James Watson went on to study viruses
at Harvard University and helm Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, reviving and substantially expanding its physical space, staff and worldwide reputation. When the Human Genome Project was in its infancy, Watson was an obvious choice to lead and drive it forward, later stepping aside after a protracted battle over whether the human genome and genes themselves could be patented – Watson was firmly against gene patents. Despite all the immense good Watson did during his lifetime, his legacy is tarnished by his long history of racist and sexist public comments as well as his ongoing disparagement of Rosalind Franklin both personally and professionally. And it is regrettable that he and Crick chose not to acknowledge all those who contributed to their great discovery at the critical points. Disclosure statement
Andor J. Kiss does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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Credit: AP Photo
Watson, at center, was jointly awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in medicine with Francis Crick, left, and Maurice Wilkins.
iStockphoto / NNPA.
United States Capitol Washington
public health, agricultural sustainability, and cybersecurity.
Howard University received an $80 million donation that leaders described as transformative. “On behalf of the entire Howard University community, I want to extend my deepest gratitude to Ms. MacKenzie Scott for her extraordinary generosity and steadfast belief in Howard University’s mission,” Wayne A. I. Freder-
ick said. The gift will support student aid, infrastructure, and key expansions in academic and medical research. Elsewhere, the impact ripples outward. Voorhees University received the most significant gift in its 128-year history. Norfolk State, Morgan State, Spelman, Winston-Salem State, Virginia State, Alcorn Stat,e and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore all confirmed contributions that will reshape their futures. Bowie State University received $50 million, also a historic mark. “We are profoundly grateful to MacKenzie Scott for her visionary com-
mitment to education and equity,” President Aminta Breaux said. “The gift empowers us to expand access and uplift generations of students who will lead, serve, and innovate.”
These gifts arrive at a moment when America attempts to revise its own memory. Curriculum bans seek to remove Black history from classrooms. Political movements claim that diversity is dangerous. Women’s contributions are minimized. And institutions that have served Black communities for more than a century must withstand both political hostility and financial neglect.
Scott’s philanthropy does not simply counter these forces. It exposes them. It asserts that Black students, Black institutions, and Black futures deserve resources commensurate with their brilliance. It declares that women’s leadership is not marginal but central to the fight for justice. This is where the mission of the Black Press becomes intertwined with the story unfolding. For nearly two centuries, the Black Press of America has chronicled the truth of Black life. It has told the stories that others refused to tell, preserved the history that others attempt-
ed to bury, and spoken truths that others feared. The National Newspaper Publishers Association, representing more than 200 Black and women-owned newspapers and media companies, continues that mission today despite financial threats that jeopardize independent Black journalism.
Like the HBCUs Scott uplifts, the Black Press has always been more than a collection of institutions. It is a safeguard. It is a mirror. It is the memory of a people whose presence in this nation has been met with both hostility and unimaginable strength. It survives
not because it is funded but because it is essential.
Scott’s giving suggests an understanding of this. She has aligned herself with institutions that protect truth, expand opportunity, and preserve the stories this country tries to erase. She has chosen the side of history that refuses to be silent.
“When Bowie State thrives,” declared Brent Swinton, the university’s vice president of Philanthropic Engagement, “our tight-knit community of alumni, families, and partners across the region and beyond thrives with us.”
back Chavis’s founding of the environmental justice movement even further.
Gore praised Chavis for catalyzing the environmental justice movement when he organized and led a nonviolent sit-in protest in 1982 against the planned dumping of toxic polychlorinated biphenyls in Warren County, North Carolina. This sit-in is widely understood to be the launchpad for the modern-day environmental justice movement, said Gore.
Minneapolis officers responded to an attempted carjacking and assault in a disturbance near 635 Elwood Avenue North.
Police said a woman reported that while placing her daughter into a car seat, a red Subaru Outback stopped in front of her vehicle. She said a man got out of the Subaru, got into her driver’s seat, and began to drive away. She said she shielded her daughter in the back seat while the driver punched her in the head and face. He drove from the parking lot on the 700 block of Humboldt Avenue North and eventually jumped
Gore reminded people of the courage it took Chavis to get arrested that day, given he had been a political prisoner in North Carolina just a few years before as part of a group of persecuted civil rights activists known as the Wilmington Ten.
The Wilmington Ten were arrested in February 1972
During the protest, Chavis was arrested and put into the Warren County Jail. While he was in his cell, he came up with the term “environmental racism”. It quickly became widely used by activists and was later replaced with the phrase “environmental justice,” which also includes the way in which poor people of all colors are systematically poisoned by corporate and government polluters.
from the moving vehicle, and fled.
The vehicle came to rest against a curb near 7th Avenue North and Humboldt Avenue.
cAt 6:15pm there was another attempted car theft. A woman reported that as she returned to her car on the 1600 block of Hennepin Avenue, two males in a red Subaru Outback approached and began rummaging through her vehicle. She said she was able to lock the doors and the men fled in the Subaru. Minutes later, at about 6:30pm officers were dispatched to 1605 Hennepin Avenue regarding the carjacking of Gray Subaru Legacy. Police said a driver was seated in his 2015 gray Subaru Legacy when a man opened his driver’s door
during racial unrest over school desegregation in Wilmington, North Carolina. The group –Chavis, eight Black students, and one white female – were charged with arson and conspiracy after firebombs were set downtown and firefighters received sniper fire. All ten were convicted in October 1972 and sentenced to a combined 282 years in prison, with Chavis receiving 34 years. Amnesty International designated them as political prisoners in 1978. After key witnesses recanted their testimony in 1977, admitting police pressure and bribery, their convictions were overturned in December 1980 due to prosecutorial misconduct. In 2012, they received full Pardons
and ordered him out. Two of the carjackers claimed to have a gun, though none was seen, the police report said.
The suspects arrived in a red Subaru Outback and fled in both vehicles. The stolen Legacy was later recovered in the 5th Precinct. Following the theft of Osman’s Volkswagen, 5th Precinct officers spotted both the Subaru Legacy and Volkswagen Atlas traveling westbound on Lake Street near Pillsbury Avenue. Both vehicles fled police and struck multiple uninvolved vehicles. Officers said two juvenile males, ages 15 and 16, fled on foot and were apprehended after a short pursuit.
A replica firearm was recovered at the scene. The Subaru Legacy was recovered. The
of Innocence. However, his time in prison has never discouraged him from continuing his activism. Chavis has been arrested over 30 times and continues to fight for environmental justice. The summit took place at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi, and was organized by Dr. Charlotte Keys, founder of Jesus People Against Pollution. Dr. Keys is one of Mississippi’s earliest leaders in the environmental justice movement. Like Chavis, she has never stopped. She is still fighting for change in Columbia, Mississippi, and throughout the state. Her community in Colombia became a notorious cancer cluster after a
Volkswagen Atlas fled the scene and was later found unoccupied at 10:30 pm near 500 block of Lyndale Place. In a separate incident Monday morning officers responded to a report of a carjacking at a gas station at 2606 Penn Avenue North. The victim reported that he was carjacked at gunpoint by multiple suspects who pulled into the gas station in a white Ford pickup truck.
The carjackers fled the scene in both the victim’s 2015 Kia Forte and the white Ford pickup. At 2:40am the next day, using camera technology and license plate readers (LPR), officers tracked the stolen Forte traveling on West Broadway near West River Road and initiated a pursuit. The fleeing vehicle attempted to drive through
Reichold chemical plant explosion.
On Oct. 25, Chavis added meaning to a panel hosted by Gore, a discussion intended to generate recommendations for the 30th United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP30) in Brazil, focusing on the Global Ethical Stock Take initiative. He was joined on the panel by his fellow, former national president and CEO of the NAACP, Ben Jealous.
During the panel, Chavis said he believes that acknowledging the struggle against climate change is essential for uniting and creating global solutions.
“To COP30: don’t cop out, cop in,” said Chavis.
Willard Park 16th Ave N and Queen Ave N. and crashed. The passenger was taken into custody at the crash scene.The driver fled on foot.
A perimeter was established, and an MPD K9 tracker led to the driver being located and arrested near 17th Ave N and Queen Ave N. Both suspects were booked into the Hennepin County Jail.
“Whether it is juveniles engaged in dangerous and reckless acts or adults committing armed carjackings, these violent crimes have serious impacts on our residents,” said Chief O’Hara. “While the overall crime in Minneapolis has declined in recent years, we continue to see a troubling number of violent incidents and in par-
“Cop in to lay the groundwork and the reaffirmation of a global struggle to prevent climate crisis, climate injustice, and to respond to the environmental injustices that are growing all over the world.”
Chavis also said that COP30 offers an opportunity for younger generations to get involved and continue fighting for environmental justice.
“It’s very important for each generation to rise to the occasion,” said Chavis. “Quite frankly, the first voices that came out against climate change and the climate injustice were young people because young people realized that they may not live to be old if we don’t solve this situation.”
ticular, violence that involves juveniles. Because of the actions of our officers, four violent offenders have been taken into custody. We are thankful that no one was seriously injured.” Anyone with information is encouraged to contact MPD by emailing policetips@ minneapolismn.gov or calling 612-673-5845 to leave a voicemail.
Those wishing to remain anonymous can contact CrimeStoppers at 1-800-222TIPS (8477) or submit a tip online at www.CrimeStoppersMN. org. All tips are anonymous, and information leading to an arrest and conviction may be eligible for a financial reward.
an ongoing cholera crisis and widespread hunger – with over half the population already in need of humanitarian assistance even before this storm hit.
This is the new reality of the climate crisis: Disasters hitting the Caribbean are compounding and can trigger infrastructure collapse, social erosion and economic debt spirals.
The compounding disaster trap I study disasters, with a focus on how Caribbean island systems absorb, adapt to and recover from recurring shocks, like the nations hit by Melissa are now experiencing.
It’s not just that hurricanes are more frequent; it’s that the time between major storms is now shorter than the time required for a full recovery. This pulls islands into a trap that works through three self-reinforcing loops: Infrastructure collapse: When a major hurricane hits an already weakened system, it causes simultaneous infrastructure collapses. The failure of one system – such as power – cascades, taking down water pumps, communications and hospitals all at once. We saw this in Grenada after Hurricane Beryl and in Dominica after Hurricane Maria. This kind of cascading damage is now the baseline expectation for the Caribbean.
Economic debt spiral: When countries exhaust their economic reserves on one recovery, borrow to rebuild and are then hit again while still paying off that debt, it becomes a vicious cycle.
Hurricane Ivan, which struck the region in 2004, cost Grenada over 200% of its gross domestic product; Maria, in 2017, cost Dominica 224% of its GDP; and Dorian, in 2019, cost the Bahamas 25% of GDP. With each storm, debt balloons, credit ratings drop and borrowing for the next disaster
becomes more expensive.
Social erosion: Each cycle weakens the human infrastructure, too. More than 200,000 people left Puerto Rico for the U.S. mainland in Maria’s aftermath, and nearly one-quarter of Dominica’s population left after the same storm. Community networks fragment as people leave, and psychological trauma becomes layered as each new storm reopens the wounds of the last. The very social fabric needed to manage recovery is itself being torn.
The trap is that all three of these loops reinforce each other. A country can’t rebuild infrastructure without money. It can’t generate economic activity without infrastructure. And it can’t retain the skilled workforce needed for either when people are fleeing to safer places.
Rebuilding a system of overlapping recoveries
The Caribbean is not merely recovering from disasters – it is living within a system of overlapping recoveries, meaning that its communities must begin rebuilding again before fully recovering from the last crisis.
Each new attempt at rebuilding happens on the unstable physical, social and institutional foundations left by the last disaster.
The question isn’t whether Jamaica will attempt to rebuild following Melissa.
It will, somehow. The question is, what happens when the next major storm arrives before that recovery is complete? And the one after that?
Without fundamentally restructuring how we think about recovery – moving from crisis response to continuous adaptation – island nations will remain trapped in this loop.
The way forward The compounding disaster trap persists because recovery models are broken. They apply one-size-fits-all solutions to crises unfolding across multiple layers of society.
Breaking free requires adaptive recovery at all levels, from household to global.
At the household level: Helping amid trauma Recovery isn’t just about repairing a damaged roof. When families experience back-to-back disasters, trauma compounds. Direct cash assistance and long-term, community-based mental health services can help restore dignity.
Cash transfers allow families to address their own needs, stimulate local economies and restore control to people whose lives have been repeatedly upended.
At community level:
Mending the social fabric
Repairing the “social fabric” means investing in farmer cooperatives, neighborhood associations and faith groups –
networks that can lead recovery from the ground up.
Local networks are often the only ones capable of rebuilding trust and participation.
At the infrastructure level: Breaking the cycle
The pattern of rebuilding the same vulnerable roads or power lines only to see them wash away in the next storm fails the community and the nation. There are better, proven solutions that prepare communities to weather the next storm:
• Decentralized power grids with renewable energy sources can operate independently when the main grid fails.
Natural infrastructure such as restored mangroves and wetlands provide natural storm barriers. Strong enforcement of modern building codes can require structures to withstand Category 4 and above winds.
At the global level: Fixing the debt trap
None of this is possible if recovery remains tied to high-interest loans. There are ways for internal financial institutions and global development lenders to allow for breathing room between disasters: Hurricane clauses in bond agreements can automatically pause all debt payments when disasters
strike. These clauses allow governments to automatically suspend debt service payments to bondholders for up to two years when a qualifying disaster strikes. After Beryl, Grenada became the first government to activate a hurricane clause with private creditors. Comprehensive debt-forclimate swaps involve reducing existing debt – owed to private banks, institutional investors, countries or multilateral banks – in exchange for the debtor country committing funds to climate adaptation or resilience projects.
• Pre-positioned climate finance is money made available through dedicated international climate funds, such as the Green Climate Fund and Loss and Damage Fund, or parametric insurance mechanisms. It pays out before storms hit, not months later, so countries are ready to respond to the damage. The current international disaster finance system, controlled by global lenders and donors, requires countries to prove their losses after a disaster in order to access assistance, often resulting in months of delay.
“Proof” is established by formal evaluations or inspections, such as by the United Nations, and aid is released only after meeting certain requirements. This process can stall recovery at the moment when aid is needed the most.
The bottom line The Caribbean needs a system that provides support before disasters strike, with agreed-upon funding commitments and regional risk-pooling mechanisms that can avoid the delays and bureaucratic burden that slow recovery.
What’s happening in Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti today is a glimpse of what’s coming for coastal and island communities worldwide as climate change accelerates. In my view, we can either learn from the Caribbean’s experiences and redesign disaster recovery now or wait until the trap closes around everyone.
Climate change Electricity Infrastructure • Natural disasters
Construction Extreme weather Caribbean • Jamaica
Haiti
Philanthropy and nonprofits
• Hurricane Maria Disaster aid
Disaster recovery
Climate crisis • Electric grid
Cop30
Hurricane Melissa Disclosure statement Farah Nibbs does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Black River, Jamaica, in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa
Credit: Matias Delacroix/AP Photo
A man walks through the wind as Hurricane Melissa approaches in Kingston, Jamaica on Oct. 28
What's Happening
The latest news, events, and activities from Saint Paul Parks and Recreation
We are seeking experienced skiers and snowboarders with a passion for teaching to instruct downhill ski, cross country ski, and snowboarding lessons this winter at Como Park Ski Center and Highland National Golf Course. Lessons are held on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and weekends from mid-December through early February. Training is scheduled to begin in December. Salary is dependent on experience.
We are also seeking staff to operate our ski hill tow rope. For more information, contact 651-695-3774 or Parkswinterski@ ci.stpaul.mn.us.
Events
A Saint Paul/Ramsey County mutual cross-country ski pass is required for all Saint Paul ski trails. Cross country ski passes may be purchased online or in person at the Battle Creek, Highland, or Como Ski Chalet during open hours.
Ski and snowboard instructors needed
November Winter
November 22, 9am-
2pm: Ski & Snowboard Equipment Sale (Como Park Ski Center)
November 22, 10am-
3pm: Fall Craft Fair (Edgcumbe)
Groveland site improvements & Community Kickoff event - tomorrow!
The City of Saint Paul Department of Parks and Recreation has allocated funding from the City's new Common Cent sales tax funding source for park improvements at Groveland Recreation Center. This project consists of improvements to the existing fields, tennis courts, play area, basketball court, and related amenities, drainage, and accessibility on site.
GLOW Holiday Festival is back!
Bring the family to join in on the magic! Stroll
through millions of lights and bask in the warmth of the holiday spirit.
GLOW will shine bright at CHS Field in downtown Saint Paul from Nov. 20Jan. 4, 2026, on select days.
Heights Survey for Park Naming
The City of Saint Paul Parks and Recreation Department is preparing plans for a significant new 5-acre park in the Greater East Side neighborhood's new development - the Heights.
The neighborhood park will provide a space for neighbors to gather, play and relax. The location is central to the new development and will be well connected to the surrounding areas and amenities by biking and walking trails.
Updates & Reminders
School Year Youth
Programs
Registrations accepted on a rolling basis until full.
Rec Check: Free after-school program for youth in grades 1-6. Offered at 23 locations.
Rec Check Extended: Offered over winter break December 22, 23, 26, 29, 30, 31, & January 2. $10/day. Offered at three locations.
S'more Fun: Before and after-school and full day options available for youth in grades K-5. Cost ranges $24-42/ day.
Recreation for Preschoolers: Ages 3-5; dates, times, and costs vary. Scholarships available.
Fall Natural Resources Events ExploraTots – Practice important skills with your little one in nature
Saturday, Nov. 15 @
Crosby Farm Regional Park, 10-11:30am
Wednesday, Nov. 19
@ Crosby Farm Regional Park, 10-11:30am
Thursday, Nov. 20
@ Phalen Regional Park, 1011:30am
Family Science Club
– Explore the flora and fauna of park and document what we can find.
Saturday, Nov. 15 @ Crosby Farm Regional Park, 1-2pm
Aquatics Update
Women's Swim
Nights provide a dedicated time for women and young children to use the facility on Mondays from 7:30-9pm. $3/person (Free for ages 2 and under)
Sensory Friendly
Swim Time is an all-ages open swim time for people with sensory sensitivities on Thursdays from 10:30am-12pm. $8/person or $6/person for groups of up to five.
Rondo Community
For more information about these activities and programs, please visit Great River Water Park's webpage.
Como Park Zoo & Conservatory Events
Wolves and Wild Lands Exhibit - Open thru January 4, 2026
Explore “Wolves and Wild Lands,” a traveling exhibit in Como’s Exhibit Gallery. Explore biofacts and learn more about wolves’ vital role in our
Open Swim is available from 12-5pm on Sundays for free. All ages are welcome. Teen Aquatic Fitness
ecosystems. Little Explorers Thursday - Every Thursday, 10am–12pm A free program perfect for "Little Explorers" ages 1–3. Meet animal and plant visitors, enjoy story time, play games, and explore activities! Adaptive Recreation Programming Available for Nov/Dec
Adaptive Recreation provides a comprehensive recreational program for Saint Paul residents of all ages who have physical and/or developmental disabilities.
SNAP
benefits
have been cut and disrupted causing more kids to go without enough healthy food and harming child development
By Jenalee Doom Associate Professor of Psychology, University of Denver
About 4 in 10 of the more than 42 million Americans who get Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits are children under 18. This food aid helps their families buy groceries and boosts their health in many ways – both during childhood and once they’re adults.
I am a developmental psychologist who studies how stress and nutrition affect kids’ mental and physical health during childhood, and how those effects continue once they become adults.
Researchers like me are worried that the SNAP benefits disruption caused by the 2025 government shutdown and the SNAP cuts included in the big tax-and-spending package
President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4 will make even more children experience high levels of stress and will prevent millions of kids from accessing a steady diet of nutritious food.
Food insecurity can harm kids – even before they’re born
Food insecurity is the technical term for when people lack consistent access to enough nutritious food.
In childhood, it’s associated with having worse physical health than most people, including an elevated risk of getting asthma and other chronic illnesses.
It is also tied to a higher risk of child obesity. It seems counterintuitive that lower food access is associated with greater obesity risk. One explanation is that not having access to enough nutritious food may lead people to eat a higher-fat, higher-sugar diet that includes
Credit: Chart: The Conversation U.S.Source: USDA Economic Research Service
This data is from 2023 and is rounded off, leading to the numbers shown adding up to slightly more than 100. These benefits help low-income Americans buy groceries.
food that’s cheap and filling but may cause them to gain weight.
Even temporary disruptions to the disbursement of SNAP benefits can harm American kids. While the effects of brief food shortages can be hard to measure, a study on a temporary food shortage in Kenya suggests that even short-term food shortages can influence both parents and their kids for a long time.
And SNAP spending cuts, including those in what Trump called his “big beautiful bill,” are bound to hurt many children whose families were relying on SNAP to get enough to eat and are now losing their benefits.
A study by researchers from Northwestern and Princeton universities, published in 2025, followed more than 1,000 U.S. children into adulthood. It showed that food insecurity in early childhood predicted higher cardiovascular risks in adulthood. But those researchers also found that SNAP benefits could reduce cardiovascular risks later in life for kids facing food insecurity.
Food insecurity in pregnancy is dangerous too, and not just for mothers. It also poses risks to their babies.
Another study published in 2025 reviewed the medical records of over 19,000 pregnant U.S. women. It found that pregnant women who experience food insecurity are more likely to have pregnancy-related complications, such as giving birth weeks or months before their due date, developing gestational diabetes or spending extra time in the hospital, with their baby requiring a stay in a neonatal intensive care unit.
This same study found that when pregnant women received SNAP benefits and other forms of government food assistance, they were largely protected from these risks tied to food insecurity.
Food insecurity harms children’s mental health
A 2021 analysis of more than 100,000 U.S. children led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and Kaiser Permanente showed that when kids experienced food insecurity sometimes or often in a 12-month period, they ran a 50% greater risk of anxiety or depression compared to kids who didn’t.
Food insecurity in childhood is also associated with more behavior problems and worse academic performance. These mental health, academic and behavioral problems in childhood can put people on a path toward poorer health and fewer job opportunities later on.
Children and babies experiencing food insecurity are more likely to have nutrient deficiencies, including insufficient iron. A review of decades of research that I participated in found that iron deficiency during infancy and early childhood, when the brain is developing quickly, can cause lasting harm.
Other research projects I’ve taken part in have found that iron deficiency in infancy is associated with cognitive deficits, not getting a high school diploma or going to college, and mental health problems later on.
Food insecurity is often one of many sources of stress kids face If a child is experi-
encing food insecurity, they are often dealing with other types of stress at the same time. Food insecurity is more common for children experiencing poverty and homelessness. It’s also common for kids with little access to health care.
Research from the research group I lead as well as other researchers have found that experiencing multiple sources of stress in childhood can harm mental and physical health, including how bodies manage stress. These different sources of stress often pile up, contributing to health problems.
Parents experiencing food insecurity often get stressed out because they’re scrambling to get enough food for their children. And when parents are stressed they become more susceptible to mental health problems, and may become more likely to lose their tempers or be physically aggressive with their kids.
A grocer in my rural hometown in South Dakota posted on Facebook in November 2025 about the effects of food insecurity on families that he regularly sees. He explained that he keeps his stores open after midnight on SNAP disbursement days. Many of his customers, he said, are in a rush to get their “first real food in days.” Disclosure statement
Jenalee Doom receives research funding from the National Institutes of Health.
In turn, when parents are stressed out, have mental health problems or develop harsh parenting styles, it’s bad for their kids. SNAP falls short, even in normal times To be sure, even before the 2025 government shutdown disrupted SNAP funding, its benefits didn’t cover the full cost of feeding most families. Because they fell short of what was necessary to prevent food insecurity, many families with SNAP benefits needed to regularly visit food pantries and food banks – especially toward the end of the month once their benefits had been spent.
Chart: The Conversation, CC-BY-NDSource: USDA Food and Nutrition Service
By Alcina Johnson Sudagar Research Scientist in Chemistry, Washington University in St. Louis
to recycle and repurpose brewery waste into tiny particles that can be used to make new types of prescription drugs.
The brewing process
The brewing process takes raw cereal grain – usually from barley – and converts its starch and proteins into simpler chemicals by malting. Brewers initiate this process by adding water, which wakes the seed from dormancy, and then keeping the seeds at a controlled temperature to sprout the grain.
During this time, important enzymes are released that can convert the starch and proteins in the grains to fermentable sugars and amino acids. They then heat up the resulting product, called the malt, to dry it out and stop further sprouting. After this malting process, they add hot water and mash the malt to release the compounds that give the beer its iconic flavor.
The brewers then separate the sweet malt extract, called wort, and the leftover solid is removed as waste, called brewer’s spent grains. About 30% of the weight of the raw grain ends up as spent grain waste. This waste is either used as animal feed or discarded. About 30 million tons of spent grain is generated annually.
Brewers add a coneshaped flower of the Humulus lupulus plant, called hops, to the wort, then boil and clarify it. The hops flower is the key ingredient that gives beer its bitterness and aroma. The undissolved hops and proteins get collected during clarification to form hot trub, the second major waste from breweries. Roughly 85% of the hops are removed as waste material.
The clear wort is then cooled and fermented by adding yeast. The yeast filtered out after fermentation, called brewer’s spent yeast, forms the third type of waste that breweries generate. The spent yeast is one of the major byproducts of the brewing industry. This waste has a large quantity of water and solid material: 100 liters of beer generate 2 to 4 kilograms (4.4 to 8.8 lbs.) of spent yeast.
Finally, the fermented beer is filtered before entering the production line, where the beer is bottled for consumption. The wastewater generated at this last stage forms the filtration waste. A medium-size brewery generates about 8 tons of dense sludge and five to seven times – or 40 to 56 tons – of wastewater as filtration waste monthly. Several tons of waste from breweries remain largely underused due to their low economic value.
The brewery waste problem
These wastes have several compounds, such as carbohydrates, proteins, amino acids, minerals and vitamins that can potentially be repurposed. Scientists have tried to reuse the wastes in creative ways by creating biofuels and vegan leather using either some compounds extracted from the waste or the entire waste.
Breweries can send their solid wastes to farms that repurpose it as soil fertilizer, compost or animal feed, but a major fraction of it industrywide is discarded as landfill. The wastewater is discharged into the sewage lines, which can challenge sewage treatment systems, as they contain more than 30 times higher pollutants than the typical residential sewage.
Although breweries are becoming more aware of their waste and moving toward sustainable approaches, demand for beer has continued to rise, and a large amount of waste remains to be dealt with.
Repurposing waste in nanoparticles
In my research, I’m interested in determining whether compounds from brewery waste can help create nanoparticles that are compatible with human cells but fight against bacteria. Nanoparticles
are extremely tiny particles that have sizes in the range of one-billionth of a meter.
In medicine, when the same antibiotics are used over and over, bacteria can evolve resistance against them. One potential use of nanoparticles is as an active component in certain antibiotic drugs. These nanoparticles could also work as disinfectants and cleaning chemicals.
My team and I developed nanoparticles coated with some of the compounds found in brewery waste – an invention which we have since patented but are not actively commercializing. We created the particles by adding waste from any stage of brewing to a metal source.
When we added a chemical containing silver – for example, silver nitrate – to the waste, a combination of processes converted silver compound into nanoparticles. One process is called reduction:
Here, compounds found in the brewery waste undergo a chemical reaction that converts the silver ions from the silver nitrate to a metallic nanoparticle.
The other process, called precipitation, is similar to how chalky soap scum forms in your sink when soap reacts with minerals such as calcium in hard water. Oxide and phosphate from the brewery waste combine with a silver ion from the silver nitrate, causing the silver to form a solid compound that makes up the nanoparticle’s core.
The organic compounds from the brewing waste such as proteins, carbohydrates, polyphenols and sugars form a coating on the nanoparticles. This coating prevents any other reaction from happening on the surface of these particles, which is very important for making the nanoparticles stable for their applications. These nanoparticles prepared from brewery waste were made of three components: silver metal, silver oxide and silver phosphate. Environmentally friendly processes that reduce the use of hazardous chemicals and minimize harmful side products are known as green chemistry. Because our procedure was so simple and did not use any other chemicals, it falls into this green chemistry category.
Nanoparticle safety
My colleague Neha Rangam found that the coating formed by the brewery waste compounds makes these
nanoparticles nontoxic to human cells in the lab. However, the silver from these nanoparticles killed Escherichia coli, a common bacterium responsible for intestinal illness around the world. We found that a special type of nanoparticle containing high amounts of silver phosphate worked against E. coli. It appeared that this silver phosphate nanoparticle had a thinner coating of the organic compounds from the brewery waste than silver metal and oxides, which led to better contact with the bacteria. That meant enough silver could reach the bacteria to disrupt its cellular structure. Silver has long been known to have an antimicrobial effect. By creating nanoparticles from silver, we get lots of surface area available for eliminating bacteria.
Several nanoparticles have been in clinical trials and some have been FDA approved for use in drugs for pain management, dental treatment and diseases such as cancer and COVID-19. Most research into nanoparticles in biotechnology has dealt with carbon-based nanoparticles. Scientists still need to see how these metal nanoparticles would interact with the human body and whether they could potentially cause other health problems. Because they’re so tiny, these particles are difficult to remove from the body unless they are attached to drug carriers designed to transport the nanoparticles safely. Before doctors can use these nanoparticles as antibacterial drugs, scientists will need to study the fate of these materials once they enter the body.
Some engineered nanoparticles can be toxic to living organisms, so research will need to address whether these brewery waste-derived nanoparticles are safe for the human body before they’re used as a new antibacterial drug component.
Why do people have baby teeth and adult teeth?
By Christina Nicholas Associate Professor of Orthodontics and of Anthropology, University of Illinois Chicago
David Avenetti
Associate Professor of Pediatric Dentistry, University of Illinois Chicago
Teeth help animals bite and chew food. Meat-eating carnivores tend to have sharp teeth to sink into their prey, while herbivores tend to have flatter teeth to grind down their plant-based meals.
Some animals also use their pearly whites for specialized purposes like digging or fighting. Tusks, like you see in elephants, walruses and warthogs, are one special kind of teeth – they grow continuously for as long as the animal is alive.
Over time, no matter what you use them for, teeth wear down. This is good news if you’re a rodent, such as a beaver or a rat. Because their teeth never stop growing, rodents rely on gnawing and chomping to grind their teeth down so they don’t grow so long that they cause problems.
Some animals deal with wear and tear by continuously developing new teeth as their old ones fall out. Sharks and crocodiles, for example, are what scientists call polyphyodont: They can grow nearly infinite sets of teeth.
Like most mammals, humans are diphyodont: We have two sets of teeth – baby teeth and adult teeth. The technical term for our baby teeth is deciduous teeth because they fall out, the same way deciduous leaves fall off trees in autumn.
We are a dentist who focuses on treating kids and an anthropologist who studies how humans’ teeth and faces grow. We are both passionate about teeth and oral health care, and love thinking and learning about teeth. How did two sets become standard for human beings?
How human teeth develop
Most people are born with no teeth showing in their mouths at all, even though your baby teeth start developing before you’re even born. Baby teeth usually start poking through the gums when you’re between 6 and 8 months old. Sometimes when dentists take X-rays to check for cavities or other problems, they can see adult teeth growing within the gums.
Baby teeth are relatively small because they need to fit in the small faces of babies and little kids. As you grow older and your face gets bigger, you have room in your mouth for more and larger teeth. Teeth have different sizes and shapes, depending on their purpose.
Human front teeth are good at biting into things and tearing off a piece of food. Your back teeth are good at chewing foods into smaller bits before you swallow.
Most kids lose their first baby tooth when they’re between 5 and 6 years old, and the process slowly continues until you’re between 10 and 12 years old and all 20 of your original choppers have fallen out.
During that same time, your adult, or permanent, teeth gradually take their spots in your mouth. They’re bigger than your baby teeth and can help you chew more food at once. Eventually you have a set of 28, with the potential of four more wisdom teeth at the very back. Some people just naturally don’t ever grow wisdom teeth, some have wisdom teeth that don’t fit their jaws and need to be removed, and some have big, wide smiles with 32 teeth. So, getting two sets of teeth means your teeth fit the size of your face as you grow, and helps make sure you can chew food your entire life. Baby teeth deserve
gentle care You might be thinking that if baby teeth are just going to fall out, they can’t be that important. But that’s not true. If you were a shark, every time you got a bunch of cavities or chipped a tooth, you’d just grow a new one and keep on chewing. But unlike sharks or crocodiles or even manatees, we humans only get two sets of teeth. By taking care of your baby teeth, you can keep them healthy and make sure they stay right where they belong until they’re ready to fall out. If you don’t take care of your baby teeth, they can wind up with lots of cavities. If the cavities get too large or teeth become infected, they may need to be removed by the dentist. Not only is this process not fun, but taking out baby teeth too early can create problems for your adult teeth. You can wind up with
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not enough space for your adult teeth to come in – that is, what dentists call “erupt” – into the right spots. This issue happens in part because the other teeth around where the baby tooth was will shift and may move into the space where your adult teeth are supposed to come in. Teeth can get stuck in the jaw and not erupt, or your teeth can be crowded in your mouth. If there is a mismatch between the size of your teeth and the size of your jaws, an orthodontist might attach braces to your teeth to reposition them so they all fit.
What is the future of teeth?
Because people can live long lives, 70 or 80 years or more, many outlive their teeth even if they do their best to take care of them. While there are lots of options for artificial teeth – like removable dentures or even dental implants, which are fake teeth that are screwed into your jaws – it’s not quite the same as having natural teeth. If you break a bone, it heals because you can grow new bone to patch up the part that broke. Scientists call this process fracture healing. Human teeth aren’t bone and, unfortunately, do not heal themselves. Unlike your bones, which are mostly composed of a structural protein your body makes called collagen, your teeth are primarily made up of minerals such as calcium-rich hydroxyapatite. In some ways, teeth are closer to being like hard stones than living bones.
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• A dedicated care coordinator helps you navigate your health
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Regenerative dentistry is the study of how teeth grow and develop, with the goal of ultimately designing new ways to repair and replace our teeth. Scientists are working hard to figure out ways to grow new teeth or help existing teeth regenerate. They’re learning about the environment and materials needed to grow new teeth.
For now, the best thing you can do is take good care of the teeth you have and keep the gums and bones that support them healthy. Brush your teeth twice a day with toothpaste that contains fluoride, and floss once a day. Try to limit sugary, sticky foods and drinks – a good diet keeps your whole body healthy, not just your teeth. See a dentist regularly, and protect your teeth from injury.
Being kind to your teeth now can help your future self have a beautiful, healthy smile.
Disclosure statement
David Avenetti receives funding from the National Institutes of Health (National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research) and the Health Resources and Services Administration.
Christina Nicholas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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Books, Art & Culture
AN EYE FOR AN I
Growing Up with Blindness, Bigotry, and Family Mental Illness
Sharing Our Stories
By W.D. Foster-Graham Book Review Editor
If we don’t share our stories, who will? Life experiences teach so much; when they are shared, they serve as reminders that we are not alone. Somewhere, someone has gone through the same things, but their voices are silenced by guilt, shame, discrimination, or the very institutions that were ostensibly there to help but only perpetuate the problems.
That being said, I bring to you James Francisco
Bonilla’s memoir, An Eye for an I: Growing Up With Blindness, Bigotry, and Family Mental Illness.
As a light-skinned Puerto Rican child growing up in New York during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Bonilla recounts his memories of physical and emotional abuse from his mother, a divorcee who suffered from mental illness, and his complicated relationship with her. In addition, during his childhood and teen years, he was also legally blind until cataract surgery gave sight to his one good eye. He shares with us his family history of opposing political views, and the circumstances which impelled them to leave Puerto Rico for New York and his mother’s internalized racism. He speaks of the failures of the public school system and social services in addressing the needs of people of color
and those who are blind, deaf, or otherwise considered disabled by the mainstream. Indeed, ableism is deconstructed in the concise and heartfelt terms of one who has experienced it. But this is not only about the challenges he experienced—he also mentions the mentors on his journey and his connection to Mother Earth. One of the many lessons Mother Earth taught him was the following: “that it is possible to navigate choppy waters and still experience hope, joy, and ultimately peace.”
These experiences were the crucible that shaped his work as a community organizer and advocating for social justice in his adult years. He speaks of the obstacles he overcame, his work as an activist, and his refusal to accept limitations or to be seen as “less than.” Through his own intersectionality, Bonil-
Will perform at Carnegie Hall in December
la shows his empathy with other marginalized groups. I also appreciate Bonilla for exposing the lie to certain myths I grew up with, such as the murder of Kitty Genovese in 1964 and others. In his memoir, he addresses the “-isms” (racism, sexism, classism, ableism, heterosexism) he experienced around him as well as those he internalized. As a professor emeritus at Hamline University, he serves to remind us through his insights that we never stop learning; our life is a journey, not a destination. The lives he’s transformed bear witness to this.
An Eye for An I is available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the University of Minnesota Press. Thank you, James, for sharing your story. Without a test, there is no testimony.
Two MacPhail Center for Music vocal students have won prestigious international awards and will perform at New York’s famed Carnegie Hall. Laila Elazab, 16, of White Bear Lake, won 1st place in the American Protégé International Vocal Competition, and will perform December 20. And Max Zhang, 13, of Wayzata, won 2nd place in the competition and will also perform Dec. 20.
In addition, Laila won 1st place in the Golden Classical Music Awards International Vocal Competition and will perform Dec. 17 at Carnegie. She also was Honorable Mention in the 2025 American Virtuoso International Music Competition. They competed via video, both performing classical songs in Italian. They are both longtime students of MacPhail faculty member Mikyoung Park.
“They competed with participants not only from across the U.S., but from around the world,” Park said. “The experience broadened their perspective, showing them the joy
Dark
Something dark is stirring beneath the surface of everyday college life for one young man. But what if the voice inside his head isn’t madness — but history itself calling his name?
In King of Peru, Mark E. Scott delivers a razor-sharp blend of psychological suspense, campus drama and historical intrigue as a college student
of sharing and celebrating great music with others — both international performers and fellow musicians from different regions of the U.S.”
She added that “I am very proud of them, and I’m sure they feel the same way. I believe this experience will motivate them to practice even more and to continue dreaming big as musicians.”
A motivational teacher, a love of singing, hard work, and supportive families all helped Laila and Max on their road to Carnegie Hall.
Laila started taking lessons from Park in kindergarten and by third grade she started doing plays and musicals and exploring different types of music including singing songs in French, German, Spanish and Italian.
“I would say my strengths are learning different languages and singing in different languages,” she explained. “I really love exploring different languages and just seeing how different it is from English. And I also just feel like you can
confronts a haunting presence from the past. Matthew “Matt” Obrodnick, a former Marine trying to rebuild his life as a college student at Miami University in Ohio, begins hearing a disturbingly persuasive voice — the voice of Lope de Aguirre, a ruthless 16th-century conquistador who once tried and failed to seize power in Peru.
really feel the culture through the music, and I really love that.
I especially love singing Italian, and I think we do mostly Italian songs, so I would say it's one of my strengths.”
As she got older, Laila would go to Grace Trinity Church in the Uptown area to record her songs. “This is really my passion, so I really just want to keep it up,” she said. “My
goal is hopefully one day to be on Broadway. That would be the big goal for me.” Her mom, Amanda, said that “we’re so proud of her and it is just so fun to watch her develop a talent and have such a passion for it. And I mean, when I think of her childhood, I think of her singing in her room and not really paying attention to who's listening. She was always
Matt’s friendship with his steady, chain-smoking roommate Thomas helps keep him grounded, at least until Lope’s presence grows stronger. Matt battles delusions, paranoia and violent impulses. Meanwhile, Thomas turns to God — and the long-awaited return of his sister Renee — for solace. But when Renee and Matt form an unexpected bond, the fragile peace between the two roommates threatens to shatter.
singing and there was always music. And those are some of my happiest memories of her as a child. So, I just hope that music is something that follows her throughout her life.”
Max has been studying voice with Park for about three years after studying piano initially. He thinks his strength has been to adapt to being on stage and to the audience. “You don’t really know what your audience is into and if you can adapt and grow based on those experiences, I feel that just helps a lot,” he said.
As far as performing at Carnegie, his first time performing away from home, he said, “I think I’ll be very nervous. But I’ll be more excited than nervous.”
Max’s music “is a family activity,” according to his mom, Ping. “Attending concerts together, discussing performances and making sure Max has a balanced, healthy lifestyle.”
She continued: “Max understands that music is about more than trophies; it’s about
bringing happiness and inspiration to others. When he feels pressure or doubt, we remind him that his voice and creativity are gifts meant to be shared.”
Ping added that “as a family, we believe music is a bridge that connects people's hearts and souls across generations and cultures, and Max is excited to keep building those bridges through his art.” About MacPhail Center for Music MacPhail Center for Music transforms lives and strengthens communities through the power of music. As the nation’s largest community music school, MacPhail serves more than 15,000 students each year, spanning all ages, abilities, and backgrounds, through individual lessons, group classes, ensembles, and innovative community partnerships. Guided by extraordinary faculty, programs encompass a wide range of musical genres and traditions, fostering creativity, connection, and lifelong learning in Minnesota and beyond. Learn more at MacPhail.org.
Blending raw psychological tension with historical echoes, King of Peru examines the voices that demand loyalty — from destructive delusions to divine faith — and the human struggle to find identity, belonging and love in the midst of chaos.
Born in Galion, Ohio, Mark E. Scott lived in several Ohio and Michigan towns before joining the Navy and traveling the world aboard the USS Mount Whitney. After returning home, he completed a degree in education at Miami University, later working in banking.
Today, Scott lives in Cincinnati’s historic Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, where he enjoys writing, traveling and outdoor adventures. King of Peru
Publisher: Speaking Volumes
Release Date: November 2025
Laila Elazab
Max Zhang
Lucas Giambelluca President,
Cities
