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North Minneapolis’ Hall STEM Academy launches observatory, with NASA astronaut’s help

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A north Minneapolis magnet elementary school unveiled its new two-story space observatory Wednesday evening — complete with two research-grade telescopes — and a visit with an astronaut from NASA.

Dozens of students and their parents toured the $1.2 million observatory built at Hall STEM Academy and listened to astronaut Raja Chari talk of his work in space. The school, which serves about 220 students in pre-K to fifth grade, is the first elementary school in the state to have an observatory, said Joel Halvorson, STEM coordinator at Hall.

Chari, who was born in Wisconsin and grew up in Iowa, said he and his colleagues were stunned when they learned about the observatory attached to the elementary school.

“I’m envious of you guys having an observatory in your school,” Chari said. “Dream big, because you guys are going to change the world and the universe.”

Chari was commander of the NASA SpaceX Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station launched on Nov. 10, 2021. He and his crew spent 177 days in orbit, according to NASA’s website. There, he performed two spacewalks and helped in capturing and releasing three SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and two Cygnus cargo vehicles.

The telescope could spark student interest in science and space at a young age, Chari said. New science tables in his eighth-grade classroom was his “spark” into science, he said.

“You guys have really invested in something special here,” Chari said.

Funding for the observatory came from Minneapolis Public Schools’ Comprehensive District Design plan, which aims to eliminate policies and practices that disadvantage students of color and low-income students and brings critical resources to the city’s North Side, Halvorson said.

School officials are still deciding how students will use the telescopes for class, he said. Cameras hooked up to the telescope can record night events, when school usually isn’t in session, for students to watch the next day.

The school also plans to open it up for community use in the future.

Fifth-grader Tristan Van Berlo, 10, said he didn’t think the two-story observatory and large telescopes would be as big as what he saw.

“I thought it was going to be tiny,” he said. “I thought it was going to be twice the height of a chair.”

Mark Job, president of the Minnesota Astronomical Society, advised school staff on the project and said he was impressed with what the school has done. Despite city light pollution, the observatory still gives a good view of planets like Jupiter and Mars because of its shutters, he said.

“During the day, we’ll be able to use that 5-inch refractor to look at the sun and sun spots,” he said to the first group of parents and students who climbed up the observatory’s circular stairwell. “It’s not just a nighttime thing. It will work both ways.”



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Former Duluth East hockey coach Mike Randolph violated employee conduct policies

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Not all of the interviews were negative; a fair amount of players and parents reported positive experiences with Randolph, some saying they never witnessed him belittling players.

“To me, he was fabulous,” one parent said, noting their child “blossomed” under Randolph.

Terch wrote he was not able to substantiate an allegation that Randolph received payments from the East End Hockey Boosters, although he did find “unusual financial management practices” by the booster club, including a misrepresentation to parents about the use of at least some of what they paid, a commingling of funds between events and “unorthodox” accounting practices. Several parents said they felt they had overpaid many times without explanation. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension began investigating the former East hockey booster club in 2023 for alleged embezzlement. The status of that case is unknown.

In response to the report’s release, Duluth Public Schools Superintendent John Magas said in a statement that he can’t discuss personnel matters, but the district takes all reports from students and families “very seriously.”

“Our primary goal is to ensure that students have the best possible experiences, both in the classroom and in extracurricular activities,” he said. “We are committed to thoroughly investigating any concerns brought to our attention and taking appropriate action” to maintain safe and positive learning environments.

St. Thomas Academy didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.



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How Trump tariffs would shock U.S., world economies

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Gas prices would increase by as much as 75 cents per gallon in the Midwest, where most refined products come from Canada, according to Patrick De Haan, an analyst at GasBuddy. Overall, the Peterson Institute for International Economics said Trump’s tariffs would cost the typical household $2,600 per year; the Yale Budget Lab said in an estimate released Wednesday that the annual cost could be as high as $7,600 for a typical household. As a share of their income, the poorest Americans would pay 6 percent more with 20 percent tariffs, compared with 1.4 percent more for the richest 1 percent, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank.

“We’re not talking about caviar — these are things that people have to buy. They’re essentials,” said Neil Saunders, a managing director at the analytics company GlobalData.

Economists say it would take several painful years for alternative domestic producers to emerge for many goods. For instance, almost all shoes and 90 percent of tomatoes sold in the country are imported, according to the Peterson Institute. And the United States does not even have the climate necessary to produce many food items – such as coffee, bananas, avocados, to say nothing of Chilean sea bass – at the necessary scale to meet domestic demand, said Joseph Politano, an economic analyst who has written on the subject on his Substack.

Trump’s tariffs would also reverberate through Wall Street and global markets, inviting turmoil that would affect investors and companies worldwide. Those effects would probably be felt quickly.

During Trump’s first term, stocks fell on nine of 11 days in 2018 and 2019 that the United States or China announced new tariffs, according to a study this year by economists with the Federal Reserve and Columbia University. Comprehensive tariffs would cause a swift one-time jump in prices before reducing economic growth about six months later, according to economist David Page, head of macro research for AXA Investment Managers in London.

Many analysts are hopeful that a stock market panic would dissuade or prevent Trump from carrying out his plans. The investment bank UBS projected that a 10 percent universal tariff could lead to a 10 percent contraction in the stock market. U.S. multinationals are heavily dependent on foreign subsidiaries, and retailers, auto manufacturers and other industrial sectors would be hit the hardest, according to UBS. Chris McNally, an analyst at Evercore, said Trump’s 10 percent tariff plan could cause a more than 20 percent decline in General Motors’ earnings, with slightly smaller declines for Ford and Stellantis.



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On the Wisconsin-Iowa border, the Mississippi River is eroding sacred Indigenous mounds

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Bear and other members of her tribe are serving as consultants on the project, as is William Quackenbush, the tribal historic preservation officer for the Ho-Chunk Nation in Wisconsin, and his tribe. They also lead teams of volunteers to help care for the mounds, which includes removing invasive European plants and replacing them with native plants that reduce soil erosion.

Some are skeptical of this manmade solution to a manmade problem. There are some tribal partners who’ve expressed that the river should be allowed to keep flowing as it wants to, Oberreuter said. Snow also acknowledged that people have been hesitant about making such a change to the natural bank.

But, she pointed out, “The bank is (already) no longer what it was.”

When the berm is complete, Snow said, there’ll be a trail atop it that visitors can walk. That may help protect the mounds better than the current way to see them, which is to walk among them, she said.

The Sny Magill Unit has been part of Effigy Mounds National Monument since 1962, Snow said, but it’s not advertised like the rest of the park. That’s in part because there are no staff stationed there to properly guide people through the mounds. But if people visit respectfully, she believes it’s one of the best places to take in the mounds because it’s on a flat, walkable surface, unlike the rest of the park, which is on a blufftop.



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