MINNESOTA, USA — U.S. House Representative Angie Craig won the top spot for Democrats on the House Agriculture Committee, and will represent Minnesota as ranking member.

On Wednesday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar won the top spot for Democrats in the Senate Agriculture Committee. 

“I wanted to work on behalf of Minnesota’s farmers, make sure Americans could feed their families, and boost our rural economy,” Klobuchar said in a statement. 

In a Zoom interview with KARE 11, Craig echoed Klobuchar’s sentiment. 

“I’m pleased that my colleagues have selected me to be the ranking member,” said Craig. “I’ve served on this committee for two years, and we should have already completed the farm bill.”

Craig hopes she will have more leverage to do something about that. She says she will, and admits must, work across the aisle to get the bill passed. Republicans outnumber democrats in the committee. 

“My job as ranking member is going to be to get Democrats to vote for the Farm Bill,” Craig said. 

The Farm Bill is a package of legislation passed typically every five years that covers a number of programs like crop insurance, SNAP benefits, conservation and more. 

Craig and her colleagues have been trying to pass a farm bill for the past two years. She says that she’s hopeful they can do it, but knows it’ll continue to be a battle.

Amanda Durow with the Minnesota Farm Bureau says the organization, which has endorsed Craig in the past, agrees that her bipartisanship is badly needed, with some verbiage in the current bill that is well over a decade old. 

“As a dairy and crop farmer, it’s very keen for me to maintain crop insurance,” said Durow. “It’s a key tool to really manage risk on my farm. They’re a backup if we again come in those weather disasters, as you’ve seen and across our state of Minnesota, they’re more frequent.”

Craig also says it will be key to support co-ops so small farmers can maintain sustainability for generations to come. 

“I think we need to do everything in our power to make sure that these retailers have to compete with each other so that consumers can get the best price that they can get,” said Craig.

Craig says it is expected the Farm Bill from 2018 will be extended through the year. 

ST PAUL, Minn. — Inside the Minnesota State Capitol, there are many signs of the holidays. Inside the rotunda, a Christmas tree greets those entering the building.

Down the hallway, carolers made up of lawmakers, pastors and Christians sing their reason for the season.

Next to them, though, is what they say is an unwanted guest.

“We have not come here to honor that,” a speaker to the group said, pointing towards a display in the middle of the room.

“I think that the display is poorly timed, and it was done on purpose to be an offense to Christians,” State Representative Jim Nash, R-48A, said.

That display is of a phoenix rising from the ashes, surrounded by paper cranes, underneath an upside-down pentagram. The display was put up by the Minnesota Satanists, and according to the group, is their first holiday display.

“I can’t change the fact that that’s here, I can lend my voice to the fact that I’m not on board with the message behind it,” Nash, who spoke and prayed alongside others in the group of more than fifty, said.

“In a free country, the answer to one person’s speech is another person’s speech,” State Representative Harry Niska, R-31A, said. “If you disagree with it, then express yourself.”

“We celebrate as Minnesotans and Americans, that we’re allowed to have differences of opinion and of religious practice, and it’s all guaranteed and we can do it by the Constitution,” Minnesota Satanists Congregation Leader Asmodeus Sion said. “The reason we put it up was for representation. We wanted to bring joy and beauty to the community, and tertiary to that, we wanted to express our First Amendment rights,” Sion continued.

The group applied for a permit and was approved by the Minnesota Department of Administration, which handles the displays that go on inside the State Capitol building. The Minnesota Satanists display is set to run through next week.

The Department of Administration also said they approved a nativity scene as well.

That plurality of religions is key – and guaranteed by the First Amendment.

“The government cannot establish religion, it cannot discriminate against religion,” Jane Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota, said.

“If they’re going to allow one display, then they have to allow others,” Kirtley said. “As long as they conform with whatever permanent process the government has established that has to be done in a neutral way.”

Kirtley says just like any other group, if they follow the rules, they have the right to display their religious symbols too.

“If there’s any place that something like that should not be damned, it’s got to be a public space where government operates, because our government is supposed to be the government of the people,” she said. “That’s all the people.”

MINNEAPOLIS — After bottoming out during COVID, cases of whooping cough — also known as pertussis — have increased exponentially in Minnesota this year as the disease makes a comeback to pre-pandemic levels across the U.S.

According to Minnesota Department of Health data, cases have risen from 61 last year to more than 2,000 so far in 2024, the highest reported totals since 2012. Although the highly contagious bacterial lung infection can impact anyone, most cases are circulating among kids with 14 as the median age.

“Especially in younger kids, under one year old, under six months old, they get hit the hardest with pertussis,” Children’s Minnesota pediatrician Dr. Liz Placzek said. “It may seem like a cold at first, but we’ve seen some really serious complications and prolonged cough, including periods of apnea or stopping breathing. That’s what really scares us about the youngest kids and pertussis.”

At one time, the U.S. reported hundreds of thousands of whooping cough cases a year, prior to the introduction of a vaccine in the 1940s. In Minnesota, pertussis cases peaked in the decade prior to World War II, with more than 4,000 cases reported in 1933 and 1937. 

After the vaccine largely extinguished the disease during the second half of the 20th century, Minnesota again saw a major pertussis outbreak in 2012 — with the 4,000-case threshold surpassed that year for the first time in seven decades — before falling to extremely low transmission levels during the social isolation period brought on by COVID.

Now, in 2024, whooping cough has made a resurgence, brought in part by a dip in vaccine rates. According to MDH data, the number of kindergarten students with their updated “DTap” — the name of the vaccine series for young kids that includes pertussis — dropped from 92 percent in 2019-2020 to 88 percent in 2022-23.

That’s part of a broader nationwide trend since COVID, which fueled more vaccine skepticism and a drop in routine vaccination rates for not only pertussis but also other serious diseases like measles.

“Maintaining our vaccine rates, whether it’s measles, whether it’s pertussis, whether it’s influenza, whether it’s COVID,” said Dr. Jason Newland with Nationwide Children’s Hospital, “will make our society and our most vulnerable healthy.”

The CDC recommends whooping cough vaccines throughout infancy at two months, four months, six months and 15 to 18 months, and then another dose at 4 to 6 years around kindergarten age. A “Tdap” dose is then recommended at age 11 or 12, to prevent the vaccine from waning. Pregnant women are also recommended to get the vaccine, to pass protection along to the baby.

“As a pediatrician, we know how well these vaccines work,” Dr. Placzek said, “and we know how much kids benefit from that protection. Vaccines are the number one way to prevent against pertussis and they are safe and effective.”