Jan. 6, 2025, will mark four years since rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol as Congress was certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election, a day that sent lawmakers into hiding and caused chaos and destruction on Capitol Hill.

Minnesota U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, then ranking member of the Senate Rules Committee, was one of the four tellers responsible for counting the electoral votes during the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. She has not forgotten what it was like to take cover with fellow lawmakers and walk through broken glass and spray-painted pillars the next day to announce the certified results of the election on Jan. 7, 2021.

Since then, Klobuchar has played a leading role to ensure the U.S. Capitol is secure and better equipped in the event of another insurrection.

“I have a constitutional obligation to make sure that what happen[ed] on Jan. 6 never happens again,” Klobuchar said in an interview.

Now chair of the Senate Committee on Rules, Klobuchar will lead the procession of senators to the House chamber on Jan. 6 and join three other members of Congress in counting Electoral College votes that day. In the years since the insurrection, Klobuchar has also spearheaded legislation and oversight hearings to bolster security that day and, in her role as chair, will play a chief role in ensuring security runs smoothly on Jan. 6, 2025.

She’s also chair of the bipartisan Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, which is tasked with everything from picking the inaugural theme to choosing who gets a speaker slot on inauguration day.

So there could be two Minnesotans with an outsized role at the Jan. 20, 2025, inauguration, if the Democratic ticket of Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz wins.

Minnesota’s senior senator will continue to chair the inaugural committee, regardless of who wins the White House and will also likely give a speech during the event.

WARROAD, MINN. – Construction was still whirring when John Davis swung open the new art center’s back door and started the tour. He led a dozen people through the 320-seat performance space, pointing out the acoustic panels, the sprung floor, the LED lighting.

Then he showed where the docks would go in.

“To keep out the skeeters,” Davis said, pulling a screen across a wide patio doorway to the river, “we’ve got a screen here that tucks in.”

The group gave a collective “oooh,” murmuring and nodding. One was a visual artist, another a theater director. But Davis knew that all of them were Warroad residents who knew the value of a screen, a dock, a spot on the river.

Davis has spent his career nurturing the arts in rural places. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, he turned New York Mills, then population 950, into a national model for using the arts to revive a rural economy. Then he helped make picturesque Lanesboro, population 750, into an arts destination. Now, the 63-year-old is trying to do the same in Warroad, population 1,800.

His mantra has been the same: “In a small town, your audience is everyone.”

But what each small town needs is different. This city near the Canadian border is best known for hockey, walleye and windows. Arts, not so much.

So Davis has been working to make Warroad RiverPlace, a new $20 million arts, culture and events center, opening this weekend, relevant to hockey fans, fishermen and people who work at Marvin Windows, the biggest employer in town. (A donation from Frank Marvin, the company’s former president, and his wife, Margaret, covered RiverPlace’s construction.)

Yes, it took four years of continuous lobbying to get officials with the Twin Cities Marathon to allow five people to run the 10-mile and marathon courses with hand bikes, including those using e-assist. But an ecstatic Quinn Brett, a Minnesota native and advocate for people with disabilities, was gushing.

“This is huge!” she said.

Marathons across the country have long had a wheelchair category allowing elite athletes on expensive equipment to race. And, in recent years, Brett said, about 30 have added a category allowing hand-cycle users to race.

But this Sunday’s Twin Cities Marathon is the first to allow battery-assisted devices, including Brett’s e-hand cycle, that enable people who cannot or don’t want to compete to still participate in its races. The result is that a course that Brett ran several times before she became disabled is now open for her to just enjoy.

“The WIN with TCM is that NO other races in the country are doing this yet!!!! Pretty cool door open to inclusion,” Brett wrote in an email.

Marathon officials on Thursday characterized the move as a pilot they hope to use to learn more about how e-devices interact with runners on a crowded racecourse. It will help them learn how to safely integrate a wider range of people with disabilities, officials said, leading to even greater inclusivity. This year’s events include 41 people with disabilities, a record, said Dean Orton, president of Twin Cities in Motion, which runs the events.

In addition to the hand-cycle pilot, the marathon’s Athletes with Disabilities Program includes Duo Teams, in which one rider and three pushers allow a participant without the ability to power their chair to participate in the event; Guide Runners for the Visually Impaired, where teams of two runners — one visually impaired and one a sighted guide — run the course together; and the Professional Push-Rim Wheelchair Racing Division, where invited, individual athletes with disabilities compete for awards and prize money.

“Our larger goal is to get people in motion,” Orton said. “You try to keep removing barriers and create opportunities.”