Recent content from Jennifer Brooks
Brooks: How the census heroes saved Minnesota a seat in Congress
The state that never takes the last bite of anything snagged the last available seat in the U.S. House.
Brooks: Masked up and vaxed up, Minnesotans are ready to have fun again
A Minnesotan walks into a bar.Orders a beer and takes a seat at a table crowded with friends and happy dogs and covered with bingo…
Brooks: After attack on mosque, Moorhead refused to let hate have the last word
Volunteers drive in from miles away to help the cleanup.
A second chance for veterans gets a second chance at the Legislature
Not every county has the resources to set up a veterans courts of its own. The Minnesota Legislature could change that.
Brooks: Art thief makes off with a piece of Grand Marais history
"Woman Hauling Sticks" was a crowd pleaser at the Johnson Heritage Post Art Gallery.
Brooks: Eager salons 'ready to cut that COVID hair'
The personal services industry, which includes businesses like salons, spas and barber shops, lost more jobs to the pandemic than any other industry in the state.
Brooks: Hitting the road to get the vaccine
Getting an appointment is still a matter of good timing, good luck — or very good neighbors.
Brooks: Lil Nas X satanic panic disrupts Minnesota launch of children's book
Sheletta Brundidge tells how song inspired autistic son's journey to speech.
Brooks: The quest to get more Minnesotans to see themselves as doctors
There's something invaluable about finding one who's shared your experiences, who understands things about your life without needing to ask.
Brooks: He lost his job and his popular podcast, but not his sense of humor or hope
"The Hilarious World of Depression" host John Moe is back with a new podcast.
Brooks: A teen shares the story of her long wait for help
People talk about the stigma of mental illness, but it's really just discrimination: treating someone differently because their illness makes you uneasy.
Brooks: Planting the seeds for a great Minnesota get-together
A great many things have to come together before a Great Minnesota Get-Together, and almost none of them can wait.
Brooks: For those baseball retirees whose careers ended too soon, the better pay and benefits came too late
Tom Johnson and 873 other retirees struck out and walked away with nothing from the pension plan
Brooks: Minnesota churches build faith in COVID-19 vaccine, give shots of hope to those in need
Sometimes the people who need health care most are the ones who trust the health care system least.
Brooks: For a second year, pandemic hits the Friday fish fries
A few, like Our Lady of Peace in Minneapolis, had enough space and willing volunteers for the Friday fish fry to carry on — as carryout.
Brooks: Inclusive baseball league puts out the call for Minnesota coaches and players
Alternative Baseball is a place anyone with special needs can come and know they won't be judged and they won't be alone.
Brooks: In north Minneapolis, an internship becomes a vocation
The North Side needed someone needed to keep the work going. Will Wallace had the workforce.
Brooks: Par for the course as Park Board debate over Hiawatha course continues
For years, the Park Board has reviewed proposals to restore part of the watershed around Hiawatha while still preserving the park for the public to enjoy. Next week, the board will hold the latest of many public hearings on the updated master plan for the site.
Brooks: When Minnesotans couldn't go to the museum, museums came to us
You can sit on your couch in Minnesota and tour the Museu de Arte in São Paulo.Or you can get up off your couch…
Brooks: Minnesota legislators vote to denounce violence at U.S. Capitol – most of them, anyway
For almost two hours Monday, lawmakers talked over each other and past each other and around and around the events of Jan. 6.
Brooks: University of Minnesota students learn the comfort of sharing comfort foods
In the bleak early days of the pandemic, as Americans cocooned themselves in jigsaw puzzles, half-sewn face masks and bubbling tubs of sourdough starter, student…
Brooks: Minneapolis police union chief Kroll goes out with a whimper
The cop who made Minneapolis less safe is walking away from the job.Lt. Bob Kroll, president of the Minneapolis police union, plans to retire at…
Brooks: Hennepin County tosses a lifeline to small businesses battered by the pandemic
Help went to more than 4,600 small businesses and nonprofits hurt by the shutdowns, recession and unrest of the past year.
Brooks: After the coup at the Capitol, the storm rages on
You can't say this is not who we are. This is exactly who some of us are and always have been.
Brooks: Lutefisk a 'Happy Meal for 2020'
Where there's a will for lutefisk — or lutfisk, if you trace your roots to Sweden rather than Norway — there's a way.
Want to give snow saviors a name? Enter the name-a-plow contest
With plow appreciation at a seasonal high, MnDOT is launching an effort to help Minnesotans form an even deeper bond with their friendly neighborhood plow.
Brooks: This year, give the gift of COVID status
The line for a COVID-19 test is nobody's idea of the Happiest Place on Earth."This isn't Disney," said Shawn Baxley, vice president of field operations…
Brooks: A second chance for veterans gets one last chance at Minnesota Legislature
A bill about second chances gets its last chance at the Minnesota Legislature on Monday.The Veterans Restorative Justice Act would steer veterans — struggling…
Brooks: Minnesota GOP needs to learn from past, look to future
The generation that rebuilt after Watergate watches the next generation face its own stinging defeat.
For adoptive families, 2020 was the perfectly imperfect time to open hearts and homes
The four newest members of the Dubra family crowded around the screen, waiting for the judge to make it official. “All right, everyone. I’m…
Homeless outreach workers help the veterans who need more than our thanks
Minnesota counted at least 308 homeless veterans on Veterans Day 2020, 100 more than last year.
Brooks: In some states, they bury the hatchet — literally
A Delaware tradition offers a template for the rest of us in times when we agree on very little.
Brooks: Will legalization of pot in S.D. waft to Minnesota?
Lots of issues split along partisan lines — blue against red, liberal against conservative, us against them — but not marijuana. Never marijuana.
Brooks: If you need a break from politics, remember the penguins!
At the Como Park Zoo, someone is piloting a remote-controlled shark around a tank for no other reason than to make a penguin happy.
Brooks: Reaching every Minnesota voter, when every vote counts
In a democracy, they say, the people end up with the government they deserve. Minnesotans worked hard this year to get out the…
Flap over Minneapolis deputy chief's 'white boys' comment missed point
Minneapolis Police Deputy Chief Art Knight gave half a quote to the paper the other week.He was talking about a defunct diversity program that used…
Brooks: A runner with heart gets back in the race after a year of healing
Last October, an irregular heartbeat sent Tyler Moon into cardiac arrest near the 8-mile marker of a 10-mile race in the middle of Summit Avenue.
Brooks: Minneapolis has first memorial to survivors of sexual violence
The new Survivors Memorial, at Boom Island Park, is a reminder that survivors surround us, like veterans of some forgotten war.
Brooks: Minnesota's last competitive sport is the 2020 census
Each response is an affirmation: We're here, our children are here, we count.
Brooks: At the Minnesota State Capitol, masks and loathing
It was the fifth special session of the pandemic and some Minnesota lawmakers still hadn't figured out masks.Some wore their masks slung uselessly under…
Brooks: Being in prison in a pandemic makes life 'very, very small'
"He's scared. I don't want my son to die." Those words, from John Carlos' mother about her incarcerated son, stretched across a billboard in Faribault.
After one more terrible turn to 2020, Chey Car's customers rallied to get her back on the road
If you've ever wondered whether the few bucks you chip in to a good cause make a difference, here's your answer.
Brooks: Get better soon, Mr. President
Getting sick and getting hospitalized is the harshest possible way to find out how wrong you were.
Brooks: The plan is to have a plan for voting in this election
Six months into the pandemic and six weeks out from the election, we're all adapting, especially those who count votes.
After a traumatic summer, after-school programs prepare to listen to the kids
It’s been six months since Mark Graves had to tell anyone to stop running in the halls. And he cannot wait to do it…
Brooks: Doctor dreams of Twins logo that looks more like team and its fans
In the summer of 2020, as Minnesota burned and its people suffered and died in a pandemic, a Twin Cities doctor turned to Minnie and Paul again as a source of unity.
Brooks: Work on Lake Street to recover from riots continues, even on Labor Day weekend
More than 70,000 people donated more than $10 million to the effort to rebuild. Now what businesses really need, says the Lake Street Council, is to see people walk in.
Learn the secrets of making seed art with these DIY instructions
State Fair seed art champion Jill Moe offers a beginner's guide to making your crop art masterpiece.
Learn how to felt a special Minnesota State Fair souvenir
Missing your State Fair souvenirs? Make your own "Blue Ox, Blue Ribbon" keepsake with official Star Tribune felt ornamentalist, Jennifer Brooks.
He lost his emotional support animal and found a community ready to support him
Sometimes the smallest things help us through the hardest times. Oliver Bruce O’Brien weighed 8 pounds. He had bright button eyes, a sweet fuzzy…
Minnesota teachers prep for a school year like no other
For most school districts, this entire year offered two equally bad choices.
With a pound of butter and a few tools, here's how to carve your very own butter head
A State Fair master guides us through the sculpting process using a one-pound butter brick you can find at most grocery stores.
Brooks: Once again, it's hard for anything to feel normal in Minneapolis
It has been 95 days since George Floyd died and all that's changed is that we're angrier at each other.
Brooks: Encampments are sign of homeless crisis bigger than any one of us
Government agencies, nonprofits and activists are trying — sometime collaborating, sometimes clashing — as they respond.
Brooks: Neither rain nor political heat keeps postal workers from their appointed rounds
Every once in a while, Minnesota postal workers get a reminder that the U.S. Postal Service is still America's favorite federal agency.
Brooks: Lark Toys stands firm on masks — and draws fans
One Lark staffer, a former preschool teacher, likes to compliment the masked children she meets. Maybe that's something we all need to hear.
Everyone should count: Minnesotans, don't get left out of census
We’ve counted almost three out of every four Minnesotans, give or take. It’s three out of four if you’re filling out the 2020 census…
Brooks: Minnesota aims for full ballot boxes, empty polling places this Election Day
Half a million Minnesotans have requested absentee ballots already. That's half a million people who won't have to wait in line on Aug. 11.
Brooks: Swastika-swaddled shoppers were the symptom, not the disease
This isn’t who we are, we told ourselves when the neighbors went shopping with swastikas wrapped around their heads. Shoppers howled through their Nazi…
Brooks: This weird, Plan-B pandemic summer might just have some fun in it yet
For everything the summer of 2020 took from us, there are people working to give us something back. Like Zoom calls with goats.
Brooks: At last, a mask mandate for Minnesota
Maybe there will be protests. But it's hard to argue that this is a radical policy leap when Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana and Ohio did it first.
Brooks: Minnesota's baffling collection of Confederate high school mascots
Murray County Central is one of the few districts willing to take a hard look at its mascot.
Brooks: Minnesota farmers markets adapt to a pandemic summer
Farmers are hoping a trip to the market is one sweet summer treat Minnesotans can still savor.
Brooks: Young eyewitness to Floyd's killing is writing children's book
Judeah Reynolds, age 9, is going to tell her own story. The story of what happened that day she walked to the store, and in the days that followed.
Flower Power: Reopened conservatory in St. Paul offers a break from pandemic gloom
When the pandemic closed the conservatory doors, the gardeners opened a window.Through the cold, gray spring, as the virus spread and Minnesota shut down, people…
Brooks: Minnesota put the Confederate flag in its place 150 years ago
They’ll be racing again at the Elko Speedway this Fourth of July. Fast cars, fireworks, a responsibly sized crowd, and not a Confederate flag in…
Brooks: Short on masks, gowns and help, clinics use what they have to test as many as they can
They don’t have enough masks. They don’t have enough gowns. They don’t have enough help. But at Open Cities Health Center, they use what…
Brooks: With Columbus statue gone, Minn. Capitol works to tell a more complete history
If you listen to just one side of history over and over, you can miss the most important parts and the most interesting people.
Brooks: Minnesota civil rights leaders reflect on the power of the streets and the long road to justice
Josie Johnson had always felt a bit of hope. She stayed hopeful as a teenager in Texas, gathering signatures on a petition to end…
Brooks: A sanctuary closes, and a city faces its failure to protect and serve
With all the heartbreak and havoc, the Sanctuary Hotel was a bright spot, an uplifting story of a community taking care of its own. And then it was gone.
Brooks: The kids are watching as we face hard questions about George Floyd
They know what happened to George Floyd, as well as to too many black men and women before him.
Exhausted neighborhoods reel after a week of fire, fear and self-defense
The neighborhood's last grocery store, encircled by National Guard troops and vehicles, was open for business."They protect everything," said Hamza Wadi, taking a break from…
Brooks: Minneapolis residents turn out in force to mop up, put out fires
Who the rioters are is less important than who we are.
Brooks: While the Twin Cities region rages, a neighborhood grieves a singular loss
A mural of George Floyd in south Minneapolis is an act of creation in the middle of so much destruction.
