Hannah Yang

Progress on cleaning up Lake Okabena shows small improvements, but there’s no silver bullet for correcting decades-long water quality problems.

This year’s Old Town Day of the Dead festival celebrates Latino cultural heritage as fear and grief over ICE enforcement actions ripple through the community.

Second Harvest Heartland reports a record number of food distributed to food shelves in the last year, driven by high fuel costs and rising grocery costs.

A new community fridge and freezer recently installed at the New Ulm Public Library is helping combat food insecurity amid a rise in demand for food assistance. The library’s big freezer and large fridge also help prevent food waste by rescuing food that otherwise would have been headed to landfills.

The city of New Richland sits in a natural depression and also has a drainage ditch that runs through the center of town. After nine inches of rain this past weekend, the town was inundated and nearly every home flooded.

The Mahkato Wacipi (Mankato powwow) runs through Sunday, Sept. 20, and all are welcome to attend, as the Dakota people bring the entire community together to experience the Dakota culture and spirituality through education, traditional dance and song, while sharing a commitment to reconciliation.

MDH recommended nine people obtain rabies post-exposure prophylaxis as they may have been exposed to saliva from the infected animal. The disease is extremely dangerous and life-threatening to both humans and animals.

The Department of Transportation on Monday announced it will be giving out $1.1 billion in grants to scores of airports across the country, including an $11.5 million grant for Mankato’s airport.

A federal report indicates that removing the partially collapsed Rapidan Dam will have long term beneficial effects on fish and other aquatic life in the Blue Earth River. Severe flooding caused the dam to fail in June of 2024.

Across the state, the majority of students went back to the classroom on Tuesday.

As the Trump administration enacts policy changes restricting student visas, many of the students from foreign countries here are feeling anxious about the future or their studies and whether they’ll be able to complete them.

The dogs are rescued from shelters and are trained to serve those who served their country and suffer from wounds such as post-traumatic stress, traumatic brain injuries and military sexual trauma — conditions that have often led to substance use disorders.

The historic, 189-foot-long Kern Bridge, was lifted off its crumbling abutments along the Le Sueur River nearly six years ago with two heavy cranes. It had spanned the river south of Mankato since it was built in 1873, only fifteen years after Minnesota became a state.

One southern Minnesota town is saying yes more often to alternative types of homes to help address its housing shortage.

Minnesotans are voting in Tuesday’s primary to narrow the fields for governor, U.S. Senate and other state and local races for the November general election.

MSU Mankato is facing at $22 million budget deficit so the university's president is proposing to cut 60 jobs. Most of the cuts will come from closing or not filling vacant positions but 17 employees may be laid off. Others will be offered early retirement packages.

Grocery stores and other food retailers in Minnesota can now donate eggs that are past their “sell by” or “best by” date to food banks. A new state law that took effect August 1, no longer makes it illegal to donate such eggs, even though they are still good and safe to eat long after that quality assurance date stamped on the carton.

The U.S. Forest service says recent rains have helped firefighters in their effort to contain several wildfires burning in and around Minnesota’s Boundary Waters. Now, the fires are at least 50 percent contained and some are fully contained.

The three-day Minnesota Farmfest takes place this year at a challenging time economically for the state’s farmers and agricultural producers, as diesel fuel and fertilizer costs skyrocketed this spring following the start of the war with Iran.

Small business owners in northeastern Minnesota told their state legislators Friday that the wildfires that have been burning in and around the Boundary Waters for almost a month have had a “disastrous” impact on their bottom lines. One canoe outfitter says he lost 98 percent of his revenue to cancellations in July.