A now-defunct Minnesota company that abandoned 1.4 million chickens in 2024 — leaving many to starve — must pay $13,575 for mistreating animals, a Wisconsin judge ruled.

What?! Were no No. 1 anymore????

President Donald Trump says he's replacing his embattled Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and will nominate in her place Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin.

In things I learned this week: There's a World Owl Hall of Fame! The International Owl Center in Houston, Minn. coordinates the program.

“My plan was to compete for a spot, but when NBC called with the offer, I had to think really hard,” said Courtney Godfrey (she's on the U.S. Para Snowboard Team). Minnesota's Mallory Weggemann also will be a key member of the coverage.

Though recent polling shows masked agents are broadly unpopular in Minnesota and nationally, the effort to ban masks is facing resistance in Minnesota’s evenly divided House, with Republicans arguing that uncovering agents’ faces could lead to threats and harassment.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said there are still roughly 650 federal agents in Minnesota after the administration announced Operation Metro Surge was winding down.

Concerns for the environment and potential use of Lake Superior’s coveted stores of water have been central to controversy about the data center, to be built on more than 200 acres in the city next to Duluth.

About half of the people Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took credit for detaining in Minnesota, who are featured on a Trump administration website titled “worst of the worst,” were already in federal, state or county custody or had recently been released.

Nearly 50 teens nationally have died by suicide during a sextortion case, and law enforcement officials believe there are more unreported.

Sure, we're the land of passive-aggressiveness and the "oh yah, you betchas" but Minnesota really surprised a lot of people by how hard it pushed back.

The use of a chemical irritant by U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Greg Bovino is among 17 instances of “potential unlawful behavior” by federal agents during Operation Metro Surge currently being investigated for criminal charges, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said Monday.

“This is more than an instrument. ... It is like having a Van Gogh painting, bare in your hands.”

The mispronunciation of Wayzata was one I'd never heard before, I had to listen three times

Since Trump began his second term, at least 31 of the 64 lawyers at the MN U.S. Attorney’s Office quit or retired, with attorneys citing concerns about ethics, political pressure and the new administration’s decision to make immigration a top priority, according to a Star Tribune investigation.

The She Got Game Weekend will be held July 16-19, and other Olympic medal winners are being invited, too.

“We spent decades shaming women for having kids under the wrong circumstances, for not having their ducks in a row,” said Ms. Guzzo, the demographer. “Now they are holding up their end of the bargain.”

Look! Up in the sky! (On March 3!)

Sports columnist Jim Souhan has some strong words for the U.S. men's Olympic hockey team: "They also reminded us that there is a vast difference between winning games and being a hero."

~$1M was raised (maybe more, some organizers didn't reveal total amounts) in recent ICE relief concerts.

The state responded to the threat by saying it would appeal the federal government’s announcement, arguing it was “legally baseless” and politically motivated.

Trump’s number is far larger than what members of the Justice Department have publicly tallied or even alleged as they prosecute Minnesota’s largest fraud cases to date.

An advocacy group of parents from Annunciation Catholic School installed a display outside the State Capitol honoring Minnesota children lost to gun violence. Video: Amanda Anderson/The Minnesota Star Tribune.

“Protest and defiance is what I now see in customers buying the new flag,” Herold said. “It is subtle, not boasting, but they are making a statement about showing off their Minnesota pride and determination.”

"Liam and his family are sequestered during this time," Kristen Stuenkel, a spokeswoman for the Columbia Heights Public Schools district said in a statement.

NEW: ProPublica went inside the detention center for immigrant families in Dilley, Texas. Children held there told us about the anguish of being ripped from their lives in the United States and the fear of what comes next.

A Minnesota Star Tribune review of more than 100 Minnesota license plates attached to immigration enforcement vehicles in recent weeks shows that nearly 60% were not registered with the state of Minnesota.

Obsessed with these loon Oloonpian GIFs from @jllovett.bsky.social and you should be, too! Bonus: You can download your favorite!

With employees afraid to work and customers fearful, Minneapolis businesses are losing $10 million to $20 million in sales a week, with revenue down more than half in the two months since Operation Metro Surge began, according to city estimates.

His attorney is asking a federal judge in Minnesota to hold the government in contempt of court for failing to comply with the orders.

David Lowry Moore, who died in December at 89, never married or had kids of his own. But countless Hmong American kids — many now in middle age — thought of him as a dad.

Never disappointed by the finalist names in the MnDOT Name-a-Snowplow contest: Six-Sleddin’, Six-Sleddin’ K Pop Blizzard Hunter The Life Of A Snowgirl Full list of 30:

“I am a prisoner in my apartment,” said a 30-year-old North St. Paul resident. “I am hiding in the shadows, not because I have committed a crime, but because the streets of Minnesota have begun to look terrifyingly similar to the war zone I escaped.”

Super cool design and presentation from @jakesteinberg.com and @ellie-lin.bsky.social

What if I told you there were other websites where you can get local news on demand, ones that don't hallucinate facts while they hoover up energy and water

65% of Americans said Immigration and Customs Enforcement has "gone too far," according to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll.

"The system sucks. This job sucks." A Justice Department lawyer was removed from her post after her comments to a federal judge. “I wish you would just hold me in contempt, your honor, so that I can have full 24 hours of sleep,” she said.

There have been nonstop snacks in the newsroom and I've just been squirreling away as many snack packs as possible for future me because present me is very full.

Children’s Minnesota is suspending gender-affirming care in response to threats by the Trump administration to cut off millions of dollars in federal funding that keep its pediatric clinics and hospitals running.

Fridley and Duluth schools, along with the state teachers union, are suing the Trump administration to keep federal immigration agents off school property.

A federal judge ordered the release of two Venezuelan men accused of assaulting a federal immigration officer last month outside a north Minneapolis duplex. But they never made it outside the St. Paul courthouse. ICE detained them again, without explanation, after the hearing.

Renee Good's brothers sat before a group of U.S. senators and representatives on Tuesday afternoon and asked for their help. Their testimony was part of a public forum held by Congressional Democrats. Video: Sen. Richard Blumenthal livestream via Facebook.

Camille Dunn, 70, said her opinion changed after the two killings this month: “I was more to the right, and now I’m like, ‘Get out of the Twin Cities and leave us alone.’” “There’s a giant, dark cloud hanging overhead always, and it’s frustrating,” Sara Marie Briggs Sorenson said.

In between the protesters waving signs and chanting at ICE headquarters, groups of volunteers stand watch at Whipple. They never know when someone will be released, so they wait, with piles of donated coats in the back seats of their cars.

Sengundo, 43, his wife Maria, 40, and their five kids were on a path to legal status and say their immigration case was up-to-date. But the Ecuadorian family was increasingly afraid to go to work, school or to the store for food and diapers for their grandson.

Meet Minnesota’s athletes competing at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy

U.S. Magistrate Judge Dulce Foster ordered the release of Twin Cities independent journalist Georgia Fort this afternoon, rejecting the U.S. government’s claims that her allegations constitute a crime of violence that necessitate keeping her detained.

Greg Bovino appears to be driving back -- not flying, as one might expect -- to California after being reassigned from Minneapolis. www.startribune.com/greg-bovino-...

With no one in Minnesota left to care for them, she asked the principal to take her two children to be with her. The eldest, who was stoic as the principal described his mother’s detainment, broke into tears and gripped the school nurse when walking into the Whipple Federal Building.

“I’ve been teaching in the Columbia Heights Public Schools for 33 years,” teacher Peg Nelson said, “and in the past 33 years, I’ve never experienced any disruption or danger to students like the current ICE occupation of Minnesota.”