Kate Martin

The feds “have ignored us, misled us and shielded Alex’s killers,” Michael Pretti told reporters. Minnesota U.S Attorney Daniel Rosen has “stonewalled us for nine months, refusing to share a single update of any kind” on the federal investigation into Alex’s killing. www.mprnews.org/story/2026/1...

This is the coolest election story I've seen in a long time.

In the 1960s, an education outsider named Zig Engelmann began challenging conventional thinking about how to teach young children. He went on to create a highly effective and deeply controversial program called Direct Instruction.

Sold a Story Season 2 is out. features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story... You can hear episodes 1 and 2 today. Then it's one episode a week, on Thursdays, through Nov 19.

The new season of Sold a Story is coming tomorrow. I've seen speculation about it. I think there will be some surprises. I'm interested to know what you think. First two episodes tomorrow. Then one a week on Thursdays until Nov 19. features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/

My husband's account says "has a wife" which, big if true

This is really predictable

More than a year in the making. Coming out in two weeks, Sold a Story season 2

As an experiment in video, we got @ehanford.bsky.social back in the studio to rerecord Sold a Story's first episode. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ajI...

The Minnesota Department of Health’s role in the state’s booming group home industry has been at the center of two of the biggest news stories in Minnesota over the past week.

The Minnesota Department of Human Services is suspending payments to all group home companies affiliated with a high-ranking government official in Liberia, citing “credible allegations of Medicaid fraud,” following an MPR News and APM Reports investigation this week.

Everyone is talking about Flock but I've been reading the same article for 15 years about different technologies so I rage wrote about it for @19thnews.org 19thnews.org/2026/08/floc...

Legal documents released today show federal law enforcement officials extensively surveilled public meetings and activists during the ICE surge, and created dossiers on political enemies. I've been busy, but will post some takeaways on this thread soon: (1) www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...

I can't think of a single non-creepy use case for these ugly things

I understand that funding bodies want to go all in on AI as the shiny new innovation thing. But if all the grants start going to AI at the expense of everything else then the research sector is going to end up looking like a farm with dozens of threshers hacking away in a field with no wheat.

He cooked a pizza from scratch. We've been married almost 30 years.

Six months ago neighbors and businesses on Nicollet Avenue watched as federal immigration agents shot and killed Alex Pretti. A memorial still stands in Pretti’s honor. MPR News host Nina Moini talked with businesses near his memorial and a resident who spends time at the memorial every day.

“The appearance of federal law enforcement agents on the doorstep of news reporters should shock the conscience of any American who believes in the Constitution and the press freedom it protects,” said David McCraw, The Times’s top newsroom lawyer... www.nytimes.com/2026/07/11/b...

Utah officials are shutting down Provo Canyon School’s girls program — one of the state’s most notorious teen treatment programs, which has been plagued by abuse allegations.

I interviewed a former prosecutor yesterday who said this one thing that I cannot stop thinking about : “I think the most radical thing I learned from becoming a prosecutor is how much violence women face in this country and how little people care.”

The TV journalist in a room of print reporters at IRE

File better FOIAs! Come to our talk in National Harbor 11 @ire.org

I'm at an @ire.org panel called "mining the mountain" about document dumps, and a panelist said it might seem boring (it's not) but we're nosy people and this is "peak nosy"

I've been in newsroom meetings with reporters needling bosses and their own CEOs. I've sometimes been one of them. This is a rite of passage they need to endure, not an excuse to fire veteran reporters. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/07/m...

At least 50 residents in Minnesota group homes have died since late 2022 under circumstances serious enough to trigger state maltreatment investigations. Marcus Schmit, the executive director of the Minnesota chapter of NAMI, said to combat this, there needs to be stricter punishment.

There's a song I keep hearing and one of the lines is "Where'd you get those geese" and I refuse to look up the actual lyrics.

The #Artemis II livestream continues to be the best thing on the internet. 😍 The return-to-Earth live coverage begins at 6:30pm Eastern (in about 90 minutes) with splashdown in the Pacific scheduled for 8:07pm Eastern. www.youtube.com/live/m3kR2KK...

Earthset from Artemis II. I am overcome.

Just so you know, when you say "hey do you want to know something cool?" Most people say yes.

My colleague @katereports.bsky.social & I found most of those Minnesota residents were deported to Latin American countries, including almost 600 people returned to Mexico and about 520 deported to Ecuador. At least 17 minors were also deported. (2) www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...

Fyi, the numbers in this piece were obtained via a FOIA lawsuit by the @deportationdata.org. They provide the best picture yet of fed arrests during surge. My colleague @katereports.bsky.social helped clean the data for us and highlighted the top line takeaways. www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...

Thanks to a FOIA lawsuit from @deportationdata.org, Minnesota is getting its first credible numbers on arrests during the federal government's surge here this winter. About 3,800 Minnesota residents were arrested. Most from Latin America (only 106 from Somalia). (1)

I'm at the @nclocal.bsky.social News and Information Summit. It's awesome to see so many talented and dedicated people. Yes, I still live in North Carolina (for the several people who seemed surprised that I haven't moved yet)

Talented reporters @elliemroth.bsky.social @jenpenned.bsky.social and Chris Peak take us to the the epicenter of Minnesota's group home boom. Police visited one such home 88 times in a year - more than once a week.

One thing that AI evangelists seem to assume, particularly legal AI evangelists assume, is that the thinking and analysis is quick, and the writing is just tedious busywork that slows us down. But the writing IS the thinking and analysis. You work out the thinking and analysis by writing it down.

When I was in high school in Alaska, I sewed little doggie booties out of polar fleece and velcro for seemingly hours on end. This is so far above and beyond. I'm in awe.

UGH Why does the time change feel like it steals half a day from you?

I pitched five perfect innings in a Little League World Series game.

AI-generated artwork is officially not eligible for copyright protection after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the appeal. The court ruled that a work must have a human creator to qualify for copyright protection. www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

Great advice for those of us in journalism covering AI technologies or experimenting with how to use them responsibly.

When I tell people to not be afraid of maths I secretly picture this meme and go back to work on my Excel files…

The person photographed here who is in their bathrobe filming armed, masked federal agents in St. Paul is MPR News journalist @samstroozas.bsky.social @mprnews.org . She is an incredible journalist and person. We do not deserve her.

A man taken into custody in Rochester Thursday by federal immigration agents and now held at the Whipple Federal Building in the Twin Cities is a recent organ transplant recipient who is without his needed anti-rejection medication, state Rep. Kim Hicks tells MPR News.

My friends at Niemanreports.org asked me to write about the experience of being a journalist on the ground in Minneapolis right now. I knew I wanted to tell reporters elsewhere how even this most hopeless of times has been clarifying and, in some ways, energizing. (1) share.google/ms1wKDQZmgep...

BREAKING: The federal government has filed a motion seeking to end asylum claims for the family of Liam Conejo Ramos, according to the lawyer representing the family.

One of the more outdated assumptions in the public records process is that requests originate from a fully stocked 1998 office with a working fax machine.

Trying to learn new things in gimp. It's been many years since I used photo processing software. I do have a question. WHY is every tutorial a video now? I want to read the instructions not wait for someone to tell me what to do. It's such a time suck.

"MPR News has learned that the police chief in the small southern Minnesota city of St. Peter intervened Thursday afternoon to prevent federal immigration agents from arresting a local resident" who had been observing federal agents. www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...

My @mprnews.org colleague & I rode along with observers after the Twin Cities surge at the start of December, well before most national publications came to town. It was really necessary to get at what ICE is really doing on the ground & how people are opposing it. www.mprnews.org/story/2025/1...

MPR News host Nina Moini spoke with Attorney Eric Lee, who heard the protest from the center over the weekend, and Sam Doiron, an attorney with the Texas-based group RAICES, about conditions inside the detention center.