MPR News with Angela Davis – Details, episodes & analysis

Juneteenth has long been celebrated in Black communities to remember June 19, 1865, the day that enslaved African Americans in Texas learned they were free. 

After becoming a federal holiday in 2021, broader community celebrations began in cities around the country, including the Minnesota Orchestra’s annual Juneteenth concert tonight at Orchestra Hall in downtown Minneapolis.

MPR News host Angela Davis talked with the guest conductor of the Juneteenth concert and one of its organizers about the contributions of Black American composers and how classical music is being shaped by Black American music traditions, including gospel, jazz and the blues.

Tickets to the 7 p.m. concert were still available as of Thursday morning. The concert will also stream live on YourClassical MPR with host Melissa Ousley.

Guests:   

• Jonathan Taylor Rush returns to guest conduct this year’s Juneteenth concert with the Minnesota Orchestra after conducting the concert in 2024. Now based in North Carolina, Taylor Rush was associate conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra from 2020 to 2023 and is in demand as a guest conductor around the world.  

• Grant Meachum is director of the Minnesota Orchestra’s Live at Orchestra Hall season, which includes the Juneteenth concert and more than twenty other special programs every year featuring film presentations, holiday celebrations and collaborations with popular artists.

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The last few days have been heavy in Minnesota. Many people are experiencing a collective sense of grief in the wake of the targeted fatal shootings of Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband. MPR News host Kelly Gordon talks with her guests about the shared sadness, anger and anxiety — and how people can heal, together.

Guests:

• Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman is the senior rabbi at Temple Israel in Minneapolis.  
• Fiyyaz Karim is co-director of graduate studies and a senior lecturer who teaches addiction counseling and integrated behavioral health at the University of Minnesota. 

Summer is starting, the days are getting warmer and if you’ve got a garden, it’s calling for your attention. 

Maybe you're growing tomatoes on the back deck or trying to fill your yard with vibrant flowers. Or maybe you’re just trying to stay one step ahead of those pesky weeds. 

Whatever your gardening goals, summer is the season when gardens can really shine — or struggle. 

MPR News host Angela Davis talks about what grows well in our region, how to time plantings, how to fix common garden problems and how to keep your soil — and your plants — in good shape all summer long.  

Guests:

• Catherine Grant is a horticulturalist who manages the greenhouses, medicinal garden and pollinator habitat for the Department of Biology at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul.  

•  Laura Irish-Hanson is a horticulture educator with the University of Minnesota Extension. She works primarily out of the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska.  

  
  
  
  

  Here’s a list of resources that were discussed on the show:

• University of Minnesota Soil Testing laboratory
• University of Minnesota Extension

• “Hort Shorts” created by UMN Extension

  
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY7GaPXLa0w&list=PLyMOSdo2sM9tCmiTBa19yapMRxPL-04Eb&index=4
  
  
  

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.   

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.     

Rachel Hardeman and Simone Hardeman-Jones are identical twins who share more than DNA. They also share a commitment to addressing racial inequities.

Rachel Hardeman is a professor at the University of Minnesota whose research is used nationally to show how racism affects health. Her work illuminates the disparities between the experiences of Black mothers during pregnancy and childbirth and their white peers. This year, she was named one of TIME’s 2024 most influential people in the world.

Simone Hardeman-Jones has spent most of her career in education policy, including four years at the federal level working in former President Barack Obama’s administration. Now she heads GreenLight Fund Twin Cities, which is changing how philanthropy can better listen to communities to identify unsolved problems and introduce solutions.

MPR News host Angela Davis talks with the two sisters about their work and how they support each other as part of our MPR News Power Pairs series.

Do you know a Power Pair?

We’d love to hear your ideas for Power Pairs to interview in 2025. We’re talking with prominent Minnesotans who you may know of separately but who reveal something new when we sit them down together. Maybe they’re married or siblings or best friends. They could be business partners or a parent/adult child dynamic duo.

Check out previous previous Power Pair conversations.

And, send us your suggestions for Power Pairs.

Guests:

• Rachel R. Hardeman is a professor in the Division of Health Policy & Management at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health. She is also the Blue Cross endowed professor of health and racial equity and the founding director of the Center for Antiracism Research for Health Equity. She serves on an advisory committee to the director of the Centers for Disease Control.

• Simone Hardeman-Jones became the founding executive director of GreenLight Fund Twin Cities in 2020. Her previous work focused on education policy. She was a national director of policy and partnerships at the nonprofit Educators for Excellence and served as a deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Education in the Obama administration. Simone also worked as a policy advisor to two U.S. senators, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.

  
  

 Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.    

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.     

Children of color and children on the autism spectrum are less likely to know how to swim than their peers. MPR News host Angela Davis talks about efforts to bring water safety and swim lessons to communities most at risk.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year … unless you’re running late, the roads are icy and someone races past you and then cuts you off.

According to a Pew Research Center study, about half of Americans say people in their area are driving more dangerously than before the pandemic.

And aggressive driving is one of the leading causes of traffic deaths in Minnesota.

As more of us tense up and hit the roads over the next few weeks, MPR News host Angela Davis and her guests talk about how badly some people are driving and the angry responses of other drivers.

Guests:

• Mike Hanson is the director of the Office of Traffic Safety for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.
• Ryan Martin is the dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay where he is also a psychology professor who researches and writes about anger.

If you see unsafe driving on state highways that does not need immediate attention, you can report it to the State Patrol: Report unsafe driving | Minnesota Department of Public Safety

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.  

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.     

Have you fallen for a scam? A lot of people have become victims. MPR News host Angela Davis talks with her guests about latest examples, how anyone could fall for them and how to protect yourself.

Age discrimination remains a serious barrier to employment.

But creativity can flourish with age. And experienced workers and late-in-life entrepreneurs are often more productive.

MPR News host Chris Farrell and his guests talk about the value of older workers and how to find purpose later in your career and in retirement.

Guests:

• Richard Leider is an executive life coach and founder of Inventure — The Purpose Company. He is also a best-selling author who has written twelve books, including the fourth edition of “The Power of Purpose,” which will be published in January. 
• Janine Vanderburg is the CEO of Encore Roadmap, which champions the benefits of older workers and intergenerational teams to businesses and brands. She is also the co-founder of Changing the Narrative, a national anti-ageism initiative.

During the conversation, Vanderburg mentioned this resource about tackling internalized ageism.

More than a third of people over the age of 50 feel lonely. And nearly as many feel isolated. MPR News guest host Chris Farrell and his guests talk about how to connect the disconnected.

MPR News host Chris Farrell talks with his guests about what we can do to address the frustrations many Americans feel about the health insurance industry.