Minnesota Now June 22, 2022

[MUSIC PLAYING] CATHY WURZER: It's Minnesota Now. I'm Cathy Wurzer. There's a reported settlement between the city of Brooklyn Center and the family of Daunte Wright. That's one of our top stories. And researchers think as many as 30% of COVID patients have developed long COVID symptoms. We'll talk with one woman who is living with it.

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You probably know someone who has memory challenges or is caring for someone who has Alzheimer's. A Central Minnesota doctor is rolling out a new model of care. We'll talk to him. Meteorologist Sven Sundgaard is here to talk all things weather. Jazz fans from around the region converge in St. Paul this weekend for two days of music. We'll talk to the organizer of the Twin Cities Jazz Festival. All of that and, of course, the Minnesota music minute and the song of the day. Stay tuned. First, these national headlines.

LAKSHMI SINGH: Live From MPR News in Washington I'm Lakshmi Singh. With gasoline prices in the United States near record highs, President Biden is expected to call on Congress to temporarily suspend the federal gasoline tax. NPR'S Frank Ordonez says an announcement was likely this afternoon despite little chance it'll pass in Congress.

FRANK ORDONEZ: President Biden is urging Congress to suspend the a $0.18 a gallon tax on gas. He's also calling on states to take similar measures with state taxes. But some economists, like Jason Furman of the Harvard Kennedy School, say the move might not make that big of a difference to drivers.

JASON FURMAN: The majority of the benefits of a gas tax holiday would go directly to oil companies because they would not need to pass the savings on to consumers.

FRANK ORDONEZ: The administration acknowledges the tax holiday won't fix all the problems, but they say it will provide families a little help, especially during this summer driving season while they work on a more permanent solution. Frank Ordonez, NPR News.

LAKSHMI SINGH: The administration says it's providing logistical support starting this weekend to import baby formula from Mexico-- 16 million of the 8 ounce bottles to help alleviate a nationwide shortage here in the United States. The Department of Health and Human Services says it will accelerate the distribution of about a million pounds of Gerber Good Start Gentle Infant Formula that trucks are transporting from a Nestlé plant to retailers. The US is already receiving baby formula shipments from Australia and Europe.

The most intense fighting in Ukraine is still taking place in the Eastern part of the country where Russians and Ukrainians are battling daily. But as MPR's Greg Myre tells us, fighting has been picking up in other parts of the country as well.

GREG MYRE: Ukraine's military says it carried out strikes against Russian positions on Snake Island, a small outpost in the Black Sea. Ukraine provided few details, but the attack suggests the military is now firing longer range weapons recently provided by Western countries. Russian ships in the Black Sea are blockading Ukraine's southern coast.

In northern Ukraine, Russia has stepped up shelling of Kharkiv, the country's second largest city near the border with Russia. Ukraine pushed back Russian troops from the outskirts of the city more than a month ago. But Ukrainian officials say long range Russian shelling has killed at least 15 civilians in the city this week. Greg Myre, NPR News, Kyiv.

LAKSHMI SINGH: Afghanistan is recovering from a deadly earthquake that state run media say killed 1,000 people and left 1,500 others injured. The temblor, reported to be a magnitude 6.1, struck near the Pakistani border. At last check on Wall Street, the NASDAQ is up 42 points at 11,111. The Dow is up four points. S&P has risen seven. This is MPR.

ANNOUNCER: Support for MPR comes from MPR stations. Other contributors include Fisher Investments. Fisher Investments is a fiduciary, which means they always put clients' interests first. Fisher Investments, clearly different money management. Investing in securities involves the risk of loss.

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CATHY WURZER: Around Minnesota right now skies are blue. It's pleasant. And today we're aiming for highs in the upper 70s to the upper 80s except mid-70s near Lake Superior. At noon in Rochester it's sunny and 76. It's 64 in Eveleth. And outside JD's Taphouse in Melrose, Minnesota it's sunny and 76. I'm Cathy Wurzer with Minnesota news headlines.

A number of law enforcement agencies are currently in a lengthy standoff with a person thought to be armed at a home in St. Michael. The Wright County Sheriff's Office says it started with a call yesterday about a man and a woman who were arguing. The man was reported to be carrying a rifle. The Sheriff's Office says he's fired several rounds at officers. Nearby homes have been evacuated and several roads have been detoured including County Road 35 on the West side of St. Michael. The public is being asked to steer clear of the area.

A state run COVID vaccination site at the Mall of America will start giving out shots ages kids ages six months to five years this afternoon. Officials say all 250 slots are taken starting in an hour from now. The Mall of America site offers Pfizer vaccines for the littlest kids, but Moderna doses are also available at other sites. MPR News reporter, Catharine Richert, says providers may end up doing most of the vaccinations.

CATHERINE RICHERT: And we also know that some pharmacies are open for shots. So for instance, the Walgreens stores down here in Rochester where I am have appointments for as early as this coming Saturday. But pharmacies will mostly be vaccinating kids who are three years old and older.

CATHY WURZER: Even though young children typically get less sick from COVID-19, they are able to pass the virus to others who are more vulnerable. And young kids are known to have gotten very sick with COVID in Minnesota.

In other news, the year long battle over the city of Minneapolis' overhaul of zoning and development is heading to the State Court of Appeals. The city has filed an appeal of a judge's order last week that halted implementation of the 2040 plan. That plan is intended to loosen zoning requirements and increase housing density in the city.

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Our lead story-- there is a settlement between the family of Daunte Wright and the city of Brooklyn Center. Wright was a Black man killed by a white female police officer during a traffic stop in April of last year. The city of Brooklyn Center will pay Wright's family more than $3 million. Lawyers say it's the third largest such payout in state history. And it comes after the police officer in the case was charged and convicted of manslaughter. Our Tim Nelson has been following the Daunte Wright story since the beginning. He joins us right now. Good to have you aboard, Tim. How are you?

TIM NELSON: I'm good, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Good. Thanks for being here. We've heard about big settlements being made by the city of Minneapolis in past police death cases. Wright family attorneys say they believe this is the largest settlement for a city outside Minneapolis. So what are the details?

TIM NELSON: Well, you know, the top line, like you said, is more than $3 million. It's $3.25 million actually. It's a lot of money for a small city like Brooklyn Center. I think their city budget last year for all of last year was only $24 million. Now, the settlement is being paid to the family of Daunte Wright although the actual recipients, as is usual in cases like this, they aren't disclosed.

Attorneys for the family of Daunte Wright, including Antonio Romanucci in Chicago and Jeff Storms here in Minnesota, they announced the settlement last night. I should note that we have not actually heard from the city yet, but these are the same attorneys who represented the family of George Floyd and made a similar disclosure in their lawsuit against the city of Minneapolis. So this is likely a reliable final number.

CATHY WURZER: OK. And who's paying out this settlement?

TIM NELSON: Well, again, that wasn't part of the announcement. I reached out to Brooklyn Center Mike Elliott. I haven't heard back from him yet. But you know, typically cities just don't have this kind of cash on hand. They are pretty tight on the budgets. But most Minnesota cities are part of the League of Minnesota Cities Insurance Trust. It's kind of a mutual insurance fund that helps cities address these occasional large claims, although Minneapolis doesn't do that.

And again, this is a lot of money for Brooklyn Center. They only have about a $20 million tax levy, so paying this out would be like a nearly 20% property tax hike if they had to pay it all out all at once. So the insurance will probably cover most or all of it. But ultimately it's going to be taxpayers that pay this. They pay into that insurance trust and other insurance plans. So the residents of Brooklyn Center are on the hook.

CATHY WURZER: OK. You know, I was wondering about the number. It seems a little arbitrary. $3.25 million. What do we know about the figure?

TIM NELSON: Yeah, you know, attorneys in this case like in the case of George Floyd and Justine Ruszczyk-- she was the woman who was shot to death by Minneapolis police in 2017-- they don't really talk very much about the settlement. But you know, this is a negotiation. They sit down with city officials and insurers.

And attorneys here did note that Brooklyn Center is a small city with limited resources, and this is what the two sides agreed to. Now, it's a fraction of the $27 million paid to the family of Floyd for his killing by Minneapolis police in 2020 or the $20 million paid to the family of Ruszczyk. You may remember she was shot to death by a Minneapolis officer after she called 911. That was back in 2017.

But you know, again, Minneapolis is not limited by the resources of an insurance trust. It's a much bigger city. And these settlements are very different if you look at them per capita. You know, the Ruszczyk settlement was about $50 per resident. The Floyd settlement was about a little over $60 per resident in Minneapolis. This Wright settlement is more than $100 per resident in Brooklyn Center. So these things can be kind of arbitrary. It depends on where they happen, when they happen, and even the circumstances of the death.

CATHY WURZER: Let's remind listeners what happened.

TIM NELSON: Well, you know, as you said, this happened in April of 2021. Actually April 11th. You remember it was just as the Derek Chauvin case was wrapping up in Minneapolis. Three Brooklyn Center officers stopped Mr. Wright. He had expired vehicle registration. And he told his mom on the phone that officers mentioned an air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror potentially obstructing his view.

Now, police, after this started, determined he had an arrest warrant on an outstanding weapons charge and they tried to arrest him as he was standing beside his open car door. As this was happening, he got back in the car. A struggle ensued. And as he tried to drive away and video shows officers trying to stop him, one of them-- Kimberly Potter-- telling Wright she was going to shoot him with her taser instead drew her firearm and shot him in the chest.

Now, he drove a short way away, crashed a short distance from the scene, and died of that gunshot wound. You know, as you may recall, several days of civil unrest followed and Potter and the city's police chief both resigned followed by a slate of reforms offered by the city and their police department.

CATHY WURZER: Right. The family-- Daunte Wright's family has also called for changes in policing after what happened. So does this settlement address some of what they want?

TIM NELSON: It looks like it. All the language hasn't been laid out. Presumably we're going to see that in a resolution before the city council. But attorneys for the family say that the city has agreed to changes in police policy regarding traffic stops for equipment violations, you know, like expired tabs, as in the case of Mr. Wright.

Attorneys said they're also going to seek more police training for implicit bias, weapons confusion, de-escalation, dealing with mental health crises. And they also say the University of St. Thomas is going to provide some cultural and implicit bias training to the police department. Now, this deal is also expected to include a permanent memorial to Daunte Wright at the location of a temporary memorial erected where he was killed. There's been some conflict between the city and the family over that. Supposedly this is going to settle that.

CATHY WURZER: I'm wondering about the Wright family and their reaction to the agreement.

TIM NELSON: They haven't said a lot. They included a statement with the announcement of the settlement by their attorneys yesterday. They said, this is never going to bring Daunte back. But they also said they wanted their loss to have meaning for the entire community.

CATHY WURZER: And we should say we tried to call Daunte's mom and she declined our offer to be interviewed. So do you think this is the end of this case?

TIM NELSON: At least for the time being. Probably if the settlement is formally approved. But also remember former Officer Potter was convicted of manslaughter, as you said, in December. She was sentenced to two years in prison. Her attorneys had argued that she had mistaken her pistol for a taser and tried to stop Wright from getting back in his car and driving away, that it was an innocent mistake. She has been sentenced to two years in prison. She's expected to serve about 16 months, which means she's likely going to be out on supervised release in less than a year from now.

CATHY WURZER: All right. Tim Nelson, thank you so much.

TIM NELSON: You're welcome.

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CATHY WURZER: Now here's another story we've been following. The floodwaters along the Minnesota Canadian border, they're finally receding. For the past two months, we've been talking with residents and officials there about raging waterways and flooding. Last week the floodwaters in Rainy Lake finally crested and now, very slowly, the high water is starting to recede. But as Dan Crocker tells us, weeks of constant work and stress have taken an emotional toll on residents there.

DAN CROCKER: 83-year-old Gary Sullivan says it's been a nonstop hell.

GARY SULLIVAN: It's hard on everybody. It's hard one day after another.

DAN CROCKER: Sullivan and his wife retired to Rainy Lake more than 20 years ago. She needs supplemental oxygen. So when the power company cut off electricity to their home, they took her equipment and moved in with their grandson in town.

GARY SULLIVAN: It hasn't been fun. It's not the golden years we were talking about.

DAN CROCKER: But every morning he returns to the house where he spends all day making sure the water pumps are still working, and that his 10-foot tall sandbag wall is still holding. Wow, that's the highest one I've seen yet.

GARY SULLIVAN: Well, if we get a north wind, we'll have four foot waves here and then this doesn't look so high.

DAN CROCKER: The wall is immense. Sullivan estimates it's 12 feet thick at the base. 10,000 sandbags in all. So far it's held back the water, which is head high on the other side. His neighbor wasn't so fortunate. Their wall was breached, which sent a torrent of water rushing at Sullivan's house and through his basement windows. They managed to drain the water and rebuild the wall, but Sullivan says it's stressful to know that could happen again at any time.

GARY SULLIVAN: This is a situation where all of us along here have to count on each other. If one of us fail, everybody fails. And the water rushed in so fast that it flooded all the way to the street.

DAN CROCKER: The Sullivans and hundreds of other homeowners here on the south shore of Rainy Lake outside International Falls started sandbagging a month and a half ago when the giant 50-mile long lake started to rise. Earlier this month, the flooding broke the lake's all time record set in 1950 and it's only come down a few inches since.

It began with a huge winter snowpack and a late spring thaw. Then when drenching spring rains fell on the still frozen ground, all that water and snowmelt gushed into the Rainy River basin which drains a huge part of northeastern Minnesota and southern Ontario into Rainy Lake. Now the water is 5 feet over some people's docks.

LARRY AASEN: It's been a battle.

DAN CROCKER: Larry and Dawn Aasen live a few doors down from Gary Sullivan. They're in their late 60s. For them, the flood fight comes on top of an even greater personal battle.

DAWN AASEN: The hardest is he's got pancreatic cancer so we've been-- that's the worst of it all. So we've been struggling as hard as we can. So he does what he can, and I try to take up the slack.

LARRY AASEN: She's a very good caregiver. And she's been super busy running pumps and filling gas tanks and getting up in the middle of the night to make sure the pumps are still running.

DAN CROCKER: I'm sorry to ask you to talk about this.

LARRY AASEN: It affects people. It affects everybody.

DAN CROCKER: Dawn Aasen says it's like a nightmare on top of a nightmare. But they're persevering. Friends and family and volunteers have rallied to help them and other homeowners. Down the road a few miles, Thunderbird Lodge has managed to stay open for three meals a day despite the water literally lapping under their floors.

STEPHANIE HEINLE: So this is where the water is coming in, and we're just pumping it out before it touches the floor so we can remain open.

DAN CROCKER: Owner Stephanie Heinle shows me four big pumps connected to huge hoses that are constantly sluicing water out of their crawlspace.

STEPHANIE HEINLE: So we're trying to pump it out faster than is coming in. It's coming in fast. A little over $700 a day in gas. So our goal is to stay open so people come here and support us, and then we put it right back to the gas tank to keep the water out.

DAN CROCKER: Heinle and her husband bought the lodge three years ago, just before the pandemic hit. They built a huge deck for outdoor seating. Now that's underwater.

STEPHANIE HEINLE: But we just keep on. I think I have a big smile on my face, I would say, yeah?

DAN CROCKER: How?

STEPHANIE HEINLE: Because what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

DAN CROCKER: If there is a silver lining, it's that there haven't been any deaths or serious injuries. But the fight isn't over yet. The National Weather Service says it could take another two months before the lake recedes to normal levels. Dan Crocker, MPR News, on Rainy Lake.

[MUSIC - LUCY MICHELLE, "SOMEBODY NEW"]

LUCY MICHELLE: (SINGING) Your eyes, that mouth, pretty as they are, have pushed me south, turned me inside out. It flows through my veins.

CATHY WURZER: It's the Minnesota music minute. This is beautiful. This is Somebody New by singer and songwriter Lucy Michelle. Comes off of her first solo album Attack of the Heart.

LUCY MICHELLE: (SINGING) You've got nothing to prove. Everything to lose when you use that sharp tongue. What happened in your house? Did it break your heart? Did it break your heart? The world ain't out to get you. You still fight it off. You still fight it off.

CATHY WURZER: I'm glad you're listening to Minnesota Now here on MPR News. I'm Cathy Wurzer. One of the growing concerns of the ongoing pandemic is the number of Americans who are living with long COVID. According to the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, more than 25 million Americans are living with lasting heart or lung problems, intense fatigue, and other symptoms months after their COVID infection.

A Minneapolis woman, Savannah Brooks, is one of them. At 30 years old she's been an athlete her whole life but now she's living with long COVID, defined by the CDC as symptoms that last more than four weeks, sometimes even months after infection. She's on the line right now to talk about what she's experiencing. Savannah, welcome to the program.

SAVANNAH BROOKS: Thank you so much.

CATHY WURZER: Thank you for your time. I am really sorry to hear you're dealing with long COVID. It must be very difficult. Can you give us a sense of your symptoms and when it started?

SAVANNAH BROOKS: I caught COVID at the end of April. April 22nd. And I had one week of all of your classic COVID symptoms. I had a really bad cough, sore throat, runny nose. I was nauseous. I had a bit of a fever. And then after a week, all those symptoms started to clear up and I thought I was getting better.

A week after that, so two weeks after I got COVID, I was going for a walk with my boyfriend and made it about four or five blocks and had to sit down or I was going to faint. And he had to carry me home. And it took about 45 minutes for me to be able to support my own weight again. So obviously that was pretty scary.

I reached out to my doctor about it. And in the time it took for me to get in to see a post-COVID clinic doctor, it happened a couple more times. So that, you know, was a few weeks long process of trying to figure out what was actually going on, what long COVID had actually created within my body, which I have just recently found out as POTS, which stands for Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome.

I have blood pressure issues. So when I'm standing up, my blood pressure plummets, which in turn makes my heart rate speed up really fast to try and get blood back to my brain, and that can cause me to pass out. It causes just really severe fatigue. So at about 1:00 PM every day I'm pretty much totally wiped. And probably the hardest thing is I can't walk or stand for very long without risking passing out. So I can walk a few blocks maybe, but that's about it.

CATHY WURZER: And before this, as I mentioned in the intro, you were an athlete.

SAVANNAH BROOKS: Yes, I was. I was a boxing instructor. I haven't been doing that, obviously, since I caught COVID. I've been training in some sort of combat sport for a little over a decade. And then I started playing soccer when I was like 5 and played that all through high school and played lacrosse through high school. So this has been-- since the end of April, this is probably the longest I've ever gone without some sort of physical pursuit, you might say, whether that be running a race or just going to the gym regularly.

CATHY WURZER: Wow, this has to be really hard. How are you doing mentally with this?

SAVANNAH BROOKS: You know, it's pretty tough. For most of my life I've suffered from depression, and so exercise is really how I've managed to keep a handle on that. That was really my main coping mechanism. That, on top of not being able to exercise to alleviate some of that, has definitely been hard, you know? And I've talked to my therapist about it. It's really just a matter of finding new coping mechanisms. But when you've had a coping mechanism you've used for two decades, it's hard to move on past that.

CATHY WURZER: I'm curious. You were vaccinated and boosted, right?

SAVANNAH BROOKS: I was, yes.

CATHY WURZER: And this still happened.

SAVANNAH BROOKS: Yep, I was boosted in January. So it was about a four month break through. It's kind of tough because for a lot of people their breakthrough cases feel fairly mild. And so when I got COVID was this idea of, yeah, you'll probably get COVID, but it's going to be fine. It'll be like having bad allergies or it'll be like a cold and then you'll be OK. And for some people that certainly is true.

But that doesn't mean that you're not going to have complications later. So it doesn't mean for POTS or POTS, like this affects my central nervous system and my heart, which are two things that you really, really don't want to be affected. And that doesn't mean it's not going to happen to other people, that they're going to have central nervous system issues or heart issues, even if the week or so they have COVID seems pretty mild.

CATHY WURZER: Did you get satisfaction from your medical providers? Were they really-- were they responsive to you when you came in with these symptoms? Do they understand what was happening, or did you have to go through a battery of tests to determine, yeah, this actually is long COVID?

SAVANNAH BROOKS: No, they were very responsive. And at this point, a lot of the complication factors they've seen for a while. So when I got into a post-COVID clinic, they had a lot of that research already. I wasn't one of the very first people, which was certainly helpful. And then when I went in and saw my cardiologist, similarly he was able to say, this is what we're seeing in a lot of post-COVID patients. And this is most likely what you have. And so then to test based on that.

CATHY WURZER: You know, I've been talking to Dr. Michael Osterholm from the University of Minnesota actually throughout the course of the pandemic. But most recently he's been saying that he is really concerned, and so are other public health officials, about long COVID and the fact that so many people are developing this. It really can cause some serious potential ramifications down the road here when it comes to worker disability and that kind of thing, you know? Are you able to work at this point?

SAVANNAH BROOKS: Yeah, I work from home. And luckily I have-- I work with really, really great people. I work at The Loft Literary Center in downtown Minneapolis. And so I can really create my own schedule. But I have pretty massively cut down on hours. And I'm planning on taking long term disability, which has been really fun to try and figure out since COVID's fairly new and all the complications from COVID.

But like I was saying before, like 1:00 PM, 1:00 or 2:00 PM each day, it's really hard for me to think. That's when the brain fog comes back. I forget words a lot. It's really hard for me to multitask. So luckily I've been able to cut back where I'm not working very often in the afternoon. But again, you know, that's sort of a privileged position to be in.

CATHY WURZER: Do you have an indication from your physicians? Do you think you'll be able to get back to some form of normalcy in some way, shape, or form in the future?

SAVANNAH BROOKS: I'm hopeful I will. You know, the prognosis is typically a few months, so whether that's on the shorter end of it being maybe four months until I can do relative activity again or six or seven months, no one can really tell me. Researchers aren't totally sure, at least from what my cardiologist was telling me, why POTS starts up after COVID and then also how long it takes for people to get past it.

It's really just a bunch of lifestyle changes that you're trying to reset your central nervous system into controlling your blood pressure and your heart rate correctly once more. And so how long that takes for each individual person is different.

CATHY WURZER: What's your message to listeners as they hear your story?

SAVANNAH BROOKS: You know, I-- we're all very tired of living in a pandemic, and it's definitely hard, right? It's hard to keep masking. It's hard to stay vigilant. It's hard to not be in large groups of people. And I certainly fell into that mindset of I'm young, I'm really healthy. If I get COVID, it's probably going to be fine. And I was very wrong. And it really, really wasn't worth that.

Despite sounding fairly chipper in interviews, this is extremely difficult and has been extremely difficult and will continue to be extremely difficult. And nobody wants to go through it. I was incredibly healthy and had no underlying factors. And so for people who do have underlying factors, this can be so much worse. This can be really, really debilitating. And I would consider only being able to walk a couple of blocks debilitating, but for some people they can't even do that.

So I'd say just as much as you can stay vigilant, certainly try. And if you do get COVID, don't be afraid to reach out to your doctors to go in and get testing just to make sure that you don't have any of these extenuating conditions because the faster you catch them, the faster you can act on them. You know, that can make all the difference.

CATHY WURZER: OK, we'll leave it there, Savannah. We wish you well. We really hope that things improve for you. Thank you so much for sharing your story.

SAVANNAH BROOKS: Yeah, thank you for having me on.

CATHY WURZER: Savannah Brooks is a literary agent in Minneapolis. She came down with COVID back in April. She is still suffering from symptoms related to long haul COVID.

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CATHY WURZER: Steven John, what's in the news?

STEVEN JOHN: Well, Cathy, President Joe Biden is preparing to call on Congress to suspend federal gasoline and diesel taxes for three months as pump prices hover around $5 a gallon nationwide. But many lawmakers are skeptical. Administration officials say Biden wants to suspend the 18.4 cents a gallon tax on gas and 24.4 cents a gallon tax on diesel fuel.

Afghanistan state run news agency reported a powerful earthquake has struck a rural mountainous region of the country's east killing 1,000 people and injuring 1,500 more. Wednesday's quake was the country's deadliest in two decades, and the death toll could rise.

Yellowstone National Park is back open at least partially following record floods that reshaped the iconic park's rivers and canyons, wiped out numerous roads, and left some areas inaccessible. Park managers raised the gates this morning at three of Yellowstone's five entrances for the first time since June 13th. That's when 10,000 visitors were ordered out after rivers across northern Wyoming and southern Montana surged over their banks following a torrent of rainfall that accelerated the spring snowmelt.

A Memorial service for former Minnesota Gopher football standout Marion Barber III is underway at Huntington Bank Stadium. Barber died June 1st in Texas at age 38. Cause of death has not been disclosed. Barber played for the Gophers from 2001 to 2004 and ranks fifth in all time rushing yards and second for rushing touchdowns. He was later drafted to play with the Cowboys and finished his NFL career with the Chicago Bears.

The Minnesota Twins started the day a few percentage points behind Cleveland in the American League Central after their 6-5 loss last night at Target Field. The streaking Guardians have won eight of their last 10 games while the Twins have gone 5 and 5 in that stretch. The two teams play again tonight in Minneapolis. Sunny and pleasant for Minnesota today with highs in the upper 70s to upper 80s. A little cooler near Lake Superior right now. 80 in the Twin Cities. The time is 12:32.

CATHY WURZER: Thank you, Steven. You don't need me to tell you it's been hot. This is the second full day of summer 2022. Steamy weather is to be expected, but holy moly, Monday was extreme. More hot and sticky weather is on tap tomorrow and Friday. Meteorologist Sven Sundgaard is here to give us the weather news and the story behind some of these high temperatures we've been experiencing. Hey. Welcome back to the program.

SVEN SUNDGAARD: Thanks for having me.

CATHY WURZER: Absolutely.

SVEN SUNDGAARD: How are you?

CATHY WURZER: I am fine. I'm still on the air after you and I talked earlier this morning. So still going. Hey, let's talk a little bit about Monday because that's what everyone remembers as the sweat fest that we had. How many records were set Monday?

SVEN SUNDGAARD: Well, in the Twin Cities alone we broke two records. The high temperature, of course, got all the glory because 101 is a big deal. But we also broke a record warm overnight low of 79. Kind of shattered that. The old one was 75 set in 1943. And the record high for the date did break the old record of 98 set back in the Dust Bowl years of 1933.

CATHY WURZER: And let's talk a little bit about these 100 degree temperatures. We don't see 100 degrees very often around these parts.

SVEN SUNDGAARD: Yeah, it is pretty infrequent. In our current 30-year normals it happens about once every five years on average. The last time we did it was four years ago. Memorial weekend. And then before that it was 2012. So this was the hottest day, Monday, in 10 years, the last time we got above that 100 degree reading. But it's really rare to do it in June.

Normally when we hit 100 degrees it's in July 71% of the time. So this is kind of a trend where Junes are getting hotter. Summer's starting a little bit earlier and a little bit more extreme. So undoubtedly climate change is at least partly a factor in this. So the fact that we did it in June almost makes it more remarkable than if we had done it in July.

CATHY WURZER: OK, and that's the key here in terms of potential signal of climate change because I was going to say we've seen similar temperatures-- very hot conditions back in the 1930s. As you say, the Dust Bowl era.

SVEN SUNDGAARD: Yeah, in the 1930s we had a lot of-- it stands out as an anomaly still, the 1930s, the Dust Bowl era. But there have been some studies done-- attribution studies done recently that have actually put fingerprints of human caused climate change on the 1930s. It might have been one of the first really obvious signals of what we had been doing in the atmosphere for, at that point, 50 years or so plus the combination of land use. We hadn't quite figured out the agricultural practices that we know today.

So when we look at our 150 years of records, if we look at the first 50 years of the Twin Cities records, 1873 to 1923, we had seven days of 100 plus temperatures. But when we look at our most recent 50 years, we've had 18 days of 100 plus. So there is definitely a little trend to see more of those extreme temperatures but you have to look a little harder.

CATHY WURZER: Interesting. Wow, I didn't know that. So maps are showing this heat dome is covering a big chunk of the country.

SVEN SUNDGAARD: Yeah, you know, we've all kind of been taking turns like a pinball machine. It's been kind of saying to the south just to our south literally today. It's going to move back in tomorrow and Friday but not as extreme as what we had earlier in the week certainly. And then the trend is to push it into the northwest.

You know, poor Seattle hasn't even hit 80 yet this year, but it looks as though they're finally going to do that this weekend. So they're calling it a heat wave even though they're not going to hit 90 but a couple of days in the 80s there. And then that he could be headed towards us again by the end of next week. We might be talking 90 again.

CATHY WURZER: So it's interesting to see with that heat on Monday-- noticing that some grass is looking a little crunchy already. So are we below normal in precipitation?

SVEN SUNDGAARD: Yeah, it depends where you're talking. Northern Minnesota's still pretty good. Of course, they had quite the surplus. But basically a swath of the Twin Cities, New Ulm, even up to St. Cloud and then into western Wisconsin, so the central part of the state we've only seen about half of our normal precipitation. And so our soil moistures right now are in the bottom 5% for this time of year when we look at the top several inches. So if we continue to get these hot, dry sunny days, that's going to dry things out pretty quickly.

CATHY WURZER: Do we have any storms in the forecast?

SVEN SUNDGAARD: We have some. It's not going to be a widespread soaking, which starts to get typical this time of year. We rely on those spotty thunderstorms. But at least the chance is there. Starting tomorrow night into Friday and Saturday a cool front swings in. We're going to see more humidity, which is, of course, an important ingredient for all this.

But it is going to be pretty hit and miss. Looks like the northern half of the state has the best chance of seeing more widespread, measurable precipitation and a little less in the southern part of the state. The average of the models for the Twin Cities is at a 1/4 inch or less, which does not make up for what we need.

CATHY WURZER: Looks like we may see some isolated severe thunderstorms possibly tomorrow?

SVEN SUNDGAARD: Yeah, we've got a marginal risk for mostly northern Minnesota, which is a level one out of five. You can't rule it out this time of year. But we're not looking at probably a repeat of what we had Monday night.

CATHY WURZER: OK, because gosh, there are some areas of northern Minnesota that were really hit by severe weather.

SVEN SUNDGAARD: Yeah, northern and western Minnesota had a lot of wind damage reports. Gusts as high as 91 miles an hour just east of Grand Forks and a lot of 70 mile per hour wind gusts. So folks are still cleaning up, up there.

CATHY WURZER: All right, I'll talk to you tomorrow morning. How does that sound?

SVEN SUNDGAARD: That sounds good. I'm going to be on in the afternoon too with Tom Crane.

CATHY WURZER: You're everywhere! You're everywhere!

SVEN SUNDGAARD: You can't get rid of me, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: That's fine, Sven. I like that. All right, have a good day.

SVEN SUNDGAARD: OK, you too.

CATHY WURZER: That's our meteorologist Sven Sundgaard. He does join me every morning on morning edition here on MPR News.

ANNOUNCER: Support comes from the Alzheimer's Association. Here for you and the 99,000 Minnesotans living with Alzheimer's providing support groups, community classes-- in-person and virtually-- and a 24/7 helpline. Learn more at ALZ.org.

CATHY WURZER: As a matter of fact, June is Alzheimer's and Brain Awareness month. More than 55 million people live with some kind of memory loss worldwide. That number is expected to jump in the coming years. Is there a better way to care for these growing numbers of people? There's a new effort in central Minnesota that's trying to find out.

It's called the Central Minnesota Dementia Community Action Network, and it's a group trying to change the community's response to those living with dementia. Dr. Pat Zook is with me right now. He's a retired family doc and the president of the Central Minnesota Dementia Community Action Network. Welcome to the program, doctor. How are you?

PAT ZOOK: I'm great. Thanks, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: You spent 40 years, as I understand it, as a family medicine doctor. But I also know you have a personal connection to this issue. Tell me about that.

PAT ZOOK: Well, as most of us in our campaign and our program have personal connections, both my parents lived and died in Cleveland, Ohio, and both had dementia and were in long term care for the last couple of years of their lives. And I wish I knew then what I know now and would have done a much better job as one of three children taking care of them and looking after them. But there's been a lot of new data coming along in the last 5 to 10 years, and we're trying to capitalize on that what we're doing here in St. Cloud.

CATHY WURZER: Given your experience with your parents, what do you think is missing in the current way we look as a society at Alzheimer's?

PAT ZOOK: Well, you know, what people need-- they need what. The what is, what's the diagnosis? That's hard to do with dementia. And they need to know is there some treatment they should have? And they need to know if it's something else that looks like dementia but isn't. Is it side effects of drugs or a little thyroid or something else? So they need to know the what.

But they really-- how did you get to have dementia is what we're after. And what we're looking is upstream. What are the many causes that could contribute to the development of dementia? Now, there are many types of dementia, and most of the time when you hear the data that says there's 5.8 million or 6.2 million Americans living with Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's is only 2/3 of dementia.

So they call it Alzheimer's disease and related dementias or ADRD. And there's actually-- I can't do the math in my head, but 6.2 million is 2/3 of a much greater number. So there's many more Americans living with dementia than that.

CATHY WURZER: Do you see dementia as treatable?

PAT ZOOK: Well, the way we look at it is we don't see what we're doing as a cure. But people, they want to know the diagnosis, but so much of what they need is beyond the what. And we look at the why. Why does this person have dementia? And what were all the contributing factors?

And you know, it's not just one or two. It's quite often 10 or 12 contributing factors. So if you're low thyroid, if your B12 is low, if you've taken proton pump inhibitors for acid all your life. I mean, there are many risk factors that people have not heard about. Having gum disease, gingivitis, exposure to farm chemicals, et cetera, et cetera.

And we go through dozens and dozens of those. We try to pick up the pace and fix what's fixable of the risk factors and then see what we get. Our evaluations also recommend several lab tests, which are not routine. And we collaborate with community physicians who are doing dementia care because we know we need to get all of them doing dementia care.

And so we work with them and advise certain additional tests, some of which are not typical, like blood homocysteine level, and going back to doing uric acid again. You know, uric acid we stopped doing on our profiles several years ago, but it turns out uric acid in your blood not only can it give you gout and kidney stones, but it can damage your blood vessels. And what's good for your blood vessels is good for your brain. And what's bad for your blood vessels is bad for your brain.

CATHY WURZER: I've heard that. Yeah.

PAT ZOOK: So who would have thought uric acid-- Dr. David Perlmutter just put out a book just this year called Drop Acid, which doesn't refer to psychedelics, it refers to uric acid and why do you want to get it lower.

CATHY WURZER: And so you are aggressive when it comes to trying to find some of the causes of symptoms, right?

PAT ZOOK: Absolutely.

CATHY WURZER: Then can you help a person live a better life with dementia?

PAT ZOOK: Well, you know, what we do is not a cure. We call it small ball like in baseball where you get bunts and singles and steal bases. You look for every advantage up that you can. And so we look at the risk factors that they can modify. And quite often there's 10 or 12 things.

So I would have to say a fourth of our clients have sleep apnea that's either undertreated or not treated. We can fix that. A few of them still smoke, and we can fix that too. Many of them are hooked on sugar, and high fructose corn syrup is a part of their daily life. We try to tell them how high fructose corn syrup is going to raise your uric acid, which is bad for your brain.

And so things like that and dozens of other things similar to that, we work on it. And it's almost overwhelming. Our evaluations take two or three hours, and we have an hour and a half of screening before that. And we bring people back three or four times here because it's almost too much information at one sitting.

CATHY WURZER: Mm-hmm. I know you're funded by folks like the CentraCare individuals in St. Cloud Hospital. Why is it important to have a center like this in rural Minnesota?

PAT ZOOK: You're calling us rural?

CATHY WURZER: Sorry.

PAT ZOOK: We're in St. Cloud. It's 67,000.

CATHY WURZER: Good point. Good point.

PAT ZOOK: I'm sure it's much more. But in reality, you're right. Many of our clients come from 30 and 40 miles out, and they come from small towns around, and so it really is a rural population to some extent. But we feel that Minnesota actually needs about 20 centers like ours. And other states have done this.

For instance, Wisconsin. I think Patrick, our executive director, told me yesterday Wisconsin is up to 47 clinics that do dementia care around the state of Wisconsin. And you know, we call them cheese heads, but they're pretty much like we are in reality. And they figured it out. And their legislator decided to take care of those clinics to make sure they stay afloat.

Now, they don't do the exact model that we do. They have more of a standard practice of neurologic care for dementia. But what we found is what you get in the doctor's office is only about 10% or maybe 20% of what families need. They need so much more. They want to do stuff. And what they've been told in their clinical encounters is, I'm sorry your loved one has dementia. There's nothing we can do. Come back in a year.

Or if their symptoms are early they'll say, you know, your symptoms aren't bad enough to warrant drugs. Why don't you come back in a year. And if your loved one's bad enough, then we'll give them the standard drugs. So it's a different model in that we look at doable things. And Minnesotans don't like to be told there's nothing you can do. We do not want to hear that. And in reality, there is much you can do.

CATHY WURZER: And if people want information as to what you're doing, where can they go?

PAT ZOOK: Well, you can go to our website. It's just DCAN-- D-C-A-N-- -MN.org. So it's DCAN-MN.org. That's our website. We have a Facebook page, and you can get all that from the website, and our phone number.

CATHY WURZER: OK. Dr. Zook, I wish I had more time with you. It sounds very, very interesting.

PAT ZOOK: Well, let's do some more programs in the future.

CATHY WURZER: We'll have to do that. I appreciate your time. Thank you.

PAT ZOOK: You bet.

CATHY WURZER: Dr. Pat Zook is president of the Central Minnesota Dementia Community Action Network.

ANNOUNCER: Programming is supported by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra's concert library bringing the concert Hall to everyone, everywhere through on demand video and audio concerts. TheSPCO.org/ConcertVideo.

[MUSIC - ZACC HARRIS GROUP, "OMINOUS SKIES"]

CATHY WURZER: That is Ominous Skies from the local Zacc Harris Group. They'll be playing this weekend at the Twin Cities Jazz Festival in downtown St. Paul. In fact, this Friday and Saturday a whole lineup of talented musicians will be playing at Mears Park and at more than 25 venues across town.

The whole festival is free. It's a chance to experience some of the scene's top musicians from around the country and here in the Twin Cities. Steve Heckler is the executive director of the Twin Cities Jazz Festival. I understand he's in Mears Park setting up for the festival. He joins us on the line. Hey, Steve. How are you doing?

STEVE HECKLER: Hi, good. How are you? Thanks for having me.

CATHY WURZER: Absolutely. How's the setup going?

STEVE HECKLER: Good. We have forklifts running everywhere. I'm trying to get out of the way of those as I'm talking to you and getting the stage and everything ready for a great weekend.

CATHY WURZER: It sounds as though everything's full speed ahead. You're going to have a full Jazz Festival this year following all the setbacks that you had during the pandemic.

STEVE HECKLER: Oh yeah. Well, of course, we didn't have any festivals during [INAUDIBLE]. But this year, we're going back. In fact, I think we're bigger and better than we've ever been. We have more stages than ever. It's amazing how many venues in town want to host live jazz and be part of the Jazz Festival.

And as you're saying, Friday and Saturday we're downtown at Mears Park. And we have two stages down here. And then we have stages throughout the entire city. And you're playing Zacc Harris who's here on Saturday 2 o'clock and followed-- leading the headliner, the Treme band from New Orleans. So you get a good blast New Orleans kind of stuff on

CATHY WURZER: Wow, I love that. I love it. I also know you have Emmet Cohen and Matthew Whitaker taking the main stage this year. I want to play a little bit of Journey Uptown by Matthew Whitaker.

[MUSIC - MATTHEW WHITAKER, "JOURNEY UPTOWN"]

Of course, I love jazz piano. He's great. He is just great. So how did you get Matthew Whitaker?

STEVE HECKLER: Well, we actually had him booked for 2020 and unfortunately had to cancel because of COVID. And you know, we felt bad about that. Not just him but all the musicians. Matthew is about 20 years old. He's blind from birth. And he is probably one of the better B3 organ players and piano players and drummer and everything out there. He's one of the up-and-coming rising stars. And as you probably heard, he's been playing with Stevie Wonder pretty quickly. And he is going to be a-- well he is right now just an amazing player. So I was thrilled to be able to get him here.

CATHY WURZER: Tell me a little bit about the people you've picked in terms of the national artists as headliners.

STEVE HECKLER: Well, Cathy, I mean, I've been a jazz fan since I was 14, 15 years old. And part of it is picking musicians that I've always idolized kind of thing. And that's always been kind of a thrill. So that's part of it. The other part is on our main stage we want the jazz to be approachable and enjoyable by the people coming down to Mears Park.

So we go through many different-- each committee. We have a booking committee. And we go through different-- look at different festivals around the country. We look at DownBeat magazine. We listen to Jazz88 radio, of course, who's our main stage sponsor this year. And who is coming in, who would be a good fit, what do we like, what would be good?

And it's a process. It really is. When you book something, it's got to work from many levels to actually work for the audience participation and understanding as well as an amazing players. So you have to-- I wish it was an easy-- you don't know. Because we're a free festival so it's not like a ticket sale where we're worried about. We want to bring the best music we can to St. Paul. We want to bring people down here to see some great jazz. So it's kind of multifaceted. I don't know if I answered that question very well.

CATHY WURZER: No!

STEVE HECKLER: But it's kind of a multifaceted way to do it.

CATHY WURZER: Yeah, I know. You did answer the question. And what a good-- what a fun job you have, for goodness sakes. Now I also want to-- I don't want to leave out-- we've got some really talented jazz musicians here on the local scene. Tell me a little bit about them.

STEVE HECKLER: Oh my gosh. Well, first of all, it's been underrated in my humble opinion and knowledge that we are underrating the level of talent and musicians in this city, including jazz musicians. So the fact that we have so many of them here and these venues. And the way we get people and musicians here to participate, it's all these venues.

And keep in mind when you come to the Jazz Festival, basically it's a free event, like I said. You can walk around. You can walk around to the different stages, check out the different jazz. And there are jazz musicians playing all over the city at the different venues, different clubs like Dakota, Crooners, and also got kj's Hideaway. And they're coming out of the woodwork. They just are everywhere around in the city.

And the level of talent in these players is amazing. And the only way-- I could talk on here on the radio all day, but the best way for me to prove myself is to come down here, right? Check it out for yourself and you will be astounded. And a big shout out to all the folks that come down support us. The AARP of Minnesota, of course Jazz88 that excel and step up and make this happen. So a big thank you.

CATHY WURZER: Now, for folks, we have a big listenership in greater Minnesota. And maybe some folks can't make it down to the Twin Cities. Are you going to be live streaming some of the performances?

STEVE HECKLER: Yes. So if you go to the website, it's pretty easy. TwinCitiesJazzFestival.com. TwinCitiesJazzFestival.com. You can do it right now. If you scroll down, you'll see both nights on Friday and Saturday are virtual. So you can watch a live festival on our main stage at Mears Park starting at 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM. You can Matthew Whitaker, Emmet Cohen, Treme, all the headliners here. And it's free. Just sign up. It's on the Crowdcast platform. And it's [INAUDIBLE] So anyone in rural Minnesota, you can come down and we'll all watch it on live stream-- watch it streaming.

CATHY WURZER: Wow, fun. Steve, I always love talking to you. Thank you. And I wish you all the best. Have a great festival.

STEVE HECKLER: Well, thanks for having me, Cathy. Appreciate it.

CATHY WURZER: Take care of yourselves as you set up there. Steve Heckler is executive director of the Twin Cities Jazz Festival. Again, it takes place at Mears Park and downtown St. Paul this weekend but at other locations all around the Twin Cities metro area. So check it out. And it is a very fun event. Some amazing talent that'll take the stage.

Hey, it's an amazing day around the state of Minnesota. It's beautiful out there. Current temperatures generally in the 70s. Austin, one of the hot spots where it's 81 degrees. One of the cooler spots happens to be Hibbing. No surprise there, Hib. Sunny skies 67 degrees right now in Hibbing. Enjoy the sunshine today. Hot and humid weather returns tomorrow. This is Minnesota Now on MPR News.