By Mike Kaszuba The cease-and-desist letter from the Trump campaign arrived at a small northern Wisconsin TV station in March 2020 – just as President Donald Trump, a Republican, was in the midst of a heated re-election bid. If the TV station, WJFW-TV in Rhinelander, did not immediately stop airing a political advertisement by Priorities … Continue reading A look back at a Trump lawsuit against a Wisconsin TV station

By Mike Kaszuba From fender benders to road rage, troopers at the Minnesota State Patrol can be as capable of breaking the law as the civilian motorists they pull over. Many of the disciplinary actions over a five-year period involved traffic accidents, often with troopers driving too fast for conditions and crashing. One officer was … Continue reading Disciplinary files show cases against Minnesota State Patrol members

By Mike Kaszuba By February of this year, the writing was on the wall in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. The City Council, after a game-changing election three months before, now had the votes to try to stop a long-discussed rapid bus line that would connect downtown Saint Paul to the Ramsey County suburb. The vote … Continue reading Documents: The behind-the-scenes battle to stop a bus line to White Bear Lake

By Mike Kaszuba Five days after the murder of George Floyd, a top Minnesota National Guard official sent an email to four adjoining states – Iowa, North Dakota, Wisconsin and South Dakota – asking them to send help as rioting in the aftermath of the killing continued in the Twin Cities. The email, sent at … Continue reading With rioting in Minnesota following George Floyd’s death, little help from adjoining states

By Mike Kaszuba Nearly a year after Joe Biden won the November 2020 election, Minneapolis police were still trying to determine whether a 44-year-old resident with a string of felony and other criminal convictions had committed voter fraud by casting a ballot in the presidential election. In October 2021, after combing through criminal records and … Continue reading In Minneapolis, the 2020 voter fraud investigations continue

By Mike Kaszuba The 59-year-old owner of an assisted living facility in Minnesota was asked, after having been exposed to COVID-19 in September 2021, why they had not been vaccinated. The answer: the vaccine is not safe. A program director at a group home told state officials after being exposed in October 2021 that they … Continue reading Amid a pandemic, a struggle to get Minnesota health care workers vaccinated

By Mike Kaszuba With the U.S. in the middle of a worldwide pandemic and the impact of a new federal economic stimulus package still to be determined, Neel Kashkari had plenty to digest in March 2021. But the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis was scheduled to spend much of the month on … Continue reading Kashkari’s calendars: A look into the push for the Page Amendment

By Mike Kaszuba Five years ago, the University of Minnesota announced a new deal with TCF Bank, the local banking institution that held the naming rights to the school’s football stadium. While the complicated agreement had several layers, the school said it had given TCF Bank the option to extend its naming rights deal to … Continue reading At the U, a banking change has big impact on the football stadium

By Mike Kaszuba In May 2021, Public Record Media (PRM) asked the Office of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for correspondence that the governor might be sending and receiving using the email, tim.mankato@state.mn.us, instead of his presumed official email account, tim.walz@state.mn.us. (Multiple publicly-available communications sent to the Governor’s Office were addressed to the latter email, as … Continue reading The governor’s emails: a conversation with Gov. Walz’s press secretary

By Mike Kaszuba On the last night of the 2021 Minnesota State Fair, police rushed to the front gates as the 12-day annual event known as the “Great Minnesota Get-Together” wound to a close. At least 11 police officers confronted a crowd of 50 people trying to force their way into the fairgrounds as the … Continue reading Last nights at the State Fair: A gun, police fears, and hints of shortened hours