Minnesota
Analysis: Minnesota United's Eric Ramsay learns Colorado conditions are primed for chaos
![Analysis: Minnesota United's Eric Ramsay learns Colorado conditions are primed for chaos](https://arc.stimg.co/startribunemedia/4J7QUDWS4ZGDFOBW4APOFAUH3Y.jpg?h=630&w=1200&fit=crop&bg=999&crop=faces)
Before Minnesota United played what would be coach Eric Ramsay’s first game in Colorado, he was slightly dismissive of how the conditions might affect the game.
“It’s not like we’re going to play a different sport on a different planet,” he said Friday.
After experiencing mile-high soccer, though, he had changed his tune. “It’s one of those games that I will try and erase from my memory, because I know we’re not going to play in those conditions again,” Ramsay said after the Loons played to a 3-3 draw with Colorado on Saturday night in Commerce City, Colo.
In some ways, it might have been Minnesota United’s worst performance of the year. Despite taking a 3-1 lead, the Loons struggled to get on the ball, or keep it when they did.
By the end, they had completed the second-fewest passes of any team in the past seven years of MLS, according to the available numbers from FBRef.com.
The coach didn’t go so far as saying that playing in Colorado was the team’s entire problem, but he did note that his players seemed to have an uphill battle in almost every phase of the game.
“We really struggled with the ball today,” Ramsay said. “That leads to us playing forward very quickly. [Then] we’re not well-connected to pick the second balls up when they drop, and we give an awful lot of space away behind the back line when we’ve played forward. … That led to a pretty ugly performance, I would say, and not one that I’d like to produce again.”
When long goal kicks go wrong
The first two goals of the match both came from Minnesota United goal kicks — one that ended up in the Colorado net, and one that ended up in Minnesota’s.
Ramsay has spoken about how Minnesota’s plan from goal kicks is not necessarily to complete a pass, but to get the ball into the correct area. Over the past few weeks, goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair’s target has been center back Kervin Arriaga, who will push up beyond the halfway line and give St. Clair a 6-foot-3 target to aim at. And from there, Minnesota wants to win the second ball and play from there.
On both attempts, though, St. Clair came up short of Arriaga. The first time, everything turned out fine; the Rapids won the initial header, but the Loons’ Devin Padelford got a foot on the ball, and Wil Trapp won a 50/50 duel to get the ball to Robin Lod. From there, Lod did the rest, with a through-ball to Sang Bin Jeong for the game’s first goal.
On the second, though, the Loons lost both the initial header and the second ball, and it was enough to spring Kevin Cabral in on goal to tie the score for Colorado.
“That was a big part of the game that we were really disappointed with,” Ramsay said. “We fell into a rhythm that I thought we’d gotten out of. It was an area of the game that it wasn’t anything to do with the conditions, it was mostly to do with the setup and levels of concentration, so that was a disappointing part of the game.”
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Minnesota
Minnesota’s fourth marijuana dispensary opens near Red Wing
![Minnesota’s fourth marijuana dispensary opens near Red Wing](https://assets3.cbsnewsstatic.com/hub/i/r/2024/06/26/62a88199-37f8-4bce-83f4-9e68f84cdcba/thumbnail/1200x630/cca910b6a21622e1bd06d5c2bac810e3/raw-tue-praire-island-dispensary-b-roll-schuman-chaney.jpg?v=d44ea471ad55b1f821a0763c85064960)
PRAIRIE ISLAND INDIAN COMMUNITY, Minn. — Minnesota’s fourth marijuana dispensary is now open just about an hour from the Twin Cities.
Island Pezi, which means “grass” in the Dakota language, is on Prairie Island Indian Community land in Welch, owned and operated by the tribal nation.
“Being able to diversify our economy and bring in other revenue sources for our community that relies on these type of businesses to have our government function is very important,” said Blake Johnson, the president of Prairie Island CBH Inc.
Johnson says the money made from the dispensary will go toward healthcare and education for the tribe.
The shop employs about three dozen people.
“We have a couple [tribe] members that have never had a job before,” Johnson said. “This opportunity gives them that, and they’re excited to be employed.”
The business has a quirk, though. The Prairie Island people don’t yet grow or cultivate marijuana on their own.
They’ve entered a unique business arrangement to stock their shelves. They buy flower from the White Earth Nation.
“Long time ago, tribes used to have intertribal agreements to trade goods,” Johnson said. “It helps support each other and be able to move in a way that is good for everybody.”
Minnesota’s Native American tribes have been first into this budding industry, and until the floodgates of competition eventually open, Johnson says they’re excited about being able to immediately supply Minnesotans.
Island Pezi will have a grand opening celebration on Saturday.
Minnesota
After months stuck in Brazil, Minnesota family arrives home with newborn
![After months stuck in Brazil, Minnesota family arrives home with newborn](https://arc.stimg.co/startribunemedia/LKEDVDJOGZD4TJ5B44CVJTI7NI.jpg?h=630&w=1200&fit=crop&bg=999&crop=faces)
Lori Tocholke waited nervously near baggage claim carousel 11 Tuesday afternoon at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, her heart “beating a thousand miles per hour.”
On March 12, Tocholke’s newest grandchild, Greyson Leo Phillips, was born, 2 pounds 2.6 ounces and 12 weeks ahead of schedule.
The premature birth was traumatic enough for Tocholke’s daughter, Cheri Phillips. Worse was the fact that Greyson was born while Phillips and her husband, Chris, were vacationing in Brazil.
Because of a technicality, Brazilian authorities refused to issue his birth certificate. Without a birth certificate, Greyson couldn’t get a U.S. passport. And without a U.S. passport, Greyson couldn’t go home to Minnesota.
The family’s travails caused a storm in Brazilian media, held up as an example of how the country’s bureaucracy can tie up daily life for no good reason.
At the airport Tuesday, a half-dozen news cameras encircled the entry to baggage claim.
All Tocholke wanted?
To hold her newest grandchild for the first time, 105 heart-wrenching days after he was born. Tocholke told the other waiting family members she had first dibs.
The plane landed at 1:48 p.m., seven minutes early. Tocholke bided her time as Chris, Cheri and Greyson gathered their things from the plane and made their way from gate G19 to baggage claim.
Suddenly, a stroller burst through the doors, then Cheri, then Chris: a happy, exhausted family, finally home. Applause erupted. Tocholke hugged her daughter, then she got down to the business at hand: That sweet baby boy.
Greyson’s silver-blue eyes peered up at his grandma as she scooped him out of the stroller and cooed. He cried a few times. “Oh, I know!” his grandma soothed. She snuggled him and jiggled him, and he quieted. She held him like a football, then passed him to another family member, who passed him to another, then another.
“Everybody’s here, everybody’s safe, my heart is full,” Tocholke said.
A few feet away, tears and sweat streamed down Chris Phillips’ face and chest, exhausted after three days of travel and months of uncertainty. The family had gone to Brazil to visit Chris’ 8-year-old daughter, who lives with her mom in the Brazilian coastal city of Florianópolis.
“It was an ordeal, and not something we ever expected,” he said. “We went down for 17 days, just to visit my daughter on her birthday. Along this entire process, it seems like every time we made one step forward, it was three steps back.”
During their sojourn in Brazil, the family did interviews with a slew of Brazilian media outlets, focusing on the gaps in Brazilian bureaucracy. Their story resonated. Three days after Minnesota media first published the family’s story, two representatives from the Brazilian cartorio, like a public notary, came to their AirBnb with Greyson’s birth certificate.
“We love Brazil; this wasn’t us hating Brazil,” Chris said. “I go there three times a year. My daughter is half Brazilian. Now my son’s been born in Brazil. I feel part Brazilian. It’s a wonderful place. But what do I hope changes? I hope Brazilian bureaucracy is behind us, but for hundreds of millions of Brazilians, it’s not.”
Before they left the airport for the hour drive to Cambridge — to the new home they closed on remotely from Brazil — Cheri pulled out a bottle and fed Greyson.
“He’s been alive for three and a half months and never been home,” Cheri said.
“We’re home, bud,” Chris said, patting his head. “We’re home.”
Minnesota
Minnesota companies fund election deniers despite vowing not to • Minnesota Reformer
![Minnesota companies fund election deniers despite vowing not to • Minnesota Reformer](https://minnesotareformer.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/7EC394F4D62D5DBF1501A32EAFE54714.img-1833-scaled.jpg)
In the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, many leading Minnesota businesses announced they were pausing their political donations to review their giving strategy.
Some went further, vowing not to bankroll political candidates who supported Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
But today, three and a half years later, nearly all of them have resumed giving money to politicians engaging in election denial, according to an analysis by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit that investigates government corruption.
Among them were some of Minnesota’s blue-chip mega corporations: UnitedHealth, Target, Best, Buy, 3M, U.S. Bancorp, Ameriprise and Ecolab, which all promised not to donate to members of what CREW calls the “sedition caucus.”
But as of today, they’ve given hundreds of thousands of dollars to politicians who voted against certifying the 2020 election, opposed the establishment of the Jan. 6 committee, or otherwise supported Trump’s attempt to undo the 2020 results.
A number of other Minnesota companies, including CHS, C.H. Robinson, Thrivent and Polaris, never promised to suspend donations and have continued giving money to candidates who sought to undermine the rightful, peaceful transfer of power after the 2020 election.
One of those companies, Moorhead-based American Crystal Sugar, has for years been one of the biggest financial supporters of the sedition caucus. According to CREW’s analysis, they’ve given over $1 million since 2021, the third highest amount in the nation. Among other things, they’re focused on maintaining the federal program that keeps sugar prices high and undergirds their profitability.
Only one current Minnesota lawmaker voted against certifying the 2020 election results: Rep. Michelle Fischbach of the 7th District, who falsely told Fox News shortly after the 2020 election that vote tabulators were “finding votes” when in fact they were counting them.
In a sign of the state Republican Party’s post-Jan. 6 radicalization, she was unable to obtain the party’s endorsement this year and is now facing a primary challenge from a Christian nationalist who says his goal is to “harness God’s power to lead ordinary Americans and their legislators in Washington back towards the Lord.”
CREW said the companies should mind the value of a stable democracy.
“Corporations depend on the stability and laws of a strong democracy in order to do business,” CREW writes. “Taking a stand against lawlessness aligns with the long-term interests of companies benefiting from government protection of intellectual property, contract enforcement and support for American business interests at home and abroad.”
According to their analysis, just one Minnesota company has so far upheld a promise to not give money to election deniers: Golden Valley-based Cheerio maker, General Mills.
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